A couple of related items from different sources today demolish a few Western myths, illustrate the ongoing attempts by humans to project human traits onto animals (that whole Disneyfication thing) and exposes the hubris of the Hollywood stars who think it is their duty to “save” something or other.
First from the Sunday Times comes this little gem: A psychologist from Oregon State University maintains that hyper-aggressive African elephants that are terrorizing villagers in various locations on that continent are suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome. No really.
Gay Bradshaw, a psychologist at Oregon State University, believes that this “hyper-aggres-sive” behaviour is due to posttraumatic stress syndrome brought on by a combination of habitat loss and culling to control the population.
“It’s a cry for help,” she says. “Their unprecedented behaviour is the result of chronic and traumatic stress. I think it’s evidence of desperation.”
Elephants are highly social animals and studies have shown that a young elephant will stay within 15ft of its mother until it is eight. The male elephants that killed the rhinos all saw their families culled when young. “If the infant elephant experiences trauma such as witnessing the death of the mother, the brain is affected,” says Bradshaw.
Well, ok. There are increasing reports of clashes between humans and elephants. The locals who live with the elephants watch in disbelief when rich (to them at least) foreign tourists fawn over the elephants and rush to take pictures of them. To the locals, the elephants are a menace and not at all amusing. There is increased competition for habitat, you see.
The once sleepy town of Livingstone is now a front line in a growing conflict between elephants and humans competing for habitat. The settling of people closer and closer to the national park, combined with an influx of elephants from across the border in Zimbabwe, where economic collapse has led to unbridled poaching and empty waterholes, produces almost daily clashes.
At the office of the Zambia Wildlife Authority, a large blackboard on the wall is chalked with recent incidents of elephants in villages, sometimes marked “threat to life”.
“We are working flat out,” says Fritz Mubanga, senior wildlife police officer, who has worked there for 12 years. “Almost every day we’re having to send an officer to stay somewhere until the elephant moves on. A few years ago there was nothing like this.”
Villagers are not only losing their crops but in some cases their lives. Last year Jacqueline Lyamba, 25, and her two-year-old daughter, were killed in Nakatindi township while her six-year-old son crouched behind a bush in terror. On the other side of the border in March a British mother and daughter were trampled to death on holiday in Hwange national park. Last month an elephant overturned a truck on the highway.
“I see it as my mission to convince the world that elephants are horrible things to live next door to,” says Dr Loki Osborn, a biologist and member of the Human-Elephant Conflict Working Group of the World Conservation Union.
“Westerners have this romantic vision of elephants. If you live in a place where there aren’t any you love them, but if you live somewhere where they’re a menace you hate them.”
Western academics like to anthropomorphize the heck out of the situation, too. It is sort of a hobby. In point of fact, it may be considerably less psychological than the good professor would like. Like plain, old nasty competition for the available space, nothing more. It comes down to an exploded myth. Elephants, says the myth, are endangered and disappearing. Um, not exactly:
The problem is exacerbated by an increase in elephant numbers. Herds in southern Africa have rebounded since elephants were declared in danger of extinction and a ban on ivory sales was imposed in 1989. Zambia has seen numbers rise from 7,000 to an estimated 30,000.
“The basic management of elephants is out of sync,” Osborn argues. “People believe elephants are near extinction. In fact it’s the other way round; they’re recolonising parts of southern Africa where they haven’t been for 100 years.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post carries an op-ed from author Uzodinma Iweala decrying the Hollywood elite and their efforts to “save” Africa.
This is the West's new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back. Never mind that the stars sent to bring succor to the natives often are, willingly, as emaciated as those they want to help.
Perhaps most interesting is the language used to describe the Africa being saved. For example, the Keep a Child Alive/" I am African" ad campaign features portraits of primarily white, Western celebrities with painted "tribal markings" on their faces above "I AM AFRICAN" in bold letters. Below, smaller print says, "help us stop the dying."
Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."
There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head — because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.
Funny how that works, isn’t it?
North Korea | Gaius Sunday, 15 July , 2007 | 
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