Problem: Why is it that, despite all the formal (and real) changes in relationships between Europe and Africa over the last century, popular perceptions of Africa and the West remain at the level of feckless victim and reluctantly heroic rescue service, and what responsibility, if any, do we scholars carry for this sad state of affairs?
What, for instance, did you do to help the recent 'Blair' Commission for Africa to form its views? Should we all have lobbied more? Do we deserve the right to bemoan the failings if we couldn't be bothered to engage in the first place? What are you/we now going to do to see to it that our countries and the EU generally adopt and act upon the proposals in the Blair Commission?
Can we be as effective/will we be as ineffective as scholars in the past in urging, not that Europe 'does something' about Africa, but that Europe adopts policies that allow Africans a better chance at doing something themselves?
Narrative: western scholarship's history of engagement/non-engagement with policies towards Africa, according to the conceptual schemes of the day. From the 1930s to the 1990s: Hailey, Malinowski, Perham, Apter to Zolberg, Leys, Bayart, etc.