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AFRI 262 The Literatures of Africa

Prof. Donato Fhunsu
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Spring 2013
INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE
HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY
GENERAL PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
Africa NOT a country. It is a continent; it has 55 countries.
Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde,
Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa),
Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon [France], Gambia, Ghana,
Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast (Cte dIvoire), Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia [USA],
Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique,
Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Reunion,
Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone [UK], Sao Tome & Principe, Somalia,
South Africa, Sudan, South Soudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda,
Western Sahara (still in dispute)*, Zambia, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe.
GENERAL HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
Two main ways of classifying the peoples of Africa:
1. Physical type or race
Body type and skin color and tone.
Shortcoming: intermarriages > blend of types
2. Language
More reliable.
Main groupings:
1. Afro-Asiatic (Amharic, Arabic, Berber, Hausa)
2. Nilotic (Luo, Maasai)
3. Bantu (the biggest; central and southern parts of Africa) (Kiswahili, Lingala,
Kikongo, Zulu, etc.)
4. Khoisan
5. West and North-Central Africa
6. Malagasy (Malayo-Polynesian family > South-East Asia)
GENERAL HISTORICAL OUTLINE
(1) Ancient History
- Africa is one of the oldest continents of the planet.
- Some of the oldest human remains have been found in Africa.
- From the beginning of human civilizations, Africa has had successful societies,
organized in empires, kingdoms, and city-states (Egypt, the Wolof Empire, Futa Jalon,
the Mande Kingdoms, the Hausa States, Benin, Darfur, Timbuktu, the Kongo
Kingdom, the Luba Kingdom, the Kuba Kingdom, the Lunda Kingdom, the Kazembe
Kingdom, the Ndebele Kingdom, the Malawi Kingdom, the Zulu Kingdom, etc.)
- These empires, kingdoms, and city-states trade with other societies in Africa

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(2) Discovery and Slavery

- At the beginning, the contact with societies from Europe and Asia is through trade.
- But soon the relationship changes (15th century; 1450- )
- The European powers (the Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, German, Dutch,
Swedish, Danish)
Prince Henry of Portugal
- Aims of the Kingdom of Portugals explorations:
1. scientific (to extend geographical knowledge)
2. political (to make Portugal more powerful)
3. religious (to spread Christianity)
4. economic (to find direct routes to the West African gold and the Asian spices)
The economic motives eventually become more important than the others, especially
after the Gold Coast is reached in 1471.
Open for business:
The Grain Coast (Liberia), the Ivory Coast (Ivory Coast/Cte dIvoire), the Gold Coast
(Ghana), the Slave Coast (between the Volta and the Niger Delta).
Products: the Portuguese exchange metal goods for West African gold, ivory, pepper,
cotton goods. However, after the Portuguese and the Spanish begin to develop the
plantation system in the Americas in the 16th century, the slave trade grows.
There are national and multinationalcorporations exploiting all these products.
Methods of obtaining slaves:
1. inter-state wars (prisoners sold as slaves)
2. convicted criminals (sold as slaves)
3. raiding for slaves
4. kidnapping people for slavery
Slavery is good business. Cost of an average slave: 26 pounds in Africa (if bought),
40 pounds in the Americas (18th century).
There are many abuses in the slave system (very inhumane treatment).
Eventually, there is an international outcry about slavery. Slavery is abolishedin
principle (though not in practice). There are economic arguments against the abolition
(It would ruin our economy, The other nations are doing it, etc.)
Some abolition dates: Haiti 1804, Britain 1807, USA 1865, etc.

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(3) Partition and Colonization

Immediately after the legal abolition of slavery, a new legal framework of is
established to continue to exploit the resources (natural and human) of Africa:
The Berlin Conference (Die Berliner Kongo-Konferenz).
Covened by Otto von Bismarck (the chancellor of Germany) at the request of Leopold
II (the king of Belgium), 1884-1885. In attendance: 12 European powers, the USA, the
Ottoman Empire. The African pie is partitioned into the portions we know today as
the countries of Africa. The former empires, kindoms, city-states are divided along
natural resource-reserve lines, many times dividing extended families in two or three
countries. And so colonization begins officially.
(1) Colonies dexploitation [resources] (2) Colonies de peuplement [settlement]
The official justification: la mission civilisatrice (civilization, salvation/religion/
Christianization, education, culture)
(4) Independence
- Abuses during colonization, just like during slavery. Revolts, just like during slavery.
- 1914-1918: WWI: African soldiers fight in Europe (French, Belgian, British)
- 1939-1945: WWII: African soldiers fight again to free European nations from evil
(injustice, exploitation, etc.)
-1945: WWII ends.
The United Nations Organization is founded
> justice, dignity, peace
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is adopted > human rights?
- Black people everywhere have no human rights, they are still not considered as
humans (In the USA: racial discrimination . UNC: 1951[student]; 1966 [professor]
In Africa: colonial subjects)
- Justification: blacks are like children, immature; they need adults to guide them, little
by little until the time comes when they reach maturity and are ready to govern
themselves
- The Paris Conference (Pan-Africanism): black leaders from the USA, the Caribbean
islands and several African countries (many of them college students) meet and
confront the International Community in Paris about the contradictions of the postWWII realities.
- No reasonable response > The struggle for rights and independence begins seriously,
both in the Americas and in Africa
- Independence: Africa: Ghana (1957). Most of the other countries: 1960. Angola
(1975), Zimbabwe (1980)
(5) Post-Independence and Globalization (Neo-colonialism?)
- Because during colonization most of the colonies were business warehouses, there is
no political infrastructure in place, no black people prepared to run the countries.
- During colonization, education was kept to the strict minimum. Purpose: to train
clerks for the colonial administration and the Churches. The political powers
outsource education to the Vatican, with the explicit understanding that the Churches
would not teach any dangerous ideas (like human dignity, equality, freedom).
- In the independence agreements, the colonial infrastructure basically stays in place,
with the new black leaders having only nominal power. Wherever black leaders
demand genuine independence, they are simply killed (Ex. Patrice Lumumba, DRC)

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- The DRC: Gecamines (Belgian mining company): the uranium used in the Atomic
Bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes from the DRC (Congo Belge at
the time). In 1945: Belgium and the USA are Allied Powers, so what belongs to
Belgium (the uranium) also belongs to the USA.
- The Cold War: support for dictatorial regimes to keep the Evil Empire (the Soviet
Union) out of Africa. International proxy wars, domestic reigns of terror.
- Example: the DRC and Mobutu: 1965-1997: 32 years of dictatorship while the NATO
Powers insist that they are promoting democracy and human rights around the world
- Violence, corruption (money > national debts): many people emigrate to Europe,
the Americas, and Asia (migration; exile, emigration, immigration; brain drain)
- Post-2001: Africa, the New Frontier:
1. Terrorism (The Africa Command, the CIA shows interest in African languages)
2. African immigration: not wanted
3. Natural resources and green energy: oil, minerals, land for alternative sources of
energy (corn, switch grass, etc.)
4. The competition with China for economic resources and political influence
CULTURE
Spirituality, Religion, Philosophy (Worldview)
(1) Traditional African religion(s)
The Great Spirit (God) (Nzambi, Nzambe, Mungu, Mwari, etc.)
Junior Spirits
(Ancestral spirits, Nature spirits)
1. The World of the Unborn (door: Birth)
2. The World of the Living (door: Death)
3. The World of the Dead. (NB: The dead are not dead)
- Everyone is a spirit (For the European and North American Anthropologists, this is
animism, pantheism, polytheism)
- All the spirits inhabit the same geographical space. No heaven, no hell
- Since everyone is a spirit, everyone is spiritual, everything is spiritual; there is no
need to convert anybody. African traditional religions are not proselytizing religions.
- God vs. the Devil is not part of the worldview.
- The word religion does not even exist in many traditional African languages;
instead: life. Every act is seen as a spiritual act, every occasion a spiritual one.
- No sacred scripture (book); everything is sacred scripture
(2) Imported religions
- Judaism
- Christianity *
- Islam *
- Hinduism, Buddhism, the Bahai Faith
Traditional Peoples and Languages
Colonial Countries and Languages
Literature (Oral Literarutre [Orature] and Written Literature)
- The Nature of Literature (poetry--poems; drama--plays; fiction--short stories, novels)

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- Language and Languages (Nature, Power, Uses; Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics

(language attitudes, languages and dialects). Words are important!!!
- One important function of Literature:
To help us, as readers, develop a better understanding of the Human Condition as it
relates to other people (similarities and differences) through contact with,
sharing with, listening to fictional characters speaking to us in their own voices and
in their own settings; people with whom we otherwise would have no contact and
who probably do not have a voice in the normal state of things.
- By appealing to our imagination, literature helps us see (even if only for a moment)
our oneness with our fellow human beings and the other manifestations of Life.
Identity
- Three persons:
1.I (we) 2.you (you) 3.he/she (they)
- Messages:
Can be of affirmation, of negation, or a combination of the two
- Involves all the social institutions
- Categories of difference
1. race and ethnicity 2. gender and sexuality 3. class and status 4. religion 5.politics,etc.
- Assumptions; Biases, prejudicesfor or against
(unwritten [sometimes written] laws):
superiority/supremacy, inferiority:
white v. black; man v. woman; rich v. poor--- European v. African; Christian v. pagan;
civilized (intelligent, good) v. uncivilized (savage, stupid, evil); educated (Europeanstyle education) v. uneducated (African-style education)
Intriguing human tendencies
Antoine de Saint-Exupry (in Le Petit Prince)
Adults (les grandes personnes) tend ...
1. To forget that they were once children;
2. To love numbers (things are not real is they are not expressed in numbers);
3. To accept only ideas that come from them or seem to come from them
Ex. Asteroid B612
- 1906: Turkish astronomer, presents finding in Arabic-style clothes > rejected
- 1920: Presents the same finding but in European-style clothes > accepted
4. To monopolize and copyright everything in the Universe
- the planets, the stars, God, etc.
- faculties like , truth, love (Christian love, etc.)
Education
- European-style education (the written word; fragmentation, empirical)
- Traditional African-style education (the oral word; connections, imagination)
John Dewey: Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.