Book Review: Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles

"Every time you say 'Africa is…' the words crumble and break. From every generalisation you must exclude at least five countries… Africa is full of surprises." (Richard Dowden)

This book is phenomenal, and I recommend it to anyone who is trying to deepen their understanding of the African continent. Richard Dowden is a journalistic veteran; he's spent over 30 years writing about Africa for several prominent British publications. From the outset of this book, Dowden acknowledges the impossibility of providing a comprehensive survey of Africa, but in my opinion this 554-page tome is a good attempt. Most of his chapters deal with specific countries: Uganda, Somalia, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Burundi and Rwanda, etc. He also deals with continent-wide issues like AIDS, colonialism, and neocolonialism. Colonialism is an ongoing theme in the book. I've long had the sense that many of the current problems in various regions of Africa can be traced back to the abuses and travesties of colonial history, and this book definitely reinforced that idea for me.

My dad sent me this book after reading that Chinua Achebe (whose work I adore) wrote the Foreward. In Achebe's words, "The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader who then becomes ready to be drawn deep into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, towards a deeper understanding of foreign peoples, cultures and situations. Richard Dowden's [book] succeeds marvelously." High praise indeed.

One of my favorite chapters of the book is the chapter on Zimbabwe. Dowden first met Robert Mugabe back in 1976, when he was still a revolutionary freedom fighter, and Dowden's explanation of Zimbabwe's history really helped me understand recent events there. Likewise with the chapters on Sudan and the Congo; in fact, I drew heavily on the information from this book when I wrote my blog posts on those two countries. And of course, anyone who knows me is aware of my affinity for former-colonies of Portugal, so I enjoyed the section on Angola and wished he'd included Mozambique as well.

According to The Economist's book review, Dowden's book focuses on "two questions: why is development so slow in Africa? And how, in the midst of so much savagery, does the humanity of Africans survive as one of the continent’s defining characteristics?" I can think of other wonderful books that have attempted to answer the first question (like Guns, Germs and Steel, and The End of Poverty). But Africa approaches it from a slightly different angle, with an eye bent toward history and toward the agency of individual people. I loved Dowden's prose for its honesty. He is unflinching in describing the horrors of wars and famines that he has witnessed in Africa, and not afraid to indict specific people for the role they've played in the collapse of communities, but at the same time there is no doubt how much he admires individual people and whole cultures that he has met and lived with in Africa. In his words:

"Westerners arriving in Africa for the first time are always struck by its beauty and size--even the sky seems higher. And they often find themselves suddenly cracked open. They lose inhibitions, feel more alive, more themselves, and they begin to understand why, until then, they have only half lived. In Africa the essentials of existence--light, earth, water, food, birth, family, love, sickness, death--are more immediate, more intense. Visitors suddenly realize what life is for. To risk a huge generalization: [In the West], amid our wasteful wealth and time-pressed lives we have lost human values that still abound in Africa."

That passage sounds a little like he might fall into the trap of romanticizing and exoticizing Africa... but for the most part he doesn't. (This particular passage describes something that I felt frequently, though certainly not always, when I lived in Mozambique.) He gives a clear-eyed look at a complicated continent, and it is one fantastic read.

(And I can't finish this review without mentioning one thing. See the boy holding the soccer ball on the cover of the book? My one-year-old daughter is obsessed with him. She carries this book --heavy as it is-- around the house with her, pointing to him and saying her version of the word "friend" over and over, and sometimes she kisses him. Maybe it's the way he looks straight out at you, nothing in his eyes but self-ness. This photo has a strong effect on me as well; I think it's a great picture. But whatever the reason, my daughter loves him.)

You can read other reviews of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles here and here.