He said “Africa is a sh*t hole”.
After a long week of work in Senegal, I set aside some time to relax at a hostel near the coast of Dakar.
Whilst I was on my work trip I had stayed at a lovely hotel, but now that I was on leave, I looked forward to the hostel experience. Hotels are convenient and easy, but hostels give you the opportunity to meet, interact and get to know people you’ve never met from around the world. An opportunity I tend to love.
It was after dinner on the first day. I had enjoyed getting to know the different people staying at the hostel. There was a young British woman who is currently doing her masters in nursing and desires to eventually relocate out of the UK because of the living crisis. Adult siblings from the Switzerland who enjoy surfing and art. A Spanish family who have pre-teen sons who are currently able to surf better than I’ll ever be able to.
After our joint dinner, I met a Chinese man who I would estimate to be in his late twenties/early thirties. Let’s call him John. I sparked up a conversation with him, and we laughed about random things. I told him about the time I lived in China for 3 months in my early twenties and how the only mandarin I still remembered was ‘Tang cu pai gu’ (sweet and sour pork). He joked with me about his experience in Senegal eating good local food where there were no other tourists, and how the Thiof fish I had eaten at my hotel wasn’t “authentic”.
The conversation eventually began to shift. He started making remarks about the location of Gambia in comparison to Senegal.
Though I’m aware of how colonisation and the Scramble for Africa led to the creation of different countries, I didn’t know the exact history of Senegal and The Gambia, and mentioned this.
He called it terrible.
He said it was due to the West colonising Africa, and that all Africans are related. He proceeded to make quite a few points about colonisation and the West, of which I will not elaborate expansively lest it take away from the main point of this post.
Eventually it happened. I can’t remember what brought it up, but he suddenly used the phrase:
“Africa is a s**t hole”.
I paused. I couldn’t believe it. As his English wasn’t that great, I considered whether there was a translation problem, so I continued listening, ready to make my point and correct him.
“I’ve always said I wanted to come Africa” He began. “I decided to come to Senegal because it’s relatively safe, but I was so disappointed when I arrived at the airport. People my age begging for money. The way the people crowd you outside of the airport. The inefficiency of taxi drivers. This is terrible”.
He continued to ramble on for a bit as he emphasised how horrible the West has been to Africa, but how China and Chinese companies are doing what the West couldn’t. Doing “good” in Africa. He was a true evangelist of the gospel of ‘Africa’s need for China’ but I eventually had to interrupt him.
My first of many rebuttals was on his use of ‘s**t hole’ to refer to a continent, and how disgusting I thought that was. I also proceeded to push back on his sermon that made China look like an angel giving light to those in the dark out of a good heart. I made my point that I saw a lot of what they were doing as neo-colonialism, whilst also referencing the widespread cases of abuse by Chinese companies against African workers. This is where he got angry,
“Neo-colonialism??? Why are you saying that? Colonialism?? Because you have a degree? Please be careful! If you say that out there, the people will think we are doing what the West did. That we are evil.”
He was genuinely offended by me using the term ‘neo-colonialism’ and expressed that despite the “low rates of abuse”, China was investing in Africa, which is what is most important. Due to this point, the focus of the conversation then switched to whether “the abuse of a few” is worth it, due to the “greater good of billions of dollars of investment”. Despite my anger, I attempted to reason with him;
“You are offended because you don’t want to compare what China is doing to colonialism.” I started. “But let’s take this as an example. Colonial powers justified & glossed over the evil they had done because of the “good” they had done. How is that different from what you are doing now? Justifying physical abuse because at least “China is investing”?
“It is different, because with slavery, there was no choice.” He responded. “African workers have a choice to leave now”
“There’s not much of a choice when you’re taking advantage of people’s need for a job. At the end of the day, no investment justifies physical abuse.”
“Then find someone else. No one else wants to invest in Africa.”
At this heated point (I said things my pastor would not have been proud to hear me say) a Norwegian man — who we will call Jack — sitting next to us decided to butt in to play peacemaker & the ‘middleman’. He expressed that he thinks “both sides have a point”, stating that people don’t want to invest in Africa because of the corruption, referencing his aunty who had had a bad investing experience in a different African country.
I got really tired at this point, as I had hoped Jack had something sensible to say. I didn’t think my simple point about investment not justifying abuse would be contended against, but it constantly was. I eventually spoke again making clear where I stand.
“You are not Africa’s elder brother. Nobody is. I don’t care who wants to trade with African countries, as African countries have the right to engage with whoever they want to. However if it is to be done, it must be done fairly. From an equal plane. And most importantly, abuse can never be justified”.
There was a lot I felt and experienced in that conversation. Anger and fatigue being the main ones. It went on for more than an hour, and ended on a bitter note. I started writing this immediately after, and over the next few days it led to some thoughts of which I will share a few;
Racism often disguises itself in benevolence
Albert Schweitzer, the renowned & Nobel peace prize winning theologian & missionary, once said;
“The African is indeed my brother, but my junior brother”
This ideology is not rare & it has shown up in many individuals who have expressed a desire to do “good” for ethnic minorities.
However, benevolent racism is still racism.
Even Abraham Lincoln who is commonly praised as the US president that had a firm stance against slavery, still held frankly racist views. He opposed Black people having the right to vote, holding office, intermarrying with whites, etc., as he was not in favour of “bringing about the social & political equality of the white & black races”. He also supported colonisation at a certain point, as he deemed it a solution for slavery. In summary, Black people shouldn’t be slaves, but they’re not on the same level as white people.
Just because a person does some good (or desires to do so), does not erase or gloss over the harmful views they have. It is possible to desire to help a person or a group of people, but still see them as less than you. And so we have benevolent missionaries, investors, humanitarians, etc., who may do ‘some good’, but still have ideologies that are frankly harmful, which they (and others) are not willing to acknowledge due to this perceived altruism. These harmful views filter into their “good” and end up causing harm.
Albert Schweitzer’s benevolent racism filtered into how he ran the hospitals he established in Gabon, which suffered from squalor and hygiene standards that would’ve not been allowed in his home country.
He eventually changed his tune and instead said;
”The time for speaking of older and younger brothers has passed.”
I disagree. It should’ve never been in the first place.
Speaking over the people you claim to want to help is normally due to some form of prejudice
The rich speak over the poor due to classism. Men speak over women due to sexism. It all stems from a paternalistic mindset which sees oneself as better than a group of people. A mindset that assumes that ones voice is more important than the voice of the person/group of people being spoken about. The people actually affected. It helps no one but instead breeds division and harm.
Now I am not of the perspective that you can’t have an opinion on matters at all unless you’ve been in someone’s shoes. I am however of the opinion that if you’ve not been in someone’s shoes, your first course of action should be to listen to those who have experienced the tightness of the boots. Those who still walk with a limp because of their calluses.
One of the roots of this issue is pride. That which turned Lucifer from an angel to the devil is still causing people to bring about hell for others. It displays itself in a self-preservation that causes people to help those who need it, as long as the recipient of said help stays below them.
It shuts down the voice that is most important for effective change.
Until systems & individuals acknowledge this and focus on changing that, we will remain in vicious cycles.
Parting Thoughts
To end this, I was initially was going to use homelessness as an example for something. I can’t remember what exactly, but it wouldn’t have been a good example. Here’s why.
Africans were never homeless. We have a home, we’ve always had a home. People came to our home and declared it theirs. They divided up the estate and forced houses and families into a boundary, declaring them a new family now. After plundering these new families, they left after violent protest, but still aimed to hold influence. Where the leaders of these families didn’t do things their way because they wanted the best for their new families, these people at times played direct and indirect parts in assassinations of the leaders of families such as Thomas Sankara and Patrice Lumumba, leaving less competent but more obedient leaders in their wake. These people would later complain that Africans are corrupt, without acknowledging their clear contribution to the festering of that culture.
The continent isn’t where it should be for many reasons, but there is hope. There are success stories such as in Rwanda and Botswana. Countries like Nigeria have seen young people organise significant protests against ill-treatment, with wide support for Peter Obi, a presidential candidate who looks like he could do a great job. Africans are tired of being fed the same old crap, and are leading a change. This can be further seen in Zambia, where Hakainde Hichilema won the 2021 presidential election, despite efforts from the previous authoritarian leadership to silence him. There is change coming.
Most importantly, I believe that Africans must and will determine the destiny of Africa. No one else.
For we are no one’s younger sibling.
