Africa's Alternative Image

Africa badly needs an image revolution

  

By William Doyle-Marshall

“They got cars, they got camels, they got mansions, they got mud huts, they got malls, they got super markets, hyper markets, they got beaches in Africa. We have scientists, we have inventors. But these are the things that you normally don’t see when Africa is portrayed. We need an image revolution. When you talk about Africa it is usually one-sided. It’s usually negative.” The foregoing observation was made at a symposium at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in October by Yaw Oluwasanjo Akyeaw, one of the key organizers who led weekly demonstrations against “Into The Heart of Africa” exhibition mounted by the ROM 25 years ago. He now lives and works in Ghana and travels around Africa promoting travel to the continent.

  Akyeaw was a panelist at the ROM reflecting on whether anything had changed 25 years after a group of disturbed Torontonians had presented some demands calling on the institution to show the truth about Africa and close down the racist exhibition. That project and other pronouncements in mainstream media as well in educational institutions, Akyeaw charged were perpetuating negative stereotypes about Africa. “Once it was the Mother of civilization and we fast forward, it is hard to believe anything ever came out of Africa because of all the negative imagery and all the depiction, usually negative, usually one-sided,” he noted. As media, as institutes of learning and academic institutions, there is need for a more balanced perspective about the continent of Africa. He also urged Africans in the Diaspora to read up and learn about Africa and join the image revolution that is so badly needed.

In an attempt to sharpen his concern Akyeaw made the following analogy: “We have a deep history going back thousands of years and it’s just like the Sahara Desert. Right now you see it as sand, no water. It’s hard to believe that once it was a forest.”

“Learning From Into The Heart of Africa” was the focus of the panel whose members included Dr. Afua Cooper, James Robinson Johnson Chair in Black Studies at Dalhousie University, Halifax; Geraldine Moriba, Emmy award winning producer, vice president of diversity and inclusion for CNN Worldwide; Dan Rahimi, former ROM Employee now Executive Director of Galleries at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, with Moderator Dr. Honor Ford-Smith, associate professor of Community and Environmental Arts in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. It was the start of “Of Africa”, a three-year multi-platform project exploring African experiences.

  With personal first-hand experience about Africa, the Jamaican-born advocate is very concerned that the continent gets a bad rap in the media and even in school, it is hard to find positive portrayal of anything that Africans did, he charged. The former member of the Coalition For The Truth About Africa (CFTA) utilized his presentation on the panel to showcase samples of Africa’s offerings to its people. There is an African Space Research Center: and there is a plan to use its prototype someday, on non-humans and fly in space and visit other planets, Yaw reported. He showed pictures of a soap that’s effective in the treatment of malaria, a plane, proudly made in Africa and a tablet made in Congo as well as a smart phone also made in Congo. “When you think of Congo you think of wars but this tablet is designed and made in the Congo and the price is low enough where people can afford it so it’s like a fraction of the price of a normal tablet that you will find in the U.S. market,” he explained. There is a Nigerian scientist Dr. Nelson Obyo who received a U.S. patent in 2010. He has a 97% cure rate for diabetes. The patent number is 6531461,

                                     Elder Ras Rico, left and Yaw with hostess in Toronto

   Admitting some typical images of Africa is true, Yaw informed his listeners, there are cars in Africa. He projected a picture of a car being manufactured in Ghana by Apostle Safo Suaye Technology Research Centre (ASSTRC), headed by Dr. Kwadwo Safo. This is not only an ordinary car, it’s a smart car. It reacts to voice prompts; you can clap your hands, you can start it up; you can beat your chest. It’s the invention of Dr. Kwadwo Safo. The company is currently manufacturing two vehicles per year. By 2015, if things work as planned, Dr. Safo and his team should be able to manufacture about 500 cars per year. This will be made possible thanks to the construction of a new automobile assembly plant that will manufacture the various brands of  Kantanka vehicles. Nigeria also has a car manufacturing facility, owned and financed by Africans by Africans.

The ROM’s Maps, Borders, and Mobility in Africa displays the impact of 1884’s Berlin Conference, a defining moment in African geography and history. A series of maps spanning over seven centuries are used to illustrate the evolution of colonial boundaries imposed upon autonomous African nations. The exhibition also includes a selection of African artifacts, including a late 19th century Asante style pipe bowl from Ghana, and objects from the ROM’s own collection. A video essay featuring African artists discussing the challenges of mobility within Africa and beyond complements the display.    

President Obama on Keystone

American politicians must focus on voters’ ambitions, says President Obama

“What stands out to me is that the American people sent a message – one that they have sent for several elections. They expect the people they elect to work as hard as they do. They expect us to focus on their ambitions and not ours. They want us to get the job done – all of us in both parties have a responsibility to address that sentiment.” This message was echoed by U.S. President Barak Obama following Tuesday’s mid-term elections in the U.S. It is a warning that Canadian politicians should heed.

Despite the recapture of Congress by the Republican Party President Obama acknowledged his unique responsibility to try and make parliament work. “So to everyone who voted I want you to know that I hear you. To the two third voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday I hear you too,” the president announced in his post-election press conference. He was adamant that all politicians have to give more Americans a reason to feel like the ground is stable beneath their feet, that the future is secure, that there is a path for young people to succeed and that folks in Washington are concerned about them. He promised to spend every moment of the next two plus years doing his job, the best he can to keep America safe and to make sure that more Americans share in the country’s prosperity.

  He reminded Americans and the world that his country has made real progress since the crisis six years ago. “The fact is more Americans are working; unemployment has come down; more Americans have health insurance; manufacturing has grown; our deficits have shrunk; our dependence on foreign oil is down as our gas prices; our graduation rates are up,” he enumerated to members of the news media assembled to hear from him. As American businesses are creating jobs, the President acknowledged that the country’s economy is up pacing most of the world. “But we just got to keep at it until every American feels the gains of the growing economy where it matters most, that’s in their own lives,” he continued. Emphasizing the importance for action from Congress to ensure positive developments occur, President Obama concluded “I am eager to work with the new Congress to make the next two years as productive as possible”.

  Obama emphasized his commitment to making sure that he measures ideas not by whether they are from Democrats or Republicans but whether they work for the American people. That does not guarantee there won’t be disagreement on some issues politicians are passionate about. “Congress will pass some bill I cannot sign. I am pretty sure I’ll take some actions that some in Congress will not like. That’s natural. That’s how our democracy works. But we can surely find ways to work together on issues where there is broad agreement among the American people. So I look forward to Republicans putting forward their governing agenda. I will offer my ideas on areas where I think we can move together to respond to people’s economic needs,” he President continued.

  With respect to the Keystone pipeline project --one small aspect of a broader trend -- the President reminded the world that there is an independent process moving forward and he is going to let that process play out. He will gather up the facts. Recalling  some parameters he has given on the matter, President Obama’s concerns include whether ultimately, Keystone is going to be good for the American people; is it going to be good for the pocketbook? Is it actually going to create jobs? Is it actually going to reduce gas prices that have been coming down? And is it going to be something that doesn’t increase climate change that Americans are going to have to grapple with?

He reminded the gathering of journalists on Capitol Hill while this debate about Canadian oil has been raging America has seen some of the biggest increases in its oil and gas production in the country’s history. America is closer to energy independence it has ever been before or at least in decades, Obama reported. “We are importing less foreign oil than we produce for the first time in a very long time,” the President remarked.

  In his determination to satisfy the needs of the American people, the President said the things that motivate him and his staff every single day aren’t going to change. There is going to be a consistent focus on how they deliver more opportunity to more people in the country. How to grow the economy faster and put more people back to work and, are at the top of his list of priorities. “I maybe have a

naïve confidence that if we continue to focus on the American people and not on our own ambitions or image or various concerns like that, at the end of the day when I look back I am going to be able to say that the American people are better off than they were before I was President.”

So the world now awaits action from Congress. Will president Obama and his Democrats get Republicans to work reasonably and in the best interest of their people? Only time will tell.