The Mother of All Humanity

Africa is the “Mother of All Humanity” because all of humanities DNA can be traced back there (Moran, 2014). Originally, all of our current continents were all on one large continent called Pangea but over time each continent broke off and migrated to the places they are today. Homo sapiens were first found in Africa and eventually migrated to Asia. Through Asia humans migrated to Europe, Australia, and the Americas (Moran, 2014).

Africa is also vast and for as large as it is it is diverse. Typically Africa is separated into 4 different sections, Northern Africa, East Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa. This is because of cultural, regional, and colonization of certain areas of the African Continent. North Africans who are bordering most of the Middle East, has a lot of influence culturally from them, Arabic the general language of the 7 countries (Moran, 2014). Working with and dealing with Africans from these countries, there should be some consideration for customs that could be intertwined with Middle Eastern customs. East African’s consist of 12 countries/states and is widely considered the true start of civilization (Moran, 2014).

West/Central Africa is a region of 14 countries with quite a bit of civil unrest and instability, despite its natural resources (Moran, 2014). The corruption and history is very expansive as most African slaves came from these shores. Hence the name Slave Coast. Finally Southern Africa consists of 11 nations, these nations have also not seen much peace or prosperity due to civil unrest in some countries (Moran, 2014). Up until recent years it was plagued by Apartheid which was much like America’s history of segregation. South Africa, despite its segregation is still seen as the land of promise because it is most advanced in their economy than anywhere else in Africa (Moran, 2014).

However, even though the country is separated because of the regions and their surrounding and past influences Africans are still very united in some of their cultural trends. Africans have a way of life that is very unifying and it even has an affect over leadership. Ubuntu has many translations but the best is “I am because we are”, which essentially means that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect (PSU, 2017).

Yet with Africa as the “Mother of All Humanity” it is still one of the most underdeveloped and poorest continents in the world. 33 of the 48 least developed countries in the world all come from Africa (Moran, 2014). AIDS and other diseases run rampant throughout the continent due to inadequate health care or water systems ( Moran, 2014). But Africans are also incredibly optimistic, 60% of Africans think that each year will be better than the last (Moran, 2014) even despite it all they still remain happy and hopeful.

 

 

Moran, R., Abramson, N., and Moran, S. (2014). Managing cultural differences. (9th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Pennsylvania State World Campus. (2017b). Lesson 14: Africa. Retrieved April 20, 2017, https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1826457/external_tools/190818.