by Sue Myburgh

Created on: April 15, 2008

In today's globalised, interconnected and much travelled world, Africa remains, for many people, a dark continent. This is not, God forbid, because of the colour of skin of the majority of the inhabitants. It is because it remains mysterious, secretive, and unknown, its recondite ways lost in its vast open spaces of desert and savannah, its virtually impenetrable forests and its diverse peoples and cultures.

Africa is often thought of as a single country or a single nation, because it comprises one continent, much like the island continent of Australia. However, while the land surface of the African continent is enormous, it is home to hundreds of different languages and dialects, customs and religions, ethnic groups, myths and superstitions, and the residual effects of language and cuisine of several European nations, notably Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal. But for the most part, all these different African nations, peoples, tribes and countries share one characteristic in common: their poverty.

Why is this so? Several theories have been advanced, and many of them suggest the political views of those who subscribe to them. It is often easier to support something that one hears, than do one's own research, and it is not surprising to find that each of these positions has a wide following. Can they be justified with facts, however? Often not, simply because so little about is reported in the international press (newspapers and television) apart from corruption, disease and catastrophe. The average viewer is barely able to distinguish in which country these events are taking place.

There are, for example, two distinct interpretations of the effects of the European colonisations of African countries. The first holds that the Europeans, even while removing vast quantities of the natural resources that were of value (many of these agricultural, such as coffee, cocoa, fruit, sago, tapioca and so forth), built up useful infrastructures of roads, schools, hospitals, civil administration and telecommunications. Such constructions are viewed by many of us as positive assets, and indeed are seen as 'development'. Here the word is used to indicate a kind of 'progress', from a less desirable state, to a more desirable state. In other words, this kind of statement suggests that the indigeneous traditional African cultures and lifestyles are less desirable or less advanced than the kind of Western lifestyles to which many of the readers of this piece subscribe.

However,

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