Factually! with Adam Conover - Africa is Not a Country with Dipo Faloyin

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Why is one of the most populous, diverse, interesting places on Earth barely covered in the media? Why isn’t the most violent conflict on Earth barely discussed in the US? And where do common stereotypes of Africa come from? Today, Adam is joined by author Dipo Faloyin to display the common misconceptions and explore the incredible dynamism and historical richness that exists in the biggest continent on Earth. Pick up a copy of Dipo’s book Africa Is Not a Country at http://factuallypod.com/books Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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So if all of that sounds good, if you want a big box of delicious snacks like this for yourself, use the code factually for $15 off your first order at Bokksu.com. That's code factually for $15 off your first order on Bokksu.com. I don't know the truth. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. Yeah, but that's alright. Yeah, that's okay. I don't know anything. Hello and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me once again as I talk to an incredible expert about all the amazing things that they know that I don't know, that you might not know. Both of our minds are going to get blown together and we are going to have so much fun doing it.

Now, I want to remind everybody, first of all, that I am on tour. If you live in Raleigh, North Carolina, well, come and see me next weekend from the 17th through the 19th of November. I'm at Good Nights Comedy Club. I would love to see you there. Tickets are available at adamconover.net. And of course, if you want to support this show,

if you want to listen to this show ad-free, then head to our Patreon. Just go to patreon.com slash adamconover and you can get every episode with no ads. You can join our community discord. We would love to have you there. Please come join us. Just five bucks a month. Now let's talk about this week's episode. You know, it's funny. We've done a lot of episodes of this show over the years, a few hundred in fact, and yet we have done zero episodes that are about the continent of Africa. Zero. That's kind of weird when you think about it because, you know, Africa, first of all, is a wildly interesting place with

tons of fascinating stories, but it is also a place with over a billion people, 2,000 languages, 54 different countries, and 20% of all the land on Earth. So the fact that it's been left out of the show thus far is, I'm going to say it's pretty egregious. I mean, this place is the literal, actual birthplace of all humanity, and yet a lot of us in the media, including myself, tend to give it short shrift. Let me give you an example. If you were to ask an average American about where the most violent, ongoing conflict on Earth is right now, they'd probably say the war in Ukraine, right? Because that is the war that has been filling our television sets endlessly

for the last nearly a year. But that would be wrong. The most violent conflict on earth right now has been the civil war in Ethiopia. Half a million people have been killed in fighting between the Ethiopian government and forces from the Tigray region. But you know, that doesn't get coverage on the news, and as a result, almost none of us even know about it. And when Africa does get covered here, American and European media tends to put it in a nebulous, otherized background. You know, it's diminished as being a place of poverty, with wonderful animals, wonderful wildlife, but with no economy, that's constantly politically unstable.

It's like this very specific, narrow view of an entire continent that again is made up of more than a billion people, 54 countries, and many, many different kinds of ways of life. This tendency to diminish and dismiss Africa is part of a legacy that stretches back from slavery to colonialism. It's an artifact of the many negative things that Western countries have frankly done to populations in Africa.

And we perpetuate them when we continue to tell those stories in such a narrow way. So today, we are going to try to get past that legacy and fill in some of our own blind spots and learn something about this incredible part of the world that we have never covered on the show before. I am intensely curious about it, and I hope you are too. And if you are, you're going to love this episode. Our guest today is incredible. His name is Dipo Falian, and he's the author of Africa is Not a Country, Breaking Stereotypes of Modern Africa. Please welcome Dipo Falian.

Dipo, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you today. So you have a new book out called Africa is Not a Country. I'm really excited to talk to you about the continent of Africa. I often start my interviews by asking what the biggest misconception is about the subject matter. I think in this case, though, it's right in the title of your book that Africa is not a country, but can you unpack that a little bit for us? Yeah, for sure. I think if you ask most people to close their eyes and picture Africa, they'll think of two things, either poverty or safari with nothing in between. You know, they imagine that most two things, either poverty or safari, with nothing in between.

You know, they imagine that most of us kind of sit around, you know, around small huts, waiting for the West to deliver another aid package. Or they imagine that, you know, we all grew up with lions and tigers in our backyards. And unfortunately, that's a myth that has endured now for generations and generations. You know, I've been talking to school kids as part of the book release, and hearing them kind of repeat many of the stereotypes that so many generations of people have grown up with

can be incredibly disheartening. And so the aim of Africa is Not a Country is to push back against those harmful stereotypes, to tell a more real and comprehensive story of the continent, one that shows a region of 54 countries, 1.4 billion people, and over 2,000 languages, amounts to a lot more than just, you know, poverty or safari. Yeah, 1.4 billion people is an enormous number. That's a huge portion of the world's population. And that's a huge number of nations and ethnic groups and cultures. So how do you even start covering such breadth in the book?

Yeah, so the book goes from, it sort of switches between the historical context, so how we got to where we are today in terms of modern Africa. The important thing to remember is that Africa is largely, as we know it today, by the design of colonialists who came in to a land that they didn't really know. All they knew was that it was full of incredible natural resources. And they plundered and they took, and they designed all these borders in these modern countries. And that context is often missing.

The chaos that was caused in the pain and destruction that was caused by colonialism. And the damage that that did isn't taught in many schools and isn't something that most people understand. You know, if you ask most people about, you know, what the Berlin Conference was and how that was put together, they sort of, you know, look at you sort of blankly. the creation of modern Africa and the creation of this myth around Africa being a region of just poverty and uncivilized people who have no ability to look after themselves. And it goes through sort of how each individual country was formed, but also how this myth has endured, and largely through popular culture, through films and in books, and through charity campaigns.

So that's really where the book kind of switches between what happened historically and how a lot of that myth is maintained today. Yeah, well, let's tell some of that story. I mean, you talk about the Berlin Conference in the book, you just mentioned it. What was the Berlin Conference and what effect did it have? Yeah, so in 1884, the main colonial powers met in Berlin to discuss their plans to colonize Africa. Each individual country had sent, you know, explorers into the region who had discovered a truly wonderful land, a place of incredible natural resources, of developed communities, of technologically advanced people.

And they wanted, plainly speaking, they wanted that for themselves. Now, their greatest fear wasn't for the lives and livelihoods of the Africans who actually lived there. They were worried that if they simply just went into the land, that they would start a war with each other, fighting for scraps of someone else's land. So they decided to meet in Berlin.

No representatives from Africa were there, obviously. And they decided to hash out a plan and set some ground rules as to how the colonization of the continent would actually happen. And the first thing they had to do was come up with a story because as it is today it was then you know it was illegal to do this you couldn't just go and steal someone else's land um so they agreed on this myth and they would repeat this myth time and time again and the myth myth was that Africa was a place of savages, of uncivilized people who couldn't look after themselves, who needed the West to come in and rescue them with what they refer to as the three C's, which was Christianity, commerce,

and civilization. This was all agreed upon by these Western powers. And, you know, that would be their justification for doing something that was illegal by international standards back in 1884. And so that was the beginning of this myth that is endured up until today. And the second thing they had to do was come up with an actual strategy. You know, how would they actually go in there

and take land without getting into wars with each other? And so they came up with a procedure that basically meant that you had to prove that you had conquered a piece of land and show that to the rest of the colonial powers. And, you know, as we know now today, you know, much of that conquering was done by force. And that's where the stealing of the land and the creation of these modern countries that were created against the will of Africans began. When you say, I mean, there's so much there. When you say this happened in 1884, correct? That's relatively recent. That's less than 150 years ago that this happened. And obviously, Africa had thousands and thousands of years of history before that, but also hundreds of years of European exploitation. I mean, the slave trade began when the 15th, the 16th century, somewhere around there.

And so what was different about this moment in the late 19th century from all those previous centuries of exploitation by European powers? You had a point where I think, firstly, the development of weapons that would make it easier for them to colonize the region. I think previously they felt like they didn't have enough of an understanding of different regions to colonize it successfully. But you got to the point where a number of these colonial powers had developed pretty sophisticated weapons and artillery that they felt like they felt pretty confident that the local population would not be able to stand up against them. And that was really, you know really probably the biggest catalyst that came around sort of 1870s and 80s. The exploration had become more free-flowing.

So instead of kind of people had traded with very, very specific regions for a long time, but there was more curiosity as to what else is there in this land that we've never been to before. There was more curiosity as to what else is there in this land that we've never been to before. And that curiosity led to new discoveries. And that new discoveries led to people deciding that, you know, they wanted to take it for themselves. And that was really what sparked the interest among a number of these colonial powers. And by colonial powers, you know, we mean the uk france belgium spain italy um interestingly the us was also invited to the berlin conference but um showing surprising restraints the us said this doesn't seem quite right um and bowed out um wow the first and last

time that's ever happened which which really kind of goes against the U.S.'s track record on these sort of things. But yeah, it was something that they felt more confident than ever that they could pull this off. And they very much did. This also seems like a very advanced form of colonialism that, you know, maybe a couple centuries prior, they're fighting each other the French and the Spanish are fighting each other at sea or whatever over trading routes but at this point they've been doing this long enough

where they're like hey guys let's not have a war let's just divvy this up we know we can go in and take this and so no need to fight amongst each other boys let's do this in a civilized way so So they started what, just carving up the continent and this what created the nations that we see today.

Exactly that. They turned up. I mean, you know, many of these many of the leading representatives of these largely European nations would actually never themselves go to Africa. largely European nations would actually never themselves go to Africa. They sent explorers into the region. They hired local companies, local companies run by, you know, Brits and Belgians and the French, people who had sort of set up camp there to do a lot of that work for them. But, you know, a lot of that was incredibly rough, not really thought through.

You had people kind of just saying oh one border starts around where i'm standing now and goes about 50 miles that way and they'd call the french and say is it okay if we come about 50 miles that way and the french would say yeah that sounds about right and then we'll go another 100 miles west and and if you look at map of africa you you can see that work you know it's just straight lines lots and lots of straight lines about 30 percent of all african borders are just straight lines um and that carved up and split about 10 percent of all ethnic groups so consistently across the continent you have um people who speak the same languages, have the same traditions, have the same histories split between countries. They, in the case of the British,

they created a system called divide and rule. And they created these comically large countries, which had a multitude of different ethnic groups who spoke a multitude of different languages. So for example nigeria where my family is from you have you know well over 200 300 400 languages in this one country um and they did that specifically to make it harder for you know local populations to come together and fight off and organize and and so this this was this was this was really organized

work um and the aim wasn't you know to create countries that could be successful in the future. The aim was to deliberately instill chaos, to make it hard for them to fight back while they plundered this land and while they ensured that they could take from it whatever they could. Right. They're not trying to set up a country that's set up for success in the long term. They're trying to set up a client state that they can extract as much resources as possible from. And so there's an incentive then to create a state that is unstable because, hey, it's made up of groups that have their own history and their own history is maybe not friendly with each other, at least not cooperative. And that's diabolical to do that. Yeah, exactly. These countries were built to fail. And it's something that, you know, when people talk about African countries and they talk about, you know, why some countries

not as economically developed or politically developed, and why, you know, why some countries not as economically developed or politically developed, and why, you know, does there seem to be all this conflict? That side of the story is never discussed. It's the realities of what was created during colonialism and the deliberate chaos that was introduced to what was a region that had, you know, prior to that, everything and anything, you you know it had large successful advanced kingdoms it had smaller nomadic tribes it had um you know rural areas

urban areas everything that exists everywhere else in the world um and it was thriving and and the european powers recognized that it was thriving and said, you know, we'll go take some of that for ourselves and introduced this chaos. But the reality of that introduction isn't something that is acknowledged. And so instead that the myth of, you know, Africa is a land of uncivilized people, people who can't look after themselves, of people who need saving by the West has endured up until today. I actually want to ask you a lot more about what Africa was like pre-colonialism, but we have to take a really quick break.

We'll be right back with more Depot Fallion. Okay, we're back with Depot Fallion talking about Africa. So you just said right before the break, it was so intriguing to me that, you know, before these colonial powers came in, before the Berlin Conference, that Africa was a continent that had so many different types of civilizations that were thriving. I just wondered if you could tell us, give us a little bit of that picture in terms of what it, in terms of what it looked like and what was happening there before all of this interference from colonial powers.

Yeah, one of the things that I really enjoyed about the process of research in this book is reading about, you know, many of these, many of the regions and what existed before colonialism in these incredible kingdoms you have um uh you have accounts from we talked earlier about uh you know uh like european missions that come to do trading around the region and and they went back and they wrote about you know the communities that they interacted with and traded with and they wrote about, you know, incredibly advanced kingdoms that, you know, both technologically, but mathematically, culturally, you had the kingdom of Benin, for example, the large West African kingdom that were home to these incredible artifacts, which we now known as the Benin bronzes, which... Oh, these are just in the news because there were some, there's some of these artifacts are finally being returned. Is that right? Yes. So in, I think it's the a couple of museums in New York have decided to return about 30 Benin bronzes. The vast majority of Benin bronzes have since been

stolen from the continent and taken abroad. But there's still thousands of them around the world. The British Museum alone has about 900 of them. 800 of them are in permanent storage. And, you know... Just sitting in a warehouse somewhere in England. Just sitting in a warehouse. Wow.

They never see the light of day. Only 100 of them are ever on display. And, you know, we continue to refuse to, the UK continues to refuse to want to return that, return them. And we see that replicated all around the world. And so, you know, it was acknowledged by these European nations, just the richness of African societies and communities. You know, watching the woman king out at the moment,

which speaks of the Dahomey warriors, this incredible all-female militia that existed around sort of Western Central Africa that were just this incredible force that no real other society has ever created before and since that um just this uh awesome uh not just uh not just militia in terms of fighting wars but you know they had such a huge role um politically in organizing that organizing these communities and the respect that they um the respect that they were given just

around the society these stories have been lost um and they were lost you know partly through the destruction of colonialism um but through this enduring myth that has survived until today about about africa you know when you believe africa and this this entire region to be nothing but full of, you know, people in poverty, sitting around, you know, you lose that curiosity to want to learn more about, you know, what's the history of this region? What incredible things have they created? And what incredible things do they continue to create? And so it's so, you's so you know great that you know you've asked about you know what was it like before colonialism you know what what was lost um by uh by this organized um rampage and this organized plunder of this region yeah it's you know the more i think about

it the more i realize how deeply my impressions of Africa are shaped by, you know, the history of colonialism and the way it's been presented to me. You know, I think about going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in my 20s and going and looking at, well, there's a huge Egyptian art section there and it's usually mobbed with people. there's a huge Egyptian art section there and it's usually mobbed with people. There's also just like one wing for like the rest of Africa because, because Egypt is first of all, not really usually presented to Americans as being part of Africa. It's like its own little thing. Um, but then also I remember the, the, you know, the African art section being, uh, kind of empty, like not a lot of people going through it.

And I remember having these people going, Oh my God, there's amazing things in this wing. Like I was sort of blown away by it. And, you know, quite likely I'm looking at artifacts, which should not be in New York at all. They should be back in Africa, but, you know, I still had a powerful experience with them. And, you know, the two different, so what is the difference there between Egypt and the rest of Africa as well in what the early 20th century, Egyptian artifacts were paraded around North America and Europe and made famous, while the rest of these other civilizations weren't,

in this sort of bizarre... I don't know. I couldn't speak to the historical reasons for why one civilization was paraded around, the other one wasn't. But like my own impressions of the entire continent are so shaped by that history of what became famous in North America and what didn't

and how those things are valued. Sorry, please you jump in. No, certainly I think you've made a really good point there um and often that comes from the fact that you know historically um egyptian cultures have been able to parade their own artifacts around the world and show the world and tell their own story what has been lost by the continued uh hoarding of these artifacts is the inability for most african countries to tell their own stories to the world. And so, as you described it, it's the same here in the British Museum. There is a section of the museum that's just labeled Africa. And in it, you have all these artifacts just molded in one

exhibition. And they tell such incredible stories, but they are not told on the terms of the African countries in which they belong to. And, you know, the push to have these artifacts restituted back to where they belong isn't to take them away from the West. You know, as I mentioned, the British Museum only ever has on display 100 Benin bronzes. These Benin bronzes come from West Africa. The region that we kind of now know is Nigeria and Nigeria said oh yeah you can keep the 100 you have on display if you want to

return the 800 that you don't seem to want anything to do with then that would be great and they'd love to be able to go on their own terms and say hey this is our heritage, this is our heritage. This is what we've created.

This is what we continue to create. You know, to be able to tell your own story is so incredibly powerful. And it's how, you know, we reach people. There are, and we think about it in so many different ways, not just through artifacts, but through in popular culture. There are so many people around the world who, you know, know what it's like or think they know what it's like to uh to go to school in an american high school because we've watched films about american high schools all our lives and we've listened to songs about it and we've read books about it and and you know america's able to go

and tell their own stories you know about life in new york city and in LA and in rural areas, you know, and the ability to do that is so essential. But that ability has been taken away from African countries. Even though ever since colonialism, you know, they've been saying this is wrong. This has been, you know, it's been an ongoing battle. And as you rightly pointed out, it hasn't really been that long in terms of a timeframe. You know, it's been this continued thing, but it's been incredibly, it's been an incredibly powerful tool in terms of being able to push a narrative that absolves many European colonial empires from the responsibility that they have in effectively destroying a region and forcing them to rebuild from the ruins that they created. That chaos endured right up until the independence era. And when these countries were able to eventually get their independence, they had to reckon with the chaos that had been caused. They had to, you know, look around at countries that had, you know, for decades before you had ethnic groups

that had been deliberately pitted against other ethnic groups by colonial leaders. You had these large countries of so many different languages, so many different traditions and histories, and suddenly you're one country and you're told, right do we how do we build in the national identity how do we build new traditions um how do we how do we start from scratch and this is the 1960s you know my parents are older than the country they were born in um this isn't a long time ago it's literally 60 years from start effectively starting a brand new country while the world is moving on culturally and technologically and other countries have had a huge head start. And the irony is that many European countries,

especially who had caused this damage, you know, in the years after independence, when, you know, countries initially kind of, you know, struggled to come to terms with the realities of these countries and, you you know you had ethnic tensions and civil wars you know many of these european countries then took that as an opportunity to point to these african countries and see and say i'll see you know they would be better off if we were still in charge um you know completely ignoring that they were the ones that

caused the chaos in the first place and and it introduced, it's this revolving, it's this constant kind of, you know, never-ending cycle. And so, you know, the aim of my book is to try and end that cycle now and to not have more generations growing up leaving this myth. Yeah, I mean, God, what a perverse thing to do, to go into a place and a place that is working pretty well, or at least there's a lot of happy people, there's a lot of civilizations there, thriving, and to go kick down everybody's sandcastles and plunder it and take it for yourself. And then when you're finally ejected to say, oh, look at this poor part of the world. See, they can't actually manage their own affairs.

Oh, too bad they kicked us all out, right? be better if they were there yeah you know bizarre it it's something that it and it's all the history's there it's it's not you know it's not it's not hidden in um you know it's not buried away somewhere it's all there but because you know the colonialists pushed this message and pushed it and pushed it um and and and banned a lot of this when being taught in schools um you know much of this still in in countries across europe isn't taught um and and a lot has been lost because of that um and it's it's it, this book isn't about, you know, African history. This history is the history of Europe. It's the history of the U.S.

Because, you know, much of you have a lot of people across the U.S. who are part of the African diaspora who have lost the ability to connect with specific countries because of the flattening of this entire region because of the idea that this is just one singular monolith of predetermined destinies of of of pain and poverty and strife um and the only goodness there comes from um you know comes from safari and animals and and there are great animals by the way it you know, comes from safari and animals. And there are great animals, by the way. You know, fantastic safari. I don't, in countries, they very much rely on safari.

You know, I don't, there's nothing wrong with it. I'm just saying that, you know, there exists anything and everything you can imagine. There are stories of great triumph. There are stories of great poverty. There are stories of wonderful vistas and landscapes and incredible natural resources there are cities like lagos where my family are from where you know i grew up never saw a wild

animal in my life you know that it's i i did i grew up and a city kid like kids do in london and new york and every in LA and everywhere else in the world and all these stories exist when you when you you learn about the diversity and the richness of this place you you can only be you can only be frustrated that those stories aren't aren't told around the world and people don't have that curiosity for the specificity and the diversity that exists around this region yeah the the specificity is the diversity that exists around this region. Yeah, the specificity is what, whenever I travel or whenever I learn about a place, that is what I always end up craving, is finding out, like, okay, what is the particular political history

that led this place to being the way that it is? A couple of years ago, I traveled to Hong Kong. We did a couple of episodes on this show about that place because I got really, you know, I really became fascinated by the specificity of the place. And it's the history of that one little chunk of land. I'd love to talk a little bit more about Nigeria, since that's where your family is from and because you touched on it before. So you said it was around the 60s when Nigeria finally became an independent nation. And I'm so curious about, OK, so you've got a nation that was created by a colonial power that

smushed together a bunch of groups that, you know, maybe by themselves would not have chosen to be have a line drawn around them. But when the nation wins its independence, I mean, what does it look like to then say, OK, we've got to like craft a polity, you know, a group of people who feel like they're part of a single nation? That strikes me as a very complicated project when the line itself was drawn by the people you just kicked out that you said, get the fuck out of here. But well, now we're stuck with the line that they drew right um i mean do people tell me about the national identity of what it means to be nigerian today under those circumstances how does that craft it it's it's an ongoing process it's not it's not easy you know it's as i said it's just 60 years um you you know in those early days the you still had the, there are three main ethnic groups across the country,

and dozens and dozens of smaller ethnic groups. But the vast majority of people are split between three ethnic groups. And in those early days, you know, people still organized around those ethnic groups. You know, so there was, there was a leader of the eastern region and the leader of the western region and a leader of the northern region. And so those three, you know, so there was a leader of the eastern region and the leader of the western region and a leader of the northern region. And so those three leaders would try and come together and try and, you know, start to develop a sense of what it means to be Nigerian. But that's difficult because these three ethnic groups don't speak the same languages. They don't necessarily worship the same gods. Their traditions and histories are

just completely different. And for the decades preceding independence, the British had pitted ethnic groups against each other, they'd found the most corruptible men, often military trained men, bribed them, and basically said, go and sow chaos on our behalf, and we'll pay you, basically said go and sow chaos um on our behalf and we'll pay you uh you'll become richer the more chaos you sow um and so it what you had at independence was a nation that was saying you know how do we how do we you know how do we come together how do we decide that we are you know we are one people we are nigerian. One of the challenges after independence, when most countries gained independence, was what do we do, firstly, with the physical borders themselves?

And so there was a meeting of, you know, what we now would call the African Union. They said, you know, should we just try and redraw this whole thing and work it out again? And the process of doing that is just so complicated, especially in the 1960s. And there was a fear that, you know, the larger countries would have too much of a say. And so they had to show restraint and say, you know, the rest of the world is moving on. If we try and redraw things now, will that take another hundred years to try

and, you know, get everything sorted? So it was sort of decided that, you know, years to try and you know get everything sorted so it was sort of decided that you know let's try and let's try and work with what we've got here um and and nigeria was one of those countries that as as you know the most populous nation in in in africa wanted to kind of try and set a good example so um there were you know conversations about a national language which was decided that it would be english there was was, you know, attempts to create a new national anthem that people could agree upon, new traditions, new cultures. But it was tough, hard work. You know, the British had basically made having power for you and your own ethnic group the most important thing.

And it's also something that's foreign to other countries as well you know you have a situation certainly in the uk now and you have in the us now where there is this great constant tussle for power you know there's you and your political group and another political group in this this never-ending cycle of let's try and fight for power and that was the same thing thing, you know, in Nigeria at the time. But instead of, you know, two political parties, you had a multitude of ethnic groups with their own traditions, you know, just constantly tussling for power. And in those early days, that led to, you know,

eventually led to a civil war that was, you know, incredibly brutal and tough. And this is all in my parents' lifetimes. And so you have a new nation, you have attempts to set up new traditions, you have a civil war, you have the end of the war, you have attempts to rehabilitate people back into that nation, while the rest of the world is

moving on, and then you have, you know, post-civil wars, trying to establish new forms of democracy and trying to work out which bit of democracy works for you. Initially, they tried, you know, more of a UK parliament system. They switched to something that looks a bit more like the American system now. You're just trying things out based on traditions. And it's something that looks a bit more like the American system now. You're just trying things out based on traditions. And it's something that, you know, the country is sort of finding its footing, certainly in terms of democratically over the last decade. But again, this has been an incredibly short history.

And I think when you start to, for me, when you start to explain it to people in those terms, instead of seeing African countries as they're often depicted as these sort of failed states you start to realize that actually a lot of african countries have done an incredible amount of positive work in such a short period of time to establish a new nation to establish new traditions to try and at least curtail some of those early ethnic tensions that were deliberately thrown into the nation while also contributing a huge amount around the world culturally through food and fashion and and music and film you know you have obviously you know people from africa across the whole world contributing in huge ways and and so you start to see it as actually this isn't a story of a failed region it's actually a story of an incredibly resilient group of people

who in the face of uh or who were dealt an incredibly bad hand um have in 60 years uh done an incredible amount of work to find some sense of stability. And it's not to say that it's only positive stories. There are ups, there are downs. You go two steps forward, you go 10 steps back sometimes, like every other country in the world. But to have been dealt those cards in such a short period of time and then to find some pretty solid footing in many,

in many cases, you know, is a story of broad success. Yeah. What this really makes me think about is how important those stories are. You've said story so many times. And I think about, you know, the American story, you talked about, you know, we have conflict in the United States, and certainly we do. The United States had a civil war as well, a very bloody one that killed countless people. But we don't take that as evidence of America's failure as a nation. That's part of America's great history. And part of the American story is that we are told over and over again is, oh, this is a nation created by people who, you know, got together and said, we want to create a new nation the right way. And we're all sort of choosing to be here.

And so there's a there's a great positivity to the American story. Whereas if you are told instead that your story is you're a group of people who are unable to rule yourselves and need a paternalistic intervention by a European power, or if you're told that your story is, hey, this is just a place that the Europeans came in and fucked up and left you in the ashes of, and now you're stuck with the lines that they drew, that story isn't very useful either for putting together a... No.

Yeah, but the story that you just told is an incredibly positive one and sounds like it is a basis to build from. Yeah, certainly. And I think that you have the reality of what colonialism created and then you have what these countries and groups and individuals have done to try and change that narrative up and to try and from you know the ashes create something that is is is positive and and you know you can

start to create stories and and traditions of your own which is something you know countries do consistently all the time um and you know you develop new ways of doing things and you mix some traditions um into some more um sort of you know quote-unquote modern ways of doing things um to tell new stories and and that's one of the things that you know is incredibly exciting we see at the moment um especially you know through music and things like afrobeats and i'm a piano you have these young musicians telling really exciting stories of these young countries of a young generation who are starting new traditions and and building new identities and um and and establishing new ways of dressing and talking and and you, you know, you can start to sort of do all those things. Um, and that's something that,

you know, I want for people to, to appreciate and recognize and see that, um, and I, I end the book kind of talking about younger generations and young activists and, um, young sort of pop culture stars who are, who are telling these stories and and starting um you know when you when you have a foundation and you know a lot of credit goes to my parents generation and generation before them who you know fought for independence and and had to deal with those difficult early years and try and come out of that um and then to create that sort of foundation

that you can now say right you know let's you know what can we learn from the past and what can we build into the future and people want to go out there and they want to tell these stories you know but often they are blocked um from doing that by um by this narrative that you know africa is only about one thing and that's pain and suffering yeah um you know and people want to go out there and tell the stories of their nations and what they're up to and what they're building um but, you know, when you have, you know, when you go and you click on the Africa tab on most news agencies' websites, it's all just stories of destruction rather than growth and building. And, you know, that's the sort of thing that, you know, I and many people across the region, you know, really want to change. Yeah, I want to get into more about how narrow that narrative is. But we have

to take another quick break. We'll be right back with more Deep Ophalion. We're back with Deep Ophalion. So I want to talk about how narrow our conception of the United States and much of Europe is about Africa. Because, as you said right before the break, when it comes up today, when you go click on the Africa tab of the newspaper, when you look at, you know, page A23 of the New York Times or wherever their one Africa story of the day might be, or when you look at the popular imagination, look, I'll confess to this. On my show, Adam Ruins Everything, we did 64, 65 episodes.

I think we probably did two topics that were related to Africa at all. And one was about the Tom's Shoes brand and the idea that they were giving free shoes away to people who needed them in Africa. We debunked that. We also talked about trophy hunting and misconceptions around trophy hunting. And I'm looking at that going, okay, I was doing my best to debunk narratives, but at the same time,

what are the two things I chose to talk about? Right. Like the story of poverty and deprivation and, and, you know, what we are giving or not giving to Africa in terms of material goods and, you know, animals. Right. Safari, stuff like that. And, you know, even even in my attempt to correct, I'm still falling into these, you know, this very narrow picture. And I don't know where where does that come from? And I don't know, where does that come from? I mean, even after these colonial powers have left, we're still trapped by these old stories.

Yeah, and just based on what you just said, there'll be a lot of people listening who feel like, oh, they've ingested many of these myths and perhaps they've pushed many of these stereotypes themselves themselves and the aim isn't to make anybody feel bad about you know what we we all grew up with stereotypes and and we you know often it's against our uh we just we naturally see the stuff and and it's not necessarily easy you know for people to um to to see something different when that's what's pushed on you so you know certainly not for people to look back and feel bad it's more kind of to look to the future and make sure that you know we don't keep making these same mistakes again um the interesting thing and

that's a really good question about you know the colonialism ended you know what you know independence era came in 1960s why didn't this all stop and what mainly happened after that was the myth of poverty and pain and suffering created this desire especially in the 70s and 80s to fix africa and that was done by most of the work was done by this new genre of celebrity-backed charity campaigns that found that if you put out imagery of starving children and destitute mothers and villages ravaged by poverty, and you put these really stark images out there then you could raise a ton of money very quickly you know if you simply said that you can save this life for two dollars a month um you don't have to describe who that you know who this child is on our screens you don't

have to describe the context of this disaster or what's happening exactly. You just need to say that, oh, there is pain and suffering in Africa. You have many parents who were grown up saying to their kids or people listening would have heard, if you don't finish your dinner, there are starving kids in Africa. You should finish your dinner. Stuff like that just stayed in the cultural bloodstream. And a lot of that came from these charity campaigns. You know, there were a few very successful ones.

What we now know as sort of Band-Aid, Comic Relief, Do They Know It's Christmas, which is a song that's played all the time every December here in the UK. And it's a song- What an insulting title for a song. Like, there's so much in that title. Do they know? Do they know? Yeah. First of all, do they give a shit it's a song. What an insulting title for a song. There's so much in that title. Do they know?

First of all, do they give a shit it's Christmas? Why should they care? There are more Christians in Africa than anywhere else in the world. They are certainly aware of the baby Jesus. They have an inkling that Jesus was born around the summertime. And I mean, you go through the title, you get into lyrics that say that, you know, there is no flowing water in Africa.

The only water that exists is from people's tears. Lyrics that say that, you know, the only joy that they can hope for this year is to stay alive. say that you know the only joy that they can hope for this year is to stay alive um it's it's and it's it's you know it's it's songs that are played in bars and in clubs and in parties and we we and we ingested all this stuff and we we saw it as normal that that's what took the myth from and it's for different reasons you know there are wonderful people who work in development organizations and charities who who who believe that you know, this was a ravaged region that only, you know, that desperately needed to be saved. And many African countries that were going through the process

of developing their nations wanted people to come and visit, wanted tourism industry, wanted people to come and set up businesses and move their families there and come come and do what you know most countries um require when they want to build their you know nations continue to build their nations is you know get people in to invest um but they found it incredibly difficult to do that um i'll give you you know one example from uh in the book i talk about coney 2012 um that you know i remember coney 2012 yeah you know and it was this this incredibly slick um film that depicted uganda as a country in which a warlord was just freely roaming the streets picking children up um and the only way

to save uganda wasn't to go to the ugandan government and petition them to do something about it it was to go to the u.s and the hope of the film was to raise enough awareness to make joseph coney famous that um the u.s would send troops into uganda to find joseph coney um they left out the small detail that joseph coney wasn't even in uganda um that he'd been pushed out of the country due to the work of the ugandan government and and uh local activists who had who had pushed him out they'd left all those details out but this film became the most viral almost watched film on in youtube history i think in within the within a week of it coming out and that spread around the world and the damage was done to uganda uganda in ironically

in 2012 before the film came out had been selected by uh the magazine lonely planet is the one of the uh leading tourist destinations in the world. Lonely Planet recommended people should go to Uganda. And then this film came out and tourism to Uganda, as you can imagine, completely plummeted. For the first time in about 10 years, there was a steady increase of tourism into Uganda. And after that, it just completely plummeted. And they tried so hard.

In researching the book, I didn't even realize how hard Uganda had worked to push back against this film. They had released their own film explaining the context. They'd set up these schemes in which people could learn the truth about Joseph Kony. They did an incredible amount of work to try and change the narrative that Kony 2012 had created. But it was way too late by then. And, you know, we've seen this repeated time and time again um and you know the other big uh other big driver of this has been through you know hollywood films and um that continue to show you know life in

africa is just a backdrop you know often to you know, to Americans who need to or looking to find love. And, you know, they end up in a safari park and, you know, the local Africans might help them. It's, you know, the backdrop to a sort of a sort of white savior narratives where someone comes in to to save an overrun village again from a warlord. You know, people close their eyes and they can see this imagery and they can see this stuff. And so, you know, from the question you asked about, you know, why did this continue? This is exactly why it continued.

For different reasons than the colonialists had initially, you know, the colonialists of 1884 just wanted to steal resources, you know, and that myth carried on until the 1960s. The damage they'd done created a lot of the struggles and those early, you know, the early strife and ethnic tensions and some of that early poverty. And that then pushed a further myth around, well, there is this region in the world that's suffering, we must save them. there is this region in the world that's suffering we must save them and because all people can picture about africa is you know these tiny villages and uh areas overrun by uh warlords and dictators those were the films and those are the stories that were told in books and in films and and and that you know was what was was pushed um and. And so it's so multi-dimensional, this myth that's been, and the stereotype that's been pushed, that it's a lot of work to try and say, you know, let's not do that anymore.

And let's try and paint a more realistic picture of this continent. It strikes me that a lot of the people you mentioned, the folks who made Kony 2012, a lot of the other folks who do development, et cetera, they're often trying to help sincerely. They're trying to do a good thing. I mean, we could be a little cynical about the Kony 2012 people and say, oh, they were trying to get clout. They were trying to, you know, or, you know, a foundation realizes it can make a lot of money off the backs of these images. And there can be a cynical degree to that. But this is also, you know, the reason people shared that video was because they were like, oh, no, this is terrible. I want to help out. The video is telling me I can help out

if I share the video. And, you know, it's very easy to fall into that trap without realizing that you're And, you know, it's very easy to fall into that trap without realizing that you're still, you know, looking at Africa through a very narrow lens. And it's difficult for us, you know, difficult for me here, sitting here in Los Angeles to know exactly how to break out of it. You know, I'm curious if you have advice beyond reading your book on how we can, you know, how we can, A, continue to break out of that trap, get some of that specificity, understand what is actually needed. And B, I mean, is Africa a place that could use help from folks in the United States or from Europe? That's a very big question to actually ask at the end of the conversation.

But when I look at, let me just give you an example. We had about a year ago, the head of the organization GiveDirectly, which is a charity organization that gives direct cash transfers to folks all over the world in the United States as well, but they also do it in Africa. And I've talked to them. I think

their model is pretty good, but hey, I'm not there. And I'm, again, I have my little narrow lens. So how can we do a better job of evaluating what is helpful and what is harmful? Or should we just say, hey, you know what? It's for folks other than me to decide, because I'm just some white dude sitting here in LA, you know? Yeah, no, and I'll answer the second part of your question first. Again, as I said earlier, this is a region of anything and everything. There is certainly, you know, people who are struggling, who need assistance, and who, you know, in some cases their government maybe has failed them or their community has failed them, or their community has failed them, just like anywhere else in the world. And so, you know, it's not to say

that the that, you know, there is nothing, there's nothing wrong, no bad thing has ever happened here. Stay out. It's just to say that these instances, when you look at them, you should think of them in the way you would think about them in, you know, the US, you know, if there's a specific crisis, there was, you know, I think, recent hurricane in Florida, I believe. And you'd make and you talk about that specifically, there's a challenge in Florida right now due to this, And here's the context and here's what's needed. And here are organizations on the ground that are trying to help. And we know of it.

We didn't just say, oh, the whole of America is overrun by natural disaster and everyone is suffering. The most important thing I can say is get as incredibly specific as possible. important thing I can say is get as incredibly specific as possible. And that specificity will more often than not lead you to groups on the ground who have been working for a long time in helping or trying to develop either their own communities or, you know, communities dealing with a specific problem. And so I think that specificity is always really key here, you know, find out about, you know, exactly what the the crisis is you know the big criticism about do they know it's christmas is that it described the whole of africa as being overrun by this pain and suffering and and that's incredibly unhelpful in certain cases

you know some countries might say oh we have development issues but we think we're going to solve that by this you know incredible uh tourism push that we have planned for the next five years and what we want is for people to come and visit you know and maybe you might think so oh okay cool you know that sounds good let's go and visit it looks great you know or it might be to you know they're looking to a specific charity is just looking to raise money to build a school or build out you know some infrastructure that his that um you know perhaps was damaged by natural resource and so i would always just say in these cases it's it's if you are of good heart and and mind and body and soul to try and be as specific

as possible and not to another frustration that many people have is you know you don't want to be used as as props you know and i think think often the way in which these images are shared, often these, you know, the people in poverty are used as props to raise money. to say that they want to just go to Africa to help and they'll go into perhaps maybe a homeless shelter or something and you find that very quickly they've taken photos of people and they've popped it on their Instagram. They're surrounded by happy kids of them in the middle and they've taken a selfie with them and they've just thrown it on their Instagram as if it's normal. You know, it's the sort of behavior that you would never do

in a homeless shelter in LA. You know, you wouldn't just walk in and go to someone and say, can I just take a photo and then post it on Instagram? Or pick up a child roaming around and say, and take a photo of them and post it online. You know, that would be seen as very strange behavior. So, you know, it's often just think about, you know, how would you attack this problem in your own country um and then from there um

you know use those same skill sets to to to to look to help where you can if you think you can um and in terms of kind of like resources as well um obviously reading my book is key um but there are so many great writers and um you know nollywood it's a really great film industry across west africa that's the nigerian film industry nigerian film industry yeah um and in through uh you know that there are there are so many uh great out there for, for people. And I would, I would just try and, you know,

when you think about Africa, try and go down to what, what country am I really thinking about? What, what region am I, am I, am I curious about? And I think that curiosity will certainly lead to,

will lead to you kind of addressing it in more specific ways. Deepo, thank you so much for that. That's a wonderful answer to my very long, complex question. That was a really good question. I really like that. Oh, good. I'm so glad. That was a wonderful note to end on. The book is called Africa is Not a Country.

You can get it at our special bookshop, factuallypod.com slash books, or wherever else bookshops are sold. Do you have our special bookshop factuallypod.com slash books or wherever else bookshops are sold do you have a favorite bookshop depot um books are magic in brooklyn in cobble hill is a really really great bookshop they've they've shown a lot of love so if you are listening to this and you are in uh brooklyn go to books are magic but i am happy for you anyone to buy this book from their independent bookstore. Go ahead and support local bookstores. But yeah, shout out to Books of Magic in Brooklyn.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Depot. Can't thank you enough. Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a great conversation. Well, thank you once again to Depot for coming on the show. If you want to check out his book, Africa is Not a Country, head to factuallypod.com slash books.

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