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 Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:06pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]African identity psychologically, they were forced to change their names to Arabic and Christian names . Henceforth, if these Black Emils, Johns, Muhammads, Samuels, and Abdullahs happened to achieve greatness in some field, the assumption would be that it was Caucasian achievement, unless a special effort was made to identify the race of the persons in question . Blacks at home in Africa and Blacks scattered over the world bore the names of their enslavers and oppressors, the ultimate in self-effacement that promoted a self-hatred which made pride in the race difficult . That these psychological shackles still handicap not only the rebirth of modern African states, but also Blacks everywhere, should he obvious to all . Finally, there were the invaders who apparently disdained the cloak of deception and came in fighting . They had no problems . They knew in advance that they would find the Africans, almost everywhere, unprepared to defend themselves against a well-organized, well-trained body of men, no matter how small . This situation developed as splinter, independent little states became more and more numerous . The use of secret agents seems to be as old as organized states ; for the practice of sending spies as goodwill ambassadors, traders, etc ., well in advance into a country to be invaded, goes far back into antiquity . Those sent into Africa from various lands could report back that : 1 . The Africans were largely a peaceful people engaged in agriculture, mining trades, fishing, the arts, crafts of various kinds and manufacturing such things as pottery, furniture, building materials, boats, weapons of war, etc . 2. These settled states and their generally highly developed social and political systems indicate their advanced civilization . 3. But they were ill-prepared for war, except against their neighbors, who also use the kind of spears, bows and arrows which we had abandoned long since . 4. In general, they have no swiftly moving, mounted soldiers . One hundred of our dashing calvarymen with fire-power could put 10,000 of them to flight. 5 . They are a secretive people . For while they are fully aware of the great mineral wealth of the continent, they use it in a very limited way, mainly for personal adornment, and have no desire to open up to foreigners for world commerce that would greatly benefit them . Accordingly, they rigidly limit their trading activities, but mainly because[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:01pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]was not always due to any opposition to slavery, but to this kind of direct action which bypassed the chiefs and thereby eliminated their profits . THE CONQUEST OF THE BLACKS BY RELIGION Other invaders found penetration easy under the banners of religion . Full advantage was taken of the fact that Africans are a very religious people . First came the Crescent flag of the Prophet . The Islamic advance was three-pronged : proselytizing missions claiming one brotherhood ; widespread intermarriages and concubinage with African women, due to the Muslim system of polygamy ; and forceful conversions at sword point . The Cross of Jesus Christ followed the Muslim Crescent . The cloak of Christianity was a most convenient hiding place for those who had other designs . Hence, the drive to convert . Conversion here meant far more than conversion to Christianity . As in the case of Islam, it meant change into the white man's image, his ideas and value system . The real object of worship turned out to be neither Jesus Christ nor His Father, God, but Western man and Western civilization . Christian brotherhood? Well, eh, yes! In principle . Or, to be practical, you Blacks can have all the Christian brotherhood you desire-among yourselves . Apartheid was Africa-wide under colonialism, and not a peculiarity of the South African system as so many are led to think .' But what happened in the process of converting the Blacks to Islam and Christianity was the supreme triumph of the white world over the black . Millions of Africans became non-Africans . Africans who were neither Muslims nor Christians were classed as "pagans" and therefore required to disavow their whole culture and to regard practically all African institutions as "backward" or savage . The Blacks in their own right became non-persons, members of a race of nobodies, so hopeless that self-realization as personalities, even in a subordinate status, could only be achieved by becoming Muslims or Christians . Indeed, in order to destroy completely not only their African heritage, but also their very ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes 1 . There were, however, numerous chiefs who not only opposed slavery, but fought against it to the death =literally . Some were encircled and with their whole people died fighting the enslaver to the end . 2. The pattern of continent-wide segregated communities can be seen even today in independent African states .[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:56pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]keeping in touch with their homeland and the trade countries farther away. Black Africa was thus hemmed in and effectively cut off, commercially and otherwise, from the rest of the world . The techniques of penetration and dominance were varied . Some came as peaceful traders and, doubtless, trade was all that was intended by many . Africans were always eager traders . The main attraction of foreign traders was that they brought in many new kinds of commodities. These traders had little or no trouble in gaining coastal footholds as trading posts . The land was not sold, but leased . However, the Blacks had what the world wanted most : gold, diamonds, ivory, copper, iron ore and, themselves. The "trading posts" soon became strong fortifications around which villages and towns sprang up as settlers from Asia poured in and armed forces became organized . The Africans watched these developments with increasing apprehension, for the "traders" were often armed with superior and different types of weapons of war and spent much time in training recruits, including Africans . Indeed, in some areas a definite pattern emerged : an all-African army under Asian officers (a pattern to be followed later by the Europeans) . This was easy enough for the Arabs . They owned the captured Africans who made up their fighting forces . The Africans could blame only themselves for this . Here, as in certain other things, they were still engaged in practices which, while once universal, had long since been dying out or generally abandoned by the rest of the world . This one was the enslavement of captured prisoners of war . When African chiefs and kings began to sell these to slave-hungry Arabs, they set in motion a chain of events that was to undermine the civilizations of the most advanced societies on the continent, further checking their progress and degrading their whole race for another two thousand years . When the sale of their fellows became the chief source of wealth, African leaders became increasingly estranged from the finest thing in African life, the sense of community and of kinship with all who would be friends . When Freed severed the traditional ties of brotherhood, the gradual movement of the invaders from the coastal areas inland became relatively easy . Blacks against Blacks with increasing suspicion and hatred may be traced to the Africans' own slave raids . The inland raids for slaves were resisted by some chiefs and the raiders were attacked . But this opposition[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:53pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]national community among the various language groups that make up the country . This is so important that it cannot be left to wishful thinking or chance . It must be programmed in such a way that a sense of loyalty and of being an important part of a great united brothersisterhood, which is the nation itself, will develop naturally and allow (4) a strong army for defense, and (5) the reign of law and justice to apply equally to all classes in the society . The people must feel absolutely secure as individuals, that in their country there is equal justice for all . In short, certain conditions in a country can bring about that internal peace, stability, and confidence which unshackle the mind . There is now time to think . No more trekking with bleeding feet for hundreds of miles across rocky deserts . No more seeing your kinsmen fall out to welcome death along the way . A home at last, better farms, plenty of food . And now . . . time to think . There is nothing mystical about the reasons why one group of people can easily become physically and mentally strong while another becomes physically weak and less mentally alert . An abundance of nutritious food and pure drinking water may spell the difference between advance and decay . The number of death-dealing diseases developing from malnutrition alone is alarming . But what should be stressed above everything else is that millions of babies may become both physically and mentally retarded by disease while in their mother's wombs-which is another way of saying that a people wholly ignorant or indifferent to basic health can themselves become inferior in fact . But even this central fact, when fully realized, will still remain in the field of mere discussion until Blacks everywhere begin mass organization for mass education for the masses . The system is so structured, worldwide, that Blacks are forced into conditions that can even lead to genetic inferiority . There must be a breakthrough or there will be gradual extinction . This is the final precondition for survival and advancement . Your attention is called again to the map of Africa, for it is very significant where the earliest invaders entered and permanently settled . They took over the areas of trade that allowed easy contact with their homeland and the other nations of the world . This is a point that simply cannot be overstressed in considering the plight of the African people . In the north they settled around the Meditteranean, thereby maintaining contact with Europe and Asia . In the northeast, east, and south, they settled along the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, thereby[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:50pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]everywhere the offspring of distress, privation, hunger and malnutrition . It spread over the land as advance scouts for death . Over half of Africa's babies were either born dead or died soon after birth . Old age was between forty and fifty years . Three-fourths of the people, as even today, are still weakened by malnutrition and malarial water, and a number of diseases that are largely traceable to these two causes : beriberi, pellagra, scurvy and even leprosy . The scourge of childhood is Kwaskiokor, or malignant malnutrition . This accelerated depopulation of the black man's countries resulting from the nature of soil and climate, mass enslavement, deaths in resisting slavery, wars of conquest, intertribal conflicts, exhaustions from endless flights and migrations and ever-present disease-all this reduced the Black population by three-fourths! Under reasonable, favorable conditions, the African population today would he four times its present number . And when it is pointed out that three-fourths of the people today are still weakened by malaria and malnutrition, reference is made to the one-fourth of the people who survived in spite of it all . How, then, were the Blacks able to battle invading enemies from one end of the continent to the other for several thousand years? True, they were overcome in the end, but what sustained them through all those centuries of struggle on so many different fronts and against so many different kinds of enemies? Weakened so generally by both disease and what became perpetual hunger, whence came their strength and courage to carry on? It may well he that the answers lie in the death-defying pyramids they built in Egypt when the land was theirs . PRE-CONDITIONS FOR PROGRESS THERE MUST BE A NUMBER OF PRE-CONDITIONS WITHOUT which the genius of any people for thinking, inventing, discovering and building will be inhibited or eventually die under extreme circumstances. A few of these pre-conditions for progress are : (1) The people must become famine-free and able to settle down and end their perennial roaming from place to place in search of food and water . (2) Finding suitable territory, the leaders must proceed, through negotiations with other neighboring societies and fragmented groups, to nation-building . (3) A crucial pre-condition : There must be developed a sense of[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:46pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]not to have been known or fully appreciated . In treeless and grassless areas the periodic rains evaporate into non-water-holding earth . One may travel hundreds of miles over regions of this kind without finding a single stream . All rivers and streams have disappeared like the raindrops in the sand . Because of the same physical characteristics of the land previously discussed, irrigation was extremely difficult, and in most places impossible, outside of Egypt . We have spoken so much about African deserts of sand and rocks that one might be misled into thinking that it was this kind of land alone that could not support a population . But there were vast non-desert areas of hard red and red-brown soil that had been leached by heavy rainfall, robbed of its essential elements for vegetation (such as calcium and phosphorus), and, of course, its once rich humus of top-soil . This continuous weathering was obviously destructive . The soil problem was further aggravated by having underneath floors of hard laterite elements, just as though there was a master plan to guarantee that this soil would not hold any water . Therefore, the problem involved far more than restoring top-soil and a land conservation program to prevent erosion, because the hard floor underneath drained away the rainfall as fast as it reached that level . "No corner or scrap of land in Africa has escaped hunger," says Josue de Castro in his Geography of Hunger . "This is a continent of the starving, all of it . And in hunger and chronic malnutrition may be found one of the most decisive reasons for the backwardness of Africa, for the relative stagnation and lassitude of the greater part of its people ." But the "Garden of Eden" areas must not be overlooked when we are considering the general, overall conditions . These are areas which, while not comparable to the rich flood plains of the Nile valley and Delta, have unfertilized soil that nevertheless produce a surprisingly rapid growth of abundant vegetation and a heavy concentration of animal and bird life . These are the areas where fruits and nuts of many varieties grow in abundance without the aid of man . Without these areas of salvation here and there over the continent, along with pastoral grazing land, the Blacks as a race would have doubtlessly perished from the earth . They almost did . The trend once seemed to be definitely in the direction of extinction . Even if we dismiss accounts of planned mass extermination by their enemies as "unreliable," too many other threats to survival remained to darken every ray of hope . Disease was[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:42pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]their mothers-African . When these later became known as Egyptians in Egypt, Moors in Morocco and Mauretanians or Carthaginians in Carthage (Tunis), great care was taken to distinguish them from Africans in daily intercourse, in paintings and in documentary literature. This "New Breed," half-African, was to join with their Asian fathers and forefathers in the wars and enslaving raids against the Blacks that went on century after century until all North Africa was eventually taken . Still another fateful geographical factor that favored the invaders has been implied or partly stated in the foregoing observations . Aside from the easy occupation of the lowlands of the seacoast and the gradual taking-over of the rich lands of the Nile valley and its ancient civilization, both Asians and Europeans found the highlands of southern and eastern Africa "more pleasant and healthy for Caucasian settlement ." This meant that even after nature had damned three-fourths of the continent's land mass as impossible to support human life, the Asians and Europeans came in to seize and hold the best of the one-fourth that was left . The Blacks found themselves cut off from all seacoasts that then mattered, hemmed in from all directions, and confined within narrower and narrower limits . Thus they became a wandering people, forever migrating in their own vast homeland, fragmenting from great united nations into countless little splinter societies, becoming so isolated from each other that each formed a new language of its own, considering themselves quite different from their original brothers who were then regarded as strangers and enemies in the endless tribal wars that ensued over the inhabitable land . The land over which these struggles took place varied in different regions . So did the climate that so greatly affected it ; the people, and even some of their institutions, varied under environmental influences . The land mass in the eastern regions, for example, has been undergoing a vertical movement of elevation, a sinking and leveling process occasioned by the atmosphere and weathering since Miocene times . Geologists trace the elevation of the mountains in the area, including Kilimanjaro, and the faulting and fracturing that created the Great Rift, to early volcanic activity . In the arid and semi-arid regions there are vast stretches of desolate land which were not made so by nature alone . For, like the Sahara itself, much of it was once woodland where animal life flourished and streams flowed . Man played the leading role in this destruction by the use of fire in his shifting farm methods. Animals also helped in the process . The relation of green grass and forest to climate and climate to rainfall seems[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:33pm On Feb 21, 2012*. Modified: 12:48pm On Mar 13, 2012 |
[b]the sea does it overflow to further enrich 13,500 square miles of already fertile soil in Egypt! For its 3,377 miles through the heart of Black Africa, the Nile sank as it cut deep canyons in its soft limestone floor, leaving cliffs at places from a few hundred to a thousand feet high . What this means is that for over 3,000 miles through the eastern side of the continent the Nile was collecting the rich soil carried to it by the heavy rains and a thousand tributary streams . These flow into the "Mother of Rivers" add to the enrichment of its waters flowing northward, "guarded" all the way by her deep channels until it reaches the hard sandstone bottom above Assuan and then begins its periodic overflow the rest of the way to the sea! Here, a natural phenomenon cheated the Africans in a big way that was to have dire consequences . There could be no black ''Daughter of the Nile'', observed Parsons in his Streams of History . For the Nile, in making Upper Ethiopia (Egypt) so rich in food production that it became world famous not only as the "Bread Basket of the World," but also for its highly advanced civilization, stirred the envy of Asia and Europe-from which continents migrants began to settle . Even in this, the physical geography of Africa was favorable to the "peaceful" settlers who later were to become its conquerors and rulers ; for the seacost is lowland everywhere, not more than 500 feet above sea level, and remains lowland 500 miles inland . Asian and European occupation of the sea coasts of North Africa and East Africa was, therefore, relatively easy, and probably even welcomed at first by the Blacks as co-partners in world trade . But the poor and hungry nomads from the vast desert areas of the Middle East poured into the most fertile and easily accessible areas of this other land of deserts that is North Africa . There were several consequences of the greatest historical importance which are generally not sufficiently stressed . The first was that both the Saharan transformation and the steady incursion of Asians pressured more and more Blacks back into the interior to concentrate in the already limited survival areas where just to subsist was a daily struggle . The second important result was the wide-spread amalgamation of the races. For the weaker, more submissive Blacks remained in Asian occupied territory to become slave laborers and slave soldiers, . and to witness a ruthless sexual traffic in Black women that gave rise to a new breed of Afro-Asians . These were classed as Caucasians or Asians . They themselves bitterly objected to being identified with the race of[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:24pm On Feb 21, 2012*. Modified: 12:47pm On Mar 13, 2012 |
[b]had sunk to the lowest levels of dog-eat-dog existence . These last are the people about whom European and American authors delight to write . No cartoons are better known than those showing a sweating white man (usually an explorer or missionary) being cooked in a huge black pot, while black savages dance around with human bones decorating their heads or stuck through pierced noses . The idea these "experts" on Africa have been planting, and still actively plant, in the minds of the peoples of the world is that "This is Africa, and these are the savages who are now clamoring for independence!" NATURE JOINS THE ATTACK The question of physiology, vegetation, climate, water, and soil are all more crucial in the history of the Blacks than they are in the case of any other people . For here a whole continent is involved, and on that continent a people who, in one period of time, were among the foremost people on earth, and in a later period, the farthest behind . Nature itself set an environmental stage in a manner and under conditions which appear to have been designed to test to the utmost one race's moral, intellectual and physical powers to override all obstacles to survival . The slow but relentlessly steady withdrawal of inhabitable land over the centuries eventually left Africa a land of desolation, a wasteland, the greater part of which was desert and treeless grassland with only a fractional part, about ten percent, with the much needed forests and thickets . Even the continental land configuration was against its native inhabitants . Like a vast inclined plane, the highlands, beginning in Central Africa at 3,000 feat above sea level, rose southward to higher and higher levels, reaching the highest level of 15,000 feet in the southeastern provinces of the ancient Ethiopian empire. This caused Africa to slope northward and its principle, the Nile in particular, to flow in the same direction . This single circumstance cause the Blacks to lose the very earliest centers of their civilization and the heartland of the race- Egypt and the southern area that was later called the Sudan (or Land of the Blacks, just as though Egypt itself was not also formerly the ''Land of the Blacks'') . For the greatest of their rivers, the Nile, played still another tragic joke on its people . This river, the longest in the world, flows 4,127 miles across Africa from Lake Nyanza to the Mediterranean . Yet not until it reaches Assuan (Aswan) and begins its last stretch of 750 miles to[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:06pm On Feb 21, 2012*. Modified: 12:45pm On Mar 13, 2012 |
[b]Insofar as those who were fortunate enough to find promising areas for settlement are concerned, the picture was generally one of state building and the revival of basic African institutions which, though not forgotten, could neither be maintained nor developed by any people forever on the move . But what about the countless societies, fleeing before the conquering hordes and the enslavers, as well as famine and the deaths which were their daily companion ; what about those who found no Promised Land anywhere? For quite unlike the societies I mentioned that could settle down and had the opportunity to start and develop civilizations comparable to any elsewhere in the world at the time, these people could neither settle down nor, therefore, develop a civilization . What they suffered from year to year as they wandered over the continent is almost beyond both description and belief . In fact, while the story is well-known, few writers would want to go into its awful details . Suffice to say at this point that, here, then, were numerous societies of Africans that were virtually sentenced either to death from starvation or enslavement by Arabs (I am still in the pre-European period) or barbarism and savagery and, in many cases, even cannibalism . Under such conditions I would defend not only the retrogression of these people to barbarism, but to cannibalism itself . The defense of the latter is easy, since it has been well-established that other supposedly highly civilized men will revert to savagery and cannibalism under prolonged conditions of extreme hunger and thirst, when survival itself was the only question that dominates the human mind . This phenomenon of reverting to a state of savagery and even cannibalism under extreme conditions of starvation is known to occur universally among various peoples-white, black, brown, red, or yellow . The facts we have, then, show that after they lost Egypt and the Eastern Sudan, some Africans, overriding all adverse conditions, grouped themselves to form nations and developed a high order of civilization independent of any external influences . Others never settled anywhere long enough to develop anything notable, but seemed to remain in a state of lethargy or suspended animation . They had surrendered to fate and became too weak to fight hack . They descended to a state of semibarbarism. ''Descended,'' because most of these societies had known better times and a higher order of life . Some in more favorable circumstances, nevertheless, failed to advance . Still others were in the class discussed in connection with cannibalism-hunger-crazed people who[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:00pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]and larger chiefdoms, kingdoms, and finally empires that began the rebirth of their long lost civilization . The fiercest wars between the Blacks occurred in the founding and expansion of new kingdoms and empires . For while the core groups were voluntary confederations, expansion of an empire required the conquest of neighboring states, usually small, independent chiefdoms, that preferred to maintain their absolute sovereignty . The repercussions from this forced unity by conquest were to shake the continent from end to end centuries later when European political rule ended . Modern Africans and students of Africa have tended to emphasize the destructive impact of European imperialism in Africa while ignoring the most damaging developments from the Arab impact before the general European takeover in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a relatively recent period . This point is important. For one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of the Blacks is that dealing with those dauntless leaders and people who, having lost one state after another along with three-fourths of their kinsmen, nevertheless overrode all the forces of destruction and death and began to build, always once again, still another state . From the earliest times the elimination of these states as independent African sovereignties had been an Asian objective, stepped up by Muslim onslaughts after the seventh century A .D . So the reestablished black states were still being conquered and Islamized when Europeans began to arrive in great numbers to impose their rule over both Asians and Africans. The big thing that happened here, to repeat, is generally glossed over, ignored or forgotten . The last being a pretension, since a historical development of this magnitude could hardly be forgotten by serious writers on Africa . For what happened, very simply, was that European imperialism in Africa checked and replaced Arab imperialism . The Arab screams against Western imperialism are the screams of outrage against Western imperialists for checking and subduing Eastern imperialists in the very midst of the Blacks they had conquered . There are still countless thousands of Blacks who are naive enough to believe that the Arabs' bitter attack on Western colonialism show their common cause with Black Africa .[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 8:56pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]It was for reasons of security that so many of these groups, later called tribes or societies, sought the most hidden and isolated areas they could find . This permanent separation from their kinsmen in other groups was generally quite contrary to their hearts' desires . The original splintering off and parting was often done in tears . But breaking up into smaller units seemed to be the only route to survival in a permanent crisis situation-apparently permanent, since the movement of people over the continent had been going on so far beyond the memory of each generation that migrations and temporary settlements were among the most significant facts in the oral tradition of each society . Fragmentation and isolation had two momentous consequences . The first was that the isolation of various groups led to the development of over two thousand different dialects and languages . The second fateful outcome was that the rise of all these tongues widened the gulf between the Blacks that territorial distances had already achieved . One should pause here for reflection if there is any serious attempt to really understand what happened to the African people and why . For even without the aid of Western writers in emphasizing the language differences and the cultural variations and attempting to show how unrelated the Blacks were, they, in time, came to consider themselves unique with each society not only independent of the other but independent of its enemy, if only potentially . Disunity and mutual suspicion became an African way of life . Small chiefdoms sprang up everywhere, often no more than a village of one or two hundred people . Africa, therefore, presented itself to Asia and Europe as the ideal land for exploitation, enslavement and conquest . The history is complex and many-sided, and would be so if we were discussing just one nation and not an entire continent . Ths is why our focus must be on the main lines of development, the African-wide aspects, and the unmistakable common origin and continent-wide sameness of basic institutions which these universal aspects reflect . There were, then, different outcomes for different societies . Some perished even to the last member from disease, starvation or warfare . Others, despairing of ever again being able to have a fixed abode, became nomads . Some, although isolated so long that .they had developed different languages and customs, had nevertheless decided that salvation required a union with other groups. These were the tribes that merged with other tribes, lost their separate identity and languages ; and who evolved from this process a single common language, larger[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 8:51pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]capital cities of Napata and Meroe . From there black civilization spread north, reaching its most spectacular achievements in what became known as "Egyptian Civilization ." The general condition of vast stretches of uninhabited and uninhabitable land over the continent seemed to support the Western thesis that Africans never developed any worthwhile civilization with a notable historic past. The more charitable might add that in the very nature of their situation it could not have been otherwise . Samuel Baker went far in promoting the idea of African innate inferiority even if he had to use the most forbidding area in Africa to do it-the terrible swamplands of the Sudd, an area south of Khartoum, that, in its full extent, is as big as England . No one would claim that any kind of society, civilized or savage, could exist in the Sudd Swamplands, probably the largest in the world . For it was neither all land nor water, but a seemingly endless mass of rotting vegetation, interwoven tree-like vines, steaming heat, swarming man-killing mosquitoes, crocodiles, hippos and other unknown forms of tropical life . The conclusion of Baker and others was that they were in a land where time had stood still since its beginning, where life never advanced and the human species had simply rotated in aimless cycles like the animal life in the Sudd . As late as the 1840s and 50s these explorers, even the most ignorant, should have known that in the same vast continent of wastelands, tropical rain forests and swamplands, there were also areas of arable land and civilized states . But they wrote about what they saw the most of: vast stretches of wasteland and secluded groups of "strange" people . But, as we shall see, some of the great kingdoms and empire-builders in Africa seem not to have known the meaning of failure or to have any ideas about surrendering to fate . Ejected here, they led the people there-and began to build again . Wherever the splintered-off refugee groups found a place where the soil seemed favorable for cultivation, and the land unoccupied by preceding migrants, they settled and began to build villages again . A sense of relative security was a necessary factor in deciding where to begin a new settlement . A crucial question was how many miles had they put between the slave hunters and themselves? For the kind of houses and community buildings they would erect depended directly on the probability of permanent settlement or sudden flight again . In short, they could build large, sturdy and attractive compound homes and temples of worship or easily demolished huts .[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 8:41pm On Feb 21, 2012 |
[b]The Overview THE LAND OF THE BLACKS WAS A VAST LAND, A BIG WORLD unto itself covering 12,000,000 square miles . From its northernmost point in what is now Tunisia to Cape Aqulhas is approximately 5,000 miles, and in its widest extent from east to west it is 4,600 miles . The whole of this second largest continent was once Bilad as Sudan, "The Land of the Blacks," and not just the southern region to which they had been steadily pushed from the north . After Asian, Greek and Roman occupations, the term "Sudan" came to indicate the areas not yet taken from the Blacks and was co-extensive with the Ethiopian empire . For the Ethiopian empire once extended from the Mediterranean north and southward to the source of the Nile in the country (Abyssinia) which recently reverted to the ancient name of the Ethiopian empire of which in earlier times it formed its southeastern provinces . Even as late as the times of Menes, 3,100 B.C., Ethiopia still included three-fourths of Egypt, or up to twenty-nine degrees North parallel . The Asians held the Delta region, hence "The Two Lands" -well-known to all historians but never fully explained . (To explain the "Two Lands," of course, would blast the myth about the builders of Egyptian Civilization .) It was pointed out that the study of the Blacks must begin in Egypt because most of their indestructible monuments are there ; and, further, because many of the artifacts archaeologists have been uncovering during the past seventy-five years as "Egyptian" are in fact "African ." Yet the very "Heartland of the Race" and the cradle of civilization were actually further south below the First Cataract, centered around the[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:30pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
To be continued, |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:29pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
have shifted the main focus from the history of Arabs and Europeans in Africa to the Africans themselves, a history of the Blacks that is a history lacks . They will be coming back, center stage, into their own history at last But to what end? Will it be just for the intellectual satisfaction of knowing our true history? Knowing it, but so what?The answer is nothing, unless from history we learn what our strengths were and, especially, in what particular aspect we are weak and vulnerable. Our history can then become at once the foundation and guiding light for united efforts in serious planning what we should be about now . |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:24pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]Ancient China and the Far East, for example, must be a special area of African research . How do we explain such a large population of Blacks in Southern China, powerful enough to form a kingdom of their own? Or the black people of Formosa, Australia, the Malay peninsula, Indo-China, the Andaman and numerous other islands? The heavy concentration of Africans in India, and the evidence that the earliest Aryan chiefs were black (which will make Hitler rise from his grave) open still another interesting field for investigation . Even the "Negroid" finds in early Europe appear not to be as challenging as the black population centers in Asia . For, again, reference is not made to small groups which may have wandered anywhere over the earth ; rather, our concern is with great and dominant populations . These are the Blacks who have so puzzled Western scholars that some theorize that Asia or Europe may be the homeland of Africans after all . The African populations in Palestine, Arabia and Mesopotamia are better known, although the many centuries of black rule over Palestine, South Arabia, and in Mesopotamia should be studied and elaborated in more detail . All of this will call for a new kind of scholarship, a scholarship without any mission other than the discovery of truth, and one that will not tremble with fear when that truth is contrary to what one prefers to believe . Nothing is clearer than the tragic fact that Africa, like the rest of the black world, has only the illusion of being free and independent . It is only about one-third free . It is still as economically enshackled as it ever was, in some respects more so. The study of this period and the conditions it presents will confront the Blacks of the world with the final challenge . The response to that challenge will be the test of the genius of the race . The outcome and, indeed, the whole future of the race depends upon the extent to which we have become intellectually emancipated and decaucasianized enough to pioneer in original thinking . Those who do become free in fact, will no longer readily grab the white man's ideologies and systems whether capitalism, the Western version of democracy, or communism, without a critical review and analysis to determine whether Africa's own traditional system, when updated, may not be truly superior and best fitted to meet the aspirations of the black world . This last period, then, is the time of great decisions . It may well be the black race's last chance for a rebirth and salvation . The division proposed above for a new approach in the research, teaching and study of African history will outrage most Western and Arab scholars, along with their subservient Negro followers, because I [/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:06pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]How was the art of writing lost by one of the first peoples to invent it? Study the migrations . How and why did a once-great people, with a common origin, splinter off into countless little independent societies and chiefdoms from which 2,000 different languages and dialects developed? Study the migrations . What caused the brother-against- brother internecine wars, hatreds, slavery and mutual suspicion among the various black societies? Again, study the migrations! There would be several subdivisions of great importance . Slavery and the slave trade, for example, would include Africa, Asia and the Americas. This would be the background for later periods covering black history in the United States, South America and the Caribbean areas . The eighth division is the reemergence of African kingdoms and empires, by regions, between the tenth and nineteenth centuries . This was the period during which there were attempts in every region of Africa to restore the glory that was Ethiopia's. It is doubtful if any of these black states realized that they were being slowly but steadily surrounded and hemmed in from all directions by invaders from the seacoasts and across the Sahara . The ultimate fall of the black states, first under Islamic and then under European Christian blows, closed this period with the triumph of colonialism . The final period is the Black Revolution that ended political colonialism with the rise of politically independent states . This would take us from 1950 to the present, and should be subdivided for the developments in Black America, South America, and the "Islands of the Seas ." From the new approach and plan for research, study and development of African history presented above, "periodization," while recognized as highly important, is not allowed to so fragment a great movement or development covering many periods and milleniums that their real significance is lost . Examples are the ethnic transformation of Egypt from black to brown to white, and the long centuries of the great migrations . These defied periodization in any meaningful sense . I'only made passing reference in the work to Blacks scattered outside of Africa over the world, not from the slave trade, but from dispersions that began in prehistory . This fact alone indicates the great tasks of future scholarship on the real history of the race . We are actually just on the threshold, gathering up some important missing fragments . The biggest jobs are still ahead .[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 10:04pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]order to focus on a single issue : The role of invasions and conquests in the destruction of black civilization with the resulting ethnic transformation of Egypt from black to brown (Afro-Asian and Afro-European), to white . This means that the second subdivision would bypass the Restoration period of the great Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties for the next period of invasion and conquest, the Hebrew (Hyksos) rule, 1645-1567 B.C. Again, bypassing the New Empire, the other subdivisions would study the periods of Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Arab invasions and the impact of their conquests and rule on the Blacks . The fourth major division would begin with the skipped-over Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, 1786-1233 B.C, the great Eighteenth, 1567- 1320, and then continue from the Age of Ramses to the end of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty, 1330-730 . The fifth period should be from the last of the Black pharaohs to the destruction of the remaining southern division of the Ethiopian Empire below the First Cataract, 730 B .C. to the fifth century (A.D .). The sixth period : From the reemergence of successor black states in the fifth century A .D . to their final destruction by the Arabs in the thirteenth century . The seventh period, like the second, should not be a time division of neat and largely irrelevant chronological sequences . It is a study of migrations of the Blacks that covered many centuries, but which became more widespread and desperate after the Arab conquest of the original center of black civilization in the Sudan . The long periods of wandering all over the continent, often aimlessly, comprised the great historic race of the Blacks for survival, a race that tried to outdistance famine, disease, slavery and death . The period that deserves more intense study and critical analysis extends from the thirteenth century to colonialism in the nineteenth . Elsewhere I have posed the most perplexing question : If the Blacks were among the very first builders of civilization and their land the birthplace of civilization, what has happened to them that has left them since then, at the bottom of world society, precisely what happened? The Caucasian answer is simple and well-known : The Blacks have always been at the bottom . This answer is clear even in the histories and other educational material which whites so busily prepare for Blacks . Almost all of the true answers will be found in the study of the causes of the migrations and the tragic results stemming directly from those seemingly endless movements of fragmented peoples .[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:58pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]THE NEW APPROACH The first period would begin with "prehistory," primarily because Nowe, one of the oldest cities on earth, was begun by Blacks before recorded history . Another important reason is that the Canaanites and Asians had invaded the Nile Delta and established a stronghold in Lower Egypt (then Northeastern Ethiopia or Chem) in prehistoric times . This early concentration of whites along the seacoasts of the Land of the Blacks is a circumstance of crucial importance in black history"because it was exactly from this development that the achievements of the Blacks were overshadowed by later writers or blotted out entirely . The call is for black specialists for one period in one area . What, for example, was the actual influence of the white Asians, rigidly held back for centuries in the lower one-fourth of the country, upon the Blacks who held the three-fourths that came to be known as Upper Egypt? Review and indepth studies of this period are required . The general historian is out . The best general histories, region by region, can be written only after the work of the specialists is done . The second period might well be from the conquest of Lower Egypt by the Ethiopian leader, Menes, in 3100 B .C. to the end of the Sixth Dynasty, 2181, also the end of the Old Kingdom .' This was the period that gave birth to Egypt, and before which there was no Egypt . It was the period during which black kings united the "Two Lands," started the dynastic (lineage) system, and began the building of the greatest civilization . The greatest in-depth review and concentration of research should be focused on this second period . It was, in fact, the Golden Age in the history of the Blacks, the age in which they reached the pinnacle of a glory so dazzling in achievements that Western and Arab writers felt compelled to erase it by the sheer power of their position, beginning black history over 3,000 years later, and limiting it-such as they allowed, to "Africa South of the Sahara ." The third period of black history in Egypt should begin with the Seventh Dynasty, 2181 B.C ., and subdivided into the tragic periods of internal turmoil and white invasions . The first subdivision would be from 2181 B .C. to 2040 B .C. covering the Seventh Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Dynasties . Thereafter, strict chronology should be ignored in --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes 3 . Earlier dates, such as 4500 B.C ., are also given and accepted by many authorities ; for conflicting dates do appear in ancient records . I do not debate the point .[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:51pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]Where it is impossible to deny black achievements, equal to and often above the whites, such achievements were attributed to some kind of Caucasian influence, even if imaginary . Yet, the AHA Publication Number Fifty-six uses the same strategy that makes Western scholarship so very triumphant . The main thrusts of its racist presuppositions are, for the unwary, completely hidden by much highly welcomed factual materials. But what is certain to disarm almost everyone is racism's forthright attacks on racism throughout the publication . I suppose no one is expected to notice the implied incapacity of black historians to deal with African history objectively . They are not referred to as historians, of course, they are " . . . some modern African intellectuals who have tried to show great civilizations in the past, grander than anything that ever existed ." As a direct result of this continued universal enslavement through education, black youth are in revolt . That revolt will become increasingly dangerous as they begin to realize how completely they are blocked from self-realization in the very institutions that should further it ; how difficult it is to find suitable textbooks in black history or even "Negro" teachers who do not limit themselves to the viewpoints of the white masters who trained them . The frustrations become more intolerable as the young find themselves between two fires : The white racists who determine the very nature of their education and the Negro educators who also see the world through the blue eyes of the Saxons . In short, they are forced to turn to their own devices because they find so many of their own race, who should be working with them, in the camps of the "enemy ." Insofar as periodization is concerned, no one should be so naive as to expect a proper division of African history while the field is almost completely preempted by the enemies of that history . A proper division would tend to encourage a more all-inclusive research and a less biased interpretation of the results . Neither will happen until a new generation of black research scholars and historians take to the field, becoming the foremost authorities in their own right-black historians, not a single one of whom will fall in Professor Phillip D . Curtin's category of black intellectuals who try to "show great civilizations in the past, grander than anything that ever existed ." The new research efforts call for black experts not only in the field of history but also in the allied fields from which African history must heavily draw : archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, etc .[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:32pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
I hope somebody is reading what I am reading here. In school I was taught that Mr Mungo Park discovered the source of the River Niger for example. What about the so called Lander Brothers, What did they discover again? After reading this book, it became very irrelevant what the white supremacist ever discovered in Africa and as for me it will forever remain so. If I may ask what was/is the essence of teaching black children the escapades of white supremacist in Africa without first teaching them the truths of their own history ( however, the white supremacist had already come to the conclusion that the blacks had no worthwhile history of their own not to talk of its achievement so they could as well be taught the history of the whites in Africa. What a shame.) if not only to create in the minds of these black kids a negative psychological complexities- you can say inferior complexities. Growing up as a kid and not learning about my true history ( only of course histories of war, hunger, cannibalism and hopelessness) but the history of other races indirectly made me see the so called ''whites'' as ''truly God sent''. But I am a grown man and I know better now. Let continue pls, |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 8:29pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]as ruthless and aggressive in their scholarly pursuits on races as their copartners in seizing and controlling the wealth and peoples of other lands . Having established strong national and international "African" associations and journals that attempt to control research activities on Africa, they proceeded to flood the world with hastily thrown together African "histories," pamphlets, and publications on just about every subject that could stand a "Black" title . 4. From their all-powerful "position of strength" they continue to arrange and rearrange the world as it pleases them, naming and classifying people, places and things as they will . In the United States, whites known to have any amount of "Negro blood," no matter how small, are classified as Negroes ; in Africa, North Africa in particular, they do the very opposite . Blacks with any amount of "Caucasian blood" are classified as "white ." This scheme was rigorously applied in the history of Egypt, for example, where even unmixed black pharaohs became "white" and the original black population was never referred to as Egyptian at all! The black kings who founded and 'ruled from the First Dynasty are disguised as such, while the Saite kings (white) of the small areas of Lower Egypt are presented as the Pharaohs of all Egypt even when African pharaohs were on the throne of Upper Egypt . Blotting the Blacks out of history included replacing African names of persons, place and things with Arabic and European names. One wave of the masters' magic hand, and Black Hamites and even Cushites, like their early Egyptian brothers, are no longer Africans! 5.Their periodization of African history is carefully arranged in such a way that the history becomes the history of Arabs and Europeans in Africa, and not the history of Africans . In African History, a recent publication of the American Historical Association as a guide to teaching, their purpose becomes clear in the arrangement itself: First period is, from the fall of the Roman Empire to 700 (A .D .), the Arab invasions ; the second period of African history is the period of "Islamic" civilization, 700 (A.D .) to the coming of the Europeans in 1500 ; the European Period from 1500 to 1960 is subdivided at 1880 to mark the period colonialism . There is no period of Black civilization in Black Africa . Such is the Caucasian viewpoint that is almost a religion . Their very first period eliminates 4,000 years of Black Civilization and the very greatest periods of African achievements ; their second period is devoted to the Arabs and Berbers in Africa ; and in their third period the focus is on European civilization . And it is all done under the heading of African history .[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 8:16pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]Western scholars, know all about the authentic early and modern sources. They simply ignore and refuse to publish any facts of African history that upset or even tend to upset their racial philosophy that rest so solidly on premises sanctified by time that they no longer need to be openly proclaimed . 2. They are, unwittingly, promoting the steady march toward a world conflict between the races . Yet they are doing what they feel they must do, in faithful obedience to their Caucasian culture, the racial pattern of which emerged in the 17th century . The steady conquest and enslavement of a whole people made it imperative to create both a religious and a "scientific" doctrine to assuage the white conscience . Their phenomenal success in the industrial world at once supports and justifies their philosophy, the supremacy of the fittest . The danger now arises from an entirely new and unexpected development: A sleeping and submissive non-white world, while all this white power was being amassed, is no longer either sleeping or submissive . 3. Even the African revolt against colonialism and the world-wide challenge to white domination of the entire earth, even these signals of change do not disturb these scholars of imperialism . They represent the Lords of the Earth, controlling all levels of education, science and research . They control the education of Blacks throughout the world . Therefore, they see no need, even in the 1980s, to take a new look at the history of Blacks from its beginning and start the work of restoring the pages they had either deleted or ignored . They are doing the very opposite . Their histories and other "scientific" studies of the Blacks are presented just as they have been for three hundred years . With the rise and spread of independent African states and the Black Revolution in the United States, these scholarly representatives of white supremacy quickly reformed their techniques of mind control . They set up in Europe and America highly financed African studies associations, societies, institutes, history journals and "African" periodicals of various kinds, all under complete white control and direction . Their African studies programs were pushed in the colleges and universities far ahead of the general demand by black youth for black studies . As the latter demands developed, black youth discovered that white professors not only had the field occupied, but were still teaching their traditional viewpoint on "race ." In the continuing crusade to control the minds of Blacks through the nature of their education, American and British scholars lead . They are[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 7:55pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]whom Western writers dwell, was exactly the same as that of patron saints in the Christian world . I advance further the theory that the early wandering Hebrews, so numerous in Africa, received many of their religious ideas in Africa, for there it was that Abraham sojourned, Moses was born, Joseph lived, and some of the early years of Jesus Christ were spent . There is no question that even centuries after mulattoes and Asians emerged as the only Egyptians, they still regarded Black Africa as the chief source of the spiritual-"The Land of the Gods" or "The Land of the Spirits ." 9 Notwithstanding the remarkable civilization they developed even milleniums before Christ, and the amazing rebuilding of empires in spite of the great dispersions, notwithstanding all of this, African people fell far behind in the forward march of the rest of mankind because, in addition to the destructive forces of nature on the continent and the hostile force from without, they, the African people, further enshackled themselves with their own hands through certain aspects of their social institutions and beliefs that stood as roadblocks to progress even where conditions where favorable . THE SCHOLARS' WAR ON THE BLACKS This work begins where the history of the Blacks began, in Egypt (Northern Ethiopia) and the Sudan (Southern Ethiopia) . Thus, at the very outset, I clash head-on with the Caucasian version of African history . My focus, then, is on the great issues in the history of the Blacks that emerge from this confrontation with white scholarship ; for while I have covered much of the same ground explored by scholars before me, I have generally reached different conclusions than theirs, and from the same body of facts . Let us pause for a moment at this point . I have made a blanket indictment of white Western scholarship on Africa . If it cannot be sustained, it should never have been made . They are brought under fire at various points throughout this work-the kind of work, as I also had stated, should be absolutely needless in the closing years of the 20th century . The case against Western "Africanists" is rather fully set forth in the work itself, but may be outlined here as follows : l. First of all, they are not ignorant of the true history of the Blacks, including their achievements as builders of one of the first great civilizations on this earth (ancient writers say it was the very first) ; and they, the[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 7:40pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
[b]THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Over the years of studying African history, certain propositions and theories evolved quite naturally as guiding headlights in the explorations . A few of them are set forth here, some previously stated or implied : 1 . That Africa, all Africa, is the native homeland of the Blacks,' and that the Asiatic peoples who occupy North and Eastern Africa, even though they may have been there for centuries, are no more native Africans than are the Dutch and British who likewise occupy and control the southern regions of th continent . The question of where the homelands are from which all of these invaders came is not debatable; 2 . Blacks were among the very earliest builders of a great civilization on this planet, including the development of writing, sciences, engineering, medicine., architecture, religion and the fine arts . 3. The story of how such an advanced civilization was lost is one of the greatest and most tragic in the hisory of mankind and should be the main focus of research studies in African history . 4 . Asian imperialism, though rarely ever mentioned, was, and still is even more devastating for the African people than that of either Europe or America . The Arabs' white superiority complex is not one white less than that of Europe or America, although their strategy of "brotherhood" deceives naive Blacks . 5 The forces behind the continuous splintering of small groups and even the breaking up of kingdoms and empires, followed by the equally endless migrations, including the steadily increasing death of the soil and the advance of the deserts, the drying up of lakes and rivers, along with the attending change of the climate and the always certain internal strife-all combined with invasions and famine to become a way of life. 6 . The strength and greatness of the African people can be measured by how, in the face of what at times seemed to be all the forces of hell, they fought through it all to survive and rebuild kingdoms and empires, some of which endured a thousand year . 7. Within the framework of even the smallest surviving states, the basic principles of the traditional African constitution were adhered to and kept alive throughout all the paving centuries as the fundamental elements of ancient democratic, social, political and economic systems all over the continent. 8. Africa was the cradle of a religious civilization based on the conception of one Supreme God, Creator of the Universe . This belief in one Supreme Being out-dated that of the Jews by several thousand years before Abraham, and the role of the numerous sub-deities --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes 2 . An important fact that should be well known is that Africans are not jet black all unmixed . For while the great majority are black skinned, countless thousands who lived for centuries in cool areas have lighter complexion-and no "Caucasian blood" at all . [/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 6:25pm On Feb 20, 2012 |
^^ Thank you very much. Chancellor Williams works as detailed in his book is for our own benefit. Keep reading bro. |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 11:24am On Feb 20, 2012 |
^^ I would have but lets try another approach to this subject. Please those who are interested to read, read and continue reading as I post one after the other so we can all discuss this issues here and together. Your opinion counts. Thanks. |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:48pm On Feb 19, 2012 |
To be continued, |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:46pm On Feb 19, 2012 |
[b]in relatively small numbers was sufficient to identify them as the leaders and achievers of whatever attracted the attention of the world . Another trick-the very opposite of the American law and practice was to classify Africans with "Caucasian blood" as Caucasians . If any of those so classified turned out to be notorious characters, pro-African or anti-white, they were loudly proclaimed and contemptuously called "half-breeds." The millions of early Blacks who were forced either by circumstances or expediency to replace their own names with Asian and European names only added to the problems of historical identification . Far from becoming baffled and discouraged by the more painstaking basic research required, the student of African history must accept the challenge as a twentieth century mandate that is essential to the salvation of the race in the most literal sense . They will need the active support of black governments and predominantly black institutions of learning . These should be actively sponsoring (1) comprehensive, basic research programs ; (2) research teams for field studies, especially in history and archaeology ; and (3) a thorough-going teacher-training program for history and other related disciplines . What, indeed, are black institutions of learning waiting for? The young people to show the way? The simple truth is that what is needed first is active pioneering initiative . Financial assistance would then be forthcoming even from unexpected sources . Black inertia is the main problem, there is still too much dependence on white scholars to do our work for us . I have written elsewhere that as long as we rely on white historians to write black history for us, we should keep silent about what they produce . They write from the Caucasian viewpoint, and we are naive, indeed, if we expect them to do otherwise, all the ballyhoo about their "scientific objectivity" to the contrary, notwithstanding.[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:41pm On Feb 19, 2012 |
[b]councillors who had been summoned-some from distant provinces-to pass on their request to explore . They were the direct representatives of the people . The voice of the king was in fact the voice of the people, without which he could not act on any matter of importance, or even talk alone with strangers . It should be clear, therefore, that our guidelines for research must lead to a critical analysis of all sources, whether original, secondary or oral . In particular, we should seek out those works with the special mission to "prove" the superiority of "whites" by "proving" the inferiority of Blacks-all in language so subtle, scholarly and scientific, that to the uncritical mind their "truths" seem selfevident . But it is also noteworthy that while the most hostile racist writers usually prove the very opposite of what they intended, their works inevitably contain useful factual data that must be accepted . Indeed, it is doubtful whether anyone, even a devil, could write a book completely devoid of truth . Research in African history is more tedious, laborious, and time-consuming than that in other unsuppressed fields . For in developing the "underdeveloped" history of the Blacks, one has to explore the most unlikely sources for a fragment here and a fragment there, and in works in no way concerned with African history, and, just as often, without any kind of history . Sometimes it is a paragraph or two in an explorer's account; at other times significant items may be found in the numerous missionary reports to the home office, explaining the mission's tasks, but also the native institutions to be overcome . All of these may be valuable and most valid sources precisely because they were not intended to be such at all . The writers were detailing bigger European interests . Any references to Africans were merely incidental to larger purposes . Just piecing all these fragments together could be a research field by itself . In my work in European and American history, I ran into no such problems and the research tasks were easier . In Egyptian history, to give a final example of Caucasian roadblocks to be overcome, one has the extra, time-consuming job of identifying the numerous Black giants of history who have been classified and effectively disguised as Caucasians over the centuries . First of all . one must know the various names that referred exclusively to Blacks and by which they were known throughout the ancient world . For in addition to the more widely used "African" and "Ethiopian," they were also known as Thebans, Libyans, Thinites, Nubians, Cushites, Memphites, Numidians, etc . Even before white Asians gained the ascendency in any of these areas, their very presence[/b] |
| Politics › Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(op): 9:38pm On Feb 19, 2012 |
[b]same thing : A Black . This, of course, was before the Caucasians began to reorder the earth to suit themselves and found it necessary to stake their birthright over the Land of the Blacks also . In line with this, some Western historians have recently wondered where the Africans came from! The reasons given for beginning formal studies of Africa at Oxford implied much more than was stated . Reference was made to studying the "Caucasian mind," for therein may be found many clues that lead to a better understanding of the history of Blacks and how the systematic blackout of significant portions of that history occurred . That is why I urge those students who intend to accept the great challenge of basic research in this discipline to go into "enemy territory," linger there, study and critically analyze their lectures and their "scholarly" writings, for they are some of the most rewarding sources for African history, precisely because in shrewdly attempting to delete, disguise or belittle the role of Blacks in world history, they often reveal the opposite of what was intended . They are fruitful sources of unconscious evidence, supplying the very evidence they thought to suppress or recording facts the significance of which they were totally ignorant . A fairly good example is the written account of a European explorer in East Africa . He was outraged because he and his party had to wait two weeks to present a request to explore the country to the African king . The black autocrat, the account went on, had the presumption to keep white men waiting (italics mine) in order to show his people how high and mighty he was . The whites were denied even a brief audience, while the king would quickly receive any Black that wandered in from the countryside . Now the explorer, without knowing it, was actually reporting how African democracy worked, and how it had been working before there was an Athens or Greece (where Westerners think democracy was born) . The explorer would have been surprised to know that (1) "king" in Africa meant something entirely different from what it meant in Europe and Asia ; (2) that this black king, far from "putting on airs," did not have the right to receive them, even socially, without the presence of at least three senior Elders ; (3) that to consider a petition to conduct explorations in the country, the full Council of State had to be called, and that this could not be done by the king without the advice of the First Minister (who happened to be on tour when the explorers arrived to the capital) ; (4) and that the "old Blacks" they saw "wandering in from the countryside" and immediately given audience, were the[/b] |
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