Mountains of Kong - ZAM
▻https://www.zammagazine.com/chronicle/chronicle-17/307-mountains-of-kong
Once the ’Mountains of Kong’ crossed the African continent. A mountain range from the Niger river’s source in West Africa to the White Nile in the east was drawn onto maps for more than a hundred years up until 1995.
However, the mountains were a figment of Scottish ’explorer’ Mungo Park’s imagination. They didn’t exist.
Up to today, mountains of disinformation and stereotype with regard to Africa cloud our understanding of the continent.
The image, for example, of ’noble primitives’ happily sharing their forests with wildlife in the Congo is as far from reality as the Kong Mountains once were. In reality, hippos trample harvests and bans on hunting cause starvation.
Another example is #Fairtrade #chocolate: interviews by African investigative journalists with a couple of hundred cocoa farmers showed that all they need is better prices -and they are not getting these from Fairtrade.
Another one: did we think that #malaria victims receive #free_medicines from #Bill_Gates ?
