Who is African?
THURSDAY POSTCARD<br><br>Football, more than any other sports, has the ability to bring out the best in human beings and in the same vein, the worst of our primordial instincts. It also proves that inspite of all the advances in several millennia, human beings are less than a skin deep away from t
THURSDAY POSTCARD
Abdul Raheem Tajudeen
Football, more than any other sports, has the ability to bring out the best in human beings and in the same vein, the worst of our primordial instincts. It also proves that inspite of all the advances in several millennia, human beings are less than a skin deep away from the rest of the animal kingdom.
So it was to be expected that the recently concluded African Cup of Nations in Tunisia elicited all kinds of national chauvinisms, mass hysteria and enthusiasm across the continent. In a sign that Africa has become a major force in Global football, getting closer to fulfilling the Legendary Pele’s prediction that it is a continent destined for greater things in soccer, the interest in the championship was not limited to Africans or Africa.
Satellite television made it available to all corners of the world.
The fact that many of the players are also prominent in top teams, especially in Europe ensured global interest in what was happening in Tunis.
It was also an opportunity for some of the tensions between black Africa and predominantly Arab/Arabised North Africa to get full outing. How do Africans see North Africa?
How do North Africans view Black Africans? Do they see themselves as Africans? Do other Africans see them as Africans? Questions and more questions.
I participated in one of those live debates on the BBC’s AFRICA LIVE programme during the tournament.
The debate and unending email warfare troubled me a great deal, not because I am not aware of the historical,
socio-cultural, political, economic and other aspects of the tensions, but the language of intolerance, extreme prejudice and focus on the negative as opposed to commonalities that spewed out. Many people were trading prejudices and hostilities.
At some stage, I got so fed up with the ignorant ranting that I used live on a post-Hutton chastised BBC the word, BULL…..! in response to some racist cant read out from an email participant.
As a regular visitor to North Africa, I am always amused by the crisis of identity that the region and its peoples suffer from. They are physically located on the continent of Africa, but many perceive themselves as being part of the Middle East.
You go to a souk (market)
and enthusiastic traders try to befriend you and cajole you into buying their wares by asking if you were from Africa, completely oblivious to the fact that they are in Africa too!
Often, the only African countries they are aware of will be those that have famous footballers: Roger Miller, Amokachi, Rashid Yekini, etc used to be popular figures and through them their countries during the 90s. Kanoute, Kanu, etc have now replaced them. Yet another demonstration that football does more for African intra-African diplomacy than all our ministries of foreign affairs combined!
Is it not interesting that Morroco that pulled out of the old OAU and never acceeded to the new AU has not pulled out of the African Nations’ cup? It is staying in it as it is applying to be part of the EU. I think the AU has to let it know that it cannot pick its neighbours, but it can relocate if it chooses.
The debate on who is African is alive and continues to rage within the broad Pan-African Movement.
However I am really at a loss as to what the end of this will be and what the objectives and motives behind it are.
There are those who see Africa purely as a Black continent, but the same people will cry racism if racists in Europe and America deny citizenship to the African in diaspora and ask that they all be shipped back to Africa (as indeed fascist groups before and the Neo Nazis of today are saying).
The issue of identity is complex. It is not just who you think you are, but what others perceive you to be. It should not be an either or situation that imprisons individuals and groups. It must be possible and it is usually the case, that we are all different persons in different situations culturally, politically and socially.
There is a racialist aspect to the relationship between Black Africa and North Africa mediated by slavery and continuing racism or racist attitudes against Black Africans in those countries.
But racist attitude is not just an Arab problem. How many White South Africans or Asian Africans are fully comfortable (or made to feel so) with their
Africaness? But the story gets worse when we become honest about the prejudice and xenophobia, which exist against other Black Africans in the name of ethnicity, tribalism, regionalism, religion, etc.
In post-apartheid South Africa for instance, one of the saddest contradictions is the fact that non-blacks are more welcome than black Africans whether they are from next-door Zambia or far away Gambia.
The solution is in wider political education and deliberate commitment to the principles of people-based as opposed to government-centered and market-driven African Union that reclaims Africa for Africans from Cape Town to Cairo. And stop us being strangers on our own continent thereby criminalising freedom of movement for our peoples.
In that Africa it, will be possible to be , as Lucky Dube sang ‘different colours, one people and Africa assumes its rightful place in human evolution as the true aboriginal continent from where the human race began and spread out ‘to multiply’ around the globe.
Abdul Raheem Tajudeen
Football, more than any other sports, has the ability to bring out the best in human beings and in the same vein, the worst of our primordial instincts. It also proves that inspite of all the advances in several millennia, human beings are less than a skin deep away from the rest of the animal kingdom.
So it was to be expected that the recently concluded African Cup of Nations in Tunisia elicited all kinds of national chauvinisms, mass hysteria and enthusiasm across the continent. In a sign that Africa has become a major force in Global football, getting closer to fulfilling the Legendary Pele’s prediction that it is a continent destined for greater things in soccer, the interest in the championship was not limited to Africans or Africa.
Satellite television made it available to all corners of the world.
The fact that many of the players are also prominent in top teams, especially in Europe ensured global interest in what was happening in Tunis.
It was also an opportunity for some of the tensions between black Africa and predominantly Arab/Arabised North Africa to get full outing. How do Africans see North Africa?
How do North Africans view Black Africans? Do they see themselves as Africans? Do other Africans see them as Africans? Questions and more questions.
I participated in one of those live debates on the BBC’s AFRICA LIVE programme during the tournament.
The debate and unending email warfare troubled me a great deal, not because I am not aware of the historical,
socio-cultural, political, economic and other aspects of the tensions, but the language of intolerance, extreme prejudice and focus on the negative as opposed to commonalities that spewed out. Many people were trading prejudices and hostilities.
At some stage, I got so fed up with the ignorant ranting that I used live on a post-Hutton chastised BBC the word, BULL…..! in response to some racist cant read out from an email participant.
As a regular visitor to North Africa, I am always amused by the crisis of identity that the region and its peoples suffer from. They are physically located on the continent of Africa, but many perceive themselves as being part of the Middle East.
You go to a souk (market)
and enthusiastic traders try to befriend you and cajole you into buying their wares by asking if you were from Africa, completely oblivious to the fact that they are in Africa too!
Often, the only African countries they are aware of will be those that have famous footballers: Roger Miller, Amokachi, Rashid Yekini, etc used to be popular figures and through them their countries during the 90s. Kanoute, Kanu, etc have now replaced them. Yet another demonstration that football does more for African intra-African diplomacy than all our ministries of foreign affairs combined!
Is it not interesting that Morroco that pulled out of the old OAU and never acceeded to the new AU has not pulled out of the African Nations’ cup? It is staying in it as it is applying to be part of the EU. I think the AU has to let it know that it cannot pick its neighbours, but it can relocate if it chooses.
The debate on who is African is alive and continues to rage within the broad Pan-African Movement.
However I am really at a loss as to what the end of this will be and what the objectives and motives behind it are.
There are those who see Africa purely as a Black continent, but the same people will cry racism if racists in Europe and America deny citizenship to the African in diaspora and ask that they all be shipped back to Africa (as indeed fascist groups before and the Neo Nazis of today are saying).
The issue of identity is complex. It is not just who you think you are, but what others perceive you to be. It should not be an either or situation that imprisons individuals and groups. It must be possible and it is usually the case, that we are all different persons in different situations culturally, politically and socially.
There is a racialist aspect to the relationship between Black Africa and North Africa mediated by slavery and continuing racism or racist attitudes against Black Africans in those countries.
But racist attitude is not just an Arab problem. How many White South Africans or Asian Africans are fully comfortable (or made to feel so) with their
Africaness? But the story gets worse when we become honest about the prejudice and xenophobia, which exist against other Black Africans in the name of ethnicity, tribalism, regionalism, religion, etc.
In post-apartheid South Africa for instance, one of the saddest contradictions is the fact that non-blacks are more welcome than black Africans whether they are from next-door Zambia or far away Gambia.
The solution is in wider political education and deliberate commitment to the principles of people-based as opposed to government-centered and market-driven African Union that reclaims Africa for Africans from Cape Town to Cairo. And stop us being strangers on our own continent thereby criminalising freedom of movement for our peoples.
In that Africa it, will be possible to be , as Lucky Dube sang ‘different colours, one people and Africa assumes its rightful place in human evolution as the true aboriginal continent from where the human race began and spread out ‘to multiply’ around the globe.