BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Today many Africans trek to
Europe and other places to study
and work, but the reverse was
true in the past when other
nationals braced the peril of the
seas and deserts to come to study
in Africa. These included European
intellectual and cultural icons
who sat at the feet of African
masters and went back to their
native lands to spread the light
they had seen from the so-called
"dark continent". They came to
learn the rudiments of science,
mathematics, philosophy and all.
But don't expect to find this in
orthodox history books. Barima
Adu-Asamoa takes us through the
records.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
It is interesting to note that the
ancient Greeks knew much more
about the cultural and racial
identity of Ancient Egyptians than
modern European historians, long
before the coming of the Romans,
Turks and Arabs. The primary aim
of these modern Eurocentric
scholars (modern Arab historians
included) is to completely
expunge black Africans from the
"map of human geography" and
world history. The ideological
position has been, and still is, that
nothing came out of Africa but
powerless, defenceless,
uncivilised, barbaric and primitive
peoples and ideas.
If so, why did the great Greek
philosophers cross the seas and
deserts to study in Africa?
Aristotle, one of the greatest of
Greek philosophers, wrote in
Physiognomonica that "the
Ethiopians and Egyptians are very
black". Herodotus (also a Greek
historian) adds that the ancient
Egyptians had "black skin and
wooly hair". Why then is ancient
Egyptian racial identity critical to
Africa's self appraisal?
The logic, according to European
hegemony, runs like this: To
ascribe one of the world's
greatest civilisations-Ancient
Egypt-to Africans, undermines the
notion of racial superiority
necessary for the
"Maafa" (European and Arab slave
trade in Africa), and its attendant
economic, spiritual and
psychological onslaught. But
Ancient Egypt is prior to Greece as
Greece is prior to Rome, and
Greece is credited with spreading
civilisation in Europe. In his book,
The Significance of African
History, the African-Caribbean
writer, Richard B. Moore, rightly
points our that: "The significance
of African history is shown ... in
the very effort to deny anything
of the name of history to Africa
and the African peoples. For it is
logical and apparent that no such
undertaking [falsifying African
history] would ever have been
carried out, and at such length, in
order to obscure and bury what is
actually of little or no
significance."
There is sufficient evidence that
the distortion of African history
was deliberately planned and
executed, and this has reaped
dividends for the perpetrators.
But to the African, this has led to
a lack of self-confidence and a
can-do-attitude; hence the
restoration of African history
must be a critical component of
an African renaissance.
The African Union should,
therefore, create a restoration
programme of African history and
give it all the necessary
importance. This would imply
that the government of modern
Egypt acknowledges the original
creators of Ancient Egyptian
civilisation and gives them their
due place. It should stop being
party to the denial which has
gone on for so long. Ancient
Egypt was, and still is, the cultural
legacy of black Africans, not Arabs
who were the last invaders of
North Africa.
Indeed when the Muslim General
Amr ibn al-As and his army of
some 4,000 Arabs, ordered by
Caliph Umar to invade Egypt
(December 639AD), was asked
what to do with the sacred
African books found in the
libraries of Alexandria and other
cities, his reply has stood the test
of time: "If its not in the Koran, its
not worthy; if its in the Koran, it
is superfluous; burn it." This
statement would have shamed
the followers of Bilal, the African
companion of Prophet
Mohammed. This implies that
Africa has the moral duty to re-
aculturalise all "foreign" cultural
elements for its own self-
preservation.
https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-187012521/greek-philosophers-who-came-to-africa-to-study

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