A few weeks back, I was watching a pilot snippet of a show called Global Business Africa on CCTV broadcast out of Nairobi. It's so new, I was the 4th viewer! The host, Ramah Nyang, is a very handsome chocolate brother in a nice suit and with a *Afro-British accent and clean shaved head. A graphic moving wall/screen behind him and a large desk big enough to accommodate occasional guests. It's the standard setup and format for international news [complete with red and white colored CCTV logo on the front of it]. The CNN model which, fairly understandably, has been the format for all the great international news networks since. I actually wouldn't be surprised if Ramah's mentor is Jeff Koinange.
He starts "from Cairo to Nairobi, Lagos all the way to Johannesburg, South Africa" and I found that interesting. Being a bit of a geography buff, I wondered why he went North to East then West to South or didn't use the commonly used "Cape to Cairo". I then wondered, considering and assuming those two were references for the southern and northernmost recognized cities, how and why even that came about. Cape Town yes is the southernmost big city in Africa and Tunis [Bizerte would be even MORE accurate], NOT Cairo, is the northernmost. So was Cairo an easier reference for alliteration purposes or maybe not having to cross the Sahara desert from Cape to Tunis makes getting to Cairo easier? Who came up with this? A few questions clearly and I might have found the answers.
I dug a little deeper into the origin of "Cape to Cairo" and it was a British colonial initiative to build a Pan-African Highway (!love this idea) connecting the British colonies from Cape Town in South Africa all the way to Cairo in Egypt via a single highway. This road was Cecil Rhodes' idea to link the colonies and establish economic and political dominance and influence. So more than anything the popular saying is a British colonial reference to an infrastructure development project. It was ambitious and idealistic and even today, colonial connection aside, would be great for intracontinental ground travel for people, goods and ideas.
This all brought me back to the power and role language has in promotion and erasure of anything. It would be nice if the media began propagating the idea of, "From Tunis to Cape Town, Dakar all the way to Mogadishu" or even Antananarivo in Madagascar? You see, for the purposes of what this kind of a network is looking to promote and to whom, doing this would help even us as an African audience become more aware of our geography first. Also then undo historic erasure of dynamic and complex countries that weren't British colonies especially for English speaking audiences. It would be so beautiful to see unlearning of boundaries that by design kept us in the dark about each other's locations and presence through an adjustment so simple subtle as that. It would be the beginning of a more inclusive vision of ALL the countries that maketh Africa.
After doing that, we can get the AU to push for easier border crossing and intercontinental travel. One step at a time though.
______________
*@afropolitaine*
#graphAfrica
He starts "from Cairo to Nairobi, Lagos all the way to Johannesburg, South Africa" and I found that interesting. Being a bit of a geography buff, I wondered why he went North to East then West to South or didn't use the commonly used "Cape to Cairo". I then wondered, considering and assuming those two were references for the southern and northernmost recognized cities, how and why even that came about. Cape Town yes is the southernmost big city in Africa and Tunis [Bizerte would be even MORE accurate], NOT Cairo, is the northernmost. So was Cairo an easier reference for alliteration purposes or maybe not having to cross the Sahara desert from Cape to Tunis makes getting to Cairo easier? Who came up with this? A few questions clearly and I might have found the answers.
I dug a little deeper into the origin of "Cape to Cairo" and it was a British colonial initiative to build a Pan-African Highway (!love this idea) connecting the British colonies from Cape Town in South Africa all the way to Cairo in Egypt via a single highway. This road was Cecil Rhodes' idea to link the colonies and establish economic and political dominance and influence. So more than anything the popular saying is a British colonial reference to an infrastructure development project. It was ambitious and idealistic and even today, colonial connection aside, would be great for intracontinental ground travel for people, goods and ideas.
This all brought me back to the power and role language has in promotion and erasure of anything. It would be nice if the media began propagating the idea of, "From Tunis to Cape Town, Dakar all the way to Mogadishu" or even Antananarivo in Madagascar? You see, for the purposes of what this kind of a network is looking to promote and to whom, doing this would help even us as an African audience become more aware of our geography first. Also then undo historic erasure of dynamic and complex countries that weren't British colonies especially for English speaking audiences. It would be so beautiful to see unlearning of boundaries that by design kept us in the dark about each other's locations and presence through an adjustment so simple subtle as that. It would be the beginning of a more inclusive vision of ALL the countries that maketh Africa.
After doing that, we can get the AU to push for easier border crossing and intercontinental travel. One step at a time though.
______________
*@afropolitaine*
#graphAfrica
No comments:
Post a Comment