Imperial Presence

I write to commend the effort of Peter J. Donaldson (A Century Behind, 1/16) to present the situation of poverty and illiteracy in Burkina Faso, the former Upper Volta. His account gives urgency to the concerted effort to make poverty history in Africa. Africans are grateful for such efforts undertaken to alleviate their travails. The account, however, cuts both ways. Let me explain.

From an African point of view this account perpetuates the impression well described in Stan Nussbaum’s recent book, American Cultural Baggage (2005)namely, everyone should adopt our values. It is unfortunate that Africans now tend to read Western reports about their continent with a hermeneutic of suspicion. The writer failed to mention, for example, that Burkina Faso is part of the historic pre-colonial kingdom of Songhai, with a bustling commercial and educational center at Timbuctu. This area controlled the famed trans-Saharan trade and was able to enrich ancient North African potentates, until the combined predatory imperialism of France and the encroachment of the Sahara desert reduced it to penury. A self-confident civilization was certainly developing in this region before historic and natural disasters intervened. There were no Great Walls erected, as was the case in China and on the Mexican borders of the United States to hold off the incursions of European fortune hunters during the scramble for Africa. More than summoning the compassion of America, the author should have brought French colonialism to judgment. The situation of the Africans of this region is not very much different from the situation recently uncovered by Katrina in the Gulf region of the United States.

The author gets credit for mentioning the initiative taken by the natives in changing the colonial name Upper Volta to Burkina Faso. That is a clear indication that they have, after political independence from France, taken their future into their hands. The effects of imperial presence cannot be expected to be wiped out overnight. It would have been interesting to readers to have been told the meaning of this new name given the country by its leaders, just as it would have sated their curiosity if they knew the source of the optimism he discovered among the Burkinabes in the midst of their present misery. Without this balanced treatment, Africans will see such accounts as Donaldson’s as a continuation of the colonial policy of the white man’s burden.

Luke Mbefo, C.S.Sp.