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
Short steps never cover long ground.- Owen Alik Shahadah
How can I turn from Africa and live?- Derek Walcott
For far too long, a majority of Africans have been indifferent to misrepresentations about who they are.- Childo Nwangwu
Its takes a village to raise a child- Yoruba Proverb
To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.
- Franz Fanon
This widely published article first appeared in December 2005 at the Cheikh Anta Diop Conference in the USA. It has since become a seminal document globally referenced for its critic of 'black' and 'Sub-Sahara Africa.' This is the concise web version of the research paper, which will be released as a e-book in the near future. Join our mailing list for updates. Also see Fate of African Languages
Words play a critical role in articulating our reality within an Indo-European linguistic framework. We must, as long as we speak non-African languages, find ways to control word usage when it speaks to our condition through a process of assimilating and normalizing words that serve in our interest. It is ignorant to ignore the significance of making a universal Pan-Africanist lexicon, which is adopted across the board. And just like as there is a body which, monitors, controls the English language we need such a body for serving our linguistic interest. [1] While some words such as good and bad can be mapped across the global language spectrum, the ideological attachment to terms needs also to be mapped to favor the speaker regardless of the language spoken.
Every generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it.
- Franz Fanon
There is no denying the billion dollar linguistic industry of the capitalist system; correct wording for marketing is a serious activity in fashioning consumer responses. In politics the careful wording by politicians to avoid liability testifies to the delicate, yet critical, significance of words. In media arena the neologism created to marry Islam to terror, show the power words have on sculpturing perception. Terrorism is a highly contested concept. It therefore can be `flexibly constructed' to suit ideological, nationalist, propagandist and political objectives. With its origins in revolutionary political violence, it is now associated with an illegal unconventional war.
Even today we see money being thrown into standazing words such as saddlebacking for political and social objectives. There can be no denying that in the area of African reality words are an area which requires a full discourse.
Language and Thought
There can be no undermining how both philosophies of language influences thought and vice-versa. Thus language is a key aspect of culture and culture is key in determining ones language. The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (aka Linguistic relativity) suggested that language limited the extent to which members of a "linguistic community" can think about certain subjects.
The interdependence of thought and speech makes it clear that languages are not so much a means of expressing truth that has already been established, but are a means of discovering truth that was previously unknown. Their diversity is a diversity not of sounds and signs but of ways of looking at the world. Karl Kerenyi
Speaking French means that one accepts, or is coerced into accepting, the collective consciousness of the French, which identifies blackness with evil and sin. In an attempt to escape the association of blackness with evil, the African man dons a white mask, or thinks of himself as a universal subject equally participating in a society that advocates an equality supposedly abstracted from personal appearance. Cultural values are internalized, or "epidermalized" into consciousness, creating a fundamental disjuncture between the African man's consciousness and his body. Under these conditions, the African man is necessarily alienated from himself.
Frantz Fanon
The complicated dynamics behind word usage is solely rooted in a battle of self-interest. Many times we find ourselves trapped with popular anti-African sentiments such as “Africans enslaved other Africans,” “Egyptians weren't black,” etc. We are trapped fighting battles from a strategic disadvantage because the terms and definitions we employ serve solely in a Eurocentric reality that have been sculpted to destroy our historical foundation. If we speak of the African Holocaust then facts of so-called “Slavery by Africans” becomes redundant as the African Holocaust does not focus on systems of imprisonment, but moreover, the wholesale inhumane destruction visited upon African people. In addition, African Holocaust is not limited to the Transatlantic Slave Trade but the broader horror that also encompasses Colonial rule and more over the legacies of those systems.
Loaded Words
Within the walls of democracy there is a freedom of speech and justice component, within the boundaries of femanism there is a concept of equality, but this does not make either democracy, femanism or any 'ism' directly interexchangable with justice, freedom or human rights. Africans must distinguish and apply their own concepts without casually borrowing pre-packaged Eurocentric terms which speak in favor of European interest. Because too often the terms used have other connotations and implication which come seeded in a linguistic nexus. Values of morality and perceptions of superiority emdebedd to favor things founded in Europe over things founded in Africa. To suggest that human rights must morph itself into the pro-homosexual left liberal confusion is taking away from the purity of other peoples inherent ablity to self-determine and attach value to their own definitions.
“Someone once noted that we don't speak with language, but through it: it is transparent to us, and we don't even notice it. In our experience, our words do not represent concepts: they present them in a wholly transparent way. This is what I mean when I noted that native speakers do not normally speak in their language, but through it.”
Bradd Shore Culture In Mind: Cognition, Culture, & The Problem Of Meaning
Normative: Linguistic transparency : Homophobia and the Politics
Normatively is the usage of language to suit one's rhetoric to the widest possible audience, without losing relevant information in the process . Advocates of normative linguistic transparency often argue that linguistic opacity is dangerous to a democracy. In government and business jargon is used to encrypts morally suspect information in order to mitigate reactions to it: for example, the almost benign phrase "collateral damage" to refer to the manslaughter of innocents.
Linguistics today is used as a tool for politically maneuvering. We see words such as the misnomer antisemitic initially used against people who hate Jews now it is applied against people Jews hate. We see words like homophobia, a word that is a neologism created in the American sub-culture in 1969 and has no parallel in any African language or ideology; and hence alien to the African paradigm.
These are political terms used to stall any form of plural disagreement, collapsing racism, oppression, civil rights, bias and homophobia is a tactic to give gravity to a neologism normalize what is a biologically an unnatural anti-human behavior. It sets up the perfect straw man argument where any opposition to homosexuality is used imply an attitude of gross violence and deep hatred. The introduction of two equal terms (homosexual and Heterosexual) for sexual preference is to normalize homosexuality as an equal heterosexual (just like the direction terms 'left and right', where 'left' or 'right' has no real social superiority).
All of this has to be stated to appreciate the power of language and though and the power to alter human perception and expression. Now oppressing homosexuals is very separate from disagreeing with homosexuality, clearly, there is a fine line but oppression and disagreement should never be collapsed. Having laws which penalize homosexuality are borderline because one argument is that a society must construct laws to protect the culture of the majority to retain the integrity and sacredness of that cultures most cherished values.
Behavioral scientists William O'Donohue and Christine Caselles concluded that the usage of the term homophobia "as it is usually used, makes an illegitimately pejorative evaluation of certain open and debatable value positions. " The term, like antisemtic, is used as an ad hominem argument against those who advocate values or positions of which the user does not approve. As far as homophobia goes the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, states, "Technically, however, the term actually denotes a person who has a phobia — or irrational fear — of homosexuality. Principled disagreement, therefore, cannot be labeled homophobia.
BLACK OR AFRICAN
Black is a construction which articulates a recent social-political reality of people of color (pigmented people). Black is not a racial family, an ethnic group or a super-ethnic group. Political blackness is thus not an identity but moreover a social-political consequence of a world which after colonialism and slavery existed in those color terms.
"white" depends for its stability on its negation, "black." Neither exists without the other, and both come into being at the moment of imperial conquest. - Franz Fanon
An identity is generally geographical and ties the people to their native environment or their core doctrine (Jews of Judaism, Muslims of Islam, Chinese of China). African and black are not interchangeable just as Dark continent and Africa are not. Self-determination allows a people to re-examine definitions and sculpt them to their reality. Black, like Negro is facing linguistic extinction, especially in academic circles, due to its poor foundation in speaking about the oldest and most diverse people on the planet.
The word “Black” has no historical or cultural association, it was a name born when Africans were broken down in to transferable labor units and transported as chattel to the Americas. The re-labeling of the Mandika, Fulani, Igbo, Asante, into one bland color label- black, was part of the greater process of absolute removal 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.
KEMET DOESNT MEAN BLACK PEOPLE
There is an urban myth that the Ancient Egyptians called themselves Black based upon KMT (Kemet) which in some circles is mistakenly translated as "Black people." Now at the end of the word KMT is an ideogram which can only mean physical place (the cross road sign above). The ideogram indicates the context in which the word applies. An ideogram for humans would always be used 2 represent a word that applied to people. However Kemet can only mean Black Land since the ideogram indicates it is describing a built or non-human environment. But none of this discredits the founders of Kemet as being African people, just like the Fulani or the Amhara. "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." The issue is color is used against African interest, for example:
Statement: "The Anicent Egypts were Black people",
Reply: "no there were brown in color"
Truth: They were African people and like many African people display skin colors from high yellow to deep black.
BLACK AND THE 60's
Black does not fully articulate the history and geopolitical reality of African people. Black as a political (or colloquial) term was fashioned as a reactionary concept in the 60's and 70's against White supremacy, but it was never meant as an epithet for African people, but moreover a transitory term to move a people away from Colored and Negro. James Brown anthem "I am black and I am proud" was relevant at a time of deep identify crisis. However, to say "black is beautiful" as a defense is emotional rhetoric based on a fundamental fallacy (begging the question). Because its logic is identical to “the Bible is the word of God because it says so in the Bible.” Yes Black is beautiful but how does that defend it as term for African people?
As a political term it was fiery and trendy but never was it an official racial classification of peoples who have a 120,000 year old history. Indians are from India , Chinese from China . There is no country called Blackia or Blackistan and a people must respectful be tied to geography as skin color is not the primary definitive identifier.. Hence, the ancestry-nationality model is more respectful and accurate: African-American, African-British, African-Arabian, African-Brazilian, and African-Caribbean.
The mass usage of “black” by people of African decent is poor justification for the flagrant usage of the word. Because if that argument is to hold-up it would be justified to start using the term Nig+er again, due to the self-destructive resurgence of this word among African-American people. Europe has created a linguistic identity crisis, so they cannot then point to the victims of that crisis for justification for using a term they branded people with.
Maulana Karenga
Even today when African write they carelessly jump between Black, black and African without any continuity.
And if Black people has some validity as a political term it can not be limited in its application to people of African decent. Nostalgia is not an accurate place for African linguistic self-determination, and blackness is blatantly a cultural inheritance of oppressed people. The pattern of acceptance of a black identity globally walks hand in hand with European cultural oppression. It is worth noting parts of African that are culturally intact such as in Ethiopia, Mali, Somalia, Nigeria and Niger have absolutely no fondness or linguistic presence of a "black identity."
BLACK AFRICA IS A RACIST TERM
Black Africa, Dark Continent, Heart of Darkness all articulate the colonial contempt for a continent and its people. But how does one arrive at the term “black Africans,” are there green Africans? Would you speak of “yellow Chinese,” or “brown Indians”? Globally the term " Red Indian" is rejected as deeply pejorative yet "black African" is still used even in South Africa which is used to define the majority of the population against the minority so-called white-Africans.
There is only one reason the term Black African exists and that is to deny nobility from African people. To explain away how Egypt could be nested in Africa but at the same time divorced from the majority of the African people. Therefore the argument "yes it is in Africa, but it is not Black African." It is almost like saying Greece was a European civilization, but not a White European civilization.
If 95% of Africans are “Black” (capital B, if it must be used) then the minority should bear the adjective--not the majority. It is disrespectful to describe Africans with a label based solely on a color, especially when it does not accurately reflect the physical appearance of most Africans. This is made even more offensive when the etymological root of that label (black) is derived from the word Negro, and is used in place of the word African as a racial or cultural identity. In reality we must ask ourselves what is the difference between "Negro" and "Black" save historical association, the words mean the same thing, so we have moved from being Black in Spanish (negro) to Black in English (black). It is strange that despite all the genetic research and advance human anthropology we are still clinging to primitive 18th century post-Darwin model of race, which sole aim was/is to segregate and de-culturalize and enslave.
The concept of a “black Africa ” is a Eurocentric term based upon their ignorant primitive regressive deductions. It is true Arabs and Greeks referred to Africans as "black" but this was not a racial label, and moreover Africans themselves did not self-apply these external labels. Like the Phoenician who were called the "red people," but no Phoenician would have referred to themselves in this way.
CHILDREN DIS-IDENTIFY WITH BLACK
In a recent survey conducted by the African Holocaust society it was noted that young African children (approx 4-5 years old, the age of race consciousness) when told they were members of the "black race" reacted with great confusion because they were also being taught the names of colors. Most of them objected to being called black and said they were not black but rather brown. A repeated survey found that when they were told they were African they did not object to the logic (they were African because their ancestors were from the continent called Africa). When a people become comfortable through constant bombardment terms, which make no sense can be forced onto their identity. The children case study is profound because it shows how logic and identify form before social concepts are enforced.
WHITE AFRICANS
The new trend emerging is to classify Europeans living/settling in Africa as “White Africans.” The first question is why would these descendants of European colonialist who devastated and exploited the continent want to be called African? And in terms of self-determination who introduced these concepts. It is clear some European funded African politicians backed it but where did it originate from. It is interesting to note Europeans (including white Arabs) constitute around 10 million people verses the 800 million Africans. Now this negligible minority by way of social influence has caused the majority to need to refer to themselves with the adjective of “black” to separate themselves from a serious minority group who want to be “white Africans.” Minorities of Europeans live in China, in India and in Arabia yet only in Africa has linguistic accommodation been given. Africans now must make room for those settlers who want to identify with the continent for capitalist reasons. Because once you identify with a continent then you have a legitimate claim to its resources. Thus the saying and the philosophy of Garvey “Africa for the Africans” becomes usurped. In South Africa the new trend of “Black Economic Empowerment” has seen the broadening, opening up of the borders of blackness so to speak. Indians are economically classified as ‘black’, and recently Chinese have been included in this definition. So again we see the relationship between linguistics and economic profit.
AFRICAN IS A FOREIGN NAME
Some say, Africa was a foreign name given to us, if this is true, it was given to us by our contemporaries not our conquerors. In addition, Africa is a unique name of a place and Africans are simply people who are native to that place. Many fail to see that “black” ultimately sets Africans outside of their connection to history and culture. Black does not connect us to Kemet, it only goes back 500 Years ago. Hence, “black” people are an “urban” people/culture and “urban” people's history is 5 minutes old. In addition, because it is a term placed on us, we have no bases for its control, and hence they are able to say; “Ancient Egyptians weren't black.” Black has no meaning; except the meaning they place on it, if and when they chose.
Sub-Saharan Africa is a Racist Construction
Sub-Saharan Africa is a linguistic vestige of racist colonialism, nested in the notion of divide and rule, which articulates a perception based on European terms of homogeneity. The notion of some invisible border, which divides the North of African from the South, is rooted in racism, which in part assumes that sand is an obstacle for African language and culture. This band of sand hence confines Africans to the bottom of a European imposed location, which exists neither linguistically (Afro-Asiatic languages),
ethnically (Tuareg ), politically (African Union, Arab league), Economically (CEN-SAD) or physically (Sudan and Chad).The over emphasis on sand as a defining feature in African history is grossly misleading as cultures, trade, and languages do not stop when they meet geographic deserts. Thus Sub-Africa is another divisive vestige of colonial domination which balkanized Africa assigning everything below the "waist belt" of Africa as negative.
Linguistically Africa cannot be divided into North and South.
The Sahara is a broad desert belt, which encompasses countries like Mali, Niger, Chad, Sudan, and Mauritania, and hence are neither “sub” nor “North Africa.” In addition, many African communities historically have traveled freely across this European barrier set for Africans. Moreover millions of indigenous Africans are ethnic natives in Morocco, Libya, Algeria, and Egypt, so even ethnically North Africa is not a non-African territory and testimony to this is the rock art found in this region showing native Africans hunting there 10,000 years ago.
Maps below indicate that no definition actually fits a Sub-Saharan model of Africa.
Ethnically shared
Economic communities
Countries in both N&S
HISTORICAL ARGUMENT
Mansa Musa famous Hajj traveled through North Africa in the 13th century so why assume Africans would be confined to this designation called sub-Saharan Africa? There is no ancient reference to a sub-Sahara Africa as distinctive entity from the North. To discuss the history of sub-Saharan Africa is projecting history in reverse by setting up borders that were no part of the African historical reality.
Sub-Saharan Africa sets-up the premises for the confiscation of any “civilization” which happen to occur in African territory. These malicious definitions have been inherited by the victims of European imperialism and normalize into African language and reality.Sub-Saharan Africa is a racist byword for "primitive," a place, which has escaped advancement. Hence, we see statements like “no written languages exist in Sub-Saharan Africa.” “Ancient Egypt was not a Sub-Saharan African civilization.” Sub-Sahara serves as an exclusion, which moves, jumps and slides around to suit negative generalization of Africa .
POLITICAL ARGUMENT
Politically Afro-Arabian leaders including Kwame Nkrumah, the founder president of Ghana; Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Sekou Toure, the founding father of post-colonial Guinea (Conakry) have refused to recognize the Sahara Desert as a divide, and insisted on visualizing it as a historic bridge.
As Okoth, P Godfrey, Department of History University of California, states Sub-Saharan Africa is symptomatic of the racist attitudes towards the former colonies. European travelers and geographers created the concept of "two Africas," which was adopted wholesome by racist scholars in Euro-America. “The idea of "Sub-Saharan Africa," is, therefore, 'a myth or misleading. It cannot be accepted as it tantamount to the balkanization of Africa, thereby denying Africa its rightful role in contributing to world civilization. There is only one Africa; hence the need to decolonize such racist and derogatory terms.” Sub-Saharan Africa sets-up the premise for the confiscation of any “civilization” which happened to occur in African territory.
ECONOMIC ARGUMENT
In Africa the regional economic blocks do not fall into the pattern of North and Southern Africa. COMESA is inclusive of Egypt, Sudan and even Angola. There is CEN-SAD. Thus the notion of a sub- Africa is invalid from an economical standpoint.
LINGUISTIC AGRUMENT
Africa cannot be banded linguistically into a category called Sub-Saharan Africa; as Hausa and Moroccan languages belong to the African-Asiatic linguistic family. Africa cannot be banded musically into a category called Sub-Saharan Africa; As Mali and North African music share many similarities. Nor can Africa be ethnically banned into a category called sub-Saharan Africa; the Tuareg are ethnically equally part of Niger as well as Algeria. And then there is the seemingly obvious issue of the African native in these “Arab North African” lands. It is the absolutely denial that could call a blue sky red that is so dominate that the woods obstruct our view of the trees. Millions of Africans live in Morocco and Algeria, they are not recent migrants, or illegal immigrants they are native people of this land, and they are actually the original people of these lands. History is clear that those “lighter-skinned” people are settlers that came with the Romans and the Greeks. Mixing has produced the people we see on television representing North Africa. Also in the 7th century, there was the expansion of the Arab forces into the region causing much Arab-Berber mixing. Today these people are classified as Arab but some of them object to this classification calling themselves Berber. And clearly, Africa cannot be banded into this division based on religion. Islam is more prolific in so-called Sub-Saharan Africa than in all of North Africa, and North African Arabs share the African traditional Islam. All of these points compound the fact that the so-called Sub-Saharan division imagined by Africa's conquers is nothing less than absurd and utterly redundant; employed solely for the racist reduction of African historical greatness.
Europeans place an emphasis on written script, and subsequent definitions of “advance” and “primitive” are rooted in this pre-concept. It can be said however that most of the world has, historically an oral tradition. However, both formulas for preserving history can be found in Africa : oral and written. However, attempts to exclude Africa from civilization have hit upon an obstacle when the Ge'ez script exists in Ethiopia . To solve this apparent contradiction the argument moves to, “it was introduced from another people,” and the new claim "they were a half-Arab people." At no point in time can Africans be allowed to be seen to have fostered anything, which Europe labels as artifacts of civilization. So either the invisible borders comes into play and civilizations are assigned to North Africa (“non-Black”) or gifts given to Africans from external non-African sources via miscegenation and conquest.
It is said that natural barriers justify the separation of North and Southern Africa, but the Sahara is only one such barrier in Africa. Ethiopia is more "cut-off" from the rest of Africa due to its mountain ranges. There are barriers due to the impassible forest of central Africa. There are also the great Southern desert belts; interestingly enough Africans have been occupying these deserts from the beginning of human history. There is no climate change when we enter Libya, there is no religious change, and we can argue there is no profound cultural changes which wouldn’t be witness moving from Ethiopia to Southern Sudan. Arabic is spoken in Djibouti just as in Sudan; all of these are South of the make-believe line. Somalia and Djibouti are part of the same political Islamic alignment (Arab League) just like many so-called Arab countries. Thus the legitimacy of Sub-Saharan Africa seems to be rooted in some more mischievous foundation.
Viewing culture from these limiting vantages-points poisons the flexibility and deeper appreciate of subtle complexities shared by these unique cultures. In a nutshell it is more obstructive, outside of science and rooted in extreme racist politics. There is more similarity between Mali culture and the culture of the nomadic Berber people than Bantu groups in the Congo . Amhara culture is radically different from say Ghana, and it can be argued to have a deeper relationship with Yemen (which it annexed in antiquity).
Three ethnic catagories as depicted by Ethiopian artist. Asiatic, Abasha and Nilotic people.
So a black and white view of African culture only serves racist generalizations. Historians would like to point to the unilateral influence on African culture by non-African people, never is Africa seen to be the givers of cultural influence outside of its locality. This was extended to the extreme to say Nubians offered nothing to a supposed Caucasoid Egypt. This impossible assertion means that for thousands of years there was only a unilateral cultural and technological exchange. No culture in history shows a unilateral exchange, not even the "Great British Empire," which dietary culture has been completely altered in a mere 20 years by Asian and Caribbean immigration. There is also the notion of "other" suggested in Ancient Egyptian writings, which is now being used to suggest they were of a different race to the nubians. Lopsided scholarship will always try to work outside of established human behavior. When Ethiopian art depicts the people of Southern Sudan there is an artistic difference between how Ethiopians paint themselves and how they paint "other" Africans: This doesn’t mean Ethiopians are not African( see above fig.) as Ghanaians do the same thing when denoting images of "the other". Ethnic differences do not mean racial differences.
Ethnicity and Tribe
Africa is the second largest continent, divided into a collection of post-colonial “sovereign” nations populated with a variety of ethnic groups, not tribes. Fulani are more than 15 million strong that is not a tribe--that is a nation. The label tribe only seems to apply to non-European ethnic groups. And comes with a notion of backwardness and non-modern values.
Also ethnic when used as "exotic" is also incorrect because it normalizes European culture, placing all other cultures on the outside of this “standard human culture.” In this instances, ethnic, exist as some "exotic" trite sub-culture, for and only the entertainment destination of European cultural tourist.
Slave vs. enslaved
The notion that free Africans were slaves degrades the reality on-the-ground in Africa and makes the assumption that Africans in Africa were born into that condition; that their reality was always slavery. However, the term enslaved offers a more accurate reality, for it describes a condition placed upon Africans by their enslavers. Hence, captive Africans came across the Atlantic and were subsequently enslaved. Never were they slaves because this is not the natural condition of African people. Writers of history who are ignorant of this reality set-up a relationship between black and African, African and Slave and in this cocktail, Africa and all its contents becomes a completely negative entity which offers our imagination nothing more than images of Slaves, poverty and backwardness.
African Holocaust (Maafa)
Maafa is a Kiswahili term for "Disaster/Holocaust" or "Terrible Occurrence." Maafa or Holocaust is more inclusive and hence better describes the 500 hundred years of suffering of people of African descent through Slavery, Imperialism, Colonialism, Oppression, Invasions, and Exploitation. The Maafa is thus a area of study that looks at the collective experience of the cultural and physical Holocaust and the legacies of that Holocaust (holocaust). Thus the repairing of the Maafa by definition extends to encompass all areas of African life; culture, linguistics, religion, economics as all of these areas was impressed upon by the Maafa or African Holocaust. Holocaust is an English word (taken from Greek) it is not the property of anyone group, in the same way that pain, slavery, genocide and suffering is not exclusive to one group of people.
Tradition and Indigenous
Often, and mistakenly so, the terms traditional (classical) and indigenous are merged into one understanding as it relates to African culture and history. It is a fundamental mistake as it warps and limits a true understanding of Africa and its many complex international relationships thus restricting and confining African history and culture.
Traditional:
As these words relate to religion, Islam becomes a traditional African religion, which exists in classical and contemporary Africa. It is often said by scholars and historians that Islam has been in Africa longer than it has been in any other part of the Middle East (bar Mecca in Saudi Arabia). Judaism and Abyssinian Christianity have also been in Africa for such a long period that in certain places (and this is key) there are traditional African religions. This does not mean that all forms of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are classical or traditional. And hence terms like traditional African Islam are fundamental in defining the African reality in classical African and contemporary history: Just as Christianity traditional to Rome is starkly distinctive from Christianity local to Ethiopia. Fundamental ingredients embody the essences of these religions in Africa, which makes them traditional, and this must be recognized in any constructive appreciation of African culture and history.
Indigenous
Indigenous can only be used to describe something fostered exclusively by a particular community. Because something is indigenous to Africa does not make it traditional or for that matter classical. Indigenous thus does not by default speak to a people’s legacy only to the fostering of that item irrespective of time.
Slave, vassalship and bond servants
The system of imprisonment found in Africa prior to European enslavement was not slavery, but vassalship or indentured servitude. Too often chattel slavery is married to the systems found in Africa , which then sets-up all kinds of nasty arguments rooted in mitigating the African Holocaust, alleviating European's responsibility, and putting Africans as the sole bearers of the sin.
If forms of Slavery are diverse, then one word for a complex multifaceted system is inadequate. If the Inuit people have more than 20, words for snow to articulate its variety, why then must we limit ourselves to one term in relation to slavery? Clearly Arab enslavement of Africans contrasted the European enslavement of Africans, and the non-free class within the Muslim Songhay Empire was different from captivity among the Oba or the Asante . Fundamentally, academia must advance and embrace new terminologies for these different realities. But when a dis-empowered people are forced to use the tools of their oppressors it is little wonder more voices don't see the anti-scholarship principle found in the abhorrent generalization of enslavement; a system so diverse that in one system you could be a king while in another you were little more than a domestic animal.
African Renaissance and Pre-Colonial/Post-Colonial
African Renaissance is a anachronisms, 1st because the Renaissance is a specific period (14th-17th century) in European history brought about by the cultural Islamic impact on Europe. So Europe had its “rebirth” in this period so to name something a. Africa had its "golden age" thousands of years ago in the Nile Valley. Renaissance almost says Africa is now experiencing this same revolution centuries after the rest of the world. The phrase was promoted by then President Thabo Mbeki, a typically western educated and influenced African leader. And when your entire centre of knowledge is European it forces the mind in an attempt to feel valid to assert the African reality based and within the cultural context of Europe. So the most profound problem with the specific usage of the Renaissance is shows the framework of Africa as nothing more than a cultural orphan of Europe. Africa must exist and define itself in its own terms of reference and not be boxed into European concepts and constructs. Europe is not the gravity in the African historical reality so to articulate African history based upon Europe’s recent presence in the 45,000 years of recorded African human history is ridiculous.
Semitic and Anti-Semitic
To be Semitic means to speak a Semitic language and in this regard all of Amhara, Gurage, Tigray (etc), all Arabs and all Hebrew Speakers. This means the largest linguistic group in Africa is a Semitic one. However, if Semitic means “mixed” then the majority Semitic people are Arabs. European Jews in neither of the above classifications are Semitic, because they are racially European, culturally European, and linguistically European.
Thus anti-Semitic in its truth sense means to be anti-Arab, Anti-Ethiopian, anti-Amhara, anti-native Jew, etc. Anti-Semitic is part of a collection of words used globally that are linguistically inaccurate (misnomer). But because of tradition these words continue to have narrow definitions. The discussion of what a word represents and what a word is meant to mean is necessary study. And maybe in this we see the persistence of words like Ethiopia and Habasha, although the roots are inaccurate today they are simple words that are somewhat independent of their etymological origin.
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? For 500 years Africans have been on the receiving end of historical racism culminating in the final Great Holocaust of chattel enslavement in the Americas yet nothing exist in any language to speak directly to this ongoing Holocaust.
The blatant visibility of physically being African means there is virtually no shelter from global racism from China to Chile. Yet nothing exist in any language for this peculiar treatment of Africans and this is testimony to one thing—lack of agency. Where agency is the ability of a people to project their experience to the world.
Conclusion
We must not walk on the outside of our own history and thus a challenge to systems, which remove us from this noble place within human history need to be critically and objectively re-evaluated. To continuously fight an opponent who makes the weapon we fight them with, means victory will always escape us. This is why no matter how close we come--we lose. Unlike other groups, we fail to institutionalize and control concepts and definitions relevant to our reality. We only need to look at the current anti-Islamic campaign to see the role of language usage in a battle for supremacy and mind control. Today terrorist might as well mean Muslim. They employed a strategy which started by saying Muslim and terrorist, Islam and terrorist. These words always accompanied one another. Once the marriage had been established, either word; may it be Muslim or terrorist conjured up the other, thus Muslim implied terrorist and terrorist implied Muslim. This is just a new example of the route and methodology in rerouting words to serve an objective. The Western controlling powers have the single most powerful weapon at their disposal: mass media. And thus concepts, precepts, ideas and ideologies can be communicated in the blink of an eye. Thus we must too find a way of communicating our new realities to our people and it must start with those in positions of mass interface with the public; writers, musicians, politicians, et al employing these terms. This is a key part in our path to self-determination and must not be under-estimated or over-looked if freedom and destiny are to be ours. There is no line drawn under words and the future of linguistics in articulating our reality, for our empowerment is a continuous journey. Its ultimate destination is when the African languages are completely used in our communicate. As African people, we must seek to redefine our reality, and part of this redefinition must begin with the terminologies we use to define ourselves and the terminologies others use to define us. The war of words is perhaps the greatest battle field of the 21st century and when we employ and integrate them into our conscious, we ultimately embark on a journey that has only one destination-- cultural emancipation.
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
Words like linguistics, ethnicity, Anthropology, sociology, evolution, archeology, history, indigenous, are all neutral words they might have negative connotations in the sense of how they have been used against a particular group of people. However, they have no inherent agenda. Anthropology simple means “Human discourse” hence the writings of the Ancient Egyptians about the Nubians would be a form of anthropology, since we are currently stuck using English it is a term of reference. All knowledge systems have historically been used to oppress people; so we cannot for historical reasons throw every word in English language in the bin. Knowledge because of its inherent nature has the possibility to enslave or liberate and it is on this bases that it is critical to study terminologies and in the contemporary moment and selectively apply them to a people’s self-determination.
Okoth P Godfrey, Truman Administration and the Decolonization of Sub-Saharan Africa, Journal of Third World Studies. “In reference to Africa, whether advertently or inadvertently, Munene falls in the trap of the so-called concept of "Two Africas." Munene's usage of the term, "Sub-Saharan Africa" is symptomatic of the racist attitudes towards the former colonies. European travellers and geographers created the concept of "two Africas," which was adopted wholesome by racist scholars in Euro-America. It has, however, been established that Africa was not self-isolated by the Sahara. The Sahara came into existence when that part of the world dried up thereby forcing the inhabitants to migrate north and south. Additionally, the practice of Trans-Saharan trade established the pre-Saharan life and activities. The idea of "Sub-Saharan Africa," is, therefore, 'a myth or misleading. It cannot be accepted as it tantamount to the balkanization of Africa, thereby denying Africa its rightful role in contributing to world civilization. There is only one Africa; hence the need to decolonize such racist and derogatory terms.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will
- Frederick Douglass 
To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization. 
