"Where did you learn English?" Trump's question to Liberia's president illustrates Western stereotypes

To forget that Liberia is English-speaking, and that it shares a founding history with the United States , is to reveal a blindness symptomatic of a fixed Western view of Africa. A view that often remains prisoner of old stereotypes: Africa as a continent without history, withdrawn into itself, condemned to poverty or deprived of political rationality.

This episode is part of an imaginary legacy of colonization . Africa is perceived as a homogeneous whole, without distinction between its 54 countries, its hundreds of languages, and its rich and ancient history.

However, the continent is not "outside of history." Powerful empires like those of Ghana and Mali flourished long before the arrival of Europeans. During the pre-colonial period, the continent was home to great civilizations, powerful, organized, and connected to the rest of the world.

This is the emblematic case of the Ghana Empire (also called Wagadou), founded in the 3rd century AD by the Soninke people, and which reached its peak in the 11th century. Although it has no geographical link with modern Ghana, this empire dominated a large part of the present-day Sahel (Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Niger).

The empire's prosperity stemmed from its gold wealth, its mastery of ironworking, its structured political organization (with ministers, governors, and a hierarchical army), and a system of matrilineal succession that was particularly advanced for its time. It was also connected to the rest of the world by the trans-Saharan trade routes, which allowed for exchanges with the Maghreb, the Arab world, and even beyond.

The preconceived idea that Africans are simply recipients of modernity, however, continues to fuel a paternalistic view. However, African societies have been actors in global history , connected by trade, religion and diplomacy to Europe, the Middle East and Asia, well before colonization.

After Ghana's decline in the 12th century, the Mali Empire took over and left a lasting impression. It reached its peak under the legendary Mansa Musa (1312–1332 or 1337). This ruler, often considered one of the richest men in world history, owed his fortune to Mali's gold production, at a time when most of the gold circulating in the Mediterranean world came from West Africa.

Trump's comment would be a mere "misstep" if the context weren't so heavily weighted with symbolism. It serves as a reminder of how African voices are still perceived through a prism of exoticism or surprise, as if intelligence, linguistic mastery, or culture could only be expressed from the African continent in exceptional circumstances.

African societies have often been presented as lacking writing, a past, or political rationality. Colonization was built on this basis, claiming to "civilize" peoples deemed naturally inferior . The Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos describes this practice as "epistemicide," in the sense of the elimination of indigenous forms of knowledge and social practices, a practice already at work in the colonies.

The continent is full of civic dynamics, democratic expressions, and forms of political organization that demonstrate real vitality. Africans are not "apolitical," as some discourses suggest, but they actively participate in public life, often outside formal frameworks or weakened state institutions.

Civil societies play a crucial role in this political rationality: unions, student movements, local NGOs, journalists, committed artists, digital activists—all forces that question power, denounce corruption, and defend human rights. It is often these actors who champion democratic aspirations in the face of elites perceived as disconnected from social realities.

We also observe the importance of pan-African citizen movements, such as "Y'en a marre" in Senegal or "Balai citoyen" in Burkina Faso , which embody a new political generation, more horizontal, inventive, and breaking with the clientelist practices inherited from post-colonial states.

In a context where African youth are increasingly educated, connected and demanding , political legitimacy is being redefined beyond elections alone: ​​it is now anchored in the ability of the authorities to respond to the real needs of the populations, to embody a shared vision and to dialogue with an increasingly structured and influential civil society.

Thus, Western models of representative democracy are not exported mechanically , and their transposition without adaptation has often produced hybrid systems, where elections coexist with authoritarian, clientelist or militarized practices. However, this does not mean the absence of political life or the search for legitimacy. Quite the contrary: African societies are inventing other forms of participation, protest and accountability, anchored in their social and historical contexts.

Finally, Africa is the scene of multiple innovations which contradict the received idea that the continent is condemned to being nothing more than a receptacle of imported modernity.

Historically, centers of knowledge like the University of Sankoré in Timbuktu , from the Middle Ages onwards, collected thousands of handwritten works on astronomy, mathematics, law, and theology. This institution welcomed scholars from all over the Islamic world, rivaling the great European universities of the time.

In contemporary Africa, this creative and technological dynamic continues with increasing intensity. Kenya has become a symbol of innovation thanks to M-Pesa , a pioneering mobile money transfer service launched in 2007 by Safaricom and based on locally developed technology. It has given millions of unbanked people access to financial services, transforming the economic lives of many households.

This success was followed by a wave of African startups, particularly in Nigeria, Senegal, and Morocco, which are now raising hundreds of millions of dollars in fields as diverse as digital technology, agritech, health, and artificial intelligence. Countries like Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya have become true hubs of innovation , even if the ecosystem remains fragile due to a lack of infrastructure and access to financing.

Innovation is also cultural. Nigerian cinema Nollywood , the world's second-largest film industry, illustrates the power of local, popular creation. The same is true of the rise of Afrofuturism : by blending science fiction, African cultural heritage, and a critique of colonialism, it offers a reinvention of African imaginations, far from miserabilist stereotypes. The film Black Panther , with its fictional kingdom of Wakanda, never colonized and technologically advanced, marked a break in popular representations, promoting a powerful, modern, and autonomous Africa.

These examples serve as a reminder that creativity is neither marginal nor recent, but structural. Yet it continues to be perceived through a filter of surprise or exception: as if innovation on the continent could only be the exception that proves the rule, and not the manifestation of a profound dynamism.

Donald Trump's "surprise," which we described at the beginning of this article, in the presence of an English-speaking African president, echoes the absurd idea that "Africans have no history," or are "naturally backward."

In reality, as we show in Afriques: Idées reçues sur un continent composite , it is less a question of a lack of knowledge than of a refusal to listen to African narratives in their plurality. It is urgent to deconstruct these visions. This begins with a work of education, history and listening. Because it is not Africa that is "behind", but rather certain perceptions that are struggling to be updated. The real challenge is not so much to correct a diplomatic blunder as to fundamentally reconsider our frameworks of thought.