Of all the high school memories I managed to acquire throughout four years, I can never seem to forget one in particular. As I sat, bored and uninterested, in my 12th grade Honors Government class, I watched as our overly peppy teacher energetically asked the class a few basic questions that, much to the class's surprise, were trick questions with the same answer. At this point in the year, my senioritis had already taken over. So I watched as my under-educated classmates failed epically at these very basic questions. No matter the circumstance, my teacher just insisted on directing her questions to one person in our class (who for the sake of professionalism will be regarded to as "Classmate"). This one person offered me more entertainment than any other throughout senior year. How this person ever made it to graduation, no one will ever know. But it was poor Classmate that the teacher called on repeatedly that day.
Teacher: "Who knows which continent has the second largest land mass?... Classmate?"
Classmate: "Uh.... America?"
Teacher: "Hmmm...You're close. Which continent has the second largest population?...
Classmate?"
Classmate: "Uh... China?"
Teacher: " Ok. Last question. Which continent has the most native languages?... Classmate?"
Classmate: "Oh, that's easy. America!"
I watched in dismay as this dialogue grew more and more surprising. However, none of Classmate's ignorant remarks were as devastating as the final response when the teacher explained the real answers.
Teacher: "Those were all good answers, Sarah, but the correct answer to all of those questions is... Africa!"
Classmate: "Wait... I thought you asked for a CONTINENT... not a COUNTRY."
There truly is no better time to use the term "SMH". I sat there, in the very back row, wondering how in the world a person managed to make it to their senior year of high school thinking that China and "America" were both continents and that Africa was all one giant country. But, as I began to ask around, I learned that this last misconception is actually a very common one. I was surprised to learn how many people often mistook Africa for a country. Even if they don't actually think it is one country, they seem to have this perception that it is, indeed, one identity. This led me to do some research of my own. I found that I, too, was guilty of grouping the entire continent together into the overused, cookie-cutter word of "Africa". For example, I often found myself saying things like, "I want to visit Africa one day" or "I have been researching Africa lately". I saw this as a huge problem that needed to be addressed. After all, how often do you hear people say "I want to visit North America one day" or "I have been researching Asia lately"? It is not as common because such phrases are seen as too vague and general. The same should be true for Africa, as it is not one combined continent, but fifty-three distinctly unique countries and islands.
There are several common misconceptions about the continent of Africa that many people may or may not know. In fact, according to Phil, a nationally acclaimed blogger for philintheblank.net, one of the most common things people don't know is that there are approximately 1,500 languages spoken in Africa, including languages like Arabic, Amharic, Greek, French, Afrikaans, Swahili, Spanish, English, Sudanese, Somali, and Portuguese. Obviously, this does not even put a dent in the list of native languages, as there are hundreds of tribal dialects spoken all over the continent. So, naturally, this takes me back to yet another conversation with my affluent classmate.
Classmate: "Why does our school only offer Spanish? I really want to learn something different... like African!"
Once again, I shook my head at this lack of knowledge. It was devastating because Africa is a continent worth learning about. It is a continent with so much rich diversity, and the fact that it is home to the most native languages fascinated me even more. With such an astounding number of languages. this makes Africa the most culturally diverse continent on the Earth. Since it is made up of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of tribal groups, the customs and lifestyles vary not only from country to country, but also from village to village.
Another thing people don't often realize is that Africa is HUGE! I am ashamed to admit that I was not fully aware of the size of this great continent until I began to do research. My research took me to a visualization on one of my favorite websites. An image on informationisbeautiful.net shows the continent of Africa with countries within it to show the actual size. The makers of the visualization were able to fit Spain, France, Germany, Italy, all of Eastern Europe, India, Japan, the UK, the United States, and China within the land mass of Africa. Additionally, according to philintheblank, there is more arable land in Africa than anywhere else in the world right now. This is one of the many reasons why so many foreign governments are taking advantage of the ease at which they can acquire African land to grow food for their own population. In fact, according to Peter Guest, a former British United Nations diplomat who travelled to Africa on many occasions, if Africa could somehow utilize all of its land mass to its advantage, it would have one of the largest economies in the world. However, until Africa obtains the resources to reach its potential, other countries will continue to overtake the continent little by little.
This is one of the increasing problems with our misconceptions of Africa. These overly broad generalizations pose a threat to International Relations. The more and more Africa gets shoved into a cookie-cutter image of jungles, tribal chants, and wild animals, the more and more we disregard the tremendous potential that lies within it. And the more this happens, the easier it is for more powerful countries (i.e. China, France, Britain, and the U.S.) to move in and take over. It is obvious to see the loss of identity this will impose on the entire continent. Each and every country within Africa is divided not only by a common border, but also by language, culture, traditions, and lifestyles. If these countries are all of a sudden occupied by foreign governments, Africa will eventually lose all of its cultural identity and, soon, turn into the solid, unified mass of land that we already view it as. This goes back to one of our first topics in World Politics. Identity is one of the most imperative aspects of development. It is impossible for us to bunch all of the African countries together because they each have their own identity. The problem is that this identity is often disregarded and forgotten. Instead of studying the United States's relations with Africa, we could heighten our success in the region if we paid closer attention to the United States's relations with Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, etc. The way the United States approaches our relations with Africa is so different from the way we approach our relations with states like China or Israel. Perhaps this is because the United States goes into our relations with Africa with the preconceived notion that the entire continent is in desperate need of our help. I believe that most people view Africa in a very demeaning way. This only spells out problems for our relationship.
As long as our mindset that Africa is somehow "less of a continent" than Asia, North America, or Europe, the countries in this region will never be more successful. And, as long as the dependence on more economically successful nations grows, Africa will never be able to stand on its own as the second largest continent on Earth. It is imperative for international relations that the countries of Africa retain their identity, increase their sustainability, and continue to develop. More importantly, it is imperative that we increase our knowledge and rid ourselves of this misconception that Africa is just own big, huge country.
Works Cited: Greenspun, Phil. "9 Things You May or May Not Know About Africa". philintheblank blog. Feb 27 2011. web. <http://philintheblank.net/2011/02/9-things-you-may-or-may-not-know-about-africa/> Krause, Kai. "The True Size of Africa". Information is Beautiful. Oct 14 2010. web. <http://informationisbeautiful.net/2010/the-true-size-of-africa/> Guest, Peter. "Spelling Out Growth". The Wall Street Journal. Sept 19 2011. web. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904716604576544482314677402.html> |
Rhonda, I really enjoyed reading this post. I experienced the same situation when I came to the US, because back home it is mandatory for all kids to study goegraphy for 5-6 years, it is actally challengng course because we are learning geography, economics and enviromental studies throught this course, so basically, I was shocked when 16 years old student assumed that Ethiopia should be near Norway. Do you think this educational issue should be fix?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I was thinking that the reasin for this could be media influence. Mostly it usese just "Africa" than names of paticular countires, so people have described perception. Is it the reason? At the same time maybe the US do not treat african countries as important actors? (or used to for a long period of time)
I completely agree. Throughout all 13 of my grade-school years, I only had one year of geography. In this year, we spent so much time studying the geography of Europe and Asia. I don't think we even spent more than a week on the geography of Africa. This is a major problem.
ReplyDeleteBut I also agree that the media is partly to blame. I will be doing my research paper on this also, so I won't say too much but I have read that one culprit of these misconceptions is the famous is the National Geographic magazines. They paint Africa as being this untamed jungle with huts and cannibals. I am going to try to find some solution to this problem and will discuss it further in my research paper.
I agree Rhonda
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at middle school and high school textbooks the opportunities are endless to learn about european culture and history, however african culture is quickly jumbled in to a subject called world history, a subject that tries to teach the history of South American countries, Caribbean countries, African countries, Middle Eastern Countries, and Asian countries all in to a span of 1 or 2 years. Then you move on to European history, US history, and US politics.
Sure it is great to know about your own history and culture but many Americans seem to grow up without an appreciation or at least knowledge of other cultures and histories as well. This problem is not just evident in Africa, but I feel also in South America and the Middle East. American citizens will be able to recount the history and culture of one or two countries in Africa or the Middle East but can recount the obscure details and happenings of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, etc.
An experience of mine
When I came down for orientation I was interviewed by a NGO on Gabon. Many others were also interviewed with some basic questions about the relatively unknown country. Such questions included "What is a Gabon", "What is the main export of Gabon" and many gave very ignorant and uninformed answers. Are they really at fault though that they do not know that Magnesium is the chief export of Gabon? No, but there is a problem when some mistake countries like Gabon, Yemen, and various other African countries as diseases. Although there may not be any practical application for the average day American to possess the knowledge of Gabon's existence, it is possible that it could help the reputation of America around the world as citizens that think about the world rather than just the existence of America. What are your thoughts on how the international community regards American education and the view of Americans lacking respect because of not knowing basic geography.
A funny video that only furthers your point http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
Maybe we shouldn't be so concerned in the investment of education in Iraq and South Africa when an overhaul of our own education is needed.
Rhonda,
ReplyDeleteMisconceptions/misunderstands about different cultures around world are very common and even very educated people sometimes become ignorant of the world.
For example I have read a report that during the invasion of Iraq, high ranking generals in the U.S army did not know the difference between a Sunni and Shiite Muslim. This was rather shocking as it is a key cultural divide in Iraq and an extremely important topic for U.S military to understand.
Hey Rhonda,
ReplyDeleteI really liked this post, it was funny and informative.
There is certainly a huge problem with the school system in the United States. We still teach French and Spanish and learn European history, when all current events involve the Middle East, China, and India. So why aren't we learning Arabic and Mandarin and studying the thousands of years of Chinese history?
I also admit to being ignorant of the cultures of Africa. I had never even heard of Nollywood before that day we learned about it in class, and I learn so much from hearing Professor Craig relate our world politics topics to African countries.
Do you think part of the reason why we associate all African countries as "Africa" is because the true borders of Africa do not lie where Europeans drew them during Imperialism? Yes African countries have their own cultures, but we tend to talk about native groups as living in two or more countries, could this affect the world's view of Africa?
Here is a map I found of what Africa should look like if it was divided by ethnic groups:
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/images/Secret_Map_of_Tribal_Ethnic_Regions_of_Africa.jpg
Rhonda,
ReplyDeleteThis past semester I took 3rd World Literature, the title is soon to be changed to something more politically correct, but the class dealt with just this topic.
In class we watched Chimimanda Adiche's TED talked, "The Danger of a Single Story." In this talk she pointed out that when groups of people only know and believe in their side of a story, people become incapable of understanding one another, and ignorance and close-mindedness rule.
One such danger in the US, that you so aptly point out in your blog post, is ethnocentrism. The idea that your country and nationality is the "center" and everything outside of it is the "periphery." This mindset causes Americans to associate all Africans into one group, as we are often taught the history of "Africa," not the history of Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Zambia, and so on.
In my class, we read Senegalese, Algerian, and Nigerian literature to get a sense of other sides of the story. Not the story of "Africa" written by the white man, but the story of Senegal written by Sembene Ousmane, and the storie of Nigerian woman by Adiche.
These books taught me about the danger of only knowing one side of a the story.
Rhonda,
ReplyDeleteAwesome post I really enjoyed it and I feel almost everyone can relate to the scene you depicted, just about all of us have witnessed this kind of ignorance once in our life. But this kind of ignorance obviously is not acceptable, however we are to ask ourselves why something like this could happen...who is to blame? It is an issue of social constructivism, although our text books do not offer the information necessary to expand our knowledge on such subjects, are they not just extensions of what children will want to learn. It is sad to say but the majority of American teenagers do not even want to learn about their own country so how can we expect them to learn about other cultures? I completely agree with all of the points you present, but would you agree that we as nation would first have to change and become more open to learning about such information before "Africa" can become separate nations again.
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI have several thoughts in regards to the way American schools address our education. I know I had another personal experience in my 9th grade World Geography where we were assigned a different continent each six weeks to memorize all the countries within it. However, when we got to Africa, my teacher just told us all that it was unnecessary and we moved on to a different region. I was completely baffled by this and could not understand how he could just disregard all of Africa by saying "There are too many countries for you all to memorize", when meanwhile, we had memorized all of North America, South America, Asia, and Europe at that point. It is just not acceptable.
Tony,
I would love to say that I am surprised by this information, however I am not. After all, the ignorant teenagers we all witness today will eventually grow up to be these leaders who are still ignorant and under-educated. It is a perpetuating cycle.
Emma,
I had never seen that map before, but it was very interesting. This just further develops the argument that Africa is such a culturally diverse continent. This is why you could be onto something when you say the true borders do not lie where we think they do. I know the borders in Africa have changed more than any other continent, and that could be a contributing factor to our lack of knowledge.
Hannah,
I was so interested in taking this class, but I never got the chance. In regards to ethnocentrism, my first blog post had to do with exceptionalism, which is basically the same thing. I do believe that Americans get caught up in our day to day lives that we do not see the bigger picture. We are very self absorbed and self centered. But the root of the problem stems from education, a main point I brought up. I am inspired to hear that AU offers these classes that offer an actually African perception of Africa, which, if people took the time to look into, we would find that it is much different from our own.
Frank,
I will be doing my substantial project on this topic that delves more deeply into textbooks and the lack of information within them. But you pointed out that most teenagers do not even want to learn about their own history, and that is correct. As sad as it sounds, history is such a bland subject. I am not sure if there is a solution to this problem or not, but it is something that needs to be addressed. I am looking forward to doing more research into this and perhaps doing something to make the situation better.