This is one of the things I am not an expert
at, um, that would be a class called Everything. But look at this advertisement, and you will agree that one does not need
to be an expert to get hurt.
A white man is buying cocoa in Ghana. He
has come in a large SUV which is standing out side the mud hut, with a well
dressed black person I am assuming his chauffeur. Two of the village people,
assumed village elders, are sitting opposite to him. Other farmers are standing
in a huddle behind these two. The white man is wearing his suit, while the
natives are wearing their not so attractive grey and faded yellow/white
clothes. The light makes sure we don't pay much attention to the clothes of the
natives. While the bright light behind the white person gives a sheen to the
suit of the white man. And finally, the white man has the tools of
civilisation: a mono-lens and a pair of forceps.
The only animated person in the native
group is the elder in the orange brown shirt. Others have a blank stare. They
are looking over each others' shoulder instead of for example finding a place
on the side of the table.
The white man is the expert and the final
authority on cocoa, not the 'native' farmers who grow the cocoa. When he
decides a cocoa bean is "nothing" the bean is doomed forever and
starts crying. The white man only says apologetically, "tell him, I am
sorry," he doesn't speak the native language. One of the native farmer
decides that a bean rejected by the expert does not deserve any sympathy and
brushes it right off the table.
And this advertisement is aired in India
(maybe all over the world): reinforcing any popular and ignorant ideas we have
about the "dark continent". What the advertisement is saying about
Ghana is very different from what this website is trying to say:
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/
You don't just buy a Bournville: you earn
it. And apparetly it will take the natives in the advert maybe a few more centuries to be
"earn" their Bournville.
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