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The Giant Behind the Veil
No part of the world has been so little understood as Africa. Most people in the United States, Canada, and other Western countries know that vast continent only through the distorted-or at least myopic-lens of television: hollow-eyed nomads fleeing their ancient enemies of drought and famine; vast fleets of zebra or wildebeest adrift on the grassy seas of the East African savanna; the exuberance of native dancers caught in a blur of motion and color. The reality of modern Africa is but little known to them. Few could name more than a handful of the several dozen countries found in Africa, and fewer still are aware of the complex constellation of historical, political, economic, and technological issues shaping Africa's future, Africa remains largely unknown to the West, a sleeping giant veiled in mystery and indifference.
Perhaps this is not too surprising. Until recently much of Black Africa was visited only by a handful of white traders and missionaries, whose stories about the "dark continent" largely were dismissed as romantic nonsense, tall tales too fantastic to be true. Furthermore, Africa is so huge and diverse that to know it well is extremely difficult. Its immense landmass is unexcelled in geographic diversity-ranging from trackless arid desert to dense tropical rain forest-and in the vast profusion of its plant and animal life. Occupying 20 percent of the earth's land surface, it is four times larger than the United States and has twice as many people, divided into 2,000 tribes and ethnic groups, with hundreds of mutually unintelligible languages or dialects. It spans several time zones from east to west.
Communication across the continent, whether by air or telephone, is difficult at best. It is, for example, easier to fly from Monrovia, Liberia, to Nairobi, Kenya, by way of London than to go directly from one Africa city to the other, and telephone operators in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, simply refuse to book calls to Accra, Ghana, only a few hundred miles away, Road transport is both difficult and dangerous in most countries.
The name of the continent may come from the Latin word Aprica ("sunny") or the Greek word Aphrike ("without cold"), and its blazing heat in midsummer can sear the brain and blister the skin. Yet the cold of the Ethiopian highlands can leave one shivering and aching, with numb fingers and toes.
Africa is a continent of violent contrasts, with few constants and many contradictions, simultaneously repelling and enticing, presenting a myriad of discomforts and sorrows, both natural and man-made, along with great natural beauty. The peoples of Africa reflect the contradictions of the land itself. Stoic and long-suffering, they can be volatile and unpredictable. They are at once peaceful and truculent, wise and ignorant, friendly and suspicious, compassionate and indifferent.