So-called developed countries don’t know about SA

I am in Stuttgart, Germany, as I write this week’s column, and an incident in the city centre got me thinking about how much the rest of the so-called developed countries do not know about South Africa.

There I was, minding my own business when a young man stopped to ask me a few questions. Being the accommodating guy that I am, I heard him out. He asked me if I knew Jesus Christ, and I confirmed that I was a Christian, and we continued to have a brief interaction.

He then asked where I was from, and I told him South Africa, and that is where the conversation went south. He then asked me if I knew about two of his Jehovah’s Witness friends … in Eritrea, which is almost 5 000 km from South Africa. That is when I politely asked him to keep his brochure.

You and I know Africa is not a country, but the more I travel, the more I realise that this is not common sense to some people. I was also asked how my South African president, Robert Mugabe, was doing?

In yet another critical moment, I visited the German town of Metzingen Outlet City, which is basically a village made up of designer fashion labels such as Guess, Armani, Polo and the likes, but I also saw that there was not a single African label in such an important hub. Thousands of the world’s tourists flock to such establishments, and the same old American/European/Asian names are prominent.

Next month is Nelson Mandela Month, and this is one individual who changed how the world sees Africa as a whole. This icon embraced all races, nationalities and people of all backgrounds, but I reckon it is time all Africans adopted the Chinese approach.

Thousands of kilometres away from Beijing, there is a Chinatown in all major cities, and the nation continues to expose the world to its culture, food and way of living. That is not the case for us as Africans, as we are simply not doing enough to promote who we are and what we stand for. At places such as Metzingen, South African designers such Thula Sindi, David Tlale, Gert-Johan Coetzee and others should, by now, be taking their rightful places.

It is not only in fashion that we need to do more to spread the word to the rest of the globe on our offerings, but in our culture as well, and food plays one of the most important roles in getting this right.

One evening I Googled restaurants in the Stuttgart area and an ‘African’ restaurant came up, and I thought it would rather be cool to try it out. Obviously, it looked like the typical and limited view the world has of us: grass mats, traditional art and straw hats everywhere.

Immediately on the menu, I noticed an item that intrigued me: ‘Botswana grilled beef’… from South Africa. I engaged the owner, who unbelievably so, is from Eritrea (maybe he is a friend of the Jehovah’s Witness lad I mentioned earlier), and I asked how something like this was possible. He acknowledged never to have been in southern Africa before. The story gets even more interesting, as he admitted that the Botswana grilled beef from South Africa used to be sourced from Brazil and Argentina, but it now comes from a farm just outside Stuttgart.

Sibusiso Mkhwanazi