I don't remember meeting any particular people from any nation from Africa until I went to college-UMM. Before I begin, I want to inform you that Africa is not a "country", but a "continent". Many of my African brothers and sisters gets very uptight about this. Anyways, as I write this today (9.28.03), I can trace as far back in Middle-Junior High School when I began to learn about this continent. My teacher had us write to the well known past-current American Civil Rights leader, Jessie Jackson, on our concern of the independence of South Africa. This particular nation has changed since it was finally awarded it's independence.
At UMM, I began to distinct the uniqueness of each African nation as I began to meet an international student from various parts. As of today, I'm still learning....After college, I had the privilege to attend an African/African-American conference called Impact (my personal story) in Atlanta, Georgia. I noticed a slight difference of the African American culture there compared to the Midwest.
Western Imperialism and Africa As Seen in an Eye of Both Worlds
By: Miracle Obeta
Sophomore
Political Science Major
University of Minnesota-Morris
Thursday, September 29th 2005
Africa is the second largest continent on the face of the
Earth
with the most amount of natural resources, and houses a population of
well
over 900 million people. It is home to 52 diverse and culturally
enriched
countries with well over 752 languages. Born in Nigeria, a country
located
on the West Coast of Africa, I was exposed to and nurtured in the
cultural
richness of Africa for the first twelve years of my life. My family
immigrated to the United States in 1998. Since then, I have educated
myself
in the history of America and critically analyzed the racial history,
conflicts, and relations of this nation. Through the course of my
education, I was greatly astonished by the linkage of African history
with
that of the Western World since 3000BC to 2004AD, and how much of what
is
currently occurring in the Continent correlate with events of the
western
world from the times of the Greeks to the colonial days.
Prior to Africa being known for its political and economic
instability, Africa was home to one of the greatest ancient
civilizations
and kingdoms. Starting with the Egyptians, the great pharaohs of Egypt
both
Black and Semitic in origin, possessed economic and military power that
was
unmatched by no other civilization of its time for over 900 years until
it
was sacked by the Persian empire in the year 712BC and by Alexander the
Great of the Greek empire in 525BC. Following the Egyptians was the
Timbuktu civilization that took roots in Northwestern Africa and
established an economic power that was equivalent to that of the
Greeks.
Apart from being a powerful economic and political ground, Timbuktu
later
became a breathing ground for Islam in Africa after it was conquered by
the
Persian empire. The Persians introduced Islam forcefully to the African
civilization, and the teachings of Islam was slowly introduced to
other
great African civilizations such as Kush, Axum, The Almoravids, Kanem
Bornu, The Forest Kingdoms, and the Swahili Kingdoms in later times.
The
Modern day Zimbabwean based ancient civilization best known as “Great
Zimbabwe/The Mwenemutapa Empire was the only great African civilization
that was not invaded by the teachings of Islam partly because they were
too
far from the Islamic influenced Northwest Africa. The Hausa Kingdom
mentioned above took roots in the modern day Nigeria and Benin. Nigeria
is
currently a nation in which half of its population are Islamic and the
other half Christian. The Hausa people in Nigeria account for most of
the
Islamic population.
Nonetheless, when most Americans think of Africa, they vision
a
continent full of political instability and economic woes. As an
African
who happens to be raised in a western nation (the U.S), I have noted
that
such visions from the American people comes as a result of the Western
medias’s portrayal of the continent. This helped me explain why as a
young
African arriving in the U.S during the late 20th century, my first
encounter with racism and prejudice did not come from a White person,
but
an ignorant American of my own race. The Media’s role in the portrayal
of
Africa is greatly influenced by the globally historic Atlantic Slave
Trade
that took place from 1440AD to 1870AD in which well over one hundred
million Africans were enslaved and dispersed throughout the world by
the
Dutch, Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, Great Britain, British North
America, U.S, and many other Western Nations. Following the Slave Trade
came nearly two hundred years of colonialism in which all of Western
Europe
forcefully established colonies in the African Continent. Africa was
exploited, oppressed, ethnically divided, and psychologically enslaved
from
the late 19th century to the late 20th when Africans began to gain
independence from the Western World through rebellion in most cases.
Some
of those ethnic division was finally exemplified in the recent ethnic
killings between the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda, Zaire, and Burundi in
which the Belgiums played a big part of. Most African nations gained
their
independence in the year 1964. Out of all the African nations, Ethiopia
was
the only country that was not colonized by Western Europe. Although the
Italians succeeded in separating the modern day Eritrea from the
mainland
Ethiopia, they never succeeded in colonizing the nation. In essence,
while
African Americans were being oppressed and psychologically enslaved by
the
White population in America, all of Africa was being exploited,
oppressed,
and psychologically enslaved by the rest of Western Europe.
After the end of colonialism in Africa, the Western media
became a
key player in helping to maintain separation of Africans living on the
mainland from those enslaved in Western Europe and North America both
psychologically and physically. One of the ways in which the Western
Media
went about doing so was to depict the African continent in the manner
that
it does today. To understand this concept, one must close his or her
eyes
and picture a commercial, movie, documentary, or scientific study
exploring
one’s favorite place to vacation. Now imagine if that concept is
reversed,
and whomever is in control of those commercials, movies, documentaries,
or
scientific studies does not want you to travel, vacation, feel
culturally,
racially, historically connected to that place, he or she will portray
that
place as being the worst place that one can ever be. The mainstream
media
only approaches regions of Africa with a crisis driven eye that gives
people, specifically, African Americans in this country an unfairly
biased,
stereotypical, and often false visions of the African nations. This
concept
has and continues to be practiced by the Western media and Africans in
the
Western world continue to be psychologically victimized.
As much as this evilness angered me and continues to anger me,
it’s more frustrating when your fellow classmates discover an article
on
Amazon.com that claims that some men in Africa are known to breast feed
and
find it to be the most solid fact ever presented and fail to challenge
the
legitimacy of the claim. Worst enough, you have your professor teaching
the
class that some men in Africa do breast feed, and in many cases that
the
HIV virus evolved from Chimpanzees in Africa while clearly this is not
true. Africans have been living with Chimpanzees and other exotic
animals
for as long as Africa has been in existence, and no animal has been
known
to produce a viruses in human history. It does not occur to them that
this
theory might be part of the media’s role in its long history of
degrading
the African continent in the worst way possible. This is another issue
that
can be discussed, but if one is still convinced that Chimpanzees are
the
source of the virus, one should ask his or her self why is it that the
first case of the virus took place in the U.S and how did it reach the
African continent to later infect millions? Why is it that the U.S
media
never explores the origins of the virus? Why is it that the aids was
first
known as a gay disease in the U.S? Why is it that African Americans in
the
U.S have the highest rate of Hiv infections when clearly, every
immigrant
that wishes to enter the U.S is tested in his or her homeland and in
the
U.S for any possible illness? Why is it that the U.S government
provides 6
Billion dollars to Africa every year to fight aids? To be friendly?
Right.
What other country had the capability of creating a virus of this
magnitude
during the 1970s? Where does the term “biological weapon” evolve from?
Africa? The truth about the origins of the virus lays in America’s
backyard, but as we know, “the facts will never be questioned or
challenged
because the U.S public is never deceived by the U.S government and
media
about an issue, and just because it’s published or thought in class it
must
be true.”
Articles
Ethnic Foods
Story Tellers
-Books
African Heritage Bible, w/ African Biblical roots
*other stores: book close outs
Related Links:
Culture
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Food
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AFRICA DAY OF PRAYER 2003
ON
SATURDAY OCTOBER 18
AT
CENTENNIAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
1524 W. COUNTY ROAD C2
(OFF SNELLING AVE)
ROSEVILLE, MINNESOTA
TIME
2:00 P.M. - 6:00 P.M.
In the midst of many difficult challenges facing Africa, God's promises remain true: "If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sins, and heal their land".
FOR INFORMATION CONTACT SAM OGBONNAYA, PRESIDENT OF AFRICAN CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP, TWIN CITIES AT SamOgbonnaya@aol.com