Help, Here Comes the Back-to-Africa Crowd
My tolerance for the back-to-Africa fantasies of African Americans broke on the back of several things. First, the conservative, distorted and unabashedly patriarchal version of Islam followed by African American groups such as the Nation of Islam. Second, the reverence accorded to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie by followers of Marcus Garvey. Yes, the Ethiopians kicked the Italians out, thus achieving for Ethiopia the status of being the only African state never to have been colonised. But the Emperor represented a feudal system in which power relations were arguably as damaging as those of colonial systems elsewhere in Africa.
Help, Here Comes the Back-to-Africa Crowd
http://www.prometheus6.org/2004/02/a_reality_check_worthy_of_the_stanle…
(Article by Ms L. Muthoni Wanyeki writing in The East African, Nairobi)
My tolerance for the back-to-Africa fantasies of African Americans broke on the back of several things.
First, the conservative, distorted and unabashedly patriarchal version of Islam followed by African American groups such as the Nation of Islam. Second, the reverence accorded to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie by followers of Marcus Garvey.
Yes, the Ethiopians kicked the Italians out, thus achieving for Ethiopia the status of being the only African state never to have been colonised. But the Emperor represented a feudal system in which power relations were arguably as damaging as those of colonial systems elsewhere in Africa.
And third, a bizarre discussion I once found myself in during which some African American women - dutifully head-wrapped and beaded - were comparing notes on their respective trips back to the "motherland." When they began to assess the "authenticity" of "traditional spiritual practices" in African states as diverse as Ghana, Senegal and Zimbabwe, I walked away, too angry to speak.
Now, of course, there are new back-to-Africa variants. Those unashamedly being capitalised on by states such as Ghana and Senegal who, with their forts and other remnants of the transatlantic slave trade, target African Americans as a niche tourism market. Or those heralded by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, which sees the Diaspora as a source of finance for the continent.