In Desperate Search for the Centre of the World

By Primus Tazanu*

Rumours about Samuel Eto'o moving from Barcelona to an unknown club in Uzbekistan sparked controversy last month. It was unimaginable to think of a reputable football player leaving mighty Barcelona for an unknown club in an unknown country. Suspicion arose as to whether Eto still has the abilities that qualify him to be ranked one of the best players in the world. Underneath the 'why' questions are perceptions of the centre and periphery. The central question that sums up the disappointments is 'why should Eto leave Western Europe, the centre to the periphery?' For a very long time, Europe and the West have been portrayed as the centre of the world with other parts of the world fitting in a peripheral pattern. This article observes some issues that have arose through ingrained perception of centre (Europe) and periphery used in common day discussion.

In no other way is Europe's perception as the centre of the world best expressed than in the poem of the poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson in 19th century Europe. In his poem titled 'Locksley Hall' he is disappointed by the forward match of his society and would rather go to the orient (inhabited by uncivilised brutes) and marry a savage woman with whom he would have barbaric children who would run and catch goats by their hair and whisper back to parrots. These are just wandering thought that crisscross through his unstable mind. But after recovering from the nightmare he proclaims 'better 50 yrs of Europe than a cycle of Cathay'. Cathay is present day (especially north) China.

Notions and perceptions of what has to be associated with the centre and that linked to the periphery are helping to shape worldviews from all the corners of the earth. There have been many misdeeds in past history when Europe has been assumed to be the centre of the world. Slavery, colonisation and neo-colonialism are just some of these misdeeds. One needs not recount that these misdeeds have changed people's destinies by leaving indelible legacy that only the super natural can comprehend with some accuracy. Europe has come to be associated with success and Europeans (identified through body colour) as pacesetters. Any standard developed out of Europe have to undergo scrutiny and measured through 'European Standards'. Any developments that fail to conform to European expectations are termed backward, worthless or even discarded.

The centre-periphery discussion have gone far as associating place of origin and body colour on one side and wellbeing and expected success on the other. This categorically means people of European descent are not expected to be poor wherever they find themselves, especially if in the periphery. This is why Jacob Zuma should be very surprised to see poverty make inroads into the lives of white South Africans. Poverty among black South Africans does not surprise him. They have the skin colour that is already associated with poverty. Likewise, any African descent in Europe should expect that his success is frowned at because he is believed not to deserve success matched to European standard. He is the wrong colour associated with success and wealth. His source of wealth may remain a subject of suspicion until he proves that he earned his success legally. Success in many circumstances are believed to be traceable to illegal activities especially drugs and human trafficking.

An interesting perception accorded Africans can be seen in CNN documentary on trapped Nigerian prostitutes inhabiting (most often) crammed basements in Copenhagen. The constant stress that these women are held captive by their invisible countrymen ignores the fact that the sex buyers are mostly the indigenous Danes. It also ignores the fact that the sex clubs and flats rented for 'business' by these prostitutes are owned by Danes. Portrayals in the documentary are schemed at best to depict the supposedly Nigerian traffickers as demons and this tag goes with anyone who identifies himself as Nigerian until he proves himself clean. Furthermore, at the apex of the world football championship in Germany in 2006, the BBC made a surprising 'discovery' on fans by linking the ability to pay and body colour. In order to prove his case that Eastern Europeans are unmatched to the Western Europe in terms of money, the reporter compared them to African fans. What stunned the reporter was that an African should pay to watch a match while Eastern Europeans were unable. Consciously or unconsciously, the reporter was linking body colour with the ability to pay. The dark skin colour respondent was a surprise winner; he had a body colour associated with poverty, yet he was able to pay and watch matches.

When one walks the streets of Europe he is a sometimes embarrassed by the questions 'would you go back?' after he has been identified as coming from Africa. I am a Cameroonian, undoubtedly proud of my country and place of origin. Once in the perceived centre, Denmark, a friend of mine who fled from the Bosnian War of the 1990s was very disappointed when I told him I will one day return to my country. He aptly rebuked me and said 'men det er lange vaek' (but it is far away) and I responded 'hvorfra' (from where). In a mockery tone I asked 'how many times have you been there?' My friend considered Denmark to be the centre of the world and judged my country (a place he does not know) in relation to this. He of course does not know that Denmark is just as far away to any Cameroonian in Cameroon. A Cameroonian may even regard Denmark with a lot of pity since he knows that such a country is covered in perpetual darkness and suffers from nature's unkind cold in winter.

Thomas Faist, one of the leading scholars on migration contends that people always regard their place as the centre and often have a sense of the periphery as a distant place. And I think he is right. We always consider our place to be the best no matter how 'remote' it could appear to be from the outsider. The centre-periphery debate can be applied to any discussion including medicine, education, culture, children upbringing, politics, etc but it is worth knowing that the world is full of millions of centre (be they villages, towns, cities, countries etc) as judged by individual cultures and subcultures.

*Primus Tazanu holds the MA in Development Studies and Contributes from Copenhagen in Denmark