The works by author Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor examine African identities in times of global upheaval and China's growing presence on the continent. She spoke with Fabian Peltsch about how the young generation turns its back on the West.
Your novel "The Dragonfly Sea" is about a young Kenyan woman who is identified as the descendant of a 15th-century Chinese sailor from the fleet of the famous Admiral Zheng He – a story based on a true incident. It also highlights the growing economic and cultural involvement of the Chinese in Africa. What interested you about the material?
The history of the East African Swahili coast is a deep history of trade, encounters, wars, desires and ownerships. A site of global visitations whether from the Persians, Chinese, other Africans, Arabs or the Mamluks. The present 're-emergence' of the Chinese in our worlds, including their memory-bearing of Admiral Zheng He, restores a spotlight on the reality of a globalized East Africa long before the Europeans also show up on the scene. There are so many in the Global North who persist in the delusion that the history of Africa starts when the Europeans rock up, which, of course, is hubris and insanity. "Dragonfly Sea" was also a private inquiry into looking to our seas to explore the stories of our belonging in time past, present and future.
How do you personally perceive the growing presence of Chinese nationals and Chinese companies in your home country of Kenya?
Nothing surprising, nothing new. You know, the Chinese presence in East Africa is only just now being noticed and made a big deal by those of the Western world. It became a thing following the global financial crisis in 2007-8 that by-passed China and the countries it had re-established an economic connection within Africa. I don't understand Western hysteria about the presence of non-Western others in Africa, given the reality of the presence of so many of those same Westerners in Africa. I recognize that the world is in an epoch of incredible historical shifts. History is evolving before our gaze. The Western frenzy overexpanded Chinese influence and its impact on the world is somewhat understandable. No culture can be at ease when it experiences the receding of its power.
The Chinese government attempts to emphasize the continuity of relations between East Africa and China by highlighting Zheng He's peaceful visits. It even carried out DNA tests on Pate Island to prove that Chinese from his fleet mixed with the indigenous population in the early 15th century.
Good for them. They are refining the global story. We, the Africans, also ought to have already been drawing out the strings of our impact on the world and history and projecting these for ourselves and the world. It would restore the depth, complexity, diversity and wealth of the grander story of humanity. Think about it: If the Germans are busy emphasizing a history of their interactions with Africa and are trying to retrieve shared histories, it is treated as a leap forward. Why do so many Westerners – let me emphasize this – have a problem when the Chinese who actually have older and greater connections do the same?
China is known for selling one-sided stories, such as the portrayal of Admiral Zheng He as a purely peaceful diplomat …
The people of the coast in Kenya have a more complex picture of the Admiral. Those are the stories that interest me the most; the memory of our people. They are aware that the Middle Kingdom, is one among others. But, really, as East Africans, having been inundated with stories about wandering Europeans like Vasco Da Gama, David Livingston, Albert Schweitzer, Karen Blixen—an array of white-washed wretches repackaged as heroic and transformative figures, isn't it strange that people, and let me reiterate this, mainly from the western world, suddenly have a problem with the version of the great Admiral that the Chinese state is projecting?
So, do you believe that China's presence offers Africans the chance to rewrite their history because China shows how to counter Western narratives?
It's an example of what a once-devastated and conquered country can realize for itself. A profound challenge, really. What excuse can we now present for not rewriting our role in the world, and acting out a vision for ourselves when we have so much more available? You know, when I was a school kid in Kenya, and there was a devastating earthquake in China, our teachers had arranged a fundraising process so we could 'make contributions for the children of China.' This was just in the seventies. What China has achieved in just 30 years, despite the awful years of colonization and wars, and this without having to resort to bullying, genocide and plunder, is a historical feat for our humanity. As a Kenyan and East African, I am compelled to ask, What would it take to realize the best of and from ourselves?
Your novel is expected to be published in China this year. What were your experiences with Chinese readers and their perception of Africa and African literature?
A few scholars, including artists and I held some zoom-mediated lectures with students from an institution in China last year. The students had not yet interacted with African thinkers before. That in itself was a novel experience for them –and for us. After the ice was broken, the young students asked fascinating questions. What became apparent to both sides was the extent to which we had drawn insights about one another from sources that do not necessarily hold our interests at heart; from social development books, anthropological or nature documentaries, travel memoirs, World Bank statistics, foreign correspondents who subtly and not-so-subtly, underline negative stereotypes.
Like the image of Africa as a continent of despair, safaris and poverty?
Exactly. A continent locked in perpetual crisis and helplessness, of a people who require others to think for them. My own process was to ask the students to reflect on where they got the information from. Such an exploration opens up room for other kinds of conversations, of how it is important, for example, to translate our works directly for one another, to direct our exchange to one another without mediators. I don't say: Africa is this or Africa is that. I tell the students: Do your own research and then, if you can, visit. There is no better education than a visit.
Do you believe that relations with China will become even closer in the coming years?
We tend to forget that it is not only China that is influencing East Africa, East Africans are also influencing China. There are African students in China, there are Chinese scholars in Africa, and there are now young Chinese students who make annual visits to immerse themselves in nature and to evolve their own relationship with wilderness and the environment. In December 2017, China banned the trade in elephant products and ivory. That decision was partly informed by East Africa engagements.
What about racism against Africans? I remember a state spring festival gala in 2021, where there was a dance choreography to celebrate Sino-African relations, with Chinese dancers dressed up as African Bushmen, with black painted faces and banana skirts.
Discrimination that is born out of ignorance is one thing that can always be adjusted. It is not like intentional and ideological racism created by the insecure to prop up imagined cultural superiority. As you remember, the lessons were very quickly learned. The subsequent galas have been better curated. Although the film sector probably needs some lessons. I am thinking of that truly awful film called "Wolf Warrior," which sought to replicate the tedious white savior complex trope but with Chinese characters.
There is a perception in the West that China is exploiting African resources and treating the environment and workers irresponsibly. Is this a false narrative?
There are points of conflict; that cannot be denied. Cultural clashes are inevitable. For example, the slaughterhouses for donkey meat to cater to the Chinese market. In East Africa, Donkeys are companions, field workers and part of the domestic scene. We do not slaughter donkeys…or horses, for that matter. I hate the opportunism that changes the values that we, as Kenyans, hold dear. But then again, I am confused by Western 'concerns,' also given how Africa is still portrayed in Western mainstream media. These are nations that have done everything to avoid even just one apology for their ancestors' roles in the worst of historical human atrocities; the Atlantic slave trade. We all know that Western 'concerns' are not for our benefit. This is mostly panic about the threat of loss of cheap and easy access to African resources. I wish people would just drop the fakery and state their interests honestly. It would make everything so much simpler, wouldn't it?
What is your opinion of the current government? President Ruto seems to be less inclined towards China than his predecessor.
He seems to have swung the pendulum fully Westward. We were building a good middle-ground, a space for self-interested neutrality. And given the age we now live in, the emergence of future-building alliances like BRICS+, the shifting winds of history, and the generational shifts, this swing to the occident hearkens to a fantasy of the return of the cold-war sixties, and the Bretton-Woods institutions' dominated eighties.
What do you expect for the further development of relations with China?
It has unfortunately made Kenya a private joke among global south nations now moving towards multipolarity. I do sense from the conversations on the ground that, for better or worse, there will be an over-compensatory backlash. A generation will emerge that will be less open to the West. But this type of swinging left, right, wherever, occurs when a people and nation have not taken time to define for themselves their origin myth, and what they dream for the future, or defined its stance of being in history and the world. They become like a reed bending this way and that depending on which wind blows strongest. I feel that we need to be far more devoted to Kenyan self-love and self-interest, to always ask whoever we meet, 'Yes, but what's in this for the benefit of all our people and for a thousand generations of future Kenyans?'
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor was born in Nairobi in 1968. In her novels, the author focuses on the recent history of Kenya. In 2003, she was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her novels include "Dust" (2014) and "The Dragonfly Sea" (2019). After writing residencies in Berlin and Iowa, Owuor now lives and works in Nairobi.
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