Sakofa

Remembering
19th century Europe contrived to deceive itself that all of Africa was full of barbarity and barbaric
chaos and delude them by justifying their own barbarity under the guise of bringing the white light of
civilisation to the dark, black natives.
H.W. Fairman

In his book, Africa in History, published in 1966, the great historian Basil Davidson wrote, “in African
history, much remains to be discovered, much remains to be agreed”. 47 years later, this is still true.
Moreover, in the name of scholarship, better technology, better financing and safety, much of the
excavated evidence of Africa’s past have been moved as in preceding years, to Centres in Europe, away
from Africa, where it is for all intents and purposes hidden and out of reach of the people who are best
in a position to interpret properly the excavated remains. After all it is not their ancestors we are talking
about and no matter how many PhDs in archaeology etc; no foreigner has ever been able to interpret
fully and comprehensively African history.

Like Felix Dubois said, there is so much for the world to learn from understanding Africa. Leo
Frobenius puts it even more succinctly: “LEARNING TO SEE1 is, indeed, the most difficult of things
in the laborious study of African mystery.

As far as Homer was concerned, the Aethiopians were the epitome of human beings. He called them
the FAULTLESS (some translations say blameless) ones. That is, they were without fault in all that
they did2. Then, Black people were the epitome of humanity. Let us also note that we did not get our
reputation of being faultless by colonising, propaganda and brainwashing. We got it by honest
reputation.

The ancients of old sang and wrote of the justness and the essential goodness of the African. The
superiority of the humanity of Africans was legendary. Homer, Lucien, Herodotus, all wrote about it. In
the 14th century, when Ibn Battuta got to the Mali Empire, he wrote about this same lack of crime and
1 That is believing the evidence of our own eyes. Leo Frobenius, The Voice of Africa.
2 Quite close to the way some Africans think of Oyinbos nowadays. Interesting what 2,000 years can do.
honesty. In the 19th century, when the missionaries came, they wrote about it, though hidden in their
texts. We were the most civilised of all men. When did we become bandits; renowned nowadays for our
“corruption”, 419 and banditry? In the US, blacks have the most incidence of crime. Our urban centres
are ridden with crime. When did we become bandits? How did we become so poverty stricken? When
did we become lawless that foreigners now teach us “the rule of law”? Africa was the cradle of
civilisation. We were the most civilised of all men. When did we become barbarians?

These and other question we must ask ourselves. We must become civilised once again but now with
the knowledge that other people in the world may not be as civilised as we are and so we know how to
teach them. We contend that the essential African spirit is civilised and just. The cities written about
throughout the medieval period were not simple villages. These were highly populated sophisticated
urban centres. The writings prove it. Archaeology has confirmed it. Some cities were much larger than
any city in Europe at the time all these were written about us. We were involved in international trade
and commerce so we are not talking about simple villages in Africa. These vast Empires, bigger than
any single country in Africa today were very well organized. The Islamic writers wrote about it. The
European colonizers wrote about it and this is why their indirect rule worked so well. We need to
deconstruct the colonial narratives.

Before the devastation of the Transatlantic Human Trafficking, important diplomatic and trading
partnerships had developed between the rulers of European countries and those of Africa who saw each
other as equals. Some of the earliest European visitors to Africa recognised that many African societies
were as advanced or even more advanced than their own.

As we did not write our histories in the European languages, European philosophers that shaped
European ideologies of the time (an uncomfortable number of them never came to Africa) elected to
produce their own versions of our history. The interest and subsequent writings on African history
developed in large part as a DEFENCE of slavery and colonialism and hence the truth was usually a
shifting mirage. Preconceptions based on ignorance and acculturation beclouded a lot of these
“authorities” on Africa and the need to justify both the European slave trade and the intuition of slavery
in the new world propelled “authorities” to portray the African as Barbarian, little more than wild
animals. The cruel trade in Africans as well as their cruel treatment was purported to be good for these
barbarians that needed to be uprooted from their “darkness” to feel the light of “Western Civilisation”
as well as the need to treat them like horses or oxen that need to be broken in order to be tamed to
justify their cruelty.

In order to ease the conscience of Europe, they had to reduce all other people they came into contact
with as less than human and so if they were not human, those lofty principles did not apply to them and
so Christian Europe3 could set out with a clear conscience to loot, rape, plunder and dehumanize every
other person they met on their travels. They were the only humans in the world and all land not
occupied by Christian Europe was terra nulis, that is empty land and so they had the authority to
occupy it; as long as it was across the seas
Eventually, the cries for the abolition of the evil trade grew louder and louder and the abolitionists
made things worse. From barbaric, wild savages, the African was graduated, in the name of
empathizing, with them to the level of simpletons; simple children that needed guidance instead of
cruelty. It is not their fault that they are simple minded, it was said. All kinds of fanciful theories,
histories and caricatures were manufactured in the minds of these largely puritan benefactors of the
“poor Negro”. Books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin went a long way to cement this view of the Negro as a
simpleton whose only salvation lay in becoming a Christian and showing undying love and adulation to
his white superiors, while enduring with Christian fortitude the “very few” evil white men, while the
good ones work to deliver him from his cross.

The Negro was moved by the people defending him, from a barbarian and wild savage that only
understand savage treatment, to a child-like simpleton that needed to be pitied, endured and helped. All
the while, all knowledge about Africa was adapted to suit the whims and ambitions of whosoever was
writing the history or was commissioned to write it. All reference to the great West African Empires
was subsumed. All civilisations discovered were attributed to white men. When this failed to fit, a new
race was created, a strange Hamitic Race that had white blood in them but has since disappeared. On
discovering the tribes of North Africa, they created a new race called Berbers (a name which the
different tribes that are so described reject till today) and ascribed all of these civilisations to them. A
new language grouping – the Nilo-Saharan, was also allocated to this in-between Race who just happen

3 It is important to note that not every white man participated or even approved of the looting and the rape of
Africa. It was only a small minority who participated in these atrocities. The majority were ignorant of what was been
done for their “glory” and they were too occupied with avoiding the same fate themselves. No Russian or Polish
national ever colonised even a square kilometre of Africa and they are as white as can be. Even in Western Europe
itself, the vast majority of even its citizens were under the yoke of this small minority, either as serfs or as cheap labour
themselves.
to sometimes look black because of interbreeding; after-all we all supposedly know that slaves came
out of Africa and the women were raped.

Until African women were raped and produced offspring that have been part purified by “white” blood,
nothing was ascribed to them. Carthage, ancient Libya, Numidia, Ancient Ghana, Mauretania, Nubia,
Aethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, were all attributed to this strange Race that only existed in prejudiced
minds. As for the prosperous East African city states, the Nay Sayers generously gave it to the Arabs,
they were almost white; as for Egypt, they kept for themselves. Kush and Meroe still presented
problems being so near Egypt and too ancient to be Arabic so they created an Afro-Asiatic language
group to blur those divisions and divorce them from Africa, hinging them onto the Near East.
By the time the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Arabs were added to these dehumanized mix. The
Europeans created a hierarchy of races with themselves at the apex.

All other civilisations were cultures and not civilisations because they were too far from even these
strange Races they had created and so they could not be smuggled into any the many different races
created in Africa. Nobody talks about them as civilisations. They just go into rhapsodies about their art.
And so we have Ife Art but not Ife Civilisation. All these included Nok, Igbo Ukwu, Benin, amongst
others. Benin was allowed an empire because after all everybody knows the Portuguese visited Benin
in the 15th century hence their progress. Even today, Benin people are proud to claim the secret
language in the Palace is Portuguese rather than a variant of Yoruba. God forbid. That would mean
taking away their validation and bragging rights. They will now have to struggle with mere “cultures”
and “art”.

But it was not always so. It is important to remember that there were no races as we have come to
understand them before the 16th century. Everyone was dealt with on the bases on their tribes or their
religion. Because of the sophistication of the sophistry, even today, professors of African history and so
called “Africanists” fall into the same trap of forgetting that the concept of white, black, yellow races
did not exist in before the 16th century and did not come into full bloom till the sanctimonious
protestant Europeans in the age of Reformation and “Enlightenment” could not reconcile their
exploitation of their newly “discovered” world with their principles and ideals of Equity, Liberty,
Freedom and Equality. African or black inferiority as a concept reached its high point when it became
intellectualized by philosophers of the Enlightenment.
Thus, even the so called translated works of the ancients will have to be re- translated by Africans so
we can fully understand what was meant and what the ancients truly heard about Africa. Most of
Europe had been ignorant of three quarters of the world until the 15th century AD. 10,000 years of
human civilisation had existed before the Europeans emerged out of their ignorance and with the
arrogance of the most ignorant; they assumed we were all just as ignorant as well.

Africanns have been sold a fallacy that Africans are poor and so Africans believe it. When these
foreigners first landed on our shores, they were quite upset that Africans had all these resources and
Africans were not making “ample” use of it. In order words Africans were not exploiting it enough.
This is tantamount to when a poor man enters the house of a rich man and he is very upset when he
sees that the rich man is only eating two small pieces of chicken. He dreams of how many pieces of
whole chicken he will be eating if he has as much money. This is what happened to us. In trying to
become like them, Africans have imbibed the poverty sprit. It is quite understandable because it was
their lack of resources that pushed them away from their homelands. It was not just the spirit of
adventure as Africans think. It was the need for resources. And when they landed in Africa and found it
rich of so many resources, they gorged themselves and are still competing with each other as to who
can most gorge himself on the riches of Africa.
Africans were responsible and knew that if Africans exploited the resources indiscriminately, it will be
depleted and there will be none for future generations.
The sustainable development that they are now preaching was what Africans had been practising for
millennia. What they thought was ignorance in delineating certain areas as holy preserves or shrines,
was actually wisdom far ahead of the foreigners that landed. Our traditions had been eco friendly from
time. Africans understood the Earth and its cycles. Unfortunately, Africans have been brainwashed into
looking outside to acquire wisdom about the world. Africans have been infected with this poverty
mentality. Much of the world still stores their wealth in bullions; African bullions. And yet Africa is
poor. How can this be? They destroyed our internal trade and convinced us Africans were ignorant and
stupid and now Africans believe them.
Recently, a Governor of one of the states in Nigeria was quoted as saying the contract for roads given
to local contractors will be revoked and given to foreign ones because the local ones were not
“performing”. But the foreign contractors he wants to give it to, IS a STATE owned enterprise. If they
did not practise and practise and practise the building of roads awarded to them by their government,
how will they have acquired the necessary competence to export their skills? Africans always want
immediate results and Africans are never willing to patiently build our skills. If the local contractor
does not have the opportunity to keep doing it till they get it right, how will they acquire the skills?
Africans are still stuck in this colonial mindset that “oyinbo na winch”, as said in local parlance, and
that they were all born with superior knowledge. No, they were born just the same as us. They learnt
this knowledge and they were given the opportunity to practise and practise and practise till they got it
right. The first bridge that the Chinese built collapsed. They kept building till they got it right and now
they export the skills. Their governments did not franchise out all the contracts to “foreign experts”.
Africans need to completely rewrite and rethink what Africans think Africans know about ourselves.
Up till today, the systems in which Africans learn are still colonial and the content is still colonial.
When our children go to school, the first thing they learn is A is for Apple even though 98% of African
children do not know what an apple is and the only reason A is for Apple in Europe is that they wanted
the children to learn faster by relating to commonplace things in their environment. If Africans are too
unaware to change from the very basics,e.g., A is for Apple, Africans can understand the magnitude of
mis-education that Africans have been subjected to. Africans MUST be educated but Africans MUST
be educated right. It is not going to school that is the problem. It is the content of what Africans learn in
school that is the biggest factor of underdevelopment in Africa.
Let’s undo the propaganda and the brain washing. Let us get properly educated. Let us know ourselves.
Pray, know the child of whom you are. Let us read, read and read. If they are not reading again,
Africans cannot afford such luxuries. Africans have a huge problem on our hands so Africans cannot
afford to follow world trends. Africans cannot afford to be lazy in our readings. Africans have to dig
dipper than the first page of Google search that you open on any subject on Africa. Africans have to
learn to read between the lines and to interpret all you read differently and from the African
perspective. Don’t take all you read as gospel truth. Investigate, investigate, and investigate. Read the
works of archaeologist, those who have long been sidelined by mainstream scholarship and print.
Africans like Cheikh Anta Diop, Bassey Andah, Dr. Yosef ben-Jochanan, Professor Ekpo Eyo, Dr
Kwame Opoku, Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu, Alinah K. Segboye Davis, Chapurukha M. Kusimba, Professor
Felix Chami and non Africans like, Roderick McIntosh, Peter Schdmit etc. Professor Chami in
particular discovered that East Africa was a vibrant part of the ancient world. It had been trading
internationally long before the advent of Islam contrary to the overriding belief that Islam and Arabs
brought trade and were the ones that connected East Africa to the outside world. He found using
ancient documents of Ptolemy (c87-150 AD) in the Mafia and Juanio Islands trade goods from far and
wide, which included Greco-Roman pottery, Syrian glass vessels, Sassanian pottery from Persia and
glass beads. Some of these finds have been dated to 600BC. Have Africans incorporated this new
knowledge into our educational system and our knowledge base? No, the knowledge Africans are still
teaching our children and using to make value judgements are still the prevalent and obviously wrong
knowledge.
Africans (the true Africans and not the urban “civilised” “educated” Africans who though they do not
realise it, have been so thoroughly colonised and brain washed that they have almost no relationship
with Africa, except that which is by blood to the true Africans) need to reinterpret our histories and this
world can only be a better place for it.
Let us set aside pre conceived notions and the innate belief and convictions that Black Africans are
perpetually an infantile, subject and retarded race. Let us look at all the evidence that have been
unearthed with the fresh eyes of the truly unbiased and Africans shall all be surprised at the harvest
Africans shall yield.
If only to have new Hollywood stories and movies to watch instead of the continual re interpretation of
Spiderman 1, 2 and 3! And for those interested in only how it can bring financial benefits, the benefits
are mind boggling.
That herb that Africans have always denigrated can be developed into the next Viagra or the next
paracetamol; imagine how huge the pharmaceutical industry is and how much money can be made
from this. The Artesunate that Africans now use for malaria and which is now a billion dollar drug was
developed from a traditional Agbo, that the Chinese have been drinking for millennia to cure malaria.
Africans have been drinking our own malaria Agbo too, but Africans refuse to believe anything good
can come from our ancestors that Africans have not developed or explored our knowledge. The special
type of yam and the okra leaves eaten in profuse quantities in Igbo Efon which is the twinning capital
of the world can revolutionalize the billion dollar fertility industry and Africans can reap the benefits of
this.
New stories can energise the movie industry and fortunes can be made from this. Africans might
rediscover a “new” political system which will truly fit Africa and solve our perennial leadership
problems. The Americans when they wanted to start their journey to world domination started a new
political system. This was their fulcrum. They went back 2,000 years and created a “new” political
system called democracy based on the 2,000 year old principles of Athenian democracy and adapted it
to their own times and their present needs. It is this democracy that Africans are now trying to copy.

To survive, Africans absolutely must learn more about who Africans used to be, who Africans really
are; love ourselves and use this knowledge with the new found self pride to transform Africa and
indeed the world into another epoch of humane progress. Africans built empires without enslaving and
dehumanising other peoples. Africans can teach the world that it is possible to do this and still be rich.
When Africans started dehumanizing ourselves with outside influences, this spelt the doom of Africa
and Africa will never rise with the current system of dehumanisation and slave labour which is the
engine of growth of the current world systems.
Africans are the richest continent on earth but presently, unfortunately, the poorest. Let us resolve this
paradox and build a wonderful Africa as well as share our bountiful riches with the entire world.
Africans can only do this if Africans discover the true African vision and the true African philosophy.
Otherwise Africans shall continue to stumble about in the wilderness of want confounding the most
expert of our experts by our inability to “develop”. The western system of allocation of resources
otherwise known as Capitalism does not resonate with the traditional and communal African spirit.
This is why no matter the wonderful packages put together for us by experts (World Bank, IMF, etc)
from all over the world, it does not work.
The African policy is that of live and let live and the good of the all and the African spirit resists its
debasement into the selfishness and inordinate competition and the need to destroy and debase your
brother in order to have an extra car or a seat on the UN Security Council. Until Africans remember this
salient aspect of our past, Africans are doomed to failure.
To the people that say Africans should forget the past, forget colonialism and stop blaming the past for
our present predications, here are a number of issues.
What exactly did the Ancient World think of Africans? What did the pillars of Western Civilisation,
Homer, Herodotus, and other Greeks think of the Africans that they knew and heard of? How is it
relevant to us 2,500 years after? How does it compare with modern day reports about Africans? How
has the world’s view of Africa evolved over the ages? These and more questions we explore in our
major feature in this edition. We journey through what the ancients (from 800BC to 200AD), wrote
about Africans whom they called Aethiopians, through the Islamic Scholars of the Islamic Golden Age
(from the 7th century AD through to the 15th century AD) and down to the Europeans of the 15 th to the
20th century. It makes for fascinating reading.
First, the Yoruba have a saying: Oku ti e sin, ese re nita o! That means the dead that you buried hastily
without a proper burial, see its feet outside. The dead are usually buried in the outer court of the
compound, so if a leg comes out, it would not only hinder the life of the living, but passersby will also
comment on it.
Secondly, if a man contracts syphilis and leaves it untreated or only partially treated and continues with
his life, then twenty years later he is now mad. If you do not ask him for his history, you can never cure
the madness. You will keep trying each and every method and still not cure the madness. It is when you
ask for his history that you will find out that it is the syphilis that caused the madness and if the syphilis
is not cured, the madness cannot be cured.
The situation we find ourselves in Africa today is a direct consequence of our past which is still very
much with us. The fact that I am writing this in English is evidence of it. Until it is properly addressed,
analysed and corrected, we will keep moving around in circles with no progress. All the things that
affect Africa today – corruption, bad leadership, underdevelopment, etc, are a direct consequence of our
past and until we know that past properly, analyse it, discuss it and remove the poison, we are doomed
to failure no matter what we do. History, this history that we think is so irrelevant has proven it over
and over again.