Last week, I was opportune to watch Chimamanda Adichie’s Technology, Entertainment, and Design Conference (TED) presentation titled: The Danger of a Single Story1. Although she made the presentation at the TED conference sometime in July 2009, it wasn’t until last week Friday 3rd of December, 2010, when a friend shared the link to the presentation online that I had the privilege of listening to this brilliant Nigerian writer speak about an issue as sensitive as presenting a one sided view of a subject.
It was an intellectually packed speech filled with real life illustrations of her personal experience; I was also impressed because it was no doubt both incisive and instructive in its depth, so much so that I had to ponder upon it thoughtfully for over 24hrs before I could muster a response to it. As she illustrated with her personal stories of her childhood reading and writing experience, Fide (her family house help), her college experience in America, and her Mexican travel experience.
There is no doubt about the fact that when a particular story is associated with a particular person or group, there arises a danger of misconception of that person or group which may eventually lead to negative stereotypes or otherwise as the case may be. As Miss Adichie puts it in her presentation: “Show a people as one thing, as only one thing over and over again, and that is what they become.” Prof. Hans Rosling of the Karolinska institute and founder of Gapminder.org also alluded to the dangers of a “single story” in his own TED conference presentation by making reference to what he called “pre-conceived ideas” which has its origins from the single story.
In as much as we revile the single story because of its unfortunate negative flavour as it concerns us, what if that single story did a wonderful public relations stunt for us by portraying us positively? The flavour of the single story is inconsequential to me at this point. What Miss Adichie did not address in her speech is the origin of the single story, which is akin to dealing with the fruits of a problem rather than dealing with the roots of the problem.
In my view, the danger lies more significantly in the origins of the single story, which is the “dominant story” rather than the single story itself. The dominant story gives birth to the single story; it makes it impossible to have a balanced assessment of any situation. Using a simple analogy of a two plates weighing scale, if one side is loaded with a substance of more weight than the other side, the inevitable consequence is that the scale is tilted to the side bearing more weight than the other, and thus, the weightier substance is held to more significance than the other.
This simple analogy explains the negative perception attached to a country like Nigeria, which is routinely perceived as corrupt, anarchic, unpredictable and stagnated, and it is simply because the majority of stories that emanate from Nigeria are negative. How will Nigeria’s politics and democracy not be viewed as a sham, in spite of the well intentioned efforts of a few good men like Gov. Fashola of Lagos State, when his elected colleagues in other states and Nigeria’s national assembly are busy robbing Nigeria blind?
The particularly spectacular case of Nigeria’s Senators and Law makers (legislator) who without an iota of conscience award themselves ridiculous salaries and bonuses, which was even recently corroborated by the governor of Nigeria’s central bank when he stated that Nigeria’s national assembly with less than 800 members, consume about 25% of the Nigerian government’s recurrent budgetary expenditure per annum. It is on record, that the average Nigerian senator or legislator2, earn more money (both salary and ridiculous allowances) than Mr. Barack Obama, America’s president.
This democratic robbery is being inflicted on a country which has over 70% of its citizens living on less than $1 a day, a country with an employed minority of workers with a minimum wage of about $120 per month3. It is only natural that when the single story is of the negative flavour, that we be embarrassed and discomforted by it. This is a denial inspired reaction to the embarrassment of the single story.
I believe that if the single story is properly harnessed, it can serve to illuminate on salient and critical issues concerning a subject. It is in our best interest to appreciate our single story and do something about it, if it is not an impressive story rather than attempt to suppress with other less significant story, if Fide’s family was creative, then why hadn’t that creativity been transformed to wealth for his family? Why was the poverty still there? Rather than appreciate their creativity, if we were so concerned, then we should be thinking of interventions that will transform that creativity to prosperity, rather than trying to balance or counter the poverty story with a creativity story. This is tantamount to trying to force an unbalanced scale into an artificially balanced position.
Phillip Emeagwali, Prof. Wole Soyinka et al, are highly vaunted Nigerians renowned for their scholarly achievements, but we must not forget in a hurry, that are an infinitesimal minority, in our efforts to present Nigerians as academic achievers, shall we now continually trumpet their achievements in an effort to suppress the endless tales of woes emanating from Nigeria’s educational system, which now witnesses a mass exodus of young Nigerians seeking quality education in destinations as near as Ghana and the Republic of Benin?
In our well intentioned efforts to gain a more balanced perspective of a subject, we risk to arrive at the “celebrations of mediocrity” associated with recognizing small achievements. The danger as I have stated before lies in the dominant story which gives birth to the single story and it will be a grand mistake to attempt to suppress the single story without interventions that will eventually eliminate the dominant story. In the single story, we find an illuminator that should help us re-order our priorities.
Bibliography:
1. Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story, TED Conference, 2009 http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html
2. What a Senator Earns in Nigeria - Do or Die Affair N 29 479 749 Per Year, Nairaland, http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-276078.0.html
3. Nigeria sets big jump in minimum wage after strike, Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AO35N20101125
Monday, December 6, 2010
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