The continent you called ‘home’ that you never even knew

GEOFF SIFRIN

But tiny Rwanda, a country of 10 million that has dubbed itself the “Switzerland of Africa”, is the continent’s fastest growing state, surrounded by arable countries – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania – with countless hectares of good land they can hardly use.

This ironic sub-text pervaded last week’s seminar at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre about changing narratives in African war reporting, 25 years after the genocide, which killed 800 000 people in 100 days. The African roller coaster is largely quiescent now, but with memories of what happened when tribalism went wild. Veteran global journalists spoke at the seminar.

Do we know Africa? Jean-Philippe Remy, Africa correspondent for French daily paper Le Monde, has been living and working in Africa for 20 years. He says Westerners still think of the continent as one country. But it is 74 diverse countries, each with its own character.

Amazingly, in the Rwandan genocide era, even good journalists used to say smugly, “we know Africa” – just like good French colonialists. It was the era of parachute journalism, where French foreign reporters would arrive, do minor investigations, and write through French eyes. In a welcome change, this attitude has lessened as cellphone journalism from locals has become a news source, leaving commentary and analysis for major media.

Before the present era, journalists had to cover a continent overwhelmed by conflict in Ethiopia-Eritrea, Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and elsewhere. Then, in the 2002 Kenyan elections, President Daniel Arap Moi retired after a 24-year rule. Nairobi celebrations attracted the largest crowd ever. Remy says everything changed. Later, to integrate better into the region, Rwanda even changed its alignment and language from the French to the Kenyan English one.

What about literature? Is it still “Western”? Unfortunately, that’s the narrow way most of us see it. But from the early 2000s, new African voices have emerged in countries such as Somalia and Nigeria. It has raised interest in African writing in countries such as Germany. Martin Hielscher, a specialist in fiction at a German publisher, said we can’t simply call things “African” anymore, as if it’s all the same. Africa must speak for itself. African literature tends to be structured less around the linear plot associated with Western literature, but a mix of different voices.

Given the violent history of the continent, journalism must inevitably deal with African suffering. The journalist Salim Amin, who addressed the seminar, is the son of renowned Kenyan photojournalist Mohamed “Mo” Amin, who in 1984 revealed to the world the Ethiopian famine that threatened to starve seven million people.

Mo’s pictures inspired British musician Bob Geldof to organise Live Aid, a 16-hour concert for Ethiopia featuring Queen and others. It was watched worldwide by 1.9 billion people. In a stunning success, it raised millions of dollars, and is what many adult Westerners remember about Ethiopia. Salim showed the seminar a film about Mo’s work in conflict zones, which kept the audience spellbound.

When President Cyril Ramaphosa appealed to Jewish youngsters at Sunday’s South African Jewish Board of Deputies conference not to leave South Africa, but help rebuild it after a ruinous decade, he knew many had already gone to places with secure futures. Most had lived here in capsules of privilege in an Africa opaque to them. They will make their new homes in America and elsewhere without being able to say, authentically, that they “know Africa”.

Perhaps South Africa will flower once again like Rwanda? Sadly, those emigrants won’t see it.