http://www.vice.com/read/the-dark-continent-0000284-v21n4
The Dark Continent
By Robert Young Pelton May 12 2014
Do not believe almost anything you read or hear about Africa, especially
concerning the continent's cultural sensitivity, ethnic peculiarities, or
borders. The source of this information usually has an agenda, is an
outright bigot or moron, or has some misguided notion of how African
salvation might eventually occur at some wholly imagined point in the
future. Forget everything and just be honest: Greater Africa is a country,
or is at least treated as one by most of the world, no matter how
politically incorrect it may be to plainly state such a thing. It's a
market and a marketing hook; it's a carefully analyzed genre of the
fashion, music, and travel industries; and above all else, it is and always
has been a singular obsession of the West. It's the place somebody is
always trying to save.
Technically, on a map, Africa is 54 seething nations chock-full of white,
black, brown, and yellow people of every religion and persuasion, all
communicating in real time via internet-wired coffee shops, mystical auras,
largely indecipherable tribal bickering, machetes, and bullets. It's also
complex, vast, and rapidly changing. But if we're really honest, at the end
of the day, to many of us it's just "Africa."
Those carefully etched border lines found on modern-day maps of the vast
continent have nothing to do with the ancient tribes and civilizations that
continue to rule over it. Rather, they are territorial remnants of
foreigners' greed, good intentions, and brutal wars. Yet to complete our
journey, we will need to talk to people who will put stamps in our
passports, ignore diplomatic blessings, and speak to every manner of rebel
and activist about Africa's ephemeral borders and abiding cultural
separations. This is particularly relevant given that our ultimate
destination--South Sudan--lies within the newest lines on the map, and our
mission is to find the secret hideout of ousted vice president Riek Machar
and get his version of the truth. Skittish pilots aside, daunting doesn't
even begin to define the task at hand.
Ever since Ptolemy pondered the source of the Nile, ever since explorers
went looking for the mythical kingdom of Prester John, Africa has attracted
the mystical, the hysterical, the greedy, the well intentioned, and
certainly the brutal. Until the early 1970s, most print maps still had
white areas marked with phrases like "Not Enough Data" to demarcate large
swaths of land where satellite or aerial photos couldn't penetrate the
clouds. Yet these areas have been inhabited since the dawn of Homo sapiens,
never mind the emergence of the various hairy, upright beasts from which we
descended. How did the reputed birthplace of mankind become so dark and
hopeless in such a relatively short span of time?
The European search for the source of the Nile in the mid 19th century
triggered a hysteria equal to the madness of the Space Race in the 1960s.
Who would be first to discover the source of the Nile? What glory awaited
the brave souls who challenged the primordial recesses of Africa? Despite
the sense of the unknown, the pith-helmeted explorers sent forth by the
Royal Geographical Society simply followed well-worn Arab slave routes.
When more plucky opportunists finally located in Burundi the tiny stream
that fed the ancient Nile, they seemed terribly excited. The locals didn't
care. They wanted to know what was in it for them. Discovering Africa
seemed an odd obsession to the people who lived there.
When British explorers arrived at the vast swamps of the Sudd marshes in
what is now South Sudan, they were stopped by massive floating islands of
vegetation. Although the whites were convinced that the landscape before
them was impassable, the local Nuer tribesmen just shrugged and kept
paddling past them. To outsiders, Africa was--and still is, in many ways--all
impenetrable swamp, desert, and forest. To the tribes who had lived off the
land for millennia, it was just home.
A soldier and a baby at Riek Machar's base near Akobo, South Sudan
Africa has only ever been a mystery to outsiders, not the approximately
7,400 known tribes who populated the continent for centuries. Granted, some
of these tribes were completely wiped out; others, such as those living in
what is now South Sudan, eked out a hand-to-mouth pastoral existence. The
persistent but constantly rotating cast of corrupt leaders and regimes has,
of course, only exacerbated Africa's problems. Take, for example, Teodoro
Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of Central Africa's Equatorial Guinea,
who is known for pondering his nation's future from inside the lush
fuselage of his private Boeing 737 jet. Once a backwater known as Fernando
Pó, Equatorial Guinea is now, per capita, the richest nation in Africa,
according to the IMF and World Bank. This is largely due to its abundance
of previously untapped oil reserves.
In 2005, before the oil money was in full flow, I spent some time with
President Obiang. We discussed Equatorial Guinea's newfound wealth. He told
me that one of his chief concerns was how he could preserve the cultural
identity of the nation's relatively meager population of 722,000 as the
revenues from 1.1 billion barrels of proven oil reserves came rolling in.
He told me that he considered the sort of wealth accrued from oil discovery
to be a curse, because he knew it would "destroy" his country. This
existential dilemma didn't stop the deeply concerned president and his
family from holding on to a few billion for themselves (just for
safekeeping, of course). The point Obiang was making is that Africa is
rich. Africa is populous. Africa is the place where most of the world's
untapped natural resources and fertile land lie waiting to be exploited.
And ultimately it will be Africans who will reap the benefits.
According to estimates by the UN, over the next 100 years Africa's total
population will quadruple. At the same time, the continent's share of the
world economy is expected to double. The GDP of African nations is now
growing by more than 4 percent a year. Because most, if not all, major
land-based resource discoveries will take place on a continent roughly
three times the size of the United States, the possibilities are truly
endless.
So the stereotype that Africa is "poor," "backward," and "scary" should be
challenged. The origin of this misperception is complex. Is it because the
inequality of wealth distribution across the continent makes Occupy Wall
Street seem like a piece of performance art, or because we affluent
Westerners want it to be that way so we can save it? Is it because of the
white guilt demonstrated by the thousands of infomercials, charities, and
celebrity representatives who telegraph Africa's poverty, disease,
violence, and illiteracy into our collective conscious?
Africa has always been rich. Before colonial times, Africans, Arabs, and
Europeans simply took what they wanted. Slaving was a convenient way to
make a maximum profit in a minimum area, a system so efficient it was
imported wholesale to fuel the success of the New World.
In the aftermath of World War II, Africa was handed back to those the
Allies believed to be its rightful owners. If it wasn't then, it's now
completely unsurprising when these strongmen were revealed to be pawns of
the former colonialists. The reoccurring theme of the 70s and 80s was, if
an African ruler couldn't be bought, then he could be overthrown or killed.
Russia stirred things up through the end of the Cold War, igniting dozens
of coups, countercoups, civil conflicts, and bush wars. The CIA
reciprocated, arming counterrevolutionaries and dictators. These were dirty
wars that led to even dirtier wars that blossomed into full-on ethnic
cleansing and wholesale slaughter. Those wars and lack of stability
triggered everything from poaching and land destruction to disease and
starvation. By the early 80s, Africa had shot from mere poverty straight
into the apocalypse.
A group of defected SPLA soldiers in Akobo
Most of this went unseen by the general public until a slightly out-of-sync
Irish musician rekindled the world's obsession with Africa. By the early
80s, singer-songwriter and future musical activist Bob Geldof had a string
of lackluster albums and a growing sense of frustration about what to do
with his life. In October 1984, he and millions of other people watched a
BBC documentary by Michael Buerk on starvation in Korem, Ethiopia, in the
wake of conflict that had decimated the country.
Moved like many others by the film's images of suffering, Geldof didn't
really want to focus on the causes of the famine: meddling by Russia,
social engineering, decades of war, corruption, the collapse of
infrastructure, and the cyclical environmental disasters that bring about
famine. He saw hungry people and wanted to feed them. He just needed people
to care. And so he would write a song.
In 1984 Geldof and Scotsman James "Midge" Ure co-wrote and produced "Do
They Know It's Christmas?" With fluffy lyrics like "There's a world outside
your window / And it's a world of dread and fear," and "The Christmas bells
that ring there / Are the clanging chimes of doom," this ditty sung by 80s
boy bands and pop singers could not be accused of being deep or instructive
about the woes of Africa. But the catchy refrain of "Feed the world" seemed
to hit the right chord. The video and lyrics were free from any images of
the actual Africans or famine areas the song intended to help.
The song, featuring a chorus of Boy George, Bananarama, Sting, Simon Le
Bon, Bono, and George Michael, became the second-biggest-selling record in
UK history. It went on to sell 4 million copies and generated about $8
million dollars.
Inspired by Geldof's success, manager Ken Kragen wanted to replicate the
concept of a pop song generating funds for famine victims. He decided he
would organize a star-studded mega-choral tribute to the world's woes
following the 1985 Grammy Awards. This resulted in "We Are the World,"
written by Michael Jackson with Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones.
The proceeds from the sale of the single went to a charity called the USA
for Africa Foundation. That hit song and other events were credited with
eventually raising a stunning $100 million. As Bob Dylan warbled, "We are
saving our own lives / We make a better day / Just you and me," listeners
never noticed the song didn't even mention famine or Africa.
On July 13, 1985, an inspired Geldof and Ure put on a 16-hour charity
concert called Live Aid with the goal of raising lots of money for famine
relief in Ethiopia and what is modern-day Eritrea. A reported 175,000
attended one of two venues in New York and London, and 1.5 billion people
tuned in to a dual-venue live broadcast on television. The concert
initially raised $245 million in relief funds.
By any measure, the idea of a pop song raising awareness for a disaster was
a glowing success all around--proof that pop culture and young people could
inspire change. It could be argued that Live Aid had less of an impact on
Ethiopia in particular than on Africa in general, in the sense that it
suddenly became cool to want to help it--though what help or it means is
still not clear. The logo of Live Aid was a guitar in the shape of Africa
with a tiny generic photo of a starving black kid down in the corner.
None of this meant anyone learned about the context of the 400,000
Ethiopians who had starved to death against a backdrop of a decades-long
civil war and socialist policies that made farming nearly impossible in
most areas. It was humanitarian aid used as a weapon of war. And that
wouldn't make for good TV.
Where the money went or whose pocket it might end up in once it got to
Africa was not completely clear, and in the ensuing years many well-meaning
charities throughout the continent have been accused of unwittingly handing
over donations to a chain of organizations that have helped fund bloody
uprisings, ethnic cleansing, and corrupt regimes.
A mother and child in a civilian camp outside Machar's base in Akobo, South
Sudan
Few questioned anything until 2005's Live 8 series of international
simulcast concerts, when Fox News's Bill O'Reilly--of all people--made a
stink while questioning Bono about the potential for funds he was raising
to end up in the hands of warlords and corrupt officials. The U2 frontman
gave a bumbling interview that was preceded by a similarly barbed piece in
the Guardian. Later, in 2010, the BBC--which had aired the very report that
inspired Geldof to dream up Band Aid, Live Aid, and so on--alleged that a
significant amount of the charitable donations generated by these ventures
was used to buy arms and kill people. Geldof lost it in a very public way
and made some frenzied attempts to discredit the BBC's reporting. Saving
Africa had its problems if you looked too deeply.
Regardless, based on the math, even if Live Aid had raised $10 billion, it
never stood a chance of saving the continent. According to the Wall Street
Journal, at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been
transferred from rich countries to Africa over the last 60 years, but it
hasn't seemed to have much of an impact either.
A hallmark of Western naïveté was the media's treatment of the recent death
of Nelson Mandela, held up as an icon of peace and positive change for the
continent. The typical summary of his rise from jailed terrorist to
gray-haired president of post-Apartheid South Africa and, finally, to a
myth on par with Gandhi usually leaves out a few facts. For example, that
Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the anti-Apartheid "freedom fighters" under
Mandela's command until his arrest in 1962, were known for wrapping
gasoline-filled tires around the chests of their opponents and burning them
to death. As late as 1985, Mandela's wife, Winnie, caused a lot of harm to
the anti-Apartheid movement by stating, "With our matches and our necklaces
we will liberate this country." But people usually don't talk about stuff
like that when they mention Nelson Mandela.
When Mandela stepped down after his first term in elected office, it was
held up as proof that Africa can fix Africa, but not much other explanation
was offered. That's when the heavy hitters really came in. Who needs Bob
Geldof or the Who when you have Clinton, Gates, and Buffett suddenly eager
to show that Africa can function just like America--with only a little bit
more development. They focused on the basics: clean water, malaria nets,
solar power, education... you name it. Flip on a news channel, and there
was a billionaire or celebrity telling you how to fix it.
Overnight, it seemed, America suddenly knew that there were good diamonds
and "blood diamonds." Then, while hardly anyone could be expected to
remember the alphabet soup of all the various groups involved in the
operations, we knew that our smartphones required the use of certain
minerals found in Congo that were excavated in horrible conditions,
sometimes by children. Maybe someday we will be able to buy a responsible
smartphone like a pair of cloth shoes that feeds a kid in Uganda, or
fair-trade coffee beans that put a few extra cents in some farmer's pocket.
Maybe that will fix everything.
As the new century dawned, 9/11 and Iraq erased any focus on Africa.
Islamic terrorism, IEDs, and the Taliban all shifted America and Europe's
attention to fixing the Middle East and South Asia. Africa was--well,
Africa. The Dark Continent. Opaque. Unexplored. Unknown.
Then, in early March 2012, young people surfing the internet started
watching an amateur film. It seemed homemade, with a man talking to his
young son about bad people in Africa. The Kony 2012 movie was created by a
small group of religious young filmmakers in San Diego who had formerly
appeared on The 700 Club talking about Uganda and showing videos about
children who had been kidnapped. This particular film gave a brief history
of the despicable deeds of the Lord's Resistance Army leader, Joseph Kony,
who up until then was virtually unknown to the general public. He was also
old news in Africa--Kony had fled Uganda six years earlier. The point of the
film was to make him "famous" so he would be caught. It was also one of the
largest events in the history of the internet, and today it seems that
almost everyone between the ages of 12 and 35 knows that there was a very
bad man in Africa stealing children and turning them into soldiers. Kony is
still at large, and no one quite knows what happened to him. But they do
know that the maker of the video was filmed screaming naked at passing cars
shortly after his film came out. Briefly, Westerners' focus shifted from
the unfixable violence in the Middle East to something simpler and nobler:
Find a bad man in the jungles of Africa, and everything will be fine.
By the time of Mandela's death and celebrity-packed funeral in December
2013, it seemed once again that Africa could be saved.
Received on Mon May 12 2014 - 10:23:53 EDT