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Africa Short Stories

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In The Granta Book of African Short Stories the stories take place during different parts of the colonization of the continent of Africa. Some deal with Africa Pre-Colonization while others deal with it during and after colonization. The colonization of Africa had significant impacts on the country besides slavery. Colonialism had a great impact on Africa culturally, economically and physically. While some of the impacts of colonialism can be seen as positive most of the impacts are negative and left Africans in a world they didn’t understand how to navigate. In this paper I will be discussing several shorts stories and how they frame colonialism and they effects they had on Africa.
The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 marked the climax of the …show more content…

The father is a victim of abuse and torture. While in Ethiopia he was tortured until he gave up the names of all the people that he knew of that were involved in the “resistance” in Ethiopia. Even after making it to America the father still fears someone from his past coming back for him and his son so he ties his son up from time to time to see how long he can withstand being tied up before crying out. This story itself most reflects the Ethiopian Civil War (1974-1991). Immediately after Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown; in September 1974, a Military Committee (known as the Derg) was established from several divisions of the Ethiopian Armed forces. The Derg committed mass executions and became unpopular. “Many Ethiopians joined opposition groups such as Tigray Peoples ' Liberation Front (TPLF), Ethiopian Peoples ' Revolutionary Party (EPRP), Eritrean Peoples ' Liberation Front (EPLF), Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU, lead by Prince Mengesha of Tigray, son-in-law of Haile Selassie) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). These groups made up of many ordinary Ethiopians became the victims of the Derg; thousands of Ethiopians fled the country to neighbouring countries, Europe and North America. thousands of students, teachers, workers and ordinary Ethiopians who were suspected of supporting opposition groups were imprisoned without charge, tortured and executed” (Teklehaimanot). This story has a different outlook on colonization because Ethiopia was never colonized by the Europeans. They avoided colonization due to Menelik II helping the country to acquire a large amount of modern weapons so they were able to fight off the Europeans. These modern weapons that they acquired to defend themselves eventually caused power struggles that resulted in Civil Wars. Though they were never colonized by the Europeans colonization impacted the country because

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