Africa: Problems

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Africa Problems Perspectives
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How Big is Africa ?
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Size, Diversity Division

• Size
• Worlds largest desert (3,500,000 sq mi)
• Worlds longest river (Nile 4000 miles)
• Worlds deepest crevice (Great Rift Valley)
• Worlds second largest fresh-water lake (Lake
  Victoria-Nyanza)
• Less than 10 of Africa is classified as tropical
  rainforest
• Coastline (19,000 miles)

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Size, Diversity Division

• Diversity
• Colonial Occupation created contemporary
  diversity
• New languages cultural divisions with imposed
  norms values

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Size, Diversity Division

• Division
• European imposed nation-states created many of
  todays civil regional conflicts
• Rwanda genocide caused by class differences
  resulting from colonial policies
• Ethiopia-Eritrea war caused by colonial maps not
  addressed at independence

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Size, Diversity Division

• Diversity
• North Africa v. sub-Saharan Africa
• North Africa has just as much in common with
  cultures across the Red Sea Mediterranean than
  with the rest of Africa
• Majority of the people in the northern 1/3 of
  Africa are Muslim

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Size, Diversity Division

• Division
• Created the need for regional cooperation
• ECOWAS
• Created in 1975 to bring together West African
  countries together for mutual benefit
• SADCC
• Est. in 1980 to reduce southern African countries
  dependence on South Africa (now SADC)
• OAU (now the African Union)
• Created to mediate disputes on the continent

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Africa in World Perspective

• Not isolated from the rest of the world
• Vast trading network
• Trans-Sahara
• Indian Ocean
• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
• 11 million people forcibly taken to the Americas
• Colonialism/Neo-Colonialism
• IMF
• Loan conditionality can be seen as a new form of
  colonialism

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Traditional v. Modern

• What is your definition?
• Traditional
• Modern
• Differing perspectives can be confusing
• Not opposing but interdependent
• Used to identify differences in values
  lifestyles