I woke up yesterday morning (12/05/2020) to a Sky News headline that went like this “Spiky coronavirus haircut growing in popularity in Africa – here’s why.”
I was immediately irked but the use of the word “Africa” to describe what I knew was going to be one country out the 55 that make up the continent of Africa; and I was right, the article focused on the East African country of Kenya.
Why is it that the people from a continent that has landmass of 30 million km2 and is the second most populated continent in the world are viewed as one large homogenous group?
And in the eyes of the Western world the face of this homogenous group live in mud huts, are covered in tribal marks and don’t have access to clean drinking water. And while it may be the case that there are many Africans who do live in mud huts, and do decorate themselves with tribal marks and symbols, and unfortunately do not have access to clean drinking water; there are also many Africans who don’t.
Zambia, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Algeria, those are only a few names of some the countries that are part of the African continent, and on each of those countries are millions and millions of people who are all different shades, sizes, religions, cultures, and from socio-economic backgrounds just like Europe and the United States of America.
But whenever the Western world points its lens towards Africa, it does it for a morale boost, a pick me up of sorts, to show everyone that the grass really isn’t greener on the other side. From the word go Sky News used Kenya as the face of Africa’s plight during the Coronavirus pandemic, from the slum setting of the interview to the mention that many people are struggling financial and this new haircut costs only 38p, nobody was going to feel anything but pity for those in this situation and relief that they are not in it themselves.
Really and truly there was no need for this article, if you’re only going to report the doom and gloom of Kenya and other African countries, don’t. When you want to do some real journalism look at ways in which countries like South Africa, Ghana and Uganda are handling the outbreak and then really consider which side of the fence the grass is greener on.
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