"One huge fellow, ridiculously dressed up in skins, was beating on a
gigantic xylophone, which he carried slung round his neck; he was the
conductor of the women's dance; these, singing and uttering savage yells,
swept the ground before us, waved great stalks of manioc or broke them under
our feet by beating them noisily on the ground; it was a scene of delirium.
The children, too, leapt and danced", (Andre Gide, Travels in the Congo, p.
69).

That is how the French traveler/writer, Andre Gide, described one of the
many social occasions he witnessed in 1927 on his way to the Congo. The
Swedish Academy still saw it fit to award him the much coveted Nobel Prize
in 1947.

Western literature about Africa is replete with such racist references to
Africans and their civilization.  From Hegel, through Conrad, to the recent
publication of Brigit and Joel Samuels, we constantly see dirt thrown on us
by people who cannot live up to a simple fact:  black people are here to
stay. Against such a barrage of insults and negativity, we ask ourselves
"what are we going to do? what form of protest are we going to adopt?"

In 1975, Chinua Achebe delivered what was considered a stunning lecture at
the University of Massachusetts on an issue captioned "An Image of Africa:
Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness". He tried to set the record straight
by debunking Conrad's picture of an Africa of uncouth savages and tall
impenetrable forests.

About three years ago, at a public lecture delivered to the Association of
Students of African Descent at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada,
Professor Olufemi Taiwo attacked, in the same vein, Hegel's "The Philosophy
of History".  As quoted by Professor Taiwo, this is what the precursor of
der Fuhrer had to philosophize about Africa:

"Africa proper, as far as history goes back, has remained for all purposes
of connection with the rest of the World shut up;it is the Gold - land
compressed within itself - the land of childhood, which lying beyond the day
of history, is enveloped in the dark mantle of Night" (Hegel, The Philosophy
of History, p. 91)

It therefore falls back on us Gambians, and Africans collectively to redeem
our image; to discard the "dark mantle" of ignorance that envelopes most
corners of Western society and institutions through publications, public
lectures, symposia, even manifest cultural pride.

Or maybe sometimes a good beating from a "kankurang" or "pakin" to some
recalcitrant would suffice.

Hamadi.
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