Myths and Facts about Africa (Past and Present)

This begins a series of posts about Africa that I will be putting here on my blog.  Why, you may ask?  I ask the same question sometimes.  To oversimplify the answer, this is a very personal issue to me for reasons I can’t explain.  I am not African, but I have close friends who are.  I have never been to Africa, though I hope to visit someday.  I have no illusions of “righteousness” when it comes to African issues – I don’t have all the answers.  Why Africa? Why not issues in the United States?  My answer to those questions is that I cannot separate people by geographic location in my mind and in my heart when I truly contemplate what is at stake.  Yes, I will occasionally say things like “that is their issue,” or “this is our issue.”  However, unless the issue is truly a geographically defined issue that has no impact on human beings, there is no such thing as “you and me,” or “us and them.”  This false dichotomy is what divides the world into factions and causes hatred. 

Hatred is much different from disagreement.  We can fundamentally disagree without hating each other.  Hatred is about the other person’s very essence and being, while disagreement is about the other person’s position or stance on a topic. 

As you read this post and those to follow, keep the following things in mind:

     1.  The issues presented are fundamentally not “issues.”  Issues are people.

     2.  What happens to some people (or even one person) affects all people.  I make this as a philosophical, religious, moral, and physical claim.  If a person I don’t know who lives across the globe from me is hurt by an injustice, that person is my sister or brother by virtue of being created by the same Creator.  That same injustice could have happened to me, and if left unnoticed or unspoken of, that same injustice could happen to me because of the example set. 

     3.  Though I am primarily writing about Africa, you can read between the lines and see that I am writing about all people of all time who have been oppressed. 

     4.   Knowledge is the first and most effective combatant against injustice.  When injustice is exposed for what it is, the oppressors are seen for what they are.

     5.   Only some of what I write is my own ideas and thoughts.  I borrow from a wide range of sources – books, teachers, experiences, pastors, and many others that I can’t even remember.  I invite you to do the same.  Take this and build on it. Pass it on.  Do not let knowledge die.

Myths and Facts about Africa (Past and Present)

MYTH:  Modern Africa is prime example of a countless series of failed nation-states.

FACT:  Modern Africa is in fact, prime example of successful nation-states.[1]  Nation-states are founded and sustained by violence at one level or another.  Nations begin out of rebellion from another government, division resulting from war, or other such ventures.  Nations maintain their sovereignty through violence or the threat of violence.  This threat is explicit or implicit.  In some nations, such as Israel, it is not uncommon to see armed military members circulating the general population.  In the United States, while the military does not actively show its presence to ordinary citizens, it is well known that if people were to start a rebellion, the military would respond (for example, the American Civil War).

Stable governments may continue the succession of Government through elections, inheritance of a monarchy, or appointments, but despite the type of government, the nation-state model is the same.  The nation-state came into existence through violence, and maintains sovereignty through threat of violence.

Even the most unstable African Government runs by these means[2].  The governments come into power through rebellion or coups, and they maintain power through military means until another government (thus ushering in a "new" nation) employs the same means to gain power.  Sometimes a nation may hold elections or appoint a new leader, but yet the same nation-state model remains.

MYTH:  Africans do not have the ability to govern themselves, so therefore they need outside assistance.

FACT:  From the time Europe discovered Africa, Africans have never had the chance to govern themselves.  Europeans immediately scrambled for Africa for the resources and claimed the people to be uncivilized and uneducated.  The only truth to this is that the Africans were uneducated in European matters, just as the Europeans were uneducated in African matters.  So, the Europeans must have seemed just as savage to the African people. 

Now that Colonialism is over, the multi-national corporations have dictated the foreign policies of many of the rich nations.  In doing so, nations such as the UK, France, the US, Russia, and China have aided or denied aid to certain governments or factions allowing for the function or dysfunction of African governments.

With Globalization being the modus operandi of the time, nations are now dependent upon one another to function.  If the African Governments were allowed to govern without outside meddling, one could deduce that they would be as successful as any other government in a similar situation.

MYTH:  With the amount of killing in Africa in the past 2 decades, Africans leaders have shown they have no moral compass.

FACT:  It is true that the amount of killing in just the past 2 decades has been astronomical (I am limiting myself to 2 decades for the purpose of brevity – any more would be much too complex for my purposes here).  The following are some of the extremely violent conflicts: The 1994 Rwandan Genocide, The First and Second Congo Wars, The Sudanese Civil War, The Darfur Conflict, The Liberian Civil War[3].  I have not scratched the surface, but yet in this list alone, I have listed conflicts that have caused the deaths of over 10 million people.

It is also true that this has largely been African on African violence.  In almost any war, there will be mercenaries from other nations, but on the whole, this has been African vs. African.

It is also true that unthinkable barbaric acts were committed during these atrocities.  These were not mere wars (as if the words “mere” and “war” can ever go together).  In many of these wars, civilians were targeted, rape was a weapon, children soldiers were used, refugee camps were invaded, and mutilation of the enemy’s body was employed as a form of humiliation.

What we often forget, or what we often want to forget is that this narrative of history is a mirror to the history of the Western world as well.  We cannot forget that in “civilized” Europe, under a century ago, very similar acts took place on much the same scale by Hitler’s Nazi Regime and Stalin’s Soviet Regime.  In the United States westward expansion, there were raids on Native Americans so brutal that included “skinning” the dead body of the Native American to prove the kill.  There was the Slave Trade that not only involved kidnapping, but also vicious beatings, the tearing apart of families, rape and sexual violence, and then justifying all of this not only with legal language but with Biblical language as well.

So, this animalistic behavior exists in all humanity – not just Africans.  This behavior is inexcusable.  This behavior is morally reprehensible, but we cannot condemn “others” without also condemning “our” past.  We must also recognize that this behavior is possible anywhere in the world.

Hopefully this sets the stage for upcoming posts.  Again, this is not only about Africa.  Read between the lines of what I wrote – this is about all people of all places of all time. 

In an upcoming post, I will take on the issue of how Colonialism bred and sustained a culture of dictatorial rule, corruption, unrestrained killing and genocide.

I will also discuss how all of this bad news is not the end of the story.  There is hope.  There are things that average people can do.  The story will have a happy ending[4] – of that, I am certain!

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[1] Emanuel Katongole, The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 2.

[2] Here one argument can be made about Government corruption being so prevalent in Africa.  While that is fact, the same can be said about more stable governments as well.  Government corruption (where Government officials steal goods or money at the expense of the population) is all but certain in nations such as Cuba, in lower (and possibly higher) levels of government of Mexico, and people even make the same arguments about the lobbyists in the United States and their power over Government Officials.

[3] To see an active peaceful resistance to the Liberian Civil War, I highly recommend the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

[4] The language of “story” and “narrative” comes from Dr. Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke Divinity School.  Stories and Narratives are not made-up fantasies, but rather an account of how things happened and where one fits in to the larger picture.