No, I will not ask such a silly question. It is not that one has not come across it or even considered the possibility in thought. However, the difference between you and me is that that same thought process immediately reveals the flawed logic such an implication carries - as I outlined to you. It will reveal to you that that is exactly the same justification that those who committed the most heinous crimes against Africa employed. It would reveal to you that buying into such an idea is evidence of what is known as Stockholm's Syndrome.

You are the one revealing yourself to be divinely cursed simply because you refuse to "read" even though you can. You asked a question that is obviously s.tupid, which may be excused if you are truly looking for opinions, but the fact that you keep insisting that you already know the answer reveals your incorrigibility. You are not asking a question, you are here to validate your self-hatred if you are African or, in case you are a white supremacist, carry on in the tradition of rotten thieves.

Brownteeth:

Point of correction, I am not white. I am charcoal black you. But the difference between us is you chose not to ask this question cos you don't want to accept your failures and research on it. Only the revelation of a divine curse on Africans will properly explain the mystery surrounding our stagnancy in development.

Brownteeth said:

ROSSIKE, to make my comment short, if the point you are trying to make is, Africa taught the Europeans civilization including reading and writing, how would you explain the fact the TEACHER EVENTUALLY BECAME AN ILLITERATE AND HAD TO BE MADE LITERATE BY THE STUDENT HE TAUGHT?

It's my bedtime now. See you later.

The answer is far more than can be explained on a forum post, as it spans a period of over 5,000 years.

I have directed you to a BOOK you can read. (See above). It answers a lot of the questions.

I can summarise it by saying that Yes indeed, the ancient black Africans built mighty temples and pyramids which are still there for all to see. Leave Egypt out of this for a second. These ruins are further south in Nubia (Sudan). Here, there is no manufactured ''controversy'' as to who built them - it is accepted they were black Africans. Also accepted is that these edifices predate buildings in Europe by thousands of years.


Nubian Ruins (Sudan) None of these edifices is less than 4,000 years old.





[img]http://www.public.asu.edu/~usman/images/images-Africa/Nubia-Meroe.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.virginiawestern.edu/faculty/vwhansd/his111/Images/Nubian_temple.jpg[/img]





Now, you cannot build these sort of monuments without deep knowledge of mathematics, geometry and advanced architecture and stone masonry.

The question as to how black Africans eventually ''lost'' this knowledge can be traced to forced southward migrations caused by:

a) The desertification of the Sahara. A once lush, fertile region populated with cities and kingdoms, many of which lie buried under tonnes of desert sand. Upheavals caused by this forced movement of peoples brought strife and insecurity as the search for water and arable land created endless tensions between settler and settled communities in the interior of the continent.


b) More importantly, the ancient MIGRATIONS of Africans from the Nile Valley to regions further south which occurred over centuries were caused by foreign invasions of the Nile Valley - first the Hyksos (Assyrians). Then the Greeks. Then the Romans. And then finally the Arabs. Each conquest saw more African refugees heading SOUTH.

For thousands of years Africans had held their own against these foreign aggressors, and repelled them. But eventually they were toppled.

The migratory paths of these blacks are still seen today, skeletons still seen in the desert sands, of those who couldn't make it. Blacks fleeing enslavement and Jihad from foreign conquerors. The Masai of Kenya are looked upon with disdain and embarassment. But the Masai are worthy Africans. First class Africans whose illustrious ancestors fled to the hills, isolating themselves in preference to enslavement. The Masai have legends of a great and noble past, streaming through their folklore.

The Yoruba have legends of having fled the north - Egypt, following 'a great war'.

Was it the Greek invasion of Egypt by Alexander 'the great' in 332 BC?

Or was it the much later Arab invasion by General El Has in 633 AD?

They say they fled to protect their Ifa religion from extinction.

The Wolof, Bini, Ashanti et al, all point to the Nile Valley, as the land of beginnings, from whence they came.

In the years following these migrations, conflict with already settled communities in the newly settled lands was always an issue, as was competition for resourced arable lands with water.

The never ending Arab slave raids, and attacks from other fleeing groups looking for land and water, contributed to make life a game of Russian roulette - unsettled, insecure, unpredictable.

Life became for most Africans one long battle for survival.

Building sturdy houses and grand monuments became foolhardy.

What point doing that when your town or village could be raided, burnt down and sacked the following week?

People learnt they had to build small and live frugally so that not much is lost when time came to flee.

Writing and the higher arts and sciences were lost, or in most cases, came to be held only by a few initiated priests in each group, becoming increasingly couched in religious/occult symbolism.

Most of the ethnic groups we have today, if you inquire, lived in several different places in nearby regions before finally arriving at their current settlements. For several centuries the entire Africa South of the Sahara was in a state of flux.

What chance writing?

What chance the sciences?

What chance development?

Far more prudent to device survival methods against harsh climates and soils, suspicious 'enemy' neighbours, and slave raiders!!

Hitherto, in the Nile Valley, Igbos, Yorubas, Ashantis, Hausa etc all spoke a similar language, and were not divided.

The current multiplicity of ethnic groups and languages in Africa is a direct result of the ancient migrations which saw previously united groups splinter, as a survival strategy, into smaller groups who headed each in its own direction, often to meet up centuries later in West or Central Africa with their long lost brethren now speaking different languages /dialects.

Division and disunity ensued, as previous brothers began to see themselves as separate. 'Tribes' sharing similar cultural attributes came to see each other as ''strangers'', ''enemies'', with each guarding jealously their 'independence'.

The Europeans meanwhile, watched all this with glee, and saw a continent ripe for the taking. Its divisions having made it a perfect hunting ground for slaves and loot.

The Europeans saw the Africans had become so divided that they, the whites, could hire whole armies of blacks from one region to conquer/enslave another group of blacks in another region, and so on.

For them, slavery and colonisation became a cakewalk.

The rest is history.

The main reason for the economic backwardness of Sub-Sahara Africa is a combination of two factors and a very bad timing because the two occurred simultaneously

1 The drying up and the shape of the Sahara desert since the 4th millennium BC made it impossible for people to cross it from North to South and vice versa.Hence the south of the Sahara was inhabited by a section of Humanity who were completely cut off from the rest of the world making geographical diffusion of ideas across the Sahara desert impossible.Note,there were no sea going vehicles then.The only means of traveling was by land.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara#Climate_history

2 Writing started during the 4th millennium BC at the northern part of the Sahara and diffused to other parts of the world since they can be reached by land.About the same time writing started in meso-america making it possible for the Americas to embrace it through geographical diffusion of ideas.But because of reason no (1) above,it was impossible for the southern part of the Sahara to know of and benefit from such development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing#History_of_writing

The main point here is that economic and technological activities could only be as complex as the means of records storage and accurate retrieval that is used.This is still very true today and will continue to be true tomorrow.Sub-Sahara Africa,because of reasons no (1) and (2) above never learned the art of writing (i.e records storage and accurate retrieval) thus economic and technological activities only got as far as the amount of information that our people were able to commit to memory of their brains.

Now, DID THE DRYING UP OF THE SAHARA DESERT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH A "BAD/BLACK" GENE?I guess NO.
DID THE COINCIDENCE OF WRITING STARTING AT A TIME WHEN WE WERE AT A GEOGRAPHICAL DISADVANTAGE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH A "BAD/BLACK" GENE?I guess NO.

Way forward:
The degree of the economic and technological development of a group is directly proportional to the efficiency of it's means of record storage and accurate retrieval i.e information and communication technology.

Food for thought:
Man is more successful than other species on earth simply because our use of language brings a higher efficiency of records storage and retrieval.

@ Rossike:
keep blaming colonisation and while you are at it have a look at hong-kong, singapore, S,korea, malaysia. . .
do i carry on listing? ?  Block head.
And by the way i'd rather live in hackney than your immobile, lawless jungle village of 1 million years old. (older than europe ; stagnating like a sewer)

South Africa has become the largest economy in africa after untold hardship and poverty;
Do you know why? ? ?  Im sure you can answer that question but in case you cant,
it is because [size=18pt]whites[/size] live there.  (go check out where whites dont live in S.A)
(if you think its a coincidence then you are truly an air-headed monkey with delusions of greatness.
(its all in your head, son)

Even if you are going to blame colonization for the next 100 millenia, a question that counters even this excuse is:
why were you being colonised instead of the other way round? ?

Do you know how long humans were in africa b4 they left the continent? ?
Maybe the humans left and left the monkeys behind.
With the magnitude of gap in everything between the west and africa begs the question: Are we really on the same planet? ? (or is it some matrix-type sh.i.t going on. )
If aliens exist and are looking in, the will ask the same question.
(actually we are not in the same world; they are 1st world and africa is what again? ? dumbhead)
Bonehead.

There is nothing like a black African gene.

Do you know about the international HAPMAP project?
A project about the genes of humans around the world in which
the university of Ibadan is a part of it?
99,9% of our genes we all have in common. Blacks, Whites, Yellows, Reds (to say it in colours)
and the remaining 0,1% are different because of climate and thereof resultant different living conditions.

lol

I wonder what they have to say about haiti, lets for one second assume slavery and colonisation really affected africa's advancement and development, but how would you explain Haiti? A country of over 200 years(25 years younger to the U.S), despite its huge mineral resources they are still unable to develop, haba!!!!!, after 200 years. Something isnt just right!!!

@ROSSIKE. Archeological evidence, drawings and the close study of the Egyptian mummies showed that the original Egyptians did not look exactly as the Africans of the sub Sahara. They belonged to a race of their own. Besides the oldest human remains were found around the rift valley of east Africa as opposed to your claim that Africans originated from the north. The Egyptian race and the sub Saharan race of Africa are not the same. The Moses mentioned in the bible who lead the Israelites may have the same resemblance in race with the Egyptians, and that was why he was easily hidden as a young boy among the natives of the Egypt. Therefore you should not use the Egyptians to explain the history of the ''pure'' blacks of Africa which are the focus of this discussion. I am not feeling inferior to other races of the world, but am just in search of the truth of whats wrong with Africans and why they are behind.

@hackney. funny dude

D problem of blackman today is stack ignorance.His inability to understand himself has left him blind to reality,living without intuitions and instinctive imaginations.

hackney said:

@ Rossike:
keep blaming colonisation and while you are at it have a look at hong-kong, singapore, S,korea, malaysia. . .
do i carry on listing? ?  Block head.

If you knew anything beyond your inner-city ghetto convention, you would know that those nations you just listed were deliberately empowered by the US and it allies after WW2 as capitalist bulwarks against encroaching communism. Thus, each of them was heavily financed and flooded with western investment, simultaneous with an unprecedented opening of western markets to their manufactures.

That's really the long and short of the Asian Tiger revolution. None of it would have happened without Washington making it a deliberate policy to make it so. Those nations were just as corrupt and tyrannical (even more so) than any African state in the 50s. Until the west decided to make them world class capitalist outposts.

Now thank me for that lesson, you jobless lemming from Hackney.

And by the way i'd rather live in hackney than your immobile, lawless jungle village of 1 million years old. (older than europe ; stagnating like a sewer)

Far from 'stagnating', the fact is that Africa is developing faster than anywhere else in the world at present. Last year saw a 5.4% rise in GDP in Africa compared to 2.3% in Europe.

http://www.goodnewsafrica.net/2010/01/30/fastest-growing-economies-in-2010-will-be-from-the-african-continent/

Not to mention that far too many places to count in Africa are several notches above your deprived Hackney neighbourhood in terms of wealth, aesthetics, and the class of its inhabitants.

South Africa has become the largest economy in africa after untold hardship and poverty;
Do you know why? ? ?  Im sure you can answer that question but in case you cant,
it is because whites live there.

Firstly, South Africa was the largest economy in Africa even under apartheid, having enjoyed for a century prior, the sort of western investment, education, and access to western markets other African nations could only dream of.

After the racist regime was toppled in 1991, black people began to manage the country and its economy. In their 22 years of leadership of that country, blacks have shown that they are more than capable of managing an advanced economy, by seeing South Africa NOT stagnate, as many claimed it would under black rule, but rather, TRIPLING the size of its economy, with the black majority now increasingly empowered.

The success of black-ruled South Africa puts a lie to your racism and hatred of blacks. (At this point I don't even believe you are a black person, since you use the term 'monkey' against blacks so liberally. If you were black that would be odd, as it means you're also denouncing both yourself and your parents and siblings as monkeys, the height of self hatred.)

(go check out where whites dont live in S.A)

Whites appropriated virtually all the wealth of S.A during apartheid, leaving the blacks with nothing. It's no surprise they would live in nice neighbourhoods, or are you really as dumb and ignorant as you sound?

Even if you are going to blame colonization for the next 100 millenia, a question that counters even this excuse is:
why were you being colonised instead of the other way round? ?

Here's another way to look at it. Why does there have to be anyone colonising anyone else?

Do you realise that colonialism is  in effect, 'legalised' robbery and theft of another's land and resources?

Instead of asking why Africans should not be robbers and thieves, why not ask why the whites felt the need to steal, kill, and rob millions of their resources, culture and livelihoods just so that they can live like lords?

Do you have any humanity or conscience in you or are you just a snarling, thoughtless beast?

With the magnitude of gap in everything between the west and africa begs the question: Are we really on the same planet? ? (or is it some matrix-type sh.i.t going on.        )
If aliens exist and are looking in, the will ask the same question.
(actually we are not in the same world; they are 1st world and africa is what again? ? dumbhead)
Bonehead.

The ''gap between Africa and the west'' is not unique to Africa, and neither is it unbridgeable. 

The west itself are not infallible, much as you regard them as ''gods''. All it takes for their entire structure to come crashing down is a nuclear war, or environmental catastrophe - both would have occurred due to western thoughtlessness, greed, stupidity, selfishness, and lack of philosophical depth.

Brownteeth:

@ROSSIKE. Archeological evidence, drawings and the close study of the Egyptian mummies showed that the original Egyptians did not look exactly as the Africans of the sub Sahara. They belonged to a race of their own. Besides the oldest human remains were found around the rift valley of east Africa as opposed to your claim that Africans originated from the north. The Egyptian race and the sub Saharan race of Africa are not the same. The Moses mentioned in the bible who lead the Israelites may have the same resemblance in race with the Egyptians, and that was why he was easily hidden as a young boy among the natives of the Egypt. Therefore you should not use the Egyptians to explain the history of the ''pure'' blacks of Africa which are the focus of this discussion. I am not feeling inferior to other races of the world, but am just in search of the truth of whats wrong with Africans and why they are behind.

You don't know what you're talking about. Africa is home to blacks of all shades of black, from the Hausa to the Igbo, and from the Ethiopian to the Somalian and the Zulu. All are unmixed BLACK AFRICANS.

To assert that the Egyptians ''belonged to a race of their own'' is truly the height of idiocy, as every people on earth belong to a race which can be identified and defined.

There is no ''unique'' race of people on earth. The history of Egypt shows the founders of its civilization were black Africans who came from the interior. The ancient Greek visitors to Egypt described the people they saw there as blacks. The name the Egyptians called their country was Kemet (the black nation). They called themselves Kemmui (those of the black nation, or ''the negroes literally'', according to Prof Cheikh Anta Diop.)



Here is more knowledge, IF YOU REALLY WANT TO LEARN:


In ancient Greece, all Africa south of the Sahara was referred to as ''Ethiopia''. Here is what the ancient Greeks, many of whom visited Egypt wrote about what they saw:


Ancient Text Source (Primary):


Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. From his own statements we learn that he traveled in Egypt around 60 BC. His travels in Egypt probably took him as far south as the first Cataract.

"They (the Ethiopians) say also that the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians, Osiris ["King of Kings and God of Gods] having been the leader of the colony . . . they add that the Egyptians have received from them, as from authors and their ancestors, the greater part of their laws."

Diodorus's declared intention was to trace the origins of the cult of Osiris, and much of Book 3 of the Bibliotheka Historica is devoted to the intertwined histories of Osiris and the god-favored Ethiopians whom he believed to be the originators of Egyptian civilization. 

(1st century B.C., Diodorus Siculus of Sicily, Greek historian and contemporary of Caesar Augustus, Universal History Book III. 2. 4-3. 3)


Diodorus devoted an entire chapter of his world history, the Bibliotheke Historica, or Library of History (Book 3), to the Kushites ["Aithiopians"] of Meroe. Here he repeats the story of their great piety, their high favor with the gods, and adds the fascinating legend that they were the first of all men created by the gods and were the founders of Egyptian civilization, invented writing, and had given the Egyptians their religion and culture. (3.3.2).

"Now they relate that of all people the Aithiopians [Ethiopians] were the earliest, and say that the proofs of this are clear. That they did not arrive as immigrants but are the natives of the country and therefore rightly are called authochthonous is almost universally accepted. That those who live in the South are likely to be the first engendered by the earth is obvious to all. For as it was the heat of the sun that dried up the earth while it was still moist, at the time when everything came into being, and caused life, they say it is probable that it was the region closest to the sun that first bore animate beings".
[160,000-year-old fossilized skulls uncovered in Ethiopia are oldest anatomically modern humans.]

Diodorus continues:

"They further write that it was among them that people were first taught to honor the gods and offer sacrifices and arrange processions and festivals and perform other things by which people honor the divine. For this reason their piety is famous among all men, and the sacrifices among the Aithiopians are believed to be particularly pleasing to the divinity."

[b]"The Aithiopians [Ethiopians] say that the Egyptians are settlers from among themselves and that Osiris was the leader of the settlement.The customs of the Egyptians, they say, are for the most part Aithiopian, the settlers having preserved their old traditions. For to consider the kings gods, to pay great attention to funeral rites, and many other things, are Aithiopian practices, and also the style of their statues and the form of their writing are Aithiopian. Also the way the priestly colleges are organized is said to be the same in both nations. For all who have to do with the cult of the gods, they maintain, are [ritually] pure: the priests are shaved in the same way, they have the same robes and the type of scepter shaped like a plough, which also the kings have, who use tall pointed felt hats ending in a knob, with the snakes that they call the asp (aspis) coiled round them."

"There are also numerous other Aithiopian tribes [i.e. besides those centered at Meroe]; some live along both sides of the river Nile and on the islands in the river, others dwell in the regions that border on Arabia [i.e. to the east], others again have settled in the interior of Libya [i.e. to the west]. The majority of these tribes, in particular those who live along the river, have black skin, snub-nosed faces, and curly hair"[/b].

(Diodous Siculus, Bibliotheke, 3. Translated by Tomas Hagg, in Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, vol. II: From the Mid-Fifth to the First Century BC (Bergen, Norway, 1996))
---------------------------------------------------------------


Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) Greek philosopher, scientist, and tutor to Alexander the Great.
Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises.

"Too black a hue marks the coward as witness Egyptians and Ethiopians and so does also too white a complexion as you may see from women, the complexion of courage is between the two."
(Physiognomics, Vol. VI, 812a)

Aristotle makes reference to the hair form of Egyptians and Ethiopians: "Why are the Ethiopians and Egyptians bandy-legged? Is it because the bodies of living creatures become distorted by heat, like logs of wood when they become dry? The condition of their hair supports this theory; for it is curlier than that of other nations, and curliness is as it were crookedness of the hair."
(Physiognomics, Book XIV, p. 317)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The evidence of Lucian (Greek writer, 125 B.C.) is as explicit as that of the previous writers. He introduces two Greeks, Lycinus and Timolaus, who start a conversation:

Lycinus (describing a young Egyptian): "This boy is not merely black; he has thick lips and his legs are too thin . . . his hair worn in a plait behind shows that he is not a freeman."

Timolaus: "But that is a sign of really distinguished birth in Egypt, Lycinus, All freeborn children plait their hair until they reach manhood. It is the exact opposite of the custom of our ancestors who thought it seemly for old men to secure their hair with a gold brooch to keep it in place."
(Lucian, Navigations, paras 2-3)



''There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but little, since several other nations are so too. But further and more especially, on the circumstance that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times.''

(Herodotus, The Histories, Book 2:104)


Stephanus of Byzantium, who is said to represent the opinions of the most ancient Greeks, says:
"Ethiopia was the first established country on the earth, and the Ethiopians were the first who introduced the worship of the Gods and who established laws."

Quoted by John D. Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations, p. 62.



The Western Dilemma:

If Egypt is a dilemma in Western historiography, it is a created dilemma. The Western historians, in most cases, have rested the foundation of what is called "Western Civilization" on the false assumptions, or claim, that the ancient Egyptians were white people. To do this they had to ignore great masterpieces on Egyptian history written by other white historians who did not support this point of view, such as Gerald Massey's great classic, Ancient Egypt, The Light of the World, (1907) and his other works, A Book of the Beginnings and The Natural Genesis. Other neglected works by white writers are Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, by A.H.L. Heeren (1833), and Ruins of Empires, by Count Volney (1787).

In the first chapter of his book, Dr. Diop refers to the Southern African origins of the people later known as Egyptians. Here he is on sound ground with a lot of support coming from another group of neglected white writers. In his book Egypt, British scholar Sir E.A. Wallis Budge says: "The prehistoric native of Egypt, both in the old and in the new Stone Ages, was African and there is every reason for saying that the earliest settlers came from the South." He further states: "There are many things in the manners and customs and religions of the historic Egyptians that suggests that the original home of their prehistoric ancestors was in a country in the neighborhood of Uganda and Punt." (Some historians believe that the biblical land of Punt was in the area known on modern maps as Somalia.)

European interest in "Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization" dates from the early part of the nineteenth century and is best reflected in a little known, though important, paper in German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius' Incomparable Survey of the Monumental Ruins in the Ethiopian Nile Valley in 1842-1844. The records found by Lepsius tend to show how Ethiopia was once able to sustain an ancient population that was numerous and powerful enough not only to challenge but, on a number of occasions, to conquer completely the populous land of Egypt. Further, these records show that the antiquity of Ethiopian civilization had a direct link with civilization of ancient Egypt.

Many of the leading antiquarians of the time, based largely on the strength of what the classical authors, particularly Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century B.C.) and Stephanus of Byzantium, had to say on the matter, were exponents of the view that the ancient Ethiopians, or at any rate, the Black people of remote antiquity were the earliest of all civilized peoples and that the first civilized inhabitants of ancient Egypt were members of what is referred to as the Black race who entered the country as emigrants from Ethiopia. A number of Europe's leading writers on the civilizations of remote antiquity have written brilliant defenses of this point of view. Some of these writers are Brice, Count Volney, Fabre, d'Oliver, and Heeren. In spite of the fact that these writers defended this thesis with all the learning at their command and documented their defense, most of the present-day writers of African history continue to ignore their findings.

In 1825, German backwardness in this respect came definitely to an end. In that year, Arnold Hermann Heeren (1760-1842), Professor of History and Politics in the University of Gottengen and one of the ablest of the early exponents of the economic interpretation of history, published, in the fourth and revised edition of his great work Ideen Uber Die Politik, Den Verkehr Und Den Handel Der Vornehmsten Volker Der Alten Weld, a lengthy essay on the history, culture, and commerce of the ancient Ethiopians, which had profound influence on contemporary writers in the conclusion that it was among these ancient Black people of Africa and Asia that international trade was first developed. He thinks that as a by-product of these international contacts there was an exchange of ideas and cultural practices that laid the foundations of the earliest civilizations of the ancient world. Heeren in his researches says: "From the remotest times to the present, the Ethiopians have been one of the most celebrated, and yet the most mysterious of nations. In the earliest traditions of nearly all the more civilized nations of antiquity, the name of this distant people is found. The annals of the Egyptian priests are full of them, and the nations of inner Asia, on the Euphrates and Tigris, have interwoven the fictions of the Ethiopians with their traditions of the wars and conquests of their heroes; and, at a period equally remote, they glimmer in Greek mythology. When the Greeks scarcely knew Italy and Sicily by name, the Ethiopians were celebrated in the verses of their poets, and when the faint gleam of tradition and fable gives way to the clear light of history, the lustre of the Ethiopians is not diminished."


The French writer Constantin-François Volney (1757-1820), in his important work, The Ruins of Empires, extends this point of view by saying that the Egyptians were the first people to "attain the physical and moral sciences necessary to civilized life." In referring to the basis of this achievement he states further that, "It was, then, on the borders of the Upper Nile, among a Black race of men, that was organized the complicated system of worship of the stars, considered in relation to the productions of the earth and the labors of agriculture; and this first worship, characterized by their adoration under their own forms and national attributes, was a simple proceeding of the human mind."

Volney's Ruins; or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires, Boston, J. Mendum, 1869.


The testimony of Flora Shaw, the wife of Lord Lugard, British Governor-General of colonial Nigeria. SHE KNEW THE TRUTH! She wrote about it in her seminal work 'A Tropical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Sudan'


Flora Shaw's (alias Lady Flora Lugard) book is an extraordinary look at the history of Africa, which she gathered from countless sources, and one would imagine a great deal of it came from the British Library and from the archives of The Times of London, for whom she had for many years been the Foreign Political Correspondent. She had always been known to be an intensive researcher into her subject matter, and one wonders at the months and probably years she put into this undertaking, which became the reference work for so many future books on Africa. This book was first published 100 years ago showing the detail and descriptive power, and the greatness that Africa once was. Lady Lugard argues that:

"When the history of Negroland comes to be written in detail, it may be found that the kingdoms lying towards the eastern end of Sudan (classical home of Ancient Ethiopians) were the home of races who inspired, rather than of races who received, the tradition of civilization associated for us with the name of ancient Egypt. For they cover on either side of the Upper Nile between the latitudes of ten degrees and seventeen degrees, territories in which are found monuments more ancient than the oldest Egyptian monuments. If this should prove to be the case and civilized world be forced to recognize in a black people the fount of its original enlightenment, it may happen that we shall have to revise entirely our view of the black races, and regard those who now exist as the decadent representatives of an almost forgotten era, rather than as the embryonic possibility of an era yet to come."

"The fame of the ancient Ethiopians (ancient Kushites) was widespread in ancient history. Herodotus described them as the most beautiful and long-lived of the human races, and before Herodotus, Homer, in even more flattering language, described them as the most just of men, the favorites of the gods. The annals of all the great early nations of Asia Minor are full of them. The Mosaic records allude to them frequently; but while they are described as the most powerful, the most just, and the most beautiful of the human race, they are constantly spoken of as Black, and there seems to be no other conclusion to be drawn than at that remote period of history, the leading race of the Western World was a Black race."

Lady Lugard/Flora Shaw Lugard, Asa G. Hilliard, III, A Tropical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Sudan With an Account of the Modern Settlement of Northern Nigeria, Black Classic Press (1996)


http://wysinger.homestead.com/blackegypt101.html

@Rossike,
Your post was kinda long, so I couldn't quote it, but you have strong points there. Definitely the British left nothing by way of infrastructure in Nigeria post-independence. Which was what I meant by the slavery and colonialism setbacks. We had to build up our own institutions from scratch, which has to be commended by us. I am particularly proud of Nigeria when I go around Africa and see the remnants of colonialism, in the schools, the industries, the social structure, everything. Believe it or not, Nigeria looks like the only thriving black-owned economy in the whole wide world.

My comment about maturity: I believe our current generation of Negroes are collectively suffering from emotional immaturity. That's why we are easily carried away by all these Western propaganda about how our genetics isn't quite right, and we are devils incarnate. The white-is-right mentality, we need to get rid of that, form our own opinions about ourselves, tell ourselves we are good enough, and can be much better, even better than the best.

The Asians endured colonization and discrimination of the worst kind, and now are feared by the rest of the world, hailed as the giants of this era. They ate the poo for as long as it took, shut up, and built their countries and systems. Africans need to shake off the colo-mentality (anything black is bad, anything white is good), and change the way we see the world, and treat each other. We've done well, considering the odds. The real battle is now to move to the next level. Let me end with this quote from Dubois that I particularly like:

Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work — it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.

We should all consider ourselves part of the Talented Tenth, for the fact that we're even debating this topic. Rather than looking for the worst adjectives to call our race, we should be pondering over how to pull our race forward.

AjanleKoko, thanks for that brilliant summation.

John Blaze, instead of wondering why Haiti is not as developed as Switzerland or the USA ''despite being in the western hemisphere'', why don't you read the TRUE history of Haiti here:

http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/headline-Commentary:-History-tells-us-that,-no,-Haiti-should-not-become-a-UN-Protectorate-3725.html

Here's a  taster: Do you realise that Haiti has been paying 90% of its annual income to France from its independence in 1804 right up till 1947, as 'compensation' for denying France her ''slave chattel'', by declaring all the inhabitants of the island free and independent?

Thought not.

Do you know that throughout that 150 year period, France, with the backing of the western powers, forced Haiti to comply with that arrangement on threat of military annihilation by the allies?

Thought not.

Did you realise that France's allies, the USA has sent in its marines ON THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS to overthrow Haiti's only democratically elected leaders?

Thought not.

My guess is I'd end up more than a tad richer than you if you had to pay ME 90% of your income, even as I get my big, powerful friends with huge armies to keep you in line by toppling your elected govts and installing compliant dictators, no?

Surely it wouldn't have anything to do with your GENE, if you ended up picking from garbage heaps in penury would it?

Brownteeth and his co-travellers - Genetics lesson for you. Educate Yourself!!!!

[center][flash=650,400]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyRhEp7P0b8?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash][/center]

Excellent video.

The video in 2.27 to 2.33 suggests that migrating Africans built seaworthy vessels and ships capable of  traversing vast oceans, an incredible 60,000 years ago!

How else could they have landed in Australasia?

Quite amazing.

Can we even build such ships today without looking for some white guy to help us?

Chai.

@rossike
You dont have to result to character assassination to make your point,I didnt insult you when I made my remark, why should you do the same to me?

Please try to be mature when making your case!!!

ROSSIKE:

Excellent video.

The video in 2.27 to 2.33 suggests that migrating Africans built seaworthy vessels and ships capable of  traversing vast oceans, an incredible 60,000 years ago!

How else could they have landed in Australasia?

Quite amazing.

Can we even build such ships today without looking for some white guy to help us?

Chai.

australasians are not Africans, and the distance isnt so far if you consider the fact that melanasians are actually asians, so to speak.

Rossike, I am very impressed with your vast knowledge of history and world affairs. to say brownteeth is daft is an understatement. he is ,

@Rossike:
The reason why africa (nigeria in particular) is very much behind is not due to
lack of natural or human resources.
Do you agree?

If you are clever enough to see that, then what in your opinion is the cause? ?
(hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, the holocaust, the plague, hiroshima &nagasaki bombing? ?)

Would you then not think that its the people? ?
If you blame it on bad leaders, then fair enough but WHY DO WE CONSTANTLY HAVE BAD LEADERS?
(the answer is simple:  it is from  us  and this is across black africa )

I dont want to break it down too much so as not to turn this into a nursery school session.

Attributing the rise of  S.E. asia to only  exposure to uprecedented western markets is foolish.
Nigeria could have and is still capable of allocation equivalent economic help to those areas as the west did after
WW2 so remove wealth from your list of excuses.


Now about human resources. . . . . . .
Infact this is a waste of time.

If you are clever enough to see that, then what in your opinion is the cause?

Good question but it doesn't have to be gene

Would you then not think that its the people? ?
If you blame it on bad leaders, then fair enough but WHY DO WE CONSTANTLY HAVE BAD LEADERS?
(the answer is simple: it is from us and this is across black Africa )

I agree it's our fault, but it has nothing to do with GENE

tpia said:

Excellent video.

The video in 2.27 to 2.33 suggests that migrating Africans built seaworthy vessels and ships capable of  traversing vast oceans, an incredible 60,000 years ago!

How else could they have landed in Australasia?

Quite amazing.

Can we even build such ships today without looking for some white guy to help us?

Chai.


australasians are not Africans

The hell they're not!



The First Australians








[img]http://sundayisforlovers.files./2010/08/australia-aborigines-460.jpg[/img]

and the distance isnt so far if you consider the fact that melanasians are actually asians, so to speak.

The distance isn't 'so far'? 

Are you suggesting the ancestors of these people SWAM hundreds of miles across the Pacific ocean to reach Australia?

This is Brownteeth. I was banned two days ago, so here I am with a new ID.

@Koruji. Am yet to believe that all of humanity came from Africa. And there has been no concrete proof to show that. If they are saying that it was a change in environment that made the blacks who migrated from Africa to other regions of the world to have a white skin, pointed nose, straight hair and all that, Why are the blacks in foreign lands at present not transforming to whites or Asians in their host countries? Saying that blacks transformed to whites is like saying that human beings transformed to monkeys cos the began to spend more time on top of trees. Besides who among us is an eye witness to the black to white transformation? NOBODY!! Forget those stories.


@ROSSIKE. First of all do try to make your comments as short as possible to enable an easy and quick grasp of the message you intend passing across. I think you depend so much on the history books without using your brain to question the things you read. Those things you wrote there may be true but I am still trying to let you know that the Egyptian Africans who played those roles thousands of years are not the same as the Africans we have today spread across Sub Saharan Africa. If actually they were the same, that knowledge of civilization should have been passed to the later generations. But it didn't happen cos when the Europeans visited Africa, Africans were stark illiterates. That knowledge should NEVER have escaped like that. But the fact is those things you mentioned are all history. It's time for us to focus on the present age.

I asked you to explain how the TEACHER EVENTUALLY BECAME AN ILLITERATE AND HAD TO BE MADE LITERATE BY THE STUDENT HE TAUGHT, but you brushed it aside.

Anyway, the main thing is whether Africa ushered in civilization or not, it still doesn't change the fact that Africans are presently backward and the focal question is why are they backward? I think you have been beating about the bush with your history book. This is the question you should answer straight away. Don't tell me slave trade or colonization please because Africans have had enough time to fix the damage.

^^^^

Blackteeth:

This is Brownteeth. I was banned two days ago, so here I am with a new ID.

@Koruji. Am yet to believe that all of humanity came from Africa. And there has been no concrete proof to show that. If they are saying that it was a change in environment that made the blacks who migrated from Africa to other regions of the world to have a white skin, pointed nose, straight hair and all that, Why are the blacks in foreign lands at present not transforming to whites or Asians in their host countries? Saying that blacks transformed to whites is like saying that human beings transformed to monkeys cos the began to spend more time on top of trees. Besides who among us is an eye witness to the black to white transformation? NOBODY!! Forget those stories.


@ROSSIKE. First of all do try to make your comments as short as possible to enable an easy and quick grasp of the message you intend passing across. I think you depend so much on the history books without using your brain to question the things you read. Those things you wrote there may be true but I am still trying to let you know that the Egyptian Africans who played those roles thousands of years are not the same as the Africans we have today spread across Sub Saharan Africa. If actually they were the same, that knowledge of civilization should have been passed to the later generations. But it didn't happen cos when the Europeans visited Africa, Africans were stark illiterates. That knowledge should NEVER have escaped like that. But the fact is those things you mentioned are all history. It's time for us to focus on the present age.

I asked you to explain how the TEACHER EVENTUALLY BECAME AN ILLITERATE AND HAD TO BE MADE LITERATE BY THE STUDENT HE TAUGHT, but you brushed it aside.

Anyway, the main thing is whether Africa ushered in civilization or not, it still doesn't change the fact that Africans are presently backward and the focal question is why are they backward? I think you have been beating about the bush with your history book. This is the question you should answer straight away. Don't tell me slave trade or colonization please because Africans have had enough time to fix the damage.

You are right?It is not colonization. The reason is that all countries of the americas,asia,australasia and africa were colonized by europe but we see all others have fixed the damage done by colonization except africa and a few aboriginal people in australasia.
WHY?
All others had writing (i.e permanent record storage and accurate retrieval) before the colonization. Only africa and a few aboriginal people in australasia lacked it. Africa's doom was tied to the lack of writing.

Civilization as we know it today is directly tied to writing.

If you look at excavated items from pre-writing era from different continents, you will see that there wasn't much difference in the level of civilization from one continent to the other.However,things changed when others benefited from the invention called writing.Sub-sahara africa was geographically cut off from the rest of the world at that time (4th millenium bc) because of the vastness and shape of the sahara desert.Please check out the facts.

@OP, I ask myself the same question sometimes but then I look through history and find that the successful countries became successful through lots of dirt and blood in their hands. It's like a zero sum game nowadays and it's difficult for power to change hands but it's possible.
You need to change your topic title though. That's ridiculous for you to think it has to do with genes  . It's more social, economic, political etc than anything else. genes have nothing to do with it.

ROSSIKE:


The distance isn't 'so far'?  

Are you suggesting the ancestors of these people SWAM hundreds of miles across the Pacific ocean to reach Australia?

You have to consider the fact that 60,000+ years ago, the geography of the world was probably a bit different. ie continents were probably closer to each other etc.
Otherwise, I generally agree with you.

VALIDATOR:

^^^^

You are right?It is not colonization. The reason is that all countries of the americas,asia,australasia and africa were colonized by europe but we see all others have fixed the damage done by colonization except africa and a few aboriginal people in australasia.
WHY?
All others had writing (i.e permanent record storage and accurate retrieval) before the colonization. Only africa and a few aboriginal people in australasia lacked it. Africa's doom was tied to the lack of writing.

Civilization as we know it today is directly tied to writing.

If you look at excavated items from pre-writing era from different continents, you will see that there wasn't much difference in the level of civilization from one continent to the other.However,things changed when others benefited from the invention called writing.Sub-sahara africa was geographically cut off from the rest of the world at that time (4th millenium bc) because of the vastness and shape of the sahara desert.Please check out the facts.

I think you have to direct your comment to poster ROSSIKE who is of the opinion that Africans taught writing to the rest of the world. Ask him how Africans who taught the world how to write eventually forgot how to write and then have to be taught again by the europeans.

oyinda.:

@OP, I ask myself the same question sometimes but then I look through history and find that the successful countries became successful through lots of dirt and blood in their hands. It's like a zero sum game nowadays and it's difficult for power to change hands but it's possible.
You need to change your topic title though. That's ridiculous for you to think it has to do with genes  . It's more social, economic, political etc than anything else. genes have nothing to do with it.

Oyinda, Yes other countries went through lots of dirts and blood, but Africa has already spilt 5 times the blood other countries spilt and its not enough yet. Do they want to spill their entire blood before anything start moving? You are not giving a specifc root by saying its economic and political. My question for you is why haven't we overcome the economic and political obstacle when other countries in Europe and Asia are overcoming the obstacle? Whats the reason?

Blackteeth:

Oyinda, Yes other countries went through lots of dirts and blood, but Africa has already spilt 5 times the blood other countries spilt and its not enough yet. Do they want to spill their entire blood before anything start moving? You are not giving a specifc root by saying its economic and political. My question for you is why haven't we overcome the economic and political obstacle when other countries in Europe and Asia are overcoming the obstacle? Whats the reason?

oops. my trick didn't work huh 
ok. i'll tell you the truth. It's like this:   Anglo-Saxons > Jews> Asians> Arabs> Latin Americans> Native Americans > Mixed blacks > blacks.
yup. you are genetically cursed. nothing we can do about it.

now go to bed.

@colonialism theory supporters,
We can't blame it on colonialism,if we consider the fact that sub-saharan african empires often waged wars,colonized and enslaved one another long before europeans came on board.

All through human history,the strong eat the food and the weak eat the crumbs.And if there is no more food,the strong eat the weak. It's really no big deal. The question of this topic is "why is/was africa the weak being eaten by the strong "

The reason why Africans are the most underdeveloped in the world today is because we are the most heterogeneous people on the planet. Africa needs to move towards being a more homogeneous society.
A major study was founded by Jewish Professor Robert Putnam from Harvard University, showing that heterogeneous  societies are very stressful, and dysfunctional. People tend to disengage socially, huddle together, and avoid each other.
What is a homogeneous society? A homogeneous society is such a society where most of the people share the same types of cultural values, language, ethnicity and religious system.
Homogeneity comes to a society in a number of ways-ethnically (as is the case with the Japanese), religiously (many Arab nationals), culturally (Indians), politically (communism China) etc.
The question now is, what does Africa need to do to be a more homogeneous society?

Not all Africans are dummies.

We have great Africans who have even beaten the Europeans in the sciences like Prof. Green Nwankwo and Dr J E Kwegyir Aggrey.

“My people of Africa, we were created in the image of God, but men have made us think that we are chickens, and we still think we are, but we are eagles. Stretch forth your wings and fly! Don’t be content with the food of chickens”

–Dr J E Kwegyir Aggrey.

"Our destinies are not in the stars, but in our own hands."

~ Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

Blackteeth said:

@ROSSIKE. First of all do try to make your comments as short as possible to enable an easy and quick grasp of the message you intend passing across.

I'm afraid you do not dictate the length of posts here. You need to take the time and engage your brain to read what I post, or don't bother.

I think you depend so much on the history books without using your brain to question the things you read.

You mean by rewriting the history to conform to your African deficiency theory?

Those things you wrote there may be true but I am still trying to let you know that the Egyptian Africans who played those roles thousands of years are not the same as the Africans we have today spread across Sub Saharan Africa. If actually they were the same, that knowledge of civilization should have been passed to the later generations. But it didn't happen cos when the Europeans visited Africa, Africans were stark illiterates.

First of all, Africans were not ''stark illiterates'' when Europeans arrived. Thousands of Africans were educated. Universities existed on the continent.  After the collapse of Egypt following the Arab invasion, Islam and Arabic became the cultural vehicles of progress in the Nile Valley and beyond. Africans with proximity to this dispensation became part and parcel of that new world. The Timbuktu Manuscripts, several hundred thousand volumes of written text covering science to astronomy, architecture to religion, and dated from at least the 12th century, are clear evidence that knowledge and education were never extinguished on the African continent, and in fact blossomed, with numerous treatises on medicine, literature, and law written in several African languages by African scholars.

The Arabic script incidentally is little more than a corrupted form of the ancient African writing system of hieroglyphs.

The Arabic script directly came from the Nabatean script, which came from the Aramaic script, which came from the Phonecian script, which came from the African Hieroglyphs of the Nile Valley.

That knowledge should NEVER have escaped like that.

A lot of the old knowledge went underground due to the centuries' long migration and upheavals I earlier posted about. But many priesthoods retained their ancient writing systems, such as the Igbos and Efik, with the Nsibidi script.

In fact during the days of slavery, American slave owners would complain about ''strange inscriptions'' written by the slaves on tombstones of their fallen brethren.

So writing was never totally lost in Africa.

Anyway, the main thing is whether Africa ushered in civilization or not, it still doesn't change the fact that Africans are presently backward and the focal question is why are they backward? I think you have been beating about the bush with your history book.

You sound dumbed down. You can only know if you read. Africans, even today, are really not as ''backward'' as is commonly presented in the media.  Many African states have accomplished reasonable rates of development.

Certainly much more than was left behind by the colonialists.

This is the question you should answer straight away. Don't tell me slave trade or colonization please because Africans have had enough time to fix the damage.

''Africans have had enough time to blah blah blah''. What, 50 years?

You think 50 years is ''more than enough time'' because you are not very thoughtful.

Tell me. Are YOU not an African?

What have YOU done personally to move Africa away from ''backwardness''? Stop projecting your own personal racial insecurities onto ''Africans''. Do YOUR bit and leave the rest to others to do theirs. Afterall today, many Africans work far harder than you to make life better for their fellows, so they by right should be pointing their fingers at YOU, and asking what have YOU done?

Arosa:

The reason why Africans are the most underdeveloped in the world today is because we are the most heterogeneous people on the planet. Africa needs to move towards being a more homogeneous society.
A major study was founded by Jewish Professor Robert Putnam from Harvard University, showing that heterogeneous  societies are very stressful, and dysfunctional. People tend to disengage socially, huddle together, and avoid each other.
What is a homogeneous society? A homogeneous society is such a society where most of the people share the same types of cultural values, language, ethnicity and religious system.
Homogeneity comes to a society in a number of ways-ethnically (as is the case with the Japanese), religiously (many Arab nationals), culturally (Indians), politically (communism China) etc.
The question now is, what does Africa need to do to be a more homogeneous society?

@Arosa,
i quite disagree,
African societies were homogenous before the european colonization of africa. At that time, the level of civilization in africa was far behind that of the rest of the world.
So,the "homogenous" theory is wrong.

@Rosike and Brownteeth,
It's really nice to see guys who are passionate about their believe but you do not have to resolve to insults in order to drive home your points.
We should learn from one another and shift ground if the need be. Who knows?By fusing all our views together,we may just find it and EUREKA !!!

I belief my view (a combo of sahara desert becoming impassable + non-development of writing and accurate retrieval) explains it better but I am still learning a lot from everybody here.Please let's be civil.