What does it mean to be African | Imad Mesdoua | TEDxEustonSalon

[Music] good evening I am a proud Algerian and I am a proud African what does it really mean to be African to me to all of you is it where we're from geographically speaking or where we're based is it what we wear what we eat is it the kind of music that we listen to is it based on the color of our skin for each and every one of us with any link to Africa identifying with the continent and identifying with our identity will be intimately linked to our own personal experiences that experience will be very nuanced very complex and by no means can we standardize today I want to share with all of you how I perceive my African identity it's not very easy to do and I'd like to do it by sharing my personal life story something which is also not very easy to do I have had the incredible opportunity to grow up in West Africa as a North African my parents jobs meant that every few years we had to move around from country to country and I had to follow them I didn't really have a choice before I go on let me check my privilege I know that my story is unique and I was born into a life of great opportunities privilege which not everybody gets to have and so everything I'm about to say I want to caveat it by saying it won't necessarily speak to you or apply but I do think also that this upbringing that I had give me a unique and original vantage point on understanding what it really means to be African so picture this late 90s early 2000s a short skinny nerdy-looking Algerian kid shows up in Lagos Nigeria on his first day of school in Victoria Island if you can actually believe me I looked even geekier back then and I just remember at the time just being desperate to want to fit in to a new environment that I was coming into some of you have surely experienced that at that age secondary school but when I got into the school reality hit me really fast and really hard reality hits you quick the Western students in my school never really saw me as one of them I looked like them I was white but I never really fitted in I could never really fit in I'd get questions like how come you don't eat pork why does your mom wear hijab does she wear hijab and that gap immediately became apparent we were from two completely different worlds first obstacle religion then same school there were a lot of Arab students and Lebanese students and I thought hey this will be my crowd and they weren't my crowd they made fun of me and they made fun of the way I spoke sure we were Arabs linked somehow but my dialect of Arabic from North Africa dereje's it's called a language in its own right was mocked by them because it sounded very different to their way of speaking Arabic so I couldn't really fit into this Middle Eastern or Arab mould second obstacle language and then there was this amazing crowd the majority the West Africans Nigerians ghanaians Senegalese Malians and of course we ever happy and rambunctious Ivorians I hope there are no audience in the room I actually do hope there are brains in the room this was the crowd I wanted to belong to they were funny they were fun they were genuine our interests overlapped I was desperate to be part of the West African crowd at my school this time I was accepted join you're one of us but even then will you believe me when I tell you there was still something missing there was an obstacle and I was frequently reminded of it that obstacle was the colour of my skin I wasn't black and if you're not black you know African the same was true of my summer trips back home to Algeria and to other parts of North Africa you can imagine after two three maybe six months in Nigeria I was already starting to walk talk and act like a real night job boy I'd greet people with how far now I do but that was really strange for my childhood friends who had left me to go to Nigeria all of a sudden I'd come back as an African as if they were not African themselves as if they were Swiss or Saudi or something you are African what I'm trying to say through this life story to this childhood experience what I experienced there and then I've continued to face my entire life this tug between my North African identity Maghreb identity and the wider African identity everywhere I went it seemed as though people wanted to define what being African was for me they didn't see me for who I was or what I wanted to be but how they perceived me and how they ultimately perceived each other to this day in my adult life in my professional life fellow Africans come up to me and every day I get a new label you're Arab you made it Iranian you're francophone you're Muslim you're evil that means wipe in in digit so what exactly can I do well as a kid it pushed me to read about my culture it pushed me to read about my heritage and to read about other people's heritage because I had to relate to them I had to make myself interesting to them and this is what I found out and I want to share it with you today apologies if you already know it the dichotomy the opposition that is created between a supposedly Arab North Africa and a supposedly black sub-saharan Africa is a false one the linkages between us are too great too deep for us to simply brush them aside we are not defined as far as I see it by our respective religions our geographies language all these obstacles I mentioned earlier what I have found out is that we are defined collectively North Africa and the rest of the continent by three things we are defined by a shared history we are defined by binding values we are defined by a common destiny they sound like lofty words I promise I'll explain first let me say a few things about our common history and our shared our binding values our parents generations and our grandparents generations some of you will have realized this already it may not be news to you we're far more United across borders then our generation is they had less technology available to them they weren't as connected they didn't tweet like us and yet they were more connected than we are more United than we are why is that the case well for one they were shaped by a common struggle and that struggle was anti colonial resistance that can unite people the second thing that United them were these binding values resistance solidarity sacrifice those are not empty words guys those unite generations they unite peoples across borders they still do today just not enough as an example during the independence and liberation movements in the 1950s and the 1960s giants of our continent people like Nelson Mandela I'm your car Cobra fought alongside trained alongside the North African resistance movement in Algeria the FLN who were themselves hosted by sister nations Tunisia Morocco the ANC when it was fighting anti-apartheid received support from across the continent from Libya from Algeria from Morocco people poured money into these resistance movements not because it looked nice or it felt good because they were brothers and sisters in arms they were united by a common goal and in a common and common values when I go back to Algeria from time to time I still hear an older generation that thinks about the 1969 pan-african cultural festival if you don't know about it you should definitely look it up the they speak to me of this amazing event with the kind of grandeur that really is very difficult to describe to you here today imagine actors singers thinkers philosophers all rushing to Algiers in 1969 share their culture eating with one another partying with one another a kind of pan-african effervescence that we have yet to see since so it when I hear about all these stories and when I read my own history as you should read yours it kind of feels sometimes like we all have a stake or we all live in this incredible African Museum where we have these shared memories shared thinkers shared culture this common history but each and every one of us decides well let me just stick to my section let me stick to West Africa section let me stick to East Africa section let me stick to the North Africa section don't do that doesn't make sense all this rich heritage that are at our disposal belongs to all of us so how can we rekindle that flame well this is what I think I think we need to reclaim that heritage by re-educating ourselves and re-educating those around us about that history Reid loophole said of Sango read negate my foes read cata be a scene listen to salif keita Jam to Fela Kuti they don't belong to anybody they're not Nigerian Kenyan Egyptian Algerian they belong to all of us so if you have that at your disposal why aren't you making use of it why aren't you sharing it I promise you if you actually reappropriation if you haven't already done so and you don't disseminate it in the way that I would hope we are all doing on an active basis how can we move forward so I'm not gonna stick to the past now I'm gonna talk to you about the future I mentioned shared history I mentioned my binding values I want to talk to you guys now about the future as well slightly more difficult we live in a somewhat troubling time it has tremendous opportunities for us as Africans we can make incredible leaps forward but ultimately in the 21st centuries the challenges that we are all facing our challenges that don't really respect borders terrorism climate change education technological improvements migration the list goes on and on and on do you really think that those problems see the Sahara as a wall they don't they cut across borders they impact all of us young people in North Africa have pretty much the same issues that they face as people south of the Sahara and that's problematic for us why and what can we do about it it's problematic for us at the moment because we need to understand certainly I see this this way that as Africans on the global stage in the 21st century just by being Africans we are immediately put on the back foot immediately we have to justify ourselves we have to explain we have to describe we have to find a voice do you really think that this is something we can do each one in our corners trying to fend for a voice no unity matters and bringing down those walls those divides that I mentioned because this is how we will solve collective problems this is how we will make our voices heard every Africa conference I go to we used to be the hopeless continent now we're Africa rising those narratives are in ours we didn't come up with those we didn't have a say in those so if you don't have a voice a strong voice a united voice people will speak up for you and we find ourselves on the back foot having to explain having to justify having to correct how do we fix this in practical terms day to day in addition to what I mentioned earlier reclaiming that shared heritage that shared identity in addition to finding those binding values you all and me need to fight the misconceptions between ourselves and the misperceptions that others might have of us on a daily basis that means succeed be the best I promise you I'm not being a motivational speaker in saying that but it has its value if business is your thing be an entrepreneur if politics is your thing get involved don't just sit there and complain if science is your thing innovate create and when people tell you you can't because you are African challenge that challenge the narrative that's presented of you and of your continent challenge it intelligently challenge it with strong values the values of resistance that I mentioned earlier that those who came before us leveraged so eloquently and which ultimately brought them success don't let others define you define us the way I was defined as a kid make yourselves heard so when we reclaim that shared heritage when we've hopefully revived those binding values and when we've started to reshape the narrative about ourselves we'll start to make progress I don't usually like inspirational quotes I don't like mushy quotes from great thinkers but I want to leave you with this one because it's a thinker and a quote which has deeply impacted how I see my country how I see my continent and this quote comes from the great afro-caribbean thinker Franz fanon some of you will know who that is Faneuil said every generation must in relative obscurity discover its mission fulfill that mission or betray it I'd like to leave you with the following please let us fulfill our mission of reclaiming our shared heritage reviving those binding values and reshaping the narrative for ourselves but also for those to come thank you very much [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 109,135

Rating: 4.8707805 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, Africa, Africans, Exploration, Identity, Life Development, Personal growth

Id: zmQ0S2VO_SQ

Length: 20min 47sec (1247 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 21 2017