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Originally Posted by breathesgelatin
I'm curious what you mean by that. Tribes as in the sense of organized tribal political groups with extremely distinct identities and memberships? Or tribes in the sense of different cultures with different practices and systems of power?
I believe the first but not the second. There has always been cultural and ethnic variation in Africa.
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No, I mean tribes such as the Hutus and Tutsis. People believe they have always been a tribe when they haven't.
There have always been societies in African countries, with their own cultures and identities. What screwed things up was the colonialists shoving these societies together based upon geographical location for administrative ease, calling them tribes and making them live together. Naturally, people who do not share a common background do not get along very well. There are power struggles within these tribes.
My point was that the African tribe as we know it was not a permanent fixture. There is still much civil strife in many of the countries today because of colonial laziness. They can barely keep up the power structure within the tribe and the civil wars and genocides we see are a result of trying to gain the upper hand over another tribe. (See Rwanda for a prominent example).
I took Western African Politics and thoroughly enjoyed the class. Half of my midterm was an essay explaining the political problems and tribal warfare and how colonialists screwed everything up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CutiePie2000
Cool...so where can this Canadian citizen (who was also Canadian born) get her American passport?  |
You don't count
