Scrambling for Africa Again

This article is meant to be a critical look at the African presence in the Western mass media. Since the time of Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, Africa has almost always been painted in dark colors in movies, newspaper articles, and all sorts of literature throughout the Western world. This article demonstrates that Africa is still being treated quite unfairly, and behind her blurred and distorted picture, there are a number of shocking truths that need to be revealed. To support his claim, the writer provides a good deal of evidence from Blaine Harden's Africa: Dispatches From a Fragile Continent. More specifically, the essay focuses on the civil war in Rwanda and the subsequent crisis in Zaire. When they are carefully and thoroughly cross-examined, various articles in newspapers and magazines unravel the mystery as to whom is to blame. That is what this article shows thanks to Chicago Sun Times, The New York Times, Time magazine, the British The Weekly Telegraph, and the French Le Monde. In paraphrasing the biblical words of the Book of Genesis, I am simply trying to point to a tragic historical fact: the colonization of Africa. It has been 36 years since most African countries became independent territories and politically sovereign states. But, looking at the way the W~estern press interprets major events in Africa

Geography · Linguistics · Political science · Scrambling · African cultural and philosophical studies · African history and culture studies

• Africa

  Keith Somerville•International Affairs•1991

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• Africa

  Gail M Gerhart, Blaine Harden•Foreign Affairs•1991

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