Culture Clash, Myths and Stereotypes - Essay Example

Q1. Culture clash in Achebe’s Novel Things Fall Apart (1958) One of the dominant themes addressed in Achebes novel ThingsFall Apart is definitely the issue of culture clash, with the Ibo cultural practices clashing with the European way of life. The Ibo community of West Africa and has its own unique ways of life, customs, perspectives, beliefs and values, which are greatly opposed to the European way of life, and western values in general. When the colonial forces infiltrated West Africa, their contact with the Ibo community inevitably resulted to tension because Europeans introduced religion and formal political administration structures thereby undermining the Ibo cultural traditions and values (Mongredien 2010). The cultural clash in the novel is seen both at the individual level and at the communal level; at the communal level, the cultural values and traditions of the Ibo people such as their traditional system of governance and ritual rights are greatly undermined by the arrival of the Europeans. The annual ceremony in honour of the earth deity among the Ibo people, when the clan’s ancestors that had been “committed to Mother Earth at their death (Achebe 186)” would emerge as “egwugwu” from tiny ant-holes is one of the Ibo’s sacred rituals that was challenged by Christianity. Okonkwo, Achebe’s most tragic character, clearly demonstrates the cultural clash at the individual level, when he out rightly resists the new political and religious order introduced by the Europeans because he perceived them not to be manly enough for the Ibo people. The Ibo culture places high regard on personal achievement and masculinity, attributes which were greatly opposed to the Christian values of equality of all people, irrespective of their gender and personal achievements. Achebe’s famous opening line “Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond” clearly explains Okonkwo’s fame which, in Achebe’s words, “rested on solid personal achievements” (Achebe 1). Okonkwo’s self-worth comes under great attack by the introduction of the new religious and political order by the Europeans, particularly because his identity was greatly pegged on the Ibo cultural standard. The Europeans’ misconceptions of the Ibo people are clearly expressed through Reverend Smith’s criticisms of the Africans. Unlike his predecessor Mr. Brown, Reverend Smith openly condemns the African cultural traditions and values by terming them barbaric and heathen; he has no desire to tolerate and accommodate the African rituals and cultural practices. Mr. Brown “saw the world as a battlefield in which the children of light were locked in mortal conflict with the sons of darkness…he believed in slaying the prophets of Baal (Achebe 178).” Reverend Smith’s utter resentment of the Ibo traditions and culture represents the greater European intolerance of the African way of life; Mr. Smith was greatly distressed by the ignorance of the Ibo community as expressed in their lack of understanding of basic Christian concepts of Trinity and Sacraments. Reverend Smith’s perspective of the African’s as “heathens” coupled with the Ibo’s criticism of Christians as “foolish” exposes the great cultural misunderstanding between the Ibo and the Europeans. Achebe champions the view that both the Ibo’s misunderstandings of themselves and the European’s misperceptions of the Africans need to be re-examined as neither of them were correct and change is an inevitable part of the human reality in their social groupings. Achebe consistently interposes the western linguistic forms and literary traditions with the Igbo words and other aspects of the African oral traditions and cultural story telling devices, thereby illustrating the richness of the Ibo language and culture. Q2. Myths and Stereotypes about Africa and Africans in the Western media The western media has consistently constructed and propagated certain myths and stereotypes about Africans and the African continent in general, thereby contributing to the persistence of these myths and stereotypes in the western world. The western media has generally focussed on the negative sides of Africa, depicting Africans as a people that are generally poor, sick and always fighting internally, thereby instilling negative perceptions of Africa and Africans in the Western world. Africa has increasingly become synonymous with poverty, tribal wars and diseases in the lenses of the western media. The increased focus on Africa’s huge debt to the global financial system, images of “shantytowns, emaciated children, older people as well as the dry red earth and barren landscapes” enforces the idea that Africa is the worst of all places on the planet (Mahadeo & McKinney 17). The western media has clearly perfected its art of propaganda over time by incessantly depicting well-crafted shots of children with flies on their faces and dying malnourished children with outstretched arms on street corners. African Warlords and dictators have featured greatly in western media, thereby contributing to the stereotype that Africa is ungovernable due to continuous civil unrest that plagues the continent and its people. With no single good story being told about Africa in the Western media, most people in the western world often think the worst of thoughts, whenever Africa is mentioned. Travel advisories against visiting Africa have often been issued by western countries, warning their citizens not to venture out into what they term the “dark continent” riddled by diseases, poverty and civil strife, thereby further perpetuating the myth that Africa is an inhabitable place that no one should dare visit. Many Americans only associate Africa with safaris, deadly animals, impenetrable jungles and oddly dressed tribesmen because the ordinary news about Africa is often about alerts of genocide, incurable AIDS, the Malaria epidemic, or civil wars on the continent. Personally, I refuse to be hoodwinked into believing that nothing good comes out of Africa, as the biased western media would have us believe by consistently depicting Africans and the African continent in negative light. I strongly believe that the African continent has great potential and a positive side that has not yet been explored by the western world due to the deeply entrenched misconceptions about Africans and the African continent in general. My role as a budding scholar in dispelling the myths and stereotypes held in the western world about Africa and Africans is to advocate for the remoulding of new alternative images of Africa and the African continent. People should travel to Africa to explore its landscape, to interact with the people and to see for themselves what Africa and Africans really are; this will definitely contribute to the formation of an evidence-based opinion about the continent and its inhabitants. Works Cited Mahadeo, Micheal., & McKinney, Joe. Media representations of Africa: Still the same old story? Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, Vol. 4: (2007) pp. 14-20. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. NY: William Heinemann Ltd. 1958. Print Read More