Who am I? (On identities and ideologies)

 Human experience is projection. We project based on who we are and who we think others to be, based on our understanding of who they are supposed to be. Identities sometimes help shape our sense of self. An identity creates attachments and gives community. It gives a sense of belonging, and because that is core to our existence, we often react viscerally when there seems to be an affront to our identity. We take on different identities, at different times, and a lot of times, not of our own volition. Some of us reject it, others haphazardly accept it and play into it, while others embrace it and make it their raison d'etre.

Some identities are constant, while many change throughout our lives and we lean into them differently, at different points. Sometimes identities are formed based on ideologies, and some ideologies, based on identities. the two go hand in hand and are no doubt interconnected and interwoven.

It's hard to define an identity on the surface. There are identities within identities, and even the rejection of an identity can become its own identity. It is even harder to define a person, based on an identity.

I've been asking myself the question of who I am? I have also asked those around me, and I am finding it extremely difficult to give or get a simple answer. Some identities are inherent in my existence; I don't have a choice but to identify with them, and even if I don't agree with everything that comes with them, this non-optional connection leaves me no choice but to confront the different subjects, reactions, expectations and projections akin to that identity.

The first time I was fully conscious of an identity was 12 years ago. I was in the United States, and that was the first time I realised I was African. I had always just existed as perhaps more "Nigerian" than anything else. I am not even sure if I fully identified with this per se. It is just something that was factual. In the same way I was a girl. I got to the USA and realised that not only was I African, Africa was a country; we were a poor, pitiable people.

I had never thought about myself as that. But alas, it was an identity which came with contending with the most irritating, irrational, inutile, irksome, inane and infantile questions and unfortunately well-meaning, but patronising sympathy. So, my initial reaction to this was to become pan Africanist. I wanted nothing more than to redefine this "country" and change her story (The excess reaction of trying to compensate with the positive). I was convinced I was capable, and it was only a matter of time.

Fast forward to 2024, I'm in a country in Europe. In my philosophy class, the theme of discussion was happiness. The teacher had asked us, in groups, to think of some hindrances to happiness, and come up with examples. Naturally, poverty came up as a hinderance to happiness. As an example of this, someone in a group I was seated beside, went on to say, A little girl born in Africa, is unlikely to be happy due to poverty and restrictions to her liberty.

In response to this, I simply looked in her direction and raised an eyebrow. Honestly, more for my personal amusement, than anything else. She quickly realized how her example could come across, and corrected herself with "people in developing countries who lack basic necessities and do not have freedom".

Yes, I know you'll say that there is poverty in the western world, and in all the corners of the world. It's true. But an interesting thing about this identity (that I cannot even for the life of me, define) is that it seemed to be immutable, even in this fast-changing world.

Afterwards, I assessed what I felt about the situation. I concluded that the most heart-breaking thing about the statement was not that it was said. It wasn't said to be injurious or out of sheer ignorance. It made me sick to my stomach that there was some truth, even, a lot of truth to her statement.

10 years from when I first had to take on this interesting identity, we are still the face of abject poverty. The very bottom of the totem pole. And it's not just bad publicity, there's a haunting, bitter, truth to this.

It's not the only truth, without a doubt. But it is easily congruent with an identity that I am a part of. In confronting the subject of who I am, I realised that there is no point hiding from unpleasant depictions of an identity. We must fight realities and stereotypes, but we must also accept difficult truths. Shying from them does no good. That type of overcorrecting is, in my opinion, its own form of ignorance. It is covering a half-truth with another half-truth.

Yes, we know your aunty lives in Banana Island, and all the houses surrounding hers are gigantic. We also know that when you go home in December, you are escorted by armed police officers, and the men in the clubs use expensive bottles of champagne to wash their hands, and offer to replace your economy ticket with business class tickets, simply because you are pretty. But you also saw the state of the airport when you stepped into the country and you could not count the amount of people soliciting. You saw the roads littered with underage children begging, and disabled people asking you to contribute to their health treatments. You saw the celebration around the miserly borehole your rotund uncle put up in his village, and you saw how that elderly lady lay herself flat on the ground to bless your father for providing her with a bag of rice and some tinned tomatoes. Why then do you pretend the exceptions are the norm?

I saw a very long thread on Twitter, a few years ago, in response to Mr Beast's initiative providing water in Africa. The writer talked about how those sorts of projects are a ploy by the Western world to perpetually project this disgusting image of "Africa". My immediate response to that was that the person who wrote that thread was an African in the diaspora. I was right. Even though in the diaspora, we might face the brunt of this unfortunate representation, we must recognise a different kind of identity, that in its own way, is privileged. At the other end of what is an insulting portrayal of your identity, are real lives. People who are desperate for needs to be met. They and their needs, quite frankly, do not care about your theories, however well-meaning they might be,

It is true that the stories told about us are never complete. It is heart-breaking, heart-wrenching. There is so much more to "Africa"(an identity that I am not even sure how to define as we are extremely diverse and not at all a monolith) than that image. But I can't help but think that what we want is for these unpleasant stories to be completely swept under the carpet, so that when we voyage through the west, we do not feel dehumanised. I can understand that. But it's important to remember that one part of an identity which you belong to does not define you. You should know that your identity is extremely complex, and there are many ways in which it manifests.

Now, when I see (white) saviour responses to very real problems at hand, I swallow the bile that forms in my throat, and accept that outside of the repulsion I feel towards this imagery that debases an "African identity", there are people whose needs are met. If they needed water, and they got water, I guess there is some positive to that. At this point I'm not even sure I particularly care about the motivation behind the doers actions, I just want people who have been failed by their own systems to have some of their needs met, as much as possible.

Make no mistake, this isn't to say that because we accept an uncomfortable part of an identity, we must welcome the disrespect that comes with it. In one of my classes while in high school in the US, one of my teachers had said she had signed up to routinely donate money to Africa. To this, a good friend of mine from Rwanda, had muttered under his breath "Where in Africa?" A statement which I echoed loudly for the teacher to hear. She got somewhat annoyed at the questioning, and insisted that on the forms she filled, it was unclear which country the money went to. I responded to her, that it might be useful practice to check the exact destination of her donations, in case of next time. Upon hearing this, another classmate from South Korea chimed in to tell the teacher that if this was how we Africans would react upon hearing of her act of goodwill, then she must cease her donations immediately. I laughed in his face, and told him that neither I, nor my friend needed their money; her donations affected my life in no way or form. If she wanted to do good, I should play no part in that decision. After hearing this, the teacher moved the class along.

While saying everything I said, I was fully conscious that what I was saying came from a place of some sort of privilege. I had in fact hoped she would not stop donating to those in need, and I had more than anything, hoped that her donations were actually getting to those for whom it was intended, and not just being pocketed by crooks. But I was not going to cower in the face of ridicule, simply because it felt as though my identity required that of me. I was not going to become an object of pity for anyone's gratification. That would be nonsense, a disservice to a myriad of other stories entrenched in that identity.

That is a different way of creating complexities to over simplified identities. When you are in spaces not reserved for you, spaces in which you are treated as though you can be in, but in which you can only occupy, only a small corner, show them that you are as worthy as they are, to be in the centre of those spaces. Not by trying to lie and overcorrect, and not by fearing to offend. By simply living. For those of us who have whatever privilege, we can do as much as we can to tell our own stories, even if they differ from what is expected. They are "African" stories too. They are valid as h*ll. Beautiful, ugly, complicated, complex, as human stories often are. We can tell those stories without trying to wipe out people's lived realities.

I know the ugly parts of our identities don't seem to make for powerful ideologies. However, we cannot tell our complete stories if we omit parts of them, or if we try to cover them up. A part of our experience is formed by what is around us, so we cannot pretend certain things don't exist because they're ugly. We cannot repaint them. We must not. Elnathan John had once said he "will not jump over dead bodies to show how the 1% live". https://x.com/elnathan_john/status/1106106270963003393?s=20. I have decided to follow suit.

We must tell our stories in their entirety.

When we tell our stories, we can mention the far-reaching consequences of colonialism, and we can talk about the appalling, nauseating, exploitative, deplorable leaders that are currently present in many corners of our continent. We can applaud the resilience of a people who live through non-existent systems, and somehow manage to get through difficult, harrowing situations, and we can start to question what we define as "getting through" difficult situations. We can also talk about the trauma, desensitization and emotional stagnation that such situations bring about. We can talk about the beauty of community and strong ties, and we can critique the exploitative nature of black tax, and the practice of covering up evil doings for the sake of preserving the image of that community. We can talk about the plethora of unique, colourful cultures and personalities present in the continent, and we can talk about very conservative and rigid cultures that are inflexible towards differences and punish those differences excessively. We can talk about misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance, tribalism, xenophobia etc as much as we can appreciate some of the most beautiful proverbs and different mediums of creativity that belong to us, and many of the ways in which we are warm and welcoming.

It's important to find balance. We must not drown in the waters of our sorrows, as much as we must try not to only romanticize them. Our stories do not have to just be Jollof rice, good wedding attire, ostentatious celebrations, Benin carvings, and your cousin who drives his luxury vehicles on subpar roads. They also don't have to be that poor child with mucus running down their nose. However, if that child does exist, just because you get to check out of it, doesn't mean those ugly realities disappear. If that makes you uncomfortable to reckon with, as you go through your rather privileged life, then tant pis for you.

We must ask questions about ourselves, which might take us off pedestals that we put ourselves on, sometimes as defensive mechanisms. We don't need to think that our hair feeds off of sunlight and we do not have to be direct descendants of god himself for us to exist wholly. If it helps you, sure. But it's important to realize that we are just people. People affected, just like any other people, by our circumstances, whether good and bad, and reacting to them in the different ways our humanness allows us to. You included, with your brand of activism.

I think if we all tell our stories as complicated as they are, we can draw some parallels from each other, from everywhere across the globe. Telling complete stories broadens and narrows the human experience. Makes it more relatable, regardless of how far a place seems. We all have stories of belonging and unbridled selfishness, of pleasure and of pain, of love and of rancour. A tag gives us a starting point to tell our stories, but I believe the real magic of it, is that in the web of our differences, we can still find similarities.

So back to the question of who I am ? I'm not too sure still. I'd say it depends on where I am (literally and figuratively). I am a part of many different identities, but not completely each or any identity. I am an intersection of many different identities. An endless list of definitions. African, Nigerian, middle-class, Igbo, Black, Anglophone, immigrant, Woman, feminist, liberal, straight?, non-religious, tall. I also have (had) non-permanent/malleable identities like fat, loc'd, young, beautiful, plain, intelligent, law student.

And based on all my experiences and contexts, it'll be hard to really define myself so simply. Some days, I also just exist and do not particularly care to be anything; I just want to be another human being trying to get through. Many times, of course, I do not have this choice; I will still have to contend with people who project on me what they think I should be. On those days, I try not to be too rigidly stuck on any identity. I try to present myself in all my intricacies. I think once one realises the complexity and malleability of identities, they can exhale, and tell their stories, without feeling the pressure to modify or beautify them. Bad, good, and neutral stories that help us piece together our somewhat pointless existence on this floating rock.