Americans aren't good at geography. Looking at the college-aged we continually see a legitimately terrifying level of ignorance about even the most basic concepts; 30% of 18-24 year olds can't the Pacific Ocean, 11% can't find the United States, and 70% can't find New Jersey on a U.S. map. Most of us, even people who have high levels of education, can't find our asses with both hands in our rear pockets. If we can't find Vermont I don't even want to imagine how well most of my countrymen would do with an African map.
Be honest. You're pretty smart. If I handed you a blank continent, how many countries do you think you could label? I'm guessing the average American would get South Africa (maybe) and that's it. Maybe Egypt. Maybe well-educated people could pick out two or three others.
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We do badly at this sort of thing, mostly because we consider most of the continent utterly irrelevant to global issues on the minds of most Americans. True, Africa makes it tricky; the 53-nation continent has three Guineas, two Congos, and some phonetic games (Niger vs. Nigeria, Gabon vs. Gambia, Mauritania vs. Mauritius) which thwart even the well-intentioned.
This is a long way of explaining why nobody gives a shit about Guinea-Bissau even though we should.
The interests of Washington and the Pentagon (including the rare instances in which they don't overlap) don't care about places like this. It's small, it has no economic value to the Western world, and it lacks immediate relevance to our boogeyman of the moment (Communism, terrorism, etc).
Most people hear the name and think "Is that a real country?" much more often than "I wonder how their political crisis is being resolved?" We also tend to look at the problems of Africa as, as Red Sox fans would say, just Manny being Manny. Coups? Economic collapse? Famine? AIDS? Well, that's Africa for you. Just Africa being Africa. But if one could ever make a case for American imperialism, for "intervention" in the domestic affairs of a faraway nation, a place like Guinea-Bissau would be a good example.
In the past three months, G-B has taken several big steps toward becoming West Africa's Somalia – a lawless, ungoverned madhouse and magnet for international criminal activity. On March 2, long-time President/Whatever "Nino" Vieira was assassinated, an event which garnered Page 50 news coverage in the West. While G-B suffers from "Bigmanism" in its governance as much as the rest of Africa and Vieira was far from an enlightened leader, the murder of a head of state used to be cause for concern in Washington. Not so in this case. Nor did it trouble anyone when on June 5, three candidates for the upcoming election were murdered at the hands of the armed forces. As the nation's military is insufficiently competent (or equipped) to actually govern the country, their insistence on doing so is troubling.
It is troubling because this is how the seeds of international issues are sown.
Had we recognized these warning signs in the Sudan twenty years ago, for example, it might not be the monument to genocide and terrorist safe havens that it is today. While dictatorship is common across the continent, what we're seeing here is a country in the first stages of complete collapse, the end result of which will leave them unable to control their borders or put up even the pretense of controlling what goes on within them. In time it will become a Club Med for terrorists like Somalia, a violent narco-state like Colombia, or a jumping-off point for civil wars and violence throughout the rest of Africa. The people "running" this nuthouse will need a source of foreign currency, and it ain't going to come from exporting bananas.
While the American record of propping up dictators in countries like this is far from exemplary, the international community could continue to prod ECOWAS into taking a more active role in maintaining the stability of West Africa's more troubled areas. If imperialism doesn't work (and it rarely does) the least we can do it support and encourage self-governance. West Africa is not entirely unstable; compared to Sub-Saharan and Saharan Africa it looks downright sane.
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We have to believe that there are solutions to these problems from an international perspective. Otherwise we ignore them, insisting that there's nothing to be done, and then in ten or fifteen years we act surprised when Guinea-Bissau has become a hotspot for the foreign policy malady of the day.
Yet if we could find five people, even in the State Department, who could locate Guinea-Bissau I'd be shocked. As the colonial French used to say, C'est l'Afrique.
Megan says:
I've been especially annoyed at how all of the articles (even the BBC reporting) on Guinea-Bissau's recent, shocking news have closed with "the country has experienced numerous coups in the past." As if that makes what's happening now just a matter of course. Of course, as you point out, that's how most westerners view "African" problems. Nice post!
Web Dunce says:
I get what you're saying and I'm sure you're well aware that you aren't the first to say it. However, what exactly are "we" supposed to do? There are only so many avenues for assistance that can be ventured and even those can be dubious at best. So is it up to the NGOs? USAID? Catholic Charities? Philanthropy? Military action is out of the question and more often than not doesn't work (see Haiti). It's aggravating that the world collectively agrees to look the other way in these situations – especially someplace like Sudan where the genocide is blatant and unapologetic. I guess I take a more cynical view because I worked for an NGO for several years that operated in several "developing" countries – including Guinea-Bissau. Yes, some entrepreneurs were assisted and saw some financial gains through fair trade practices. But in the end it was the designers and exporters who made any real money. The corruption in African countries – from basic mail delivery to legal travel – is staggering to an American. Security is all but non-existent. Sorry to ramble here. I realize that most Americans are woefully ignorant of the world around them, but even if they weren't, things wouldn't be any different in Africa or Haiti or insert-struggling-country-of-choice-here. Sad but I'm afraid all too true.
J. Dryden says:
Web Dunce alas has a point.
When I teach Post-Colonial Lit., I explain the African-colonial-dynamic to my students thusly: Intruders break into a family home. Intruders murder parents right in front of young children. Intruders then proceed to move into the home, beating the living shit out of the children while stealing the furniture and electronics and telling the children that it's for their own good. Intruders live in home until children are adults, often turning the children against each other by profferring 'favoritism' in the form of allowing one child to abuse another. Intruders do not educate children apart from enough rudimentary info to make them decent slaves. Intruders then say to these ignorant, traumatized, self-loathing, violent, and rival children "OK, we're leaving now–take care of the house–you know, pay the bills, make decisions, all that stuff we never let you do. Oh, and here's a bunch of guns. Bye!"
The inevitability of Guinea-Bissau is the inevitability of post-rape trauma; we'd *like* for someone who suffered horribly to bounce right back and go on with his/her life, but that doesn't happen. It's not just Africa; it's every place Europe planted its feet and commenced to fuck the life out of a population. (This includes places like Ireland and Bosnia, thank you very much.) With no developed sense of self-governance and a few generations'-worth of humiliating abuse, do we really expect *any* people, regardless of race, to manage to whip up an effective political infrastructure, without which, we're all just thugs looking for an angle?
Imperialism isn't just evil; it enables evil, for decades afterwards. Is there anything to be done? Well, the passage of time will help, as that's how most healing occurs. But we can't just adopt a laissez-faire attitude, especially in the U.S.–which, as a former colony, has a weird kind of moral authority in this matter. We may just be emptying the ocean with a bucket, but the mere act of attempting to do so ennobles/chastens us and reminds them of some element of humanity that isn't total shit. It'll be miserable and unrewarding, but what else is there?
meave says:
sporcle.com/games and persistent unemployment helped me to greatly improve my geography skills; the countries of Africa quiz is the fifth most popular. Incidentally, it's "The Gambia" (although I don't know why). As you say, a better understanding of where countries are on the Earth might lead to a greater interest in those countries.
jon says:
I know Northern Africa from Morocco to Egypt, know Ethiopia and Sudan, Kenya, and one of the Congos and South Africa and Zimbabwe. The middle? Mostly a muddle, though I'm probably more confident than most. And that's embarrassing.
As for the problems in Guinea-Bissau, this is the first I've heard about it. I wouldn't be able to point it out on a map, though I could make an educated guess (near Burkina Fasso?) and be damned if I even knew if they spoke English, French, Belgian, or thirty or forty local languages. And that's also embarrassing.
But thanks for the heads up. Now I can look that up after I get around to searching for facts about Bolivia and their lithium reserves, which is probably going to destroy that country with either wealth or instability.