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| Fighting for women’s rights is our feminist call. And sometimes, it takes a toll on our physical and mental health. |
There has been a lot of conversation recently about Trevor Noah and South Africa.
For context, there has been a lot of xenophobia from South Africans toward other Africans, with the images emerging from the country showing such deliberate cruelty that you cannot help but wonder where they lost their humanity.
As a result, many people have been calling South Africa out and holding the country accountable for the lives lost, properties destroyed or stolen, and bonds broken because of these persistent acts of violence, especially against other Africans.
Trevor Noah has been catching a lot of flak because, while promoting South Africa and its tourism through his shows and new podcast, people have been asking a very simple question: where is your voice when it comes to xenophobia?
This is because he has been very vocal about racism in America, spoken up frequently about instances of inequality in his role on The Daily Show, and continues to do so now as a podcast host. Yet, he has not spoken much, if at all, about the xenophobia in South Africa.
So, I understand the question. Because when you are an African with a massive platform, people expect you to use it.
We have done this before. We have looked to musicians, actors, celebrities, public intellectuals, activists, and wealthy Africans and said, “You have a platform. Say something.”
And when they do not say something, we become angry.
Sometimes, rightly so.
And this is not the first time we have seen this.
During End SARS, people did the same thing with Beyoncé.
They were angry that she was not speaking quickly enough about what was happening in Nigeria. And I understood the frustration. Beyoncé had just made The Gift, and Black Is King had spent a lot of time celebrating African culture, beauty, and creativity. Nigerians had been part of that project. So there was a very legitimate question about whether that relationship also came with some responsibility to pay attention when Nigerians were in crisis.
Tiwa Savage, who was on the album and facing some flak herself, actually called Beyoncé out publicly and asked Beyoncé and her team to use their platform. Beyoncé eventually did speak, expressing support for End SARS and highlighting the brutality protesters were facing. She also went further to donate to the cause, way more than some people who were critiquing her did.
But what I found interesting about that whole conversation was the expectation. Because some of us could not understand how an American could possibly not know everything that was happening in Nigeria.
And I think that is where we need to be honest with ourselves.
Americans often live in an American media bubble. A lot of them barely know what is happening outside the United States unless it becomes major international news, enters their social media feeds, or somebody they know personally brings it to their attention.
And I am not saying that as an excuse for not knowing. I am saying it because we have to understand the world we actually live in. Because Nigerians themselves can live through something happening in another African country and have absolutely no idea what is going on there. We complain that Americans do not know what is happening in Africa, but how many Nigerians can tell you what is happening in Malawi? How many of us follow what is happening in Sudan beyond the occasional viral post? How many of us know what is happening politically in Senegal, economically in Ghana, or socially in South Africa until it directly affects us?
We are Africans, and we still live in our own information bubbles. So why are we expecting somebody thousands of kilometres away, living in an entirely different media ecosystem, to know everything happening here?
And we have seen this play out again with Tyla. Look at what happened when she announced the Lagos leg of her tour this year. Suddenly, she became responsible for the xenophobia crisis in South Africa. People questioned why she had not spoken about the attacks on Nigerians. There were calls to boycott her concert. There were even people demanding that she and her team be denied visas.
And I want to be very clear.
It is completely valid to want public figures to speak about injustice. It is valid to ask people who benefit from African audiences, African culture, and African markets where they stand when Africans are being harmed. But there is a difference between asking somebody to use their platform and making them responsible for solving a problem they did not create.
And that difference matters.
Because otherwise, we keep creating these imaginary gods. We find somebody who is famous, wealthy, visible, or powerful and decide that they now have to carry our pain for us.
And when they do not, we turn on them.
Trevor Noah.
Beyoncé.
Tyla.
And there will always be another person. Because the problem is not actually the individual. The problem is that we keep looking for individuals to do the work of movements.
When this happens, they are slapped with the term performative activism or accused of pretending to care when they do not act the way we expect them to.
This is the bigger conversation that we need to have about this.
Because I find it fascinating that we keep looking for saviours. We keep looking for our African gods. One person who will speak. One person who will organise. One person who will take the risk. One person who will stand in front of everybody else and fight.
And then the rest of us sit back and decide whether that person has done enough.
I find that really interesting because activism does not work like that. And I say this as somebody who has been in this field for a very long time.
As a feminist and activist, I know what it means to put your body on the line for things you believe in. I know what it means to have difficult conversations, to enter difficult spaces, to deal with institutions, to challenge people who have more money, more power, and sometimes more protection than you do.
I know what it means to carry stories that you cannot simply put down at the end of the day. And I know what activism can do to your body.
It can exhaust you.
It can make you angry.
It can make you afraid.
It can affect your relationships. Your sleep. Your mental health. Your ability to function normally.
There have been times when I have had to quit. Not because I stopped caring. Not because the injustice disappeared. But because I simply could not take any more.
And I think that is something we do not talk about enough.
We see people standing in front of cameras. We see the speeches. We see the protests. We see the campaigns. We see the posts.
But we do not see the cost.
We do not know what it costs somebody to keep speaking. We do not know what they are dealing with privately. We do not know what they have sacrificed. We do not know how many times they have gone home and cried. We do not know how many times they have questioned whether any of this is worth it.
And I think sometimes people sitting comfortably in their rooms forget that.
Look at what happened with Dadiyatta, who, till today, remains missing. Look at what happened when the women behind FEMCO stood up for the END SARS protests. Many of them reported being doxxed, having to run away from their homes, and their accounts being frozen. Look at the backlash Beyoncé faced when her music began to focus more on African American experiences and inequality. We saw what happened when Tyla dared to describe herself as coloured rather than African American or Black. We saw the incredibly surprising way African Americans piled on her, with reports that she lost endorsements as a result. And I know people say, “Oh. If you lose it, it is good as long as you do not lose your soul.”
But that is only easy to say when you are not the one having millions of people pile on you, dealing with death threats coming through, or dealing with the mental health issues that can ensue.
All they care about is that they look at our activists and our public figures and say:
“Why have you not spoken?”
“Why have you not done more?”
“Why are you silent?”
“Why are you not fighting?”
As though these people are gods. As though they have an endless supply of courage, money, time, energy, and emotional capacity. As though they are supposed to keep taking and taking and taking because the rest of us need them to.
And that, to me, is also a form of performative activism.
This is no shade at Tiwa Savage, because I love her oh so dearly, but she called out Beyoncé for something she has not spoken about since. She has also barely spoken about other issues of inequality, even when they become viral moments in our national history. And many other celebrities genuinely only speak about these issues as a way to perform care, get those likes and clicks, and maybe sell a product as a result.
Sometimes the performance is glaring. Other times, it is oh so subtle.
And we are right to hold them accountable.
But sometimes we become more invested in watching other people perform activism than actually doing the work ourselves. We spend hours discussing who has spoken. Who has not spoken. Who posted. Who did not post. Who attended the protest. Who did not attend. Who condemned something quickly enough.
And somewhere in all of that, we lose the actual issue.
I have always maintained that we need to focus on our activism, not on who is not standing with us. Because if I am fighting for something I believe in, I cannot spend all my energy looking over my shoulder to see who has joined me.
Of course, solidarity matters. Of course, people with platforms have responsibilities. Of course, silence from powerful people can be disappointing and, sometimes, deeply consequential.
But I also think we have to ask ourselves a much harder question.
What are we doing?
What are we willing to risk?
What are we willing to organise?
What are we willing to change?
Because the truth is, if every single person who is angry about injustice actually did something about the injustice in their own community, we would not need gods. We would not need saviours. We would not need one celebrity, one activist, one politician, or one wealthy person to come and rescue us.
We would have each other.
And history has shown us what ordinary people can do when they organise.
Look at South Korea. Its democratic transition was not delivered by one heroic individual. Millions of people participated in mass protests and civil resistance, and that collective pressure forced political reforms.
Look at Burkina Faso in 2014. People took to the streets against Blaise Compaoré's attempt to extend his 27 years in power. Civil society, young people, opposition groups, and ordinary citizens mobilised, and that pressure ultimately forced him out.
That is the part of activism that I think we sometimes forget.
Change does not have to have a face. Movements do not need a celebrity. And justice does not require a saviour.
So yes, ask Trevor Noah where he stands. Ask Beyoncé. Ask Tyla. Ask Don Jazzy. Ask every powerful African where they stand.
Hold people accountable.
But please, while you are asking them to stand, ask yourself where you are standing.
Because we cannot keep outsourcing our courage.
We cannot keep expecting our “gods” to take every risk on our behalf.
And we cannot sit in our rooms, watching people burn themselves out for causes that affect all of us, and then complain that they are not doing enough.
If all of us spoke up against the injustices in our own communities, if all of us organised, if all of us protected each other, if all of us used whatever little power we have, we would achieve far more than we ever could by waiting for one person to save us.
That, for me, is the real conversation about performative activism.
It is not just about who is “pretending to care.”
Sometimes, it is about how easily we turn other people's activism into a performance we consume.
And perhaps the question is not: “Where is our saviour?”
Perhaps the question is: “Where are we?”
Because frankly, I think we can achieve much more together.
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