Stereotypes and
canards of Africa in the United States are simply hilarious. As I got
off the plane someone asked how I escaped from lions and leopard to
get here. I teased that big cats don’t bother me because we are
buddies.
I joked that
interacting with wildlife over time made them respect rather than
prey on us! Though I winked as I said this, another asked if I rode
elephants to school. I replied that I did especially when adults were
home to hold up a ladder for me to get on, but often I got on a
python to slither me to school! An outrightly ludicrous host asked
if I ever eat bread and ice-cream in Africa. A colleague bent on
scaring me from my religion asked if I knew the Church believed
Africans had tails. I answered no one checks my backside at meetings!
As I was teaching
class one day at college, a student wondered if Africa had airports
and how I got to the States. Initially I felt to say I swam eight
thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean. But I changed my mind and
considered something more likely to tickle the student’s fancy.
There are no airports in Africa, I replied playfully. From what
followed I realized the student missed the sarcasm.
“How then did
the plane that brought you land and take off”, the student
hotly demanded? Since Aristotle claims learning is a pleasurable
activity, I decided to play along with my inquisitive student. I
asked him if he knew Africans live in tree houses and he responded
vigorously in the affirmative.
I cashed in on that
assumption. The same trees which give us shelter in turn act as a
runway for planes. That was too much for conventional wisdom and I
could see disbelief boldly expressed on several face.
For many, no illogic
is too much for Africa. I do not know if he was serving me with my
own medicine, but the student who popped the question remarked he
didn’t know technology had advanced to the point of landing
planes on tree tops. Whether he was turning the table or not, I
pushed the banter to see who could ridicule whose ignorance the most.
I argued that if
scientists could land rockets on rough surfaces in space and on
water, one didn’t need to stretch too far to assume they could
do the same on trees. That sounded smart to some students who saw an
African with a thick accent, teaching them English, something of a
curiosity! Exploiting the gullibility, I led them on to find the
truth by themselves.
Another student,
undecided whether to take me at face value or not, wanted to know how
passengers got on the trees with their luggage to board the plane.
That was easy, I said. I began by asking if they knew Africans lived
on treetops. Again the answer was in the affirmative. Seeing an
opening, I claimed that what pilots do is to land the planes on our
door steps and we embarked.
As some gawked,
another student asked, “How you guys move about them tall trees
without falling?” I answered that the law of gravity was a
respecter of Africans. I asked the class if it believed that the
human race originated in Africa and they responded with a resounding
“No”! I then asked them to Google the information from
their laptops. Some found it incredulous that anthropologists believe
so.
I then proceeded to
explain that over centuries of living on treetops Africans have
managed to defy gravity. I said the same way we lived on trees
without falling was the same way we got on planes. When asked by an
incredulous fellow if I could give them a demonstration by climbing
one of the tall trees on campus with the same ease and facility I
used to do in Africa, I found a way out by claiming I needed to clear
it with college authorities as I wasn’t sure of their insurance
policy.
In fairness, I have
met young and enthusiastic Americans perhaps even more knowledgeable
about Africa than some Africans. During my first visit to the States
in 2007, I met a family who invited me home. As the father drove me
back to where I stayed with my folks, I struck up a conversation with
his middle school daughter. I was impressed that she knew that Africa
was not a country but a continent. That to me was against the grain
of perception prevalent among many people here.
Before then I had
met many friendly and intelligent looking Americans who, when I was
introduced as Nigerian, would say things that shook my frame with
suppressed laughter. On occasions some claimed they had friends “in
some parts of my country” and wondered if I ever ran into them.
When asked which part of my country, they said, “Ghana or some
town that used to be called Dahomey or what do you guys call it now?”
and I obliged, “Benin Republic”. Unmindful I’d said
republic, they said, “Oh you folks change the names of your
cities a bit too frequently”. To get the conversation going, I
claimed their friends were nice folks who lived just down the road
from me!
So it was disarming
hearing that kid talk about Nigeria knowledgeably. From the back of
her father’s car she told me Abuja, the Nigerian capital city,
is centrally located. She knew Abuja, and not Lagos, was Nigeria’s
political capital. She also knew the ostensible reasons the seat of
government was moved from Lagos to Abuja. She further surprised me
with demographic stats, the number of states in the country and even
the money accruing from oil annually. It was interesting she knew the
Niger Delta from where oil--the main stay of the economy-- is
drilled, is poverty-whipped because the bigger tribes in the country
just gobble the oil, leaving the environment devastated and its
people in suffering and humiliation. It felt good knowing foreigners
were at least aware of the trauma and negation of these minority
people.
Many well-meaning
Americans are not to blame for thinking Africa is a primeval jungle.
The media and movies have done a fine job spreading that dreadful
misconception. Worse, our consummately artful and congenitally stupid
politicians unfailingly regale Western media with revolting images as
they profit from turning the continent into a perpetual war theater
and berserk madhouse where famine, drought, disease and a steady
flight of refugees are the order of the day. When told that Lagos, on
the other bank of the Atlantic, is somewhat like New York, except
that the chaos in the Big Apple is more organized while disorder in
Lagos is free for all, my students hardly believe me.
I know that
stereotypes die hard, but if American schools and colleges wanted,
they could gain from hiring Africanists. Their services can help in
rethinking about Africa. Since the world would very likely continue
setting its sights on Africa as its source for cheap raw materials
for some time, it helps to see it in its total aggregation, its warts
and sores, gold and diamonds, fountains and oils.
Imo Ben Eshiet was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Raised in his village, Uruk Enung, and at
several cities in his country including Nsukka, Enugu, Umuahia, Eket and Calabar, Eshiet is a
detribalized Nigerian. Although he was extensively exposed to Western education right from
childhood in his country where he obtained a PhD in English and Literary Studies from the
University of Calabar, he is well nurtured in African history, politics, culture and traditions.
Imo is currently a teacher in the high priests group in the Summit Ward of the Greensboro North
Carolina Stake.