Black Gold

In the first article taken from National Geographic, I thought the title was a great opener. Curse of the Black Gold: Hope and betrayal of the Niger Delta. The hope part I sort of chuckled at because there was and is no hope for Nigeria. There are some very memorable and meaningful quotes throughout the essay I think are worth mentioning. The first comes from the first page when they are giving a brief introduction:

"The World Bank categorizes Nigeria as a "fragile state," beset by risk of armed conflict, epidemic disease and failed governance." From the World Bank website I found this new updates on their summary of Nigeria:

The World Bank is helping to fight poverty and improve living standards for the people of Nigeria. As of August 2007, the World Bank had approved 123 IBRD loans and IDA credits to Nigeria for a total amount of about US$9.5 billion. The commitment value of the 23 ongoing projects is about US$2.67 billion. The 23 active projects are in all the major sectors.

http://go.worldbank.org/KY8ZJIMB60 a look!

Little did they know how true this is to become. The essay states later that the attacks on the oil companies were becoming more frequent and more violent. Michale Watts was quoted saying:

"Across Africa you have a huge number of alienated youths, politically footloose, who thought they could achieve something with their countries' moves to independence and democracy. Those hopes have been almost everywhere violently snuffed out. The youth are pissed off and willing to up the ante."

After this comment various other people were talking about the situation in Nigeria and comparing it to the Middle East, they said "if the situation threatens to turn into another Middle East, then the world will finally intervene."

I don't completely agree with this statement. First because what is happening in Africa is worse in my standards than what happened in the Middle East. Their history and destruction they have endured is not comparable to that of the Middle East. Secondly the world has already intervened enough! They have taken control of Africa, without anything being wrong in the first place. The reason Nigeria and Africa as a whole are in such shambles is because of the world being there!

The second paper, Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil, goes more into detail about why the big oil boom in Africa. One of the most interesting aspects I found in this essay was the blunt and horrid truth of it all. For example:

"This means that even if a civil war or violent insurrection breaks out on shore, the oil companies can continue to pump out oil with little likelihood of sabotage, banditry, or nationalist fervor getting in the way."

The oil companies know where they sit and what their power is in Nigeria and all over Africa. It is sickening to read about them knowingly deplete Africa of its resources. The paper also dictates that African oil is cheaper, safer, and more accessible than its competitors, and there seems to be more of it every day. This part of the essay compares Africa's oil to that of Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. The very first sentence puts this idea in concrete.

"United States now imports more of its oil from Africa than it does from Saudi Arabia."

I found this article while researching more about Nigerian Oil and I thought it put things in perspective very well :"Nigeria should be a massively rich country. It's the most populous country in Africa, and is the world's sixth leading oil producer. Over a quarter trillion dollars in oil has been lifted from Nigerian soils and waters in the last 40 years. But after years of military rule and rampant corruption, fueled by these oil monies, the country is mired in billions of dollars in debt and is wracked with poverty."

Chief Roles

As we read in our past few books, Europeans forced a lot upon the African civilization. One word that was mentioned and comes to mind quite often is corruption. According to Princeton University and Dictionary.com, Corruption is defined as the following:

1. lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain

2. decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation)
3. moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles;
4. destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity;

5. inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by commiting a felony)

Well this definition definetly hits the nail on the head. The Europeans were causing the decay of morals and loyalty of the Africans and using it all for dishonest gain. One group in particular that the European colonizers corrupted were the chiefs. As we discussed in class most of the "chiefs" were not chiefs but appointed by their clan members or Europeans to be the delegate. Then the colonizers put them in places of power which were not meant for them. They would either misuse this power or become in a sense slaves to the Europeans above them. On page 162 of Ancestor Stones it states:

"Somehow new of the strike had reached the chief who sent his messenger to alert the Distict Commissioner. Bu the time the strikers arrived the next morning DC Silk was waiting in front of the compound with his soldiers, ready to arrest the ringleaders."

This quote puts in perspective the power and uselessness of the chiefs placed in charge by European powers. They were the snotty teachers pet in the back of the room telling the teacher when kids were chewing gum.

I found this article that I think explains the hardships and exactly what Europeans did to the African culture very well.
Colonialism and Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa:
"On the contrary, the practice of rewarding tax collectors became a principal
method for the accumulation of private property, a way of life that was hard to give
up which encouraged chiefs to abuse their office. As Leonard (1991: 29) put it,
colonial chiefs "were implicitly encouraged to use their positions to amass wealth
and demonstrate thereby that it paid to cooperate with Europeans".

"It was not the introduction of taxation per se, but the manner in which the tax
itself was collected, that encouraged corrupt behaviour. To collect taxes, the colonial governments mostly relied on local African leaders and especially chiefs.
Where chiefs did not exist or were unco-operative, new ones were appointed by the
colonial powers (Richards 1959; Crowder 1968). Above all, to motivate chiefs to
generate as much tax revenue as possible, and do so with zeal, the colonial
administrations allowed them to retain a part of it."

Jeffery Hanes (who I have been reading a lot of material from lately) wrote a review article about the power in Ghana from colonial times to the 1990's. His article is published in the journal, AFRICA.

"Although the two main colonial powers in the region, Britain and France, developed their own democratic systems during the 19th and 20th centuries, the political institutions they created in their African colonies were designed primarily as instruments of their domination and control. In most colonies, colonial administrative networks were grafted on to existing political institutions, and European hegemony and security were very closely linked. When they could be found, colonial administrations attempted to employ intermediaries, interlocutors- often known as "Chiefs"- to 'do their dirty work for them', that is, they were able to identify or, when neccessary, to create as authority figures the indigenous individuals who would be useful to the European goal of political and economic domination."

My point exactly.

Ancestor Stones Part 2

The last section of this book is titled appropriately, "Consequences." It was Serah's story in particular that laid this out.

"Sometimes I think this is what happened to our country. Nobody heeded the warnings, nobody smelled the rain coming, or saw the lights in the sky or heard the roar of thunder, until we were all engulfed by it."

Serah was invovled with the voting and political aspects of Sierra Leone. She watched as political leaders rose and fell and were replaced the next day with a new young President.

I found this timeline on BBC News:

1992 - President Joseph Momoh ousted in military coup led by Captain Valentine Strasser,

apparently frustrated by failure to deal with rebels. Under international pressure, Strasser announces plans for the first multi-party elections since 1967.

1996 - Ahmad Tejan Kabbah elected president in February, signs peace accord with Sankoh's rebels in November.
1997 - Peace deal unravels. President Kabbah deposed by army in May. Major Johnny Paul Koroma, in prison awaiting the outcome of a treason trial, leads the military junta - the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). Koroma suspends the constitution, bans demonstrations and abolishes political parties.
Kabbah flees to Guinea to mobilise international support.

1998 February - Nigerian-led West African intervention force Ecomog storms Freetown and drives rebels out.
1998 March - Kabbah makes a triumphant return to Freetown amid scenes of public rejoicing.
1999 January - Rebels backing Revolutionary United Front leader Foday Sankoh seize parts of Freetown from Ecomog. After weeks of bitter fighting they are driven out, leaving behind 5,000 dead and a devastated city.
1999 May - A ceasefire is greeted with cautious optimism in Freetown amid hopes that eight years of civil war may soon be over.
1999 July - Six weeks of talks in the Togolese capital, Lome, result in a peace agreement, under which the rebels receive posts in government and assurances they will not be prosecuted for war crimes.
1999 November/December - UN troops arrive to police the peace agreement
2000 May - Rebels close in on Freetown; 800 British paratroopers sent to Freetown to evacuate British citizens and to help secure the airport for UN peacekeepers; rebel leader Foday Sankoh captured.
2000 August - Eleven British soldiers taken hostage by a renegade militia group called the West Side Boys.
2001 January - Government postpones presidential and parliamentary elections - set for February and March - because of continuing insecurity.
2001 March - UN troops for the first time begin to deploy peacefully in rebel-held territory.
2001 May - Disarmament of rebels begins, and British-trained Sierra Leone army starts deploying in rebel-held areas.

2002 January - War declared over.
2002 May - Kabbah wins a landslide victory in elections. His Sierra Leone People's Party secures a majority in parliament.
2002 July - British troops leave Sierra Leone after their two-year mission to help end the civil war.
2004 February - Disarmament and rehabilitation of more than 70,000 civil war combatants officially completed.
2004 May - First local elections in more than three decades.
2005 December - The last UN peacekeeping troops leave Sierra Leone, marking the end of a five-year mission to restore order.
2006 August - Date for elections set for July 2007.
2007 August - Presidential and parliamentary polls. Ernest Bai Koroma wins the presidency and his All People's Congress, formerly in opposition, wins a majority in parliament.

*The picture has a link too! Its the Absence of Violence in Sierra Leone from 1996-2007

I cut some of the dates out because it was just too long. But this timeline was eyepopping! I mean that much destruction and turmoil lasting for over 10 years! Also the end of the timeline doesn't even stop at 2007, which means the country is still in a mess. I did some more research on Sierra Leone and this is what I found:

Reflections on the 1996 Sierra Leone Peace Accord
by Yusuf Bangura

"The signing of the peace accord in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) on 30 November 1996 between the government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) marked the official ending of Sierra Leone’s five and a half years of war. The war, which ravaged much of the countryside, killed more than 20,000 civilians and left hundreds of innocent bystanders maimed and traumatized. It also displaced almost one and a half million people from their homes and livelihoods, orphaned thousands of young children, and imposed financial and social burdens on much of the relatively stable population. One major consequence of the war, which post-war reconstruction efforts will have to tackle very quickly and decisively, was the transformation of the country from a predominantly rural society into pockets of dense urban settlements. Medium-sized provincial towns such as Bo, Kenema, Makeni and Koidu suddenly became large urban settlements as villagers sought refuge in them. And the capital, Freetown, could well have grown from a pre-war population of roughly half a million people to one million—if not more."

This paper details the events leading up to the Peace Accord as well as what followed after. Ancestor Stones detailed a little of the turmoil happening in Seirra Leone with Serah's story, but after this new information I learned, I am surprised this character even left her house admist this horrible war. I didn't fathom the consequences she would have to deal with if things got out of hand. Her and her friend, plus any of the citizens that showed up that day to vote could have been killed point blank. And that is exactly what happened to most of the people during those times.

Ancestor Stones Women

It still amazes me the lack of respect for women from others and the lack of respect women have for themselves. While finishing the last sections of the book Ancestor Stones the letters written by these women made me angry and repulsed. These women who I held in high reguard until these chapters were giving themselves to men who had no respect or even a care for them. They were selling themselves short, settling for the first man who came along and litterally swept them off their feet and shoved them into their homes like servants. Not once did they complain or protest or even cry they just did as they were told and became women servants to a man. It disgusted me that they would just lay night after night waiting for their pig of a husband to come and get them preganant so they could be left alone to bear children. One quote in particular that put the woman's situation in perspective was from Hawa,

"I can't say I either liked him or disliked him. I was prepared to live with him. To accept my fate for what it was. But always he wanted something more. My fate was no longer in my own hands (180)."

Later she dug the nail in deeper by stating this sad passage,

"And though I didn't encourage my husband I fufilled my duties. I bore him three children. All boys. I lost two more. They were girls and might have grown up to help me around the house. But there it is. Nothing to be done. What more could any man ask for? Each time my belly swelled, he would kneel, press his cheek against it and close his eyes (180)."

Another part of Hawa's story that made me cringe was when she went back to the city to find the doctor who tied her tubes. Not only did it show her desperation for a man, but it also showed how little respect men had for women. This doctor had tied her tubes without even telling her! They just went in and snip snip.

"Still I persisted. You see, I had come to that city for a reason. I had to find the doctor, the one who had tied my tubes. To ask him if he might undo what he had done, so that I could bear children again. It was the only thing I could think of to stop Zainab from replacing me (198)."

Although I particularly enjoyed the story Asana told about her threatening her husband while he slept.

""Osman" I said. "Wake up and see. See what I have for you!" I groped the floor until my fingers closed around the handle of the knife. I held it up, allowing the blade to glow in the silver light. I put my lips very close to his ear, brushing the lobe. I made my voice gentle, coaxing. Osman's eyes opened. I put the blade up under his chin: the tip made a soft indentation in the flesh, "You see what can happen, Osman? So strong but what good do your muscles do you now?" I felt his body slowly stiffen (118)."

She woke him from his sleep just enough to where he was listening but not registering and threatened his life!. I laughed so hard at this part she became my favorite character. Finally a woman was standing up for herself. She could have been more direct about it, but this worked too. And after this small threat her husband did in fact leave her alone for the most part.

"From that night and for the remainder of my pregenancy Osman never touched me again. I congratulated myself heartily on my cunning. I lay back on my bed...(120)."

It enraged me the lack of respect for these women. Yes, it is their culture, but the women do not even have resepct for themselves, so asking for some from others isn't worth it.

Ancestor Stones Part 1

The first 5 chapters of Ancestor Stones were very different from any of the other books we have read in class so far. They reminded me of the "Diary of...." books I used to read when I was younger. These books were set up as diary entries of young girls in the middle of important historical events, such as the trip across the ocean when Columbus made his discovery of America.

They were depicted in the first person just as these stories, except it was about them rather than their mothers and how the affected their lives. Before we discussed the family tree in the front of the book I had no idea how these girls were related. I figured they were all Africans writing about their experiences with their mother. On Tuesday when Dr.Webb showed us the family tree in the front of the book, everything sort of clicked and it helped me as I read the next few sections.

My favorite story would have to be Asana. She was the older twin born before her brother but had her birth right of being first born taken from her. She wasn't furious about the title being taken away but she definitely felt rejected because of it. When she was describing his or her upbringing I couldn't help but laugh because she was obviously maturing long before her brother but no one seemed to notice. She was walking before he could even crawl properly, which in my eyes shows us that she was the oldest. I wondered why the women and men around her mother didn't question who was the oldest. Nonetheless Asana took on the responsibility of being the older sibling and taking care of her brother. I could relate so well to this portion because I too am an older sister.

Yes taking care of younger sisters can be tedious and take away from your own childhood, but in the end it forms you into a more caring and responsible person. She said she was jealous at times of her brother, but when he died she didn't show any form of happiness that he was gone or distain towards him. I admired her instantly for this and she became my favorite character so far.

The next story that I wanted to cry about was that of Mariama. I don't have my book with me right now, but her story is more about her mother rather than that of her and her siblings. The way she describes her adoration and love for her mother is amazing. Her way of explanation isn't trying to portray love and affection she is just telling the reader how it is, which makes it all the more memorable.

Like all the other characters before her she stated how her mother was the most loved and cherished by her father. I'm not sure if this was so because she concentrated more on her and her mother's relationship rather than between her mother and father. When she describes their private time together this girl has nothing but love and adoration in her heart for her mom. When she looses her mother in the end that just about killed me. I could imagine her being torn away from that special relationship with her mother and made into a young woman without any questions being asked.

*The pictures are of my sisters and I and my mom and sister.

Xala

First I would like to comment on the literal meaning of 'xala' in the book. When I first saw the title and began reading I thought xala was going to be something to do with government or a saying that meant change. When I read that xala was a course of male erectile disfunction I literally laughed out loud. It was a twist thrown into the story I did not see coming. 

Anyways aside from that humerous note I liked the fact that Ousmane depicted the different views of poligamy and the religion behind it. For example the daughter, Rama, did not agree with or understand poligamy and the belief's behind it. She constantly commented on the state of her mother's well being and how the marriages of El Hadji were affecting her. Secondly the awa, Adja Awa Astou was the first wife. She seemed to have a very religious air about her. She took a lot of pride and spent a lot of time studying, learning and living her religious views. She is a very patient person that deals with her husband's issues very well. I think she is quiet about her dislike for her husband's other wives, not so much she is green with jealousy and hatred, but sad and hurt that she is not the

 only one. I think that would be the hardest thing to deal with in poligamy. 

     The next point of view is that of El Hadji. He was happy with his two wives in the beginning. He had the elder one whom was his first love and he respected and gave him a good reputation. He had his second wife which was younger and even more beautiful she also gave him kids, and like the first boosted his reputation. The idea of taking on a third wife was not his idea at all in the beginning. He lusted over he body yes, but he had no real need or want for another wife to spend money on. This brings me to another point of poligamy, El Hadji did not believe in some of the customs and traditions tha

t were associated with this religious tradition. During the wedding and before the women told him to obey the rituals but he refused because he thought they were silly. Him doing this kind of mocked himself and what he was doing. To put this in perspective for myself I thought of the christian religion. That would be like claiming to be a catholic but not wanting to participate in the sacraments, calling them foolish and silly. 

The final character that I thought had an interesting perspective was N'Doye. She is depicted in the book as being around 20 years old, gorgeous and forced to like this successful man that had an erectile disfunction. She was to be the younger of the three wives, and she knew the jealousy that would be involved with the other two. She was going to be scorned by the othe

r two and had a lot to live up to. It seemed as if it was definetly an arranged marriage because she had no emotion in it. Her character is a little hollow, but she was still apart of this religious tradition. 

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa [Education]

"Education is crucial in any type of society for the preservation of the lives of its members and the maintenance of the social structure."

Maybe its because I am going into education but this part seemed to have the biggest impact on me in Rodney's essay. He pointed out that education is needed to move a society forward whether it is from common sense, actual literature and mathmatics or agricultural and labor learning. Which ever one, education is behind it all. Rodney used the example of the Bemba society where a six year old could name off fifty species of trees but when it came to flowers they couldn't name any. This was because it was taught to them early because trees, firewood and other wood by-products were their way of living, where as flowers were not.

Rodney also pointed out that some aspects of education in Africa were formal too, not just taught by elders and other authorities. However, these classes that were taught were restricted to certain areas in life. This could be age related or grade related. The example he used was circumcisions for men coming of age. These were used only on boys that were deemed old enough to be entered into manhood. The other examples of formal education in Africa were taught by the clan as a whole, such as hunting, gathering, religious rituals or medicine practice.

Speicialization came about later in the education of African youth. These often advanced as the technology being used in the clan at the time. Divisions of labor such as iron working, leather making, and pottery were just some examples he used. Emphasis was also put on military force in countries and private clans. However evidence has shown that in cultures where written advancement was made, education was more advanced and was better learned. Also being literate was incorporated with the learning of religion. Priests, monks and other christian beings were trained at secondary and university levels and were in the minority of literate Africans.

Suprisingly, there were even Universities set up in Africa such as the Al-Azhar University, University of Fez etc.

"The colonizers did not introduce education into Africa:"

Obviously all this previous talk was before Europe even came into Africa. When Europe came into Africa they just set up a new formal education institution which supplemented what was already there. But their main purpose of the school systems were to train Africans to help them maintain the local administration. In Things Fall Apart this was made apparent by the Africans who spoke different dialects, the court messengers. They were trained in these schools to act as interpreters between the Europeans and the Africans.

"It was not an educational system designed to give young people confidence and pride as members of African societies, but one which sought to instil a sense of deference towards all that was European and capitalist."

Bandung Conference

1. Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations
2. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations
3. Recognition of the equality of all races and of the equality of all nations large and small
4. Abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another country
5. Respect for the right of each nation to defend itself, singly or collectively, in conformity with the charter of the United Nations
6. (a) Abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defense to serve any particular interests of the big powers(b) Abstention by any country from exerting pressures on other countries 7. Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country
8. Settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties own choice, in conformity with the charter of the united nations
9. Promotion of mutual interests and cooperation

10. Respect for justice and international obligations.

These are the 10 points agreed upon unanimously called the "declaration on promotion of world peace and cooperation at the Bandung Conference of 1955." On April 18, 1955 a meeting of Asian and African states (which were mostly newly independent) was called into session by Ruslan Abdulgani. Egypt, Indonesia, Burma, Ceylon, the Philippines, India, Iraq and Japan organized this Bandung Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. The purpose was to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation, opposing colonialism and neocolonialism by the United States, Soviet Union and any other "imperialistic" nation.

There were 29 countries delegates in attendance, what the conference reflected was a reluctance by Western powers to discuss with them on decisions affecting Asia and Africa. The major points concerned settling the Cold War in China and the French influence in North Africa. After much debate a consensus was reached that, "Colonialism in all of its manifestations" is to be condemned, implicitly censuring the Soviet Union and the West.

The Final Communiqué of the Bandung Conference pointed out the need for developing countries to loosen their economic dependence by providing technical assistance to leading industrialized nations for developmental projects and exchange of technical know-how.

China had a major role in this conference, strengthening their ties with other Asian countries. Africa, especially Algeria had the French colonies in their countries addressed. The Bandung Conference was followed by the Belgrade Conference in 1961 which lead to the Non-Aligned Movement.
The Non-Aligned Movement was established as an international organization of states that considered themselves neither aligned or against any major power country. It was founded in 1955, and as of 2007 it had 118 members. The purpose was to ensure "national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, racism, Zionism and all other forms of foreign aggression."

An Image of Africa

After reading the essay by Chinua Achebe I was a little confused by some of the points he made. Although he was thorough and made a lot of good points a couple in particular stuck out to me as odd. On first read through my jaw dropped when point number 37 came up,

"The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked. Students of Heart of Darkness will often tell you that Conrad is concerned not so much with Africa as with the deterioration of one European mind caused by solitude and sickness. They will point out to you that Conrad is, if anything, less charitable to the Europeans in the story than he is to the natives, that the point of the story is to ridicule Europe's civilizing mission in Africa. A Conrad student informed me in Scotland that Africa is merely a setting for the disintegration of the mind of Mr. Kurtz."

Racist?! I could not believe that this word was coming up among everything else that has been written about Africa. When I was reading Heart of Darkness I thought Marlow was a little odd in his explanations about the events happening but I never even considered that he was showing prejudice over the Africans. In Marlow's descriptions of the things happening to the African slaves I admit he was a little unemotional, but I didn't get the impression that he was uncaring. He seemed concerned at what was happening, but a little too involved in his own personal life and work to spend too much time on the people. In class we discussed that Marlow was outraged, yes this may have come after he thought about the situation, but his text didn't show lack of concern or prejudice.

As far as the European minds deterioating, yes he spent time on the subject because if someone told you they wanted to measure your head before you went to Africa to see if it shrunk you would be baffled too. Marlow's opening line about this too being the darkest place on earth gives the first impression that what he saw and experienced in Africa was not happy and careless. He did notice the pain and suffering the Africans were put through but at the time he was more concerned with other things, namely Mr. Kurtz.

On the 38th point, Achebe discusses the dehumanization of the Africans in Conrad's book. This is apparent in the reading however, when you look at the situation and background Marlow is coming from it makes sense. Marlow was coming from a place where white people were supreme and the Africans were nothing. When a person is taught to believe this and is shown this over and over again, its hard not to believe it for yourself. Arriving in Africa and seeing the people was horrifying yes, but he had already been pre-warned that these people were criminals, slaves and meant to be punished by this inhumane torture. Now, Marlow knew that this was not right by his text,

"but these men could by no stretch of the imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals..."

He was being very blunt in saying that what the Africans were labeled was completely insane, but who was he to say any different. If anything Marlow was just following human instinct and looking out for number one and turning a blind shoulder to what the Europeans were doing. Marlow even describes a run in with a dieing African under the tree. He didn't simply huff and kept walking, he stopped observed and even fed them a piece of his own food.

When this happened I imagined a dog pound. The abused animals are sitting there waiting to die of starvation and disease. Most people would not do anything to help these animals but observe what was happening and feel compassion for them. Maybe even offer them a piece of meat. This is exactly what Marlow was doing, observing but not acting. Marlow wanted this job, he wanted to meet Mr. Kurtz, speaking up about this horrible situation could get him kicked out of the Congo and out of a job. Like most people in his situation, he simply left well enough alone. If Conrad didn't care about the well-being of the African people he wouldn't have recorded this testimony in his book. He simply would have left well enough alone. The text itself has no other purpose except for historical reading about Africa. It cannot be mistaken for any other genre of literature, so it must have had an impact on him.

"He was there below me and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat walking on his hind legs."

This illustrates my point about the Africans being compared to dogs. Africans were not seen as human beings when Marow was describing his adventure to the Congo. Africans were barbarious, dirty, worthless unless it came to work, unhuman and unrelatable. There were quotes about the language the Africans spoke. It wasn't described as words, it was "a violent babble of uncouth sounds, exchanges of short grunting phrases..." Marlow was just bending to society's views of the Africans. It doesn't mean that was his personal belief. Achebe seems to be attacking Conrad with biased information. His arguements after number 37 and 38 seemed to fall apart and just nit pick at Conrad's book. He even had the nerve to call this praised book a plague in the literature world.