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.