Getting to know Africa

Just the other day, in one of our classes we were discussing and talking about the great influence the British Empire had in the world, especially in its forming colonies. At some point Miss Cárdenas asked us about what we knew about Africa. I was rather impressed to realize how extremely little we knew about it. I mean, no one could give a decent answer.

            I myself had never stopped to think about it. All I could think about in that moment was ‘lions, cheetahs, poverty and starvation’ (In my defence, I do know a little bit more about it, but this is just what came to my mind in that particular moment). But actually, that’s what we get from History and media.

            My first thought after this was that we learn the history concerning the western culture. Africa had little, if anything, influence in what we call the Western World.  Most history as we know it was written in Europe and the Middle East. Of course other parts of the world, like China, India and others have had written histories for centuries, but much is unknown to the West, or has only become known within the last century. But most of this was thought to be useless unless it had something to do with Europe or America.

Africa Before Transatlantic Slavery

            But, people from the south of the Sahara didn’t write. So that’s where the problem lays. What we get to hear about this continent is how ‘the evil white men came and spoiled everything’ after the colonization.

However, Africa has got so much more to it than that. Its significance is not only that it suffered at the hands of white people. But long before white men ventured below the Sahara, Africa was a busy and very diverse group of thousands of languages and communities living in a manner that reflected their adaptations to the local climate.

Africa has the largest biodiversity of all the continents, and it was the origin of our species and the home to our closest relatives, chimpanzees. We tend to think of Africa as the ‘black people’ land, but this view is based on the African Americans who were brought as slaves from western areas of Africa. But there are dozens of other ‘races’, such as the pygmie people from Congo and other groups from the east.

 All this concerning Africa just made me remember how I felt about History in school; being a History lover, I wanted to learn more about eastern culture as I have always thought of it as an extremely fascinating topic, but we were taught almost none. Yes, I know this has to do with a time problem, because yeah, we are part of the Western World so it must be prioritized, but I just wish we could get to learn more about this interesting cultures.