Sub-Saharan Africa: Ghana

Last week we discussed Nigeria, the Sahel, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

It was timely; President Obama is in Ghana where, among other activities, he will also visit Cape Coast:

Built in the 1600s, Cape Coast Castle served as Britain's West Africa headquarters for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which saw European powers and African chiefs export millions in shackles to Europe and the Americas.

The slave trade ended here in 1833, and visitors can now trek through the fort's dungeons, dark rooms once crammed with more than 1,000 men and women at a time who slept in their own excrement. The dank air inside still stings the eyes.

Why did he choose Ghana among all the countries there? It was the first ever country in Africa to become independent of European colonizers. More than that, Ghana has had a more stable society and politics than most Sub-Saharan countries.
The NY Times:

Mr. Obama did not have too many options. From one end of the continent to the other, the sort of peaceful, transparent election that Ghana held last December is still an exception rather than the norm, analysts said. The same is true for the country’s comparatively well-managed economy.

“The choice was, in fact, quite limited,” said Philippe Hugon, an Africa expert at the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques in Paris. “It wasn’t huge.”

Countries like Botswana, Namibia and South Africa have consistently received better-than-average global scores for their governance in recent years, according to rankings based on World Bank research.

But a cartoon in this week’s Jeune Afrique, the French magazine widely followed on the continent, seemed to sum up Mr. Obama’s dilemma: John Atta-Mills, Ghana’s president, is depicted holding back the door of a hut labeled “West Africa” from which blood, a grenade and explosions with the names of various countries in the region are bursting.

The list of exploding countries, unstable countries, corrupt countries, is long. Military coups still break out with regularity, as in Guinea and Mauritania within the last year. Journalists in a number of countries continue to be killed, jailed, tortured, forced into exile or otherwise muzzled.

Two faculty in the Social Science Division are originally from Ghana. Vivian in CJ and Isidore in Anthropology. Maybe you know them. They will be delighted to chat with you about Ghana--tell them I sent you to them :-)

Qestion for Essay 2

Looks like you folks are ready to take on Essay #2.

This week you read about North Africa and Southwest Asia. This is a huge region with a great deal of history. After all, Iraq of today is the Mesopotamia of five thousand years ago. Tunisia that I referred to earlier was Carthage of three thousand years ago and wars were frequent with people on the other side of the Mediterranean. (BTW, did you know why it is called the Mediterranean? Keep in mind that it is a European name. Well, to them it represented the center of the world. Thus, if you split apart the name, med refers to middle, and terra refers to ground/earth)

Next week, you will be reading about South Asia. Also a region with immense diversity and history. There are people in Afghanistan who trace their histories to Alexander the Great's conquest; these "Afghans" claim to have Greek blood in them. Wars and conflicts have always been a part of humans, I suppose.

As much as there are physical and human geographic features that are common--a kind of unifying theme--in North Africa and Southwest Asia, there are also considerable physical and human geographic characteristics that make South Asia a region, a Subcontinent.

However, Afghanistan provides an interesting case. Some geographers (and others, too) would classify it under Southwest Asia, while others include the country in South Asia. And this provides the context for Essay 2.

In Essay 2, I want you to provide arguments for where Afghanistan should be included--under South Asia, or with Southwest Asia. In arriving at your bottom line on this, make sure you discuss what the merits are for each case: for what physical or geographic reasons should Afghanistan be treated as a South Asian country, and for what reasons one might want to place it with other Southwest Asian countries.
And, yes, include a map of Afghanistan, and a map of South Asia along with your analysis.

The readings for next week--on locating Osama bin Laden, and whether Pakistan is governable--will also help you understand Afghanistan. And then as you think about what you learnt about Southwest Asia, well, you will have a lot to write about :-)
Finally, keep looking at the maps of South Asia and Southwest Asia for a lot of insight into this task. Look at the political maps, the physical map, maps of ethnic distribution, .... and you will find that Afghanistan is at quite an interesting intersection. It is, therefore, no accident that historically--not just today--it is has been one hell of a battleground :-(

Email me if you need clarification, or if you have comments on thoughts related to this essay.

On North Africa, SW Asia, and more

A couple of observations, trivial and profound …

Feel free to address me as “Sriram.” If not, “Dr. Khé” or “Dr. Khe” will be fine. I suppose ol’ military habits die hard, which is why some students—in this class and in other classes too—address me as “sir”:-)
Whenever I come across a “sir” in an email to me, I am reminded of “To Sir with Love” and, of course, my student days in India when we had to address male teachers as “sir.” Female teachers in K-12 were “miss” whether or not they were married! I remember my kindergarten teacher who was “Higgins miss” even though she was she might have been a grandmother at that time …. Yes, the usage was “name + miss” …. Usages across cultures are interesting. For that matter, my last name has a story by itself.

As you read the essays I have for you, and watch the videos, I hope you are also watching out for such differences between what you might have been used to, versus life in other parts of the world. (Feel free to email the class about any of your personal experiences in these other parts of the world.)

There is a big difference between this course and GEOG 410. In this course, the focus is to understand the location and some of the larger common themes in certain geographic areas. Thus, we looked at Sub-Saharan Africa, and now North Africa and Southwest Asia.

The regions themselves do not have to be studied this way; for instance, after I got here to Western, I developed a new course called “The Pacific Rim”—here the idea is that countries by the Pacific, whether in the Americas or in Asia, have linkages at many levels, primarily economic and political. (Prior to 9/11, our greatest military tension was with China… A couple months before 9/11, a confrontation between our recon aircraft and the Chinese Air Force pilot that led to the recon plane being forced to land, and American personnel were held practically as prisoners ….) Anyway, there are such new ways of understanding regions, as opposed to the traditional structure we are following through not-so-traditional pedagogy.

In GEOG 410, we look at a bunch of issues that might be locational, yes, but not necessarily in contiguous regions. For instance, women in developing countries …. Because it is a senior-level course, a greater rigor will be expected from students in 410. I think I have for you in this course two readings that I normally use in 410. The amount of readings in 410 is also much more than here, which is why I wrote to you early on that 310 is like an LACC course at an upper-division level …. There are a couple of students in this class who have taken 410 (or similar courses) earlier on; again, it is like how sometimes I have ready-to-graduate seniors in my LACC class J

Ok, finally about North Africa and Southwest Asia. Do not be tempted to think these are all Arab countries. All you need to do is think about Iran, which is not an Arab country. Iran, unlike how we might stereotype here in the US, is a country with a lot of diversity. So much so that one of the problems with Iran has been its treatment of minorities. The minorities include Jews, Kurds, Azeris, Balochs ….. Iran is not simply a land of Persians.

An interesting side-story is the gulf there, which the world refers to as “Persian Gulf.” Saudi Arabia and a few other countries that do not like Iran—not just now, but for centuries—prefer to call the same gulf as the “Arabian Gulf” …

We might think that Islam is a common theme here, and it is. But, the Islam-based culture and politics of Tunisia has more in common with European sociopolitics than with, say, Egypt or Iran. And then there is the Sunni-Shia divide. (In GEOG 410 we do spend a week to understand the geography of Islam, and some of the contemporary issues including Islamism.)

From a physical geography perspective, these regions are not the lush green Willamette Valley! Harsh and arid conditions.

What else would you like me to comment on? As you were reading, did anything make you pause because you felt you did not know anything about it? That a little clarification might help? Ask questions … Anything exciting in the materials that you would like to discuss with the class?

Comments on Essay 1

Your essays were, by and large, on the mark. So far, there has been very little for me to complain about!

To varying degrees, quite a few among you omitted stepping outside the Nigerian story per se, even though the task I gave you was to link it up to the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa.

I chose this article because, as I mentioned in my comments on Map Work 1, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with tremendous internal diversity—in terms of religion, ethnicities, languages, geography, and economic conditions. So, Nigeria is a heavyweight within Africa, and definitely in the majority of the continent south of the Sahara.

There are two tensions discussed in the article, and they are kind of inter-related as well: religion and resources. Many of you pointed out that even though it plays out as religious conflicts, maybe it is really triggered by scarcity of resources; if they weren’t poor and starved for resources, will the religious differences matter this much? Overlay this with corrupt and inefficient government and political leaders, well, you have a formula that is pretty much repeated with variations almost all across Sub-Saharan Africa.

North of the Sahara is a different story because the Sahel demarcates the Muslim-dominant Africa from the Christian south. The physical geographic differences also are plenty—as you found out in your earlier map assignment, other than the Nile, there is very little that northern Africa offers in terms of water and, therefore, greenery. Of course, you are exploring some of that this week, right?

I have updated the grades webpage. In the individual emails to you, I will include the Word document in which I will have comments along the right margin or at the end, and will also include in the email your ID#.

Questions/comments?

About the final paper

I am done reading through your essay #1. Within the next day or two, I will formally evaluate and grade them, and then email you my feedback. In that email I will also include the ID#, so that you can keep track of your own progress in this class. (Looks like the email system is working now.)

For your final paper, a couple of you suggested that I describe the task way ahead of time. Am following-up on your suggestion in this post.

First, you need to read an essay, "The Revenge of Geography," by Robert Kaplan. This essay was published in Foreign Policy. It attracted quite a bit of criticism; so, click here to read the few that were published along with Kaplan's response as well. Two academic geographers, including Alec Murphy--you read one of his articles earlier--have co-authored a more formal essay, with all kinds of references and footnotes; read that here. It will be best if you read these in the order in which I have listed them.

After reading all these, re-read the articles by Charles Wade and Alec Murphy, which I had assigned for the first week.

By now, you have lots of ideas swirling around, some contradicting others. And then think about this course, and put together a paper in which you ought to develop your own position on the relevance or irrelevance, importance or insignificance, of this course--"World Regional Geography." Note that when we ask for your opinion in college papers, it does not mean that you simply ponitificate. We require you to develop a compelling argument by presenting appropriate evidence, quotes, supporting arguments, ..... So, make sure you do not fill the pages with unsubstantiated opinions.

• You DO NOT have to gather any additional references. However, if you want to, feel free to bring in additional materials.
• When you use ideas from the course materials, make sure you DO appropriately cite them.
• You should be able to present your arguments in about 2,000 to 2,500 words.
• Double-space, spell-check, ....
• The deadline for the final paper is noon of Saturday, August 1st.

Do not hesitate to check with me as you progress along.
Any questions at this time?