On the heels of yet another G8 summit the global hand-wringing about the crisis of African development lumbers ahead with its parade of conferences, commissions and concerts proclaiming support for the poor from the seats of power. Conspicuously absent from the spectacle of solidarity is any acknowledgement of history. In fact, the discourse and politics of the West’s relationship with the African continent is deliberately, decidedly and dangerously a-historical.
Like the small boy wa...read more
On the heels of yet another G8 summit the global hand-wringing about the crisis of African development lumbers ahead with its parade of conferences, commissions and concerts proclaiming support for the poor from the seats of power. Conspicuously absent from the spectacle of solidarity is any acknowledgement of history. In fact, the discourse and politics of the West’s relationship with the African continent is deliberately, decidedly and dangerously a-historical.
Like the small boy watching the parade, who exclaims that the emperor has no clothes, Gerald Caplan has written a small but powerful book to expose this latest betrayal of Africa: the denial of context and history. A Canadian scholar and political activist with a life-long commitment to justice and African development, Caplan has made a much needed intervention in debates about Africa’s future. His book, The Betrayal of Africa, asserts that history matters, for understanding the present in which we live, and for finding ways forward to the future we desire.
