Doesn't seem like the country borders match up with tribal/kindom borders very well, do they? Might explain a lot about current political issues...We all know that Africa is a chaotic place, full of sudden wars and horrifying poverty. I recently talked to some people who now live in France, who had to flee Zimbabwe because they were related to a human rights lawyer, and if you read Little Bee, you get the idea that wars spring up and wipe out innocent bystanders, and then governments hunt down the witnesses and kill them, too. Africa has problems. But it wasn't always that way; for a long time, there were just mostly-peaceful tribes with sophisticated cultural, religious and social traditions. When they fought, it was often to humiliate their enemy, rather than kill, and they knew how to survive in the most inhospitable climates. But then a variety of European powers came along, and infiltratred their society, destroying them using a variety of weapons, from military force to money to religious persuasion.
Things Fall Apart is the story of this infiltration. We can look at it with purely Western eyes, and maybe sustain the notion that Europeans were better and stronger and it was good that we conquered the Africans. If we have any level of sensitivity, however, we begin to understand that this beautiful civilization was no better or worse than Western society, then or now. The outsiders came to Africa, and started doing unforgivable things, like massacring an entire village on market day, or converting peoples' children to Christianity. We see how a group of people reacts, when there are suddenly outsiders with new ideas and lacking morals, and how they survive - or dont.
This story is written by an African, and gives the account of a very specific tribe and it's slow descent. Parallels can be drawn between every culture that was colonized by Europeans, though the British never wiped out an entire tribe by poisoning their water supply (like the Germans) or left a large disabled population by cutting off the right hand of anyone who didn't work up to speed (like the Dutch in the Congo). What we see in Things Fall Apart is really the moral and social destruction of a culture, rather than a aqueiescence to force. In order to understand Africa now, I think it's important to understand what it underwent to get where it is.
I'm curious - has anyone else read Things Fall Apart? I know it's a well-known book, and taught in a lot of history classes, (although probably not as commonly as Heart of Darkness, which I never finished). It's not as riveting as Little Bee, but I still wouldn't pass it up!
Happy Reading!
ps - Thanks to my AP Euro teacher for a lot of the ideas/information relating to African colonialization!
i did a quite long reply to this back when the oddness was happening and it ate it!
ReplyDeletein summary, aside from that odd map, which seems to leave out so much i can't quite figure what it's trying to do even now i was unsurprised by the view of imperialism espoused. given the subjet matter of the book it's not so surprising but for me, now and back when i studied it (yes it was a long and involved reply!), it's just too simplistic.
your map has your clues 'kingdoms and empires' but so does achebe. there's a bit at the very beginning where he describes the harmattan. harmattan isn't a word particular to that part of the world so where does it come from. another imperialism!
achebe's book is great for this sort of stuff. i could go on and on and on. and on!
it's greta to see you got something out of it.
as for heart of darkness - it took me mearly twenty years to get into it but when i did suddenly all was revealed!
yes whatever issue the site was having was really annoying - im sorry it ate your comment!
ReplyDeletethe book was definitely simplistic, as you put it, but then heart of darkness is so dense, i would be surprised if i finish it sometime in the next twenty years (i read some, but havent picked it up in months). but my dad said the ending is really good (no cheerful good, but exciting) so i'll have to read it someday.
overall, i think this topic is so interesting, and explains a lot about the present.. haha i could go on all day too, but i wont. thanks for reading & commenting! :)