Some interesting comments on the lack of appreciation of African, and 
ohter unfamilair - to - the  - west areas of the world, geography. My 
apologies to the person who told me that, for example, Niger has only 
five geographers, in a country of ten million people that is about 
twice the size of France, as I have forgotten theior name. I also 
read in the Gyuardian recently that in fact on a 
global/envioronmental viewpoint, the 3rd world does not owe the west 
at all , rather the west owes the 3rd world for its (the wests) gross 
overuse of resources and emission of pollution relative to its 
population, whereas much of eg Africa contributes little or nothing 
to world pollution problems. Linking these two together, why does 
Africa have so few geographers to fight its envioronmental and 
economic corner? Imagine if, as for Niger, the whole of Greater 
london, population 8 million, had just four geographers! Wouldnt the 
UK govt try to encourage more to study or to move to the SE of 
England? I suspect, re the latest Oxfam advert, showing the IMF as a 
"product recall - this (drug) has dangerous side efects, especially 
on childrens education! that in poverty stricken areas of Africa, 
geography is seen as an expendable luxury. And of course the economic 
forces of the west have no interest in seeing this change - heaven 
forbid, because if countries like Niger had a strong force in 
environmental geography, they might actually realise which way the 
money debts run, allowing for environmental degradation.

As has been said, slavery of africans by Europeans continued into the 
last century, and it wasnt the africans who ended ti it was certain 
Europeans who saw the glaring injustices. This is no discredit to the 
Africans, they just held so little economic power (ie basically none) 
that they were in no postion to end slavery. In parrallel with this, 
because africa has such a paucity of geographers, it is up to us here 
in europe to draw attention to problems like
a) general lack of education in Africa, perpetuating poverty and 
indebtedness
b) Lack of awareness of Africas great envirinmental "loan" to the 
West for which thw West now owes Africa greatly
c) The way we in the West measure debts in gold, currency terms only, 
not accounting for environmental factors - unless of course they are 
planning a new bypass at the end of our garden, then we are suddenly 
very environmentaly aware!

As for a sort of fear of unfamiliar, uindeveloped regions like 
Africa, this is very true too. I recently went to Iran, and 
essentially had fed to me the following image of that country before 
i went
" Iran is disease ridden, a police state, full of anti western 
religious zealots, you cant photograph most places, put a foot wrong 
and youll end up in prison or worse , the foriegners will try and rip 
you off"...etc etc, all the usual stereotypes, similar to what I heard 
of before I went to Morrocco, and to the USSR in 1985 before that

IN FACT, of course none of this was true. The people were much 
friendlier than in the UK, eg in a rainstorm a complete stranger 
offered me shelter in his car and a detour for him back to mu hotel - 
try that in a shower in London! They were not anti western people, 
their phlisophy was that their quarrel was with western GOVTS, 
western people were OK. I got no unspeakable (or even speakable) 
diseases - the tehran water is in fact beter than much UK tapwater as 
it comes straight off the Alborz mountains. Most iranians had a level 
of English, and were keen to speak to me to learn more. Events such 
as the American hostage crisis, the acts of the Shah, the storming 
of the American embassy in tehran, what the shah did to some iranina 
students, took on a very different perspective when you hear the iran 
side - keep an open mind as to who is telling the truth, but at least 
hear both sides. A memorable experience was trying to phone englasn 
on the day i arrived - no easy task when you have no knowledge of 
Farsi and the Iran phone system does not quite macth the technology 
of the UK one. An Iranian woman came and helped, a total stranger, 
she took me to the right counter, acted as interpreter, sorted my 
money, and even made sure i got the right change at the end! (In Iran 
you pay say £10 to begin with and after they return what you havent 
spent)

Likewise many "world geography " textbooks give scant coverage to 
either Africa, outside south Africa and a few ports eg Tema, Accra 
etc, or to the Middle east, israel or rthe arab countries.
Even South America was far better covered than these regions
 Collecting 
these books as i do from 2nd hand shops, charity shops etc, you will 
find very few maps of these "forgotten regions" in these books, but 
plenty of Paris, berlin, london, new York Sydney etc. Iran maps are 
available at a somewhat outrageous cost, from eg Stanfords in london, 
but go to tehran and the same maps are there at low prices eg town 
plan of Shiraz; Stanfords, over £10, Shiraz bookshop, under £1

Come on, geographers of Europe/the USA....There are whole continents 
waiting for you south and east of Athens!

Hillary Shaw, P/G Geography, University of Leeds


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