Tianshu Luo
HIST 1401
Reflection paper
It is without question that Europe, as a continent, has had a profound effect on the path and progress of Africa. As many people know, a handful of countries in Europe controlled much of the world over the last half century or so. There were an apex where countries like Great Britain, Spain, Portugal and France controlled most of the world. However, much of that control fell away in the form of independence votes/wars and those colonizing countries otherwise giving up control. The differing areas of the world that were formerly under the control of modern-day Europe have responded in different ways. Some countries in Africa are very hostile towards Europe and the history that they have with the same. South Africa would be a good current example. However, some African countries remain pro-Europe. While some would argue that this undermines the pre-European identity of the African countries in question, that is far from a settled question.
Analysis
One of the people that has directly covered the subject noted in the thesis statement and the rest of the introduction would be Basil Davidson. To truly answer the question at hand, one has to know and properly summarize and encapsulate what happened in Africa before, during and after the European occupation and colonization of Africa. It is only then that one could assert whether African countries that remain pro-European can really claim their own identity without having to involve and include European identity in the summary. As Davidson himself shows, there is most certainly a history that exists. The ruins he tours early in his documentary video proves this. The anti-African efforts of Europeans to discredit and disregard that history does not change any of that. Given that animosity towards the Africans, it is further vexing and hard to explain how Africans who are pro-Europe have not lost their identity given that they sidle up with a group that clearly held (or still holds) them as beneath them. However, it must be noted, just as it is noted by Davidson, is that even Europeans held Africans in high esteem. The art of the Renaissance period shows this. However, that ran from the late 1200’s CE to about 1400 CE. The mass slave trade, of course, came after that. As the video explains, racial prejudice would seem to b...
