Of Africa

It is hard to formulate an adequate response to Africa.  Especially on the basis of a one-week strip to The Gambia.  At first sight this tiny tongue of land in the bulge of western Africa seems negligible.  And yet for various reasons it is probably a remarkably faithful synecdoche for the continent.

First, like Africa itself, The Gambia is not one nation; the concept is not even particularly meaningful.  Its border are arbitrary, roughly defined by the course of the river Gambia.  Mandinka speakers form the largest group in the population, except in the capital where Wolof predominates.  But other languages and associated tribes abound, including the Fula, Jola, Sarahuleys and Aku.  The muslim religion provides another strand – and language.  But Christianity and paganism flourish alongside it, further blurring neat categorisations.  The Gambia’s history as a British colony has added many elements to this heady cultural brew, as has the extensive trade with francophone Senegal, which provides many of the country’s luxury goods and even its television service.

The second reason for The Gambia’s unexpectedly representative position is partly geographical, and partly historical.  Its position on the coast coincides with the start of the main Trade winds across the Atlantic, and the broad navigable river Gambia provided the perfect means of transport and point of embarkation for slaves en route to the American colonies.  As a result, it developed into one of the main slaving stations.  It is not so surprising therefore that Alex Haley in his seminal book Roots should have traced his putative ancestors back to The Gambia.  As a result, the country has assumed a tremendous symbolic importance for America, and hence the modern world: it has enacted the tragedy of Africa.

The Gambia is also an effective introduction because it presents such a telling contrast to anything in the Old or New Worlds, and hence is truly of the Third.  It is desperately poor; its people for the most part eke out a bare subsistence agriculture from the unforgiving land.  There is no local industry, and the nearest thing the country has to exports are a few peanuts and what souvenirs the tourists take home with them.  Disease is a real problem.  Apart from yellow fever, typhoid, cholera and polio, there is malaria, which affects many of the population.  All too often a young and bright Gambian will shiver, sway slightly, and halt in his or her discourse.

And yet for all these outward tokens of the continent, the multiplicity of cultures happily co-existing, for the bright and exotic colours of the dress and the thrilling music and dance, the people remain an enigma.  Their inscrutability in the face of the alien Westerners makes the Chinese look extrovert.  For all that we gain by visiting this rich and generous country, what we take out of Africa is ultimately a sense of how little we know, and also a sense of what we left.  Back home as we travel along dustless made-up roads, past neat suburban houses peeping out from behind prim and proper shrubbery, we can begin to see our world with new eyes.  Perhaps this is the only valid response which we can make to something as huge and unknowable as Africa.

(15.3.86)

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