Captains of Ignorance

I was talking to a couple of friends today, and I was thinking of what next to blog, because I realized that at some point it gets quite annoying and monotonous to discuss current news. The monotony tends to be quite mind numbing, frustrating and it’s pretty easy to just continue in your indifference.

So I thought to myself, why not cheer you up with something other than ‘Our land is being raped repeatedly by our leaders, and our blood sucked dry by foreigners’ story. So here’s a segment to laugh and pick out some of the weirdest and most inaccurate perceptions of Africa, other than the typical Africa is a village, called either Nigeria or South Africa.

Remember the King of Zamunda, Akim and Semi? That’s not the topic of discussion, well at least not for today!

I’ll kick off with the history of the theory that Africans live on trees and are not comfortable in ‘modern transportation.’ By modern, I mean the vehicles that run on fuel, coal or are electrically powered.

Working with the precedent set by the Kenyans and Ethiopians in the marathons, it’s been perceived that we are all light on our feet, fit, and run from one village to the next and even to work.

How did that come along? Well, since Africans preferred oral tradition to the overrated written form, there wasn’t much to work with and all the news Hollywood saw, had bare footed people with dusty faces and dirt roads. It was assumed, that running would be a better option to a long and tedious option of walking.

Now that we do it at marathons with so much ease it only made sense that we naturally commuted on foot by running; ‘We’, meaning every single community on this continent.
A movie was made; an adventure of romance with a cape crusader searching for African treasure and fighting the colonialised African ‘idiot’, who speaks incoherently, all rolled up in the movie King Solomon’s mines. A movie re-made in 1985, from an earlier 1950’s version by the same name.


The trailers are hilarious; pay close attention to what the voice over in the 1950’s version says….goodness!!! The facts are so wrong it’s fascinating! Notice how all the 'Africans' looks like a cowards!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaPF0Ul5WzQ&feature=related (1950 trailer)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxIA-nOpEJU&feature=related (1985 trailer)


The movie has an African by the name Umbopo who never rode on anything that didn’t stop to eat grass. (Hence the running theory)Fabulous! Then deep in the heart of the forest lies a fascinating village whose inhabitants live upside down, suspended from trees like bats.

You know, we are unique people and I appreciate sharing our culture, but constantly being a point of ridicule is just insulting.
Well at least we never portray ourselves as the superheroes saving the planet on solo missions and wiping out entire countries unscathed, like Rambo or Terminator. Like I said we’re unique not stupid.