WE ARE AFRICA

Lately I've been experiencing new systems, cultures, people and ideologies (some ludicrous, but somewhat practical, others surprisingly futuristic). Over the past month, I have heard more distorted opinions about Nigeria than I ever have at a go and while some are so ridiculous its hilarious, some annoy me, more than I want to admit.
Some however, get me thinking, and I realize, with no small degree of hurt, that the concept of a united Africa is one that may not be achieved in the near future.
Someone was talking about racism the other day, how the Europeans and many Caucasian people look down on Africans and other way round, but only a few talk about the deepening hostilities between Africans nations, the bad perceptions the people have regarding each other, the mutual distrust, the bad blood that has refused to be sucked out and has now graduated into a cancer, quietly but malignantly eating deeper and deeper.

Not to sound overly philosophical and/or condescending, but you have no right to sit on your behind and smugly declare ALL Somalians as terrorists or Nigerians as fraudsters or all South African men as rapists if its mostly based on what you have heard, and not what you experienced first hand. Even if you have had some bad experience in the hands of fellow Africans, it still doesn't quite qualify you as an expert on the psychology of a certain people.
I have met Africans lately who say 'Oh Nigeria, I want to visit and stay but I am afraid of getting kidnapped, etc, so I am too scared to go'. Yes, I hear you, but several years ago, my cousin was sitting quietly , enjoying a class at her school in Canada when a masked gunman burst in and started shooting randomly, instantly killing over a dozen of her classmates and her teacher. I still see these same Africans clamoring for visas to go to Canada. This is just citing one example out of the many many craziness that abounds in the west which sadly, do not deter our people from branching out.
Perhaps we need to have some faith in us.
Our home videos, truth be said are a large contributing factor to how we are perceived. In one radio interview I had in Accra, there was a short break for a presenter to read the News, surprisingly, part of it centered on how the Nigerian movies were influencing Ghanaians to engage in ritual practices, abortions and crimes. I was too shocked for words. Now, I am yet to see a person who threw herself into a burning fire because a Nigerian in a movie said to do it, so I think that's just the blame shifting syndrome, but then, it wont hurt for these home video film makers to be more objective!
Since last month I have seen more Nigerian movies than I have cared for and I must confess that the quality, message, themes, etc of these movies seem so tacky I actually want to cry most times.
The grammar is mostly poor, everything is grossly exaggerated and over dramatized, the situations are not always realistic and everything looks the same. For example, boy meets girl, woos girl, girl plays hard to get for two scenes. In the third scene boy and girl run into each other at a boutique, they get talking, boy persuades girl to have some ice cream with him at a nearby 'eatery', the ice cream scene lasts for 30 minutes with the actors not talking, just smiling at each other while some weird background music, i.e Kenny G, is playing at full blast ( apparently the aim of that scene is to teach the viewers how to eat ice cream, I suppose), next scene has boy and girl on the beach, boy is chasing girl while she runs around laughing, he eventually catches her, picks her up like a rag doll, spins her around, then they share an unconvincing kiss etc(In the absence of a beach, they might run round a tree, preferably mango or coconut, but it always ends with the unconvincing kiss).
Boy then takes girl to meet his family where his mother takes one look at girl and decides girl's family is too poor and unknown in society to marry her precious son (sometimes it's the other way round in which case girl would be the president's daughter), boy gets angry and vows to marry girl despite all pressures from his family, there are a couple of assassination attempts on girl's life (including an acid bath attempt, voodoo spells) but she overcomes and marries boy. THE END. And oh! sorry, almost forgot, Boy's mother is struck by a mysterious sickness and confesses all she did to girl on her death bed, begging for forgiveness...... and so on and so forth.
Oh, I forgot this isn't about the movie industry, got carried away for a bit. Sorry.
It is sad that many of Africa's children cannot find their way back to her, and I don't mean those in the diaspora. Mostly those right here at home, please don't call me judgmental, but I find it hard to understand why a Nigerian woman will spend over a hundred thousand Naira to get someone else hair on her head in the name of lace wig. It's weird. Firstly, check all history books, there is power in the human hair, you just don't put other people's essences right on yours like that..I don't quite get it.
Secondly, what is wrong with your own hair???
Thirdly, if you are black, you have little or no business having straight hair like that of a horse, it's just odd. It's not us. I'm not trying to tell you how to spend your money, but I think the biggest scam that black women swallowed hook, line and sinker is the RELAXER KIT scam. They've successfully made most African women feel if their hair isn't straight, then it doesn't look right. And so we subject our hair and scalp to hot chemicals to achieve a look which is alien to us. Like that American comedian said, 'When white women see black women with relaxed hair, they feel relaxed'... Probably it's because they feel, oh she's one of us, no fears :)
Who's living our own lives while we live theirs?
It's time for us to embrace who we really are, forget about the corruption, hunger, tribal wars and things, if I could choose, I would definitely be African in my next life. It's good to embrace other civilizations,but if it's at the expense of yours being eroded, then perhaps there should be caution.
I felt proud to see that among the seven wonders of the world, the only one standing is the Great pyramid of Egypt even though it is the oldest. Civilization truly started in our backyard, so don't be told different.
We owe ourselves and this great continent a duty, to love each other. Only with this love can we dispel harmful rumors about each other, detect government propaganda with which they use to siphon more money while painting the people as impoverished, illiterate and backward, to the west.
With this love we can shun stereotypical views for example, Not all Nigerians want to take your money, not all Ghanaians are miserly, not all Ugandans have HIV. Yes. etc.
Only with this love can we unite and come to the actualization that Marcus Garvey, Fela Kuti, Bob Marley, etc wanted for us.
Because this is the only place our souls can truly call home. Only here are we truly free. Because we are Africa, and Africa is alive, still