Chiira Maina recently wrote a post on Mohamed Amin, a renowned photographer who put his life in danger to show the world images of what was really happening in parts of East Africa. I have to say, showcasing an African with Asian roots sparked a few questions in my head and took me back to an experience I once had at work.
I am African, am I a colour?
I was among a group of graduate employees during my time in Australia, and our mentor was introducing us to a few colleagues. He mentioned how we were such a diverse group, a little United Nations in fact. “Why, we have got Australians, Finnish, Egyptian and African amongst us”. I immediately retorted that I was in fact “Botswanan”, (sorry fellow Batswana, it was too difficult to explain “Motswana” at the time, I was facing being African!) This response was greeted with confusion and a little bit of disdain. My Egyptian colleague immediately began to correct me, “Well, you are African, I am Egyptian, Middle Eastern,” to which I responded, “Egypt is in Africa, if I am referred to as African, then so should you! If you are referring to yourself as Middle Eastern, then that is a different issue.” That summed it up and nobody dared to refer to me as African again, except for the time I was asked if we really dance around fires naked, and this question came out of a highly educated well travelled (South America) energy professional. But that is beside the point.
Who are Africans? Are they black? What about white Africans? There are plenty of white Africans who could not imagine calling anywhere else home, think South Africa or Zimbabwe. Are black Africans accepting of this diversity or do we still view other ethnic groups as “visitors”. Non-blacks are actually a minority in Africa. Have black Africans put them through any form of marginalisation because of the colour of their skin? We complain about always being seen as originating from elsewhere in western countries, but to be honest, are we not guilty of having the same attitude? Are Egyptians and Libyans African? How about Indian or even, as it is now emerging, Chinese African?
What does it truly mean to be African?
I come from Uganda where we have a lot of Ugandans with Indian ancestry. To be honest we still refer to them as Indians. But I think there are two reasons for this… one is their obvious appearance but the other from my perspective is the fact that as minority communities they appear to isolate themselves and for example marry within Indian communities or even travel to India to get husbands/wives. This gives the impression that they are still very much connected to their country of origin and want rather less to do with Uganda. One other reason I think that we refer to Ugandans of Indian origin as Indians, might be the fact that we identify people according to their tribes and Indian is just another tribe. Aside from the fact that I refer to this group as indians, I have never felt that they are not part of the society and should not be there.
On the other hand I get surprised and sometimes amused when I meet mostly North Africans (Egyptians, Moroccans) who do not refer to themselves as Africans.
Thanks for your comment Emmanuel. I find that generally, people from all walks of life want to “fit in” somewhere and hence are likely to marry someone who is from the same ethnic group. A few have been daring enough to go for the cross-CULTURAL marriage and mixed black and indian, black and white etc, but that line of Indian to Black is hardly ever crossed, perhaps the fusion of those diverse cultures into such an intimate relationship of joining 2 communities together will cause more than a mild effervescense, it would rather be an EXPLOSION of cultures, but great point!
I suppose anyone who considers themselves African is an African. With regard to your great point about marginalising, In Sierra Leone we have a large Lebanese community and that is exactly how they are referred to as! Despite 3rd 4th generations on! Years ago, in the UK, I was at a train station talking to a friend in our language when this ‘white’ man came up to me and started saying in our language -’ we are both from the same country, I am from Sierra Leone. ‘He was of Lebanese descent and it took my brain a few seconds to even understand what he was saying! Just because he was not black, talking in our language. Shows how we are wired to think certain things even when we think we open minded!
Thanks for your comment Sadia. Indeed, we need to open our minds by always considering the flip side of the coin. Makes me wonder whether there would perhaps be support groups for the minorities in Africa similar to ones we would find here. Ever thought of the “Association for white engineers”, or the “White professionals network”, I have thought about it, it just does not seem right. I wonder therefore how other people view the “Black Professionals Association”!!!!!!!!!
Interesting post with my only comment is that first we do not want to lose the ethnic diversity that as it is the greatest form of wealth on the planet, we do want to start to cultivate a new sensibility among all people on the planet of a shared identity and future. I know this may sound naive, but I think we do not have a choice if we want a good future.
Hi Franklin, thanks for your comment. I absolutely agree. I think we are all starting to recognise that even an “ethnic” destination such as Africa is so culturally diverse, we need to pay more attention to understanding each other. Thanks for reading, visit us again soon.