Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

A remarkable tour of the continent through the eyes of a European journalist who traveled well beyond the white areas of big cities, and also covered events such as coups and transitions to independence. His insights run deep and are told well. A hard read because of the content but I feel I got a good and important review of many areas and peoples.

"In those places where conflict has lasted decades (as in Angola or Sudan), the majority of older people were killed long ago, or perished from hunger and disease; children remain, and it is they who are doing the fighting. The bloody chaos in which various African countries are plunged has spawned tens of thousands of orphans, hungry and homeless. They look for anyone who might feed and shelter them, and it is easiest to find food where the troops are, because soldiers have the best chances of obtaining it: weapons in these countries are not only for waging war, but are means of survival--sometimes the only means." p.148

"Someone brought from London a Somali quarterly that had been published there in the summer of 1993...I counted: of the 17 authors represented-preeminent Somali intellectuals. scientists, and writers0 15 reside abroad. Here is one of Africa's problems: an intelligentsia lives for the most part outside its borders, in the U.S., in London, Paris, Rome. Remaining in their native countries are, at the bottom, masses of illiterate, downtrodden, utterly exploited peasants; at the top, the corrupt bureaucracy or arrogant, coarse soldiers.... How is Africa to develop, participate in the great transformation of the world, without an intelligentsia? Without its own educated middle class? Furthermore, if an African scholar or writer is persecuted in his own country, most frequently he will not seek shelter in another country on his continent, but in Boston, Los Angeles, Stockholm, or Geneva." pp.223-4

"...the strength of Europe and of its culture, in contrast to other cultures, lies in its bent for criticism, above all, for self-criticism--in its art of analysis and inquiry, in its endless seeking, in its restlessness.... Other cultures do not have this critical spirit. More--they are inclined to pride, to thinking that all that belongs to them is perfect; they are, in short, uncritical in relation to themselves. They lay the blame for all that is evil on others, on other forces (conspiracies, agents, foreign domination of one sort or another). They consider all criticism to be a malevolent attack, a sign of discrimination, racism, etc. ... Instead of being self-critical, they are full of countless grudges, complexes, envies, peeves, manias. The effect of all this is they are culturally, permanently, structurally incapable of progress, incapable of engendering within themselves the will to transform and evolve." (Not the author's opinion but his telling of what a longtime elderly English resident imparted to him) pp. 227-8

"During precolonial times, and hence not so long ago, more than 10,000 little states, kingdoms, ethnic unions, and federations existed in Africa. Roland Oliver, a historian at the University of London, draws attention to the general paradox in his book, The African Experience (1991): it has become common parlance to say that European colonialists partitioned Africa. Partitioned? Oliver marvels. Colonialism was a brutal unification, brought about by fire and sword. Ten thousand entities reduced to fifty." p. 323