Echoes of a Failing Continent

Could a change in upbringing transform the future of leadership? The poem questions whether African-born leaders can truly break the cycle of failed governance.

Attitude is shaped by what we see as we grow
What we are told, what we are shown and what we know

When I see the movies for Africa I see a jungle
I've lived my whole live in Africa and have
never seen a jungle
Yet there on the TV I see the jungle
They call it Africa, the place where I've lived

When I see the movies for Africa I see poverty
It's as though the entire continent is wrecked in calamity
Since childhood I never knew there were slums overseas
Until I reached here and was astonished

I thought the poverty was limited
only to the people of my continent
I didn't know incivility and inferiority
also existed in other continents

When I see the movies for Africa I see illiteracy
Posterity now believes in the legacy
They think Africans are the most inferior race
And when they cannot speak others' tongue
They are considered illiterates

Why do you polish your skin with black dye to look African?
Who told you Africans are all as black as dye?
People spoil their beauty to fit into stereotypes
They act movies showing their own bad sides
Why do you wash your dirty linen outside
When the other races conceal theirs?

"Your child will learn from what you show him.'
And dictators grow to enforce what they've seen

"We are inferior," they think. "Let's do inferior things."

And they will go on
and do inferior things:
Mbasogo will ruin rather than build
His brain covered and nuked in puke
He is the dictator being misled by your stereotype
"We are inferior," he thinks. "Let's do inferior things."

If Mbasogo would grow up in England
He would rule England as an Englishman
With white mentality of superiority
Civility and Indispensability
You will see an accountable Mbasogo
Intelligent, free of stupid stereotypes
Independent of white supremacy
Or consciousness of black stupidity
He will rule according to his instincts
"We are superior," he would think.
"Let's do superior things."

This is because attitude is shaped by what we see as we grow
What we are told, what we are shown and what we know.

© Godwin Isiwu

Author's Note

In an attempt to illustrate how our attitude can be shaped by our environment, the author talks about Africa and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea who has ruled the oil rich country for more than four decades with no good impact his long leadership have had in the ‘failed’ state: the mentality of an African, born and brought up in Africa, and how it can compare with that born and brought up outside Africa, and their leadership differences should they hold such positions. The author suggests that the later would do so better in leadership than the former due to the attitude of the people surrounding him while he grew. Therefore, in a wider context, the poem suggests that should we change the way we show the world to our offspring, posterity will come to behave in an entirely different way than usual. And if we merely begin to view things from a different perspective, our entire attitude and the whole world— as we know it today— will change dramatically.