A Far Cry from Africa: Divided Loyalties

When I began reading Chapter 1 of “Mistaking Africa,” it reminded me of our first class meeting. Professor Crowley asked us to do the same exercise Curtis Keim talks about in the text. Professor Crowley asked us what comes to mind when we think about Africa. It is a great exercise and allow us to express our perceptions of Africa. Even in class, it took me time to think about what comes to mind when I hear the word Africa, because I have not really heard much about it besides the common misconceptions: “Africa is a primitive place, full of trouble and wild animals, and in need of our help” (5). I frequently see the UNICEF commercial with Alyssa Milano, who asks her viewers how it would feel to be able to save a child’s life for fifty cents a day. The commercial precedes to play really depressing music and shows a slideshow of undernourished children, who fend for themselves in

For thirty years after Otto von Bismarck called the Berlin Conference in 1884 to discuss the division of Africa between European powers, said powers both occupied and colonized Africa. Many different intricate societies who each had different reactions to the Scramble for Africa composed Africa of the era. While a large majority of Africans reacted to the European's presence violently, others relied on religious apple or polite denials to soften the blow of imperialism.

The Seven African Powers, referred to the seven Orishas, are a common spiritual force that people petition with overcoming obstacles, spiritual growth and connecting to one’s inner power. The phrase “Seven African Powers” is found in various religions, including, Hoodoo, Santeria, Candomble, and Arara.

Throughout history, Africa has been subjugated to multiple waves of its that clash at its innate sense of oneness. No more had one wave caused as much damage, than that of the disaster of the Trans Atlantic trade of Africans. This disaster has been unequivocally understood as one of the worst acts against humanity in recorded history. One of the many scholars that have come to study the traumas left behind by this episode in history, has been Mama Marimba Ani. Marimba Ani coined the term Maafa to encapsulate this field of interest. Maafa is the Kswahili (Swahili) word for disaster. In studying the Maafa, a focus is concentrated on the effects that the European ideal of capitalism has had directly on Africa as a continent, but also gives attention to the factors that led to this ideal just like how any analysis of history looks at the cause and effect of an event.

While analyzing the North Africa conflict, a combination of service capabilities would be required to achieve the desired end state of deterring and if necessary, the defeat of Algerian guerilla aggression to prevent regional and global destabilization. Taking into account the current military landscape that exists today, a joint task force (JTF) would be the ideal military response of the United States and collation partner’s while utilizing the regional military assets. Intelligence suggests guerilla forces are capable of a full scale offensive into Morocco in less than 36 hour notice, bringing the factors of time, force and space into consideration.

Yet he knows, too, that merely preaching of goodwill towards Africans would not turn any heads. He must show directly the irony that those naming others "barbarians" were the barbaric ones themselves. His intensely personal story, with detailed descriptions of what he saw - cruel or ordinary - and of how one African dealt with forced encounters with different lands and cultures, was what it would take for Englishmen to relate and thus to understand.

Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness is both a dramatic tale of an arduous trek into the Belgian Congo at the turn of the twentieth century and a symbolic journey into the deepest recesses of human nature. On a literal level, through Marlow 's narration, Conrad provides a searing indictment of European colonial exploitation inflicted upon African natives. By employing several allegoric symbols this account depicts the futility of the European presence in Africa.

With the beginning of the end of the slave trade fast approaching in Europe and Africa, and too little room for expansion within Europe, powerful advancements by European powers such as Germany, France, Britain, and Belgium were made to expand the empires of each country and develop places of trade and commerce through colonies, and a build in world prestige for each European power. The leaders of these European powers would meet in Berlin from 1884-85 in order to partition and agree upon the division of Africa to each nation, creating spheres of influence to be administered by each nation, and only that nation. This form of forced imperialism would lead to exploitation and atrocity of truly epic proportions in the soon-to-be-developed Congo

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has been depicted as “among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the English language.” [pg.1] Chinua Achebe believes otherwise. In Chinua Achebe’s An Image of Africa: Racism is Conrad’s Heart of Darkness he simply states that, “Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” [pg.5]

The Africans, already slaughtered by the white Americans, exhibit a strong bonding yet there are extensive situations when anger or frustration or some other emotion gets better of their sense of unity. For example, Sethe’s own mother slapped her own daughter when the latter inquired as to why she was not marked beneath her breast like her mother. In response, she only receives a slap. She is never able to make out the reason of that slap till she receives her personal mark on her back. The act of slapping was not paved the way by a desire to hurt which is the criteria of judging any gesture to be violent yet it was enveloped in sheer anger and frustration which Sethe’s mother docked against her exploiters and which Sethe’s mother could never give vent to because of her marginalized

In the Novel “Cry the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton, two fathers are trying to put the pieces of there families back together while also keeping themselves together. They each go through a variety of struggles, with one learning his sister is a prostitute and his son is a murder while the other deals with his sons death and tries to move passed it. Throughout the novel, racial tension is a theme frequently seen from the beginning of the book til the very end. Paton uses the setting of South Africa to underscore racial tension associated with the apartheid movement to illustrate these themes. The concept of racism is prevalent during the story as it is used by the government to caused both blacks and whites to fear each other which eventually tears apart Kumalo’s family.

The scramble for Africa represents the most thorough and systematic process of colonialism in world history. The European colonial powers managed to conquer and control almost the entire continent of Africa in a short, twenty-five year period from about 1875 to 1900. Some of the European states involved were already well-established global powers; the others were up and coming nations that desired to emulate and compete with the dominant imperial states. Various factors allowed for and contributed to the conquering of the whole of Africa by European states. The slow, but ever-growing European presence on the perimeter and the completion for dominance between the major European states acted as the platform for the inevitable quest for

When someone mentions World War Two the first thing that comes to mind is probably D-Day or Pearl Harbor or maybe even Berlin, while the North African Campaign is often forgotten. Three of the notable campaigns that occurred in Africa at this time were Operation Torch, Operation Tunisia, and the Western Desert Campaign; These campaigns took place from June 10th, 1940 to May 13th, 1943. When talking about any war or great struggle, there are three things to know: who were influential figures of this struggle, what methods or types of warfare they used, and what were the important victories or defeats.

The aborigines had small farmlands which are arid and dry making it difficult for them to

It can be refferd to as a period whereby European powers colonised, invaded, occupied and annexed African territories in a very rapid and unprecedented manner, even though there was little interest in Africa up to the 1870's. In fact, up to 1880 Europeans ruled merely 10% of the African continent. Yet within 30 years, by 1914, European nations will have claimed all of Africa except Liberia (a small territory of freed slaves from the United States) and Abyssinia (Ethiopia), which had successfully held off Italian invaders at the battle of Adowa in 1896. The partitioning of Africa was seen as a means of easing tensions between European states which was high in the late 19th century and avoid a full blown out war in Europe