Did you know that Liberia helped sponsor a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly last week calling for the world to correct the way Africa is represented on maps?
Did you know that the familiar world map hanging in classrooms across Liberia has, for generations, made Africa appear much smaller compared with Europe, North America and places such as Greenland than it really is?
And did you know that Africa is actually about 14 times the size of Greenland, although on the familiar Mercator map the two can appear surprisingly close in size?
These may sound like interesting geography lessons. They are much more than that.
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On September 4, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/80/307, encouraging the use of maps that more accurately show the relative sizes of the world’s continents. Liberia was among the African countries sponsoring the initiative.
Africa has not suddenly become bigger. Nobody has discovered new land. Liberia has not gained another county.
What has changed is the picture. And that should make us think.
If generations of African children could sit in classrooms looking at a map that made their continent appear smaller than it really is — without most of us ever questioning it — what else have, we accepted about Africa simply because that is how we were taught?
That question goes far beyond geography.
Think about education. How much does the average Liberian child learn about the people who lived here before 1822?
Dr. C. Patrick Burrowes, in Between the Kola Forest and the Salty Sea, reminds us that the territory that became Liberia had societies, trade, political organization and knowledge long before the arrival of settlers from America.
So what did those people know? What did they know about plants and medicine, farming and weather, preserving food or building houses suitable for our heavy rains and tropical heat? What did they know about settling disputes and trading across long distances?
Some of that knowledge may no longer be useful. Some of it may even have been wrong.
But some may be valuable. The problem is that we cannot know unless we study it.
This does not mean Liberia should throw away Western education or reject modern science. Far from it. We should learn from the best universities, scientists, engineers, doctors and thinkers anywhere in the world.
But why should learning from the world require forgetting ourselves?
Consider medicine. For generations, Liberians have used leaves, roots and other plants to treat illnesses. Some remedies may have no medical value. Others may contain important medicinal properties. The responsible thing is neither to blindly believe them nor casually dismiss them. It is to research them, test them and find out.
The same principle applies to our economy.
A country can possess forests, fertile land, minerals, rivers and enormous human potential and still appear poor if it does not properly understand, develop or value what it has.
A farmer may own 100 acres of fertile land and still struggle to feed his family. His problem is not necessarily that he owns nothing. His problem may be that what he owns has not been turned into productive wealth.
Africa faces something similar.
The continent holds enormous mineral resources needed for modern technology and the global shift toward cleaner energy. It has vast agricultural potential, a young population, major forests and a growing continental market through the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Suddenly, the size of Africa matters in ways that go far beyond a school map.
This does not mean there is some secret conspiracy behind the UN decision. We should be careful about such conclusions.
Perhaps something more important is happening. Africa itself is beginning to insist on being seen differently, and Liberia helped sponsor that demand. That means we have work to do at home.
Yes, let us put more accurate maps in our classrooms. But changing the map while teaching the same narrow understanding of Africa would accomplish very little.
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We should also ask what is in the textbooks beside that map.
Are we properly studying Liberian history? Are our universities researching our medicinal plants? Are we documenting indigenous knowledge before the elders who possess it pass away? Are we studying traditional building methods that may offer lessons for cheaper, climate-friendly housing? Are we examining customary ways of resolving disputes that could strengthen justice in our communities?
Most importantly, are we teaching Liberian children that knowledge can come from anywhere — including home?
Africa cannot spend forever blaming outsiders for misunderstanding Africa while doing too little to understand itself.
The corrected map therefore presents an opportunity. Africa must now correct the institutions through which it measures its wealth, studies its history, educates its children, validates knowledge, values its resources and negotiates with the world.
Otherwise, we will simply have a larger Africa on the wall — and the same small conception of Africa in our heads.
