Telling the African Story: Komla Dumor at TEDxEuston

good evening everyone as you've been so kind as to introduce me my name is Camila Duma I work for BBC News usually when I say that people either get very upset or they become very excited working for the BBC is is quite an experience and I enjoy what I do and we're here to talk about challenging conventional wisdom about Africa and the coverage of Africa of course but before we get into those issues I want to give a shout out to my people who are here anyone from Nigeria here right fantastic arise o compatriots there troz Nigeria's to solve our father with love and strength and be the labor of our hero's fashion in vain to side with heart and my one major mound in freedom he said unity now I know there are other nationalities here I'm a gun in by the way but then again judging from the immigration trends I might as well you know and that applies to just aware but I often get mistaken as a Nigerian and I look I'm incredibly proud to be a gunny and my grandfather composed Ghana's national anthem but in 1957 in 1957 when Nkrumah said to my grandfather who was a music teacher at the time now we need a new national anthem my grandfather wrote Ghana's national anthem however my mother tells me she's gone now but mommy tells me that there was a day they were in a shop called Leventis I don't think that still works in here yeah and grandpa was singing another song and she asked him daddy what's this song for and he said oh I'm writing a song for Nigeria when they become independent the point he was making is that these borders and these nationalities and these things that we hold so closely are slowly beginning to become less and less important and if you're from South Africa Tanzania K don't worry I do the same thing everywhere else I know but the truth is that it happens all the time everyone thinks I'm a Niger and I walk into you know TM Luana you know oh yeah we've now moved to Hackett it's Hackett yeah it happens fairly frequently I mean I'll tell you the best the best I think I thought you were Nigerian story was I was at the I was at the Dorchester a good friend of mine wonderful woman called and Lenny government did it works in Ethiopia set up the commodities exchange they said come come over there's an event here I need an escort and I said I know Pro and by the way if I escort I mean the African version I mean African escort as in I was escorting her so now you know so I was escorting Elena who's a fantastic woman and when I was there I met another woman who I truly admire and I've always looked forward to interviewing and that's the Nigerian finance minister Ngozi okonjo-iweala amazing lady so I walk up to madam and gauzy and said hello madam I'm coming up from the busy she looked at me said Oh hola how are you I said I said I said I said hey you know excuse me ma but you know I'm from Ghana she said really and you're so confident I'm not the three stories okay okay I'm a few friends who were there hey you know and you would think for a minute I wasn't I wasn't too sure whether to feel insulted or but she meant it in a good way and it's so funny that you know a few weeks later I was doing a sit down with Baba general of us enjoys you know him and I narrated this story and then he paused and looked at me and said and what's your problem so I take it from all sides but you know I am a gun and very proud to be one but because of what I do increasingly it's become less and less important for me over the past two-and-a-half years I think I've had possibly the best job at the BBC I was hosting a program called Africa Business Report every week for two and a half years I'll travel to a different African country doing exclusively stories about business opportunity entrepreneurs as a result I have a lot of air miles but I also have even as an African a better understanding of the continent that I come from I can travel to VIN Hook suaq of munch Mar puto Luanda and I have people have friends there and I have a better understanding of the continent so how does that translate into how the BBC or international media cover Africa let's begin talking about Africa has become I think quite popular these days everyone's kind of coming to the party even though some of the people have the party already knew the party was there it's the kind of started you know but everyone's kind of like yeah you know Africa's you know so there's the Economist sometime last year there's Time magazine this year with the same headline you know quite original but there comes a point in every professionals career or anyone who's dealing with Africa that they realized that it's not the same and the story cannot be told in the same way and this book in there you can see me posing on the cover written by a good friend of mine called Charles Robertson and you know this is this really distills all the information about Africa and things and it's the great cover as well but really contains a lot of detail about how Africa is changing this is where it happened for me 2009 that's a diamond worth several hundred thousand dollars I was in Botswana empty building not much going on there was called the diamond hub walked around you know Botswana is the biggest producer of gem diamonds you know that but the dilemma facing Botswana in many African countries is you produce these raw gem diamonds make 4 or 5 billion a year from sales but the diamond industry itself is 50 60 billion dollars a year so these raw diamonds get shipped to Antwerp into Asia and the get cut and you know rich Nigerians go and buy the diamonds and somewhere in London or wherever it may be so there's your diamond hub this man is dr. Aqualung Tom Bally he was the head of the diamond hub and I went there to interview him and that's what he told me he said we are teaching our people how to cut diamonds that's what we're doing right now teaching our people and they're they are learning how to cut diamonds and this was the beginning just a few months old the diamond hub hmm fast forward to this year did anyone see the story in The Financial Times about De Beers and yeah okay well I'll tell you because it kind of slipped under the radar De Beers has moved its trading operation - how about Oney did you know this well I was on the BBC so so it brings me to another interesting point before we get to this there's always that moment when you realize that no no no no no Africa things are really going on I have a great friend his name is Sebastian Sebastian works in South Africa for multinational bank and every time I'm going to South Africa call up Seb and we were roommates in college he chose a different path so I call up Sebastian and Sebastian says what time will you be in and I'll say oh you know I'll be in you know nine o'clock virgin fly blah blah blah and I get there and there's a brand new Mercedes waiting and you know drive off to his place in some gated community in Sandton and then Sebastian calls me and says come on coming to London oh oh yeah Brill he arrives at the airports and I say take the Heathrow Express and then the Bakerloo line and you know but the best part is recently sometime this year and said is doing incredibly well and step calls me up and says come block today below so what's the problem what's the problem I thought things were going great this man boy you want to transfer me to London and that's a true story but increasingly you're finding African professionals who really they're building fantastic lives and opportunities on the continent and what London used to be is not necessarily it's not the same anymore so Seb comes to visit and that has a good timings off and I think for many professionals here you can relate that you are no longer limited to working in the city you are now talented and capable enough to work anywhere in the world including in Africa and the reason why it's so important is because all of you have what I call institutional knowledge or what my good friend had meant at least two set calls says you've tasted the dust in the alleyways so you know how to get around and so it brings me to my point in 2012 and beyond whether your international media or your business professional how must things change in terms of how you cover the content and there's my point number one there has to be balance or what I say please don't patronize me okay where's that I've given enough props to Nigeria it's been this another what do you think this is okay I'll tell you this this is Luanda yeah that's Luanda that's Angola that's low end as well hmm however that's also Luanda less than five kilometers away from those parts all those expensive restaurants this is this is Luanda to the question I say oh I I put to you is what story should you tell yes there's a lot of good news about Africa but there has to be balance and all of you recognize when you're being patronized when you're being told things are perfect when they are not everybody wants balance so in this case if I'm going to Louanna to talk about economic growth hitting ten percent over 10 years and welfare I have an obligation to tell this story as well I'll tell you about this lady I did an interview with her to ask her about you know Angola's economic growth and stuff and she said well to give you this interview you have to do something for me and I was thinking I'm gonna have to pay or something and you know we don't want a lot to do that but she came up with a better idea you know she spends two hours there fetching water so she gave me a wheelbarrow as punishment so so I ended up in exchange for the interview I had to fetch water for a few hours so point number two when in doubt ask an Africa expert ah is one of my favourite ones who really is an africa expert how would you feel if you're watching me on telly one morning and you know good morning my name is kolmad Du Monde you're watching BBC news coming up this morning we're going to have the latest from Syria where the rebels are on the offensive conflict in Egypt etc etc and we are going to speak to an expert on haggis that's autosh dish that everyone loves and how it affects cholesterol so we get to the haggis interview and I said yes and so you know research is showing the haggis this tastes great by the may affect your blood pressure etc etc let's turn now to our haggis expert that's University of my career it does seem a bit odd though but would you have the same reaction if I said we're going to talk about an African story and we had an expert from Washington or from London so ask an expert this guy is one of my favorite people his name is Kasim Kyra nobody knows the Great Lakes like Cassie Kasim what is the impact of the m23 taking go Maxime starts firing Cosima you know can the rebels move beyond toys ki shaza thing starts fire because he knows the place he's from there he understands speaks two languages Kasim wooden hmm you know King I'll make something up like you know what it Kagame out for breakfast okay well you know let me call my contacts you know he can do that but the fact of the matter he is he knows it and please please please respect your audience by saying well you speak the native tongue does not make you an expert I have what I call the sua test I was telling I mean about if you say you're an expert on Nigeria my next words on Legos and ask you where do you buy tsuya and you tell me echo hotel Oberlin Diaby who's an Africa expert if I want to talk about the impact of trawling of fishing on the West African coast this guy is the chief fisherman in Freetown of the Freetown Coast he'll be in a better position to tell me about the impact of deep trolling would be fishing on the coast there's another you see you know what I like about this lady when when she comes on air on BBC and you ask you know roll okay you know real lucky how do you think that you know trouble in the Delta all the impact oil and then she'll start speaking phonetics in and after she's done that we go out of the studio and she's like oh boy how now she's great is that's a linear Africa commodities expert as you Africa child care expert but here's your final point and we've gotten to this really hire the best talent to tell the story or the view is great from my hotel so I call it the view is great for my hotels any correspondent or any organization can fly in some star and they'll land in there and tell you what's happening by looking out of their window but then there are those who actually know the place there's Allen kasuga on our news day program there's lerato and Bailey wonderful she's with us now that's Elina KKK BBC now has Swahili on television hire the best the brightest the best-looking but the fact of the matter is this and this how I'm going to close the biggest single audience for the BBC is Africa so no one's going to have to tell you that you have to present programs that address the needs and the interests of an African audience and that's what we've been doing we launched focus on Africa television a few months ago it's been wildly successful the numbers are impressive not just in Africa but what's exciting is that the numbers are massive around the globe and we're very proud of that but I'll leave you with a thought which actually comes from my days on radio you know Network Africa was one of the first programs I presented and we used to have a proverb of the day and people were sending these fantastic programmes and one of my favorite ones and you can take it as you like and you know interpret it as you feel the narrative will always glorify the hunter until the line itself learns how to write or you could see it slightly differently until the line learns how to write every story will glorify the hunter it's not so much about what the international media does but what you write about yourself thank you very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 610,314

Rating: 4.8711238 out of 5

Keywords: bbc, tedxeuston, focus on africa, african stories, tedx talks, ted, ted talks, ted x, tedx, london, ted talk, tedx talk, komla dumor

Id: DfJn8HCKO8g

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 28 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/YOUREABOT]

RIP Komla, you achieved so much as such a tender age. We will surely miss you mate.

[u/AXEL312]

Could listen to him forever. Such a charismatic speaker.