Paul Kagame’s move to ban import of skin bleaching chemicals triggers debate
By ALEXANDER OPICHO
During the mid-years of the last century, the Spanish painter, poet and playwright, Pablo Ruiz Picasso mockingly asked that ‘if black is beauty why are black people struggling to become white?’ He posed this question in one of his metaphysical works on politics and economics of race. This unanswered question only provoked emotional outbursts that emerge whenever there is a pique on the harmony of inter-racial relations. Let Picasso rest in peace since his death 45 years ago, but as of today majority of black women and men all over the world still fake Western accents, use European names, and still spend their hard-earned money to buy skin bleaching products manufactured in the west.
Statistics show that most men and women in Africa believe that light skin enhances beauty. This perspective of beauty economics has become centre-piece of social media and conventional media controversy after Paul Kagame the president of Rwanda recently banned the practice of skin bleaching in Rwanda and immediately moved to confiscate the skin lightening chemicals in Kigali.
The commercial statistics have it that most of the bleaching products, which alter skin pigment from dark to light, are usually smuggled into Rwanda and all other African countries. There are some other African countries like Ghana and South Africa that have laws prohibiting the import of select bleaching products, but Kagame has sternly decreed that all bleaching perfumes are not to be imported into Rwanda regardless of the chemical content.
Diverse responses
The ban has triggered debate and mixed reactions among Rwanda citizens. Brian Niwenshuti expressed his concerns on social media that this intervention could affect the cosmetics trade. Another citizen tweeted that the white people also spend millions on skin tanning creams and solaria to tan their skin and hence there is nothing wrong in blacks whitening their skin. Some have also faulted Kagame for not beginning with the more harmful products like cigarettes and alcohol. Those in support of the move such as Kigali pharmacist Brice Hirwa argue that the ban is necessary as bleaching weakens the skin, exposing users to cancer and other diseases.
The World Health Organisation (2018) report on commerce of bleaching and skin lightening perfumes reveals that the highly unregulated global skin lightening market is estimated to be worth billions of dollars in a year. The report further reveals that at least four out of every 10 women in Africa bleach their skin.
Entrenching capitalism
The big question here hinges on the psycho-philosophical observations by Frantz Fanon in Black Skins, White Masks that, ‘black man struggles to become like a Whiteman, but a white man struggles to become a human being’. The analogy can be extended here to observe that the white people tanning their skins are not importing the perfumes from Africa, but the black people import all the bleaching or skin lightening products from outside Africa. The local media in Ghana recently had a feature story that school girls in Accra are more focused on bleaching themselves that on reading. All these point to money flowing out of Africa to the West, and in reverse, the non-essential commodities flowing from the West into Africa.
The current case for its economic sense is evinced in the Western economic opportunism on Africa such as the one observed in the US reality TV star Blac Chyna over a bid to sell her own brand of skin lightening products in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.
Bleaching and skin lightening as a political and racial question in Africa should not be left as a burden only for political leaders. The media and learning institutions have a moral duty to educate the masses and young people in Africa on facts of Africa’s historical and racial consciousness like black is beautiful movement that was started by African-Americans in mid last century. Similarly, the media, literary institutions and all learning institutions must promote self-dignifying virtues like black consciousness a move to counter the mistaken racist perceptions of black facial features, bodies and hair as ugly.
The moral perspective
One major task of a leader is weighing issues on the scale of morals vs rights and that is what President Kagame is exemplifying through this ban.
Damaris Nanjira of the Institute of Gender Studies at the University of Nairobi does not blame black women for bleaching and skin lightening. Nanjira blames the vice of ‘colourism’ as fuelled by the culture of patriarchy in our African society.
Deep-seated perceptions
However, neurosis of a man favouring a light skinned woman is not only an African problem. Literature on black slavery in America depicts similar psychological failures of man when exposed to a dark skin. Alex Haley, Malcom X, Harriet Becher Stowe, Napoleon Hill and Maya Angelou have all written about American slavery experience on the plantation farms where light skinned Negroes used to be assigned lighter duties compared to the dark-skinned Negroes. This begs the question, ‘Is the ban responding to symptoms of a much bigger ailment, or is it a stern resolve of a ship determined to change cause for the better?’
Alexander Opicho is a freelance journalist based in Lodwar, Kenya. Email: opichoalexander@gmail.com
