Do We Have Low Self-Esteem?

I’m a member of an email group that is mainly for Tanzanians living in Columbus, Ohio. As such, I do receive communication from other members. I get all sorts of messages – folks promoting their businesses, baby shower announcements, bridal shower announcements, birthday party announcements, misiba announcements, etc. Occassionally, political agendas, which are typically followed by a lengthy debate, would surface.

I love it though. It keeps the community flowing.

So a few days ago, one of the members forwarded the following message. I will let you in on it:

--------------------------------
Kenya Airways na Ubaguzi

Couldn't help but wonder about the way the Western Media cover the KQ crash. Look at the following quote from cnn.com:

"The people on board included one American, five Britons, one Swiss, one Swede, six Chinese, and 15 Indians. The remainder were Africans, including at least 35 from Cameroon and at least nine from Kenya, according to airline figures."

So, the most important passenger was the American, followed by the Europeans, the Asians, the Southeast Asians, then the rest were just Africans.

Hey, doesn't matter that Africans comprised of the majority of the passengers in the fateful flight. The western media! Prejudice never fails to show its face.
--------------------------------

You know, you could read the above message and sympathize with the writer if you elect no to exercise your mental muscles. In a very simplistic, African-politically-charged thinking, the above statements appear to make sense. Nevertheless, the above statements, which could have very well be given by any African politician, is just an expression of an epidemic of low self-esteem or inferiority complex that has engulfed the minds of most Africans, particularly when it comes to the way they view themselves relative to the Western counterparts. In my opinion, that is very pathetic and very sad.

So this is the deal, lets get deeper a little bit. Didn't the quote say "according to the airline figures"? Why can't we assume that this was the Kenyan Airways own presentation instead of going into the West vs. poor Africans card? Besides, don't we, as Tanzanians, tend to group all white folks into wazungu group and not according to their nationalities? Isn't true that the rest of the victims in the plan crash were Africans?

The western media is trying to communicate with the western audience - which still believes that Africa is one country. Read Tanzanian own reporting. Their focus wasn't on any other persons, but a Tanzanian soldier onboard the plane. Just read the Guardian’s article to prove my point.

If the Tanzanian media chose to focus on a Tanzanian citizen onboard the plan, why then would any Tanzanian cry foul when the Western media is highlighting their own?

News is supposed to be relevant to the audience. If you understand the Western audience, you can get where the using the general term Africans come into play. I come across American folks, both white and black, who have no clue where Tanzanian is located on the map. Some would actually want to verify whether Tanzania is an island in Australia!

We can surely criticize the Western media in some other instances, but that does not preclude us, as Africans, from being practical. If anything, this was (at best) an overly political reaction. The worst-case scenario, which I believe is the underlying psychological truth, is that we have a very, very, very, low self-esteem when it comes to the way we compare ourselves to the wazungus.

And that is just very sad. Isn’t that circling back to the idea of how one’s mindset affects they way they view life and themselves?

Photo credit: Mjengwa