Correct the Map, Correct the Narrative

There is an ancient African proverb, “Until the lion tells his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”  It comes to mind that on the 4^th of September, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York to meet for its 80^th session, facing a question that may appear deceptively simple: What should the world map look like?

But this is not merely a question for cartographers. It is a question about knowledge, perception, power and identity.

At the centre of the debate is the 16th-century Mercator projection. Created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 primarily as a navigational tool, it has become one of the most familiar representations of the world. Yet its mathematical design dramatically enlarges territories the further they are from the equator.

The consequence is striking. On the familiar Mercator map, Greenland appears comparable in size to Africa. Africa is approximately fourteen times larger than Greenland.  Africa is not small.  The map makes it look small. That distinction matters.

Togo, with the backing of the African Union, has taken the issue to the United Nations, advocating greater use of the Equal Earth projection, which more accurately preserves the relative areas of continents. The African Union itself has already supported the adoption of the projection map and encouraged its incorporation into national educational curricula.

Some will ask: Why should Africans care? We have bigger problems.  Indeed, we do.

Africa has poverty, unemployment, conflict, debt, infrastructure deficits, unequal trade relationships, and a continuing struggle for greater representation in global institutions.

But that is precisely why these matters.

Before people change the world, they must first be able to imagine themselves differently within it.  For generations, African children have looked at maps in classrooms and seen a visual representation in which Europe, North America, and parts of the northern hemisphere appear disproportionately enormous. In contrast, Africa, the world's second-largest continent, appears diminished.

The Mercator projection map was not designed as an anti-African conspiracy. That needs to be said. But the fact that a projection was created for navigation does not mean we should ignore the consequences of allowing one representation to dominate education and public consciousness for centuries.

Maps teach. Maps communicate importance. Maps establish mental geography, and mental geography can become political geography.

This is why Togo's initiative should not be dismissed as symbolic. It belongs within the larger African struggle to decolonise knowledge. The question is not whether Africa needs to pretend to be bigger than it is. The question is whether the world is prepared to see Africa as it is. And the African Church has a role in this conversation.

Hosea's warning, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”, reminds us that ignorance can become a form of bondage.

We cannot preach liberation while teaching distorted histories.  We cannot proclaim African dignity while reproducing images that unconsciously diminish Africa.

We cannot speak of an African Renaissance while allowing others to define the mental map through which African children understand their place in the world.

Correcting the map will not solve Africa's problems, but it can be part of correcting the narrative.  And correcting the narrative can help create a generation that understands that Africa is not peripheral to the world.  Africa is central. The lion must tell the story.

And today, at the United Nations, Africa is beginning to redraw not the world but the world's understanding of Africa.

Ronald A. Nathan is an ordained elder of the A.M.E. Zion Church, resident in the United Kingdom, and the World Politics Editor of the Star of Zion.