Triple Heritage and Africa's Bright Future Essay

Africa, like many other continents, was a very tremendous and a very diverse civilization that is very complicated to introduce due to all its wonderful but also diverse features and beliefs. From the differences between its society and language to its religion and politics, Africa always had the reputation that its empires, cities, and kingdoms never progressed in the developments and achievements for their civilization. Many people believed that the Europeans were actually the cause of Africa’s achievements and advanced developments for their civilizations. However, this is further than the whole truth. Before the arrival of the Europeans between the 15th and 16th century, African kingdoms, empires, and cities had many achievements and accomplishments

Africa’s Discovery of Europe, written by David Northrup and much as its name implies, is a monograph detailing Sub-Saharan Africa, starting from 1450 to 1850. This broad timespread starts just before Columbus sailed the ocean blue and ends just beyond the Industrial Revolution. Originally published in 2002, Northrup intended for readers to see Europe from a different perspective; from the lense of African people. The title, Africa’s Discovery of Europe, is interesting within itself. In many cases, majority of people believe it was Europe that opened up the world and conquered the Americas and discovered all this new land, and a sliver of that is true, so many countries surrounding Europe were already major, active players in the modernizing world already. In this case, as Europe was discovering Africa, Africa was also discovering Europe. It switches the mind of the reader from a Eurocentric role to an African one. Northrup discusses how contact was not one-sided, and depicts accurate descriptions of African interactions amongst other Africans and Europeans. Northrup shows the reader that African people were discovering Europe very actively, not passively; African people physically go to European countries and have first-hand experiences with European people and lifestyles.

However, for the sake of this essay, I am going to focus on Islam, its introduction, its practice, and its role in the lives of West Africans in the 8th through 15th centuries. With that being said, historians date the arrival of Islam in West Africa to roughly the 8th century C.E. Islamic scholars who had come from Arabia, through the Savannah, began to write about the history of West Africa and the role their religion played [1]. With the spread of Islam came the expansion of trade routes spanning across the continent. Along these commercial highways, Islamic culture fostered intellectual development and innovation never before known in West Africa. With this philosophical and theological expansion came increased literacy among native peoples and thirst for knowledge that resonated among West Africans for centuries. In short, Islam and its practice had just as much of an effect on the material world of West Africans as it did their intellectual

“African Perspectives on Colonialism” is a book written by A. Adu Boahen. This book classifies the African responses to European colonialism in the 19th century. Boahen begins with the status of Africa in the last quarter of the 19th century and follows through the first years of African independence. This book deals with a twenty year time period between 1880 and 1900. Boahen talks about when Africa was seized and occupied by the Imperial Powers of Europe. Eurocentric points of view dominated the study of this era but Boahen gives us the African perspective. There are always two sides of the story and Boehen tells us the side less talked about informing us of what he knows.

The conversion of Africa to Islam is known as one of the most important transformations of precolonial Africa. The spread of Islam in Africa can be credited to its regard for neighborhood societies. Muslims didn't drive Africans to change over to Islam and endured changes over joining components of indigenous religions with Islam. The Arabs additionally brought training and set up great focuses of learning in Cairo and Timbuktu. The feeling of fellowship between Muslims likewise fit well with the African feeling of group, and their faith in tending to the less lucky has affected various African people group. The spread of Islam also led to Swahili Urban Development, State Formation and an overall new way of life.

The history of Africa is very complex. Europeans invaded Africa and stripped them of their culture and denied future generations their history. Despite the focus on the time of enslavement in modern history, African history expands far beyond that. African history has been consistently whitewashed and many historians have attempted to put our history in a box. In order to understand and study the African experience, one must realize that the history of Africa extends far beyond the times of enslavement and colonialism.

Teachings of Christianity entered Africa long before the full swing of the slave trade. Christianity first entered the African continent in the early AD, around the first to third century from Israel through Egypt. This “first wave” had minimal effects on the region, and hardly spread into the southern regions. It wasn’t until the “Age of Discovery” (15th to 18th Century) when the Europeans made contact with Africans that Christianity took a hold in Africa. African nations took on Christian Monarchy as leadership, and began converting their populaces. The spread of Christianity in Africa, however, was not a full coverage of the continent. Not only did Christianity experience barriers in conversion due to an already present

European’s have had a dismissive attitude towards African’s accomplishments and activities. They 1) generally refused to allow the study of any knowledge that they do not control (Asante). 2) A number of white scholars tend to be limited in their interest to subjects that are valuable to the European project of self-glorification and triumphalism (Asante). Finally, to view Africa as a subject in history or as the starting place for an examination of anything is anathema to those who have always ignored the role of Africa (Asante). The Afrocentric school of thought has fought to combat these boundaries by giving the permission to investigate all aspects of Africa’s presence and involvement in the world.

In the second half of the twentieth-century, African countries were able to gain their independence and strive to create unified countries. However, many countries were plagued with civil wars and the issues left behind the colonial era. The adversities faced by these new African nations are at the hands of their old colonial powers and the neo-colonialism that has taken place. These new independent countries were left to unify their people of different backgrounds, create a strong government and economy, and leave the post-colonial legacy behind.

In the late nineteenth century the European powers of the world began imperializing Africa. This annexation, occupation, and division of African territory has since led to much strife within the continent and has caused many struggles politically. This period known as the “Scramble for Africa” has led to the many problems that Africa faces today and has been the root of several wars in Africa to assume control. After World War II many European imperialists began to give African nations autonomy. This seemed like a step forward for African nations, but without any plan to transition into self governance many African nations have faced bloody civil wars and corruption. Along with political struggles, numerous African nations face rising debt and other economic problems. Many of these political and economic issues stem from the “Scramble for Africa”. Once the European countries left Africa had very little to support itself. To explain the issues left by imperialism the three African nations of Rwanda, South Africa, and Sierra Leone will be put under the scope.

The idea that Christianly as a form of religion already existed in Africa has been a constant argument within our class sessions. We discussed how many believed that Africans were only introduced to Christianity through the teaching of Europeans and various missionary

This chapter in Africans and Their History by Joseph Harris presents some of the roots of the stereotypes and myths about Africa in the past and for the most part are still held today. Harris discusses how the “greats” of history, geography, and literature starting a path of devaluation of Africans that writers after their time followed. Harris also denounced the language that these “greats” used to describe and talk about Africans. He asserts that this language inherently painted Africans as inferior and subhuman.

Beginning in 1880, there was a growing desire for European countries to expand and control their rule. The only continent at that time that was left uncontrolled and, in the European's eyes uncivilized, was Africa. This was the start of Western Imperialism. All European countries wanted their piece of Africa and to get it, they would let nothing stand in their way. They would change the entire government, religion, market, and behavior of most of the African nation and affect almost every person living there. An account of the impact of Imperialism is given in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. This book shows the changes that occurred in Africa during Imperialism and its affect on the community and the people

One of the major constraints to the European conquest of Africa was the religious divisions. As indicated in the above section, large areas of African had come under Islamic influence centuries before the Europeans did. Conflicting religious ideologies, therefore, was an issue, as Islamic educated elites were uninterested in being government by Christian colonizers, despite the potential benefits. This situation can be understood through Assia Djebar’s (1993) Women, Children, Oxen Dying in Caves, which accounts the violent force used by a French officer to suppress the Muslim Algerian rebels. Although these events took place following the conquest, this demonstrates the lengths individuals were willing to go in order to fight against Christian

In studying the continent of Africa, a person simply cannot underestimate the importance and impact the time period 1770-1875 had on the shaping of pre-colonial Africa’s historical experience. By diving head first into Africa’s past and closely examining several themes and concepts of the time, one can fully comprehend just how much the colonization of Africa changed it forever, both for the better and the worse. The many reasons as to the “how and why” Africa was shaped into what it has become today can be seen within Thomas Getz’s book, Cosmopolitan Africa. Specifically, it is through the examination of the themes of the globalization of Africa in the oceanic era, the practice and belief of religions, and the significance of the Industrial Revolution, that the specific ways Africa was shaped from 1770-1875 can clearly be demonstrated.