AFRICA

AFRICA : DIFFERENT BUT EQUAL narrated by Basil Davidson

Karl Mauch, while looking for gold in the late 1800s, could not believe that the ancient temple ruins he found were built by Blacks. He associated them with Solomon, the Hebrew king.

Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher, publicly stated in 1831,

"This is the land where men are children, a land lying between the daylight of self-conscious history, enveloped in the black color of night. At this point, let us forget Africa not to mention it again. For Africa is no historical part of the world."

The English explorer Richard Burton said,

"The study of the Negro is the study of man's rudimental (basic, lowest level) mind. He would appear rather a degeneracy (rot away) from the civilized man than a savage rising to the first step, were it not for his total incapacity (inability) for improvement. He has not the ring of the true mettle (strength). There is no rich nature for education to cultivate. He seems to belong to one of those childish races, never rising to man's estate (level), who fall like worn-out links from the great chain of animated nature."

Samuel Baker said,

"Human nature viewed in its crudest state as seen amongst African savages is quite on the level of that of a dog. There is neither gratitude, pity, love, or self-denial; no idea of duty, no religion, nothing but covetousness (greed), ingratitude (not thankful), selfishness and cruelty."

Herodotus, a Greek philosopher and traveller who lived several hundred years before Christ, considered other races, including African races, different but equal.

During the Renaissance, blacks and whites appeared on an equal footing in paintings.

The slave trade grew primarily to supply Western land owners in the New World with cheap labour.

The Egyptian civilization, considered one of the most important in history, was greatly influenced by Africans coming from the south.

Kings were invested (contained) with religious and temporal (temporary, earthly) power.

12:30 Horse and plow from thousands of years ago, tunics similar to Egyptians’

27:00 Nubians of today, survived foreign incursions (unwelcome arrival and overrunning of an area).

34:00 proud people wishing to survive on their own ( compare with Hurricane Carter in jail).

40:27 Nuba dancers (look the same as the ones in the pyramids who danced for the pharaohs).

50:00 In a cathedral in Magdeburg, Germany, there is a statue of St. Morris: he was a black saint.

For two centuries more, expeditions such as these ended only in frustration. But in 1871 tangible evidence at last came to light. Carl Mauch, an energetic and credulous explorer, came across the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Applying a tenuous (weak) chain of reasoning, Mauch noted that splinters of wood from a cross-beam were very similar to the wood of his pencil, indicating that both were cedar. He believed that this was conclusive: "It can be taken as a fact that the wood which we obtained actually is cedar-wood and from this that it cannot come from anywhere else but from the Libanon. Furthermore only the Phoenicians could have brought it here; further Salomo (Solomon) used a lot of cedar-wood for the building of the temple and of his palaces: further: including here the visit of the Queen of Seba and, considering Zimbaye or Zimbaöe or Simbaöe written in Arabic, (of Hebrew I understand nothing), one gets the result that the great woman who built the rondeau could have been none other than the Queen of Seba" (Burke 1969, 190).