ekt_bear: What we should be happy about is that, the way the world works these days, you don't have to be handicapped by things your ancestors did not do.

Her ancestors have probably been literate since the time of Christ, mine have only been literate since 1900 or so. Yet we are in exactly the same place in life.

The world is growing more egalitarian, and becoming more of a meritocracy. Information is more freely available than it ever was before.

Python that was invented by some Dutch programmer can be freely used by Nigerians like Seun to build Nairaland. Or an American technology company like Google to build most of their infrastructure.

We are no longer isolated from the rest of humanity.

So, rather than wallowing in fake accomplishments of the past...now is the time to go out and conquer!

shymmex: Great post by ROSSIKE - please ignore these ignorant buffoons..

Nigerians are not the smartest people out there - bunch of certificate thumpers with inferiority complex... No identity having bunch of negroids...

Interesting read!

coolzeal: Of course Africans will rise again just like in antiquity. I know full well that Kemet(ancient Egypt) are black African civilization, the culture, languages, Art, techno-complex, religion etc. They're so many civilization in Africa apart from ancient Egypt; such as the Carthage in Hannibal period, Nubian or Kush, the great Zimbabwe, Ethiopia( Lalibela) the oldest christian in the world, Ghana, Songhai, Timbuktu( the largest university and sophisticated center of learning in the 14th century when Europe is still in mess) Moors, Lunda, congo, Rwanda, Buganda( Successful Caesarean section performed by indigenous healers in Kahura, Uganda. As observed by R. W. Felkin in 1879. when no one survive it in Europe) Lozi, Malawi, Monomotapa, Kilwa, Merina, Zulu, Axum, Kanem Bornu, Yoruba, Bini or Benin, Ashanti, Wolof... These're great kingdom in antiquity on the African continent by black Africans... i know why they could not consider us in history because, all the anthropological study of blacks has being dealing with primitive or semi primitive or little rural villiage or simple people on the edge of the continent. A lot of people don't know that we Africans suffer from the greatest holocaust in history of mankind, we've been turn slaves, colonize, dehumanize and lost everything we once had in antiquity and knowledge of ourselves. The Africans was on the seize of war back then to protect their land and its wealth( Gold, spice, Art etc) from the Arab and the European invasion but fail to defend herself plus we black people are the most hated people in the world. Well for all the lost sheep( Maybe the bible is talking about us here haha).. Please read and research more. We were great people in ancient time and history and we will rise again.. I think this site is good to learn about Africa history....http://www.africankingdoms.com/

Haiti: A Historical Perspective

After a Haitian slave revolt defeated the French army in 1801, the newly independent nation became the first country in the New World to abolish slavery. Haiti used to be the richest country in the western hemisphere.

Haiti won its independence after a long revolution that destroyed a lot of the country. They were then required to pay a large indemnity to France or else many countries—including the United States—refused to acknowledge Haiti for fear that it would encourage an American slave revolt. More recently, both Haiti and the Dominican Republic were occupied by the United States, but Haiti was occupied for much longer. By the time the U.S. pulled out in 1934, Haiti's own institutions had atrophied.

As for Haitian farmers competing with U.S. imports, it raises the larger question of how the U.S. subsidizes its farm industry and dumps surplus crops in the form of food aid. This practice has done a lot of damage in Haiti and other developing countries. For Haiti to sustain its own people, it needs to rebuild the roads and infrastructure needed to transport crops internally.

After the coup against President Aristide in 2004, there was a lot of controversy over what Haiti's economy should look like. A lot of Haitians felt that reform was being dictated by Washington. Haiti wasn't given enough of a chance to help itself, which made the political instability worse.

PS: It's not culture or curse, but a difficult history of occupation and environmental degradation that explain the country's woes.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/01/15/haiti-a-historical-perspective.html

ekt_bear: ezeagu: Fair enough. You will continue to believe in some sort of conspiracy against the black man's history (and tbh, to some minor extent there may be a bias).

ekt_bear: (and tbh, to some minor extent there may be a bias).

“Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at the present there is none; there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness, and darkness is not the subject of history." - Hugh Trevor-Roper the Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford.

"The peculiarly African character is difficult to comprehend, for the very reason that in reference to it, we must quite give up the principle which naturally accompanies all our ideas—the category of Universality.

In Negro life the characteristic point is the fact that consciousness has not yet attained to the realization of any substantial objective existence—as for example, God, or Law—in which the interest of man’s volition is involved and in which he realizes his own being.

This distinction between himself as an individual and the universality of his essential being, the African in the uniform, undeveloped oneness of his existence has not yet attained; so that the Knowledge of an absolute Being, an Other and a Higher than his individual self, is entirely wanting. The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state.

We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality—all that we call feeling—if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character.

The copious and circumstantial accounts of Missionaries completely confirm this, and Mahommedanism appears to be the only thing which in any way brings the Negroes within the range of culture."

At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit. Historical movements in it—that is in its northern part—belong to the Asiatic or European World.

Carthage displayed there an important transitionary phase of civilization; but, as a Phoenician colony, it belongs to Asia. Egypt will be considered in reference to the passage of the human mind from its Eastern to its Western phase, but it does not belong to the African Spirit.

What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which had to be presented here only as on the threshold of the World’s History.

ekt_bear: Rossikk: So, if someone doesn't believe your clearly fraudulent tales, then they necessarily suffer from an inferiority complex? Is this your argument?

Again, if anything, I have the opposite problem...that I think too highly of myself relative to other people.

Finally, regarding this "argument by appeal to authority", you do realize that is a logical fallacy, yes? Just because the most renowned academic says X doesn't mean that X is true.

Moreover, if your argument has such a thin basis, then whenever anyone else with equal or comparable credentials appears...

Look, the point is simple. You are full of horsesh1t. You yourself know this to be true. Don't get pissed that someone is calling you out on it

okada_man: Interesting thread.

The back and forth arguments here reminds me of my first encounter with core African History as a university course.

I never understood the power of history, especially positive historical narratives until I got to the university. I first heard the quote below during an History GST class in my first semester. It bothered me so much then not because he was right, but because I could not articulate why he was wrong. I had to dig deep and read books and works done by African Writers, Philosophers and Historians like Samuel Johnson, Ben-jochannan, Frantz Fanon, Chancellor Williams, Bolanle Awe, Cheikh Anta Diop, Wole Soyinka, Ade Ajayi, Ivan Van Sertima, John Henrik Clarke, WEB Dubois etc.

Their work gave me a counter example, a positive otherness. This was important for me. It may not be the same for everybody. but If you grew up reading quotes like the ones below, it's not difficult to see the African as irredeemable. Especially if you are not African or have little or no interest in exploring further.

So History, especially positive ones are great, yes, one should not focus on the past while ignoring the present. But at the same time, it's dangerous to leave your history for other people to define for you. You may not like how they'll inteprete you

See examples of world famous historians and philosophers concocting nonsense because they just can't be bothered to do better.

I encountered the first quote in School, the second was by Hegel one of the most important philosophers ever, Hegel influenced people like Marx, Heidegger, Engel, Deridda and other powerhouses of Western thought.





Hegel;



Then Hegel Concluded thus:

Rossikk:

Great post okada man. Did you read The Destruction of Black Civilization by Dr Chancellor Williams? I consider that a seminal work on African history. You know the late Dr (an African-American) spent 20 years of his life visiting over 30+ African nations in the course of his work? That book was a hell of an eye opener. It's been called the Black Man's Bible and I could see why after reading just halfway through it.

davidylan:

Largely because you live in the greatest nation on earth built by white europeans. Left on their own, the blacks in the US are no better than those in Haiti.

davidylan:

Haiti is an example of the failure of the black race. QED.
I'm black by the way. But lets call a spade a spade.

ekt_bear: Agreed. Nigeria is an example of the failure of the black race as well.

You don't seem to understand that most Nigerians will agree with this statement

Btw, I don't think davidylan's mentality is, "haha, look at them silly Haitians." He doesn't appear to have a "we are better than you" mentality, like you seem to have. Though no doubt he will correct me on these two points if I am wrong.

He is just being blunt about the state of the black man.

Blyss:

LOL @ this trifling Niqqa, mad at us because his continent and nation in which played the biggest part as a whole selling off our ancesters.. is now a shit hole, full of near uselessness; THE VANQUISHED BECOMES THE VICTOR. 150Mill Niqqa's, resources galore, prime regional location on the globe, and nothing to show for it but utter and complete backwardness, filth, corruption, slaughter, bigotry, GREED and Selfishness so on and so forth.. on an unparalleled scale, in which to go into detail about would be a ten page ordeal; that rabbit hole goes deep.

No need to look across the ocean at little ole Haiti when you and yours are just as much, if not more so.. a failure of Negro kind as them and theirs. Nigeria is a FAILED state every bit as Haiti is, and is so on a much larger scale. A total and complete embarrassment to the Negro kind, while we measly 40 some odd mill ex slaves descendants are the creators of nearly everything scientific, artistic, political and social of any worldly benefit known to man in the past near Millennium.

Now I say this; you're correct in your insinuation of that it's been our environment here in this nation in which has given us the drive and will to create the loads of world renowned things in which we've given to the world. Yes, our history here has EVERYTHING to do with it, in that a history of having our humanity stripped away, our liberties denied and stepped on, and our presence here in the land that birthed us segregated off to the side, tends to spawn a drive in a people to prove their worth, via a burst of creativity. White's in this nation rarely gave us anything but a hard time, and a fight to obtain some of our most basic rights, so you insinuation of that our existence here among whites has in someway eased our creative accomplishments is clearly showing just how ignorant you are of the world we've lived in and live through today.

Rossikk: Davidylan quote:



African Americans never claimed to have created America by themselves. You are the one trying to deny them agency in their role as co-creators of that nation.



What good are brains if there's no one to do the work? Go build a skyscraper or city with mere 'brains' and no workers and see how far you'll get. Ewu.



Loot at your dull brain. I already explained 'Haiti' on this thread. You ignored it only to regurgitate the same brain-dead question.





Oh.. so the 'brains' would have magically created a powerful nation from their offices using what? Cigars and pipes??




Did the blacks contribute or not? That is the question. If they did, then they have a stake in the country. One can easily 'play on words' and say the whites did nothing. All they did was kill off the Indians and force the blacks to work while they sat on their lazy fat asses doing nothing.





How many times has the Dominican Republic been invaded and dictators imposed by US marines in the last 50 years? I'll tell you. ZERO times. Haiti? At least 4 times. The last invasion was to remove the popularly elected leader Aristide, to replace with a US stooge. See, if you weren't a clown, you'd realise that the US rarely (sorry, never) does such stuff in white nations.

oyb: greece is also known as the cradle of civilisation nd today theya re an economic basketcase
spain was once a world power

this chest beating over the past sadly comes off as some sort of bid to defend the failures of the present

sort of like a old gateman bragging to his kids about how he was always coming first in primary one

Rossikk: ^^^ It's obvious you have a very low IQ to insist that listing African historical accomplishments (which you ignorantly and stupidly label ''dubious'' despite the fulsome evidence supplied), somehow implies an unwillingness to face the present or future. I would understand your 'point' if the entire Nairaland forum was filled with history threads. But it isn't. So what you really ARE saying, is Africans should IGNORE and NOT DISCUSS their history AT ALL.

The question is: WHY NOT?

I tend to think it's your inferiority complex that makes this topic so deeply unsettling to you and your ilk. Your mind is programmed to see Africans as non-achievers, and these facts from history directly fly in the face of your brainwashed, self-loathing state, hence your instinctive opposition. You have my sympathies. What I'd advise is this: If this topic is not to your taste, or you reckon you cannot handle it, you know where the door is.

ekt_bear: The internet was invented by DARPA. Who built ARPANET (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET).

Who is this British guy who came up with the "idea?" Look, likely lots of people had the vague idea of computers communicating. But it is one thing to come up with a vague idea, another to come up with concrete technologies. E.g., TCP/IP.

More to the point, if you believe that the idea was invented by a British dude (a European), then clearly you have contradicted your earlier post in which you seemed amused by the idea of the internet being invented by Europeans...

davidylan:

yeah the USA was built by african/slave labor but do we also credit the ox or donkey for being the one who is responsible for a bountiful harvest? Blacks in the US take credit for something that really isnt theirs... the whites concieved of the mordern day american society, designed it and then used the black man as free labor to achieve his goals. its a shame that you consider this a thing to be proud of. the same blacks went to Haiti and have turned it into a complete disgrace.

Oh and with respect to Haiti, are we back to blaming Europeans for the failure of blacks to build a society?

Rossikk:

Don't mind these worthless, self-hating slaves.

If I started a thread praising ancient Roman ingenuity, you'd be shocked how they'd all suddenly love history and contribute fulsomely to the thread.