About Africa

I am not African but sometimes the lack of respect shown towards Africa shakes me up. Boko Haram murdered 2000 people in a small town called Baga in Nigeria. (Read here) How do 2000 lives not matter? Why was this piece of important news relayed to the world after several days of its occurrence? The attack on Pakistani school children and Parisian journalists shook the world but how is it nearly possible that the death of 2000 people and the abduction of 300 school girls not matter (anymore)?

Why is the world so ignorant about Africa? Africa is beautiful and it is not all about the forests and the animals. It is not about the rich natural resources that are still being exploited by the “civilised” world. It is as much about people and their cultures and their lives as it is about people, their lives and their cultures in the rest of the world.

I’m not an African but I live in South Africa and I am constantly asked ignorant and annoying questions about the heat in the Sahara desert and Ebola. I was even asked if I was okay when Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya was attacked (that’s definitely not my backyard!)

For all of you who are not aware, there are several countries in Africa as there are on all the other continents. The Sahara desert, Ebola and Kenya are 4000 miles away from where I am; no-where close people, no-where close! That’s the distance between England and UAE, that’s the whole of Europe and a part of Asia! Hope you get the picture and if you don’t you need to go back to primary school.

  

I now clearly see why this continent is still being exploited to make the developed countries richer. Most people here are kind gentle souls, too kind and polite and they do not resort to unreasonable warfare to get what they want (not all of them at least). Africa is beautiful and in much need of infrastructural development just as South Asia but the world has chosen to only see the sad part of the continent and not the beauty of it.