₦airaland Forum

Katsumoto:
You are so wrong about this. We know for a fact that Africans are just as intelligent and equally as dumb as other races. The only conclusion I can come to with regards to lagging behind over the years is down to environment. Let me ask you a question, ' why is it that while the Europeans were still colonising parts of Africa, liberated slaves and other African sons who had early contact Europeans were already getting degrees in European and American universities? These were individuals who only 20 years previously were walking around unclothed in the African sun.

I agree

environment was probably the biggest factor. Even Europeans used to be like savages before

gadogado:
Why is it so hard for Africans to accept that they simple arent as intelligent as other races? You have continuously proven that to be the case both in what you're able to do, build and produce and also IQ tests clearly suggest that the sub saharan African is the least intelligent being on earth.
I say accept the bitter truth and begin looking for ways to make yourself more intelligent and hence more competitive rather that being emotional and defensive!

I have to disagree with you though on this

I dont think Africans are less intelligent at all. There are many reasons why Africans lag behind which are self-inflicted but it has nothing to do with intelligence

If you put a Nigerian student with Japanese and British students he would do just as well

Aigbofa:
Really? If ancient Egypt influenced the Roman Empire and Roman Empire influenced Britain, and Britain influenced Nigeria, I would think there is a connection.
But, the question is why is Egypt's influence over Britain less important than Britain's influence over Nigeria?

Britain pioneered the steam engine, trains, telegraph, centrifuge, television, flush toilet etc. They took civilization to a level the Greeks and Romans and all of humanity had not imagined.

What exactly did we copy from the British and take to the next level?


Its not about claiming an old civilization. The British actually developed whatever they learnt from Greeks and Romans and took it to levels that changed the whole world and impacted all humanity

@Ezeag

Who took those pictures?

EzeUche22:
Do the British and French not claim Ancient Rome and Greece as their classical civilizations? Even the Russians claim they are an extension of the Old Roman Empire through their contact with the Byzantine Empire.

Indians have their own ancient civilization and China is ancient as well.

So why can't African societies claim Ancient Egypt as our classical civilization. Since it is now providing inspiration for Africans around the continent.

Britain and France were parts of the Roman empire and have Roman influences including language and religion so there is a connection

And those societies have actually invented recent stuff and dont really talk about Rome

When you hear about British invention they are not talking about Rome at all

French comes from latin

Nigeria was not a part of Ancient Egypt

tpiah:
for reasons best known to them, africans chose not to record their indigenous writings systems on paper.

your guess as to their motives, is as good as mine. [s]Barring religious influences which i mentioned before[/s], why black africans, who by the way mostly migrated to their current locations, chose to dump the recording media of where they were coming from, leaves much to the imagination.

in doing that they opened themselves up for riddicule and carricature from outsiders because all that you have left is tales from your grand father

Onlytruth:
Africa in ONE, just like Europe is ONE, with different peoples of course. You can't tell me that a Chechen is not a European, can you?
Meanwhile the Chechen can claim European civilization; why can't a Nigerian claim Ethiopian civilization as an African.

People should stop dissecting Africa in ways that suit their dubious missions.

Have you ever seen people in Chechnya claim Britain or Italy before? Have you seen Indians claiming China's civilization before even though they are all Asians?

Onlytruth:
Are you even following normal logic?

Why not dissect Europe as you do Africa? How come you are ready to accept English achievement as a European achievement, but reject Ethoipian or Egyptian or Berbers as African achievement?

Frankly, there is a gap in your thought process.

As long as Africa is ONE continues land space (not islands in the ocean), no part of Africa can be divorced from the achievement of the other.

The problem starts from people buying the idea of a "black Africa" when no such thing actually exists

Tuaregs and Zulus are as different as Zulus are from Arabs but people put the first two groups together as a single society while infact they are not and would never be

What we should be dis-assembling is the erronous idea of a similar "black Africa"

Fulanis and Igbos in one country are not even similar to each other at all not to talk of the whole continent

gadogado:
Modern day English is based on Sanskrit alphabets not ancient egyptian hieroglyphics, plus why are all the civilizations in "Africa" that created writing systems all in the the extreme east, Egypt and Ethiopia both of whom have heavy semitic/caucasian admixture. Even the berbers who are indigenous to North Africa but are caucasian have their own self developed writing system. The only set of people in Africa that didn't create a writing system are the ones that are in the heart of africa and unmixed with whites etc. I want someone to give me an answer, west africa, central africa and southern africa have no writing sytems of their own, only extreme north (Mediterranean admixture) and East Africans (semitic admixture) look at a map and conclude the proximity of these groups with our reading and writing African brothers.  The obasanjo looking African has always been starkly illiterate

Correct me if I am wrong but I was of the impression that even the white Berbers had the same problem with written language as the rest of the continent.

The only African societies that actually wrote I thought were the North East and the ones  in Ethiopia who always had contact with the Middle East

I might be wrong though

ChinenyeN:
Thank you, Katsumoto for making that distinction, but I'd like to state something about that second point of your post (Africa lagging behind). It is not necessarily directed at you though. It's for the general topic. I'm just using your second point as a foundation for my post. As I stated before, (and as I am stating again), this topic of Africa lagging behind is not a matter of intelligence capacity. It apparently is not, because when Europeans came, and colonized Africa, and 'introduced' literacy and other things, Africans caught on rather quickly, for a group of people who, according to some, lack the intelligence capacity. In fact, Africans caught on so quickly, that we [Africans] are apparently here today, making use of these sophisticated technological advancements (computers and the internet) to discuss how unintelligent we are. We are also apparently, attending schools in the U.S. and Europe, and outdoing Europeans, academically (proving our literacy capacity). If we truly are/were as sub-par as some want to make it out to seem, then I don't see any reason why we should be accomplishing these feats of apparent intelligence.

Which brings me to something I state earlier; diffusion of ideas. [At the risk of repeating myself] diffusion is what allowed for the kind of technological advancement we currently witness today. In sub-Sahara Africa, the geography presented a logistics problem for [cultural] diffusion [of ideas], relative to Europe which has a more plains-like geography. As a matter of fact, many sub-Sahara African societies lived in relative isolation to one another, because of this (consider the intense diversity existent in Nigeria alone, not to even talk of Africa as a whole). This is not to say that diffusion wasn't occurring amongst us. It was, but at a rather slow rate. Colonialism though, 'hyper-jumped' the system. Because of colonialism, we no longer had to wait the centuries that Europe and Asia waited, in order to 'evolve' those ideas. Instead, all the diffusion came at once. Now that it is here though, it is up to us to utilize the diffusion to our own advantages. It is at this point, that this topic of discussion blends into the first point that Katsumoto made (the separate argument as to whether or not slavery and colonialism left us worse off).

But, long story short, this topic of Africa lagging behind is not an issue of 'lacking intelligence capacity', or 'sub-par intelligence levels'.

I agree with you. Very intelligent post.

Africaan societies stayed in relative isolation to each other so information and technology did not diffse as they cold have

Colonialism put s on fast forward and forced concepts like literacy down our throats.
And it is for the better because it intoduced us to a whole world out there that we knew nothing about

Anybody who doubts that should try to write his native language without the help of latin scripts

Guys

I just wanted to add that one of the biggest mis-representations of our continent is that we are similar people

We are not and not all people of the continent have dark skin

It is the reason why Ethiopians would have a writing system and their neighbours would not


We are different people with different histories so let us actually stop lumping the continent together

EzeUche22:
Why do you act like Europe are one people then? Using your logic. The Polish and the Russians were just as barbaric as Africans. Go to certains areas of the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

But they all for a fact look to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome for inspiration.

Why can't Africans look to Ancient Egypt for inspiration? It was Africa's classical civilization and we must reclaim that history, before the Arab invaders claim it.

You are right.

Europeans are not one people either

Eastern Europe remains poorer than Western Europe and it might remain like that for a very long time


Africa is far far more diverse than Europe and includes people of various skin colours. The white skinned Berbers of North Africa are indigenous Africans too

Africas history is also different from that of Europe. Many African societies lived in isolation and have nothing in common with people living thousands of miles away

Aigbofa:
Nobody is hiding under anything. You have to put everything in the proper context, because nothing happens in isolation. We can debate from here to eternity about what could have happened if we didn't have any contact with Europeans, it's all hypothetical. But we can debate on verifiable facts.

The facts remain that for me or you to express out thoughts in either English or our local language, we HAVE to use letters Europeans introduced to us

@EzeUche

The reality is that there is a lot of truth in what you said about why Europeans progressed and we didnt but at the end of the day every society is judged on how much it has developed not what caused it.

So it is immaterial to us that wars caused Europe to develop and if they stole their knowledge from others and made it better


Nobody stopped us from stealing knowledge from the Chinese. Nobody stopped s from developing greater technology with whatever level of conflict that we had.

Its is not anybody's fault. It is ours and ours alone.

Aigbofa:
Mr Sage, I bet you need a little more knowledge before you can claim that title. Nothing happens in isolation. All human achievements, both current and ancient is based on one before it.
You mentioned computers, yet the Chinese were using abacus long before the Bill gates of this world. The ancient Egyptians ( Yes Africans) you are trying very hard to discount, were already performing surgeries, long before Europeans knew anything about that.
Yes, ancient Egyptians were Africans, no matter how you look at it.

Nobody said they were not Africans

Africans could refer to people of different skin colours including people with "White" skin like the Berbers of North Africa.

And Just because a person has dark skin does not mean that they are "our people" or related to Nigerians in any way possible


The issue here i dealing with what is considered "sub-saharan" Africa and how contact with the west affected it


The continent is suffering from self-inflicted woes all around

Hiding under the cloak of Egypt is so funny it is sad and is a complete waste of time for us

Japan was industralized before Europe

Asians could read and write before Europeans. They pioneered a literate and complex society from time immemorial before Europeans could. They invented paper, pen etc

Europeans copy from them and they copy from Europeans

That is why Asian ability or invention can never be questioned. Everybody in the world agree that they are an ingenious people. Their inventions has never been in doubt

Eurasian conflicts also helped both societies develop


African societies were simple societies. For a society to become complex literacy had to precede it.


Looking at more advanced societies and copying them is always a good thing. Things like the stopping of killing of twins, albinos, human sacrifices, and the introduction of formal schools etc were good for our society and introduced to us because we copied a more complex and advanced society

Africas problems have NOTHING to do with skin colour


If i might ask


Did the white Berbers of North Africa have a written language?

@Ezeuche


Africans should look towards every part of the world including Europe and Asia to make the continent better. We are lagging behind and all these faux arguments about Egypt is not going to help Nigeria at all. Nigerians dont share anything in common with ancient Egypt and as far as I care "blue" men could have built Egypt.

We can spend all our time convincing ourselves that ancient yoruba land was developed and great or ancient Benin was great or that it was just as developed as Europe



None of that is going to change reality on the ground.

All modern day inventions have eluded the continent and we are behind everybody else

All this Egypt talk is a waste of time

Katsumoto:
A lot of people are mixing up two different arguments here

The first argument is whether Africans are worse off with slavery and colonisation and the answer to that is an emphatic yes. Arguing that we are better off because we can read and write is too simplistic because there are other more important factors such as standard and condition of living as well as hunger.

The second argument is about whether African was lagging behind other continents when the Europeans arrived and again, another emphatic yes. Whilst there were progressive societies in Africa, the lack of ambition and ability to take appropriate risks ensured that Africans of that era and this era were not and are not innovative. The attitude of the Europeans from the Byzantine era ensured that Kingdoms were created and enlarged as more dominant dynasties sought expansion. Having to either defend your society or wanting to subjugate other kingdoms led to serious innovation and competitiveness with a consequent advancement of European societies.

As an example of risk taking, read about Moctezuma and Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conqueror who conquered the Aztec empire. On arriving in Mayan territory, he burnt his ships having had his charter revoked earlier.

I agree with you for the most part

Literacy though is invaluable. An illiterate would forever be disadvantaged compared to a literate person

talking about Egypt is a waste of time for all Nigerians involved

@peoples

Part of the problem with ancient Egypt is that the terms "black" "white" etc are actually rubbish terms that was just introduced recently to us. We are trying to describe an ancient civilization by using a modern day reference like the idea of "black" people

Ancient Egypt looks to have had people of all different colours

From very light/'white" looking people to browner people

This Egypt talk is a waste of time for a Nigerian. The early Egyptians having nothing in common with us at all. Saying they are "black" is meaningless too because their society was shaped very differently

https://www.catchpenny.org/images/seti1a.gif

EzeUche22:
You are the one who is acting like North Africa is fully Arab. Saying that they are not Africans. The BERBERS and the TUAREG are not ARAB! They are indigenous Africans! Do they count mehn?

Who you think created the pyramids? Arabs, Europeans, ALIENS?

I agree with you on this one

Berbers are indigenous Africans but that goes back to the fact that Africa is a very vast and diverse continent

People like Zidane are Africans

EzeUche22:
Egypt was black, not Arab. Stop being ignorant. The Afro-Asiatic people of Africa which includes the Hausa are part of this family.

Why would Ethiopian have European blood when Africa is the home of humanity? Europeans descended from Africans. We were on this Earth first. Africa has a highest genetic diversity than any continent in the world. Africa is the cradle of humankind.

I know I am not some descendant of some Egyptians. My people have been in this regions for thousands of years. We are the precursor to the Bantu who spread throughout Africa.

And like I said, learn African history before you make such erroneous statements.

You need to read up on North African indigenous peoples and their pre-historic populations.

Even today many North African countries still have Arabs as minorities

Not everybody in North Africa is Arab

EzeUche22:
I hope you can understand this, but the Europeans needed to steal from others. Do you want to know why? Europe is resource POOR! That is why they had the urge to travel the world. We Africans did not have to travel the world to get our resources, because everything we had is in Africa.

Who is complainant about others? Simply saying that Africa was a much better place when we had our own kingdoms, cities, and countries. Now you see Africans killing fellow Africans over resources. Tell me how colonialism has benefited Africans!

You are just being ignorant and hating your people and yourself which is sad indeed.

Africans were killing Africans before the Europeans came. In Nigeria, Fulanis and Yorubas were fighting each other to the finish before the British arrived.


And all these Africa is resorce rich thing. What resources were we using before the Europeans came.

Petroluem? Bauxite? Diamonds? Tin? Bitumen?

Did we even have a name for those resources? Did we know how to extract them? how to refine them?

What exactly were we doing with it before  Europeans arrived?

Beaf:
This is just ignorance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsibidi

Ive known about those drawings for years now.

It does not change the fact that those societies where illiterate and if you have a different proof you can present it

EzeUche22:
How can you say that we are far better off? Look at how most of the countries they created in Africa are failing, because they created states that had no business being together. They did not care about the ethnic boundaries and kingdoms that made up the Congo. Why is DR Congo so big while Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda so small.

My forefathers may not have been "literate" in the sense of being able to write in English or speak English, but they were immersed in their cultures and had ancient morals that many of our people have lost. That is what I miss, I rather be steeped in my culture than be a literate in some foreign language at the expense of my culture.

Europeans messed up the world. They messed up Africa and plundered our wealth and continue to plunder our wealth. London, Paris, Amsterdam would never have looked like that if it wasn't for Africa's stolen wealth.

Its not a question of English

They did not read or write Igbo either

EzeUche22:
My brother, the Muslim Moors only conquered Spain and the Ottoman Turks only made it as far to the Balkans. Western Europe was never colonized. France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Scandinavia was never conquered. They just fought amongst themselves.

What do you mean many of us could not read? Have you heard of the Arabic script that was able to write down our history from the Empire of Ghana, Mali, Songhay. And the Ethiopians had their own writing script as well. You cannot say that Africans were not literate when Arabic script and Ethiopian script was being used to write books and our history.

Look at the cities that were made in Zimbabwe, Great Benin and even in Yorubaland. Africans were progressing from a different route.

Plus, the Europeans stole everything from the CHINESE [/b]AND THE [b]ARABS. The CHINESE were the most advanced people for CENTURIES!  And what about the Great Pyramids at Giza. They were created by Africans, not Arabs or Whites. They were black Africans. While the Europeans were painting their faces blue and creating Stonehenge, the Ancient Egyptians were creating monuments that were stand the test of time.

And let us not forget that Ethiopia was Christian before Europe ever became Christian. Learn Africa's history first, before you write erroneous statements.

You proved my point (Most parts of Africa needed external influence in order to read or write)

Arabic was also introduced to to parts of Africa before those parts could read and write either.

Only parts of Ethiopia could develop literacy on their own


Forget the Egypt argument its a dead horse

It does not matter if Europeans stole from Chinese. What matters is that they engineered a way of life that became better than anything humans had ever seen before.

Nobody stopped Africans from stealing from Chinese people and pioneering the best way of life for humans. Constant complaining about others does not help us at all


Benn, Yorubaland etc were simple societies. How far where they going to get without literacy?

EzeUche22:
I think we are worse off. Just look at the artistic capabilities of Ife and Benin and now look at what their descendants can produce and weep!

While the Europeans were painting their faces blue and killing each other mercilessly, we were building cities, providing for our people and had a better value system.

I think we are far far far better off

For one I think all of us prefer to be literate than illiterate. Me and you are doing something our forefathers could not have done and had no concept of till the Europeans came and taght us how to write out our own thoughts.

I value western invention and civilization, one of which is the computer and the internet that we are currently using over any of the lifestyle of our forefathers

EzeUche22:
Europe was never colonized! 

Only Asia, Africa and the Americas. (Case in America, most of the native people were wiped out) The world would have been a better place if Europe was never there.

Wherever Europeans went, they brought death and destruction from India to China. From Vietnam to Ethiopia.

You need to read about 100's of years of Muslim rule and mistreatment of many Europeans till the Europeans expelled them by force


While we cold not read or write Europe was conquering the next frontier. Electricity, steam engines, trains, the telegraph, telephones, airplanes etc

Non of these were we going to discover by ourselves

We could not even make ourselves literate for thousands of years and we had to borrow their letters to express our thoughts

Aigbofa:
Why don't we just bring all able bodied Europeans to work in Africa for free, for 400 years, after which we will ship them back. Then we can analyze who has benefited more from this arrangement.
Nonsense.

what exactly stopped you from doing that 400 years ago? What stops you from doing that today?

You think Europe was not colonized and Europeans were not maltreated for centuries?

Many Africans are incapable of self-criticism and are emotional about everything. That is a major reason why the continent remains underdeveloped


1  First of all Africa is a very diverse continent full of different people. Not all Africans even have dark skin colour (black) and not all Africans lived in similar societies.

2 We gained Literacy by coming in contact with the European civilization. Our society was never going to become a complex society without the Europeans introducing the concept of literacy to us.

3 Societies are judged by how complex they are. This is why nobody could deny Asian achievements. Nobody was going to respect a group of people who have no idea what it means to be literate and live in mud and tatch houses.

4 Illiteracy happened to be a bane on development. It has forever set the continent back. The only way to achieve recognition is to shape the present or future for the better

5 In the grand scheme of things the above video is irrelevant, and so are people who keep complaining about exploitation.



Before the Europeans came a lot of African societies could not practice Statistics, Geometry and Trignometry, Engineering in a written form etc. These are concepts that helped societies develop more complex structures and amazing construction.



In conclusion we are the architects of all our problems including the video above. When a society embraces illiteracy for generations and thousands of years, the society is inviting scorn on itself

Why are some Nigerians on here feigning ignorance? Every Nigerian born and raised in Nigeria knows we can all identify "Half-Castes" from a mile away. Nobody in Nigeria ever confuses a "Half-Caste" for a local Nigerian. Infact in Nigeria most Nigerians can tell the difference between a Fulani and an Igbo man not to talk of a half-white or half middle Eastern

Its not a matter of straight nose or all these pseudo arguments

We easily identify them as easy as it is for a white person to identify somebody who is mixed with black.

Its easier than ABCD