“WHAT do you expect to see in Africa?” I asked my 10- year-old son two days ago.
He had never been to Africa before, and I was taking him there for the first time.
“Well, I expect to see loads of animals, giraffes, zebras, elephants and lions and many huts!” he responded, very excited by the prospect of travelling to see animals more than his mother’s birth place, the famous ‘jungle’ associated with Africa where children die of starvation and malaria as they see on television and through Oxfam and World Vision adverts for donations.
“Huts, really? Oh well, wait till you get there,” I told him.
A few hours later, after touching down in South Africa and going to one of the upmarket complexes where his uncle (my brother) lives, he is so excited by the massive house and a sprawling swimming pool in the garden (British way) or yard (the African way).
He is given his ‘own’ bedroom where he would spend his vacation.
In the UK his bedroom is like a tiny box.
“Mum, you are so lucky to be born in Africa!” he says as he comes to hug me.
“Why? I thought a few hours ago you said you would only be interested in the animals in Africa and not ‘huts’. Why change your mind now?”
“I didn’t know Africa is so beautiful,” he said.
“It is the most beautiful place in the world.
“You had so many opportunities growing up here than we have.
“I can’t wait to go back and tell my friends at school that Africa is beautiful!”
It is always good to take your children to your own country so that they don’t have to look down on you, or pity you, because of their own negative perceptions of Africa.
A few weeks ago in the UK we were shocked to see a video of a young boy, born to Zimbabwean parents in the UK, denigrating them because he did not want to have anything to do with Africa.
“You have Ebola in Africa,” he said.
I don’t blame the child, but the parents who do not take it upon themselves to show their son the other world to dispel such negative beliefs from his mind.
There are many children born to immigrants in the UK, who look down on their own parents because of ignorance.
I have some African-Caribbean friends, some in their 30s and 40s, who have never been to their parents’ birth places because their parents chose not to do so. They carry negative assumptions about their countries of origin.
More-so, the majority of them don’t want to have anything to do with Africa; they always want to disassociate with Africa.
But should we blame the children for carrying such negative perceptions about their countries of origin, or roots?
I don’t blame them.
The images that go out in the public (Western media) about Africa, are so negative!
Wars, diseases, starvation, prostitution and corruption, you name it.
Africa is the ‘dark continent’ where nothing good happens.
We were taught in History lessons that Africa was colonised for the ‘three Cs’ (Christianity, Civilisation and Commerce), hence justifying colonisation.
To justify the aid that goes to Africa, it has to be portrayed as a ‘jungle’ where people fight each other leaving children to die of malnutrition and other diseases.
In his memoirs, Dreams from My Father (1995), President Obama narrates how his visit to Kenya, his father’s homeland, helped him to identify and celebrate his Kenyan roots.
Many more Zimbabwean parents are now seeing the benefits (identity) of taking their children to Zimbabwe during summer holidays.
On my flight to Johannesburg (this week) I saw many Zimbabweans, especially from Bulawayo, who were on-board the flight with their children.
It is expensive to do so, but a worthwhile investment because in the UK, and in many Western countries, identity is a major issue and it can affect one’s confidence.
Many British black young men and women, especially those born in the UK, feel that they don’t belong there yet they don’t identify with their Caribbean or African roots.
They belong neither here nor there, and end up with mental health problems.
A few years ago when I worked on the Invisible Histories project in Coventry, and I interviewed many British Caribbean young men and women who highlighted that they had an identity crisis because they never felt British enough (because they were always identified as immigrants, especially by the police and asked for their immigration statuses even though they were born British); they never felt Caribbean enough as well.
One of them told me that she only felt British when she visited Jamaica because her accent would be different from the strong Jamaican Patois, and the people there would always remind her that she was ‘English’.
And she would feel Caribbean in Britain because she would always be asked by local people, when she came to the UK even though she was born there.
My 10-year old son reminded me how blessed I was to be born in such a great continent (country to him), something that I never considered as a blessing myself, and something which many Africans in the Diaspora see as a curse!