To understand the entire discourse on Africa and African people is to indulge in a vivid exercise in the removal of agency. The primary purpose of this study, new and old is the continuous reassertion of Conrad's “Heart of Darkness.” This is the Eurocentric tradition in anti-African scholarship that provides the moral-academic justification for the slave trade: the most successful commercial venture in the history of humanity. In Europe's bid to protect their trade interest the marriage between racist academia and the exploitation of Africa had to be made. The need for the continuation of this tradition is not lost in today's markets, which are heavily dependant on sustaining the impoverishment of Africa .
Africa today is the primary testing bed for new drugs, social experiments, cheap labor and raw materials. A wealthy Africa would create stronger corruption-free government, which in turn would be an antigen to Western imperialist designs. These designs are in the form of the new slave masters—the multinational conglomerates. The reality of Africa on-the-ground is a continent locked into a blind subservient orbit; the junk-yard of the Western World. The function of Africa is thus not for the native Africans, but for the harvesting of materials to construct Western civilizations.
Every people speak from their cultural perspective, this in itself is not a problem, It is a natural aspect of human behavior. When Americans speak of tragedy, they reference the destruction of the world trade center, their 9/11. However, 9/11 is just a date and may have another significance to another culture. In Iraq they have much reason to identify with other dates in their recent history to reference tragedy, like 11/23
[i]
[i] . However, the dominant culture exports their local perspective as the common world view, this is the crisis with cultural and political dominance where people's experiences if outside of spheres of Western interest are marginalize. In the event of another dominant culture this effect is neutralized. But where agency is lacking the "weak" fall prey to absorbing others people's realities as their own. Eurocentricity is a specific aspect of racial supremacy expressed along the cultural lines of Europe . This definition means that the agent of Eurocentrism doesn’t have to be European. Anyone who employs it is Eurocentric. The celebration of European culture in itself is healthy and natural, for Europeans, but when the line is crossed and other cultures are footnoted and denied agency then it becomes racism.
MAKING A SLAVE
In the analysis of the paradigm “the making of a slave” the removal of agency from Africa was the first instruction needed in the creation of a “cooperative work-force.” Africans taken to the New World had no authority over their life; they were not even allowed to commit suicide. And the reason for adversity to African suicide was not religious or commercially motivated. It was not the fear of losing “merchandise” but moreover the mental domination and removal of all forms of self-ownership from the psyche of the African captives. The re-labeling and amalgamation of the Mandika, Fulani, Igbo, Asante, into one bland color label- black, was part of the greater process of absolute reduction of African identity: A color epithet that Europe believed to be the lowest color on Earth, thus reflecting the social designation of African people in European psyche. But for slavery to work this reality had to be transferred from the European mind to the African mind. Africans had to believe what Europe believed about Africa and Africans. Cultures, ethnicity, legacy, royalty, lineage was now melted down to a single entity—slave. The slave had no past and certainly no future, save for after death when they were allowed to service a white god in an abstract heaven.
When we traverse the globe today and look at oppressed people, we see that despite their oppression, they are fully conscious of self, they have religion and culture which they proudly use to distinguishes themselves from their oppressors. The Jews in Hitler's death camps knew they were Jewish, they had their Torah, they had the Talmud and they had their history, which was reinforced by a Jewish culture. No amount of “special treatment” could alter the Jewish religion or their historical legacy. However, Africans by a process of the most hideous system in humanity were removed and later denied access to their history. Africans could not be attached to greatness as this would then beg the question, if these people were capable of science, engineering, social structure and kingdoms, how can their function be as beast-of-burden? How can a people who forged Timbuktu , Axsum , Kanem- Bornu , Egypt , Nubia , Great Zimbabwe, Ancient Ghana, Songhay, Sokoto Caliphate, Monomotapa be now mere labor units, movable chattel, branded like cattle, confined, de-robed, whipped, and reduced? It was absolutely essential to institutionalize the myth of a dark and savage Africa occupied by heathen cannibals who were saved by Europeans from absolute misery at the hands of their countrymen and marauding Arabs. History narrates that the European in their mercy did Africans a tremendous favor by bringing them to work in well-nurtured plantations in the West, allowing their lives to be touched by a white god, delivering them from savagery to culture, civilization and industrialization.
DENIAL OF AGENCY
When history is reduced from all the pages and pages to the underlining conclusion, we find regardless of if the author is British liberal, American conservative, or Australian the conclusion is the same. Africa has fostered nothing the Western World considers artifacts of civilization. With few exceptions, this is the underlying summarization on Africa, the pathology of discrediting and take-away.
Ethiopia – Not of African Origin
Egypt – Not of African origin
Sudan – Not of African origin
Mali – Not of African origin
The Moorish Empire – Not African
Ancient Zimbabwe – Not of African origin
There is nothing glorious in Africa that has not been reassigned to “White” ownership. And some are confused about terms like Arab, but Arabs from the perspective of Eurocentric history are a “Middle-Eastern Caucasoid,” so quite happily will they reassign Ancient Egypt or Islamic Spain to Arab people. The question for the discerning student of history is; why do all the conclusions always serve to empower Europeans and disempower Africans. It does not matter if they use archeology or genetics, linguistics or reasoning the conclusions always make a deposit towards the greatness of Europe, and a deduction from the glory of Africa.
- Who ended the slave trade- Europe
- Who stopped the Arab trade – Europe
- Who was the greatest Abolitionist – A European
- The greatest scientist, thinker, architect, composers, inventors – Europe
- Who invented modern civilization – Europe
- Who invented everything good – Europe
- Who is the most civilized - Europe
The question that should be put to these historians is “What has indigenous Africa contributed to the world?” Because the history of take-away has reduced Africa to nothing, thus implying the old statement “Africa is of no historical significance.” So how are today’s scholars any different from David Hume and Kant? If all their conclusions reduced all the nobility of Africa to given, borrowed or stolen.
There is generally no film, book, or report made by Europe that is so controversial that it indicts them in any atrocity against humanity. We often hear statements such as, after colonialism things collapse. The ultimate hero in every single story is the European; it is the most inescapable imposed reality the world is forced to accept.
PRE-OPINION
The foundational paradigm that begins with a pre-opinion, are like verdicts that come before the trial, or books that conclude before their start. The discourse on African with an error because those foundational paradigms which inspired the study in the first place were rooted in the denial of African agency. This denial extended to denial of self-definitions. And in the 18th century, the birth of narrow racial definitions emerged. The “Negro” a creature with thick lips, black skin, flat broad noses, woolly hair, characteristics that became socially accepted by Europeans as “ugly.” This narrow definition of Africans shied from the reality that indigenous African people are physically the most diverse racial family on the planet. In indigenous Africa you can find epicanthal fold eyelid types as found in the San of Southern Africa, flat noses among the Bakongo, straight fine noses as among the Ethiopians, Somalis, Fulani, Tuareg and Wodabee; Short hair, straight hair, curly hair, light skin, dark skin, very tall and very short, from Berber to Bushman all are part of the African race. Not only were a selected set of physical features assigned to Africans considered ugly, but also African traits and African customs became bywords for lazy, barbaric and primitive.
NOT BLACK AND WHITE
The removal of agency is not a “black or white” issue, it is not an issue polarized by Europeans on one-side and Africans on the other: The color of philosophies, not the color of skin is the greater issue. Many who profess to celebrate pan-Africanism act as agents, mouthpieces by proxy, whose mission is the perpetuation of the removal of agency from Africans. Some household names such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr and Kwame Appiah are renowned for selling African history down the toilet. They sustain in the most delicate of ways that the sole authority on Africa is none other than the European, and that all studies of culture, language, are for Europe 's final interpretation. Still today, pop-history is littered with “the discovery” approach of Africa . Thus, the source of the Nile was “discovered by...” Crediting an African with exploration in the European mindset would be like crediting a mule or a migrating Zebra. Historically Africans are made to sway like leaves on the wind, impervious and indifferent to any form of civilization, a people absent from scientific discovery, philosophy or the higher arts. We are left to believe that almost nothing can come out of Africa , other than raw material.
AGENTS OF ACADEMIC RACISM
The legacy of the African Holocaust has made a profound affect on African academics. As Africans have a profound disinheritance in areas of social-economic, there has also been a destructive disinheritance in areas of academics. We are playing on a chessboard where all the pieces are white. The volumes of publish works by the Hitler's of the African Holocaust is impossible for Africans to gain any foothold and authorities stance in their history. Year after year, the bookshelves are filled with one opinion. The most “popular” Africans are those singing from this music score. Some of the most racist and pejorative material is used today is taught in schools in an attempt to vindicate the continuation of academic racism. The self-referencing of the “old boys” like Hume and Kant is valid today because it is old, white, and used many, many times. It is thus impossible for the frustrated African to gain any ground because he/she is in a battle whose parameters are set by foes on a battlefield tipped economically, socially, in favor of the opposition. We often hear “so and so is acknowledged by everyone to be one of the most prominent scholars of …” so and so is always white. Scholarship is a white only seat, academic apartheid with no room for debate. Aspects of academia which are dead and buried, but still in use. Any African academic discussing or having a positive take on Africa that contradicts their assertion is called Afrocentric, as if this form of opinion is a cultural slant loaded with the bias of a pseudo-history. They say with one breath that Eurocentric academics were “men of their time” but still keep saying these people were the definitive guide to Africa. How can you say something is wrong but keep using it as a definitive source? The complete dismantlement (deconstruction) of the academic paradigm of authority needs to be a first step in a pure analysis, and it is for Africans to adopt this approach as bases for articulating and imposing a new identify. And in this we cannot overlook the significance of linguistics as a function of oppression.
Our history our schedule our format our agenda. We determine the placement and the process by which African history and culture is taught, disseminated, absorbed and weighted. The agenda setting and permission slips from Europe are the legacy of mental enslavement. The agency of Africa means just that African people as agents of all aspects of their history, politics and culture. This is not a statement of supremacy but mere equality. We discuss at the table the level of interface we want to have with aspects of our culture, not the other way around. And for this reason the Maafa study is a key sign of the Pan-African paradigm-shift where the legacy of the African Holocaust on African people globally is studied within the framework of the natural history in which the Maafa occurred. The emphasis in the historical narrative is on African agents.
EUROPE's SOLUTION FOR AFRICA
"Man’s freedom is lacking if somebody else controls what he needs, for need may result in man’s enslavement of man." - Muammar al-Gaddafi
Begging the fox to save you from the wolf. |
The premises behind much of the solutions for Africa are in the ideal that a hurting Africa needs a humanist hand from Europe . This is like appealing to the fox to save you from the wolf. An agreement in the United Nations’ Security Council or other diabolical agencies such as the World Bank is like an agreement among a choir, and such agreements are not agreements at all nor are they meant to provide any succor to the problems of Africa . NEPAD insist that a richer Africa is in the interest of the entire world, true or false will not appeal to the morality of a world system that never in its legacy has and does not act along a moral compass. There is nothing but capitalism and illusions of democracy, which are alien to the aspirations of African people. From “Feed Africa” to “Make Poverty History” which are mere sloganeering programs with no genuine effect to the population of the continent.
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UNICEF:German Ad Campaign Uses White Children in Blackface to Portray "Uneducated Africans"
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These campaigns are industries unto themselves that create billions of dollars and generate millions of jobs. They subsidize ailing industries in developed countries. Entire business exists that sustain their products entirely from the poverty of Africa. We are naïve and childish to believe a richer Africa is in the interest of Europe.
Poor people do not have the luxury of liberalism and freedom of speech. Poor people have no point of view other than “feed me”, Poor people are absent from the luxury of agency. And a poor Africa will always be a slave to a richer Europe . Today at every major anti-slavery or save Africa project it is Europe deciding and inviting personalities from the African world to sit at “THEIR” table, to discuss Africa ’s problems. The frontline for Make Poverty History is a “museum of rock star” beyond their performance years, probably seeking redemption and revival; Gedolf is the expert on famine, Bono the authority on AIDS. Bob Geldof, the Jesus and Tarzan character all rolled into one. The first name to come to mind when abolition is whispered is William Wilberforce and Granville Sharpe. Walking in the legacy of Dr. Livingston, I presume: A man who single-handedly ended the ENTIRE Arab Slave trade. Again, the agency in African liberation is Europe . Not even dealing with the aspect of how Africa found itself in the continuing hole. What kind of world do we live in when the views of the oppressed are expressed at the convenience of the rich?
MEDIA
Name a "Black film” and look behind the lens; who wrote it, who produced it, who directed it? Amistad , the music by John Williams, the director Mr. Spielberg. A Jamaican film called One Love , again the same pattern. Tsosti a story of violence in the African communities, violence is a natural reality of South African people in European perception; it sells and it feeds their image of us of being gang bangers, and semi-noble savages . It is almost impossible to consider a film that does not include a European central figure. The recent Last King of Scotland reflects this it is in the legacy of CRY FREEDOM, the title shows the mindset behind it . I t would not be sufficient to tell the story of Idi Amin; so infamous enough and surely notorious enough character in his own right. No, they say, this would reduce the value of the project, in comes the European into the storyline. It is actually amazing to see Mel Gibson attempt to make a film of a non-White people without a central European character. Returning to the likes of Richard Attenborough we cannot blame him for his bias in Cry Freedom , he is by nature a European and is simply acting out his European weighted worldview, avoiding Eurocentric as a term, as every healthy race is sensitive to his or her cultural perceptions. It makes no sense to ask Spielberg to give more “Africaness” in his Amistad or The Color Purple (which was an amazing piece of cinema). Even strong stories of African struggle are always almost without exception by Europeans: Amandla (Lee Hirsch), Roots (Collection of Whites), Life and Debt (Stephanie Black), Rize ( David LaChapelle ). This pattern speaks directly to the social disinheritance, who is paid from our experience? Who is cashing in again and again on our tears? Why can' Africans be the central authors of their stories? The issue is not for them to become more sensitive in “pretending” to be African, the issue is amazingly simpler; it is for Africans to be agents in their stories and hence removing the problem all together.
The concept that Europe is qualified in bringing out indigenous people's stories is just as arrogant as assuming Africans are and others are a worthless child-race. All nice intentions are welcomed by these are all rooted in the same racist presumption of racial incapability on the part of Africans and other non-European races.
A journey to the local media outlet see Michael Palin in Africa, or a PBS special on Africa produced by an all European cast called Tigress productions. This is the interface, which we need to challenge; many of us are caught-up in incidentals of our struggle. Being seen on a screen is not self-determination, especially when the gatekeepers, decision makers who determining the validity of our work are all European. African stories are attempts to explain Africans to Europeans as opposed to Africans explaining themselves to each other. These mere fact renders the whole concept of “Black cinema” and “Black perspective” redundant.
PRODUCTS NOT PRODUCERS
Once there was a web site called Africana which explored African history and generally empowering topics, where is that site today? It has been taken over by the commercial giants AOL and is now blackvoices, a collection of trite and pointless garbage that celebrates the emptiest aspects of African-American culture; the singers and the dancers, the entertainers and the clowns.
Agency is the natural actions of a self-determined people. |
All the adverts centered on the “Black” people are relating to sex, the commoditification of the African body is an industry to itself. Inter-racial dating, meet black singles, black gays, find black love, this is what African people have come to represent in the global world. These are problems created and nurtured by the Europeans. And they fail to understand it is also adversely affecting the very socio-cultural existence of Europe itself. Europe has relegated the position of women to the doldrums; they see their women as object of amusement, just mere flesh for quenching their thirst. Who needs any “meet single” if women are respected and given the right position? And certainly it is not a problem in Africa . So why, is it that it is sent down our throats and now our people entering the bandwagon? The commercial exploiters of African people have riding a very a low tide in human culture, again the issue is this is what Africans have chosen to identify with. Hip-hop to pop embraces nothing of a deeper, only the most base aspects of the human animal. Returning us to Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”, t he reason is that as El-Hajj Malik Shabazz said: “we stand for nothing, fall for everything.” Agency is the natural actions of a self-determined people; lack thereof is testimony to the shallow position Diasporian-Africans occupy.
EVERY STARTS AND ENDS WITH EUROPE
According to popular information; African history began with the arrival of the Portuguese. Before that time Africa was of no significance. The only names seen in the abolishment movement are William Wilberforce, Granvel Sharp et al. The liberation is a Europeans enterprise, the countless revolts and revolutions are a footnote in the annals of history. A few names by sheer power like Nat Turner could not be washed out of history but many fought for liberation over the centuries of enslavement and colonial rule. Failing to see who is writing history, our admitting it and then being part of inheriting Eurocentric agency is denial of self-determination.
African people are not even allowed to choose their own leaders. The African continent today continues to be a nesting bed for Europe’s choices for Africa ’s leadership. The heroes like Mary Seacole are not heroes of African people but heroes of Europe . The most treacherous and hateful “blacks” are celebrated outside of Africa ’s interest. African heroes are nominated by all white communities during “Black history” month in the UK , so that singers like Alicia Keys gets postered with Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Not understanding has never been a restraint for Europe . The error again and again is the acceptance and trust Africa people have seemingly placed on the opinions and values of Europeans. Authorship and authority, if not from Europe , is not valid.
 To speak favorable about Africa is to be an Afrocentric, which in the European vocabulary simply means a desperate childish pseudo-historian.
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African scholarship is thus alight to a circus show, for the same motives of giving a monkey a suit and a law degree---entertainment. To state an opinion not supported by European or to speak favorable about Africa is to be an Afrocentric, which in the European vocabulary simply means a desperate childish pseudo-historian.
African history began with the arrival of the Portuguese. Before that time Africa was of no significance. The only names seen in the abolishment movement are William Wilberforce, Granvel Sharp et al. The liberation is a Europeans enterprise, the countless revolts and revolutions are a footnote in the annals of history. A few names by sheer power like Nat Turner could not be washed out of history but many fought for liberation over the centuries of enslavement and colonial rule. Failing to see who is writing history, our admitting it and then being part of inheriting Eurocentric agency is denial of self-determination.
CULTURAL DISOWNERSHIP
One measure of the level of destruction on Africans globally is the mass dis-ownership of culture. From domain names to grocery stores in African dominated communities, it doesn’t matter if you are in New York or Nairobi, Bridgetown or Bamako . For example the domain Africaunite.com is not owned by Africans or any single thing that relates to Africa remains in the hands of our former/current oppressors. Maybe we are asleep or late of the starting block to recognize new opportunities and move into our own cultural niches before they become dominated and controlled by others. Almost every major organization rooted in “doing” something for Africans or “saving” Africans is European dominated. And some of us think we are free.
Music
African-Americas are very famous for hip-hop, the world sees the African stamp on this genre. Some individual rappers get rich from it (0.00001%) but who gets wealthy from it (according to Chris Rock). Who shoots the videos and owns the labels? Or the record shops? The clothes they wear? The cars they drive? The greatest Jazz artist is Norah Jones, the greatest rap artist is Emenim, while the greatest rock ‘n roll artist is Elvis Prestly; the current greatest reggae artist is Sean Paul. The pattern may be eluding us. Black music is now urban music, step-by-step the little agency we had is being eroded away. An independent African run site did a survey “are we better off today, compared to yesterday” 70% of the people recognized “we are worst off today but richer.” The glorious efforts in America in the 60’s, under segregations, had more elements of self-determination and agency that today. More business ownership and more importantly a do-for-self attitude, something the honorable Farrakhan has constantly stressed.
Search the internet, and this is just one small example, and look at popular sites to do with African people and see who and what is in control of it.
LANGUAGE OF RACISM
To highlight the academic dilemma against Africans it is necessarily to just site one of Europe ’s key historians on slavery. The age of the work and the period it was written in seem to make little impression in universities today, who seem to neglect the social status of Africans in the time these so-called scholarly books were being written in. It also neglects to highlight the mindset of the authors of these works and their contribution to the obscuring and footnoting of African history and African contributions to civilization. Men who would be labeled by a self-determined African today are referenced and cited with little challenge. Despite all the new research and development, this dead racist scholarship is still held high as the authentic source on Africa . Almost as if the more you reference a bad source the more authentic it becomes. The foundation of history of Africa cannot be studied outside of the dynamics of race and racism in the writings of African conquers. This is not to dismiss their entire work, but surely to raise the red flag of sincerity, and subsequently expose the agendas behind these scribbling. J.D. Fage sits high on this throne of Anti-African rhetoric
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“Today, however, some scholars assert that slavery did not have a wholly disastrous effect on those left behind in Africa .”
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Imagine begging the question and stating that some scholars believed the Jewish Holocaust was not entirely disastrous. We must assume there is again some degree of salvation in the actions of the Europeans who saved Africa from savagery. It is like saying the Jewish Holocaust was beneficial because some Jews got senior position in the Nazi army, or slavery was good because Africans got free Caribbean cruises.
“At its peak, the Atlantic slave trade took about 90,000 slaves per year out of a total population of around 25 million in just Guinea , where the vast majority originated. This number was significant, yet only a moderate annual growth rate in population was enough to sustain it by replacement. Therefore, the slave trade is unlikely to have caused a decrease in the population of West Africa , though it may have reduced or even halted population growth in some regions.”
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Again, we see the apology and denial of the consequences of enslavement
[v]
. What this is saying is the harvesting of African people was done sustainable and that it had no demographic consequences on birth rate, it would be worth mentioning that the most viral and healthiest members where been exported overseas so it is inconceivable that it would not affect population demographics not to mention settlement patterns and human social potential.
"The Nok civilization is argued by some to prove that Africa had a civilization prior to the arrival of Europe . "
This kind of tone appears to vindicate Africa but it actually introduces reasonable doubt. Its references again the false notion of a primitive Africa as a half-valid hypothesis for it shows by implication that anything or everything in Africa has to be articulated by juxtaposition. African civilization does not require any proof or revolutionary rethink. This kind of reasoning follows from “he seems very educated for a black” or “you see they are not all savages.” What needs to be done is exposed the motives behind those removing African agency from the annals of world cultural contributions.
“For those left behind in Africa the standard of living increased substantially and the region became divided into highly centralized and powerful nation states, such as Dahomey and the Ashanti Confederacy. It also created a class of very wealthy and highly Europeanized traders who began to send their children to European Universities.
[vi]
The contempt in Eurocentrism is so self-evident it almost needs no commentary to identify either intention or fallacies. It is be restated the source of this material comes from a respected seminal academic and authority on Africa . Before Europe , we know the Kanka Musa had gold reserves that made Ancient Mali one of the riches economies in the Ancient world. It is also a fact that Sankore was an African university so notable that Arabs and others came to study there. All of these non-direct facts retort the claims that contact with Europe brought power and education. Also the statement about Europeanized traders is intended by the author as a compliment a kind of accession of the African from savage beast to Europeanized. Fage trips and stabs himself with his own pen and exposes and implements himself as one of the historical agents of academic racism that has distorted the African historical timeline.
EUROCENTRIC CONTEMPT
By careful analysis the European voice can be identified without seeing the face of the author. (Soured from “The Foundational Paradigm of Eurocentric Though
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”)
- The patronizing of African scholarship as childish and simplistic. Treating it as a Pseudo-history.
- The need to maintain historical academic superiority even in absences of knowledge.
- The need to invoke paranoia clause and claim African people have a 'chip on their shoulder.'
- To normalize slavery and racism as a human problem thus mitigating their historical domination in racist manipulation. To merge class into race as it suits them.
- To collapse collaborators, victims and perpetrators into one equally guilty entity.
[viii]
- Make self-references to institutions they control: Such as the dictionary.
- To stipulate, while retaining economic and political control, that race is redundant and that Africans are hung up too much on race, while they continue to exercise racism and profit from this exercise.
- Abstract through expressed by the European mind is elevated to the whispers of prophets, while the same abstract through in the African mind is the utterances of the mentally insane.
- Never can an African be seen to display genius outside of European authority. " Mr X of Gabon is so smart; he was trained at Oxford ."
- They constantly set themselves up of the heroes in African history. Thus viewers relates more with the 'poor' South African reporter's family forgetting Steve Biko, a hero and symbol of resistance, in Cry Freedom. David Livingston is also the savior of Africa he single-handed abolish all of the African/Arab slave trade.
- When no academic error can be found they seek technical errors such as spelling errors. This is also a sign of their desperation when intellect fails.
- Making references to Africans who share their perspective and thus electing these individuals as authorities.
- To label those bearing information which serves in their disinterest as 'anger ridden.' Thus the African's are suppose to be over emotional and deluded.
- Always suggest the pattern of European domination is coincidence.
- Cite rare and exotic examples of African behavior, which suits their argument
- Make references to social generalization that they created via cultural domination and oppression; “most black people don't see themselves as African” clearly a condition that Europeans were active agents in creating.
- They lean on human individual responsibility thus saying “no one put a gun to African's head” and Africans enslaving Africans is the fault of African people. They neglect their participation in fostering and nurturing chaos between non-European people. ‘Blame reassignment’, simply put..
- Character assassination as a tactic of distraction to shift the topic away from the areas that they have no answer for or deliberately obfuscating issues in order just to confuse innocent minds. Hence, they try to show Mugabe's inhumanity in a conversation about European supremacy.
- The labeling of non-mainstream ideas as extreme and radical.
AFRICAN SUICIDE
Today we have a few African academics that wear all the clothing of Africa but in almost every attempt remove the very agency from the continent they claim to protect. The culture of victim-hood is a mechanism at play within some of the most significant African academics. The entire notion of “poor little Africa who was raped by Arabs and then Europeans” is a denial of African intelligence and agency. It stipulates indirectly that African have no sense, no judgment and no ability as a collective to act for self-determination or unity in the face of a collected foe. To believe that Islam and Christianity were forced down the throats of an unwilling people is as regressive and bigoted as the diatribes of Kant and Hume. African people have demonstrated absolute agency and contribution to both Islam, Christianity as well as Judaism. The theory, which identifies these religions as foreign, is baseless and shallow. When we study the history of Western Europe we find there conversion to Christianity much later than Africa , yet in all of their writings they claim authorship and agency in Christianity. We see Pakistanis doing this in Islam, even Chinese Muslims claim their noble inheritance in these faiths. They healthily Chinese Muslims cite the Chinese greats like Zheng Ho and his contributions to Islam. Yet with some African academics, there is this suicidal strategy to undermine the degree of agency and influence of Africa on Islam . They would rather remove it as foreign and thus collapsing the largest African kingdom of Songhai
[ix]
to obscurity, gone is Africa's claim to Timbuktu , Islamic Spain, Axsum, Sokoto and Ancient Mali. This anti-African rhetoric also infects the notability of Uthman Dan Fodio, Menelik Askia Muhammad, Thewdros, Bilal, Malik Sy, Selassie, Ahmadou Bamba, Sundiata, Seka Toure, The Mahdi of the Sudan , King Ezna, Emperor Fasiladas, the list is endless. But all of these people are removed from history, not to mention our recent greats such as Farrakhan, Dr. King, Garvey, El Hajj Malik Shabazz and Cheikh Anta Diop.
This again testifies to the fastidiousness of the cancer plaguing the disenfranchised Africans globally. No people in history are seen to do this. The Turks, who accepted Islam late in the day, made it their own and ruled with it. The principle cornerstones of these faiths have African origins and agency but some like fools cast Africa's historical station into the wind, as "foreign, worthless, and out of Africa " . Sufism an influential branch of Islam is African in origin, testimony to the power of Africanistic theology on Islam. Ethiopia was one of the first Christian Kingdoms in the entire World! The Khans were successful because they integrated what worked in their favor, as did our ancestors. This planet is a fusion and dynamic collision of cultures and ideas, there is no purity.
Africans have succumbed to some of the greatest horrors in history but not the extent of being the exploited historical fodder of others; the perpetual victims in the entire annals of history.
CONCLUSION
It is the responsibility of the next generation of academics to re-interpret the works of their predecessors. This is not a duty exclusive to the victims of Eurocentric academic racism but rather to all. The plurality and multicultural world is far safer if we all exist in an environment of truth and fairness overriding the miss-motives of the past.
"We must sail the ship of truth on the sea of lies, against the tide of repetition." |
The foundational paradigm must be truth; this is the driver for the next generation. We must sail the ship of truth on the sea of lies, against the tide of repetition, for this is the only way to erase the pre-assumed notion that washes and perverts the greatest human science--history.
Owen 'Alik Shahadah, is an African Cultural writer and a multi-award winning Filmmaker who documents African history and culture. For more info see www.owenshahadah.com
The "will of power" and the "impulse to dominate" have been dominant trends in much of the European thought, behavior and culture over the past 2500 years 
