Osuofia In London: Matters Arising

The African of the 21st Century deserves a better image than this. For the Western audience that has watched this movie or will watch it, it is my submission that the “Below Average” African is not as dumb and stupid as the movie wants to make people believe.

David Hume a Scottish philosopher once wrote, “I am apt to suspect the Negroes, and in general all the other species of men to be naturally inferior to Whites. There never was a civilized nation of any complexion than White.” As we continue to ponder on this quote, we become more knowledgeable about the place of the African in the mindset of the European or the American. The major arguments the colonialists advanced for African colonization was to civilize the uncivilized Africans. Africans today, in the thinking of the West, should be grateful for the impact of colonialism which helped in their civilization. A simple research would show that though colonialism seems to have moved Africa forward, it actually took Africa backward. For Africans who have traveled to Europe and America, they are very familiar with questions such as, are there computers in Africa? Do Africans live in houses? Do people drive cars in Africa? Do Africans have toilets at home? Do Africans wear clothes? Is Africa one big country or village? As ridiculous as these questions may sound, Africans abroad are daily confronted with these questions.

An average American thinks the whole world ends within the boundaries of the United States and is very ignorant of the African continent. Most Europeans and Americans still have the knowledge of Africa depicted in the racial shows of the 60’s. This image has not been helped by foreign charitable and religious organizations working in Africa who continue to present Africa in a bad light to the West in order to gain financial support for their humanitarian work in Africa. It is thus the place of Africans to legitimately defend her identity and seek equality for Africans with the rest of the world. Thus, writes Thabo Mbeki, “This generation remains African and carries with it a historic pride which compels it to seek a place for Africans equal to all other people of our common universe.”

From very humble beginnings, the Nigerian movie industry is growing daily and the attention of the world is drawn to movies produced in Nigeria. Today, you can easily buy Nigerian movies over the internet and in stores in Europe and America. Suffice me to state that my attention was drawn to the comedy “Osuofia in London” by an American friend who wanted more clarifications about the message of the movie. I have argued in some of my previous articles that Africans in general and Nigerians in particular must avail themselves of the modern means of communication in promoting African identity and culture. Black people all over the world are looked down on because of their identity and the false mentality that the black culture is inferior. Through our movies, we are forming the mindset of our audience to a certain understanding. Nigerian movies have always been characterized by marital problems, rituals, crime, and religion. These are problems that plague the Nigerian society. Many producers have been able to offer positive messages from these problems through their movies. Thus, most Nigerian movies end with the statement, “To God be the Glory.” These producers must be thanked for the lessons they are putting out for people to learn.

There is a danger to argue that the message of a movie does not really matter if the movie is a fiction. True fiction is based on some reality. The opposite of this would be false fiction. A movie based on false fiction should not be seen at all. The fictional comedy “Osuofia in London” is unpatriotic to Africa. The movie portrays Osuofia as being more interested in the brother’s wealth rather than the brother himself. Africans are presented in this movie as timid and uncivilized people who have no idea of what it means to use a rest room, a confirmation of what the West believe already about Africans. Mr. Okafor the London based solicitor of Donatus is seen as a corrupt man, another Euro-American image of Africans. Osuofia is portrayed as a dumb idiot who would sign off every of her brothers property for a kiss from a White lady. To show the producer’s willingness to sell this false identity of the African to the West, the movie is produced with a Western audience in mind. This is seen clearly in the narrations before and at the end of the movie.

The African of the 21st Century deserves a better image than this. For the Western audience that has watched this movie or will watch it, it is my submission that the “Below Average” African is not as dumb and stupid as the movie wants to make people believe. Most African people today are as civilized as their western counterparts. For the African audience, let us continue to promote our identity as Africans and show Africa in the light of truth to the rest of the world.

- Bekeh Utietiang lives in Washington, DC. He is the author of Afridentity: Essays on Africa (Lulu, 2003) and he writes regularly for different news media.

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Quotes on Race

"All is race; there is no other truth ,and every race must fall which carelessly suffers its blood to become mixed." - Benjamin Disraeli, Jewish Prime Minister of Great Britain, in Tancred, by Frederick Warne, London, 1868, p. 106.

"No man will treat with indifference the principle of race. It is the key to history, and why history is often so confused is that it has been written by men who are ignorant of this principle and all the knowledge it involves. . . Language and religion do not make a race--there is only one thing which makes a race, and that is blood." - Benjamin Disraeli, in Endymion pp. 249-250. .

"Whatever may be the sociological value of the legal fiction that 'all men are born free and equal,' there can be no doubt that...in its biological application, at any rate, this statement is one of the most stupendous falsehoods ever uttered by man through his misbegotten gift of articulate speech." - Dr. Earnest Hooton, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, Crime and the Man, p. 342.
"Negro equality! Fudge!! How long, in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogism as this?" - Abraham Lincoln (From Fragments: Notes for Speeches, September 1859, Vol. III, p.399 of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln).

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the White and Black races--that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people, and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and Black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race. . . I give. . . the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last, stand by the law of the State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes." - Abraham Lincoln (Fourth Debate with Stephen Douglas at Charleston, Illinois on September 18, 1858, Vol. III, p. 145-146 of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln).

"Now I say to you, my fellow citizen, that in my opinion, the signers of the Declaration of Independence had no reference to the Negro whatever. One great evidence is to be found in the fact that at the time every one of the thirteen colonies was a slaveholding colony, every signer of the Declaration representing a slaveholding constituency, and not one of them emancipated his slaves, much less offered citizenship to them when they signed the Declaration. If they intended to declare the Negro was equal of the white man, they were bound that day and hour to have put the Negroes on an equality with themselves." - Abraham Lincoln, during the October 16, 1858 debate in Peoria, IL with Douglas.

"I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the Negro into our social and political life as our equal. . . We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable." - Abraham Lincoln, after signing the Emancipation Proclamation (like other presidents, Lincoln sought to repatriation of freed Blacks to Africa).

"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people (the Blacks) are to be free, nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government." - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to George Washington, Jan. 4, 1786).

"The major cause for American Negroes intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin and thus not remedial to a major degree by improvement in environment." - Dr. William Shockley, of Stanford University, Nobel Prize winner

"I have given my life to try to alleviate the sufferings of Africa. There is something that all white men who have lived here like I must learn and know: that these individuals are a sub-race. They have neither the intellectual, mental, or emotional abilities to equate or to share equally with white men in any function of our civilization. I have given my life to try to bring them the advantages which our civilization must offer, but I have become well aware that we must retain this status: the superior and they the inferior. For whenever a white man seeks to live among them as their equals they will either destroy him or devour him. And they will destroy all of his work. Let white men from anywhere in the world, who would come to Africa, remember that you must continually retain this status; you the master and they the inferior like children that you would help or teach. Never fraternise with them as equals. Never accept them as your social equals or they will devour you. They will destroy you." - Dr. Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize for peace, in his 1961 book, From My African Notebook.

"I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilization of their complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation." - David Hume, English philosopher, in his book, Essays, Moral and Political, Vol. II.

"If a man acknowledges the facts of race, he is a racist. I suppose if he acknowledges the facts of sex he is a sexist!" - Carleton Putnam, writer, in an address to the Washington Putnam Letters Club, Feb. 12, 1963. Published in The Mankind Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 1, pp. 12-27. See p. 19.
"A racist is a man who believes in history, genetics, and his eyes!" - Tom Anderson, Article: "Tom Anderson's Straight Talk on Equality and Race," The Citizen, Jackson, Miss., June 1970.

"As a social anthropologist, I naturally accept and even stress the fact that there are major differences, both mental and psychological, which separate the different races of mankind. Indeed, I would be inclined to suggest that however great may be the physical differences between such races as the European and the Negro, the mental and psychological differences are greater still." - L.S.B. Leakey, in The Progress And Evolution Of Man In Africa (Oxford University Press), 1961.

"It will be seen that when we classify mankind by color, the only one of the primary races, given by this classification, which has not made a creative contribution to any one of our twenty-one civilizations is the Black Race." - Dr. Arnold Toynbee, The Study of History, Vol. I, page 233.

"In most if not all of the newly independent Black nations of Africa, little if anything during the past 5000 or more years can be pointed to as having made a contribution that in any way enhances the life of man." - Walter Arnold, The Evolution of Man in Relation to That of the Earth, Part V, The Mankind Quarterly, Vol. X, No.2 (Oct-Dec 1969) p. 78.

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