Western Discourse and the Socio-Political Pathology of Ethnicity in Contemporary Africa

Western attitudes, myths and images significantly influence the contemporary historical drama in African countries, particularly in the construction of ethnicity as a stigma and socio-political malady in the African context. The visual, theoretical and empirical treatment of ethnicity, race and social divisions by the international media, Western intellectual and foreign policy establishment and the role of racial attitudes in such a treatment has had a critical impact on much of the modern African political and intellectual class.