ブックタイトル佐藤栄作　受賞論文集

概要

佐藤栄作　受賞論文集

experience and cope with poverty is extremely diverse. This makes it all the moreimportant to resist common stereotypes about African youth, particularly youngmen, as a dangerous source of instability that foretells a chaotic and nasty future forAfrican societies. In this first section then, I want to argue that in addition to suchgeneralizations being both incorrect and counter-productive, we should actually seethe category of youth as a source of opportunity and the solution to many problems inAfrican countries. In the context of post-conflict societies, in rapidly expanding cities,as well as in rural areas, there is powerful evidence to suggest that escaping povertyand violence depends on engaging young populations by harnessing their creative andproductive energies.Recent representations of youth in Africa have been dominated by negativeimages of young militants involved in civil conflict, and of threatening young menin overcrowded urban areas. These perceptions of the threat posed by youth arebased on long entrenched misconceptions about Africa from outside the continent.Colonial representations of parts of Africa as a‘Heart of Darkness’have been carriedover into contemporary tropes about African political and societal chaos. One of themost influential examples of such characterisations is Robert Kaplan’s (1994; 1997)description of‘the coming anarchy’, which has had a notable influence on UnitedStates foreign policy across the continent. 2Kaplan’s descriptions are typical of suchnegative images of Africa, which regularly rely on a perception of African youth incrisis, which is heading toward a darker and more brutal future. Similarly,‘youthbulge theory’, holds that impoverished societies with disproportionately large youthpopulations are more prone to violence. As with Kaplan’s thesis however, it relieson some questionable evidence and tends to be coloured by emotionally charged7002 Kaplan’s apocalyptic prophecy was faxed by the White House to every US embassy (Dunn 2001: 48).