Download 10 Myths About Africa File

Myths about Africa, Africans, and African
History:
Introduction. Myths about various people and places can develop
and become popular in a society for a variety of reasons.
Europeans and North Americans have developed myths about
Africa, Africans and African history in the context of their
enslavement of Africans, their colonization of Africa, and their
history of racism. Racism perpetuated and perpetuates myths
about Black people to denigrate them and to "prove" that they
have no worthy history. This distortion of African history served
and serves the purpose of the social, political, and economic
subordination of African people on both sides of the Atlantic.
These myths ultimately concern Africa and Africans, the continent
and people at the origin of the Black diaspora. The primary way
in which racism denigrates African experience is by creating
negative images and stereotypes of Africans and their history.
Racism accounts for most of the myths about Africa circulating in
North America and more broadly today. A more recent and less
important source of myths about Africa and African history comes
from within the African community itself. In order to re-instill a
sense of dignity and respect for African history denied by racist
myths, some scholars and activists have invented new myths
about Africans and African history that are not supported by
evidence or that serve to elevate Africans at the expense of other
people (such as Latin Americans). These latter myths are largely
positive stereotypes of Africans, but are wrong nevertheless.
Many of the ten myths referred to below have become "common
knowledge" and widely accepted in American society, in both
Black and White communities. It is necessary to discuss and
unlearn them before we proceed with learning new things about
Africa. Because unlearning these popular myths is very important
for learning new things about Africa, I call them the student's
"Ten Commandments." Knowing that these myths are wrong
should be your foundational knowledge about Africa, its peoples
and history.
Myth One. Africa has no ancient cultures, histories or
civilizations and has therefore made no meaningful contributions
to world history. Subsidiary to this, the values that Westerners
hold dear today like political freedom and democracy had and
have no tradition or history in Africa.
False. This is one of the most fundamental of all the myths and
is so strong because African slaves, as dishonored people, were
stripped of their history and the dignity and pride that
accompanied it. Africans not only built so many ancient cultures,
kingdoms, civilizations, and empires that one person can scarcely
remember let alone adequately study them (those of you who
have studied History 191 will know this already) but Africa was
the center of one of the oldest of all civilizations, Egypt, from
which the ancient Greeks, so favored in Western history,
borrowed and learned (Egyptians also borrowed and learned from
the Greeks, in their time, as the Mediterranean Sea on which
both Greece and Egypt were located, was a zone of cultural
intercommunication.) Finally, citizen participation, autonomy, and
local decision-making are significant themes in African political
history. Like other areas of the world, Africa experienced
significant historical tensions between political centralization and
absolute power, on the one hand, and tendencies toward local
autonomy and individuality, on the other. The Western world and
ancient Greece have neither a monopoly nor a patent on the
forms of government we now know and value as "democracy."
Myth Two. Africans are primarily “tribespeople”; Africans are
organized first and foremost into tribes while Europeans are
primarily organized into nations.
False. The word "tribe" is a European word, not an African one.
It is a term originating in the Judeo-Christian tradition (the
"tribes" of Israel) that Europeans have historically used to name
Africans, not a term that Africans have historically used to refer
to themselves. No one, in any case, knows precisely what a tribe
is. There is no agreed upon definition because the word is not
scientific or precise in any sense—it is an invented category.
Essentially designating an "ethnic group," the term "tribe" is
employed by people who consider themselves "normal" to refer
to others who they consider to be unlike themselves in a
negative way. Thus Americans will immediately think of Africans
as tribes, but talk about Norwegians, French, Mexicans, Poles or
African Americans as "ethnic groups" or "nations." In the West,
"tribe" carries the connotation of socially backward, not advanced
or sophisticated, and therefore Westerners employ it liberally to
refer to Africans because they mistakenly believe these are
primary African characteristics (this, like most of the other
myths, is part of the inheritance of racism). A further problem
arises because in Africa today you will hear many Africans refer
to themselves as members of tribes. This usage comes from an
acceptance of the European terminology by some Africans, a
terminology that was employed so much during the colonial
period (the early 20th century) that many Africans have
internalized it and continue to use the term. Like Americans,
however, Africans are unlikely to employ the term "tribe" to refer
to Europeans. Because some Africans employ the term "tribe" to
refer to themselves, however, does not make "tribe" any more
legitimate than when Europeans employ it.
Myth Three. Africans are essentially primitive in lifestyle, art
and technology because few or no innovations took or take place
in Africa.
False. Mention the derogatory word "primitive" (which, of
course nobody thinks they are nor wants to be called) and many
people in North America think straight away of Africa and
Africans. How many times do we still hear of "primitive" people
living in the forest here or there? Primitive has no scientific
definition. Like "tribe" it is an epithet, a bad name, that
Europeans/Americans have traditionally applied to people who
live differently than they do, especially those who do not employ
or have the kinds of technology Westerners today daily live with.
Africans do not have a "primitive" lifestyle, art and technology,
they have African lifestyles, arts and technologies that vary a
great deal according to ecology, personal and group preferences,
economic status, and a host of other factors. Each African society
has produced and continues to produce its own innovations in
technology, government, social structure, art, and literature. And
some Africans employ some of the most sophisticated technology
today available. Many telephone systems newly installed in
African cities, for instance, take advantage of communications
technologies that are well ahead of those available to you, the
local telephone customer in the United States. Everyone reading
this essay on myths would protest the insult if someone called
them a "primitive tribesperson" to their face—or even behind
their backs! Claiming someone is "primitive" does not reveal
anything about them; it is an insult. Keep that word out of my
classroom.
Myth Four. Africans have no literary, philosophical and
historical traditions in either the recent or the far past.
False. Africans have literary and historical traditions reaching
back to the dawn of civilization. Although writing was developed
on its own in Egypt and several other ancient African civilizations,
writing as a technology came late to much of Africa, during the
19th and early 20th centuries. But literary and historical
traditions do not depend exclusively on writing. Verbal literature
remained, and even today with the spread of writing as a
technology of communication remains vibrant across Africa.
Great African literary classics like Sundiata, an epic that stems
from historical events in the 13th century, have been preserved
as oral literature and subsequently written down for the
enjoyment and edification of those who read. Africans have long
excelled in the verbal arts and, where writing has a longer
tradition, have also excelled in written literatures over the last
centuries. For humanity as a whole, writing is a relatively new
technology in which several African societies participated before
the modern era, but humans had both a well developed sense
and appreciation for history and a fascinating literature long
before the prevalence of writing as a technology.
Myth Five. All Africans are black. To be African is to be black.
Africans are not culturally diverse. Africans share an essentially
unified culture
False. The majority of Africans have skin colors which in the
United States, operating under the "one drop" rule, would be
classified as "black." But not everyone thinks like Americans, and
this includes Africans. Africans come in a wide variety of skin
colors and physical types that many Africans find significant
among themselves. Most African cultures distinguish between,
and have words to describe, different shades of skin color and
hair types. In many societies, prejudices based upon these
observed physical differences exist. Africans range from a
beautiful dark skin color to a very light skin color that would
"pass" in the United States as socially white. In addition to
"indigenous" Africans whose ancestors remained on the continent
(remember that all humans are Africans and their ancestors
ultimately were Africans), there are immigrant Africans from all
parts of the world. Immigrants to Africa compose only a small
proportion of the African population. Africa has been connected
to the wider world since the ancestors of non-Africans left Africa
for Europe and Asia. It is therefore not surprising that, like
anywhere else in the world, immigrants have come to live in
Africa and in the process became Africans, just as Europeans and
Africans became Americans in the Americas. Some immigrants to
Africa are ancient immigrants like Persians and Arabs among the
Swahili of East Africa, Arabs in North Africa, or Indonesians
among the Malagasy. Most immigrants, however, are newer,
having arrived during the last several hundred years or even in
the last couple of decades. Newer immigrant Africans come
primarily from Europe (especially France, England, Portugal and
Holland) and Asia (especially India, China, Lebanon and
Indonesia). Again, a comparison can be made with the United
States. In North America the population consists of indigenous
peoples (Native Americans) and those who immigrated
voluntarily or forcefully (mainly Europeans and Africans, but
people from all parts of the world). The existence of indigenous
people and immigrants is also true in Africa, but there the
indigenous Africans represent the vast majority instead of the
minority. To claim that an Hispanic person is not an American
citizen because she is Hispanic, or that an African American is not
an American because he is African in origin, or that a Norwegian
American is not American because her grandparents came from
Europe (or because her far ancestors ultimately came from
Africa) is nonsense and insulting. This is also true in Africa. If we
tell African immigrants they are not truly Africans, or African
citizens, they would probably either laugh at our ignorance or
slap us in the face. In any case, they would show us their African
passports.
Myth Six. Africa is one country and the people there speak a
language called “African.”
False. The African continent contains more than 50 countries
that are joined together in the Organization of African Unity.
Africans speak thousands of different languages organized into
five main language families. There are both important diversities
and fundamental cultural similarities across Africa, as across any
continent
Myth Seven. Africa is mostly jungle, with some desert, and is
highly overpopulated.
False. Very little of Africa is jungle. It is true that Africa
contains the largest stand of equatorial forest in the world, but
like any other continent, and perhaps even more so, Africa is a
continent of tremendous ecological and geographical diversity.
The continent possesses the largest desert in the world, high
snowy mountains, rich tropical forest, open grassland, mixed
savanna (grasslands and trees), pine forests, temperate
climates—pick a climate anywhere in the world (except
Antarctica) and you can find it somewhere in Africa. Africa lies
both inside and outside of the tropics, is massive, and has
tremendous elevation differences. North American media reports
on Africa often suggest that population control is desperately
necessary, that Africa is brimming with people. Africa has only
slightly more population per square mile than does North
America. There are vast areas of Africa as large as North America
itself (Africa being 3 1/2 times as large as the United States) that
are almost totally unpopulated. Many African nations have very
high rates of population growth, which can pose serious
challenges for weak economies and fragile ecologies. These are
kinds of problems that face many other nations in the world too.
Myth Eight. North Africa is not a part of Africa.
False. North Africa is often conceptually removed from the rest
of Africa because (1) its people are, on average, of lighter skin
color than the majority of Africans as a whole and (2) Arabic and
Arab influences are more noticeable there than anywhere else in
Africa. It is indeed important to understand North Africa, or at
least parts of it, as part of what we commonly call "the Middle
East." At the same time, North Africa is an integral part of Africa
itself, being a part of the continent. North Americans (both Black
and White) are often uncomfortable with the idea of African
diversity and are often quick to therefore separate North Africa
from West, Central, East and South Africa. To make a
comparison closer to home, removing North Africa from Africa is
like removing the American South or West from America because
each of the two areas contains distinct characteristics and unique
cultures and has populations which are, on average, darker in
skin color than those in the north and northwest. Cutting parts of
continents off in such, a summary and unjustified (not to
mention racist) manner because they do not fit preconceived
notions is, of course, ridiculous.
Myth Nine. Africans are not normal people. There are two
very different versions of this fundamental myth. Form A:
Everything Africans do is worthless, a failure, and Africans can
essentially only do bad things; Africans have no part in the
history of civilization. Form B: Everything Africans do is perfect,
worthy, harmonious, better than anything anybody else can or
did do; Africans are the only or the primary origin of all
civilization, especially Western Civilization and even the ancient
Native American civilizations.
False. Let us begin with form A of the Myth. The idea that
Africans have made no contribution to civilization is and has been
the key Western myth of Africa and Africans. It is a myth, like
other Western myths, born of racism and ignorance. It is related
to all the preceding myths we have discussed. In this myth,
Westerners see Africans not as competent and creative human
beings like themselves but as stunted, "primitive tribespeople,"
incapable of doing anything right, interesting, or worthwhile. Now
let us turn to Form B of this myth, which is the flip opposite of
the Western myth. The idea that Africans have a better
civilization than others and in fact are the origin of everybody
else's civilization originates as an attempt to correct the lies
perpetuated by the Western myth. It arises from the struggle to
claim a rightful dignity and a respectable place in world history
and civilization for Africans. To note the greatness of African
civilizations and their contributions to Western civilizations is
accurate. The relationships and contributions of Ancient Egypt to
the civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean (especially Greece),
for example, have been historically underplayed by Western
historians over the last several centuries. On the other hand,
societies borrow from each other and Africans have incorporated
elements of other cultures and civilizations into their own
societies just as much as they have contributed to others. To
claim that Africans are the single or primary origin of Western
and Latin American civilizations (versus the fact that Africans
have made significant contributions to those civilizations, just as
they have received from them), is now common in some social
circles. This myth does not rest on real evidence and reproduces
the myth that civilization and culture originated only in ONE place
and spread from there to everywhere else (in academic jargon
this theory of civilization is known as "hyper-diffusionism" and
has always been associated with racism; it was used effectively
by the West to denigrate Africans and bolster racism). To claim
that Africans invented civilization for Europeans and Latin
Americans is as insulting to them as the claim that Europeans
were the origin of all civilization is to Africans.
Both of these versions of the myth that Africans are not normal
people are wrong because Africans are not robots, they are
human beings like everyone else. Africans love, hate, fear,
promote excellence, tear down societies, build civilizations, wage
war, appreciate diversity, act intolerant, cry, sing, are born, die,
make good art, make bad art, fashion social justice, act like
tyrants: they do and feel everything that everyone else does.
Restoring Africans to their proper place in world history and
civilization means neither seeing Africans merely as
stereotypes—as devils or as angels—but as complex individuals
building complex and varied societies and civilizations, doing the
kinds of things that humans anywhere else in the world do.
Myth Ten. African history is basically a history of poverty,
ignorance, slavery, violence, failure—of negative things. It is
therefore both boring and depressing to study.
False. How could I, as a professor and human being, devote my
teaching career to such a "depressing" topic as African history if
this myth were true? African history is a total mix. Some of the
more depressing aspects of African history are concentrated in
the last two centuries, the modern times, in which Africa has
been subordinated in the world economy. These experiences will
feature prominently in this course, which includes African history
during the time of the slave trade and colonization. If we look
into Africa's past we fund much that is positive and uplifting that
more than counterbalances many of Africa's problems today. To
see African history only as negative is the equivalent, say, of
considering European history and achievements only by the
scores of wars that have been fought on that continent or by
narrowing our vision to the Holocaust only. In this class we will
explore a range of African experiences, from cultural and
intellectual achievements to the scourges of slavery and
colonization.
Put your myths aside, come, and learn about Africa and Africans
in modern history.