Cape Town – If you were to answer the question, “What does being African mean to you?”, what would your answer be?
Was it the country of your birth that defined you as African? The colour of your skin? Traditions to which you adhere? Well, what would your answer be?
“Africa, to me, means love,” said Allen Chizungu, a Congolese national living in South Africa.
Chizungu was born in a “small, beautiful” town in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Bukavu.
He fled his hometown to escape the conflict in the late nineties and has lived and worked in South Africa for the past 15 years.
“Even though I am from the DRC, I loved Nelson Mandela, in the same way I love Martin Luther King Jr. It’s because as Africans, we love each other,” said Chizungu.
He said that this love extended to African Americans because it was someone he could identify with, specifically in terms of struggles faced.
“My brother and I went to watch the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in Camps Bay [Cape Town] and we were the only two supporting Mayweather. By the end of the match, I was on the floor in a praying position, I was so happy.”
But for all the love, Chizungu was not blinded to Africa’s challenges, namely that of leadership.
“Africa does not need selfish leaders.” he said, “Today’s African leaders love power and only think of themselves. That is why you have refugees in every country on the continent.”
Chizungu said the type of leaders needed in Africa were ones who could follow in the footsteps of Mandela and his own country’s founding father, Patrice Lumumba.
“They were not there to divide and gain; they were there to unite and that is why they are so loved,” he said.
So, Africa was love. What else? What other words could be used to describe the continent once – and often still – deemed dark and dangerous?
Adding his thoughts on being African, namely on leadership and governance issues, was one of the continent’s greatest athletes, Kenyan cyclist David Kinjah.
“When I see or here of all those very corrupt and greedy politicians across Africa, I get very sad,” he said, “It’s time Africans – especially leaders – started being responsible for their actions.”
“We must stop our destructive trends and start building for a better Africa today. So, Africa to me means responsibility,” said Kinjah.
Meli Ncube, a Zimbabwean national, said being African was increasingly becoming a burden.
“I have to migrate to neighbouring African countries in search of better citizenry and if not, I drown in foreign waters as boats full of my brothers and sisters capsize before they reach their destination.”
He continued: “The autocracy of my African leaders means that they can disregard constitutions and declare that they will stay on as president regardless of our will. If I am gay or lesbian, I have to cower in the shadows because I fear persecution for being ‘unAfrican’.”
“If I am a woman, I am marginalised and seen only as a commodity of monetary value,” said Ncube, who then apologised for being pessimistic but explained that was how he felt about the continent he called home, even with Africa Day on May 25.
Selassie Eghan-Kpanga, a 36-year-old Ghanian man born in the country’s capital Accra, offered a different perspective and said being African instilled within him a sense of pride.
“Being African for me is like my most cherished brand which I love dearly,” he said.
“My Africa I see as a place of limitless opportunities, unimaginable growth, and fantastic prospect for the future world.”
Sharing Eghan-Kpanga’s sense of pride was Eduardo Goncalves, a young man who was born in Portugal but identified as African.
“Even before I got my Mozambican nationality, I identified myself as an African, a Mozambican.”
“Mozambique was the country that saw me grow up and it is the place I call home,” said Goncalves.
Asked what made him most proud about being African, Goncalves said it was the African spirit, the warmth of the continent’s people, the sense of hope that came with being African, and the weather.
Kaylee Dobie, a 25-year-old South African who recently returned from a teaching stint in Asia, said she was proud of being African.
“My soul is African. I have always felt part of this continent, of its history, of its culture, and its knowledge base”.
Dobie said her time abroad gave her new perspective on what being African meant.
“When I met other foreigners abroad, they would automatically take to me just because I was South African,” she said.
“But when I met an African American, it would become a sensitive issue because I may have a white skin, but I was born in Africa.”
Dobie also explained that identifying herself during her tenure as a teacher in Asia was often met with confusion.
“It was like a typical ‘Mean Girls’ [movie] moment,” she said, “Students and other Asians would ask me, ‘But why are you white?”.
Another South African, civil society activist Bram Hanekom, said he was a part of the African soil.
“I am part of this soil. Even though we are going through a complicated time, we will get through.”
Hanekom was referring to the recent flare up of xenophobic violence in certain areas of South Africa.
“If I, as a white person, can walk through townships despite the history of apartheid, then I have no doubt our African brothers and sisters will soon be fully safe and comfortable here,” he said.
Hanekom, who was born in Zimbabwe to South African parents, thanked the neighbouring country for their hospitality during one of the most troubling periods in apartheid South Africa, the 1980s.
“In my childhood, I benefited greatly from the Zimbabweans who supported families seeking refuge and for that I am forever grateful”.
Hanekom said despite the continent’s challenges, he would not want to be anywhere else.
“There is no other country or continent I would want to be,” he said.
“This is where I belong, this is home.” - ANA