I Want Real Africa

Continuing with my tour of Kampala’s cuisine, I dined at a small downtown restaurant the other night and ate Ugandan food. My experience was in line with similar outings at ‘local-joints’ eating ‘African food’ for a number of reasons:

1. The menu is only meant to stimulate some ideas. You’ll become aware of what’s actually in the kitchen after your first attempt to order. I was forced to eat Beef with Posho (Maize-based, polenta-like starch), Matooke (Basically a Fried Banana mash), and Cassava (Sauteed Root Vegetable); but wanted Chicken with Ebinyebwa (Groundnut-based sauce) Posho, Rice, and Sweet Potatoes.

2. Something utterly strange happened: A lizard (or something, I only saw a flash of green) fell from the ceiling, just missed my plate, landed briefly on my foot and darted away.

3. I had to endure a “bad stomach” the next day (this phrase and the symptoms it describes are as common as a headache in East Africa).

Wasn’t all that bad though.

However, this reminded me of the “I Want Real Africa” tourists I met in South Africa. These folks would pay ridiculous sums to have an authentic African experience and they would spend weeks eating Capetown’s brilliant cuisine, enjoying Jo’burgs nightlife, and the beaches along the Garden Route and say “this place isn’t Africa.” Well, actually it is. And my experience with the ‘bad stomach’ is no more African than my meal at the Indian Restaurant the night before.

My friend Pat said something really interesting to me in Swaziland about the situation in Zimbabwe and the turn she felt the nation could potentially take – initiated by the expulsion of the Rhodesian farmers: “We don’t want whites…but we don’t want blacks either…we definitely don’t want people who are only going to see in black and white…we want Africans.” “Whites” are obviously those who are on their way out of places like Zim. I think those who “see in Black and White” are the “I Want Real Africa” folks. Africans are people who want to contribute to this continent, to make their way, and achieve their desired livelihood without oppressing that of others. Those are the people who make communities and experiences African. Northerners cannot afford to compartmentalize Africa into an underdeveloped, exoticized, slum. Africa is becoming Modern and is redefining what it means to be Modern, which has a lot more to do with liberation and compassion than it does with exoticism and a restaurant free of lizards.

Similar issues came up last night (ate at a mediocre pizzeria) when a table of Northerners were discussing colonialism. It was an absurd yet extremely common discussion: “Colonialism in Uganda: Good or Bad?” Actually, we also reviewed India, Ethiopia, and Tanzania in the same context. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “well, at least the Brits provided a good infrastructure” (always leaving out, “for the people they otherwise savaged”). Now, I didn’t throw anything last night, but my position was basically “what’s the point of the question?”

The response was that it’s “valuable to ask Ugandans today how they feel about colonialism” and my British friend reported that the overall response was positive (lots of jokes went on here too: “Colonialism received warm reviews on opening weekend…”). Again, this is compartmentalization: to look at colonialism through such a narrow lens that you ask a few people, judge by a few paved roads, and maybe look at a nations GDP (I met another guy who did just that in order to compare former French to former British colonies in order to determine who treated them best when they were there). As if Colonialism didn’t span multiple generations? As if those who survived it and their offspring may not have been incentivised/conditioned to support it? As if there were not a myriad of historical forces at work that determined how brutal an imperial regime would be in a specific region?

And underlying all this is the basic assumption that these nations would not be where they are were in not for the “spoils” of colonialism. This will get long and boring if I go any further, but the point I tried to convey last night is that it’s much more productive to constantly interrogate colonialism rather than stop time and ask what people think of it. Or fine, ask people what they think, but continue to interrogate their response based on their historical experience with colonialism. Colonialism is not an era, it’s an act. An ongoing act and an act that began long before the first fair-skin folk returned to Africa. Why confuse ourselves and even think for a second that there’s any good in that act?

I think people who fetishize over globalization have fallen into this same trap. Globalization is no more recent a phenomenon than colonialism and it cannot be compartmentalized into the computer age. Granted, globalization is a little more broad than colonialism, but I think it’s effective to view colonialism as one of many manifestations of globalization. Is globalization good or bad? Well, people all over the world interacting and improving each others’ lives through economic and intellectual exchange is not bad, no. But it’s not hard to fuck up a thing that good.

Ok, I may be getting boring, but I’m not bored. Going to a wedding tomorrow morning and joining the festivities for Martyr’s Day in the afternoon (celebrates Ugandan Christians who were executed by a former king in conflict with missionaries). Then I will leave for Kabale – a town about 8 hours SouthEast of here – on Sunday and will be trekking to see gorillas on Tuesday in Bwindi National Park. I promise to take lots of pictures but can’t promise when you’ll get to see them.