OBOC - Djibouti

An average person's view of Africa today is an amalgam of all the headlines and front page news - war, disease, poverty, resource curse etc. Abdourahman Waberi in "The United States of Africa" turns this view on its head and portrays a "what if" scenario. What if Africa was the richest continent in the world and was therefore sought after by millions of Caucasian refugees from Euramerica? In this topsy- turvy world, Switzerland is a war torn country ravaged by linguistic and ethnic differences; Afghan, Haitian, Laotian Aid Agencies distribute flour and provisions and poor children from France and Luxembourg survive on food surpluses from North Korea and Ethiopia. It is a world where Human Rights Watch report on the North American "quagmire" and one where alternative, liberal voices claim that the biggest threat to African Unity is the "irrational fear of the Other - undesirable aliens".

You can tell that the author is having fun playing out this scenario. "African man felt sure of himself early on. He saw himself as a superior being on this earth, without equal....The others - natives, barbarians, primitives, pagans (almost always white) - are reduced to the rank of pariahs. The universe seems to have been created only to raise him up, to celebrate him"

These what-if scenarios help us understand Africa's current situation - how it is presented to the rest of the world, the language that is used to pack the complicated messages into sound bites -  the inversion of this world helps us see the absurdity of some of the metaphors.

The book is also the story of Maya, the abandoned French girl who is adopted by her African "Doctor Papa" and now lives a life of privilege in Africa instead of being condemned to the squalor of France. Maya although sheltered still faces the racial slur on account of her skin color - "Milk-face", "curd-face".  She undertakes a journey to France to face her birth mother and despite being surrounded by people who look like her, she realizes that she is more African than she imagined herself to be.

Until this point all I have done is capture the essence of the book, now for  my opinions. This was a book that I was so sure that I would love, but I actually had a hard time finishing it. While i enjoyed the reverse scenario for the first few chapters letting my mind explore the "what if", I also ended up asking "so what". I did like the tongue in cheek references, and the play on brands like Nescafe, Ikea and Starbucks etc, but again "so what". If this had been just an essay or a series of essays it would've worked much better, but this was supposed to be a novel and i felt there was no plot here. Even the adventure of Maya in France held all the promise of the Odyssey, but was more like, pardon me for saying this..Alice in wonderland sans the jabberwocky (which is included in the movie versions to make Alice's travel more interesting) and all the action that comes with it - a hodge podge of interesting incidents but not a strong plot. As a novel it was a letdown but as an interesting satirical essay...sure!