Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will- Frederick Douglass
Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it political? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right.- Dr. Martin L. King
The dove of peace cannot fly down the barrel of a gun- Owen Alik Shahadah
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent- Dr. Martin Luther
The "will of power" and the "impulse to dominate" have been dominant trends in much of the European thought, behavior and culture over the past 2500 years
- David Comissong, Politician
A healthy group of people are able to impose their reality on the world. They control their image and create stories about themselves to place the things they cherish at the forefront of their expression. It is through agency that people practice self-determination and are therefore free to cultural contribution to humanity. The fate of Africa is that after slavery, colonialization, apartheid and neo-liberal globalization is that Africans are not agents of their lives. Definitions, agendas and perspectives are still imposed by Europeans who dominate all aspects of the African reality. Thus the image of Africa, the concepts of Africa imposed on the world are those created and controlled by European and other non-African forces.
No self-determined people in history have presented the bad side of their face as a representation of who they are. When the Greeks speak of the virtues of a man they speak of the perfect Greek. When the British speak of manners, they speak of the perfect Englishman.
When the Arabs speak of poets, they speak of the greatness of Arabic. When the Japanese speak of the honor, they define the perfect Japanese. Therefore, it is necessary as a first principle for the African, romantic or not, to produce rhetoric which showcases to the world the most beautiful aspects of Africanity.
Every man is rich in excuses to safeguard his prejudices, his instincts, and his opinions.
- Ancient Egyptian Proverb
Africans must come to the human table with the fruit from their diversity and enrich humanity; but there is no diversity if African value systems are all pointing North. And there is no diversity if Africans are made to conform to rainbow rhetoric restricted in express for fear of offending the 0.0001% of self-proclaimed non-racist Whites. Because the very Europeans that promote the utopia of racial peace and the dismantling of race pride are concurrently busy exploiting and expanding their Eurocentrism. And it is critical that an intelligent people understand the ambit of tactics used to undermine Pan-African centred ideals.
Every generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.
- Franz Fanon
To understand the entire discourse on Africa and African people is to indulge in a vivid exercise in the removal of agency. The primary purpose of this study, new and old is the continuous reassertion of Conrad's “Heart of Darkness.” This is the Eurocentric tradition in anti-African scholarship that provides the moral-academic justification for the slave trade: the most successful commercial venture in the history of humanity. In Europe's bid to protect their trade interest the marriage between racist academia and the exploitation of Africa had to be made. The need for the continuation of this tradition is not lost in today's markets, which are heavily dependant on sustaining the impoverishment of Africa . The primary objective, conscious or unconscious, of most European-African relations is to keep Europeans as the primary agent of everything which goes in and out of Africa; may it be intellectual or material. Thus maintaining dominance over African self-determination.
Africa today is the primary testing bed for new drugs, social experiments, cheap labor and raw materials. A wealthy Africa would create stronger corruption-free government, which in turn would be an antigen to Western imperialist designs. These designs are in the form of the new slave masters—the multinational conglomerates. The reality of Africa on-the-ground is a continent locked into a blind subservient orbit; the junk-yard of the Western World. The function of Africa is thus not for the native Africans, but for the harvesting of materials to construct Western civilizations.
Human agency is the capacity for human beings to make choices and to impose those choices on the world - Dictionary
Every people speak from their cultural perspective, this in itself is not a problem, It is a natural aspect of human behavior. When Americans speak of tragedy, they reference the destruction of the world trade center, their 9/11. However, 9/11 is just a date and may have another significance to another culture. In Iraq they have much reason to identify with other dates in their recent history to reference tragedy, like 11/23[i] [i] . However, the dominant culture exports their local perspective as the common world view, this is the crisis with cultural and political dominance where people's experiences if outside of spheres of Western interest are marginalize. In the event of another dominant culture this effect is neutralized. But where agency is lacking the "weak" fall prey to absorbing others people's realities as their own. Eurocentricity is a specific aspect of racial supremacy expressed along the cultural lines of Europe . This definition means that the agent of Eurocentrism doesn’t have to be racially European. The celebration of European culture in itself is healthy and natural, for Europeans, but when the line is crossed and other cultures are footnoted and denied agency then it becomes racism.
The first sign of agency is the inherent power to define ones terms of reference. Specific words exist for racism against Jewish people and US congress monitors global antisemitism (Global Anti-Semitism Review Act) yet no such policies or terms exist for the greatest victims of racism. The ongoing African Holocaust is denied, ridiculed, mocked, and deemphasized daily without any global sympathy. How is it possible for 60 Million people to have so many terms which articulate their self-interest yet 1 billion Africans seem disabled in this capacity?
MAKING A SLAVE
The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. - Heart of Darkness
In the analysis of the paradigm “the making of a slave” the removal of agency from Africa was the first instruction needed in the creation of a “cooperative work-force.” Africans taken to the New World had no authority over their life; they were not even allowed to commit suicide. And the reason for adversity to African suicide was not religious or commercially motivated. It was not the fear of losing “merchandise” but moreover the mental domination and removal of all forms of self-ownership from the psyche of the African captives. The re-labeling and amalgamation of the Mandika, Fulani, Igbo, Asante, into one bland color label- black, was part of the greater process of absolute reduction of African identity: A color epithet that Europe believed to be the lowest color on Earth, thus reflecting the social designation of African people in European psyche. But for slavery to work this reality had to be transferred from the European mind to the African mind. Africans had to believe what Europe believed about Africa and Africans. Cultures, ethnicity, legacy, royalty, lineage was now melted down to a single entity—slave. The slave had no past and certainly no future, save for after death when they were allowed to service a white god in an abstract heaven. The genius of White Supremacy, when mastered, is it protects itself by breeding dependency among those it subjugates allow the victims to only know a Eurocentric centre of reality.
Apart from the doctrine that poverty and the poor were blessed and would get their reward in heaven, the missionary preached the need to obey the powers that be. No matter how morally corrupt Caesar was, the African Christian was told to obey him. Caesar was the Colonial Power
- Ngugi wa Thiong'o
When we traverse the globe today and look at oppressed people, we see that despite their oppression, they are fully conscious of self, they have religion and culture which they proudly use to distinguishes themselves from their oppressors. The Jews in Hitler's death camps knew they were Jewish, they had their Torah, they had the Talmud and they had their history, which was reinforced by a Jewish culture. No amount of “special treatment” could alter the Jewish religion or their historical legacy. However, Africans by a process of the most hideous system in humanity were removed and later denied access to their history. Africans could not be attached to greatness as this would then beg the question, if these people were capable of science, engineering, social structure and kingdoms, how can their function be as beast-of-burden? How can a people who forged Timbuktu , Axsum , Kanem- Bornu , Egypt , Nubia , Great Zimbabwe, Ancient Ghana, Songhay, Sokoto Caliphate, Monomotapa be now mere labor units, movable chattel, branded like cattle, confined, de-robed, whipped, and reduced? It was absolutely essential to institutionalize the myth of a dark and savage Africa occupied by heathen cannibals who were saved by Europeans from absolute misery at the hands of their countrymen and marauding Arabs. History narrates that the European in their mercy did Africans a tremendous favor by bringing them to work in well-nurtured plantations in the West, allowing their lives to be touched by a white god, delivering them from savagery to culture, civilization and industrialization.
DENIAL OF AGENCY
For far too long, a majority of Africans have been indifferent to misrepresentations about who they are. They have remained 'objects' of the ill-informed caricatures of a once glorious heritage disfigured by colonial and post-colonial predators.-- Chido Nwangwu
There is a mental tool kit that the African student needs to engage anytime studying history because when history is reduced from all the pages and pages to the underlining conclusion, we find regardless of if the author is British liberal, American conservative, or Australian the conclusion is the same. Africa has fostered nothing the Western World considers artifacts of civilization. With few exceptions, this is the underlying summarization on Africa, the pathology of discrediting and take-away. Eurocentric scholoarship would rather credit Arabs, Indians, Chinese and even aliens for the pyramids rather than native Africans.
My decision to destroy the authority of the blacks in Saint Dominque (Haiti) is not so much based on considerations of commerce and money, as on the need to block for ever the march of the blacks in the world.-
Napoleon Bonaparte
Ethiopia – Not of African Origin
Egypt – Not of African origin
Sudan – Not of African origin
Mali – Not of African origin
The Moorish Empire – Not African
Ancient Zimbabwe – Not of African origin
There is nothing glorious in Africa that has not been reassigned to “White” ownership. And some are confused about terms like Arab, but Arabs from the perspective of Eurocentric history are a “Middle-Eastern Caucasoid,” so quite happily will they reassign Ancient Egypt or Islamic Spain to Arab people. W. E. B. Du Bois was right when he said:
"We cannot if we are sane, divide the world into whites, yellows, and Blacks, and then call Blacks white."He might have said that it would be equally as strange to call them "Mediterranean," "Hamitic," or a hundred other euphemisms taking authorship outside the racial property of African people."Black" in the North American context.
The "social "construction of race in America does not rely on skin color. "African Americans," as Asante notes, " constitute the most heterogeneous group in the United States biologically, but perhaps one of the most homogeneous socially.
Karenga notes that it "is . . . playing Europe's racial game to concede that Egyptians are white or Asian if they don't look like a Eurocentric version of a West African." Furthermore, "Ethiopians and Somalis, perhaps, resemble the ancient Egyptians and ancient Nubians more than any other peoples and they are, even by Eurocentric standards, African." Unless we revive the hoary "Hamitic" Myth."
The question for the discerning student of history is; why do all the conclusions always serve to empower Europeans and disempower Africans. It does not matter if they use archeology or genetics, linguistics or reasoning the conclusions always make a deposit towards the greatness of Europe, and a deduction from the glory of Africa.
Who ended the slave trade- Europe
Who stopped the Arab trade – Europe
Who was the greatest Abolitionist – A European
The greatest scientist, thinker, architect, composers, inventors – Europe
Who invented modern civilization – Europe
Who invented everything good – Europe
Who is the most civilized - Europe
Who knows what is best for Africans? - Europeans
The question that should be put to these historians is “What has indigenous Africa contributed to the world?” Because the history of take-away has reduced Africa to nothing, thus implying the old statement “Africa is of no historical significance.” So how are today’s scholars any different from David Hume and Kant? If all their conclusions reduced all the nobility of Africa to given, borrowed or stolen.
PRE-OPINION
The foundational paradigm that begins with a pre-opinion, are like verdicts that come before the trial, or books that conclude before their start. The discourse on African with an error because those foundational paradigms which inspired the study in the first place were rooted in the denial of African agency. political intellectualism bent on self-affirmation rather than objective study.
This denial extended to denial of self-definitions. And in the 18th century, the birth of narrow racial definitions emerged. The “Negro” a creature with thick lips, black skin, flat broad noses, woolly hair, characteristics that became socially accepted by Europeans as “ugly.” This narrow definition of Africans shied from the reality that indigenous African people are physically the most diverse racial family on the planet. In indigenous Africa you can find epicanthal fold eyelid types as found in the San of Southern Africa, flat noses among the Bakongo, straight fine noses as among the Ethiopians, Somalis, Fulani, Tuareg and Wodabee; Short hair, straight hair, curly hair, light skin, dark skin, very tall and very short, from Berber to Bushman all are part of the African race. Not only were a selected set of physical features assigned to Africans considered ugly, but also African traits and African customs became bywords for lazy, barbaric and primitive.
NOT BLACK AND WHITE
The removal of agency is not a “black or white” issue, it is not an issue polarized by Europeans on one-side and Africans on the other: The color of philosophies, not the color of skin is the greater issue. Many who profess to celebrate pan-Africanism act as agents, mouthpieces by proxy, whose mission is the perpetuation of the removal of agency from Africans. Some household names such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr and Kwame Appiah are renowned for at times selling African history down the toilet. They sustain in the most delicate of ways that the sole authority on Africa is none other than the European, and that all studies of culture, language, are for Europe 's final interpretation. Still today, pop-history is littered with “the discovery” approach of Africa . Thus, the source of the Nile was “discovered by...” Crediting an African with exploration in the European mindset would be like crediting a mule or a migrating Zebra. Historically Africans are made to sway like leaves on the wind, impervious and indifferent to any form of civilization, a people absent from scientific discovery, philosophy or the higher arts. We are left to believe that almost nothing can come out of Africa , other than raw material.
AGENTS OF ACADEMIC RACISM
You can not measure and African success with a European ruler
- Owen Alik Shahadah
The legacy of the African Holocaust has made a profound affect on African academics. As Africans have a profound disinheritance in areas of social-economic, there has also been a destructive disinheritance in areas of academics. We are playing on a chessboard where all the pieces are white. The volumes of publish works by the Hitler's of the African Holocaust is impossible for Africans to gain any foothold and authorities stance in their history. Year after year, the bookshelves are filled with one opinion. The most “popular” Africans are those singing from this music score. Some of the most racist and pejorative material today is taught in schools in an attempt to vindicate the continuation of academic racism. The self-referencing of the “old boys” like Hume and Kant is valid today because it is old, white, and used many, many times. It is thus impossible for the frustrated African to gain any ground because he/she is in a battle whose parameters are set by foes on a battlefield tipped economically, socially, in favor of the opposition. We often hear “so and so is acknowledged by everyone to be one of the most prominent scholars of …” so and so is always white. Scholarship is a white only seat, academic apartheid with no room for debate. Aspects of academia which are dead and buried, but still in use.
It seems that White scholarship believes that if you repeat a lie, it evolves into the truth on the 1 thousandth occurance
In factual cannot become factual by virtue of volume or consistent use.
Any African academic discussing or having a positive take on Africa that contradicts their assertion is called Afrocentric, as if this form of opinion is a cultural slant loaded with the bias of a pseudo-history. They say with one breath that Eurocentric academics were “men of their time” but still keep saying these people were the definitive guide to Africa. How can you say something is wrong but keep using it as a definitive source? The complete dismantlement (deconstruction) of the academic paradigm of authority needs to be a first step in a pure analysis, and it is for Africans to adopt this approach as bases for articulating and imposing a new identify. And in this we cannot overlook the significance of linguistics as a function of oppression.
Afrocentrism /Afrocentricity
In a reaction to Eurocentricity Afrocentrism was birthed. However this shift inherited many of the same systemic flaws inherent in Eurocentricity: hand picking elements of history for promoting the romantic seperatist ideology. Too continually view history through a modern racial lens distorts the historical timeline and creates academic anachronism, this is true regardless of if the author is African or European. Any concept or ideology designed to react to another flawed system ultimately has a shelf life.However, it has to be categorically stated that the majority of White conservative critics of Afrocentrism bring arguments, which critique the tools and paradigms of Afrocentrism yet they employ these same tools in their own thesis. Therefore, Eurocentrism is allowed to deny African Civilizations and contributions by bleaching Ancient Egypt but Afrocentrism is not allowed to do the reverse, a classical case of academic hypocrisy.
In 1994 the Manhattan Institute, a public policy forum, published Alternatives to Afrocentrism, a collection of highly critical essays by, among others, Lefkowitz, Gerald Early, Stanley Crouch, Wilson Moses, and Frank Yurco. Early, an African American, has been especially vitriolic, dismissing Afrocentrism as just another North American experiment in "group therapy," intellectual fast food for his less sophisticated brethren. In the academic world Afrocentricity has become a dirty word because of the activities of a few pseudo-historians who marred authentic Afrocentric research. This ultimately undermined the seriousness of Afrocentrism. While Eurocentrism seeks to replace African civilizations, it is not the aim of Afrocentricity as Asante correctly stated:
In seeking to delimit it, he has encouraged its adherents to be autocritical. They must not "promote a static, monolithic and unreal concept of African culture which denies or diminishes its dynamic and diverse character." They must also not "overfocus on the Continental African past at the expense of recognizing the African American past and present as central to and constitutive of African culture and the Afrocentric enterprise."
Many times Afrocentrics have no problem speaking of the glorious African past and the universities of Timbuktu and Aksum to score racial points and then on the next page try to totally demonize Islam and Christianity in Africa destructive. They praise the battles of Kemet but curse the battles of Songhai. And regardless of the history the discover they try to force it into their "African purist" ideology of "invasion" " destruction" "conquest" "foreign religion."
Africans must be agents of their own history and control the format, agenda, and placement by which African history and culture is taught, disseminated, absorbed and weighted. But this does not mean that it is okay to fictionalize history to react against academic racism. And for this reason the Maafa study is a key sign of the Pan-African paradigm-shift where the legacy of the African Holocaust on African people globally is studied within the framework of the natural history in which the Maafa occurred. The emphasis in the historical narrative is on African agents (African-Centred) but this is very different from using history to force modern-day racial concepts into past historical events .
EUROPE's SOLUTION FOR AFRICA
"Man’s freedom is lacking if somebody else controls what he needs, for need may result in man’s enslavement of man." - Muammar al-Gaddafi
How many times do we see the 'power photo' of the White lady with the poor impoverished African child being held? The White parent to the hopeless African child who is dependant on Europeans (not Africans) to act out some "white mans burden." It is hard to believe these degrading images of White vanity are still the posters of many NGOs and so-called charities..
The premises behind much of the solutions for Africa are in the ideal that a hurting Africa needs a humanist hand from Europe .
Begging the fox to save you from the wolf.
This is like appealing to the fox to save you from the wolf. An agreement in the United Nations’ Security Council or other diabolical agencies such as the World Bank is like an agreement among a choir, and such agreements are not agreements at all nor are they meant to provide any succor to the problems of Africa . NEPAD insist that a richer Africa is in the interest of the entire world, true or false will not appeal to the morality of a world system that never in its legacy has and does not act along a moral compass.
When Europe spoke of partnership we thought it was a marriage but it was really a concubiage
There is nothing but capitalism and illusions of democracy, which are alien to the aspirations of African people. From “Feed Africa” to “Make Poverty History” which are mere sloganeering programs with no genuine effect to the population of the continent.
UNICEF:German Ad Campaign Uses White Children in Blackface to Portray "Uneducated Africans"
These campaigns are industries unto themselves that create billions of dollars and generate millions of jobs. They subsidize ailing industries in developed countries. Entire business exists that sustain their products entirely from the poverty of Africa. We are naïve and childish to believe a richer Africa is in the interest of Europe.
We cannot have the oppressors telling the oppressed how to rid themselves of the oppressor.- Kwame Ture
Poor people do not have the luxury of liberalism and freedom of speech. Poor people have no point of view other than “feed me”, Poor people are absent from the luxury of agency. And a poor Africa will always be a slave to a richer Europe . Today at every major anti-slavery or save Africa project it is Europe deciding and inviting personalities from the African world to sit at “THEIR” table, to discuss Africa ’s problems. The frontline for Make Poverty History is a “museum of rock star” beyond their performance years, probably seeking redemption and revival; Gedolf is the expert on famine, Bono the authority on AIDS. Bob Geldof, the Jesus and Tarzan character all rolled into one. The first name to come to mind when abolition is whispered is William Wilberforce and Granville Sharpe. Walking in the legacy of Dr. Livingston, I presume: A man who single-handedly ended the ENTIRE Arab Slave trade. Again, the agent in Africa's liberation is Europe . Not even dealing with the aspect of how Africa found itself in the continuing hole. What kind of world do we live in when the views of the oppressed are expressed at the convenience of the rich?
TARZAN AGAIN : Black Story, White Voice
In the Tarzan paradigm Tarzan is the great white hero who speaks on behalf of the 'primitive' Africans and acts as the parent and leader. During colonialism Europeans established themselves as the primary agents of African destiny; in their superiority they knew what was best and spoke on behalf of Africa. Now what is not understood is when Bono stands up and speaks, or when yet another White person "exposes" the ills of Africa through film this is a direct ideological continuum from the superiority complex of slavery and colonialism. The underlying preemies is Whites are morally and intellectual superiorly and have a burden to save Africans.
Name a "Black film” and look behind the lens; who wrote it, who produced it, who directed it? Amistad , the music by John Williams, the director Mr. Spielberg. A Jamaican film called One Love , again the same pattern. Tsosti a story of violence in the African communities, violence is a natural reality of South African people in European perception; it sells and it feeds their image of us of being gang bangers, and semi-noble savages . It is almost impossible to consider a film that does not include a European central figure. War Dance, singing dancing through the horrors of a genocide. The recent Last King of Scotland reflects this it is in the legacy of CRY FREEDOM, the title shows the mindset behind it . I t would not be sufficient to tell the story of Idi Amin; so infamous enough and surely notorious enough character in his own right. No, they say, this would reduce the value of the project, in comes the European into the storyline. It is actually amazing to see Mel Gibson attempt to make a film of a non-White people without a central European character. Returning to the likes of Richard Attenborough we cannot blame him for his bias in Cry Freedom , he is by nature a European and is simply acting out his European weighted worldview, avoiding Eurocentric as a term, as every healthy race is sensitive to his or her cultural perceptions. It makes no sense to ask Spielberg to give more “Africaness” in his Amistad or The Color Purple (which was an amazing piece of cinema). Even stories of African struggle are without exception made by Europeans: End Game, Invictus [2009](Clint Eastwood), Amandla (Lee Hirsch), Roots (Collection of Whites), War Dance (Sean Fine), Life and Debt (Stephanie Black), Rize ( David LaChapelle ). This pattern speaks directly to the social disinheritance, who is paid from our experience? Who is cashing in again and again on our tears? Why can' Africans be the central authors of their stories? The issue is not for Europeans to become more sensitive in “pretending” to be African, the issue is amazingly simpler; it is for Africans to be agents in their stories and hence removing the problem all together.
The concept that Europe is qualified in bringing out indigenous people's stories is just as arrogant as assuming Africans are and others are a worthless child-race. All nice intentions are welcomed by these are all rooted in the same racist presumption of racial incapability on the part of Africans and other non-European races.
A journey to the local media outlet see Michael Palin in Africa, or a PBS special on Africa produced by an all European cast called Tigress productions. This is the interface, which we need to challenge; many of us are caught-up in incidentals of our struggle. Being seen on a screen is not self-determination, especially when the gatekeepers, decision makers who determining the validity of our work are all European. African stories are attempts to explain Africans to Europeans as opposed to Africans explaining themselves to each other. These mere fact renders the whole concept of “Black cinema” and “Black perspective” redundant.
PRODUCTS NOT PRODUCERS
Capitalist Nigger: Dr. Chika Onyeani
In the controversial book by Dr. Chika Onyeani a connection between inferiority complex and poor economic agency is well made. Critics, those who set agendas for Africa, naturally are critical over this content because it hits true to the core issue which the West feeds of-- Africa's lack of economic independence. Africa serves as a supplier of raw material and not finished good. And the few manufacture business in Africa are owned and controlled by non-Africans. Critics claim the book uses out dated stereotypes while failing to praise the core thesis. But a book on AID or AIDS would find more praise as it keeps African markets securely in their grasp.
Once there was a web site called Africana which explored African history and generally empowering topics, where is that site today? It has been taken over by the commercial giants AOL and is now blackvoices, a collection of trite and pointless garbage that celebrates the emptiest aspects of African-American culture; the singers and the dancers, the entertainers and the clowns.
Agency is the natural actions of a self-determined people.
All the adverts centered on the “Black” people are relating to sex, the commoditification of the African body is an industry to itself. Inter-racial dating, meet black singles, black gays, find black love, this is what African people have come to represent in the global world. These are problems created and nurtured by the Europeans. And they fail to understand it is also adversely affecting the very socio-cultural existence of Europe itself. Europe has relegated the position of women to the doldrums; they see their women as object of amusement, just mere flesh for quenching their thirst. Who needs any “meet single” if women are respected and given the right position? And certainly it is not a problem in Africa . So why, is it that it is sent down our throats and now our people entering the bandwagon? The commercial exploiters of African people have riding a very a low tide in human culture, again the issue is this is what Africans have chosen to identify with. Hip-hop to pop embraces nothing of a deeper, only the most base aspects of the human animal. Returning us to Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”, t he reason is that as El-Hajj Malik Shabazz said: “we stand for nothing, fall for everything.” Agency is the natural actions of a self-determined people; lack thereof is testimony to the shallow position Diasporian-Africans occupy.
EVERY STARTS AND ENDS WITH EUROPE
According to popular information; African history began with the arrival of the Portuguese. Before that time Africa was of no significance. The only names seen in the abolishment movement are William Wilberforce, Granvel Sharp et al. The liberation is a Europeans enterprise, the countless revolts and revolutions are a footnote in the annals of history. A few names by sheer power like Nat Turner could not be washed out of history but many fought for liberation over the centuries of enslavement and colonial rule. Failing to see who is writing history, our admitting it and then being part of inheriting Eurocentric agency is denial of self-determination.
African people are not even allowed to choose their own leaders. The African continent today continues to be a nesting bed for Europe’s choices for Africa ’s leadership. The heroes like Mary Seacole are not heroes of African people but heroes of Europe . The most treacherous and hateful “blacks” are celebrated outside of Africa ’s interest. African heroes are nominated by all white communities during “Black history” month in the UK , so that singers like Alicia Keys gets postered with Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Not understanding has never been a restraint for Europe . The error again and again is the acceptance and trust Africa people have seemingly placed on the opinions and values of Europeans. Authorship and authority, if not from Europe , is not valid.
African scholarship is thus alight to a circus show, for the same motives of giving a monkey a suit and a law degree---entertainment. To state an opinion not supported by European or to speak favorable about Africa is to be an Afrocentric, which in the European vocabulary simply means a desperate childish pseudo-historian.
To speak favorable about Africa is to be an Afrocentric, which in the European vocabulary simply means a pseudo-historian.
African history began with the arrival of the Portuguese. Before that time Africa was of no significance. The only names seen in the abolishment movement are William Wilberforce, Granvel Sharp et al. The liberation is a Europeans enterprise, the countless revolts and revolutions are a footnote in the annals of history. A few names by sheer power like Nat Turner could not be washed out of history but many fought for liberation over the centuries of enslavement and colonial rule. Failing to see who is writing history, our admitting it and then being part of inheriting Eurocentric agency is denial of self-determination.
CULTURAL DISOWNERSHIP
One measure of the level of destruction on Africans globally is the mass dis-ownership of culture. From domain names to grocery stores in African dominated communities, it doesn’t matter if you are in New York or Nairobi, Bridgetown or Bamako . For example the domain Africaunite.com is not owned by Africans or any single thing that relates to Africa remains in the hands of our former/current oppressors. Maybe we are asleep or late of the starting block to recognize new opportunities and move into our own cultural niches before they become dominated and controlled by others. Almost every major organization rooted in “doing” something for Africans or “saving” Africans is European dominated. And some of us think we are free.
Music
The beboppers' attitude was summed up in a famous quotation attributed to Monk: "We wanted a music that they couldn't play" – "they" being the (white) bandleaders who had taken over and profited from swing music.
African-Americas are very famous for hip-hop, the world sees the African stamp on this genre. Some individual rappers get rich from it (0.00001%) but who gets wealthy from it (according to Chris Rock). Who shoots the videos and owns the labels? Or the record shops? The clothes they wear? The cars they drive? The greatest Jazz artist is Norah Jones, the greatest rap artist is Emenim, while the greatest rock ‘n roll artist is Elvis Prestly; the current greatest reggae artist is Sean Paul. The pattern may be eluding us. Black music is now urban music, step-by-step the little agency we had is being eroded away. An independent African run site did a survey “are we better off today, compared to yesterday” 70% of the people recognized “we are worst off today but richer.” The glorious efforts in America in the 60’s, under segregations, had more elements of self-determination and agency that today. More business ownership and more importantly a do-for-self attitude, something the Farrakhan has constantly stressed.
Search the internet, and this is just one small example, and look at popular sites to do with African people and see who and what is in control of it.
SUBTLE LANGUAGE OF RACISM
To highlight the academic dilemma against Africans it is necessarily to just site one of Europe ’s key historians on slavery. The age of the work and the period it was written in seem to make little impression in universities today, who seem to neglect the social status of Africans in the time these so-called scholarly books were being written in. It also neglects to highlight the mindset of the authors of these works and their contribution to the obscuring and footnoting of African history and African contributions to civilization. Men who would be labeled by a self-determined African today are referenced and cited with little challenge. Despite all the new research and development, this dead racist scholarship is still held high as the authentic source on Africa . Almost as if the more you reference a bad source the more authentic it becomes. The foundation of history of Africa cannot be studied outside of the dynamics of race and racism in the writings of African conquers. This is not to dismiss their entire work, but surely to raise the red flag of sincerity, and subsequently expose the agendas behind these scribbling. J.D. Fage sits high on this throne of Anti-African rhetoric
[ii]
“Today, however, some scholars assert that slavery did not have a wholly disastrous effect on those left behind in Africa .” [iii]
Imagine begging the question and stating that some scholars believed the Jewish Holocaust was not entirely disastrous. We must assume there is again some degree of salvation in the actions of the Europeans who saved Africa from savagery. It is like saying the Jewish Holocaust was beneficial because some Jews got senior position in the Nazi army, or slavery was good because Africans got free Caribbean cruises.
“At its peak, the Atlantic slave trade took about 90,000 slaves per year out of a total population of around 25 million in just Guinea , where the vast majority originated. This number was significant, yet only a moderate annual growth rate in population was enough to sustain it by replacement. Therefore, the slave trade is unlikely to have caused a decrease in the population of West Africa , though it may have reduced or even halted population growth in some regions.”[iv]
Again, we see the apology and denial of the consequences of enslavement
[v]
. What this is saying is the harvesting of African people was done sustainable and that it had no demographic consequences on birth rate, it would be worth mentioning that the most viral and healthiest members where been exported overseas so it is inconceivable that it would not affect population demographics not to mention settlement patterns and human social potential.
"The Nok civilization is argued by some to prove that Africa had a civilization prior to the arrival of Europe . "
This kind of tone appears to vindicate Africa but it actually introduces reasonable doubt. Its references again the false notion of a primitive Africa as a half-valid hypothesis for it shows by implication that anything or everything in Africa has to be articulated by juxtaposition. African civilization does not require any proof or revolutionary rethink. This kind of reasoning follows from “he seems very educated for a black” or “you see they are not all savages.” What needs to be done is exposed the motives behind those removing African agency from the annals of world cultural contributions.
“For those left behind in Africa the standard of living increased substantially and the region became divided into highly centralized and powerful nation states, such as Dahomey and the Ashanti Confederacy. It also created a class of very wealthy and highly Europeanized traders who began to send their children to European Universities.[vi]
The contempt in Eurocentrism is so self-evident it almost needs no commentary to identify either intention or fallacies. It is be restated the source of this material comes from a respected seminal academic and authority on Africa . Before Europe , we know the Kanka Musa had gold reserves that made Ancient Mali one of the riches economies in the Ancient world. It is also a fact that Sankore was an African university so notable that Arabs and others came to study there. All of these non-direct facts retort the claims that contact with Europe brought power and education. Also the statement about Europeanized traders is intended by the author as a compliment a kind of accession of the African from savage beast to Europeanized. Fage trips and stabs himself with his own pen and exposes and implements himself as one of the historical agents of academic racism that has distorted the African historical timeline.
PATTERN OF EUROCENTRIC CONTEMPT
By careful analysis the European voice can be identified without seeing the face of the author. (Soured from “The Foundational Paradigm of Eurocentric Thought
[vii]
”)
Isolating Africans they don't like as oddities and not part of the general African mainstream.
The patronizing of African scholarship as childish and simplistic. Treating it as a Pseudo-history.
The need to maintain historical academic superiority even in absences of knowledge.
The need to invoke paranoia clause and claim African people have a 'chip on their shoulder.'
To normalize slavery and racism as a human problem thus mitigating their historical domination in racist manipulation. To merge class into race as it suits them.
To collapse collaborators, victims and perpetrators into one equally guilty entity.
[viii]
Make self-references to institutions they control: Such as the dictionary.
To stipulate, while retaining economic and political control, that race is redundant and that Africans are hung up too much on race, while they continue to exercise racism and profit from this exercise.
Abstract through expressed by the European mind is elevated to the whispers of prophets, while the same abstract through in the African mind is the utterances of the mentally insane.
Never can an African be seen to display genius outside of European authority. " Mr X of Gabon is so smart; he was trained at Oxford ."
They constantly set themselves up of the heroes in African history. Thus viewers relates more with the 'poor' South African reporter's family forgetting Steve Biko, a hero and symbol of resistance, in Cry Freedom. David Livingston is also the savior of Africa he single-handed abolish all of the African/Arab slave trade.
When no academic error can be found they seek technical errors such as spelling errors. This is also a sign of their desperation when intellect fails.
Making references to Africans who share their perspective and thus electing these individuals as authorities. e.g. Henry Louis Gates (HNIC)
To label those bearing information which serves in their disinterest as 'anger ridden.' Thus the African's are over emotional and deluded.
Always suggest the pattern of European domination is coincidence.
Cite rare and exotic examples of African behavior, which suits their argument
Make references to social generalization that they created via cultural domination and oppression; “most black people don't see themselves as African” clearly a condition that Europeans were active agents in creating.
They lean on human individual responsibility thus saying “no one put a gun to African's head” and Africans enslaving Africans is the fault of African people. They neglect their participation in fostering and nurturing chaos between non-European people. ‘Blame reassignmen.t’
Character assassination as a tactic of distraction to shift the topic away from the areas that they have no answer for or deliberately obfuscating issues in order just to confuse innocent minds. Hence, they try to show Mugabe's inhumanity in a conversation about European supremacy. Or that T Martin and Farrakhan are antisemitic.
The labeling of non-mainstream ideas as extreme and radical.
AFRICAN SUICIDE
Today we have a few African academics that wear all the clothing of Africa but in almost every attempt remove the very agency from the continent they claim to protect. The culture of victim-hood is a mechanism at play within some of the most significant African academics. The entire notion of “poor little Africa who was raped by Arabs and then Europeans” is a denial of African intelligence and agency. It stipulates indirectly that African have no sense, no judgment and no ability as a collective to act for self-determination or unity in the face of a collected foe. To believe that Islam and Christianity were forced down the throats of an unwilling people is as regressive and bigoted as the diatribes of Kant and Hume. African people have demonstrated absolute agency and contribution to both Islam, Christianity as well as Judaism. The theory, which identifies these religions as foreign, is baseless and shallow. When we study the history of Western Europe we find there conversion to Christianity much later than Africa , yet in all of their writings they claim authorship and agency in Christianity.
Do we see Pakistanis doing this in Islam, even Chinese Muslims claim their noble inheritance in these faiths. They healthily Chinese Muslims cite the Chinese greats like Zheng Ho and his contributions to Islam. Yet with some African academics, there is this suicidal strategy to undermine the degree of agency and influence of Africa on Islam . They would rather remove it as foreign and thus collapsing the largest African kingdom of Songhai
[ix]
to obscurity, gone is Africa's claim to Timbuktu , Islamic Spain, Axsum, Sokoto and Ancient Mali. This anti-African rhetoric also infects the notability of Uthman Dan Fodio, Menelik Askia Muhammad, Thewdros, Bilal, Malik Sy, Selassie, Ahmadou Bamba, Sundiata, Seka Toure, The Mahdi of the Sudan , King Ezna, Emperor Fasiladas, the list is endless. But all of these people are removed from history, not to mention our recent greats such as Farrakhan, Dr. King, Garvey, El Hajj Malik Shabazz and Cheikh Anta Diop.
This again testifies to the fastidiousness of the cancer plaguing the disenfranchised Africans globally. No people in history are seen to do this. The Turks, who accepted Islam late in the day, made it their own and ruled with it. The principle cornerstones of these faiths have African origins and agency but some like fools cast Africa's historical station into the wind, as "foreign, worthless, and out of Africa " . Sufism an influential branch of Islam is African in origin, testimony to the power of Africanistic theology on Islam. Ethiopia was one of the first Christian Kingdoms in the entire World! The Khans were successful because they integrated what worked in their favor, as did our ancestors. This planet is a fusion and dynamic collision of cultures and ideas, there is no purity.
Africans have succumbed to some of the greatest horrors in history but not the extent of being the exploited historical fodder of others; the perpetual victims in the entire annals of history. Easily seduced with the same tricks that work 500 years ago.
CONCLUSION
When Africans have faith in other peoples structures values are detour away from Africaness and self-determination. The African is pre-occupied with throwing a celebration party in someone else’s house, as opposed to owning and controlling our own space. So the aim of the African author is to be published by the flourishing European publishing houses, the aim of the African musician is to be signed by Columbia, the aim of the African filmmaker to be distributed by Sony and given a Cannes laurel. The aim of the African intellectual to be awarded some prize controlled by forces outside of his/her cultural reality. The ultimate product is Africans exist in a world which is owned by others and at any junction and with control they ultimate determine overtly or subtly the agency of a people. But who is working as hard to build an African Sony, An African Randle House, and African Cannes? This is where the greater emphasis needs to be places because in all disciplines Africans have enough power to have their own systems of accreditation and distribution.
Almost nothing is given to Africa without a greater benefit to Europe. The new admissions about African kingdoms are a result of overwhelming evidence which forces Europeans into admission which is then twisted to retain the old myths. The fostering of anti-Islamic sentiment among African people to break unity, or creating false borders between the Diapora and the continent all serves a greater agenda. The promotion of western neo-liberal feminist values to break the African home. Western democracies to stifle African political genius.
It is the responsibility of the next generation of academics to re-interpret the works of their predecessors. This is not a duty exclusive to the victims of Eurocentric academic racism but rather to all. The plurality and multicultural world is far safer if we all exist in an environment of truth and fairness overriding the miss-motives of the past.
"We must sail the ship of truth on the sea of lies, against the tide of repetition."
The foundational paradigm must be truth; this is the driver for the next generation. We must sail the ship of truth on the sea of lies, against the tide of repetition, for this is the only way to erase the pre-assumed notion that washes and perverts our shared histories.
Owen 'Alik Shahadah, is an African Cultural writer and a multi-award winning Filmmaker who documents African history and culture. For more info see www.owenshahadah.com
Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.
Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.
In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.
Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.
Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.
Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can't live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.
Your African characters may include naked warriors, loyal servants, diviners and seers, ancient wise men living in hermitic splendour. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel-guides, and prostitutes you have slept with. The Loyal Servant always behaves like a seven-year-old and needs a firm hand; he is scared of snakes, good with children, and always involving you in his complex domestic dramas. The Ancient Wise Man always comes from a noble tribe (not the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo or the Shona). He has rheumy eyes and is close to the Earth. The Modern African is a fat man who steals and works in the visa office, refusing to give work permits to qualified Westerners who really care about Africa. He is an enemy of development, always using his government job to make it difficult for pragmatic and good-hearted expats to set up NGOs or Legal Conservation Areas. Or he is an Oxford-educated intellectual turned serial-killing politician in a Savile Row suit. He is a cannibal who likes Cristal champagne, and his mother is a rich witch-doctor who really runs the country.
Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless. She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the dramatic moment. Moans are good. She must never say anything about herself in the dialogue except to speak of her (unspeakable) suffering. Also be sure to include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling laugh and who is concerned for your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all delinquent. These characters should buzz around your main hero, making him look good. Your hero can teach them, bathe them, feed them; he carries lots of babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).
Bad Western characters may include children of Tory cabinet ministers, Afrikaners, employees of the World Bank. When talking about exploitation by foreigners mention the Arabs, Chinese and Indian traders. Blame the West for Africa's situation. But do not be too specific.
Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh, or struggle to educate their kids, or just make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something about Europe or America in Africa. African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause.
Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies. Remember, any work you submit in which people look filthy and miserable will be referred to as the 'real Africa', and you want that on your dust jacket. Do not feel queasy about this: you are trying to help them to get aid from the West. The biggest taboo in writing about Africa is to describe or show dead or suffering white people.
Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires. They also have family values: see how lions teach their children? Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants may attack people's property, destroy their crops, and even kill them. Always take the side of the elephant. Big cats have public-school accents. Hyenas are fair game and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents. Any short Africans who live in the jungle or desert may be portrayed with good humour (unless they are in conflict with an elephant or chimpanzee or gorilla, in which case they are pure evil).
After celebrity activists and aid workers, conservationists are Africa's most important people. Do not offend them. You need them to invite you to their 30,000-acre game ranch or 'conservation area', and this is the only way you will get to interview the celebrity activist. Often a book cover with a heroic-looking conservationist on it works magic for sales. Anybody white, tanned and wearing khaki who once had a pet antelope or a farm is a conservationist, one who is preserving Africa's rich heritage. When interviewing him or her, do not ask how much funding they have; do not ask how much money they make off their game. Never ask how much they pay their employees.
Readers will be put off if you don't mention the light in Africa. And sunsets, the African sunset is a must. It is always big and red. There is always a big sky. Wide empty spaces and game are critical—Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces. When writing about the plight of flora and fauna, make sure you mention that Africa is overpopulated. When your main character is in a desert or jungle living with indigenous peoples (anybody short) it is okay to mention that Africa has been severely depopulated by Aids and War (use caps).
You'll also need a nightclub called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerrillas and expats hang out.
Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will
- Frederick Douglass 
The "will of power" and the "impulse to dominate" have been dominant trends in much of the European thought, behavior and culture over the past 2500 years 
To speak favorable about Africa is to be an Afrocentric, which in the European vocabulary simply means a pseudo-historian.
