Africa is a...

Country Continent! 

Big, beautiful continent full individual nations, each with a rich heritage!

The geography teacher and global cultures conscious person in me goes absolutely bonkers every time a person mentions Africa like it's a country.  I had to bite my tongue and count to ten so I didn't go anal on a kindergarten this week who stated that he was going to draw the capital of Africa.  Umm....no such thing exists!

Treating Africa like its one big country as been seen all over media forms lately with the intensified coverage of the drought in Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and northeastern Kenya.  It irritates me to no end to have such a broad range of cultures and people groups clumped into one with no regard to their invalidity. 

Most of us don't hear folks say they're going to Europe if they are only visiting France.  Most people don't say they're going to Asia if they are only visiting Japan.  These countries are considered unique and special due to their cultures and histories and deserve to be mentioned outside of their geographical context, which is all a continent is.  Even many continents are split into regions and rarely mentioned by anything other than their regions because culturally and geographically they are so different.  No one from Western Europe wants to be mistaken for someone from a former Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe.  So, why do people insist on doing the same with the nations in Africa?  Each country has a special history all its own and not shared with any other country. 

Take Nigeria as an example.  In this large-ish nation, there are over 300 tribes and 4 incredibly distinct ecosystems with several smaller subsets.  How, then, can Nigeria be compared to an entire continent?  The majority of the Sahara Desert is considered part of the Middle East as far as culture goes, just like Central America (a region) is more culturally linked to South America (a continent) than it's location in North America. 

When violence is mention 'in Africa' I cringe because the whole continent is suddenly deemed an evil and dangerous place when countries like Zambia haven't, in anyone's living memory, seen tribal conflict, civil war, or international disputes.  While petty crime and bad people exist everywhere, Zambia is a safe, beautiful country full of people making the best life they can with what they have, with tribal inter-marrying and children commonly learning 2-4 different native tongues.  Why should they have to bear the label that Apartheid left on South Africa or militant leaders have left on Zimbabwe or Libya? 

I realize in the big scheme of life this probably isn't important, but it angers me and saddens me to see such unique cultures clumped into a big loop and their individuality and beauty lost by the world.