Into the House of our Ancestors by Karl Maier

1204 Words3 Pages

Into the House of our Ancestors by Karl Maier

"Two recent works have dominated conversations about Africa in the late 1990's: Robert B. Kaplan's article The Coming Anarchy and Keith B. Richburg's book, Out of America -- a surprising circumstance, perhaps, since neither work was, strictly speaking, about Africa" says Howard French, a NYT writer. It was until Karl Maier's Into the House of Our Ancestors until a somewhat optimistic outlook on Africa emerges. Maier is the first person to write a book on what some are calling the African renaissance. Maier quotes Nelson Mandela, "We are moving from an era of resistance, division, oppression, turmoil and conflict and starting a new era of hope, reconciliation and nation-building." Maier addresses some of the major problems Africa had faced in the past but says, "Yet blaming Africa's myriad problems on the outside world will simply not do any more, and it is very rare to hear Africans living in Africa offering such excuses", and continues "Even without the constraints of the unbalanced economic relationship with the West, African countries have their own very urgent problems to sort out, and only they can do it." Maier's book is detrimental to understanding where Africa is today and in what direction the Continent is heading. Maier's unbiased opinion and stories told about the individuals of Africa invite us to look at the Continent a completely different way.

Many of the problems the Africans faced in the past are cover in Maier's book. He talks about colonization and the Black Diaspora. Maier says the Berlin Conference caused, "the struggle of Africa's people to reclaim their birthright, to pursue their lives in relative security and with reasonable hope of delivering a better future to their children, was just beginning, and it was to experience many reverses." To lift the curse, Africa must take the good form the past and meet the demands of the future. Maier states, "Africans must reclaim the sense of history and purpose of which colonialism dispossessed them.

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