THE DISTORTED IMAGES OF AFRICAN CONTINENT: A HEIDEGGERIAN INTERPRETATION
TABLE OF CONTENT
TITLE … … … … … … … … … i
CERTIFICATION … … … … … … … ii
DEDICATION … … … … … … … … iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT … … … … … … iv
TABLE OF CONTENT … … … … … … … vi
GENERAL INTRODUCTION … … … … … … viii
Purpose of Study … … … … … … … … xi
Scope of Study … … … … … … … … xiii
Methodology … … … … … … … … xv
CHAPTER ONE
- LITERATURE REVIEW … … … … … 1
1.1 Ancient View About Africa … … … … … 2
- Medieval View About Africa … … … … … 4
- Modern View About Africa … … … … … 6
- Contemporary View About Africa … … … … 9
CHAPTER TWO
- Martin Heidegger: The Question Of Being … … … 13
- The Fundamental Ontology: Dasein Analytic … … 17
- His Methodology … … … … … … … 25
2.3. His Concept of Phenomenology and Interpretations … 28
CHAPTER THREE
- African Distorted Images … … … … … … 37
- Some Causes Of African Predicament … … … … 38
- Geographico Cause … … … … … … 38
- Historico Cause … … … … … … … 42
- Colonialism … … … … … … … 43
- Phenomenological Interpretations Of African
Distorted Images … … … … … … … 48
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 Critical Evaluations and Conclusion … … … … 58
BIBLIOGRAPHY … … … … … … … … 62
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
What do you expect would come to the minds of many, assuming you stand on Mountain Everest and shout the word “Africa” to the hearing of all mankind? Arguably, many (especially Westerners) would immediately succumb to the idea that Africa is a place of tribal slaughters, massacres, urban slums, skeletal children, people infested with AIDS; a place where the earth is dry and cracked, a place of endless stream of refugees without a place to call home, without clothing, medicine, food or water, plus other images of savagery, inferiority complex and hunger. According to Ezine Newsletter:
Those are the only images we see in C.N.N during the nightly news, during times of crisis and then there is nothing until the next war, skirmish or famine. Limited, selective images that make a continent look like it is always in upheaval.1
But these images about Africa are not only associated with the C.N.N. nightly news, they have permeated for hundreds of years in the West’s perception of Africa. Lending weight to this, the same Ezine Newsletter (African insight) on African images, opines:
For hundreds of years, Africa was a blank spot on Western maps, a place that did not exist and then during the Middle Ages it became a dark spot. It was referred to as the “dark continent”, where primitive people without history and civilization dwelled. Where chaos was the norm, even the capacity for an African to love was questioned since a savage being was not capable of love or Christian charity2.
