As I read through the article, "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" by Walter Rodney, this caught my eye: "Among the Bemba of what was then Northern Rhodesia, children by the age of six could name fifty to sixty species of tree plants without hesitation, but they knew very little about ornamental flowers. The explanation is simply that knowledge of the trees was a necessity in an environment of ‘cut and burn’ agriculture and in a situation where numerous household needs were met by tree products. Flowers, however, were irrelevant to survival."
It was shocking to me to find out that this was reality for children in Africa. Yet at the same time, I could understand this to be true. How many of us would learn about things that we didn't need to know in a time of desperation where survival was the only aim? I know I wouldn't. However, this is also interesting because this took place before the colonization of Africa because it says that the education of the African people grew out of the environment.
It would be interesting to find out more about the effects of colonization on Africa. I need to keep reading to do that. Yet, as I did more research on the effects of colonization in Africa to education, I found three really intereesting articles that talk about the effect of colonialization even today. One is from Ghana, another from Zimbabwe, and finally, the last is from Namibia. From reading these three articles, I was shocked to find out that the effects of colonization are still affecting the countries mentioned above.
1 comment:
It seems that even though colonization was horrible, it creates a system of government and so forth that when independence is reached the Africa's simply use.
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