full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò: Why Africa must become a center of knowledge again

Unscramble the Blue Letters


For the last half-millennium, beginning with the slave tarde, Africa has been exporting brains while simultaneously breaking the chnias of knowledge transmission on the continent itself, with dire consequences for the systems of knowledge production in Africa. Successive goanetrines are cut off from the intellectual production of their predecessors. We keep producing for external markets while beggaring our own iarnnetl needs. At present, much of the best knowledge about Africa is neither produced nor housed there, even when it is produced by Africans. Because we are dominated by immediate needs and relevant solutions when it comes to what we should know, we are happy to hand over to others the responsibility to pcrduoe knowledge, including knowledge about, of and for us, and to do so far away from us. We are ever eager to consume knowledge and have but a mere ptoiron of it without any aeixnty about ownership and location. African universities are now all too content to have e-connections with lraeriibs elsewhere, having given up ambitions on bundliig libraries to which the world would come for itlueclteanl edification. Control over who decides what should be stocked on our shelves and how access to ctcnoeliols should be determined are made to rest on our trust in our partners' good faith that they will not anaobdn us down the road.

Open Cloze


For the last half-millennium, beginning with the slave _____, Africa has been exporting brains while simultaneously breaking the ______ of knowledge transmission on the continent itself, with dire consequences for the systems of knowledge production in Africa. Successive ___________ are cut off from the intellectual production of their predecessors. We keep producing for external markets while beggaring our own ________ needs. At present, much of the best knowledge about Africa is neither produced nor housed there, even when it is produced by Africans. Because we are dominated by immediate needs and relevant solutions when it comes to what we should know, we are happy to hand over to others the responsibility to _______ knowledge, including knowledge about, of and for us, and to do so far away from us. We are ever eager to consume knowledge and have but a mere _______ of it without any _______ about ownership and location. African universities are now all too content to have e-connections with _________ elsewhere, having given up ambitions on ________ libraries to which the world would come for ____________ edification. Control over who decides what should be stocked on our shelves and how access to ___________ should be determined are made to rest on our trust in our partners' good faith that they will not _______ us down the road.

Solution


  1. collections
  2. portion
  3. abandon
  4. trade
  5. building
  6. chains
  7. generations
  8. produce
  9. intellectual
  10. anxiety
  11. internal
  12. libraries

Original Text


For the last half-millennium, beginning with the slave trade, Africa has been exporting brains while simultaneously breaking the chains of knowledge transmission on the continent itself, with dire consequences for the systems of knowledge production in Africa. Successive generations are cut off from the intellectual production of their predecessors. We keep producing for external markets while beggaring our own internal needs. At present, much of the best knowledge about Africa is neither produced nor housed there, even when it is produced by Africans. Because we are dominated by immediate needs and relevant solutions when it comes to what we should know, we are happy to hand over to others the responsibility to produce knowledge, including knowledge about, of and for us, and to do so far away from us. We are ever eager to consume knowledge and have but a mere portion of it without any anxiety about ownership and location. African universities are now all too content to have e-connections with libraries elsewhere, having given up ambitions on building libraries to which the world would come for intellectual edification. Control over who decides what should be stocked on our shelves and how access to collections should be determined are made to rest on our trust in our partners' good faith that they will not abandon us down the road.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
knowledge production 4
seek knowledge 4
knowledge society 3
knowledge crisis 2
water resources 2
geography puts 2
aquifers grow 2


Important Words


  1. abandon
  2. access
  3. africa
  4. african
  5. africans
  6. ambitions
  7. anxiety
  8. beggaring
  9. beginning
  10. brains
  11. breaking
  12. building
  13. chains
  14. collections
  15. consequences
  16. consume
  17. content
  18. continent
  19. control
  20. cut
  21. decides
  22. determined
  23. dire
  24. dominated
  25. eager
  26. edification
  27. exporting
  28. external
  29. faith
  30. generations
  31. good
  32. hand
  33. happy
  34. housed
  35. including
  36. intellectual
  37. internal
  38. knowledge
  39. libraries
  40. location
  41. markets
  42. mere
  43. ownership
  44. portion
  45. predecessors
  46. present
  47. produce
  48. produced
  49. producing
  50. production
  51. relevant
  52. responsibility
  53. rest
  54. road
  55. shelves
  56. simultaneously
  57. slave
  58. solutions
  59. stocked
  60. successive
  61. systems
  62. trade
  63. transmission
  64. trust
  65. universities
  66. world