American - Author | November 5, 1982 -
When I speak about 'we,' it gets very complex very quickly. Having grown up in the United States, but also being very much a member of Nigerian societies and also different parts of Nigerian societies, I understand that we construct particular 'we's.'
Uzodinma Iweala
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I think the more complex your idea of who someone is or who a particular group is, the less able you are to separate 'we' and 'outside' or 'us and them.' I think that that's something that we really, really need to pay attention to.
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There are multiple levels of 'we' and multiple groups that can constitute this idea of who we are. We need to be aware of who we are including and excluding.
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I find the sort of unwitting European American outsider who wants to come to Africa to help is a very problematic construction. It's problematic because you don't want to tell people don't aid, don't help, when people feel a need to.
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It's a beautiful thing, the desire to help a fellow human who is maybe in a rough spot.
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I feel like it's not Africans who are afraid of China's rise in Africa. It's the West that's afraid of China's rise in Africa.
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There are some people who will tell you oil is the greatest thing that ever happened to Nigeria. And there are other people who will tell you it's the worst thing that ever happened.
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I think South Africa would be in a lot worse position had you not had visionaries like the Mandelas or the Oliver Tambos or the people there who came together after... both during apartheid and afterwards to create and structure their society.
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It takes time for people to understand how to hold leaders accountable.
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It takes time for people to understand how, as an individual, I can have an impact on the way that society works.
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The images that we see of Africa are so... that are so engrained in our minds are of this place that is terrible - like hell on earth. And that doesn't acknowledge the positive things - the many, many, many positive things - that people are doing.
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People don't talk about the amount of destruction in terms of human lives that happen, whether it's through slavery, or through, for example, what Belgium was doing in the Congo - the fragmentation of society that happened after that destruction of human life.
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