Uganda‘s Arinaitwe Rugyendo gets straight to the point; whites and blacks have issues with one another. In terms of Africa and the West, whites have told and continue to tell blacks what is moral, right, and just; continue to import aid, while at the same time importing dependency and destruction. The Global Village is changing things and the voices of Africa, like those of RELATIVITY OnLine’s Arinaitwe Rugyendo, are standing up to be heard.

When David Anthony Hohol, dropped me an email two weeks ago, asking me to contribute to ‘Relativity Online,’ I was surprised.

Surprised because; ‘how could a white request a black for a contribution to his own idea?’

In our cultural context and also owing to our colonial history and its legacies, whites are viewed as omniscient species who regard anything from Africa as ‘trash.’

Their perspective is supposed to be the global trend of things. They are the ones who export, nurture and consolidate democracy.

They are the ones who have the right to divide the world into moral and immoral; poor and rich; dictatorial and free; terrorist and moderate, etc.

But David convinced me beyond these socially constructed biases.

He convinced me to buy into his idea with a flattering sweetener; ‘I bought a copy of Red Pepper (my newspaper) while I was there and enjoyed it.’

That tickled me a bit. He had traveled to my country and enjoyed every bit of it and appreciated what it has to offer for the rest of the world. I and four other young colleagues own Red Pepper (www.redpepper.ug ) and it has fast become Uganda’s leading daily tabloid.

In our exchange, David revealed he had visited Uganda and had particularly fell in love with the country’s rare Mountain Gorillas, found not anywhere in the world except in the densely impenetrable forest of Bwindi, in the South West.

It was this visit that prompted David to start a non-profit on-line magazine, where writers from around the global would ‘share their perspectives on life and living.’

“I am looking to tear down stereotypes and build bridges between cultures,” he pressed on.

“Tales and discussions of daily life in your country are part of what I am looking for, as it is often a misunderstood and mysterious part of the world. On a bigger scale, what perceptions do people have of your part of the world that is wrong? If you could stand in front of a group of people from the other side of the world, what would you want them to know about you and your country?  What might they be surprised by?” he asked me.

From this, I realized that the world has changed. It has become a small village where, for survival’s sake, every opinion matters. At last, here was a ‘foreigner’ with a strong passion to tell the ‘African story’ to the rest of the world.David’s concept enriches the relativism debate with fresh labels that rule the global village. These are the rules that take cognizance of the fact that even the most misunderstood have something to offer. And that most importantly, even a dead clock is always correct twice day. The world has changed. Technology has broken barriers. Quantity has become quality. Interpretation of what is democratic has been democratized and ‘relativised.’

It is difficult to own a view point and make it absolute for the rest of the world. Again, because of technology, the world has since become a dictatorship of relativism and universalism. Only when historic stereotypes are broken, will the world become a better place.

My country, Uganda, is located in the epicenter of the Great Lakes Region of Africa and is part of the wider East African Community of five countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

It has had its fare share of conflict, disease, poverty and genocide.

Through the media, most especially from the West, the rest of world is made to believe these problems are a reflection of a backward society, yet their manifestations have a root in the colonial construction of the African people as essentially backward and primitive. They also have a root in the global competition for African resources, which competition often gets ‘conflictual,’ because of a proliferation of weapons from the West that fuel disease, genocide and install dictators.

The thrill that Relativity Online brings into this debate is the fact that it will provide a rare platform where the true picture about issues and phenomena from around the globe will thrive.

Many of us in Africa have no access to the kind of medium where our continent’s story can be told.

We only do so through our own media which is of course neither believed nor acknowledged. Our media is the unfortunate beneficiary of the unprincipled divide between the ‘respected’ and ‘peripheral’ media. But this doesn’t mean Africa has no bad story. It should come out and attract criticism for that is what relativity is all about. In fact, the lobbyists and spin doctors who are paid to ‘paint’ a good picture of Africa rarely do it perfectly, surrendering a huge amount for space for the rest of the world to paint a picture they want their audiences to see.

But we cannot keep playing the blame game all the time. The Internet has turned our huge planet into a small expression on a computer screen, and will seek to break these barriers, democratize the space for expression, and acknowledge the Africans as some form of very significant species.

Africa feeds the world, most especially the West, through immigrant labor and raw materials. The West on the other hand, feeds Africa with aid and firearms. Yet the Western Media seeks to feed the world with what the West wants the rest of the world to hear; a continent of disease, corruption, dictators, famine and war.

But with technology and the invasion of cyberspace, where will these ideas and stereotypes be sold? Who will buy them?

“If you could stand in front of a group of people from the other side of the world, what would you want them to know about you and your country? What might they be surprised by?” David asked me.

This side of the world is hungry for a true picture. It wants a picture of hope, progress, opportunity and optimism about Africa. Is that too much to ask?

From Arinaitwe Rugyendo…