Nov 20, 2010 2:54:51 PM cite

Globalwarming

by Thai sean

Oct 1, 2010 12:20:32 AM cite

The things we can learn from Africa as a whole are too numerous to name. But some basic ones. . . -the history of humanity and evolution -some say the birthplace of many religions -scientifically-about numerous plants/wildlife, etc. what they do, -herbal/tribal medicine (much of which actually works) Things I learnt while in Ethiopia -the beauty of a culture where understanding comes before the search for money -trust -How to cook injera, and truly appreciate spicy food -Most of all, I learned people's stories, I learned how people live, what they think, how important education is, I learn Amheric and Oromo, and I learned the importance of listening. Africa is like any other place, any other continent, you can learn anything you allow yourself to learn.

by shiggs

Sep 1, 2010 6:16:54 AM cite

living in peace understanding nature equality and being connected to our roots

by Maryam

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: We can learn a lot from African people - courage, dignity and optimism. African culture is fantastic. It´s so different. It´s so coloured. It´s so optimistic. People there live under difficult circumstances. They must survive. They must think about the next day, food and a glass of clean water. But they live on and they are happy. I was in Afrika and I saw a lot of happy people and happy children. Of course, they are very poor. But what does it mean "to be poor"? How much do you need not to feel poor? You can be poor even having all material comforts, because someone has more than you do. You may have one million, two million but there is somebody who has one trillion, you know. And you are poor. Richness of your soul, cultural riches, the capacity to be satisfied and happy in every life situation - this means a real richness. It´s the possibility to give everyone such presents as your smile and your love. This means richness. And Africa can it. When I see African people - musicians, artists or simple people - who dance and have so much positive energy. Now there is in Germany such show as "Africa, Africa" which includes a lot of nationalities from Africa and presents the whole world of African culture. I think it was a good idea of Andre Heller to make this show.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: I know North Africa which is almost all Arabic and I know also Egypt, but I am not really familiar with the other parts of Africa which I know just theoretically. We learned so many things from North Africa and we can not even imagine the Arabic culture without the large contributions of North Africa. Personally, I am totally fascinated by Morocco which is a great example of the harmony between the past and the present and of being modern together with heritage and legacy. I do not know what I can learn from the other parts of Africa, but of course they have nice arts which inspired the European arts. Africa has also the style of life which is near to the nature.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: I think we can learn from Africa as much as we can learn from any other region in the world. We all have something that others could learn. Africa has its lessons, Latin America, Asia and Europe, each continent, each region has extraordinary things that others could learn. I think that Africa is a country with thousand years of wisdom, with ancient cultures. In my opinion, cultures and civilizations of Africa are very sophisticated. The most sophisticated arts or one kind of the world´s most sophisticated arts comes from Africa. Long time ago great artists from Africa were appreciated. I think, we also can learn from what has impressed me some time ago: I read the article about the reconciliation process in South Africa. It was written by African author Anti Krog with the title " African apology too sophisticated for the West". I think, African culture has a number of elements our cultures could learn. If after the acts of 11. September, the United States would have reflected a bit and had asked themselves, why are they so hated by the rest of the world, if they would have regretted instead of choosing revenge, the destruction of Afghanistan and Irak

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea: What can we learn from Africa? we can learn a lot from their culture, their traditions, their spirituality. The way how our ancestors transmit this spirituality, this inspiration, this wisdom, to act like they did. Their wisdom can help us to develop our communities... This is what we have to learn from Africa: (wisdom)is a spiritual tool which can only be understood by native Africans.

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Anonymous, well three minutes – the question itself is enormously broad. Well, let us begin. What is the negative aspects of Africa? Well Africa is a great repository of colonialism. The scars on the ruins of colonialism are quite clear for all of us to see. People dislocated from traditional worships systems, people forced to abandon identities and take on new identities, people transported, removed, there is all forms of dislocations. That becomes our conscience. All of us. What else can we learn from Africa? Well, we can learn the principle of transcendence. We can learn about what it takes to transcend adversity. To survive and transcend. Africa is a place that is building itself. It’s re-imagining itself. It is far more than the pestilence, disease, and chaos that appears to be its most important narrative. It is much more than that.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: I suppose I have a problem with this question in that I think we would never really ask the question what can we learn from Europe, what can we learn from the Americas, and that there is a certain reification of Africa which is taking place here, which obscures all the complexity and the diversity of African societies. Also, it raises a question of why Africa would be singled out as a single entity, as if Africa is a particular source of wisdom or a voice of knowledge that we and the rest of the world have lost. But, I would prefer to take the question in a different way and then I think I understand it, which is to ask the question what can we learn from the treatment of Africa by countries like the United States, what can we learn from the treatment of Africa by the colonial powers that participated in the scramble for Africa, what can we learn from the treatment of Africa by France and the other countries that today remain imperial and colonial forces in that continent? And what we can learn is a tremendous amount about the hypocrisy of professions to care about human rights, democracy and the spread of freedom by those countries, we can learn about the legacy of colonialism, which leads to such gross and stark inequalities in the world today. We can learn about the lack of genuine concern for suffering, death, starvation, privation that exists in the world today. And we can learn that the world cares about Africa today only insofar as a source for resources, and increasingly Western Africa is being seen as a source for oil, as the United States seeks to control and dominate not just Middle Eastern energy resources, but energy resources wherever they may exist, and of course is in the process of militarizing and supporting brutal dictatorships in that part of the world.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: From Africa we can learn how to be united and how to fight unitedly for each other. We can say that we get energy through strength.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, what I have learnt from Africa is that one never can give up hope. What I have learnt from Africa is what freedom is all about. What I have learnt from Africa is that it is an incredibly beautiful rich continent with amazing people, that it is a continent that despite all efforts in all these centuries to colonize, to pillage, to plunder, that it will not give up and it continues to fight for freedom and it continues to fight for its beauty, and for its resources for its own people. What I have learnt from Africa is that instead of what the media would like to tell us that it is a basket case, it is actually a bread basket. And the reason it faces hunger is not because Africa cannot produce food for its people, but it is the external forces, the corporations, the colonization that has been responsible for its problems. But like I said, when I think about Africa, I think of hope, I think of beauty, I think of music, I think of dancing, I think of Nelson Mandela, I think of the townships where communities refuse to give up hope, and they continue their struggle.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: Again, this question to me raises a question for any country really. What can we learn from India, from China, from Israel, from the United States, from Antarctica, from Greenland, from Germany. Where is that question? And to me, there is always a deeper level to the question. There is a kind of everyday we have understanding say, thinking about Africa. Or I think the intent of the question or what I read behind it is, if you really could enter into the depth of Africa and understand African origins, what would that tell us about ourselves? What can we learn? And, in that deeper sense, we can learn everything about ourselves from Africa and our African origins and African culture. Can we really cross into the indigenous cultures of Africa? The wonderful rich, deep, ancient world views that have emerged out of Africa? That would be the question, I would have. And, I think what this question is pointing out is that they're such crude and gross ignorance in the cultures beyond Africa, in the west so to speak, in the European setting, in the eurocentric structures of culture that has great ignorance about other cultures and other traditions. Indigenous people such as, African culture. And we have prejudice and we don’t realize. That if we could enter into, for example, Bakongo culture, we would find highly sophisticated, subtle culture that can teach us so much about being human. About human relations, about dialogue and deep dialogue and how to be in a community in deep respectful ways and ways in which we can respect and be one with nature. So in a way, there is everything to learn from Africa. If we can access the widely diverse culture, rich and diverse, and enter those worlds and learn from them. As we could for example, enter the Lakota nation, Lakota mind, and learn from that culture as well. So, I love this question and the challenges can we really enter the worlds and leave our prejudices. Everything is there before us to learn.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: There are many things that we can learn from Africa. We can learn about the issues of governance. We can learn about the exploitation of peoples, we can learn about the exploitation of their resources, we can learn about the causes of conflict, and we can learn how wealthy, countries that are wealthy in natural resources may not be, have wealthy people. And it is not a disparate, delinked relationship. But as I had shared earlier in a previous question, it is not a coincidence that Africa has the world's most conflicts, that 100 million Africans face conflict every day of the their lives, and that Africa is also the world's wealthiest continent, has some of the world's wealthiest leaders, as well as the world's poorest people. We must not see these as disparate facts, but see the connections that extreme wealth and poverty creates, and to inquire deeply as to why this result has occurred. When we know that Africa has every resource that we have put a high value on, whether it's oil, diamonds, coal can, timber. Then we have to say, yes, what are the lessons that we must learn from Africa? And if Africans now have all this wealth and yet are so dispossessed of the benefits of that wealth, what leverage will they have when all of their resources no longer exist, if today, with all of those resources, they have no leverage at all?

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: What we can learn from Africa is how not to make mistakes. I think since their independence the Africans made many mistakes. They didn't know what they want. Do they want to be Europeans or do they want to return to their African roots. What they especially didn't understand is how to avoid corruption. The best thing we can learn from Africans is how not to hinder unity. The division of Africa in artificial states was disastrous and it's true that the Europeans contributed to that. And why couldn't the Africans get united? I think that has something to do with personal and human ambition. But something fundamental is missing in Africa. There isn’t much we can learn from Africa if not the mistakes. Sadly it's like that. If there is one African virtue it is brotherhood and the way people take care of each other and I hope that it won't disappear. It's to ensure that nobody starves and that there is always a place where you can eat. Like in the family, the tribe and in other families and due to the relation between humans. That's an African virtue. When they become more modern and industrialized like Europeans I hope that they won't lose this virtue. Unfortunately I don't think that it'll happen this way.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Oh man, we can learn so much from Africa. The strength of the human spirit, how to do so much with so little. The focus of the village, the connection to the mother, there’s so much we can learn from Africa. And the fact that we still to this day, disrespect Africa for its contribution that it can add to the planet. Those villages in Kenya, in Zimbabwe, there are people here from those villages sitting at this table. They will have more to say than me for I am not from Africa. And therefore, I have a lot to learn from Africa. But I know from what I do know, is that the village is strong that the family is strong. Here in America, in Germany, all across the world, we need a village renaissance. We need that village to be reinstated within our culture. For in many ways, we say we come from Africa; although, by the color of our skin and the way that we act could be very hard to believe this in a lot of ways. And we shouldn’t be necessary tied to the story, but we should see it where we’re at. And that they are our brothers and our sisters that we can learn so much from their indigenous ways, in the way in which they relate to each other and with the animals -- the connections.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: The question is what can we learn from Africa. But we should ask ourselves also what we can learn form humanity, from ourselves and from others. We should not restrict learning in particular geographical situations but we should amplify the horizont of learning concerning more global aspects that may involve different countries, different geographical situations and different cultures. In a more holistic concept of learning we can evalute the contribution which very important continents like Africa made concerning the economy of the world in the sense of interchange of genetic material of especies. Many plants of African origin are now in other countries and they are sources of economical alternatives. Culture and many traditions have been transmitted to other cultures. In Costa Rica for example we have an instrument called marimba that is one of our country’s most important instrument that has African elements which have been combined with indigenous and local elements. This way a new type of instrument called marimba has been elaborated. Thats why we know and believe that the [] has been very diverse in our communities in the world and arts, music and similar forms of expression and of economy have led to a rich cultural interchange and process. But we can also learn from erros. ...

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 3:35:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger