"Africa" is a western invention

"Africa" is a western invention. Despite attempts by visionaries to promote unity among the states that inherited dominion from Europe's retreating empires, African politicians have never paid anything more than lip-service to the pan-African ideal. African writers have an uphill task reclaiming the term "Africa" from the mythic associations it has in western literature. Most of these writers don't write about continental aspirations but about the worlds within a single country, leaving generalisations to World Bank experts, grandstanding politicians and Hollywood stars.

For outsiders, writing about Africa is full of pitfalls - patronising generalisations, resounding clichés, imprecision and untruths. As the Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina puts it in his satirical essay "How To Write About Africa", published in Granta a couple of years ago: "Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal' ... Mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can't live without her. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed."​

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/01/africa

 

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A whole bunch of us at my office were laughing ourselves silly at this post (I had to share it). Well done!!!! ROFOLOL

 

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Be interesting to hear from people what they think of when they hear "Africa"

Anything like this?

 

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Now that I think about it, there isn't much I know about Africa's history.
Not talking about countries, such as Egypt, that have a well recorded history.
For example, when did the first cities appear ? I assume it was after the west poisoned their cultures. Or did they have civilizations comparable to the people in the America's (Inca's, Aztecs etc.) back in the day ?

 

Ethiopia is older than Egypt.

 

Uhm yea.. but that doesn't help much. (Edit: thanks for the quotations though)
Lets say I'm talking about everything south of the black line:

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I think that Africa suffers from two problems racism and borders.

You can say what you want about Alabama, but somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 people died in the Rwandan genocide, which was a tribal conflict. So maybe "racism" is the wrong word, but I don't think it matters.

Secondly, (and this problem probably exacerbates the first) is that the borders in Africa weren't drawn by Africans. They were drawn by colonial powers to split up mineral wealth.

So what does this have to do with the group of countries known as "Africa"? I think that until the country actually grows up, the west will continue to make such broad generalizations. The fact is that none of the African countries has distinguished itself in the Western mind, so they all remain on equal footing. This means that the West doesn't think about Ethiopia or Eritrea or Sudan, but about Africa. Racism motivates so many atrocities on that continent, and it seems that a year doesn't pass without some country descending into Civil War. With such widespread pandemonium, it's easy to make generalizations.

Further, I don't know if we can do anything about this problem. I think all that the West can do is to support model African countries like Gabon or Ghana, while trying to subvert people like Robert Mugabe, and hope for the best.

 

Which countries have distinguished themselves? And how?

 

Tribalism is worse than racism in Africa.

Africa has most climates and massive resources. Its an orsm continent.

 

I used to read a lot of Wilbur Smith so I agree with you.

 

Oooh, I just thought of another great western african invention.. Charlize Theron.

 

Ive read everyone of his books and greatly admire his stories. They are often very accurate and follow the real politics of Africa. Some amazing well researched stories.

 

Not sure who Wilbur Smith is, but presumably you're saying that I'm incorrect about tribalism? I don't quite understand your objections? Plus, isn't w1zard from South Africa---presumably he has some experience with this?

The point is that when the elections went south in Kenya two years ago, the violence was along tribal lines. Genocide in Rwanda occurred with tacit government support of a tribal militia.

Corrupt governments exist from Zimbabwe to DRC to Sudan to Nigeria. While there are some exceptions (see previous post), it seems that the rule is poor leadership, coupled with deep seeded racism (and, to be fair, a reluctance of the West to follow through with promised aid and a willingness of China and Russia to overlook atrocities) seems to be the major problems with many countries developing.

RE earlier comment: Are you asking which country in the world HAS distinguished itself?

 

Violence is usually along tribal lines, if you see the war in Iraq, it was mostly white Caucasians attacking brown Arabs. Thats a coloured tribal line, right there.

I'm wondering what distinguish itself means.

 

The tribal conflicts in Africa seem to be long standing in nature, and due to deep seeded prejudices. A better comparison would be between rival Muslim factions in Iraq, Sunni and Shia, rather than a simplistic color divide (eg, white vs. brown). The conflicts between muslim factions arose as a result of the removal of a barrier (i.e. Sadam Hussein). The genocide in Rwanda was caused by precipitated by a politically motivated assassination of a president who happened to be the member of a specific race. The violence in Kenya was caused when an election may have been rigged, causing tribal tensions to escalate (see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17774507, for example).

The conflict between America and Iraq is qualitatively different in nature---we're not fighting Iraqis for the sole reason that they're Iraqis. If you can't acknowledge that there is a difference between civil violence across tribal lines and the war between two sovereign countries (regardless of the legitimacy of that conflict) and the subsequent quelling of an insurgency, then I really don't see myself continuing this discourse.

Without googling it, and ignoring South Africa, name the country with the largest GDP in Africa.

Name the country with the most stable, democratically elected government.

Name the country with the largest tourist industry.

Name one thing that Namibia is famous for. How about Chad? How about Kenya?

Now, you're probably a bad example, but how many Westerners could answer these questions. Countries in the African continent seem to be too busy fighting themselves to worry about contributing to or participating in the world community. Whether you attribute this to Western ignorance, or colonial oppression, or whatever, it seems to be the rule.

So the answer that "Africa is a western invention" is almost trivially true---it's easier for Westerners to group a bunch of countries in the same general area of the world together if there's no reason for us to do otherwise. African countries haven't done anything to stand out. Maybe, at the end of the day, it's just a marketing issue. Or maybe it's a naive expectation from things like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the European Union, the South Asian Economic Union and ASEAN (Assoc. of SE Asian Nations) that nations which are in a similar geographical region, and share similar economic interests would want to cooperate towards those ends.

 

When I hear Africa I think of a lot of countries in a geological location. I don't think of a pan-African nothing. Like Asia: China, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Philippines, etc... a bunch of countries where people are somewhat similar in appearance.

 

No, thats not tribalism. Sorry, you fail. Not even a creationist could pervert the meaning of tribalism to fit into what you said Sam. Keep it straight and real.

White people are made of many different tribes, same as the middle eastern people. Your racism is clouding your judgement.

What closer to tribalism (but still isnt).. is how the Sunni`s and Shia.. however, even that is not tribalism because for instance, the sunni group is made up of many different tribes.

A tribe is a group of people like the Zulu`s, or the Xhosas, or the Shonas. White tribes are celts or scots and such.

 

So the white people don't support the white people because "they look like us and talk like us and live like us"?

 

Let me put it into perspective so the racist part of you can understand.

In africa, black people hate other black people more than they hate white people. This is due to REAL tribalism. Take for instance South Africa`s recent xenophobic attacks.

Not a single white person was touched, all the violence happened on the tribal level with black people killing and setting people on fire because they came from a different tribe.

When dealing with your rather warped perspective of white people the issue deals with race. Not tribes. Im sure a lil Muslim Indian girl can understand that much ? Or do I need to "slow it down" to help you understand what tribalism is.