According to Dr John H. Clarke, a pioneer in the creation of Pan African and African studies and professional institutions in American Universities, when history was barely an embryo, the black people of north Africa had already set the philosophical fire that the Arabs, Greeks, Roman etc. would later warm their hand on it.
He further adds that the science, religion, geometry, arithmetic and architecture, medicine and all the social laws that later came in use today were already in place in the valleys of the Nile, Niger, Limpopo and Zambezi regions. Dr Clarke is also supported by Chancellor Williams, Dr Ben and many other African scholars.
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| Africa's civilization map |
Therefore, it is no accident that many Africans don’t know about their great past. The invasion of Africa had been done for generations because Africa has what the world wanted so much.
Credits to the many African scholars such as Dr Cheikh Anta Diop who have done exclusive work to reveal a glimpse of Africa’s lost greatness. The invasion of Africa was done in different ways and sometimes in a clandestine manner that the non-initiated might never fathom.
Some of the many ways in which African civilizations were destroyed are;
1. Arabization and Christianization of African People
History records that Arabs colonized Africa first, it
exclusively reveals that the Arab slave trade was the most brutal compared to
the Europeans’. The Arab invasion was profitable to the Arabs in terms of trade, acquisition
of new territories and most preferably slaves.
For the slave masters to have it easy they had to
train the slaves to live and identify in their image and likeness i.e. to
practice the Arabic language and to behave like one in almost all possible ways
except for the skin tone.
To conquer a people, you must apply force, to create fear and confusion, the Arabs and Europeans focused strongly on this. The Arab
slave masters could kill as many as they kept on rebelling. Chancellor Williams in The Destruction of Black Civilization cites a man named Mohamed
Ali who is known to be the greatest murderer of blacks who ever set foot in Africa.
The African kings, chiefs, philosophers and scholars
had to convert and identify as Muslims and Arabic culture so as to be accepted or
invited for negotiations or at least receive humane treatment. The African people were often segregated based on how
well they could practice Arabic culture. Millions of early blacks were forced
either by circumstances or expediency to replace their own names with Asians or
European ones.
Changing the names of people, places and ways of
identity literally means erasing the already existing identity corresponding to the replacement of African culture and identity. The continued interracial marriages whether
forced or in consent lead to the creation of a generation that is of mixed race,
and slowly turned whiter. The African cultures also fade and died in the north.
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| Arabization in Africa before and after the invasion. |
The European adventures in Africa also followed
almost the same path as that of the Arabs. They taught their slaves European ways
and culture. Our ancestors were taught the European language, to portray a European
image at all costs.
A language is a tool for cultural development and integration
that is why the Arabs, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish colonizers
changed the natives of the lands they invaded to speak colonial languages. language was/is essential for communication and there is no way you practice an English
culture through an African language.
Language has been used to colonize most parts of
Africa and is still in use. That is why the African mind is brainwashed to think
that when you can't express yourself in fluent English you are automatically
illiterate.
The conversion of Africans to foreign cultures was
also done in other clandestine ways such as in religion, education and the concept
of god. The Arabs Islamized the black people and those who never converted were
regarded as infidels, the Europeans through their missionaries traded Christianity
and whoever refused to transform was branded a pagan who needed to be saved in
the name of Jesus Christ.
The Africans were gradually robbed of their spiritual systems and were therefore made to be religious people who followed either Arabic Islam or European Christendom. Human culture predates religion which means man creates religion, but since Africa had lost its culture to the Arabs and Europeans, they had to practice the religion of their invaders.
Islam’s prayers were taught and recited in the Arabic language, their god and prophets were identified in Arabic names, and culture and there were pilgrimages to the Arab region. Christianity on the other hand was practised in European ways. In a nutshell, the African cultures and traditions could never be accommodated in the foreign religions as their main aim was to glorify the alien races.
To date, millions of African descendants can’t stop
worshipping the gods of the invaders, we have been conditioned to worship
foreign gods. Africa has been decoyed with religion and it has lost its spirituality which predates the god in religious books.
Today when it comes to religion, Africans fight and
kill one another for their god. But when it comes to their rights and dignity,
they pray to their God to fight for them, the god that was introduced to them
by those who deprived them of their rights and dignity, the sheer irony.
Through language, cultural and religious practices, the
African people have continued to destroy their own culture and traditions and
therefore, civilization. The stage of human cultural and social development
depends on the people who preserve and promote them to match the 21st-century world.
2. Colonization of African History by Foreign Invaders
Once you change a people’s culture and tradition, and their language and teach them to identify and worship in your religion, the next step is
to erase their past or rather disconnect them from it. This has often been done
by both Arabs and European colonizers by a depiction of savagery and infliction of inferiority
complex amongst Africans through misinformation and miseducation.
Many among the young generation of Africans are not aware of their great past, it’s rather no accident because Africa’s history has been colonized and locked behind a slavery curtain. Some European scholars have tried to disconnect ancient Egypt from black Africa but the stone curved artefacts and antiques have proved otherwise.
Images showing the facial appearance of various Egyptian
kings thousands of years ago have their noses and lips broken off, the reason being
that thick lips and broadened noses don’t depict Caucasian appearance.
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| Ramses II; Ancient Egyptian King |
Many history studies at early ages in the African curriculum don’t include the real information but rather the necessary one. We never study the great kingdoms that once existed across Africa. It is no accident that many young Africans know just a little about the Ethiopian victory over the Italians in the battle of Adwa and nothing at all about the humiliating defeat of the Portuguese by Queen N’Zinga of Angola. Many know of Mansa Mari Jalak of Mali only because he identified as Mansa Musa, nevertheless, there were many rich Mansa of Mali that whitewashed history has avoided.
If Africa was to start educating itself, using its
talent, rewriting its own history and influencing its own destiny then it would
be bad for the business of the imperialists and colonialists who depend very much
on our ignorance of our great past.
"If the back people were aware of their glorious past, then they would be more inclined to respect themselves. The time has come for the black man to forget his hero worship of other races and create and emulate heroes of his own."
~Marcus Garvey
If your past is of greatness, then the greatness should
inspire you. Africa’s glorious past has been destroyed or hidden by the
colonialists purposefully to deny the African generation knowledge of their history. To prevent them from waking up from their slumber, to rise up and be the kings and queens that they are.
Africa must start educating itself and rewriting its
history to safeguard its future. African children must learn their own history
first before learning that of English, French etc. They must learn about their heroes
and their sociopolitical organizations, not just Eurocentric ones. Chancellor
Williams expresses his concern about the colonization of Africa’s history in
his book, The Destruction of Black Civilization, that as long as we rely on white
scholars to do our work for us, we should stay silent about what they produce.
Parting Shot: What Africa Must Do
Every revolution must start in the mind. Africans must
start to read and scrutinize the quality of literature they read. Africa’s
children must be taught about their royalty, to be masters and not just servants.
The change must first be mental, acquiring more information about your history
that has been deliberately hidden from you creates discomfort in the mind prompting
you to research more. There is a difference between knowing what you know and
knowing what you have been taught.
The New Philosophy of African Redemption
As suggested by Dr George G. E James in his masterpiece on the loss of Africa’s glorious past titled STOLEN LEGACY, the philosophy is mental and social redemption, letting the world know that black people of north Africa gave philosophy to the world and not Greeks. Freeing the mind from the worship of Greek intellect and miseducation of some western scholars.
This would be a necessary escape for the black people
from the social plight caused by the false tradition of inferiority complex caused by
Arab and European slave traders. Africans will wake up and stop the hero
worship of other races and create and emulate those of their own.
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