I'd certainly agree with Becky - Africa is, for the west, one big, 
largely unspecified, unspeakable mess of problems. For answers to

>the most pressing question of all: why do we outside of the 
>continent ignore Africa?

I suggest we might look to the history of western encounters with 
'the Dark Continent', and to the place of Africa in the western 
imagination. 

On the one hand, Europeans (to generalise somewhat) have 
always been fascinated by Africa. For example, the Victorian 
public imagination was captured by the exploration of the 
continent; exhibitions, lectures and books about Africa (e.g.the 
Stanley and Africa exhibition; Livingstone's book 'Missionary 
Travels') were extremely popular. 

On the other hand, European engagements with Africa have 
consistently proved more or less unsuccessful - from a colonial 
point of view, certainly, inasmuch as Africa never really submitted 
to commerce, Christianity and civilisation as planned by western 
imposters. More broadly, westerners (as usual) have largely failed 
to understand Africa, finding its cultures alluring yet frustrating. We 
may have mapped out its contours and located the Nile sources, 
but can only manage a big "??!" when confronted with mind-
benders such as the issue of female circumcision, just as the 
Victorian explorers couldn't conceive why tribal chiefs would sell 
their own people as slaves. In the face of such incomprehensible 
ways of knowing and unfathomable conceptions of property and 
space, Europeans constructed representations of Africa which 
attempted to erase and dispossess its people - 'beasts', 'savages', 
'children'; history has bequeathed us white men's geographies of 
Africa, saturated with eurocentricity and patriarchy.

So, back to Becky's question: why do we outside of the continent 
ignore Africa? I'd like to argue that media inattention is an ongoing 
symptom, rather than a simple cause, of this ignorance.

When confronted with the incomprehensible, ignorance is a 
common response; and it may be executed in constructive, 
creative forms, which disguise its fallacy - appropriating knowledge, 
inscribing foreign terrain with western names, constructing the 
native as a simpleton; ultimately, creating an imaginative 
geography in order to avoid the horror and confusion of engaging 
with the other on the other's terms. This isn't news to anyone, I'm 
sure. 

Think for a moment - what do you know about Africa? What do you 
really understand about its geography? For the majority of us, who 
I'm presuming haven't been there, I'd imagine the answer starts off 
as a hazy vision of exotic animals, people in mud huts, swamps 
and rivers, that, in terms of real understanding, boils down to very 
little; most probably, little more than we might know about the 
moon, or Mars. Yet would we, were we not 'critical geographers', 
consider ourselves, or our nations, especially ignorant of Africa? I 
don't imagine we would. Our ignorance, then, is at a deeper, 
unconscious level.

My suggestion is that our pervasive imaginative geographies of 
Africa unconsciously invite us to ignore the reality of the continent. 
Furthermore, when we hear anything of the horrors there - famines, 
wars, disasters, AIDS epidemics - these imaginative geographies 
are powerfully disabling. We are faced with the incomprehensible - 
massive crises in unknown lands with unknown cultures - and we 
flinch, reverting to our imaginative notions for solace, unconsciously 
naturalising Africa, rejecting our agency and thereby excusing our 
inactivity: "These natives have always been at war with each other, 
without good reason - there's nothing to be done"; "Famines will 
always happen in Africa, it's a harsh environment"; "Multiple sexual 
partners and large families are part of their culture - AIDS is 
inevitable"; "Female circumcision is a traditional ritual, they're very 
savage in Africa, there's nothing you can do."

Interestingly, history also suggests that this notion of the west as 
passive, unable to engage with and unable to change Africa, is a 
myth. Little more than a hundred years ago, the slave trade was 
highly active, at least in East Africa, despite Britain's efforts to 
legislate against it. The British government apologetic response to 
calls for increased funding for anti-slavery efforts was predictable, 
but understandable. Having failed to put a stop to the trade, they 
saw East African slavery as the status quo - undesirable, but 
unstoppable. Unconsciously, they were convinced - as I am 
suggesting our governments are today - that the African 'savages' 
were beyond help, that Africa was too vast, too incomprehensible 
for the west to manage. Ignorance was easier and less costly than 
engagement, which only promised, from experience, to be futile.

Yet highly diplomatic political moves executed by, in particular, 
John Kirk, the British Consul in Zanzibar, eventually put a stop to 
the slave trade. Kirk, it seems, was unusual in his sensitivity to the 
situation in East Africa. He had travelled with Livingstone and had 
seen the horrors of slavery first hand, and once installed at 
Zanzibar developed a close relationship with the sultan there. It 
was this delicate political relationship, carefully nurtured over 
several years, that gave Kirk the leverage he needed to persuade 
the sultan to stop the slave trade. This was no mean feat - 
Zanzibar's economy was based largely upon cloves, which relied 
heavily upon slave labour. In abolishing slavery, the sultan stood to 
lose not only his popularity, but also his life. Yet Kirk, through 
patient friendship, diplomacy and gentle coercion, ultimately 
achieved an amazing humanitarian end.

I don't know how far this goes to answering Becky's questions, and 
it certainly only hints at possible solutions. Comments please...

Mike Gallagher 


Hey, you!  Yes, you:

Keep your room nice and neat,
Always watch what you eat,
Stay fresh with the beat, 
That's the word on the street.


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