From Dark to Bright Continent

For those of you who read my very first post, you might have noticed that I recently changed the title of this blog from Dark Continent to Bright Continent. Why the change? I initially selected Dark Continent for two reasons. One was to specify that my work will cover only the vast portion of the African continent south of the Sahara desert, an area I am more familiar with, sometimes called “black” Africa as a way to distinguish it from the Arab north. Secondly, I wanted to reverse the negative connotation associated with the term “dark” continent over the years by publishing brighter, more encouraging stories from the continent of Africa. The mainstream media along with literature from writers such as Joseph Conrad and Henry Morton Stanley continue to reinforce the wild, primitive and exotic image of Africa. Hence, I purposefully chose the term “dark” continent and intended to counterbalance the negative view of Africa with “bright” stories of hope and development – stories the media does not cover nearly as much. I basically want to say through this blog that while war, famine and diseases are ravaging the continent, there is a flipside to all of that; it is only half of the story. The other half deals with real people, real families and individuals who work hard and dream big just like the rest of us in the developed world.

It is after an email exchange with one of my mentors whom I regard in high esteem that I decided to adopt the name Bright Continent altogether. Africa has been lagging behind the rest of the world for far too long. We have hit rock bottom and at this point things cannot get any worse. Hence, I am convinced that we can only go up from here and eventually we will begin to hear of more “bright” stories emerging from this rich and beautiful continent.