Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor: “Western concerns about China are not to our advantage”

In her work, author Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor examines African identities in times of global upheaval and China's growing presence on the continent. She explains to Fabian Peltsch how the younger generation is turning away from the West.

Your novel "The Sea of Dragonflies" is about a young Kenyan woman who is identified as a descendant of a 15th century Chinese sailor from the fleet of the famous Admiral Zheng He. The story is based on a true event. You use it to shed light on the growing economic and cultural interest of the Chinese in Africa. What interested you about the subject matter?

The history of East Africa's Swahili coast is a deep story of trade, encounters, wars, desires and claims of ownership. A place visited by Persians, Chinese, other Africans, Arabs and Mamluks worldwide. The current 'reemergence' of the Chinese in our world, including their memory of Admiral Zheng He, highlights the reality of a globalised East Africa long before the Europeans arrived on the scene. There are many people in the global north who cling to the illusion that the history of Africa begins with the arrival of the Europeans, which is of course hubris and madness. My novel was thus also a private investigation into how we can look to our seas to explore our belonging in the past, present and future.

How do you personally perceive the growing presence of Chinese nationals and Chinese companies in your home country of Kenya?

There is nothing surprising, nothing new. You see, the Chinese presence in East Africa only became a big deal for the West after the global financial crisis of 2007-08, which bypassed China and the countries with which it had built economic ties in Africa. I don't understand the Western hysteria about the presence of non-Western actors in Africa, given that so many of these Westerners live in Africa. But I recognize that the world is in an era of historic shifts. Western excitement about growing Chinese influence is somewhat understandable. No culture is going to be comfortable seeing its power wane.

The Chinese government tries to emphasize this continuity of relations between East Africa and China by pointing to the peaceful visits of Zheng He. It even conducted DNA tests on Pate Island to prove that Chinese from his fleet mixed with the local population in the early 15th century.

Good for China. The country is refining its version of global history. We Africans should have identified the strands that reveal our influence on the world and on history earlier, too. This would benefit the depth, complexity, diversity and richness of human history. Think about it: if the Germans tried to revive an ancient, shared history in Africa, it would be seen as progress. So why do so many Westerners have a problem when the Chinese, who actually have older and broader connections with us, do something like this?

China is known for selling one-sided stories, such as portraying Admiral Zheng He as an exclusively peaceful diplomat…

People on the Kenyan coast have a more complex image of the Admiral. These are the stories that interest me most: the memories of our people. We are aware that the Middle Kingdom was just one of many that visited us. And isn't it strange that at the same time we have been inundated with stories of travelling Europeans like Vasco da Gama, David Livingston, Albert Schweitzer or Karen Blixen - whitewashed villains packaged as heroic and transformative figures? So why should we suddenly have a problem with the Chinese state's version of the great Admiral?

So you think that China's presence offers Africans the opportunity to rewrite their history because China is showing how to counter Western narratives?

China, above all, provides us with an example of what a country once destroyed and conquered can achieve. What excuse can we now give, with our wealth, not to redefine our role in the world? You know, when I was a schoolchild in Kenya and there was a devastating earthquake in China, our teachers organized a fundraiser so that we "donate to the children of China." That was in the 1970s. What China has achieved in just 30 years, without resorting to harassment, genocide and pillage, is a historic achievement for humanity. As a Kenyan and East African, I am compelled to ask: what would it take to bring out the best in us?

Your novel is expected to be published in China later this year. What experiences have you had with Chinese readers and their image of Africa and African literature?

Some scientists and artists and I gave Zoom lectures to students at a university in China last year. These students had never been exposed to African thinkers before. Once the ice was broken, the young students asked fascinating questions. Both sides realized how much we were getting our understanding of each other from sources that were not necessarily in line with our interests: books on social development, anthropology or nature documentaries, travel memoirs, World Bank statistics, and foreign correspondents who subtly or not so subtly reinforce negative stereotypes.

What about the image of Africa as a continent of despair, safaris and poverty?

Exactly. A continent caught in constant crisis and helplessness, full of peoples who expect others to think for them. I asked the students to think about where they got the information from. Such exploration opens up space for other kinds of conversations, for example about the importance of translating our works directly for each other and having our exchanges without intermediaries. 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.

Do you think that relations with China will become even closer in the coming years?

We tend to forget that not only does China influence East Africa, but East Africans influence China. There are African students in China, there are Chinese scientists in Africa, there are young Chinese students who come to visit every year to immerse themselves in nature and develop their own relationship with the wild and the environment. In December 2017, China banned the trade in elephant products and ivory. This decision was partly due to this engagement in East Africa.

What about racism against Africans? I remember a state Spring Festival gala in 2021. There was a dance choreography celebrating Sino-African relations, with Chinese dancers dressed as African bushmen, with black painted faces and banana skirts.

Discrimination that arises from ignorance can always be corrected. It is not comparable to deliberate and ideological racism that is created to support an imagined cultural superiority. The subsequent galas were better curated. Although the film sector probably still needs some lessons - I am thinking of the truly awful film "Wolf Warrior,” which tried to repeat the boring white savior complex, 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 supply the Chinese market. In East Africa, donkeys are companions. We do not slaughter donkeys – or horses either. I hate the opportunism that changes the values that we hold dear as Kenyans. On the other hand, the "The West’s “worries” are a matter of concern when you consider how Africa is still portrayed in the Western mainstream media. These are nations that have done everything to avoid even an apology for their ancestors’ role in the worst of all historical atrocities, the Atlantic slave trade. We all know that the Western "Concerns" are not to our advantage. It is mainly panic about the impending loss of cheap and easy access to African resources.

What do you think of the current government? President Ruto seems less inclined towards China than his predecessor.

He seems to have turned the country entirely towards the West. We were trying to find a happy medium, a space for self-interested neutrality. And given the times we live in today, the emergence of forward-looking alliances like Brics+, the changing winds of history and the change of generations, this swing is reminiscent of a fantasy of the return of the 1960s, the Cold War and the 1980s dominated by the Bretton Woods institutions.

What do you expect for the further development of relations with China?

From what I have heard on the ground, I gather that there will be an over-compensatory backlash, for better or worse. A generation will grow up that will be less open to the West. But this kind of swinging left or right occurs when a people and a nation have not taken the time to define their myth of origin and their dreams for the future. They are like a reed that bends one way or the other depending on which wind is blowing the strongest. I think we need to devote much more time to Kenyan self-love and self-interest and always ask, "Yes, but what does this bring to our whole people and to a thousand generations of future Kenyans?"

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor was born in 1986 in Nairobi, Kenya. In her novels, the writer devotes herself to the recent history of her home country. In 2003, she was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her works "The Place Where the Journey Ends" (2014) and "The Sea of Dragonflies" (2019) were published in German by DuMont. After writing stays in Berlin and Iowa, Owuor lives and works in Nairobi again.

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