Africa always had the short end of the stick when it came to its reputation. It all started when a German philosopher named Georg Hagel visited Africa and made a very miss informative statement about it in 1837. In his own unwitting words, Hagel basically suggested that Africa was worthless, had no history, and that the people were wild. Word of Hagel’s statement spread to the western world and that particular stereotype has been around for a very long time. Over a century later, in 1964, another philosopher named Hugh Trevor-Roper went on a trip to Africa. The statement that he made about Africa was almost the same thing that Hagel’s statement said back in 1837, except that Roper suggested that the only history from Africa is that of the Europeans and the rest was worthless for the topic of history. What each of the philosophers said about Africa was absurd. Georg Hegel was from Germany and Hugh Trevor-Roper was from Britain. How could they possibly know the history? Let alone the political, educational, and religious side of Africa. The continent is made up of fifty four states. For them to make these kinds of statements was quite ignorant; you cannot just go to a piece of Africa and make observations for the whole continent. Politics have always been a part of Africa. In pre-colonial times, African …show more content…
In pre-colonial Africa, the entire community or village were responsible for orally passing knowledge on to others – young or old. This kind of education was important because what was taught helped them meet the needs of their society. This was a very successful system of education. So much was passed on from generation to generation; for example, knowledge about nature was a very big part of education. That was probably very useful so that people knew which plants they could and could not use for things such as medication for
Unfortunately, even though European imperialism in Africa was justified, many Africans are still suffering from the effects to this day.
Europe, in the late 1800’s, was starting for a land grab in the African continent. Around 1878, most of Africa was unexplored, but by 1914, most of Africa, with the lucky exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, was carved up between European powers. There were countless motivations that spurred the European powers to carve Africa, like economical, political, and socio–cultural, and there were countless attitudes towards this expansion into Africa, some of approval and some of condemnation.
Africa has an incredibly rich and complex history. Unfortunately, and for a variety of reasons, the west has a highly skewed and inaccurate perspective of Africa. In his “Myths About Africa, Africans, and African History: The Student’s ‘Ten Commandments’” Pier Larson critiques some of these perspectives and discusses where these western ideas of Africa come from. While these myths certainly are false, it is still interesting to see them and ponder why they exist and what that, in turn, reflects on western society. These reflections are very negative and limits western society’s perspective and ability to relate and identify with what is a vast and diverse continent.
Because it is easy for us to believe a general categorization of something, instead of having to do the work of researching about it or having a personal experience, we tend to settle for what has been put out there. In this case we will looking at the general misconception people have about Africa versus the reality.
Based on the response on a typical woman, I would assume that the nation does not see in world wide impact the global economy is hurting Africa. People tend to know that government officials are corrupt but do not have the financial capabilities to rid the corruption. This causes southern countries to breed a hatred of people within the same continent.
Africa was known for its land of richness, full of its right elements to have the right resources, education, and state of order. European nations looked for and wanted raw materials, and saw Africa as the perfect foundation. Then the European nations have decided to colonize and attack parts of Africa then divide it with each other. After ruling and taking charge of these areas they have not stopped, but rather their greed for more is just starting. Africans have tried more than once to stop these attacks, but nothing changed. In the end, after all of these attacks the Africans lost their freedom and land. This is a very obvious case of unfairness where the European nations decided to rule a land and take all their resources that do not belong to them in the first
Africa has had a long and tumultuous road of colonization and decolonization the rush to colonize Africa started in the 17th century with the discovery of the vast amounts of gold, diamonds, and rubber with colonization hitting a fever pitch during World War I. However, the repercussions of colonization have left deep wounds that still remain unhealed in the 21st century. Early on, European nations such as Britain, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium scrambled for territories. Countries wanted land so they could harvest the resources, increase trade, and gain power. The European colonization of Africa brought racism, civil unrest, and insatiable greed; all of which have had lasting impacts on Africa.
It is generally accepted by scholars and scientists today that Africa is the original home of man. One of the most tragic misconceptions of historical thought has been the belief that Black Africa had no history before European colonization. Whites foster the image of Africa as a barbarous and savage continent torn by tribal warfare for centuries. It was a common assumption of nineteenth-century European and American Whites - promoted by the deliberate cultivation of pseudoscientific racism - that Africans were inferior to Whites and were devoid of any trace of civilization or culture.
There were many important statements made throughout the text, some were interesting to read and others were difficult to read. In the introduction there were statements that explained different forms of history. There was original history, reflective history, and philosophical history. Original history would simply transfer what was passing in the world around them to the realm of representative intellect. Reflective history needed the investigator to gain view of the entire history of a people, country, or world. Philosophical history means nothing but the thoughtful consideration of history. Something interesting I found in the text was when Hegel stated that America has always shown itself physically and psychically powerless. This was
Only a few continents in the world will you find such a broad spectrum of diversity. Its diversity makes Africa a unique and special place. Africa, the second largest continent of the world has many countries that comprise of different ethnicity and culture. Liberia a country of Africa is one of the many countries that contribute to the diversity that makes Africa the continent it was in the past and is today. Colonized by freed slaves from the Unites States, Liberia in 1846 became the first independent republic in Africa. The new immigrants began to blend with the variety of indengenous people. Traditional indigenous people consisted of the Dan, Bassa, Vai and Kpelle.
Problems began for Africa when there was the “scramble for Africa. Africa was extremely divided throughout the continent. There was no nation intact. Even though they were divided into colonies, they still had no sovereignty. Since they had no form of nationalism it made it impossible to succeed as a nation. This really hurt Africa economically. If they would have been able to come together as a nation they could have pulled all of their assets together and exploit them in order to make money. By not doing this it allowed the government to exploit the people. This is why there are starving people in Africa on television. The states of Africa were created in order to make money by exporting all the various resources, whether it was slaves, minerals, or agriculture. There was much to gain by owning a chunk of land in Africa. This reason being because Africa is so rich in their resources for trade. After the race was over it left Africa severely divided.
The American educator Horace Mann once said: "As an apple is not in any proper sense an apple until it is ripe, so a human being is not in any proper sense a human being until he is educated." Education is the process through which people endeavor to pass along to their children their hard-won wisdom and their aspirations for a better world. This process begins shortly after birth, as parents seek to train the infant to behave as their culture demands. They soon, for instance, teach the child how to turn babbling sounds into language and, through example and precept, they try to instill in the child the attitudes, values, skills, and knowledge that will govern their offspring's behavior throughout later life. Schooling, or formal education, consists of experiences that are deliberately planned and utilized to help young people learn what adults consider important for them to know and to help teach them how they should respond to choices. This education has been influenced by three important parts of modern American society: wisdom of the heart, egalitarianism, and practicality... the greatest of these, practicality. In the absence of written records, no one can be sure what education man first provided for his children. Most anthropologists believe, though, that the educational practices of prehistoric times were probably like those of primitive tribes in the 20th century, such as the Australian aborigines and the Aleuts. Formal instruction was probably given just before the child's initiation into adulthood -- the puberty rite -- and involved tribal customs and beliefs too complicated to be learned by direct experience. Children learned most of the skills, duties, customs, and beliefs of the tribe through an informal apprenticeship -- by taking part in such adult activities as hunting, fishing, farming, toolmaking, and cooking. In such simple tribal societies, school was not a special place... it was life itself. However, the educational process has changed over the decades, and it now vaguely represents what it was in ancient times, or even in early American society. While the schools that the colonists established in the 17th century in the New England, Southern, and Middle colonies differed from one another, each reflected a concept of schooling that had been left behind in Europe. Most poor children learned through apprenticeship and had no formal schooling at all. Those who did go to elementary school were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion.
Africa’s struggle to maintain their sovereignty amidst the encroaching Europeans is as much a psychological battle as it is an economic and political one. The spillover effects the system of racial superiority had on the African continent fractured ...
From the dawn of time, education has been in existence in one form or another. Societies knew early on that to survive knowledge and experiences must be passed on to future generations. By passing on this knowledge people could take what others learned then build upon it. One such example is of the man that invented the wheel. He probably never imagined that his idea would later become the means to assist man to soar high in the sky with the fowls of the air. This miraculous feat might never have happened if he had not shared what he knew with others.
An overwhelming majority of African nations has reclaimed their independence from their European mother countries. This did not stop the Europeans from leaving a permanent mark on the continent however. European colonialism has shaped modern-day Africa, a considerable amount for the worse, but also some for the better. Including these positive and negative effects, colonialism has also touched much of Africa’s history and culture especially in recent years.