Re-writing the African story

Four years ago, Desmond Mushi decided to do something to change the negative perception of Africa which he heard and read as a college student in the United States. He wanted to tell different and positive stories about a sprawling African reality, instead of the tales of a desolated continent. 

His fellow students at Bates College in the United States did not question the stereotypic ways Africa was portrayed, but for Desmond it reached an almost hurtful level. Once he read an article in the magazine The Economist which described Africa as “a hopeless continent”, and he felt somehow hurt. As a reaction to the negative images of the continent he called home, he created the website The African Economist with different analyses of the African reality.

“Africa is truly a continent of wars and poverty and corruption and you don’t want to ignore those particular facts, but also as an economist, I know that Africa is also a place of stock markets, high-rises and internet cafes, and this is a part that needs media attention,” Desmond says.

He grew up in the highlands of Kilimanjaro region, but when he received a scholarship to study in the United States he became aware of the way the world talked about his home. 

Today the 26-year-old writer and economist has gained his bachelor’s degree in economics from Bates College in the United States and last year he came back to Tanzania to be closer to the reality he writes about and inspires him.

Disrupting the negative images 

As an economist Desmond thinks the images and narratives of Africa matter. If investors associate Africa with poverty and desperation they will never dream of investing in businesses on the continent, he explains. Stereotypes and money are connected.

 His initial motivation with The African Economist was to make an American audience aware that Africa was something else than civil wars and famine, but then he realised that the stereotypes not only thrive abroad.

“I found out that Africans don’t know much about African countries either. For instance I was in South Africa, and the perception of Africa was very different. Some even thought that South Africa was not in Africa. Such things allowed me to think that the perception of Africa by the media has not only affected people in US and Western Europe, it has also affected Africans themselves,” Desmond says.

He remembers an incident where the South African President Jacob Zuma was quoted for saying that a South African highway was “not some national road in Malawi”, and Desmond remembers that some South Africans agreed that South Africa was fundamentally different and more developed than other African countries. But such a stand is the same as agreeing with destructive stereotypes, Desmond thinks.   

His goal with The African Economist is to create a space where young Africans can come together and express themselves and tell their own stories. 

He hopes that such a space will then again motivate more young people to think critically about African identity. The website is not meant as an income-generating project, Desmond explains, but primarily a place for critical analyses on everything from slums to skyscrapers.

From Princeton to Dar

Even though Desmond graduated from an American college, and prior to that took courses at Princeton University, Tanzania is where he feels at home. 

Since last year he has been living in Dar es Salaam and working as a Research Assistant with the think tank Economic and Social Research Foundation. In Tanzania he is closer to the reality, the stories and the people, whereas in the United States he viewed questions of African development from a more theoretic angle.

“For me to fully comprehend the complexity of the challenges that my country is facing now, I needed to be grounded. For me it is about being grounded and understanding the context. It is one thing to understand the theory which Princeton can give you, it is another thing to understand that some things must be considered in their own context,” Desmond says.

Coming home to Tanzania has made Desmond understand himself better, and he has noticed that more young people think about themselves in empowering ways as job creators instead of passive job seekers. There are challenges, he agrees, but he remains positive.

Avoiding the single story

As with his website, he tries to focus on the positive angles that are often forgotten in the midst of more depressive stories. Even though Africa faces many problems, Desmond wants to highlight that those problems do not make up the full picture. He is not oblivious to the actual problems, but to him it is about telling “the complete story”.

”One of the things I have noticed is that the media is not so interested in positive stories, and there is a certain reluctance to positive stories. 

They don’t win awards or get front pages. But having said that it is important for people to realise other things that they are oblivious of,” Desmond says.