Africa: Breaking Stereotypes and Personal Growth as a Function of Knowledge Acquisition - Essay Example

Section/# Africa: Myth and Reality – A Discussion of Breaking Stereotypes and Personal Growth as a Function of Knowledge Acquisition One of the most dangerous facets of the human imagination is the way I n which stereotypes can work to become something of a collective reality. Although great strides have been taken in seeking to root out stereotypes within the past few decades, there remain certain areas in which stereotypes abound with regards to the way that individuals think and integrate a level of knowledge with relation to certain people groups, ideas, or places. No more fully can this be seen than in the way that many people integrate with the idea of Africa. Thus far this semester, this particular student h as been able to relect upon the nature of the stereotypes and preconceived notions that were held with regards to Africa as well as the way that many of these have melted upon exposure to reality and truth. Accordingly, this brief analysis will consider Curtis Keim’s book Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind as a way to draw inference upon the way that many individuals within American society approach issues relating to Africa and form stereotypes based upon these. A powerful stereotype that had integrated itself with my way of thinking regarding the continent was the belief that the few trouble spots within Africa were indicative of the entire continent. Unfortunately, this is not only a common misconception that is held by this particular author; rather it is a stereotype that integrates itself with a wide range of individuals that have never taken the time nor had the opportunity to analyze Africa for what it truly is rather than what the current news media and/or popular culture is bombarding them with. As a function of this, prior to reading the book or attending the lectures, I was under the impression that hot spots such as Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Niger, and Mali ultimately defined the way in which the African experience could best be summed up. Naturally, this is a highly flawed view as it ignores the fact that Africa is comprised of 55 recognized and identifiable nation/states. All too often the observer, inclusive of this author prior to considering the full nuance that the continent of Africa offers, are tempted to view these 55 separate, distinct, ethnically diverse nations as something of a singular entity for the purposes of easy definition. However, such an action ultimately weakens whatever descriptive identifier that is attempting to be placed upon Africa or Africans be minimizing the differences, regional peculiarities, ethnic differences, linguistic separations, religious affiliations, and an entire litany of factors that separate the cultures represented within Africa into the many different nationalities and world views that they espouse. The author of the text in question spends a great deal of time discussing the stereotype of primitive, tribal, and otherwise wild existence that is exhibited throughout Africa in the collective minds of those individuals who have an incomplete and popular-culture influenced view of the continent. As such, this vantage point was something that this author retained as well prior to attending the course lectures and reading the associated documentation which has ultimately helped in forming a new view of the African continent and the many different types of development that are exhibited throughout the continent. It should of course be noted that although there are many rural and otherwise “primitive places” within Africa even within the current time. However, notwithstanding this, there are many exemplifications of wealthy African countries that have utilized their resource wealth and other economic advantages to build advanced capitals that exhibit a high level of convenience, amenities, and modernity. In this particular way, the exposure of this author to the book as well as the course information has helped to engender a much more realistic and modern interpretation of Africa rather than one which relies on a chain of comfortable clichés to identify the continent. Another factor that the author notes and that has helped to open the eyes of this particular student is the fact that the African Union plays an active role in determining the future of the continent. This is of course a wide divergence from the ways that the traditional American stereotype views Africa. In a sense, regardless of skin color, Americans oftentimes regard Africa as something of a “moral charge” which must be engaged with as a type of “white man’s burden”. However, such an understanding necessarily cheapns the humanity that exists within Africa and seeks to put the Western individual on a pedestal as compared to his African counterpart. As scuh, this viewpoint is flawed and does not take into account the full range, complexity and depth of the way in which Africa is exhibited within the current geopolitical system. Whereas the American interpretation may view NATO and the UN as the most effective means of conflict resolution and political action within the continent, there exists a much more effective means which the author introduces and discusses with the reader; that of the African Union (AU). Although the AU is something that the average American may not have heard of, it is responsible for some fairly amazing feats within the past few years. For one, the Somali conflict has been raging for a period of over 20 years. With no government and no end in sight, Western powers have given up on seeking to engage with or better the plight of the millions of Somalis that live in abject fear of the warring sides representing key interests within the region. However, the African Union has stepped in and filled the void by invading Somalia and stationing its peacekeepers throughout strategic regions; thereby helping to provide a level of stability that Somalia has not seen in the last several decades. Although imperfect, a great deal of respect must be paid to the AU due to the fact that they have been able to accomplish a task that Western governments have not even attempted, or if they did utterly failed at. Moreover, the stereotype that African nations are helpless without the direct or indirect intervention of the more civilized West is ultimately shattered by the engagement of such an institution in the future of the continent. Although the purpose of this prompt was to discuss the book in question and notice key aspects of preconceived notions that have changed as a result of integrating with the author’s point of view, it must be said that my view of Africa began to change long before I signed up for and attended this particular course. This change in the way that I viewed Africa occurred at the onset of the NATO led intervention in the Libyan Civil War. Although global politics was not a special interest or particular hobby of mine, I always found the late Moammar Gaddafi somewhat of an eccentric character that interested me. As such, when his regime began to experience a great deal of unrest and the subsequent attention of Old Europe and the United States in the form of a NATO led intervention within the internal domestic affairs of the nation of Libya, this called my attention to the fact that the motives of the West could very well not be fully well intentioned. Naturally, Italy specifically had a key part to play in the NATO backed intervention; the very same nation who had only a few brief decades earlier ruled a colonized Libya and extracted a great deal of wealth from such a conquest. Ultimately, the Libyan Civil War helped to teach this author not to look at African politics and conflict through a simple lens. Instead, the better approach is not to seek to define what leader is autocratic, dictatorial, or even bloodthirsty. Instead, it is of vital importance to seek to determine what the interests of the other party’s in the equation are and why they ultimately seek to depose or replace such a leader. As can oftentimes be seen, what happens when the West seeks to interfere and/or overthrow a given regime, the end result is that an even worse system of “democratic” governance is employed whereby the quality of life for the affected population plummets, and key goods and services that were available to them under their previous governmental structure disappear. Such was very much the case with regards to the Libyan Civil War, the mass slaughter of unarmed black African migrant workers captured by the Libyan rebels, wholesale destruction of Libya’s advanced oil and gas refineries and apparatus, and far reaching consequences of the annihilation of the 40 year old Gaddafi regime which came to power in a bloodless coup that overthrew a corrupt and inefficient monarchy. In this way, the authors level of focus upon the way that the Western world interacted with and viewed the situation in Africa was one in which relied upon the assumption that the population at home within the countries that were taking part in the aggression against the late Moammar Gaddafi would care little for the fate of the Africans that were dying by the droves in a sustained air conflict that has been claimed to have cost around 40,000 lives. Should such an instance have been perpetrated in Europe or elsewhere throughout the world, the outcry would have been horrendous; however, due to the stereotypes that exist regarding Africa and the supposed “cheapness” of life that exists there, the level of protests and denunciations of war mongering within Libya by NATO and its membership were practically muted. Fur this reason, this author took a particular interest in the level of double-standards and stereotypes that seemingly define the way that the rest of the world, and specifically Americans, integrate with the idea of Africa and the unique dynamics of life, death, and culture that go along with such stereotypes. A further level of understanding that has thus far been affected onto this particular student is the level to which the effects of European colonization continue to reverberate throughout Africa. In effect, what the common stereotype in the United States engenders is something of a type of disgust with the fact that Africa just “can’t seem to get it’s act together”. This is of course an over simplification for the purposes of clarity; however, it nonetheless exists within the hearts and minds of a great number of individuals within the United States and elsewhere throughout the world. Firstly, with regards to the legitimacy of such a sentiment, the reader should be aware that this of often based upon a fundamentally flowed version of the way in which Africa currently exists. Due to the aforementioned stereotype regarding the level of ongoing conflict and other issues that always seem to find themselves front and center in Western news and interpretation of the African continent, the shareholders who espouse such a belief are basing it upon the information that they are presented with. Secondly, in seeking to engage with the level of conflict and actual violence that continues to define portions of the African continent, nearly all of this can be seen and understood as the aftereffects of de-colonization. Whereas many other parts of the world continue to recover from colonization that took place hundreds of years ago, many parts of Africa have had as little as a scant 50 or 60 years to form a government, re-invent a formerly suppressed national identity, culture, language, and create a cohesive state out of the remnants of destruction that were the result of a handful of hasty European retreats from the continent that took place throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and even as late as the 1970s. In this way, the reader can begin to understand that the level of frustration carried by many in the West, and the United States in particular, is the result of flawed understandings and stereotypes with regards to the rate of change that regions and individual nations can display with regards to recovery from colonization and development of original and functional institutions. In short, the level of stereotypes that this student engaged with prior to reading of the aforementioned text and course documentation was high. However, as a result of engaging with the new information that has been provided and seeking to analyze and question my own stereotypes as well as rationalizing the disparate information that was being presented as compared to formerly held beliefs, this student has been able to not only identify but overcome and define these stereotypes as in inherently faulty; thereby leading to a more full and complete understanding of Africa and the dynamics that define it. Work Consulted Keim, Curtis. Mistaking Africa : curiosities and inventions of the American mind. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2009. Print. Read More