Dump the bad news. Let’s build a new Africa

BY ANTHONY GATHAMBIRI IMC

A story is told of a certain zoo somewhere in Africa. In this zoo, there are many beautiful animals. The environment is wonderful.

“Pope Benedict has called Africa a “spiritual lung of humanity”. (Photo: Nancy Wiechec)

But as you enter the zoo, the first cage you see has a monkey in it—and as you look at that monkey, you see he is masturbating. And the monkey does it all day.

So when visitors enter the zoo, the first thing they see is the monkey doing his business. And the visitors are engrossed by what they see—so much so that they don’t want to go any further.

And so they never get to see the beautiful animals in that zoo. And they never get to see the wonderful environment in which these animals live. And when they go home, they tell their friends about the monkey and what he was doing. So their friends go to the zoo, and they don’t go any further either. They stop, they look at the monkey, they go home and tell their friends about the monkey.

This story is in some ways a metaphor for Africa. It is a continent with a wealth of beauty, but this beauty is rarely highlighted by the media. Mostly, in fact, it is ignored, like the wonderful animals in that zoo.

For many generations, Mother Africa has been misrepresented as a dark continent with a litany of evils. She has been stereotyped as a being synonymous with war, corruption, hunger, drugs, disease, incompetence and illiteracy.

Some people even think of Africa as one country. A friend of mine working as a missionary in Bogotá, Colombia, told me that some people he met in that city considered Africa as one country, run by President Nelson Mandela!

The continent of Africa is one of the richest in terms of natural resources. Mother Africa has platinum, gold, oil, gas, and fertile soil, rare breeds of wildlife, awesome weather, excellent brains and talents. She can take care of the whole world, if managed properly.

Mother Africa is able to feed everyone, without harming herself. Unfortunately, pollution and exploitation of our environment in the name of building “better economies” is massive.

Africa is a “Canaan, flowing with milk and honey”. She has water bodies that could generate large amounts of power. The Congo river alone could supply Africa with all the power that she needs. In fact, its surplus power could even be exported to the West (and wouldn’t that remodel Africa’s distorted image?).

What about the Indian and Atlantic oceans? Their tides could be tapped to generate clean electricity. Oceans could be harnessed for the eco-friendly energy.

It is already happening. Britain, Denmark, France and Germany get electricity from ocean tides and currents. And there are the wind and sunshine, waiting to be utilised.

What is needed is to put politics aside and get to the business of making our Africa shine.

If we don’t define ourselves, others will define us. All of us in Africa have a noble responsibility to fight the unjust stereotyping that has killed our self-esteem as Africans. It will not be easy to eradicate this mindset which the West has planted.

We need to assure ourselves that there is no country that doesn’t have problems. We need to show others that Africans are not the sad, famished folks depicted in the media.

We can do this if we live the philosophy of ubuntu. When famine struck the East Africa region, Kenyans organised Harambees (community self-help events for fundraising), and other countries—including South Africa—came in to give genuine help. Is this not the beauty of our continent which the West hardly sees? We need to rediscover African values that will reshape our Mother.

Pope Benedict in his apostolic exhortation Africae Munus calls Africa a “spiritual lung of humanity”. True! It is indeed such a lung when it breathes African values that promote family unity, love of neighbour, and hospitality.

The possibility of having healthy lungs breathing these African values will be determined by how well we raise our children, how well we form couples, and how well we form religious people.

Together let us arise and build a new Africa, one that all will be proud of!