Our Africa is not a country Dr Mzembi
Dr Mzembi

Dr Mzembi

Nick Mangwana View from the Diaspora—

The last time this columnist was at Chatham House was when Joice Mujuru gave that forgettable performance. It would surprise many to learn that many Zimbabweans were actually rooting for her.This is because when a Zimbabwean is being touted as one of the best women to come out of our country, regardless of their differing political views, a lot of non-Zimbabweans stop thinking in opposition context. They just see a Zimbabwean. So all of a sudden this person whose politics you totally disagree with starts to be seen just as a “typical” Zimbabwean.

So in your mind you are praying for that person not to misrepresent your country. Well, that day things did not go well as her performance was woeful.

This should have surprised nobody but when it comes to Zimbabwe some of us are guilty of always seeing a half full glass. Another example when one felt their country was being totally misrepresented was the disastrous visit by Morgan Tsvangirai that year. That was not only an embarrassment to only himself and his party. It abashed the poise of everyone answering to the name of a Zimbabwean. So an invitation to attend events led by some of these limited people is not funny at all.

So last week another invitation from Chatham House was honoured again. Only this time there was Minister Walter Mzembi making a presentation on his vision for African tourism. What a flawless and epic performance he gave! At the heart of his presentation was the normally ignorance tinted perception of Africa as a country rather than a continent. He called for the perceptual disaggregation of Africa from a country to a continent of 54 States.

You see, there is a dichotomous argument happening in Africa. Some are calling for Africa to be unified into one solid State while others want it to be disaggregated. People like Minister Mzembi are saying that the distinctions should be highlighted.

But are these positions contradictory? Does this imply that Africa does not know what she really wants? Is there confusion or a defect in these views? Why are people offended when citizens from the West refer to Africa as a country and to a language called “African”? After all wasn’t Africa some kind of a country before it was divided and colonised?

Why is Minister Mzembi pushing for Africa to be seen in its constituent parts? He argues that the world should understand that Africa is not a country but a continent.

They should understand Africa has organised regions such as SADC in the south, ECOWAS in the west and ECCAS in the east. But given all these, it seems like nobody cares. To them Africa is just this one big formless mass of land with animals and of course diseases and terrorism. It is because of this type of perception why Africa’s tourism suffers.

The argument is that perceptual compartmentalisation of Africa would make the tourist understand that if Ebola breaks out in West Africa, it will not affect the tourist who wants to visit say, Zimbabwe or South Africa. If a terrorist outrage is reported in East Africa, it has no bearing on the security situation in Morocco, for example. This is his vision of Africa. A vision which calls for Africa’s differentiated richness to be recognised.

The argument is that the tourist who has visited Nigeria is not done with visiting Africa. There is still the Serengeti in Tanzania, Hwange Game Park in Zimbabwe as well as the iconic Victoria Falls. If a tourist has seen the Pyramids of Egypt they have not seen the chimpanzees of the Congo or gorillas of Rwanda.

So this point that Africa is a differentiated continent should be projected, for there is richness in this diversity which also includes cultural richness. This sounds like a very good argument and a vision which might boost tourism from its minute to negative tourist arrival figures (2 percent to +/-3 percent) where other regions recorded figures as high as 7 percent for the Americas, 4 percent for Europe and 5 percent for Asia and the Pacific. Why would Africa lag behind,yet it remains the region with the most undisturbed biodiversity?

So on one point you have a top contender and Africa’s choice for the UNWTO Secretary General’s post pushing hard for Africa’s disaggregation but on the other side there are these 54 statesmen saying it is time to unravel the outcome of the Berlin Conference of 1884/85 that fragmented Africa into small colonisable units. The statesmen are saying let us have more regional integration and Africa act as a unit. Other politico-technocrats are saying let us sell Africa as component geographical units which confounds the notion that what happens to a small part, happens to the whole. How is the packaging of these political and social arguments going to work?

This is not an “either/or” situation. There is no mutual exclusivity between the two visions for both can be achieved by one thing; understanding Africa. Dr Mzembi argues that nobody stops going Florida because something has happened in New York. So nobody should stop visiting South Africa because something has happened in North Africa.

People have been made to understand the intricacies of the geography of the United States but not of Africa. Africa’s components have to be understood in order to understand the whole.

One cannot walk away from the fact that Africa is too big to be ignored. You can fit Europe, the United States, China and India into Africa and even leave some change. Yet with this size and biodiversity, Africa continues to be seen as a country where every little leaven leavens the whole lump.

The perception of Africa as a country does not only stem from indifference or ignorance, but has also been interpreted as having its genesis in racism. The racial connotation is that Africa is an undifferentiated mass and its people all look the same, you see one, you have seen them all. Surely glowering at this type of thinking is not having a chip over one’s shoulder. These are political points which are remote from tourism as they still have a serious impact on its growth in Africa.

But like everything else, it is foolhardy to blame everything on foreigners. The externalisation of one’s problems leads to the franchising of solutions as well. That is a way through which people will never learn lessons. Africa needs to invest in its own tourism and not just harvest on God’s gift without giving back.

There is a suggestion by Dr Mzembi that the African Union should prescribe minimalist budgetary support for tourism with figures ranging between 1-5 percent and hopefully reaching double figures by 2025.

These aspirational figures can be enhanced if Africans stop shooting themselves in the foot by exporting their own fauna from its habitat into the zoos of the very people they expect to come to Africa to see the same animals. Africa’s animals should stay in Africa and be seen in Africa.

There is a joke going around that with the current attitude it would be no surprise to hear that parts of the Victoria Falls had been sold and exported (were it even remotely possible). The serious point being made is that what was naturally given to Africa should remain there. How can African governments fail to prioritise such a non-depleting resource by focussing on the big cash from the extractive sectors?

This is a self-contradictory practice. Maybe in countries like Zimbabwe putting the “Environment” brief under the Tourism Ministry would harmonise this vision.

This is because what looks like compartmentalisation looks nothing short of fragmentation of very related parts. But that’s an argument for another day. Today the cry is for Africa to be viewed in its right context. For leadership to stop looking for pity but develop this continent and enable it to realise its massive potential.

As much as Japan emerged a technological powerhouse after being nuked by the Americans, Africa should be able to awaken the giant even after the debilitation of both slavery and colonialism. At some point that should be viewed in its right way as a collusion to abrogate responsibility by the leadership.

Disaggregating Africa is not promoting the balkanisation of the continent. It is meant to make sure that Africa plays its part and fulfils its enormous potential in tourism. The roadmap to this destination would involve the AU starting to think seriously about having a Commission on Tourism. Africa’s interaction with the world should never be on the basis of a donor /recipient.

More emphasis should be put on her role as a host. This is because anthropologically Africans are hospitable. But there has been a failure to commercialise that natural hospitality already embedded in the “ubuntu” is a damning indictment on Africa’s leadership.

Africa’s leadership is partially responsible for the negative stereotypes that pander to the perception of the continent as a country.

The attitude to governance, accountability and transparency is almost generic. This leads to generalisations that stem from seeing generalised behaviours. If Africa continues to play the victim she will also continue to have retarded development.

She will continue to export her citizens to other countries as unwanted immigrants. The visitor book will continue to show a net negative figure while other regions continue to grow by selling vanity.

It will take inspirational, institutional leadership in Africa to realise the monumental tourism aspirations and dreams.

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