All booked

Welcome to All booked as Damola, Cole, and Giann tackle their newest series Things falls apart written by Chinua Achebe. This is part two of three of the discussion of the book.

Annotated Bibliographies:

Getachew, Adom. “Colonialism Made the Modern World. Let’s Remake It.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 July 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/opinion/sunday/decolonization-statues.html.

Damola: What this article essentially covered was it talked about how Europe colonized most of Africa and what it means for society today. This article gave multiple examples of how colonization set the stage for most of the struggles we face today. How this relates to my book things fall apart because this book is set in recolonized Nigeria and the second half of the book covers the colonization process and how Okonwo witnesses it all. In my opinion, this heightens the reading experience because in the 1950s Nigeria was still colonized and in a way, Okonwo might be a manifestation of what he misses about his country.

Giann: What this covered was Colonisation back in the day and how it affects us today. The reason why it affects us today and our book is because it’s set pre colonized Africa. Also, the article talks about how the events affect us today and why it’s important. With this, we could look at the book through the same lens as how the author is looking at this event. How we can use this for the podcast by talking about how struggles people had to go through and compare with the boo.

Cole:

Raju, Reggie, and Auliya Badrudenn. “How Africa Is Overcoming ‘Knowledge Colonialism’.” The Jakarta Post, 27 Dec. 2022, https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2022/12/27/how-africa-is-overcoming-knowledge-colonialism.html

This article covers how colonialism still exists in a different form in modern Africa. It covers a concept called “knowledge colonialism” where countries in Europe often dominate the science and academic world despite there being many academic breakthroughs from African countries. Many governments in Africa also struggle to fund these scientific expenditures that could improve the lives of Africans. This lack of academic investment leads to passed-down wealth gaps where people who are less fortunate are forced to remain uneducated causing major prejudice. There is also major discrimination against non-European scientists in the academic world where their research that is related to issues that affect those outside of Europe is viewed as nonessential. These factors create a world where Europeans are basically stealing knowledge and scientific advancement for the sake of remaining at the forefront of breakthroughs.