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King Charles in Kenya, Senegal vs water sachets, Africa at Xi’s BRI party͏‌  ͏‌  ͏‌  ͏‌  ͏‌  ͏‌ 
 
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October 15, 2023
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Africa

Africa
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Yinka Adegoke
Yinka Adegoke

Hi! Welcome to Semafor Africa Weekend. The idea of fixed narratives seems to be particularly powerful when it comes to discussions around Africa. The 2009 “Danger of a Single Story” TED Talk by the author Chimamanda Adichie captured this so well for many of us, especially those of us who had come up in newsrooms which often defaulted to these narratives when it came to Africa. As Adichie said, “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”

We’ve seen that happen often with little thought given to its consequences. It’s not just that there are outdated stereotypes and stories of poverty and disaster about Africa, it’s that those are the only stories repeated over and again till they merge into the single story Adichie refers to. So when a startup or a fund manager from Kenya tries to raise money in one of the world’s major financial hubs, she is asked repeatedly about “all the coups” happening in Africa (this is an anecdote I heard recently).

This is why I’ve been following the work of this edition’s Creative Thinking subject for a while: Akunna Cook, founder of Next Narrative Africa. She and her partners are trying to help a wider range of people understand the multitude of narratives and insights about Africa and its 54 countries and 1.4 billion people. We’re undoubtedly trying to do the same here at Semafor Africa.

🟡 Of course I wasn’t going to let Oct. 15 pass without acknowledging the birthday of the great Fela Anikulapo Kuti. The late Nigerian Afrobeat creator would have been 85 today. With everything going on in the world, he might have played this one with a wistful smile.

Yinka Adegoke

Who’s telling Africa’s stories?

Courtesy Next Narrative Africa

Akunna Cook is the founder/CEO of Next Narrative Africa, a media production company focused on telling stories with impact on the African continent. Its recent events have taken place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Sundance Film Festival, and the Semafor Africa Summit. Cook was previously deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Biden-Harris Administration, overseeing the development of U.S. foreign policy for Southern Africa.

💡What’s the simplest way to explain what Next Narrative Africa is trying to achieve?

Next Narrative Africa’s mission is simple — change the way the world sees Africa and Africans through media entertainment so we can build wealth and achieve economic progress. Next Narrative Africa is a multimedia production company doing three things: developing and producing entertaining African and diasporan content; building a fund and platform to support other creatives; and producing live events to support Africa’s creative industries.

💡Given your varied work as a U.S. diplomat around the world, what would you say are biggest opportunities in resetting the African narrative?

While I was in the Biden Administration, I often said that we should not only speak about African solutions to African problems, but boldly imagine African solutions to global problems. I think one of the biggest opportunities we have now is creating content that positions Africans and African diasporans as innovators, and Africa as the source of solutions to the long list of challenges facing the planet. Next Narrative Africa is particularly focused on entertaining content that showcases Africans confronting challenges including governance, inclusive economic growth, climate, gender and racial equity. We have been conditioned to believe that the solutions to these challenges must be brought to Africa and Africans by others. We can use content to challenge that false narrative.

💡 A lot of your early work has so far been in the media & entertainment space, what other sectors are you targeting?

We are a media and entertainment company so that is our bread and butter. However, we know that the creative industries include not only television and film, but also sports, fashion, make-up, gaming, and music. All these sectors are part of the ecosystem that contribute to narrative change. We also know that technology, tourism, and finance are closely related to media and entertainment, so we keep close tabs on innovations in those spaces.

Courtesy Next Narrative Africa

💡 We’re going through an unprecedented period of young Africans’ influence on global pop culture from music and fashion to social media and literature, couldn’t one argue the African narrative has never been stronger?

We cannot be satisfied with mere influence. African influence on global pop culture has always been strong, if not dominant. The urgency and opportunity in this moment is to go beyond influence to ownership, and ensure that portrayals of Africans on the continent and throughout the diaspora is authentic, diverse, and positive.

💡 What is the go-to Nigerian dish when you’re entertaining friends?

Party jollof rice with goat meat, seafood okra soup with stockfish, moi moi with corned beef and boiled eggs, beef or ram suya, asun, and fried plantain because these are my favorites, but also because there is some regional diversity in these dishes.

💡 If ringtones were still a thing, what song would be yours right now?

Flavour just headlined our Africa’s Next Narrative event at the Apollo Theater so I’m going to go with Game Changer by Flavour but a close second would be Bandana by Fireboy DML and Asake.

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Unfolding
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NAIROBI — A visit by Britain’s King Charles to Kenya starting later this month is already sparking controversy here, more than 50 years after his last visit when he met Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta.

The king’s first trip to a Commonwealth country since his coronation last year comes against a backdrop of anger among sections of the Kenyan public over the activities of British forces stationed in Nanyuki, a town in central Kenya. Britain has around 200 soldiers stationed in Kenya who train an estimated 1,000 Kenyan soldiers every year. The unresolved murder of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan woman, allegedly at the hands of a British soldier in 2012, is one key source of strong feelings. The British forces in Kenya were also accused of starting a devastating fire in a wildlife conservancy in 2021, razing over 12,000 acres of land and damaging the local ecosystem. Kenya’s parliament in August launched a probe into the conduct of the British forces following complaints from residents.

Then there’s the fact that anti-colonial sentiment remains high here nearly 60 years after Kenya gained independence from Britain. More voices are calling for King Charles to apologize for atrocities committed against Kenyans during the colonial era, when over 10,000 people were killed and others displaced from fertile lands. Kenya’s Talai clan, a sub-group of the Kipsigis community, last year sued the United Kingdom at the European Court of Justice seeking £168 billion ($204 billion) in compensation and an apology. Members of the community were brutally forced out of their lands to make way for massive tea plantations in what came to be known as the ‘White highlands’.

“We are hoping that he will bring a national apology,” Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi, daughter of the Mau Mau resistance movement’s spiritual leader, told AFP. She also wants the U.K. to help identify burial sites of Mau Mau leaders including her father who was executed by the British colonial administration in 1957. His remains have never been found. Kimathi said she hoped the king’s visit would lead to “closure.”

Notably, the British government in 2013 finalized a £19.9 million out-of-court settlement with over 5,000 Mau Mau veterans who faced torture and detention, after years of fighting to block the legal action, although some criticized the size of the payout. Then British High Commissioner to Kenya Christian Turner stated that the British government “sincerely regrets that these abuses took place.”

The British royal family, in a statement, noted that Charles would use the visit to “deepen his understanding of the wrongs suffered in this period by the people of Kenya.”

Highlighting the trip’s historical significance, the royal family also noted that the late Queen Elizabeth was in Kenya when she acceded to the throne in 1952 following the death of her father, King George VI.

Martin K.N. Siele

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Weekend Reads
Seyllou/AFP via Getty Images

🇸🇳 The streets and beaches of Senegal’s capital Dakar are littered with the discarded plastic bags used as water sachets sold by hawkers to help customers quench their thirst. For AFP, Soulé Dia reports on efforts by Senegal’s authorities to curb the sale of these sachets to reduce an increasing environmental hazard. It’s a problem that has been seen in other African countries including Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso. “This waste all ends up here (on the beach) because the sea rejects it,” says the head of an environmental protection association.

🇬🇲 Gambian lawmakers are backing a proposal to repeal a 2015 law that criminalized female genital mutilation (FGM). Under the law, a person convicted of performing FGM faces up to three years in prison, a fine of 50,000 dalasi ($758), or both. The Guardian reports that while the move is backed by religious leaders including the Supreme Islamic Council, activists and civil society organizations say it is hugely regressive with negative implications for the country.

🇨🇩 Before the Portuguese transformed slavery, Africans who were enslaved as part of local practises did not make up a permanent underclass but instead included war captives, debtors, or those banished from their home society for a serious crime. However, between the 16th and 19th centuries Portuguese traders kidnapped Africans indiscriminately and sent them to distant lands. Livia Gershon writes in JSTOR Daily that the intensified transatlantic slave trade destabilized Congo, but Ethiopia successfully staved off colonizers, becoming a symbol of African self-determination.

🇨🇲 Rising temperatures are exacerbating conflict between residents and elephants in northern Cameroon, particularly from the Waza National Park where maximum temperatures now reach 35-40°C. Nalova Akua writes in African Arguments that local human activities including deforestation, growing populations, and dam construction along rivers have led to the loss of elephant habitats and migration routes. It has also negatively affected water flow in downstream areas, increasing the likelihood of confrontations when herds are on the move.

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Week Ahead

🗓️ Africa Energy Week will welcome government ministers and company executives to Cape Town to discuss the state of the industry as the continent looks to exploit new petroleum discoveries amid calls for a green transition. (Oct.16 Oct. 20)

🗓️ African leaders are expected at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation which will be held in Beijing, marking the 10th anniversary of President Xi Jinping’s signature initiative. The BRI is described as a plan for global infrastructure and energy networks that China launched to connect Asia with Africa and Europe through land and sea. But critics argue it is a tool for spreading China’s geopolitical and economic influence. (Oct. 17-18)

🗓️ South Africa’s Competition watchdog will launch its market probe into Google and Meta (parent of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Threads) to determine whether they have disrupted the news media market to the detriment of publishers and consumers. (Oct. 17)

🗓️ The FT Africa Summit will gather business leaders and policymakers from Africa and around the world in London to discuss the continent’s challenges and aspirations. (Oct. 17)

🗓️ Rwandan President Paul Kagame will join delegates at the MWC Africa 2023 conference in Kigali to address accelerating Africa’s digital transformation. (Oct. 17-19)

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— Yinka, Alexis Akwagyiram, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, and Muchira Gachenge

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