The virtual tour of Africa IV

[bunn]

We continue to explore Africa virtually, one country a day.

 Algeria
The northern part was Roman, then was invaded by the Germanic Vandals (what a curious journey they had to Africa) then Byzantine. I'd like to investigate more about the  independent Mauro-Roman Kingdom that pre-dated the Islamic conquest in the 8th century. Big-time slave trading and piracy area, with slaves being seized from as far afield as Iceland!  I had no idea that the baby USA went to war with Algeria twice over piracy of American ships at the very start of the nineteenth century.   

Yet another French colony.  I'm really getting a better feeling for the enormous mileage of France's colonial possessions.   I felt this whole area had a European/Ottoman sort of vibe, though it's almost entirely Islamic and an oil nation, and definitely not a good place to be gay. 

In a few years, I'd like to revisit the Green Dam of Algeria, first planted in the 60's to try to prevent the expansion of the Sahara northwards, and now suffering from considerable degradation, to find out if the recent renewal attempts focussing less on tree planting and more on grasses and sustainable grazing are having any impact. 

Tunisia
I knew nothing about Tunisia, but coming to it from Algeria, it seemed strikingly beautiful and also rather prosperous and relatively democratic. Yet another French protectorate, but architecturally it reminded me a lot of southern Spain, the ex-Moorish areas.  A very long history before that with Phoenician settlements, followed by Carthage.  I had forgotten that the Normans that conquered Sicily also took part of Tunisia and established a brief 'Kingdom of Africa' in this region. 

I'd like to find out more about Kairouan, the first Islamic city in North Africa, and about the Hussein dynasty of Ottoman Beys which lasted till 1954 and ran the place for the Ottoman empire before the French took over. 

Tunisia was the country where protests set off the Arab Spring in 2011, and seems to be about the only country that did fairly well out of them.  However, since the optimistic Youtube videos about this, I read that the democratically elected president has executed a self-coup (new word for me!) assigned himself extra powers and begun ruling by decree. 

Need to keep an eye on Tunisian news and see how that develops. 

Morocco
I've always fancied actually visiting Morocco in real life, and I was left with the impression that this would still be a good call. Looked beautiful, clearly had a strong tourist industry, I should have written more notes at the time. 

The Spanish Exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the coast of Morocco 
If I'm honest, the main thing I learned about these is that they exist, are notably Spanish in appearance rather than Moroccan, and the word 'Exclave' which was previously unfamiliar to me. 

Western Sahara
Mostly (including all the more-desirable western coast) occupied by Morocco. 20% of it held by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Used to be Spanish, then there was a war between Mauretania and Morocco over it.  The locals would like independence, but the independent part of Western Sahara

That said, we found a video of a visit to Laayoune, capital of the nonaligned territory of Western Sahara, and wow. I was not expecting verdant parks, trim paving slabs, magnificent fountains, prosperous-looking shops and hotels, and (randomly found via Googlemaps) a proudly lgbtq+-friendly drivethrough Japanese restaurant.   This is very much the comfortable end of the 'disputed territory' scale that Sudan and the Central African Republic are right at the other end of. I'm guessing that Morocco is determined to try to convince the people of Western Sahara that becoming part of Morocco permanently would be a pleasant experience. 

The Canary Islands
So close to the African coast we decided to hop over and have a look. And in fact it seems that the (probably) first inhabitants, the Guanches, before the Spanish conquest in 1496 were Berbers/Imazighen  (I had just got used to calling them Amazigh when I had it pointed out that's the singular...)  Seems to be a bit of a mystery when they settled the islands and how they got there, since having arrived between 2000 & 3000 years ago, they (probably?) lost the ability to build ships to leave again, and also, possibly became a no-metal culture.  (Dubious about this, Wikipedia certainly suggests trade with the islands during the Roman period...) 

I would like to explore sources about the Guanches, because Youtube offered a number of confident but unsourced claims that made me think 'hmm'.  Surely the Spanish conquest at least must be fairly well documented?


I wish I'd written down more about my impressions of Niger now, since Niger has just had a coup, and has gone from being one of the few democratic states in its area to another emergent military dictatorship. 

Mauritania
Very dry. VERY dry.  The most Saharan country!  I failed to make many notes about Mauritania. Not many people live there, I remember that much. And it's HUGE.  And not the same country as Roman Mauritania which is a lot further North.  
Oh yes of course, the other notable thing about Mauritania is that it STILL has a huge slavery problem. 

We watched some videos which made it seem an astonishingly beautiful and utterly remote place. 

Senegal
The most westerly part of French West Africa, and the most well-funded during that colonial period. It's part Sahara, but mostly sub-saharan semi-desert pastoral land.

The Senegal river, rumoured in Arab and European myth as a River of Gold,  is a source of hydroelectric power as well as water. It was once part of the Trans-saharan trade route and a major connection for the West African slave trade.  The Île de Gorée was a horrifying slave depot, and is now a tourist draw for Americans seeking their African roots. 

Senegal is a fairly poor nation, but seemed a world away from the really desperately poor and unstable nations in the centre of the continent. 

Many guesses about the origin of the name 'Senegal' - I liked the one about it being a Portuguese misunderstanding of 'our boat' (ie: what is that?  'our boat' rather than the name of the river). 

I'd like to find out a bit more about Waalo, a medieval predecessor state of Senegal, and also about the Jolof Empire, and it's semi-mythical founder Ndiadiane Ndiaye, who was a sort of... spirit? A fairy, I'd call him, if he was in Europe - who was so appalled that his mother had taken a second husband from the wrong tribe that he leapt into the river and swam away to Waalo, where the people decided that mysterious blokes leaping out of lakes are exactly the kind of person you should make king so they made him mortal by giving him a beautiful human wife.

In Senegal we encountered the Great Green Wall of Africa, a forest belt being planted right across the continent from Senegal on the West coast to Eritrea on the East, to hold back desertification and the southward encroachment of the Sahara.  What an idea! Though one that still has a lot of work waiting to be done on it.  This is where the Ecosia search engine plants trees in return for searches, if you'd ever wondered about that. 

The Gambia
While France colonised most of West Africa, Britain took the Gambia river area after a brief period when it was part of the  Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (now in Latvia) There they made a colony that was long and thin and about 15-30 miles across, ideally situated for the slave trade.

In due time in 1965 this became the independent country of The Gambia, where they speak English rather than French, use three-pin plugs and although a relatively poor country, have some excellent beaches and are rather proud of their marble-based voting system, which featured in several Youtube videos. 

We watched an interesting interview with a woman who had left Brixton, disliking the cold and racism, to set up a Jamaican restaurant in Gambia.  She felt it was peaceful and safe, though not the easiest place for a woman to run a business. 

The Gambia has recently reapplied to join the British Commonwealth, and removed the 'Islamic' from the official title of its republic.  Adama Barrow, the current president (democratically elected by marbles), is moderately pro-British, after several decades of distancing from Britain. So that was an interesting development. 

Tomorrow: Mali! 

Comments

[bunn]

Thanks for the rec, I haven't seen that, will look it out.

I'm hoping that by making a few notes, some of it will stick. Though I did forget yesterday that we'd already done Chad, and had to look it up to check. Inevitable, given how many countries there are probably.

[anerea]

Africa really is one big moosh of overlapping cultures (in time as well as space) and I think the current borders have very little meaning beyond colonial greed and the pettinesses and heartbreak they generate. It makes more sense to the way my mind works to explore it by geographic area rather than political boundaries, since the cultural histories tend to follow the natural boundaries.

ETA: so I'm impressed that you even remember what you do and keep it all organised by country!

I wish I was next door to you, I'd pop over with a pile of gorgeous books for you!

[bunn]

One of these days you must let me know if there are any books you'd rec and then I can rummage and see if any of them are available here. At the moment, I feel that my 'learning about Africa' space is occupied with the 1-day virtual tours, but I think we only have about 18 left - maybe a couple more if we decide to include Mauritius and Madagascar.