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AFRICA: THE CONTINENT !! (611 hits)

Africa has a long, long history. It is widely accepted by scholars that it is the continent where human beings first evolved. Archaeologists (scientists who study early societies using artifacts like skeletons, kitchen utensils, and tools uncovered through excavations or digging) and anthropologists (scientists who study the origin and nature of people) have provided evidence of, human- like beings in Africa that are millions of years old. However, we are interested in taking up those aspects of Africa which are most immediately connected to the lives of those African masses, the ancestors of Afro-Americans, who were brought as slaves to the United States. This is our point of departure, though African history is also an important subject for study. In addition, we are concerned with the contemporary situation on the African continent - the struggles for liberation which have a great significance for our current lives.

Africa is the second largest continent in size in the world, second only to Asia. Including its larger islands, Africa is three times the size of Europe and four times the size of the United States. The whole of Europe, India, China, and the United States could be held within its borders. It is about 5,000 miles long (from North to South) and about 4,600 miles wide. Its 11,700,000 square miles cover one-fifth of the total land surface of the world. The equator cuts across the middle of Africa and the entire continent falls mainly within the warmer tropics. It is bound on the North by Mediterranean Sea, on the West by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the East by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
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Africa is one of the world's richest continents, a fact which highlights its long history of being exploited since today its people are among the world's poorest. It produces over one-fifth (20%) of ten of the world's most important minerals - 77% of the world's diamonds, 67% of the gold, and 35% of the platinum. These minerals are especially needed by the industrially advanced countries. Southern Africa is a focal point for imperialist rivalry primarily because much of the rich mineral resources of Africa are concentrated in this region. For example, South Africa ranks first in the world's production of chrome, silver, and manganese and second in diamonds; Zaire is first in diamonds and fifth in copper, tin, and silver; Zimbabwe is second in the production of chrome, silver, and copper; and Zambia is third in the world's production of copper.

Africa is under populated, in large measure because of the impact of the slave trade. The slave traders preferred able-bodied men and women between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, which had the effect of depleting millions in the prime of their child-bearing years. Walter Rodney has pointed out that this in part led to a stagnation in population growth, as indicated in Table 5.
While population growth in Europe and Asia led to economic development, Africa's population stagnation has resulted in low productivity. The population loss related to slavery led to the disruption of farming routines and often to the abandonment of land. When the population was reduced beyond a certain point, there simply were not enough people to harness nature. This loss of population and its negative effects on economic development is something from which Africa has never really recovered. Africa is still a relatively sparsely populated continent. Although it constitutes approximately 22% of the world's land area, its population in 1982 was only about 513 million people or just over 11% of the world's population.

Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Sunday, January 9th 2011 at 5:19AM
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Production
Agriculture was the basis of life in Africa and therefore had a determining influence on all aspects of society. Agricultural work was a communal or collective undertaking in which every adult was expected to contribute to and share the products on an equitable basis. Production, though done collectively, was still on a lower level technologically because there were no modern agricultural tools or machines (e.g., tractors). Manufacturing did not develop as rapidly as in Europe and other places. Products consisted of housing, cloth, pottery, jewelry, art, weapons, and agricultural tools.

There was trade but it was a secondary source of material goods. Markets existed where traders came and brought firearms, gunpowder, hats, beads, and dried fish in exchange for perfume, salt, and slaves. Cattle sometimes was used instead of money, which was not used widely because most of what was needed was self-produced and not purchased.

Recently, the African past has often been glorified to the extent of making slavery and the slave trade purely a consequence of Europeans in Africa. This substitutes myth for fact. Africans did have slaves. For example, the pyramids of Egypt were built with slave labor. Slavery in Africa, however, was different from slavery in the West Indies and in the United States. In Africa, a slave was treated as a human being. It was when slavery become a tool of capitalism in which goods are produced primarily for sale on the market, and not just for personal use, that slavery assumed the brutal and inhumane character as in the United States.
Sunday, January 9th 2011 at 5:24AM
DAVID JOHNSON

Politics
Because the politics of a society is based on its economic development, political organization throughout Africa took on many different forms. Large kingdoms arose only where there was a big enough economy so that a great deal of wealth could be accumulated. There were several large and significant centralized governments in Africa like those of Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. The governments of these kingdoms were used to collect taxes and mobilize armies. They were also important in increasing the capacity to produce food, clothing, and shelter, and in stimulating manufacture and trade.

In general, however, the real power often rested with elders or chiefs of each local village, and not with the king. In addition, the family or kinship group was usually the basis of government or political authority. Governments or states were not as necessary in early Africa. In those societies, the exploitation of one group of people by another had not developed to a significant extent, and political power was not needed to rule over the exploited.
Sunday, January 9th 2011 at 5:25AM
DAVID JOHNSON

Religion
African religion was a complex and all-encompassing social institution that involved philosophical views, belief in the super- natural, and rituals' It was a pervasive aspect of life. Religion played both a positive and a negative role in African society. On the one hand, it was an integral part of the social life of the people and facilitated the cooperation and discipline needed to aid the group's survival. On the other hand, it often exercised a conservative influence on social development since it changed slowly, if at all.
According to Walter Rodney, religion slowed down the development of Africans' capacity to produce food, nothing, and shelter: "Belief in prayer and in the intervention of ancestors and various Gods could easily be a substitute for innovations designed to control the impact of weather and environment" Rodney is referring to the religious practice called ancestor-worship, a belief that the spirits of dead relatives are always around to protect and provide. Food and drink were always put on the ground for these spirits before it was consumed. As in other societies, this belief in some otherworldly or supernatural force with power over weather, life and death, health, and everything else reflects a pre- scientific understanding of nature and society
Sunday, January 9th 2011 at 5:25AM
DAVID JOHNSON

Education
Education reflected the needs of African society. The process of education took place with groups of young people under the supervision of an older person. Boys and girls were taught separately those practices and customs important for their assuming the s*x-role responsibilities of adults. The high point of the educational process was their initiation into adulthood, or the "rites of passages." Thus, the main aspect of this educational process is that it was based on the accumulated practical experience of the people. It was passed from generation to generation by the oral tradition and apprenticeship relationships. There were also formal, institutions of education. The University of Sankore at Timbuktu and others were renowned intellectual centers to which scholars from other parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe came for study. These universities reflected the advanced development of a political state with the power to mobilize surplus wealth for education
Sunday, January 9th 2011 at 5:26AM
DAVID JOHNSON

Women and the Family
Research suggests that in many ways the role of women in early African society was equal to men, even in armed battle. Gustavas Vassa, a West African who was taken to Barbados as a slave in the 1700s, wrote in, his account of life in Africa: ". . . even our women are warriors, and march boldly out to fight along with the men!' This observation is identical to what one would find in the current liberation struggles in Africa. Between men and women, however, there was a division of labor. Men were usually the hunters and farmers. Women also engaged ii4 agricultural work, but when networking with the men in this, they engaged in weaving and spinning cotton, dying the cloth, and making clothing. It is important to note, however, several ways in which women were oppressed in early Africa. The "council of elders" was made up exclusively of men. Men did not have to obey the same strict rules as women in relationships with members of the opposite s*x. Men were even assigned more living space in the household. These kinds of practices undoubtedly led to attitudes and practices of male supremacy which women and men, especially in the contemporary African liberation movements, have struggled to abolish.
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The family was the basis of social organization in pre-colonial Africa. It performed essential economic, and political functions. Often families grouped together in clans for cooperation in various aspects of social life, like farming or war. Communalism - a society which -has a low stage of -technological development, no classes, and a collective Approach to the production and distribution of food, clothing, and shelter - developed in all parts of Africa. However, even during the pre-colonial period, a class structure was developing in Africa. There were Africans who owned slaves, and they were in a different class than the slaves themselves. In some places, there was a privileged "royal family" who comprised a privileged elite in relationship to the African masses.
Sunday, January 9th 2011 at 5:26AM
DAVID JOHNSON

Culture
As a rich source of cultural tradition, Africa has long inspired Black people in the United States. This is reflected in many ways. Historically, many names of early Black institutions (e.g., the African Methodist Episcopal Church) symbolized the link with Africa. Creative artists have often written about Africa, as in Countee Cullen's poem "Heritage" ("What is Africa to Me") and Langston Hughes's "I've Known Rivers." More. recently, artists like Gil Scott-Heron have taken up the theme of struggle with songs like "What's the Word - Johannesburg," about the liberation struggle in South Africa. Similarly, Bob Marley has popularized a political link with Africa through Reggae music.

Music, literature, dance, and sculpture are concentrated expressions of a people's culture. Thus, they are usually prominent in most societies. As Vassa says, "We are almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets." Every great event was reflected and communicated in artistic performances, especially in dance and song. Musical instruments, such as drums, xylophones, and harps, were developed in Africa. The bronze sculptures of Benin, Vassa's home, have been widely recognized for their greatness. In fact, African art was copied by such artists as Picasso in creating modern art like cubism.

The research of such scholars as linguist Lorenzo Turner and anthropologist Melville Herskovitz has demonstrated that Africans brought this rich cultural heritage to America. Once here, African culture interacted with the culture of other peoples. Under these conditions, a new cultural pattern emerged. It was a culture that contributed to Black people's struggle for survival under very challenging conditions
Sunday, January 9th 2011 at 5:26AM
DAVID JOHNSON