Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/02/28

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Subject: SV: [Leica]Day in Life Africa : OT
From: "DUNCAN" <0709433420@euromail.se>
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 16:18:33 +0100

Harold,
while I agree with you in part, the native tribes, groups and clans of
Africa don't really recognise the 50 odd bounderies that WE split their
continent up into anyway, so to do 50 individual books on each "country"
would be egocentric in itself. To really recognise the Africa you'd have to
split the series up into the thousands of groups and what they consider
their borders to be...

Best, Duncan


Something to ponder

I think that, while its intentions may well be good, the "A Day in the Life
of Africa" project is a misguided mistake!

It serves to reinforce the false world view that "Africa" is a single place
which can be viewed as one single geographic entity with insufficient
difference to warrant specifying beyond "Africa".

The rest of the "A Day in the Life" books are for single countries (India,
Thailand, Israel, China, Spain, Soviet Union, America and Japan or even
states - California, Hawaii).

There are more than 50 different countries in Africa, each with several
culturally distinct groups and with many different languages, religions,
cultures, etc.

A "A Day in the Life of Africa" suggests that the countries of Africa do not
have sufficient of interest in any one of them to create a "Day in the Life"
book. This is obviously false.

I think it is fairly typical of ignorant international attitudes and
perceptions of Africa that have served Africa very badly in the past. It is
a pity that this group of international journalists have chosen to reinforce
this.

Kind regards

Harold Gess

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