gideon diego

Xenophobia: noun

We live in unprecedented times, where we find ourselves more attached to a rectangular device than to other people, or even ourselves. The ever-growing landscape of social media, now boosted with such novel technologies like Open AI, has plunged us into a world that is gradually becoming unrecognizable. We were once sold on the idea of its benefits – that these social media platforms would help bridge the gap between us, help connect us to one another, make information flow seamlessly, and remove redundant tasks from our daily lives. But at what cost one might ask? These platforms are akin to the first years of a newlywed couple: everything seems perfect, what could go wrong? Yet here we are, as a global society, now witnessing first-hand the pervasive and addictive nature of these platforms. We see their true intentions, masks stripped off, and the allure of a honeymoon phase having faded. And now the so-called benefits we had been sold have turned out not to be benefits at all. Instead of closing the distance, many people, particularly young people, feel lonely and isolated from society. Instead of helping us connect to each other, we are inflamed by jealousy or hatred for others. Instead of making us more informed, we are rather stuck in echo-chambers or drowned in anti-intellectualism. In the end, what these platforms have done to us is exactly what was intended in the first place. Not to have a better informed and deeply connected society, but to have a reservoir of benumbed people whose minds have been primed to meander the networks of these platforms. And this comes not ‘as a means’ but an end. An end to what, exactly? Profit, meeting the margins, and even more profit. Most technologies begin their course of life with a speech of benevolence. But time quickly shows what the purpose of the technology had always been. And in due time, these profiteering technologies have managed to have us right where they wanted – subversively dependent on them, in other words addicted to their products. In his book titled, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping us Hooked, Adam Atler writes,

I had the wonderful privilege of being invited to do a radio interview with Mary from Near FM. We spoke for almost an hour mostly about my writing journey, both my fiction and non. And also touched on some topics that seemed worlds apart like theology, comic books, artificial intelligence, boredom and art, African masks, and the connection between faith and creativity etc.

In 1968 a group of young writers took to the universities of Kenya with an agenda that would set in motion the event now referred to as the Great Nairobi Literature Debate. At the helm of this debate was Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o himself, accompanied by a few others. Their premise was simple – to propose a counter narrative that would stand against the dominance of British literature in the curriculums. The young writers proposed a bold change by insisting that the English Department be renamed to the Department of Literature. And the newly renamed department would have as its main focus on African literature. Five years into independence Kenya found itself still held under the yoke of its past colonial system. The education department was inundated with British customs of learning. This meant that the English language maintained its operational center of education in the country. Ngũgĩ and his fellows felt that the approach was flawed and that it marginalized African voices and perspectives. So they saw it as their mission to raise it as an issue that needed to be addressed. And their main point of entry would be an inclusion of African languages into the curriculum itself. Ngũgĩ, having been well versed in the English language, and having written many of his stories in it too, grew aware of its power as a carrier of cultural and political sentiments tied to Britain’s history. And if the decolonial approach that had captured the continent was to be of any lasting value, then the reinstatement of African languages was going to be its most crucial investment. Language for Ngũgĩ was not just a universal form of writing, like the way numbers functioned, rather language was culture itself in transit.

The opening shot of the movie centers on a large commercial vessel that’s docking into a harbor. The color of the ship, its whiteness that is, stands out in the backdrop of the film’s black and white color palette. The ship, the harbour, and the open seas are recurring images in Senegalese cinema. The port of Dakar makes frequent appearances in film’s such as Mati Diop’s The Atlantics, including Mambéty’s Touki Bouki, a film I’ve reviewed on the channel already. So here we see the same image being used by Sembène. In this shot alone, Sembène sets up one of his central themes, which is that of travel, over the seas particularly, in hopes that something better might lie on the other side. 

African Psycho was published in 2003. It was written by Alain Mabanckou, Congo Brazzaville’s accomplished novelist, poet, and professor of literature. Mabanckou’s novel invites us into the disturbed mind of Grégoire Nakobomayo, a low life mechanic living in the destitute parts of a fictionalised neighbourhood that goes by the odd name of He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-An-Idiot. Although the title bears a resemblance to that of Bret Easton Ellis’s infamous book of a similar subject matter (American Psycho), Mabanckou’s African Psycho is far from just an Africanised version of Ellis’s tale. So instead of Patrick Bateman one should see African Psycho more along the lines of Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground. Mabanckou’s protagonist, Grégoire, has an odd obsession with a notorious serial killer known as Angoualima.

I read, listened, and watched a bit of things this year. I narrowed down my list of favorites to five books, five movies, and five albums. It was tough cutting the list down to only three sets of five, but doing this allowed me to see what really stuck out in 2024. In no particular order here they are:

What is Africa and what is the meaning of being African? For some, answers to these questions might seem obvious. But the very idea of Africa, in its contemporary sense at least, was not common knowledge until a century ago.

The Stone Virgins was published in 2002. The book was written by Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera and the story follows the lives of two sisters, Thenjiwe and Nonceba. We see how life unfolds for them in the backdrop of war and conflict. She immerses her readers into the world of postcolonial Zimbabwe. Her prose are as beautiful as they are terrifying. And her ability to interweave her narrative style with lucid imagery, phantasmagoric landscapes, and the power of moving poetry makes this book an unavoidable read. Vera’s central focus rests on her women characters, who are not only the protagonists but are the very life force of her stories. Vera also gives the land a subtle voice, and a close reading will reveal the murmuring cries of its heart. It is these murmurs that speak of the becoming of a young nation that once sought to strive for independence. A nation birthed at the cost of its own people.

Touki Bouki was released in 1973. The film was directed by Senegal’s and one of Africa’s most renowned filmmakers, Djibril Diop Mambéty. Mambéty’s film has garnered praise and critical acclaim from all over the world. It is seen as a cinematic achievement not only in African cinema but in world cinema too. The film’s exuberant aesthetics has seen it have a relative amount of influence in pop culture spaces, such as African American music videos. The standout look of the film’s poster, which has the two main characters riding a motorcycle with a cow's head mounted at the front, has been a fascinating feature for many who come to this intriguing but very strange piece of cinematic art.

Nigerian playwright, Wole Soyinka, published Death and the King’s Horseman in 1975, at a time when Nigeria’s military dictatorship was at its most critical. The times were marked by multiple coups that sprang from intermittent points in time. Added to this turbulent period was the Biafran War, or the Nigerian Civil War, that horribly marred the young nation. Soyinka’s work bears the markings of these political events. He saw it fit to raise the cause of what it meant for people to live and even die under such conditions. Soyinka was a member of that unique group of African writers and intellectuals that rose to prominence in the dying days of colonialism. He, like his peers at the time, witnessed the promises of independence and lived through the failure of those promises.

1960’s Africa was a time for new possibilities. The shackles of colonialism had fallen. African societies were gearing themselves up towards self-determination. And now nationalism, something that was once considered rebel talk for the streets, had become the main topic of discussion in all sectors of civil society. Doors that were once closed had now opened. But amidst these budding prospects one important question remained – who will lead us into the new dispensation? The answer to this question came in different ways. The most notable path of all was through the rise of the political messiah – that leader who held the scepter of love for his people in one hand, but who also swung it in violence against those who opposed him, blurring the lines between friend and foe. We remembered them as the generals, men of war turned into statesmen, men who spoke of coup d'états being more frequent than croissants on the breakfast tables of Parisians, men who rose and fell in different forms. In 1965, at a moment when this idea stood at its highest in the political imaginings of the people, a relatively known Kenyan author by the name of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o published one of the most important post-independence novels.