Sounds like everyone found this book pretty interesting! I'd have to agree. Looking at the size of it and knowing it was about history I was scared it'd be kind of... dull. I was way off. I am actually excited to read the whole book... some day :) Anyways did anyone find it kind of funny how different explorers from Portugal thought they'd found the southernmost part of the world so many times? It makes me wonder what it’d be like to live back then without technology like satellites and such. To imagine going out to discover new land would have been so exciting. Can you imagine, with all the new discovers that were being made, how easy greed could overcome a person? As I put the pieces of Exploring Africa together, I try to imagine what’d it’d be like to be exploring from Portugal. I don’t think the explorers from Portugal planned to go down in history as people who stole resources and people from Africa. So as I was trying to understand things from their lens, here is my more modern relations (although it is way out of equal comparison, I know. It is also way over simplified, but in some weird way it helped me see things from a different perspective)
Think about the music industry. There are people out there who seem to have a natural talent for creating wonderful music. The CD was created and people loved it. At first people bought the CD’s and that was all fine and dandy until someone discovered how to download the music for free. What a great idea right. I mean musicians are making a lot of money; they could spare a song here or there. Plus think of the money you save by not having to pay for the music! You could… go to the movies! Then someone figures out how to download movies for free! Sweet now you can save the money you would have spent on CD’s and Movies for something else. Yet all along, downloading music for free is illegal. Many people know they could be fined but they still continue to do it. And the cycle continues. This example could be way out there but it helped me to relate to Portugal starting to trade with Africans until someone discovered they could just take what they wanted instead. Make sense? Again I’m not excusing any inhumane acts or other actions that took place, but I was trying to see from the lens of the Portuguese. It seems easy to place the judgement on Purtugal so just trying to understand things from another view. As if the African view isn't enough. Ok I’m done with that one.
Next, on page 367 Reader states “Food supply, trade, religion, and literacy- these are not determinants, but certainly among the essential characteristics of every state that vies for regional power and influence.” Like last week, I thought I’d be interesting to discuss what we thought the essential characteristics were for power and influence. Would anyone add or take away from that list?
As for the great question of Africa developing differently without outside influences... I'm still stumped.
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Kristy, I really enjoyed this perspective that you put on the readings. At first it does seem like a bit of a far-fetched example..but the more I thought about it while I was reading, the more that it helped me see it from the other view. It is frustrating to watch in hindsight how the African people, in this case those in South Africa, were exploited and pretty much kicked off the land that was theirs in the first place. It's hard to comprehend how the early colonizers and settlers thought that they had the right somehow to the land and resources that lie within, not to mention the people.
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