Misunderstanding Africa

75 Pages·2011·0.2 MB·English

by  Paul Bork

Misunderstanding Africa: The West’s Misrepresentation of Africa.
An Insufficient Notion of Evil Seen Through the Lens of the Rwanda
Genocide and Child Slavery in Ghana
by
Paul Bork

A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts

Approved November 2011 by the
Graduate Supervisory Committee:

William Simmons, Chair
Julie Murphy Erfani
Akua Anokye

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
December 2011
ABSTRACT

Africa is misrepresented and mis-imaged in the western media.
Because of this, notions and beliefs about atrocities that take place on the
continent lack context, leaving people to think that Africa is a place of
misery, darkness and despair; a monolithic land where evil resides. The
image of Africa as the "heart of darkness" was conjured following the
Joseph Conrad novel and the idea of Africa as the "Dark Continent" still
pervades Western thought. This is an inadequate understanding of Africa,
and lacks the context to comprehend why many of the atrocities in Africa
occur. I will explore two atrocities in Africa, the 1994 Rwanda Genocide
and child slavery on Lake Volta in Ghana. I believe that both these
examples reflect how the label of evil is insufficient to describe the
circumstances around each atrocity. In order to understand such events
we must understand the part that colonialism and poverty play in the
disruption of pan-African culture. The "evils" of these two phenomenon,
are in many cases the result of the Western world's past involvement in
Africa and are remnants and extensions of the disruption caused.
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DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate my effort and work to two people, first, to my wife
Linda for all of her love and support and second, to my Papa, Harry
Marshall. His support of me and love for higher education have influenced
and inspired me to never stop learning.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would be remiss if I did not first thank my committee for all they have
done over the past two years. My chair Dr. William Simmons whose
insights and discussion allowed for me to think in different ways and to
see the world of human rights in a new light. I knew from our first
conversation via videoconference that my decision to join the program
was the right decision and have been grateful for his guidance ever since.
To my committee member Dr. Julie Erfani who introduced me to
Hannah Arendt and other philosophers, this allowed for me to broaden my
horizon in higher learning. Her class helped sow the seeds for this work
and inspired me to think deeper. Our conversations have always been
enlightening and thought provoking and I am incredibly thankful for her
direction.
My deepest thanks go to Dr. Duku Anokye for giving me the
opportunity to see a new part of the world and expose me to a new area of
study. I have nothing but admiration for her and have learned more than I
could ever imagine from her. Her guidance and experience have inspired
me to continue seeking my passion of the people and places in Africa.
Lastly I would like to thank my fellow classmates for all the
conversations, experiences and passion each one brings to the table of
human rights and social justice. I have learned a great deal from each of
them over the course of this program. I look forward to continuing the
conversation with each of them.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE.......................................................................................................v
CHAPTER
1 MISUNDERSTANDING AND MISREPRESENTING AFRICA. 1
Somalia Vs Rwanda................................................................1
Hollywood Vs Africa................................................................5
2 COLONIZATION, THE HUMAN CONDITION AND THE
IDENTITY OF FEAR AND HATRED.................................. 17
Inciting Fear and Hatred........................................................29
The New Work......................................................................32
The Banality of it all..............................................................41
3 CHILD SLAVERY IN GHANA.................................................. 43
The History and Condition....................................................44
Poverty and its Impact on Slaves..........................................50
Slave Labor...........................................................................52
4 CONCLUSION......................................................................... 58
REFERENCES .......................................................................................... 62
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PREFACE
For many Americans, what goes on beyond their own borders is out of
sight and out of mind. The concerns of global problems may not directly
affect them and feeble attempts are taken to remain informed; a few hours
a week with individuals like Katie Couric or the World section of the New
York Times is enough to keep them in the know. What seems to be a
pretty standard trend however, is that when the stories broadcasted or
printed through the usual media outlets pertain to the happenings in
Africa, the narrative seems to be the same, the subjects appear as “an
undifferentiated mass of pathetic victims” (Berkeley, 2001) painting the
picture of Africa as a monolithic realm of despair, savagery, war and
turmoil. The viewers of these stories, often times, take them for ultimate
truth informing their only understanding of the continent. For example,
during the preceding months of my departure to spend a year in Rwanda
as a teacher, I frequently received comments and questions from
individuals such as, “are you scared?” “Didn’t something really bad
happen there?” or “isn’t that really dangerous?” This is not to say Africa,
as the second largest continent, should not share in its tribulations or
disasters, rather it should be expected just like any landmass of complex
civilizations. What is disheartening and ultimately naïve is to assume, the
state of Africa that Americans are presented with, is not a “unitary
landscape of unremitting despair” (Berkeley, 2001). The atrocities, war,
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and turmoil the peoples of Africa face, continent wide, are not carried out
by some untapped reservoir of evil.
Cases of chaos abound worldwide; plenty have occurred and some
are currently happening, on African soil. “Popular” examples that get a
good deal of attention are the use of child soldiers, sex trafficking, blood
diamonds, and conflict(s) in Sudan. Another example that is recently
getting more attention and will be discussed in the third chapter of this
thesis is the trafficking and use of child slaves on Lake Volta in Eastern
Ghana. One of the most prime examples of horror however, an event that
surely hasn’t helped Africa’s image, was the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.
Here was, undoubtedly one of the worst massacres of the modern world,
in which, roughly 800,000 civilians were murdered by their neighbors,
friends, family and government.1
There is no capacity for understanding how and why this could
happen, especially no easy way for the general American population to
comprehend such horror. The only explanation in the minds of many is the
idea of evil. “Evil” seems to be the only appropriate word to describe the
Rwanda genocide, or any genocide rather, but when evil is given as a
reason, rather than a condition or phenomenon, explanations and
understanding become inadequate. When there appears to be only one

1 The number 800,000 is a ‘popular’ number used by most when
discussing the genocide, however, it is contested by some suggesting the
number killed was much higher surpassing one million with others
suggesting it could have been less. See Mamdani (2001), Rucyahana
(2007) and Des Forges (1999).
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negative and static narrative of a mass of civilizations, portrayed as one,
“evil” gets tossed around recklessly, and its use ultimately meaningless.
African’s have no more of a predisposition to “evil” than any other human
society, yet the American medias proclivities for addressing Africa’s plight
tends to be unilaterally biased and misrepresented. Western films on
Africa use themes of brutality and horror to paint a picture of the continent.
The award winning film Blood Diamond does this by highlighting the
importance of the film’s white characters while portraying the black
characters as savage and brutal. The author Keith Richburg has written
about the Rwanda genocide as an event that only un-evolved human
beings could make happen.
In this paper I will discuss evil and its application as well as the idea
of the banality of evil. Banal evil is meant to be any action by an individual
where there is a lack of any critical thought or when an individual has no
other course of action. Concepts of evil can vary however, it is human
beings that commit acts others perceive as evil and human beings are no
more evil in Africa than in the Western or Eastern world. In many cases
elements like propaganda create fear and lead individuals to commit
atrocities outsiders view as evil. It is important to analyze the perception of
Africa as evil or “dark” because when we are provided context we can see
that the West is not only complicit in the events that take place but that we
are not that different.
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The media is not the only culprit either, as I will discuss later,
ignorance about Africa and its peoples and places exists and even those
in the highest levels of government can suffer from it. A recent example of
this occurred on a grand scale in 2008, when Vice Presidential candidate
Sarah Palin did not understand that Africa was a continent and not a
country and asked her aides “if South Africa wasn't just part of the country
as opposed to a country in the continent" (www.mirror.co.uk). For an
average citizen in the U.S. to think South Africa is a region of the continent
rather than an actually country is perhaps, understandable. For an
individual hoping to be the next Vice President of the United States it is
unforgivable. Palin’s lack of knowledge for elementary geography may
seem petty to many but is significant because it represents how Africa has
little importance to the U.S.
I will refer to an “ignorance” held by the West throughout this paper
and this ignorance is meant to reference notions held about Africa that are
inaccurate and insufficient. Inaccurate notions about Africa are held by
many people in the U.S. and have been cultivated through the media’s
mis-imaging and misrepresentation of Africa. Those suffering this
ignorance can also include many individuals who have paid visits to Africa
and possess extensive knowledge about the continent but still hold wild
and illogical notions. Berkeley (2001) has written an essay as a counter
weight to some of those writings. The authors of these writings should
know better than to provide their readers with faulty theories of the African
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continent. For instance, Berkeley writes in response to Robert D. Kaplan,
who assumes the civil war in Liberia arose from “new-age primitivism” out
of “superstitions” that allegedly blossom in the rain forest. Berkeley adds,
that through his own travel throughout Africa, he has “found no evidence
of ‘new age primitivism’ or ‘superstitions’ that could explain mass murder
(82). It is my attempt to investigate the notions held by the Western world
that Africa is a ‘mysterious’ place full of ‘tribal’ chaos related to the ‘evil’ of
the Rwanda Genocide and the child slavery practiced in Ghana and to
what extent do the writings of Hannah Arendt, such as banal evil, work
and labor reflect the realities of the two crisis?
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