Uff, this video is heavy. I've taken enough classes about postcolonial representations to know a problematic one. He begins to describe Africa as a "great, primordial continent". He beats his right hand over his chest and proudly claims, "I am an African", as if to inspire oohs and aahs from the crowd. It's hard to judge, because I'm not from the continent, but as the other articles will also touch upon, the idea of a Pan-African identity seems to serve only the interests of foreigners who will waste no time understanding its component parts. For regular Africans, the definition of Pan-Africanism is much like the discourse of "development" that surrounds it: inspirational, but mostly insipid.
- Reviving the Heart of Wild Africa, by Steve Boyes
The contrast between monolithic African humans -- hungry, suffering, foolish -- and complex African animals brought me the most distress. Although African literature deserves more unsensational narratives, for the sake of balancing its more hyperbolic tendencies, some speciesism is at work here. Both humans and animals deserve equal attention. The maltreatment of the former is noteworthy nonetheless:
Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires. They also have family values: see how lions teach their children? Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants may attack people’s property, destroy their crops, and even kill them. Always take the side of the elephant. Big cats have public-school accents. Hyenas are fair game and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents. Any short Africans who live in the jungle or desert may be portrayed with good humour (unless they are in conflict with an elephant or chimpanzee or gorilla, in which case they are pure evil).
- How to Write about Africa, by Binyavanga WainanaI've always been skeptical of Jared Diamond. His geographic deterministic argument always appeared too simple, but I've never actually read Gun, Germs, and Steel. As a first encounter with his writing, I now begin to see the appeal of his arguments. Obviously, Africa's development, or lack thereof, is a much more complex explanation than the fact that local flora and fauna were difficult to domesticate, but it does offer a seductive answer.
Ironically, the long human presence in Africa is probably the reason the continent's species of big animals survive today. African animals co-evolved with humans for millions of years, as human hunting prowess gradually progressed from the rudimentary skills of our early ancestors. That gave the animals time to learn a healthy fear of man, and with it a healthy avoidance of human hunters. In contrast, North and South America and Australia were settled by humans only within the last tens of thousands of years. To the misfortune of the big animals of those continents, the first humans they encountered were already fully modern people, with modern brains and hunting skills. Most of those animals—woolly mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and in Australia marsupials as big as rhinoceroses—disappeared soon after humans arrived. Entire species may have been exterminated before they had time to learn to beware of hunters.
- The Shape of Africa, by Jared DiamondYou know I love data visualization. Let it speak for itself:
"Because "Europe" is used to describe the European Union and "America" is used as a synonym for the United States, the coverage of Africa can only be compared with that of Asia. See how the Guardian, for instance, uses "Africa" as an all-purpose word to describe anything from Tangiers to Cape Town. Comparing the mentions of the three biggest African economies with the three biggest Asian ones, we see how much less precise reporting of African countries remains."
- Africa is not a country, Nicolas Kayser-Bril for The Guardian
