The Innovation Of Fashion Designers Cultural Studies Essay

The Innovation Of Fashion Designers Cultural Studies Essay Vivienne Westwood has been an innovative and provocative fashion designer. She has been influenced primarily by the Punk movement and that is one of the reasons I chose to research her fashion collections. This essay is going to investigate the importance of the relationship between Vivienne Westwood and the Punk movement to the fashion society. Westwood established the background for the punk movement in the United Kingdom which affected a lot the fashion styles and until today many clothes are designed according to the Punk fashion style, for example the skinny jeans. I believe that this investigation will provide an insight on sociocultural facts and events that are memorable for the world of fashion. What attracted me to it was that Westwood who hadnt done any studies on fashion, met Malcolm McLaren and together with their clothes, they were influenced by the British culture so much and they started working at the time when Punk movement was established. This made me think that when one has a gift and wants to become a successful person, eventually he will achieve his goals. Vivienne Westwood has had a successful career for more than 40 years. The essay will focus on the first eight years of her career from 1970 to 1978. During this period the punk movement appeared all over the world. Punk was actually a music genre that developed during this period in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, which is the homeland of Westwood, Punk appeared as an alternative political movement, which expressed rebellion, but also appeared as a music scene which brought to the spotlight many punk music groups like the Sex Pistols etc. It also appeared as a fashion style. British adolescents have long created stylish subcultures in order to express all manner of rebellions  [1]  . The punk style is the connection between Vivienne Westwood and Punk. Therefore, the research question formed is; How Vivienne Westwoods collections were affected by the punk movement? The essay will start the biography of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren and I will refer to the definition and the characteristics of the punk movement in the United Kingdom. I will followins also write about the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls which are both Punk music groups and wore clothes of Vivienne Westwood. Following I will move into comparing in chronological order collections of Vivienne Westwood with particular punk music groups. The collections I will look into are; Let it Rock 1970, Too fast to live Too young to die, 1972, Sex, 1974 and Seditionaries, 1976. This procedure will lead into the conclusion and my findings on Vivienne Westwoods influences from the Punk movement MAIN BODY Biography The punk movement appeared as a rock music genre which developed in the decade of the 70s in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. They created hard-edged music, characterized by short songs, stripped-down instrumentation and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. In Britain, the Punk movement was politically active and their main concern was the economy of the country. Many people were unemployed because the economy in the United Kingdom in the 1970s was in a recession. Early Punks played a role in politics and protest, and they wanted to express themselves as anticapitalists, antihippies, anarchists and fascists. They portrayed themselves as political radicals by drawing on themes of Marxism, fascism etc. Beyond the fact that punk started out as a music-based subculture, there is a debate about its geographic origins, its ideologies, its membership etc. Most published accounts of punk focus on the origins and flourishing of punk subculture from late 1960s to lat e 1970s.  [2]  Punk may have originated in the United States, but punk as a subculture gelled in mid-1970s Britain.  [3]  . Punk appeared also as a fashion style. The basic male uniform consisted of combat boots, leather jacket, torn jeans, shaved head and most girls tried to adopt this male uniform completely. The ways in which the punk girls combined their punkness and their gender is very unique. They combined female items with punk elements. The influence of the Punk style on music groups is remarkable. The Sex Pistols and New York Dolls are English bands which formed in 1975 in London and their manager was McLaren who was born in 1946 and is a performer and former manager of the two groups. Music, fashion, the Punk Movement was something that attracted him when he was in a Fine Arts college. Malcolm was a friend of Vivienne Westwoods brother and thats how they met. Vivienne Westwood was born in Glossop, Derbyshire on 8 April 1941. She is as much of a symbol of England a s the Queen and the black cab.  [4]  She always liked fashion and a quote of her is that Fashion became her baby, she picked it up and never put it down.  [5]  In 1965 she met Malcolm McLaren and a relationship began. Together they established the foundation of the punk movement by opening shops and creating clothes related to rebellion and punk. Westwoods career in fashion was galvanized by her partner, Malcolm.  [6]  Their working relationship lasted from 1970 until 1983, and as is referred to above launched Punk. In 1971 Vivienne thought they should set up a clothes shop, because Malcolm was certainly fascinated by clothes. Thereby, Malcolm found a place at Kings Road which was named Paradise Garage and the couple made an agreement to own part of the shop. Let It Rock was the name of Viviennes first collection and the name of the shop too. Her first collection included pieces of drape jackets, leather ties with plastic sleeves, drainpipe trousers, ruffled shirt, day-glo socks, bootlace tie etc. Her favorite fabric was leather, she used a lot of zippers and slogans in order to decorate her clothes. They were interested in that era and they wanted to approach the Teddy boys who were into rebellion and could things stir up. Vivienne sourced authentic buttons, cloth and linings and informed by research in Teddy Boy clubs, copied and recoloured the look.  [7]  Vivienne began making trousers and more and more people were coming to the shop to try on their day-glo jackets, the special blue and silver trousers etc. At that period of time Vivienne and Malcolm went to a big music concert and were inspired in order to make their own T-shirt, Viva la Rock n Roll. Malcolm described rock n roll as the jungle beat that threatened white civilization.  [8]  It is a fact that in the collection Let It Rock of Vivienne Westwood we dont see a big influence of the punk movement. This can be explained by the fact that at the period of time that Let It Rock was launched, it only the foundations of the punk movement had been established. Despite this fact we can find characteristics of the pun k style in specific clothes of Let It Rock. Let It Rock Collection Figure 2. Sid Vicious, Let It Rock, 1970-1972 Figure 1. Vivienne Westwood, Let It Rock, 1970-1972Punks and members of music groups wore clothes that were ripped because in this way they were expressing rebellion through their style. In Figure 1 we see a T-shirt of Let It Rock which shows the influence of punk. Punk style was characterized by clothes with zippers, with holes, slogans, pins, pockets etc. The T-shirt in Figure 1 is ripped like all the clothes of Punks and it has many zippers and pockets and slogans that Vivienne used a lot. A characteristic example is Sid Vicious (Figure 2) who is wearing a ripped T-shirt of the Westwood Let It Rock collection and skinny jeans.. Moreover the slogans for her T-shirts were often lyrics of Sex Pistols songs. A characteristic example we see in Figure 3, in which Westwood is wearing her T-shirt with a photo of the Queen and the title of the Sex Pistols song God save the Queen on top. Figure 3. Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, Let It Rock 1970-1972 Figure 4. Destroy T-shirt, Let It Rock 1970-1972Another example of a T-shirt with a slogan is shown in Figure 4, in which Vivienne wants to get the message across that Nazis should not exist. She was against all this racism against the Jewish people etc and she wanted to make something in order to express her disappointment about the Nazis and maybe she thought that she could change something. Thats why she thought to make a T-shirt with the swastika and the work Destroy on top. An example for leather gear is Sid Vicious again (figure 5) who is wearing a leather jacket at a Sex Pistol concert in Notre Dame Hall. Also, Vivienne, who is promoting her style and her clothes by wearing a leather outfit herself. Figure 5. Sid Vicious and Vivienne Westwood, Let It Rock 1970-1972 Although the Let It Rock collection and shop were very successful, Vivienne and Malcolm were searching for something new because the trend of the Teddy Boys had started to elapse. The Teddy Boys werent such rebels after all and because the couple wanted to express rebellion they needed something new. They started experimenting with rockers and a bike boys look and a tougher leather look which was accompanied with punk style. So, in the spring of 1973, they renamed the shop into Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die and Vivienne started a new collection. Malcolm started buying fabrics such as velvet and Lurex and he thought that they should sell second-hand jeans, customized leather, pegged trousers, double-breast Zoot suits with padded shoulders etc. Because some striped and plain black T-shirts were left over from Let It Rock collection, Vivienne decided against throwing these clothing items away and chose to alter them by ripping them, knotting, cutting holes, rolling and stitching sl eeves together. Thereby, Westwood made a series of extraordinary clothes and especially T-shirts collaged with feathers, nipple-revealing zippers, studs, chains, potato prints, hand-stencilled garments and odd objects. She also put glitter on clothes and the whole work turned into something more creative and fun for her. Together with the punk style they also wanted to search for motorbike wear because the couple was interested in rubber, leather and fetishism. This collection of Westwood had the characteristic that, it was a point at which elements of sex imagery, cult fashion and politics met. This characteristic was sometimes a disadvantage because they were sometimes prosecuted under the obscenity of law for exposing to public view an independent exhibition . One characteristic example is that one of their T-shirts showed two naked cowboys which was thought to be unethical, unacceptable and inappropriate by society at large. Vivienne explained, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ my job is to confront the Establishment to try to find out where the freedom lies and what you can do: the most obvious way I did that was through the porn T-shirts  [9]  . Actually she always wanted to express sex somehow. Even when she put zippers on her clothes above all there were all sort of other sexy associations with the zippers  [10]  . All these characteristics like for example the zippers, leather, chains etc made her clothes surreal and somehow controversial. Also some of the clothes were characterized as rough and deliberately confrontational. To Fast To Live To Young To Die Collection In comparison with Let It Rock collection, here in the TFTLTYTD collection the influence of punk plays a bigger role and we can find characteristics of the punk movement in many clothes of Westwood. Figure 6. Venus T-shirt, TFTLTYTD 1972-1974In Figure 6 we can see Simon Barker wearing the famous hand-made Venus T-shirt which had armholes edged with sections of bike tyres and trimmed with horse hair. For this T-shirt Vivienne was inspired from motorbike wear and the punk movement. Generally, she used also many clues in order to express sexuality. Regarding to the punk style as I have referred to above, the clothes have chains, slogans, pins, leather etc.. So, here in this T-shirt we have as elements taken from punk such as lots of pins, chains and of course the slogan Venus. Also we see that Simon Barker is wearing leather trousers and army boots that Punks quite often wore. Figure 7. Vivienne Westwood, TFTLTYTD 1972-1974Moreover, as I referred to above, Vivienne wanted to express sex through her clothes, so most of the times she made and wore clothes with which she wanted to show that she was against all taboos. A characteristic example is in Figure 7, in which we see Vivienne wearing a shirt, a jacket and underwear from the TFTLTYTD collection without wearing jeans, or trousers above etc. By appearing in public like this she wanted to get the message across that she hated Puritanism and that people should not had taboos and prejudices regarding sex and the expression of the human body. The above opinion is also supported by Figure 8 in which we see Malcolm wearing the T-shirt Two Naked Cowboys of the TFTLTYTD collection. This is one of the T-shirts that had the couple prosecuted under the obscenity of law for exposing to public view an independent exhibition  [11]  . Vivienne didnt want to be limited in her designs regarding to ethical implications but sometimes she was obligated to be limited because of the authorities. Figure 8. Two naked cowboys, TFTLTYTD 1972-1974 Figure 9. McLaren and Westwood, TFTLTYTD 1972-1974 In addition, Vivienne herself wore the clothes she designed and by doing so she aimed at promoting the clothes and the punk style also. A characteristic example is Figure 9 in which we see Vivienne with Malcolm in a Photo shout. Vivienne is wearing leather jeans and a blouse with a zipper that could be characterized as conservative. In this photo shooting she wanted to wear something conservative but still in leather so we continue to see the effect of punk on her. She wanted to provoke and show that she is different, that she can be conservative through Punk too. As time passed McLaren set the scene for Punk via the next venture into a field that he knew would provoke still more outrage. He said characteristically in an interview of Elle magazine in November of 1985; It started with an interest in any form of youth revolt, so that it involved Teddy Boys and Rockers. Then we brought the sex element into it.  [12]  So, in 1974 they renamed their shop to SEX written with pink letters again. At that time they started selling bondage gear such as rubber body suits, rubber masks, leather mini skirts, leather underwear, shirts with chains, padlocks, fishnets, fetishistic lace-up boots and they also sold stilettos. At that time their slogan was Rubber wear for the office. The couple wanted to prove that they didnt care about taboos and prejudices and thats why in this collection they marketed clothes related to sadomasochism, fascism, pornography etc. Her clothes continued to shock society if we consider that this collection was selling sex more than the previous ones. Vivienne explains, all the clothes that I wore that people would regard as shocking, I wore them because I just thought I looked like a princess from another planet, I just thought I looked incredible in these clothes.  [13]  . The influence of Punk in SEX is more than in the previous collections because SEX clothes were mostly made of leather, chains etc which are basic elements of punk style. Punk was a cross-fertilization of SEX clothes  [14]  . Some people believe that punk was an eruption in the streets. But what it was infact was a fashion e vent from the start, like the creation of a historical painting based on a revolution; because that is what it actually was, a revolution. Sex Collection A characteristic example of this sexual revolution that Vivienne wanted to express through fashion is the T-shirt Tits in figure 10. It is a T-shirt from SEX and it was worn by both men and women but it was preferred by men because they wanted to shock by expressing the idea of homosexuality; Figure 10. Tits T-shirt, SEX 1974-1976 Figure 10. Tits T-shirt, SEX 1974-1976 Moreover as it was referred to above, punk influenced SEX in such a way Vivienne used their elements and their main fabric, leather in making her clothes. In Figure 11 we observe how punk influenced SEX. In this picture we see Jordan, shop girl of 1974, wearing a leather outfit of SEX. In the foreground it is shown a body suit made of leather belts and in the background we can find rubber clothes hanging on racks. Figure 11. Jordan, SEX 1974-1976 We can find another example of Punk influence on SEX in Figure 12, in which we see Johnny Rotten wearing a black leather bondage suit. This piece of clothing shows the combination of punk and sexuality because leather is the fabric of punks and when we talk about bondage suits we relate them to sadomasochism and generally sex. Figure 12. John Rotten, SEX 1974-1976 Furthermore in Figure 13 it can be detected Vivienne wearing a total black outfit made of rubber and leather. It has some pins on top and Vivienne is also holding some leather straps attached to other leather objects. Malcolm and Vivienne had gone all the way by making a public display of the leather and rubber stuff that fetishists succumbed to in private. Figure 13. Vivienne Westwood, SEX 1974-1976 What SEX was and generally what all Westwood collections were was a complex amalgam of various stylish influences, in which Punk had its roots in the streets of London and the music scenes of New York. As time went by the New York Dolls made their own decadent outfits to which Westwood added elements from the torn clothes of the pin-ups in Let it Rock, chains, zips, rubber wear and bondage garments of SEX. Consequently, in 1977 the shop and the collection changed its name yet again into Seditionaries under the slogan Clothes for heroes. The word Seditionaries was Viviennes concoction and was based on the fact that someone needed to seduce people in order to revolt. This moment was the peak of all this punk madness. In this collection the zips and straps of obscure sexual fetishism were transformed into fashion. Malcolm and Vivienne continued selling SEX T-shirts and fetish gear but everything was much smarter, less underground and less provincially British  [15]  . They made some T-shirts with photos, slogans on top and again they borrowed elements from the Punk movement. Savage wrote that Seditionaries brought the modern look in the 1970s but also Seditionaries clothes unleashed a more violent reaction combined with punk elements than SEX clothes. If the first Punks had thrown up every youth style since the war and then stuck it together with safety pins and panache, Seditionaries avoided retro yet caught the confusion: the look both in the original and the imitations spread thoughout the world  [16]  . This collection included again bondage trousers and clothes with straps and zips. Westwood in this collection used wool, mohair and leather for fabric which were elements of Punk movement. Westwood also made trousers based on military wear but even then she added her own elements based on sado-masochistic and fetishist gear. The Punks at that time had their own army uniform. The clothes were accessorized with pins, razor blades and silver phalluses. They tended to throw together sado-masochistic bondage paraphernalia and clothing associated with the hospital or the mental asylums so that they produced a surreal commentary on the anarchic tendencies of the sartorial display. Again with this collection Vivienne wanted to reveal taboos and mess with the normative class coding. One of the most significant factors of Punk at that moment was that it gave license for women to dress assertively. Vivienne said characteristically that Punk was what made her think of herself as a designer. Actually what Punk was both for her and society was a fashionable expression of a revolution. In fact, fashion itself became a revolution. Seditionaries Collection In Figure 14 we can identify that Vivienne made such shirts like in this Figure which has an image of Karl Marx in the top left hand in order to express revolution. Punks wanted to mess with everything and break the rules and norms. Marx symbolized revolution and was against the system as were the Punks. And this is the reason why her clothes appealed to Punks. Figure 14. Punk shirt, Seditionaries 1977 Figure 15. Blue cotton shirt, Seditionaries 1976-1980In Figure 15 we observe a Seditionaries blue cotton parachute shirt with strap harness, printed with situationist slogans such as Only Anarchists are Pretty. Regarding the Seditionaries clothes, they had borrowed elements from the Punk movement and also elements from the SEX collection. All these straps and slogans were characteristic of the Punk style and the whole parachute thing reminds us of the SEX bondage gear. In the 16th and last Figure we detect a few clothes of the Seditionaries worn by a number of Punks. The woolen sweaters that are shown in the figure and all these parachute jackets have been borrowed from the Punk style. In addition the jackets also have elements from SEX bondage and sado-masochistic gear which exists also in Seditionaries collection. Figure 16. Punk clothes, Seditionaries 1977 Conclusion Manifests are always written after an event. In retrospect, the manifest of the Punk movement allowed a person to express himself, to succeed or even fail in extravagant way. The music, fashion and of course the Punk movement were a huge art festival which was born from the life and the experiences that Malcolm McLaren gained in the school of Arts. He inspired Vivienne to create this vast business in the world of fashion based on the Punk movement. This was the new fashion, the new way of thinking. The couple started from a small shop in Kings Road and step by step they created their own rules for life, their own norms, their own identity. In other words they set the foundation for an alternative society. Of course all these things were based on the Punk movement and primarily on their ideology. Vivienne not only used the elements of the Punk movement but also their ideology. Through her fashion, she wanted to make rebellion and go against mainstream society, just like the Punks. Tha ts why she used symbols related to Punks and rebellion in her clothes like for example Karl Marx, or the swastika with the word Destroy on top etc. Combining irony and the ideology of Punks she wanted to break taboos like the issue of homosexuality or nudity etc. Actually McLaren and Westwoods aim was to create something new, totally fashionable while they were using symbolism to convey their ideas. And that was the point where they needed Punk, as inspiration and influence. Vivienne characteristically says about Punk Im proud to have been part of it. It was heroic at the time  [17]  . But as it is known, fashion is like a circle and the trends change every now and then, so the whole issue with the influence of the Punk movement in Viviennes career stopped at the beginning of the 80s. From the 80s there on, she introduced a startling and highly influential new vocabulary about fashion which was characterized as nostalgia for the future. In spite of this she never forgot her orig ins. Vivienne never created something conservative despite the fact that their future collections dont have elements from the Punk movement. Viviennes career was built on punk. Whenever she gives an interview she refers to the influence that Punk had on her work and life, saying characteristically that Punk and McLaren were the two factors that encouraged her to make fashion and to be who she is now. The punk period helped her develop creatively. Having created the Sex Pistols look he gained more self-confidence and realized her vast creative abilities. Fortunately, Punk helped Westwood expand her abilities, and identify her talent. Westwood was determined to leave her mark on international fashion which she certainly did.

Problems In Nigeria Essay

INTRODUCTION That â€Å"Africa was a cultural wasteland, until the Europeans sowed the seeds of civilization on her cultural barren shores† amounts to no culture in this geographical entity inhabited by people until the Europeans brought them the way of life. It is tempting to want to be subjective rather than being objective in discussing this topic, but bearing in mind that the Europeans are as rational as the Africans, one cannot but try to detach self from every sentiment in order to appraise and come out with substantial arguments with regards to the subject matter. Africa is of the continents of the world where Homo sapiens inhabit. It has been a stage upon which the drama of human development and cultural differentiation has been acted since the beginning of history. Yet, no continent has suffered: mistreatment; misunderstanding; misrepresentation; misinterpretation and have been misreported either in people’s conversation or on the mass media. The African continent has been described as synonymous to famine, drought, barbarism, peoples without culture until the Europeans in their magnanimity brought civilization to them. These amongst others are the opinions of many Eurocentric thinkers and ideologists. Yet, the fact remains, that the African like the European have eyes, hands, organs, affections and passions; laughs when tickled; angry when provoked; searches for food and security; reasons and judges. Like the Europeans can be murderous, hypocritical, rude, polite, selfish and loving so is an African capable. In whatever ways, the African as well as the Europeans are subject to the same laws of nature. It stirs equivocation in attempting to place superiority of one over the other. Thus, this work shall however, try to clarify the conceptual terms in the topic of debate as well as provide answers to the pertinent questions there in: What is Culture? What is Civilization? Had Africa any culture or civilization before her interaction with the Europeans? What are the seeds of civilization sown by the Europeans? To what extent do these seeds pay the African? From facts  gathered, the work shall evaluate and draw a conclusion. THE CONCEPTS OF CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION In his work, African Culture and Civilization, S. A. Ajayi presents culture as the established pattern of behaviour among a people that embraces every aspect of a man’s life and experiences. He refers to culture as a perceived way of life or the totality of all human efforts and achievements in bid to struggle to survive the prevalent opposing forces of nature. Culture comprises all about man’s ideas, behaviours and products. It finds expression in a people’s language, philosophies, institutions, arts, architecture amongst others. In fact, while everything created by God is nature, everything made by man is culture. However, many people from varying backgrounds have viewed culture differently. In the Western world, culture is limited to ideas, values, and attitudes. While Africans view it as the preserved traditions or ways of life of the forbearers and ancestors. This therefore is responsible for the reason why people tend to equate some aspects of culture of a people such as traditional dances and music, arts objects, traditional institutions, rites of passage such as marriage, birth, initiation, burial and the likes to mean the totality of culture. Technically speaking, Edward Burnett Tylor employs culture and civilization as complement of each other. According to him, â€Å"Culture and civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society†. Having observed the various definitions of culture, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2002, defined culture as a â€Å"set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of a society or a social group, encompassing, in addition to art and literature, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs†. And culture vary from one people to another, as such it is relative across peoples and places. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to use the culture of one people as a standard to judging another. A people’s culture develops, and this development makes up the people’s civilization and history. Civilization is an on-going process as man continues in his bid to conquer and control his immediate environment for aesthetic, cultural, religious,  social, economic, and political advancement. In a nutshell, civilization refers to the social advancement that occurs in a given society be it in terms of technological advancement, progressive changes in folkways, education, leisure, family life, customs, beliefs, and more. CULTURAL VIEW OF AFRICA BEFORE EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION J. E. Casely-Hayford, (1922), an African (Gold Coast) Nationalist said of Africa that â€Å"Before even the British came into relations with our people, we were a developed (cultured) people, having our own institutions, having our own ideas of government†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Casely means to say that Africans did not need to encounter the Europeans before developing their culture. To say a people that lived for several millennia as recorded in books of history had not the way of life amounts to suspicion. Africa is occupied by many distinct human populations of a great complexity of cultures. They and their history, culture and civilization are inseparable. This is â€Å"because their history is the record of what they did, thought and said; and their culture and civilization are the totality of ideas, concepts and values that characterized their societies†. The indigenous peoples of Africa are culturally diverse as evident in the variations in the elements of culture across Africa. However, there are some common elements in the core African values. Like all societies experience, Africa is no different that the level of civilization across the continent differs. Twenty five (25) centuries ago â€Å"Egypt was capable of producing wealth in abundance because of mastery of many scientific natural laws and intervention of technology to irrigate, grow, food, and extract minerals from the subsoil† while other parts of Africa employed bows, wooden clubs in their exploration. The reason why civilization was uneven amongst peoples when left on their own can partly be dependent upon the environment in which they evolved, and the ‘superstructure’ of the human society. This implies that as humans battled the material environment, they created forms of social relations, forms of government, patterns of behaviour and systems of belief which together constituted the superstructure which was never exactly the same in any two societies. However, there existed interaction between the elements of the superstructure. For instance, the political and religious patterns affected each other and were often entwined. Whenever we try to discuss pre-European  African past, many concern themselves to knowing about the existence of African ‘civilizations’. This flows from an attempt to make comparisons with European ‘civilization’. This however is not the context in which to evaluate the so-called civilization of Europe. The activities of the European capitalists from the period of slavery through colonialism, fascism and genocidal wars in Asia and Africa instigate suspicion to attach to the use of the word ‘civilization’. Western racism which became more pronounced in the 19th and early 20th centuries came to promote the prior unfamiliar predisposition in which the peoples of the Western world saw â€Å"civilization† as their exclusive feat and equated to it entirely mean the Western culture. To them any way of life other than theirs amounted to uncivilized or at best semi-civilized life. EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION IN AFRICA: AN ABSTRACT OF ITS â€Å"CULTURAL SEEDS† The 19th century witnessed most colonization of Africa by various European powers. It was apparently to bring enlightenment to the ‘dark continent’. Over a century has passed by; it seems to Africans that colonialism amounts to material exploitation, cultural expropriation and anthropological insolvency. It is obvious today that Africans have â€Å"benefited† indeed from the cultural seeds of European civilization; for they speak their languages, wear their clothes, bear their kind of names, drive in automobiles made by them, and drink their champagnes. These â€Å"benefits† otherwise known as cultural seeds of European civilization have brought upon the African, gross ego distortion; he is stripped of his self confidence. In fact, he has been dehumanized. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o says: â€Å"the cumulative effect of the experience of slavery and colonialism is tantamount to a cultural bomb. The effect of this cultural bomb is to annihilate a peopleâ€℠¢s belief in their names, in their language, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves†. Furthermore, to corroborate the position of Ngugi Wa, an American Journalist writes of the African experience: The colonialists left behind some schools and roads, some post offices and bureaucrats. But the cruelest legacy on the African continent was a lingering inferiority complex, a confused sense of identity. After all, when people are told for a century that they’re not as clever or capable as their masters they eventually start to believe it. In the words  of an African renowned author and poet, Chinua Achebe in his magnum opus: Things Fall Apart (1959), Achebe says â€Å"the white man has indeed put a knife on the things that held Africans together and they have fallen apart’. In his contribution in the work edited by Byron William (1982), Eileen Egan’s â€Å"Refugees: The Uprooting of People as a Cause of Hunger†, Egan says: â€Å"much of the post-colonial history of the continent of Africa could be recorded in the calligraphy of agony traced by refugees as they crossed and re-crossed new-made frontiers. The nations which sprang up at the wake of the â€Å"scramble for Africa† were heir to colonial errors in drawing borders. The borders carved out in faraway Berlin, cut across tribal, religious and linguistic groupings and also joined groups harbouring immemorial enmities. This is a major cause of civil wars and hostilities which have occurred in such countries as Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Guinea, Zaire, Uganda, Chad, Sudan and Somalia. The greater numbers of refugees in Africa come from some of these countries. EVALUATION Having expounded the concepts of culture and civilization and its evidence in human societies, it then becomes palpable that prejudice and perhaps ignorance of what culture entails, predicated the derogatory assertion against Africa. It may also not be far from fact that for a people to hold that Africa had no civilization until their contact with the Europeans could be as a result of their lack of knowledge of the African continent with her cultural wealth. The assertion made by early European explorers, that Africa was a jungle until her contact with Europeans can be said to be unsubstantiated. Even before the birth of Christ, the Noks in Nigeria were already casting iron and producing terra-cotta. Trans-Sahara trade was already on when William the Conqueror ruled England. It is worthy of note, that several historians of Africa have it that when the first Europeans reached Benin in the fifteenth century: many years before Columbus set off for the Americas, they found a highly organ ized kingdom with a disciplined army, an elaborate ceremonial court, and artisans whose work in ivory, bronze, wood and brass is prized throughout the world today for its craftsmanship and beauty, one that is comparable to what was then found in Europe . How then can a people without culture be organized and creative?  The answer is looming in the air as evident in the quote by Walter Rodney (2005). He presents the description by the Dutch visitors to Benin, thus: The town seems to be very great. When you enter into it, you go into a great broad street, not paved, which seems to be seven or eight times broader than the Warmoes Street in Amsterdam†¦ The king’s palace is a collection of buildings which occupy as much space as the town of Harlem, and which is enclosed with walls. There are numerous apartments for the Prince’s ministers and fine galleries, most of which are as big as those on the Exchange at Amsterdam. They are supported by wooden pillars encased with copper, where their victories are depicted, and which are carefully kept clean. The town is composed of thirty main streets, very straight and 120 feet wide apart from infinity of small intersecting streets. The houses are close to one another, arranged in good order. These people are in no way inferior to the Dutch as regards cleanliness; they wash and scrub their house so well that they are polished and shining like a looking glass In the spirit of objectivity, unless the Eurocentric minds have a different meaning yet to be conceptualized of culture and civilization though, or are able to establish the foundation that these terms are exclusive reserves of the Europeans, their assertion of Africa remains a defamation. CONCLUSION This work has tried to conceptualize civilization and culture; it did not find these concepts as exclusive reserves of a particular people or race. It therefore leaves one in a puzzle why supposed elites such as David Hume, A. P. Newton, Harry Johnson, Margaret Perham, Trevor Roper and others would view Africa as no good until her contact with Europe. Harry Johnson opines that before the arrival of Europeans, tribal Africans were barbarous people who had never advanced beyond the first step of civilization. If these â€Å"elites† have knowledge of history, the experience of the Dutch visitors to Benin in the 15th century would have put right their thinking. In my opinion, if there is anything the Europeans’ arrival brought, it definitely could not have been cultivating a virgin African land with the seeds of European civilization. It perhaps could be the sowing of darnel in the vibrant plantation of Africa cultural heritage. Scholars are not intellectual fraudsters. For anyone to qualify to be a scholar, he must separate himself from all emotional sentiments, free himself of all prejudice, racial injustice and deal squarely and be unbiased in dealing with a subject matter. On this basis, one may begin to wonder whether world acclaimed elites as David Hume, Trevor Ropers, A. P. Newton and others can be referred to as scholars. And for many academic loyalists who do not read between lines ideas presented in books or propagated through other means, here is a clarion call to retrace the right path employing the apparatus of objectivity so as not to be caught in the celebration of falsehood. BIBLIOGRAPHY ï‚ §Ajayi, S. Ademola. ed. (2005). African Culture and Civilization, Ibadan: Atlantis Books. ï‚ §Byron, William ed. (1982). The Causes of World Hunger, New York: Paulist Press. ï‚ §Ehusani, George O. (1991). An Afro-Christian Vision â€Å"OZOVEHE†: Toward A More Humanized World, New York: University Press of America. ï‚ §Lamb, David (1986). The Africans: Encounters from the Sudan to the Cape, London: The Bodley Head Press. ï‚ §Ngugi Wa, T. O. (1986). Decolonizing the Mind, London: James Curray Press. ï‚ §Rodney, Walter (2005). How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Abuja: Panaf Publishing, Inc.

A Raisin in the Sun Book Review Essay

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a truly exquisite piece of literature that has influenced readers, young and old, for generations. It gives us a very realistic view of racial tension, as well as the socioeconomic struggles, African Americans faced during the late 1940s-50s. In this play we meet the Youngers, a lower-class, diverse-minded, African American family simply trying to survive in 1950s South Chicago. Together they face economic hardship, racial discrimination, and the constant struggle to keep a fragile family together as each member searches for their version of the â€Å"American Dream†. Hansberry did an excellent job in creating the Younger family to represent lower class African American families in the 1950s. The Youngers live in a rundown, two-bedroom apartment. The family consists of Mama, Walter, Ruth, Travis, and Beneatha. The economic aspect of the play is centered around the insurance check Mama will be getting for her late husband, the author uses this to create a foundation for the Youngers story; the money elicits conflict between the characters as each has their own idea on what to do with money that does not even belong to them. A major motif in this play is racism, the author allows for a bit of foreshadowing in the beginning of the play with the bombing of another African American family in Clybourne Park, a mainly white community and the area where Mama eventually buys the new family house. Hansberry uses Walter to tie these two themes together. After losing all of the money Mama gave him to invest in his business and to save for Beneatha’s college fund, he then goes to get more money by selling back Mama’s new house: he can either overcome the racism and be the man his mother always knew he could be, or he can take the money for another chance to pursue his dreams but at the same time he would essentially be selling his soul to the devil. Walter must choose to either satiate his thirst for wealth or maintain the pride of his race. Finally, Hansberry acknowledges the importance of family unity during  these times. Ruth and Mama are the two main characters attempting to hold everything together. Hansberry made these characters strong and full of hope, despite their situation in life. Created any other way and we would probably see the family fall apart as the story began to unfold. Money and racism are also huge tests on the strength of this family as they struggle through the hardships of poverty and realize the shortcomings of some of the family members. All in all, A Raisin in the Sun is a very well written book. It is written in such a way that really puts you in the cramped, living conditions with the Youngers and helps readers to understand what it meant to be a poor African American family in the 1950s. Hansberry did a great job in creating solid characters which help to develop the story smoothly and realistically. It was a play I thoroughly enjoyed reading and would readily suggest to anyone looking for a good read.

ESL Quiz What Verb Goes With Each Sport