Iweala: Stop Trying To ‘Save’ Africa
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 07.16.07 | 1:00 PM ET
Relief image by NASA.Vanity Fair’s Africa issue prompted World Hum contributing editor Frank Bures’s examination of the West’s efforts to “save” the continent. Beasts of No Nation author Uzodinma Iweala’s inspiration for a piece on the subject in the Washington Post this weekend was an encounter with a “perky blond college student” who yelled at him, “Don’t you want to help us save Africa?”
Iweala writes:
There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one’s cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head—because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West’s fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West’s prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Kelsey 07.16.07 | 2:36 PM ET
Ron Artest is in Africa. That’s where he learned of his most recent NBA suspension. He’s saving Africa in his own special way.
Artest as quoted on ESPN.com:
“I am doing many positive things this summer. ... Me, Maurice Evans, Theo Ratliff and Etan Thomas are holding HIV babies and walking around in the slums where kids have no running water or electricity and no shoes on their feet, feeding rice and beans to kids.”
I hear Artest was up for canonization, but because of a messy late-night strip club incident it has been delayed 4 or 5 lifetimes.
And St. Artest has such a ring to it.
Michael Yessis 07.16.07 | 6:05 PM ET
Indeed, Kelsey. St. Artest does have a ring to it.
Sounds like an intriguing story. I’ll have to check it out.
Jane 07.17.07 | 12:11 AM ET
How dare that woman be blond and perky and —horror of horrors—concerned?!
Iweala has done a nice job promoting apathy toward Africa because that will be the result rather than risk his elite St Albans school and Harvard university educated scorn.
Frank 07.17.07 | 6:51 AM ET
I think you’re missing the point, Jane. The point is that the whole business of ‘saving’ is inherently patronizing, vaguely insulting, and serves as much to benefit the saver as the alleged savees. That’s all fine, I’d just like to see a little more honesty about it. To save something or someone you have no relationship with can put you on dodgy moral ground, I think. Because the fact is there are swaths of ‘Africa’ that don’t need saving at all. And the ones that have been subject to all this saving have not done so hot. But then, I’m in more Paul Theroux’s camp:
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_obscure_continent.php
Anastasia 07.23.07 | 2:53 AM ET
How many of us have been around enough of Africa to make any sort of informed opinion on what we presume the severity of the problems are or what the implementation of potential “band-aid” solutions would do for the African people? Why in all fairness don’t we ask THEM to tell us what they think some of the solutions would be, and help them to achieve some of them. Maybe then we could be of some real help. Maybe then we wouldn’t need a plaque or press conference spotlighting ourselves as individuals or as a nation taking credit for something we are just as responsible for helping to create, if only by the old “if I can’t see it, it must not be there” routine.
Vernon 07.15.08 | 8:25 AM ET
I believe there is a danger in the idea of ‘saving Africa’ because it is to broad. There are many specific problems in Africa. Someone starving due to a drought doesn’t mind if you pat yourself on the back because you gave them food. However, when it comes to trying to save Africa in terms of economics and social welfare as a whole, the only possible long term solutions will come from Africa itself. Anything else both breeds dependence and is seen (real or not) as being patronizing.