>From: [log in to unmask] (Lyombe Eko)
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>CC: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask],
>[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [camnetwork] Re: Fwd: Ali Mazrui on Skip Gates (an extended
>version)
>Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 17:21:49 -0400
>
>Dr. Mbaku,
>
>Thanks for posting Prof. Mazrui's reaction to Dr. Gates' documentary
>series "Wonders of the African World." We have also read the reaction
>of Professor Asante to the same series. As one who watched the entire
>series, I do indeed agree that it is presented from a perspective which
>is anything but African (as opposed to African American). I also agree
>that Dr. Gates is dredging shop-worn stereotypes when he claims --in
>the segment shot in Ouidah, Benin--that Africa is suffering because she
>sold her children.
>
>Nevertheless, without going into specifics, from a journalistic
>perspective, taken as a whole, I found the series more sympathetic to
>Africa than anything I have seen on American television. Granted the
>series is presented from an African American perspective, where race
>and the validation of black culture and civilizations are paramount.
>
>What we need to remember is that television is not reality. It is a
>construction of reality. The edifice that is constructed in any
>television documentary depends on the producer's psychological make-up
>and socio-cultural milieu. In other words, it is a subconscious "in
>the head" thing. Professor Gates could not have been expected to look
>at Africa with African eyes. He looked at it through his specific
>African American eyes. Despite some controversial segments and
>statements, Dr. Gates' look at Africa was more sympathetic than your
>run-of-the mill-safari-travelogue. The man showed that as a black
>person, he had a stake (if not a steak) in Africa.
>
>Talking of perspective, take the series "The Africans" by Professor
>Mazrui. Though it was broadcast throughout the African continent, it
>may come as a surprise to you that it was never broadcast in Professor
>Mazrui's own country--Kenya--for political reasons! (At least not in
>the 9 years I lived in Kenya). The government of Kenya saw the series
>as promoting, among other things, a hidden Islamic agenda. That is
>perspective for you! Was this a case of the proverbial prophet who is
>not honoured in his own home?
>
>It seems to me that the main quarrel with the Gates series is that it
>rewrites history and puts the blame for slavery squarely on the
>shoulders of Africans, thereby undermining Africa's claim for
>reparations from the "West." Slavery was more complex than the
>"sanitized, academized" version presented by many politically correct
>African scholars. My problem is that I do not know if the African
>history Professor Gates is accused of rewriting in his documentary
>series is as objective as we are made to suppose. Take the reparations
>issue. The "West" is being asked to pay $777 trillion for slavery.
>The centuries-long trans-Sahara Arab and Turkish slavery in Africa is
>conveniently brushed under the carpet of history. (Unfortunately
>Pushkin is there to remind us that Arabs and Turks also bought and sold
>Africans). Professor Gates rightly punctured that selective historical
>perception and attention, and showed us Arab slavery in East Africa,
>particularly Zanzibar.
>
>During the1993 OAU summit in Cairo, Egypt, Hon. Dudley Thompson, noted
>Jamaican ambassador to several African countries and former lawyer of
>Jomo Kenyatta, held a press conference to present the case for
>reparations from the West. It so happened that the late MKO Abiola,
>chairman of the OAU Group of Eminent Persons on Reparations
>for Black Enslavement, had just been arrested after elections in
>Nigeria. During the press conference, Hon. Thompson and most African
>politicians were shocked to hear African journalists ask whether the
>Group of Emminent Persons on Reparations would send a bill to the Arab
>countries for their role in slavery. They Emminent persons had never
>even considered the possibility! A good example of selective
>historical attention.
>
>While we blame Westerners, Arabs and others for what they did to Africa
>centuries ago, we must not forget that Africans are still "selling"
>Africans into slavery today. My experiences in the Great Lakes region
>of Africa shows that the Hutu in Rwanda would gladly sell the Tutsi to
>Arab slave traders for next to nothing, while the Tutsi in Burundi
>would give away the Hutu for nothing. This scenario can be repeated
>in any number of countries. I am sure the innocent children whose limbs
>were amputated in Sierra Leone by their own people find their lives
>worse than slavery.
>
>Some episodes of Dr. Gates' documentary series "Wonders of the African
>World" are definitely controversial, but taken as a whole, the man has
>been kinder to Africa than most television producers--including
>Africans--and presented a fresh view of the continent in an age where
>Africa is synonymous with AIDS, war, human misery, and death.
>
>
>
>Lyombe Eko, Ph.D.
>Department of Communication and Journalism
>University of Maine
>
>
>
>
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>
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