Inferiority Complex
Uzodinma Iweala, author of the novel “Beasts of No Nation”, published an editorial piece in the Washington Post on Sunday. In it he recounts the experience of being “accosted” by a college-age peace activist seeking to stop the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Apparently this episode offended him. Iweala claims that the West, “wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created” in Iraq and the Middle East, has now “turned to Africa for redemption.” Iweala’s theory is that the campaigns to ‘Save Africa’ are self-serving attempts to make the campaigners feel better about themselves, while promoting stereotypes of Africans as underfed, helpless and diseased. He goes on to question whether aid to Africa is given for the ‘right’ reason, or “given in the spirit of affirming one’s cultural superiority.” In other words, white people give aid to Africa to make themselves feel better than black Africans.
Mr. Iweala, please. Let’s be real here.