The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams - Politics (6) - Nairaland
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| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 11:59pm On Feb 24, 2012 |
[b]III. Kings, Chiefs and Elders are leaders, not rulers . They are the elected representatives of the people and the instruments for executing their will. IV . Government and people are one and the same . V. The family is recognized as the primary social, judicial, economic and political unity in the society ; the family council may function as a court empowered to try all internal (non-serious) matters involving only members of the Extended Family Group . VI. The Elder of each Extended Family or Clan is its chosen representative on the Council . VII. Decisions in council are made by the Elders . The Chief or King must remain silent. Even when the Council's decision is announced, it is through a Speaker (Linguist) . Decrees or laws are issued in the same manner to assure that the voice of the Chief or King is the "voice of the people ." (This is an example of a provision that had wide variations .) VIII . The land belongs to no one . It is God's gift to mankind for use and as a sacred heritage, transmitted by our forefathers as a bond between the living and the dead, to be held in trust by each generation for the unborn who will follow, and thus to the last generation . IX. Each family, therefore, has a right to land, free of charge, sufficient in acreage for its economic well-being ; for the right to the opportunity and means to make a living is the right to live . (a) The land, accordingly, cannot be sold or given away . (b) The land may be held for life and passed on to the family's heirs, and so on forever . (c) The Chief is the Custodian of all land, the principal duty being to assure fair distribution and actual use . X. All moneys, gifts, taxes and other forms of donations to Chief or King still belong to the people for relief or aid to individuals in times of need. XI. Every methber of the state has the right of appeal from a lower to higher court . (In some states appeals could be taken even from the King's Court to the "Mother of the Nation ."  (a) The procedure was from the Chiefs Village Court to the District Court, to the Provincial Court, to the King's Court . (b) Such appeals were allowed in serious or major crimes only (those affecting the whole society) .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 12:01am On Feb 25, 2012 |
[b]XII . Fines for offenses against an individual went to the victim, not the court . (a) Part of the money received from the loser was returned to him as an expression of goodwill and desire for renewal of friendship . (b) Another part was given as a fee to the trial court as an appreciation of justice . XIII . "Royalty" in African terms means Royal Worth, the highest in character, wisdom, sense of justice and courage . (a) He who founded the nation by uniting many as one must be the real leader, guide and servant of his people . (b) The people, in honor of the founder of the nation, thereafter will elect Chiefs from the founder's family (lineage) if the heirs meet the original test that reflected the Founder's character, whose spirit was supposed to be inherited . XIV. The trouble of one is the trouble of all . No one may go in want while others have anything to give . All are brothers and sisters . Each is his "brothers' or sisters' keeper ." XV. Age grades, sets, and classes are social, economic, political and military systems for (1) basic and advanced traditional education (formal) ; (2) individual and group responsibility roles ; (3) police and military training ; (4) division of labor ; (5) rites of passage and social activities . In chiefless societies the age grades are the organs of social, economic and political action . XVI. Bride Price or Bride Wealth is the gift that signifies mutual acceptance on the part of both families and is intended as a family security bond which may be returned in part if the wife turns out to be worthless or utterly unsatisfactory . (Bride Wealth tended to stabilize the institution of marriage . This was not "wife-buying ." XVII. The community as a whole is conceived of as One Party, opposition being conducted by leaders of various factions . (1) Factions of opposition are usually formed by the different agegroups : (2) Debates may go on indefinitely or until a consensus is reached . (3) Once a consensus is reached, and the community's will determined, all open opposition to the common will must cease . (4) Those whose opposition is so serious that they are unwilling to accept the new law may "splinter off' either individually or in groups under a leader (to form a new state or the nucleus for it) .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 12:02am On Feb 25, 2012 |
[b]XVII. In warfare the object is not to kill the enemy, but to overcome him with fear, if possible, such as screaming war cries, loud noise, hideously masked faces, etc . Where killing is unavoidable it must be kept at a minimum . In cae of defeat there must be some kind of ruse to enable the enemy to retire in honor . XIX. The African religion, not being a creed or "articles of faith," but an actual way of thinking and living, is reflected in all institutions and is, therefore, of the greatest constitutional significance . (1) Politically, the role of the Chief as High Priest who presents the prayers of the people to his and their ancestors in Heaven, is the real source of his influence, political or otherwise . (2) Socially, the "rites of passage," songs, and the dances (to drive away evil, etc .), as well as the purification and sacrificial rites for the atonement of sins-are important . XX . Since religious and moral law must prevail and the race survive, a man may have more than one wife ; for he is forbidden to sleep or cohabit with his wife either during the nine months of pregnancy or during the suckling period of one or two years thereafter . (1) The wife may not prepare meals for the husband or family during the menstrual period. (2) The husband is strictly forbidden to have any kind of relationship with one wife during the set period that belongs to another wife . XXI. The supreme command of the fighting forces is under the Council, not the King. If the King becomes the Commander-in-Chief, it is through election by the Council because of his qualification as a general or field commander . This position ends with the war and the armed forces return to former status under the Council or, more directly under the respective Paramount chiefs . There were no standing armies .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 12:04am On Feb 25, 2012 |
[b]THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE AFRICAN PEOPLE The following is a representative number of human rights, also drawn from customary laws or tradition constitutions : Every member of the community had - (1) The right to equal protection of the law . (2) The right to a home . (3) The right to land sufficient for earning livelihood for oneself and family . (4) The right to aid in times of trouble . (5) The right to petition for redress of grievances . (6) The right to criticize and condemn any acts by the authories or proposed new laws . (Opposition groups, in some areas called "The Youngmen," were recognized by law .) (7) The right to reject the community's final decision on any matter and to withdraw from the community unmolested-the right of rebellion and withdrawal . (8. The right to a fair trail . There must be no punishment greater than the offense, or fines beyond ability to pay . This latter is determined by income and status of the individual and his family . (9) The right to indemnity for injuries or loss caused by others . (10) The right to family or community care in cases of sickness or accidents . (11) The right to special aid from the Chief in circumstances beyond a family's ability . (12) The right to a general education covering morals and good manners, family rights and responsibilities, kinship groups and social organization, neighborhoods and boundaries, farming and marketing, rapid mental calculation, and family, clan, tribal and state histories . (13) The right to apprentice training for a useful vocation . (14) The right to an inheritance as defined by custom . (15) The right to develop one's ability and exercise any developed skills .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 12:08am On Feb 25, 2012 |
[b](16) The right to protect one's family and kinsmen, even by violent means if such becomes necessary and can be justified . (17) The right to the protection of moral law in respect to wife and children -a right which not even the king can violate . (18) The right of a man, even a slave, to rise to occupy the highest positions in the state if he has the requisite ability and character . (19) The right to protection and treatment as a guest in enemy territory once one is within the gates of the enemy's village, town or city. (20) And the right to an equal share in all benefits from common community undertakings if one has contributed to the fullest extent of his ability, no matter who or how many were able to contribute more . *** These constitutional principles and practices were held on to and carried by the migrating Blacks to every part of the African continent . This fact is one of the most remarkable parts of the black man's storymost remarkable because even those societies that sank to barbarism held on to the fundamentals age after age as though they were clutching the last threads of life itself. Even in Egypt, where the Asian and European impact was greatest, African constitutionalism could not be completely blotted out .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 12:11am On Feb 25, 2012 |
''. . . We have come over a way that with tears have been watered . . . We have come treading our way through the blood of the slaughtered . . .'' The Scattering of the People : Routes to Death and Resurrection To be continued, |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 1:59pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]The Scattering of the People : Routes to Death and Resurrection THE AFRICAN MIGRATIONS HAVE BEEN STRESSED AT VARIOUS points as one of the major developments from which so much can be learned about the history of the black people . The migrations explain many things . They were people in perpetual movements . The movements were human tragedies spanning too many milleniums . It was noted that the great pressures on the Africans actually began in prehistoric times and that the pressures that uprooted so many settled communities came from two principal agents of destruction : the slow and relentless incursions of oceans of sand and the slow and relentless incursions of Asian hordes . The Europeans, coming later, accelerated the movements . MIGRATIONS AS CULTURE DECLINES The migrations were of many different kinds, and so much so that the overall description of them is often misleading . There was no general, continuous flight of people, here and there all over the continent . Some of the movements were so slow and lim .ted in space that one might hesitate to call them migrations . These were the groups that moved only a relatively short distance each time and as a whole, never left their[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:01pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]general area . After a hundred years such groups might not be more than a hundred miles from their traditional home after several generations . Even in the cases of those who migrated farthest, the movement had been slow, slow because the whole movement was forced, every breakup a painful uprooting of communities that had been built on hopes and dreams of a permanent abode . Every move was a search for still another abode where land and water could support life and security could assure another chance of survival . These slowmoving migrations were mentioned in the discussion of geographical influences . There were also the better known migrations that erupted and moved south, east and west like tidal waves . These occurred as the result of the many Asian and European invasions and conquests . They . were further accelerated by the new turn in the institution of slavery from the seventh century A .D ., onward . At a much later period, after the sixteenth century, black marauding groups such as the Jaga and the Ngoni added to the turmoil and disorganization . It is quite clear that the waves of Blacks that spread over Africa in these migrations came mainly from the area where black concentration was greatest and the attacks on that concentration persevered relentlessly. This area of black concentration of population was the ancient Ethiopian Empire which I have described as the "Heartland of the Race"-the motherland with a civilization that, despite the Asian invasions, still included all Upper Egypt in 3100 B.C ., and extended southward over the Sudan across Abyssinia . But everywhere the people from the birthplace of black civilization wandered they found, almost without exception, people already settled, some having preceded them by decades or centuries, and others who had been there, according to their ancestors' story, "since the beginning of time ." Such, for example, was the tradition of the Kete and Cwa people in Central Africa . The inter-tribal wars and the intense tribalism that developed from them are among the fateful outcomes cited in connection with the migrations . I have stated a number of times that, inevitably, there were non- Blacks in the migrations as they were, in one way or another, integrated with Africans and participated with them in other developments . This meant that there were always a number of predominantly black groups with some Asians and Mulattoes who were as loyal to the race as any Black . This is the kind of fact that blasts any attempt to indict a whole people or put them into a single category . Human beings simply refuse[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:04pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]to be generalized into neat categories . In ancient times and even later there were Caucasians who regarded the Blacks as superior people . The question about inherent inequality they would have thought absurd to entertain . The Greeks, who seemed to have studied the advanced civilization of the Blacks more than any other white people, were first among this group . There were, therefore, always Caucasians who were affectionately drawn to the Blacks as by some magic . When recognized as genuine by the Blacks, the esteem became mutual and such Caucasians became an integral part of some black groups . These were not the Caucasians, Asians or Western, who infiltrated black societies for domination and future conquests . These were the Caucasians, albeit, a small minority, who stayed with the Blacks and fought shoulder to shoulder with them against their own kind, retreated with them in defeat, and were, therefore, a part of the migrations . I have also emphasized that not all of the mixed breeds, whether Afro-Arab or Afro-European, deserted the Blacks for the whites . For a while the majority did cleave to the race of their fathers, the devotion of the minority to the race of their mothers seemed to be so spiritual in nature that it more than overshadowed the white-worshiping half-whites . WHITE SCHOLARS AS AUTHORITIES And what has all this to do with the migrations? The answer is "almost everything ." Much of the history of Africa has been written by anthropologists . They have written it within the theoretical framework of their own ethnology ; and historians and others have relied almost entirely on their classification of peoples . The usual claim that the history is a science is made despite the amount of pure guessing that characterizes its conclusions . Racism is so obvious in most of the anthropological findings that one may wonder how, if they hope to maintain the fiction of being scientific, it could escape their notice . It has been suggested that their bias does not in fact go unnoticed, but that they are so certain of the favorable reception by the white audience to which they address themselves that what others outside of that world think is a matter of consequence . These latter do not supply the millions that support their African studies . The main thrust of their findings is to make Africa Caucasian from the beginning of its history, and to give the Blacks not just a subordinate role but no significant role at all in that history . Hence their great emphasis on (1) the "Caucasoid" identity of this or that African tribe and, (2) failing that, in a highly advanced all[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:06pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]black situation where no such classification could be made, to allege Caucasian influence in one way or another . This record does not require debate . It meets the eyes in most of the books by these "Africanist" experts . There should be no confusion over "Negroid" types or "Caucasoid" types where there was such a widespread mixing of races as was the case in Africa, as elsewhere, from the earliest times . It becomes even more ridiculous when it is established that certain Caucasians have "Negroid" features without the benefit of having any "Negro" blood and, conversely, many of the blackest of the Blacks have physical characteristics which are supposed to belong to Caucasians only . In line with their presumption in taking over the continent and reordering its racial composition, the anthropologists and their historian followers have declared that the "true Negroes" (Black Africans) are concentrated in West Africa only! With one wave of the magic wand in their all-powerful, "scientific" hand, they changed the biblical story that the black race descended from Ham through his son, Cush . The plain fact that the Land of Cush was ancient Ethiopia itself and that the Cushites (Kushites) were Blacks was simply ignored, and Cushites were reclassified as Caucasians! The whites and half-whites who were allied with black groups and migrated with them are singled out as the determining elements in whatever the groups achieved, even in the planting of crops and irrigation techniques . The Asiatic Caucasians who are known to have settled along the northern and eastern coasts of Africa even in pre-historic times are now being presented as the indigenous inhabitants . That archaeologists would find "Caucasoid" types centuries old in any of these areas should be taken as a simple matter of course . Nor would I think it surprising if excavations discovered Caucasoid skeletons several thousand years old anywhere in Africa . The same unshocked attitude is maintained when "Negroid" types were discovered on the British Isles . Indeed, "Negroid" remains have been found in other places in Europe and distant lands where no Blacks were known to have lived, not to mention the millions known to have settled outside of Africa . Therefore, instead of postulating a theory of history that, on the basis of a few skeletal remains, a whole people inhabited an area first, it would be more sensible to conclude that members of this or that race certainly had visited or settled in the area in the long ago, some dying there, away from their own native land . But suppose they did come as permanent settlers, such as the Dutch in South Africa and the British in Rhodesia? The whites of South Africa are not waiting for the certain verdict of anthropologists and historians in their favor . They[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:08pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]already claim to be the original inhabitants, saying, as George Peter Murdock and his school proclaim, that "the Africans came into the land later ." A thousand years hence there will be no dearth of Caucasoid remains in Africa . I just referred to George Peter Murdock . All through these discussions I have been unsparing in my criticism of "Caucasoid" scholarship at various points . I have, in effect, accused them of the subtle thievery of the achievements of an important division of the human race - deliberate and unconscionable . To understand the basis for this criticism, one need not match my labor by wading through over a hundred books by them. One good example of all that I have been saying in this connection will suffice . That example is Murdock's Africa-Its People and Their Culture. For here is another one of those works which is replete with all the trappings of profound scholarship, bearing, as all such works invariably do, the mark of scientific objectivity . Yet from beginning to end, Murdock maintains his central theme : Africans are not in fact Africans ; black civilization was not in fact black civilization ; countless "peoples" thought to be "Negroes" by many, such as the Bushmen, the Masai, Kushites, Pygmies, even the Bantu, etc ., are of "Caucasoid" origins . And while his own account of migrations often contradicts his main thesis, this, I suppose, he dismisses as simply unavoidable . He was at his racist best in a specious and rather amusing argument that attempted to prove that even the Azanians were not black . Is it not significant that so many white writers spend so much time and energy trying to make this or that person or group non-African? Certain direct consequences of the migrations will not be fully understood unless the many centuries they slowly covered are kept in mind . The development and spread of the numerous languages, dialects, separate and independent small city-states from which varieties of culture patterns inevitably emerged, these outcomes highlight the factors of segmentation in the decline of advanced black institutions . But migrations from the first centers of black culture in the Sudan and Egypt had beneficial results also . The migrants were a new kind of missionaries . They carried whatever they could of their advanced civilization wherever they went, and they carried it far and wide . The backward groups that had been living far away from the centers of progress were the beneficiaries . An economic revolution occurred in areas where the Nile migrants not only brought new grain crops but also new implements and farming techniques . They also spread the gospel of industrial production through the expansion of crafts and their organization into guilds . The greatest of these was iron,[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:17pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]for iron, all by itself, created the greatest industrial revolution in Africa and became at once both the catalyst and foundation of the new state formations and expansions of power . It like manner, basic African institutions, such as the traditional consitutional and social systems, were reinforced by the migrations from the Heartland . And while many of these basic institutions were influences and modified by Islam and Christian Europe, they all remained so unyielding at the core that they can be studied today almost as directly as they could have been five thousand years ago . There is another fact in this connection that is not pointed out often and never stressed . We generally speak glibly enough about Asian and Western influence on Black Africa, but seldom about the influence of Africa on Asian and Western institutions . The process of Africanization began at once whenever and wherever the Blacks came in contact with foreign institutions. Both Islam and Christianity had to yield to Africanization . Even auotcratic sultans and emirs, allpowerful in Asia, clashed head-on with the constitutional role of the Council in Africa and had to yield . The religions that spread most rapidly and widely were those which were readily adaptable to African cultural patterns . Islam and the Catholic Church led in this, and the Catholic Church outdistanced every other Christian denomination in growth . A large volume should be written on ne African influence on both Asian and Western civilization since that influence, began in ancient times, was not limited to Caucasians on the African continent, but was carried to other lands by migrating whites who themselves had been Africanized . African values did not die even among the millions of slaves who were transplanted to distantlands . In the United States where the system to stamp out every vesige of black culture was most thoroughgoing and relentless, African traditions persisted and influenced not only the white slave-owning class, but the course of American civilization itself. The historical significance of the movement of people, no matter under what circumstances can hardly be overemphasized . We have seen how and why the flight of Blacks from the Sudan increased as the Arab hordes continued to sweep in during the 13th century and Islamization was more aggressvely pushed. To many blacks[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:34pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]leaving the homeland what was happening was far worse than the sight of their cities, towns and villages going up in flames . For now they saw their very own leaders, kings and other notables, divesting themselves of a tradition of civilization that went back beyond history into paleolithic times and, for expediency or self-interest, were humbly grasping at the robes of the Arabs, their language and their religion . Their leaders on the throne were no longer Africans or Ethiopians . They were now of still another race: They were black Arabs! So it did not matter at all that new states were forming under black Arab rule . The Arabs not only tolerated these black Muslim rulers (sultans and emirs they were now called) but found it expedient to use them as fronts in controlling the remaining black population . The real rulers were the various Arab tribes that were now scattered all over the Sudan. There was a great difference between these new black Muslim states and Funj . For while Funj was also a sultanate in name, it had a long line of black rulers who steadfastly refused to be Arabized even to the extent of accepting Arab names; and even the Arab population knew very well that the Muslim religion of those black sultans was very superficial indeed . The new fringe states of Darfur, Wadai and others under black Muslims offered no place of refuge for those whose very reason for flight was to maintain their own racial identity, dignity and religion . THE SAHARAN TRAGEDY We return to the Sahara again, for here is where the first black migrations began before written history . "Sahara," or wasteland, indicates what it became, not what it was . It was the largest northern region of Bilad as Sudan, the "Land of the Blacks ." Viewing this vast area for at least 5,000 years, it is difficult to believe that it was not forever thus . But the Sahara, far bigger than the United States, was once a land of lakes, rivers, forests, green fields, farms, villages, towns and cities . Wildlife was abundant . Cattle grazed in meadows, and horse-drawn chariots sped over the highways . It was a great land, yet only a part of an even greater black world . We have already noted that this Black African world had been under relentless pressures from the seacoasts by invading whites from the earliest times-Hebrews, Phoenicians, Mongols, Arabs, Berbers, Greeks, Romans, et al . It was also pointed out that it is not without significance that even today most of the invaders occupy the same areas where they first came in-the seacoasts .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:38pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]For centuries these whites must have been received with the traditional African hospitality . They were immigrants, settlers and traders . Many, like the early Blacks themselves, were seafaring men . That the Blacks were once among the most adventurous of peoples is evidenced not only by the presence of their descendants in many lands and numerous far flung lands, but also by archaeological remains found in various parts of Europe . It seems clear, therefore, that the whites were not regarded as invaders with ulterior motives, but as co-partners in the further development of world trade . There was no obvious reason to think otherwise . No particular significance was seen in the fact that the whites always massed along the seacoasts and built their towns and trading-post strongholds there . The Blacks were also in these same coastal areas . There was a general mixing or amalgamation of the races, also, from the earliest times . In this area the offsprings of Blacks and white Berbers and Arabs became known as Moors, Tuaregs, Tippu and the Fulani . Like Afro-Americans, they were of every conceivable complexion, some of the whitest having "Negro blood ." The scientists on Africa, however, classify even the dark-skinned in these groups as "Caucasoid ." It does not appear that any black prophets came forth to warn the trusting African people that over three million square miles of their fertile land would be made a vast wasteland by the slowly moving sandstorms from the north, or that, even fleeing, their very lives would likewise be made a vast wasteland by the "white storms" from the seacoast . The sandstorms, at first, began their long and relentless rampage over hundreds of miles, but only as previous deforesting and the disappearance of grassland made this easy . The desiccation began far back in time, probably during a period well after Quatenary times began . No one knows now long that awful process of drying up lakes and rivers lasted . What is crystal clear is that during the ensuing migrations the Blacks made their greatest and most tragic error . It was an error to be fraught with the direst historical consequences for the whole black race . Instead of moving en masse to the seacoasts and maintaining the dominant position there, which they could have done easily, they moved en masse toward the interior, first to the remaining oases in the desert and then into Northern and Southern Ethiopia (Egypt and the Sudan), and to the south, central and western regions . The Berbers, Arabs and their Afro-Asian offsprings (Moors, Tuaregs, etc.) now firmly held the entire northern, northwestern and eastern[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:40pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]seaboard of Africa . This tremendous victory of the white man was not achieved by conquest . It was achieved by default on the part of a race too preoccupied with the immediate present and less with its future, a race whose centuries of blind trust in the white man surpassed all understanding . One might say that in surrendering all of their coastal areas to the Asians and Mulattoes (apparently without a fight except in the case of Lower Egypt) that the Blacks not only sealed themselves off from world commerce and general international relations, but they also, at the same time, sealed their own fate to be a surrounded, hemmed-in hunting ground for slaves . The pattern for Egypt and Axum was clear cut . Their story was already outlined early enough and so clearly that even the blind could not be unaware of the shape of things to come . That shape emerged in their present : The whites were aggressive, always relentlessly pushing for the command position in every situation, no matter how small their number or how insignificant the project ; the Blacks, by contrast, were not so aggressive, tending toward the brotherhood approach, and generally striking only in retaliation for prior wrongs done . This overall humane and essentially religious attitude of 'the Blacks led Arnold Toynbee to say that mankind may have to emulate them if civilization is to be saved . This is hardly a compliment in a world where the very meaning of civilization is lost . In the face of the Caucasian will to power and domination, this religion of meekness is a tacit surrender to the permanent overlordship of the aggressive and the strong . This is the testimony of history . And perhaps this is why I have always been puzzled by the declaration of Jesus Christ that the meek would inherit the earth . Did he mean the grave? The "pattern" referred to above developed from the fact that countless thousands of Blacks did not migrate anywhere but remained among the Asians . They gradually became the lowest class in the society, although there was some mobility or escape .routes. The Berbers and Arabs constituted the upper class and ruling group ; next came the Afro- Berbers and Afro-Arabs (Mulattoes), also classified as white, but in a class below whites ; and finally there were the still lower class of Blacks and, strangely enough, all Berbers, Arabs and mixed breeds who chose to cast their lot with the Blacks and share their destiny . I said "strangely enough," but there was really nothing strange about it . It was simply a human situation . A part of the explanation was that out of centuries of intermarriages there had developed a network of family and kinship relationships . But it meant much more than these kinship ties . These whites and half-whites, admittedly a small minority, nevertheless did not have to have themselves classified as Blacks, giving up the open[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:42pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]opportunity to direct power, fame and fortune . Like the majority of whites and half-whites with similar ties to the Blacks, they could have easily cut those ties and even denied that any ties ever existed . That was the easy way, the self-serving and expedieiat way . They refused to take it and chose to share all the hardships of the Blacks . I dwell on this because here -we catch a fleeting glimpse of the progress of the human spirit as it emerged on a plane above the rewards of materialism and self-interest. I dwell on it because wherever this small group exists in,a world gone mad with greed, there will remain some faint hope for a more humane world in the next 1,000 years . Social and economic mobility came from the circumstances that the Blacks made up the strongest contingents of the Berber and Arab armies. Some became commanders, others became chief counselors to sultans . Most males were castrated, however, or removed from possible contact with all females . An equally significant group was the labor force of enslaved Blacks . These were highly important because they relieved the white Asians from all labor . The Blacks who were skilled craftsmen in various fields fared better since they were generally spared from the whip. The plight of the Blacks in white-dominated areas, including their enslavement, would have been different if the masses had not scattered in small groups over the tractless Sahara, the Nile Valley, Ethiopia and other regions of the continent . The others referred to were the Blacks who remained where they were as their once vast and fertile homeland slowly turned into a Sahara, or wasteland . Geologists, archaeologists and other specialists have all advanced various theories to explain the great mystery of the transforming Sahara . We need not retell their interesting story here, for every explanation seems to project still another puzzling question (for me, at any rate) . For example, just how did the Albion Sea, a vast inland body of water as large as France, disappear in the Sahara? How many cities and towns lie buried under those mountains of sand and rocks? We know that in a given area all farms, orchards and even villages could be completely covered over with sand in a matter of weeks . The fierce winds whipped up walls of sand and gravel like mountainous ocean waves . Since this region is over 1,000 miles wide and more than 3,000 miles from east to west, most of the people in the interior must have perished with their villages, farms, lakes and rivers . The exceptions were those lucky people whose farms and villages escaped inundation by the moving oceans of sand . In these places of refuge, later called[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:44pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]oases, the otherwise indiscriminate forces of death and destruction did indeed discriminate . Sometimes high walls of sand began to pile up just before reaching these sites, leaving them safely in valleys thus formed . These continued to be the centers of life and hope as the years passed on into our own times . And it is not without significance that two-thirds of the Sahara population today is still Black . Like their ancestors, they continued to be settled communities of farmers and craftsmen, the kind of communities where civilization itself is born. But, also like their ancestors and all other advancing peoples, they were vulnerable to the widely ranging camel-riding Berber and Arab nomads . These tent-dwelling raiders gained absolute control of all the trans-Saharan trade routes . With their kinsmen in control of all the commercial seaports, they had effective control over the economic life of Africa and, therefore, Africa itself. The matter of making that control more complete by raiding and enslaving the Blacks in scattered oasis communities became relatively easy . Direct contacts with Europe and Asia meant the possession of the latest superior weapons which the Blacks were unable to secure-firearms . ETHNOLOGY AND THE MIGRATIONS The great story of the Sahara is yet to be told . Archaeology has hardly scratched the surface beneath which a lost civilization lies buried under several thousand feet of sand and rocks . How far westward did the effective rule of the ancient empire extend? How many kingdoms were there and by what African names were they known? Were the fringe states, such as ancient Ghana, that were found fighting for survival on the edges of the desert, once a part of a vast imperial system? There is some evidence that this may have been the case, but the actual fact remains unknown and speculation becomes an idle pastime . What is known is that the migrations from the Sahara, while heavily concentrated in Upper Egypt and the Eastern Sudan, also spread out over Africa in and through the Western Sudan . I may seem to have overemphasized the ethnic composition of some migrating groups by repeating reference to it . But it is so important that white historians have bypassed it in order to establish a new theory of prehistoric Caucasian occupation of Africa . Have they not found supposedly "Caucasoid" remains and artifacts in different places? According to this theory the whites, in their conquest of Africa were simply returning to their own original homeland . But where, now, is the[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:49pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]homeland of the Blacks? Our "Africanist" experts do not know . Some few, apparently seeing how ridiculous was the corner into which they had painted themselves, suggest that perhaps the Blacks migrated from India, or "somewhere" in Europe! Others undertake to establish Caucasian priority in Africa by excavating structures "which no Negroes could have built ." An example is a prehistoric site in Uganda. They found what seems to have been a wellbuilt fortification of earthwork, reservoirs, dams for irrigation, trenches and pit dwellings . All this indicated the mass organization and skills of a superior people, such as the Sidamo, for example . "Nowhere in East Africa," the author concludes, "are Negro peoples, either Bantu or Nilotic, known to have built structures even remotely comparable to these ."' This, like a thousand similar false statements about Africans, requires no answer . The facts now are well known . But let us not miss the central point in all this . The Sidamo people, cited by this anthropologist as the probable builders of those structures, are themselves Black Africans, as black and as African as are the anthropologist's "Bantu" and "Nilotic" groups . I have lived among all three groups . Some of the people in each . group are of "mixed blood" as a simple matter of course -just as American Blacks are mixed . But in their pathological drive to prevent any concepts of unity from emerging in Africa, Caucasian scholars have •been relentless in dividing the Blacks of Africa into numerous ethnic categories . This grand strategy was designed to make each group feel unique, special and hostile to all other groups . . The development of different languages in the scattered and isolated societies was the most favorable situation for the division of the Blacks and the furtherance of hostility among them . None of this was evil deliberately designed . The writing of the history (or, rather, non-history) of non-Caucasians from a Caucasian viewpoint was a development of relatively recent times . It followed logically from the 19th century theories of social evolution . Racism, the natural byproduct, now had a "scientific" basis, and as such became an integral part of education itself . This is why Western anthropologists have played the dominant role in shaping African history which, from their viewpoint, was the study of "primitive peoples ." The migrations, as we have seen, served their purpose well . -------------------------------------- Notes 1 . Murdock .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:51pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]THE IMPERIALISTS WITH THE PEN The picture becomes clear, however, when we know that the "Black" migrations were not always all black . Some of these were Afro-Asians, some had a few white Asians, other groups were entirely Afro-Berber or Afro-Arab . These often tended to form an independent ethnic group, keeping to themselves. There were also some groups of Berbers and, later, Arabs who migrated from the Sahara to favorable locations in the interior . So, as stated above, since we are here considering the earliest migrations from the Sahara, to find "Caucasoid" remains in any part of Africa today is really without any particular significance . Such finds obviously do not justify the conclusions reached by many writers . But these experts on Africa are not ignorant of the essential facts and outcomes of migrations . This is certainly true of those who have studied the dispersons and the mixing of peoples over the milleniums . They know, but there is apparently a deeply felt need, an urgent and almost desperate compulsion to justify the power position of the white world aver the non-white peoples . That white power is so all-encompassing makes the task of Western scholarship, in particular, easy enough . First of all, they are not only supported by the almost limitless wealth amassed from the exploited peoples of the earth, but they also still ,control, directly or indirectly, the economic life of every black state today . This is equally true of numerous non-African countries, still poor and begging, while their wealth is being drained off to the already rich countries . Secondly, they control world education and science . Scholarship, supported by billions of dollars, far from being independent and "objective," has generally served its masters well, becoming arrogant and overbearing in the process . Their most powerful weapon is a single word, science . Having successfully raised science far above religion in the faith of people generally, they may now present almost any proposition or conclusion as "scientific" and gain wide acceptance . The age has passed when men listened with reverence when it was declared that "Thus saith the Lord ." Now one simply has to say, "according to science . . . " or "most scholars are agreed . . .," etc . Finally, the universities spearheaded the final economic triumph of the West over the rest of the world . Science pushed the partnership of big corporate wealth and big government into exciting fields-of inventions and discoveries . Weapons of universal destruction actually out-distanced the technology of time and space. Who, then, could question. white supremacy? Who dared to challenge viewpoints held by scholars with this awesome array of power behind[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:54pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]them? Certainly nothing coming from the Blacks required any serious consideration . The mind transplant had been most successful as an operation on the Blacks . Having lost the honor of full manhood that comes only from the pride of racial worth and identity, the black man's mind generally operates favorably toward his white enemies and negatively toward himself and his kind . No one knows this better than the whites . They have, therefore, had a free and unchallenged hand in reordering the Land of the Blacks as they saw fit, classifying and naming people, places and things just as they pleased . The Blacks were nonpersons or nobodies in their own land . From one end of the continent to the other black youth saw great monuments and statues of Europeans only, European and Arab names for African roads, hills, lakes, towns and cities . One youngster, whose ancestors had migrated from the north centuries ago, stood gazing at a statue of Cecil Rhodes . "He's in our school hooks too!" he proudly informed his parents . The smile left as he asked, "But why are our great men forgotten? We never hear about them ." As none could answer, there was silence . This particular group belonged to a family that was 2,000 miles from the known "original" home . This refers to the place that oral tradition declares to be the original home . But we know that the "place of origin" often given in the oral record means the place where the group lived for so many generations that previous homesites during these long drawn-out migrations had been forgotten . What they had forgotten, however, was less tragic than their ignorance of some of the well-known facts of their more recent history as a people . The boy had raised important questions . They could not answer because they are Blacks of Rhodesia . What little history they knew was white Rhodesian history, and this they could learn from Rhodes to Ian Smith . They did not know that they had been living for generations in the center of what was once one of the greatest black empires in Africa, nor had they ever heard of the great African leader of that empire, Emperor Mutota . As elsewhere, Rhodesian history began with the coming of the whites . All before that is "unknown pre-history ." TO THE CAVES, TO THE SWAMPS We have been studying those people who were actually migrating from a highly advanced civilization to less advanced regions or regions not advanced at all, but who continued to rebuild new states until they[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:56pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]were destroyed by the European invasions . Since a representative number of these states appear in the following pages, a final word should be said about the vast numbers who found only caves and swamps as places of refuge and, therefore, built no states, but sank lower and lower in hopelessness, ever-present fears of capture, and a life that was not life but an animal-like struggle to survive . I referred to these before, but all too briefly . They are an inseparable part of the history of the race . Their savage state enables us to measure the distance from the heights to the level where so many of the race had fallen ; it also may be the bold recognition on our part that serves as a guidelight on the road back to greatness . Call them "savages" if that pleases you . But these were the Blacks in retreat before the slave-hunters . These were the Blacks who had to choose between enslavement for life, and that of all of their descendants, and freedom . They did not hesitate . They chose freedom even though it meant the loss of civilization, a civilization which they had, in fact, already lost . To be slaves of Arabs, Europeans or Americans simply meant becoming the economic foundation of their civilization and the steady destruction of the civilization of the Blacks . So, all hail to the Black "savages"-those noble ancestors who chose both freedom and death in preference to white enslavement! Freedom and death . Once the paths they made in flight could be followed for days by their bloody footprints in the sand . The windblown sand had easily covered these up . Later travellers and slave-hunters could determine the various routes of flight by the skeletons found here and there, fallen statues left by those who could not make it on . They were generally disjointed and scattered ; sometimes it was a bony arm protruding from the windswept sands, a leg over there or a skull seeming to smile "peace at last!" The bones of other thousands who died in flight were never seen . They lay buried forever under the tons of sand and rocks that moved over much of the regions . Masses of Blacks found security in hills that were made inaccessible to both Arabs and Europeans . Such were Blacks who isolated themselves in the strongholds of the Nuba Hills . They were never conquered, throwing back all invading army units that attempted subjugation and enslavement . Westerners point to their primitive state, to their nude and half-nude bodies . To the somewhat twisted Western mind, unclothedness in public is indicative of the savage . The "twisted mind" becomes evident when the same people do not find it necessary to explain the[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 2:58pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]universality of white nudist colonies or naked bodies (not to mention sexual intercouse) on public stages and screens. Reference to the Noba people, of course, is simple to give still another example of a people who had to make the grim choice between freedom and slavery, chosing freedom even when that choice meant isolation and, inevitably, retrogression. Blacks who were among the very first weavers and cloth makers on earth could no longer wear clothes . These flights before the mighty firepower of the invaders became more general after 1400 A .D ., even though guns, after 200 years of development, were still not in widespread use in Africa . Only Europeans and Arabs were able to secure a limited supply of these "precious" and certain-to-conquer weapons . The Blacks had nothing of the kind . Meanwhile, experimentation to improve various types of gunnery and speed up production was frantically pushed . The successful outcome of this great venture in firepower was the prelude to the industrial revolution that was to change not only the material world, but what was left of the humane nature of man himself . It is not likely that the people were then generally aware that they were being slowly hemmed in from all directions . It is possible that many did "feel" it, without having any exact knowledge of being encircled, although the danger might be several hundred miles away where the hostile seas met the friendly land . Other groups of wandering Blacks headed for dismal swamps, still others dug caves in hillsides . There were those who wandered aimlessly out into the scorching desert and died with their babies strapped to their backs and larger children clutched by their hands . This meant that the bleached skeletons of little babies and children greeted the eyes as though additional testimony were needed to show how many of the young were included among those who could not make it even to barbarism . All of those who survived in these various groups ended up in areas where they could do little more than survive . Even if they had not splintered off into small independent societies, famine and disease would have reduced their numbers anyway . Therefore, as noted elsewhere, there were many firmly united groups that were so large that migrating as a single unit was impossible . Here the very circumstances of the case demanded separation, estrangement and isolation from the mother society, and the eventual development of several new language groups . The disunity among the Blacks that spread over the whole race often developed from crisis situations over which they had no control in the awful struggle to survive .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:00pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]The millions who found security only in places of extreme isolationin caves, swamps, around a few precious waterholes in deserts and on inaccessible hills-none of these people were favored with the chance even to begin the building of their lost civilization . Far from being ashamed of them as "savages," this chapter is a salute to them, a salute with pride that says to them "all honor and all glory!" Unlike the Blacks we know most about, they could not build great kingdoms and empires . Many were far removed even from the fringes of an advancing world . Yet they overrode the unceasing attacks of both death and hell, and survived . What is more, they held fast the last line of freedom on the African continent, and they held it against cannon fire to the very end . Even when colonialism swept over their land they were never conquered . They had been wise enough to see both Islam and, Christianity as just another route to the slavery they had fought and died to avoid . They remained steadfast in their own religion and, therefore, were called "pagans ." But all of their children were born free, none in Muslim or Christian slavery ; and their girls were never dragged off to become slaves in the harems of Arabs, or as breeding girls for white men in the West. Finally, 1 referred to Blacks who, though forced to move, never left their homeland region. The Noba did not move very far from where they had lived from times immemorial . A far greater number of Blacks held on in their ancient center after it was overrun, refusing either to leave or be enslaved . They stayed and battled against the invaders, finally, being concentrated in the southern provinces of the Sudan where the earlier history of the race in Egypt is still being repeated, line by line . And this is why it is so easy to understand the history of the Blacks and see very clearly how they were not only forced far back behind the advancing races, but also pushed to the lowest levels of degradation . For that history is still being made today, covertly and openly, for all the world to see . The Blacks who are under pressure today in Bahr El Ghazal, Upper Nile and Equatoria are still fighting for survival against the all-conquering Coloured Arabs just as their forefathers fought five thousand years ago from the Mediterranean in Lower Egypt to where they are now making a last stand . Romantic history? Who needs it? They have been massacred by the hundreds and villages left in ashes, but they fight on . This all-black region is kept isolated and cut off from the developments and higher levels of life seen in the Arab-dominated Sudan . These Southern Sudanese have[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:03pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]remained (even in 1973) both "primitive" and "pagan," just as their brothers elsewhere had to remain under similar circumstances . It was still the hunting ground for slaves . The Blacks had to remain sharply alert at all times, for the modern slave traffic was covert, subtle and often highly sophisticated . There were no outright raids . The slave agents may appear as employment officers seeking workers or representatives of schools offering free training for nurses, teachers and various trades . I was told when I was working in this area that these tactics were successful for a long time because of the extreme poverty and the desperate need for jobs . The fighting that has been going on constantly for fifteen years has caused the same kind of migrations as most of those already described . Thousands have been migrating into any country that allowed them to enter . Even in this modern age many will never see those left behind again . They will scatter and settle among other people wherever they can. They will become "lost" in the merger, while their brothers and sisters stay behind and carry on the ancient tradition of fighting on against overwhelming odds as long as they can stand . In this study you must have noticed that the past and present are joined . We study our past for the express purpose of learning what things made the race great in the past, what explains subsequent failures and weakness, and what, in the light of that history, we can do now-if we have the will . This is what the study of history should mean for African people in particular . This chapter on the Migrations, for example, tells us much that is even alarmingly crucial . But how many of us care to grapple with its real significance? Who asks why is it that the black world, forever "up-tight" over South Africa and Rhodesia, has remained silent about the 15 years of the slaughter of Blacks in the Sudan? I asked four leaders of the Resistance if the Southern provinces had ever appealed to the Organization of African Unity for help . "We have been begging them ever since it started," was the unanimous reply . "Not for arms, but just to use its influence to stop the burning of our villages and the massacre of our people . But, you see, the white and brown Arabs actually control the policies of the OAU. For us that means that they still control the Blacks of Africa . . . " Meanwhile, migrants still wander as of old . For them freedom and independence are yet to come to Africa .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:08pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
. . . The first, and perhaps the most important fact is that the general enslavement of Africans, proclaimed to the world as savages, began during the very period and in the very West Africa in the center of which one of the great universities of the world and other colleges were located . -The Black Revival of Learning, p . 247 [b] The Resurrection and the Life: Case Studies by States "THEY CALLED IT "GHANA" ONE BLACK STATE DEFIED THE SLOW ONSLAUGHT OF THE Sahara for over two thousand years, hanging on to its fringes far into historic times, just as though it was determined to let the world actually see how all of its sister states in that vast wasteland had died . Furthermore, its very antiquity and the similarity of its advanced institutions to those of the Ethiopian empire in the east has raised the question of whether it was a western outpost of that empire . There is, of course, no question about the travels of Blacks between the Eastern and Western Sudan . The "geographers" were among the first foreigners to arrive in the region in the 10th century A .D . The Arab and European practice of naming countries and peoples often displayed both ignorance and arrogance . They did not condescend to inquire of the people about the name of their country or the meaning of the titles they held . So they called this country "Ghana," meaning the leader, head of the state or, in Western terms, the king . The people who migrated into the country from all directions had every reason to believe they were far enough into the interior to be free[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:10pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]and secure at last in a kingdom that had never been conquered either by the forces of nature or of men . And its history was long . As citizens, they could help in the further development of the general prosperity and the education which was an integral part of the national program . Ghana's actual history goes far back beyond its known record . That record listed forty-four kings before the Christian era and this along would extend Ghana's known history beyond the 25th Dynasty when the last black pharaohs ruled Egypt (7th century B.C .). Holding on and holding out against a slowly but steadily expanding ocean of sand"-the now three million square miles of the Sahara Desert-it had, nevertheless, reached a high level of greatness in the eleventh century and was an empire comparable to most European states at that time . It surpassed many others in social organization, military power, economic wealth and in the promotion of higher education . This African empire had expanded territorially by both conquests and peaceful alliances with neighboring countries, including dependencies such as Sama, Garantel, Gadiaro, Galam (present-day Northern Ghana area), Diara, Soso and Tekrur ; the desert tribes of Berbers were made tributaries-the Zenaga, Lemtuna, Goddala, Messufa, et. at . The empire, known as the "Land of Gold" became great not only because it controlled the greatest source of gold for both Europe and Asia, but also because of its iron mining and iron manufactures for over a thousand years . Leadership in the iron industry made her a dominant power over less progressive peoples in the Western Sudan . This status and the mastery of iron also meant the development of a mighty military power, equipped with awesome weapons over which it had a monopoly. These weapons were heralded abroad, striking fear among neighboring states. Some were annexed without resistance, others had to be conquered . Control of caravan trade routes to the north, east, Ethiopia and Egypt was probably the most important factor in the ever-growing wealth of the nation . There were import and export taxes, a system of weights and measures, and control of inflation by limiting the flow of gold . Kumbi-Kumbi, the capital, was a twin city of stone mansions, temples, mosques and schools, along with the thatched roof huts of the masses . The larger towns and cities were generally located on or near lakes, rivers and lesser streams such as creeks . The Niger was the most important river for trade, travel and war boats .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:14pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]It was a mixed economy of agriculture : wheat, millet, cotton, corn, yams, and cattle-raising (cows, horses, goats, camels, and sheep) . The iron industry, mining and numerous crafts were organized as guilds : blacksmiths, goldsmiths (jewelers), coppersmiths, stonemasons, brickmasons, water diviners, carpenters, weavers, sandal-makers, dyers, cabinet-makers, furniture-makers, and potters . The soil was more favorable for millet than wheat . Much wheat was imported. Other imports from African countries and abroad were salt, textiles, cowrie shells, brass, dates, figs, pearls, fruit, sugar, dried raisins and honey. The chief exports were gold, ivory, rubber, and slaves . Under the Emperor Tenkamenin (1060 A.D.) the imperial army numbered 200,000 (1060 A.D .) of which 100,000 were mounted and 40,000 were expertly trained bow and arrow brigades . It was not a standing army ; rather, it was somewhat like a National Guard, trained and ready to answer the call when needed, but otherwise following their usual occupations . The most famous schools were at Kumbi-Saleh' and Djenne . The world renowned University of Sankore was at Timbuktu (north of Ghana) . All this and much more passed away like a dream . What happened? This was a great civilization . What happened to it? The country and its capital was visited by the great Arab geographer, El Bekri, sometime after 960 A.D . He described a vast country of fertile fields with rivers and lakes, woods, and green plains, of busy villages, towns, and "cities of stone ." Yet when Bonnet de Mezieres visited the site of the capital city in 1914, all he saw at first was a level wasteland of rocks and sand as far as the eye could see . What happened to the city of stone? Where were the green fields, the green trees? Where were the lakes? And above all, what became of the great Wagadu River that flowed near the capital? How could any of these things ever have been true? If there is any such thing as the unbelievable, here it was . Yet, oral history insisted that this was the area where Ghana's ancient capital city once stood . Digging unbelievingly, the excavators finally reached and began to unearth the city that had been entombed by the desert sands for centuries . The very idea that it ever existed had almost been forgotten . ----------------------------------------- Notes 1 . Also known as Kumbi-Kumbi . Likewise, Djenne is a variation of[/b] Jenne |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:17pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]Here then, buried under tons of sand, was the answer to one of the greatest riddles of history . To understand it is to understand one of the most powerful forces in the decline of African civilization, and why so many of the continent's famine-crazed people sank into barbarism and the life of savages . The fall of Ghana's empire was merely a prologue to the fate of the still greater empires of Mali and Songhay that later spread over much of the same area and beyond . The culmination of the process of disintegration was being slowly reached in each of these countries even while they were expanding over vast areas, flushed with all the glories of wealth and power . We might here observe that, nearly a thousand years later, the illusion that bigness, wealth and military power are sufficient to guarantee security and permanence still persist . Indeed, power and wealth tend to make rulers both obstinate and blind in the face of obviously undermining forces . The destruction of the capital by the Muslims in 1076 and the great migration from the country are part of the story ; but only a part, because the Muslims did not stay in force . This invasion was simply another major factor in the process of slow disintegration and expedited it. It certainly stepped up the mass flights of Ghanaians southward into the forests and to the coast . A second factor that affected the stability and growth of the country was the continuous raids by the Semitic nomads of the desert (bear in mind that some of the attacking nomads were tributary subjects), mostly Berbers and Arabs .' The aims were booty and destruction, not conquest and settlement . The desert people hated settled, civilized life, regarding it as feminine . The raider's appeared suddenly in surprise attacks and disappeared as suddenly . Settled communities were deserted and migrations developed en masse . The refugee movements within the country created internal tensions and conflicts, while movements from the country further weakened it . A chain reaction set in, and some of the internal causes of conflict and disintegration may be noted as follows : 1 . Dissatisfaction with a central government that tended progressively to undermine the traditional constitutions of both the parent-nuclear ------------------------------------------- Notes 2. A reminder : "Berbers" and "Arabs" generally included Black Africans, Afro-Berbers and Afro-Arabs-all converted to Islam . The most fanatical Muslims were often the Blacks and Mulattoes .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:21pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]state and of the formerly independent states which now made up the empire . 2. The desire for independence on the part of these states, or more security in an alliance with some other seemingly rising power, such as Mali . 3. Hard times. Drought leading to famine was becoming more frequent, almost a permanent condition . Farming, the occupation of the masses, was becoming too difficult to support life as the soil itself was dying . 4. The decline of trade . Stepped-up Arab-Berber raids on caravan trails, the life-line of the empire . 5. Failure to capture Wangara gold mines, leaving the state in the now precarious position of a dependent middleman . 6. Civil strife over succession to throne . The ruling class had become Muslim, introducing revolutionary changes in traditional constitutional practices . 7 . Weak leaders on both local and national levels . Wisdom, courage and ability were no longer tests for high office . 8. Religious conflicts . Muslim kings versus non-Muslim masses . This meant war on time-honored religious beliefs and practices . The African masses, of course, were regarded as "infidels," but the ruthless program of forced conversions to Islam failed as more and more of the people fled the country. Islam eventually triumphed over this whole area, which is today what was French West Africa . 9. The increasing death of the soil : Deforestation, erosion, and the uninhibited southward movement of the Sahara . The gradual drying up of streams and sinking of lakes and rivers were death knells for a civilization that was already decaying for reasons which I have just outlined . 10 . Changes in climate : The quick evaporation of rainfall, leaving the soil as dry and thirsty as ever. Maurice Delafosse, in his Negroes of Africa, declared : "The region where Kumbi was built is now very arid . In truth it rains here every year, but there are (now) no rivers ; and except at a few points where pools and sheets of not very deep subterteranean water exist, the vegetation, although fairly thick in spots, is reduced to thin pasturage, gum trees and other spiny bushes (halogen) . The region contains no villages, and is traversed only by nomadic Moors and hunters of the Nemadi tribe . But very numerous and extended traces of former habitations and burial places which turn up at every[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:23pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]instant, show that the country was formerly inhabited, in part at least, by sedentary peoples, and lead us to suppose that it was better watered than it is today and more suitable for tillage . Besides, Bekri speaks of vast and prosperous fields which extended to the east of Ghana the Capital City and local traditions are unanimous in attributing the decline of the kingdom and the dispersion of its inhabitants to the drying up of the Wagadu and consequent famine . . . " This early conclusion by Delafosse with regard to the reasons for the disappearance of one highly civilized African state has not only been confirmed by later investigation, but the same major factors explain the collapse of other African states . MALI Mali was the second of the "Great Three" West African empires that became well known in the medieval world . Although its history has .been traced back to paleolithic times through rock paintings, carvings and other archaeological finds, such as the "Asselar man" in 1927, the empire rose in the 13th century with the decline of Ghana . Kangoba was the small kingdom of the Mandinka people on the southern border of Ghana near the mouth of the Niger River . It was a tributary state and held the strategic trading position of dominance over the gold mines of both Wangara and Boure . Among the contestants for succession to the disintegrating empire of Ghana were two of its rebelling provinces, Kaniaga and Diara . These were overcome by the nearby Kingdom of Tegrur under the leadership of Sumanguru, who succeeded in capturing the capitol of Ghana, Kumbi Saleh, in 1203 . He undertook the task of rebuilding the empire, proved to be unequal to it, and was defeated by the Mandinka king, Sundiata, at the historic Battle of Kirina in 1240 . The battle's outcome was the beginning of the Malian Empire . Under the Emperors Sundiata Keita and Mansa Uli there was systematic reorganization and consolidation of the former empire and expansion beyond it ; so that when Mansa Musa came to the throne in 1312 he had a solid foundation upon which to build what was to become one of the greatest empires of the time, and to be recognized as such around the world . But two things should be noted here . The first is that both Ghana and Mali included strong Arab-Berber tribal states under their rule . Most of these were united desert societies . They occupied the surrounding[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:25pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]strategic points of power . They were able to harass and raid the great caravans conducting the vast import and export trade of the black states across the Sahara . The armed escort guards were powerless against them because they could throw a mile-long caravan into disarray and confusion by the tactics of sudden attack and withdrawal, attack and withdrawal until the heavily ladened fleets were at their mercy . These caravan trails, the life-lines of empires, were regularly under attack or threatened . One solution of the problem, it is believed, was for black kings to become Muslims . Embracing Islam became not merely a policy to expediency'wherever Arab and Berber Muslims gained a dominant foothold in Black Africa, but it became a compelling means to economic survival . The Muslims not only controlled the all-important caravan trails, but all African ports of trade with the world . The fact that many of the desert tribes were nominally a part of the empire, or tributaries to it, made matters worse . Pretending to be loyal to the emperor when this served their purpose, they could play it both ways . They, therefore, always had their separate communities in the capital city and all important trading towns . As Muslim "brothers," they secured important posts in the government . "Protected" caravans moved unmolested . What it means is that the "loyal" Arabs, as advisors to the king, were in a position to collect tribute from him to pay off potential raiders . Here, as elsewhere, "brotherhood" and "integration" were most beneficial for the whites even when they were in a politically subordinate status . The second important fact to be noted is that the Arab-Berber position near and within the empire was the base from which the fanatical Almoravides spread the Islamic religion in West Africa with an uncompromising aggressiveness unmatched in the history of religion . Their proselytising brotherhoods were camps of militant missionaries . They were hostile to the black masses because the masses actively resisted conversion to Islam . Here, again, may be an example of why so many Africans and, especially Afro-Americans, think of Arabs as "Coloured people" ; for the well-known Almoravides were indeed predominantly Mulatto. Strong Black Muslim kings protected their people . Baranmindanah was the first Mansa (king) of Mali to embrace Islam in 1050 A .D . He urged that all succeeding mansas do the same . (Arabic historians, therefore, list him as the first king of Mali . The history of the country began with Islam and the pilgrimages to Mecca-another aspect of the "blackout." The emperor-kings who came after Baranmindanah did[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 3:26pm On Feb 27, 2012 |
[b]indeed become Muslims, mainly for reasons mentioned above . Some became as fanatic as any of the semi-barbarous Almoravides of the deserts . Such was the great Mari Jalak, known to fame as Mansa Musa . It appears that his driving ambition was to be known, world wide, as the greatest Black Muslim in all Africa . He succeeded, and it paid off on all fronts except among the masses of common people . International trade now moved freely in all directions over the caravan trails . Between 1307 and 1332 Mali evolved from an expanding kingdom to an expanding empire . It extended north over the desert, extending its authority over the all-important salt mines of Taghaza ; eastward it reached the Hausa States of Nigeria, and westward it covered the strong Tegrur and the countries of the Fulani (Afro-Berber) and Tucolor peoples . The remarkable expansion of Mali meant the remarkable expansion of Islam in the Western Sudan, and in countries outside of the empire. The spread of Islam replaced African traditional laws . The Koran was now the constitution . All this made for increased internal discord, rebellions by conquered groups, and migrations from the country . Here we have to remind ourselves that we cannot have it both ways : Many of the black kingdoms and empires about which we sing with pride became great by riding roughshod over other black states and people ; and thus sowing even more seeds of hate to grow among black generations still unborn . The decline did not begin until after 1400 when, under weaker successors, the Ghana story of internal disunity and strife repeated itself . After 1550 Mali as an empire was little more than an inspiring memory . There followed the usual array of numerous small and "independent" states, each ripe for easy conquest by a stronger power . Islam was that power . It continued to spread as various black rulers followed the example of Mansa Musa and became Muslims . Just as Mali had spread over the former Ghana empire, Songhay was to spread over Mali . SONGHAY It is almost like retelling the story of Ghana and Mali . The Songhay people were the nuclear group that was to build their name to the greatest African empire of the 15th and 16th centuries . Their small state, with its capital at Kukya, was east of the Niger River bend[/b] |
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