What do you know about African history?

[quote] What else?

The Mummy & The Scorpion King

Oh gawd. R1

Nothing??

All the pharaohs and queens of Egypt were black! All of them!

The only thing people know about “African History” is Egyptian history and apartheid in South Africa & maybe the war in Rwanda if they’re cultured

Let me put it to you this way, OP, when we were taught African history in Catholic school, they told us Prester John was a real person from Ethiopia.

And of course, we were taught about Egypt with special emphasis on the Cleopatra from Julius Caesar's time being being of Greek descent.

Not a single mention of the Black Pharaohs and certainly no mention of other African countries.

The slave trade was taught to us from the American point of view. (At least we got the Union version and not the Confederacy version) and no mention of American shenanigans in the Congo and other places. (Certainly no mention of King Leopold).

And my first school was quite liberal and one of the few schools in Los Angeles in the 1960s-70s that was truly integrated albeit all Catholic.

I know of this King who was gay and fucked his subjects. When they rejected his advances he had them killed

I watched Cleopatra.

So no one knew about this World Heritage site? Great Zimbabwe? It's like the Macchu Pichu of the Sub-Saharan world.

This king is considered the richest man in history

Is that where the thundercats come from?

DL's resident racists salivated like Pavlov's bitches.

Did you know about upper and lower Egypt? How the Nubians ruled the Egyptians for a time and were good archers?

It was unintentionally humorous when Donald Trump referred to some place in Africa as a "shithole country". We'll leave it at that...……….

Not to crap on you, but “know about African History” is a pretty large scope and implies that there is a conclusive continent wide story that one should have at least a passing knowledge about such as with Australia. But it is huge geographically and culturally and the introduction of colonialism really fucked with the continent in a way that still reverberates.

Your question falls into the misnomer that many have seeing the continent as a country, but there is no unified whole. Most people wouldn’t post a thread about knowing Asian history, we would be more likely to highlight and focus on a certain country or culture.

That said I’ve visited Rwanda a few times and spent extensive time reading, researching and learning about the country, which made for a much richer experience.

African history is a boring, esoteric subject with little or no to care about. It’s a Johnny come lately form of studies that tries to make bullshit comparable to the developments of other civs.

I remember in class when discussing African architecture they talked about the Tuareg “mobile architecture. They’re fucking tents. There’s some basic art like from the Yoruba and gold works from others like Ghana.

Zzzzzz

Has nothing on the Moai of Rapa Nui or the lost Hindu kingdoms of the Khmer. Borobudur is an amazing landmark hidden and aged for years. The Banaue rice terraces in the Philippines are more interesting that 90% of Subsaharan Africa and the Spanish destroyed all precolonial history there.

Sankore in Mali? Garbage.

R15 So, do you know anything about African history? Any history of the 55 countries will do. Any at all. It's a wide berth there as you pointed out so I'm hoping, ready, waiting for the run down. Thank you!

R16 Some cultures are better than others, you're right. What culture are you from? I'd like to avoid that one as it sounds hideously barbaric.

I know soooo much about African History. Africa Bombaata was elected first King of Africa in 1917. This is why Diamond and Silk and all my homies voted for me!

R16, you've been mislead your entire life. If you only knew how much of the 'history' you were taught is pure fantasy, you would be out for blood. The truth is only the facts that advance certain agendas and reinforce a power structure are treated as history. Do you realize how many artifacts were destroyed or permanently hidden from the public, lest the general public learn about true history? Damn shame the way some gays voluntarily choose to have their minds corroded.

R20 How many times do you post on your own thread?! Get a new hobby - like taking meds for your obvious condition.

The Kingdom of Dahomey was founded by Homey Da Clown in 1505. I'm sooooo smart.

"Your question falls into the misnomer that many have seeing the continent as a country, but there is no unified whole. Most people wouldn’t post a thread about knowing Asian history, we would be more likely to highlight and focus on a certain country or culture."

And yet we were taught European history and they called it, shockingly of course, "European History."

So, thanks for white mansplaining education to us.

What R23 just said!

Back in the late 90s I was hired to teach a course in African history. A daunting task, as I'd never learned much beyond Egypt as a student. So I hit the library and started researching. The racism I encountered was unbelievable! Up through the 80s books on Africa were divided into two main categories: those that insisted that Africa had no history worth looking at -only the history of what white people had done in Africa; and the other group, which acknowledged great cities and architectural triumphs, but insisted they were the accomplishments of a lost tribe of White Africans (who, of course, were the pharaohs of ancient Egypt)... Preparing the course was an uphill battle, but I eventually learned of Mansa Musa and the West African trading empires, the spread of Islam in the middle ages, the salt trade, and many other fascinating parts of African history. Look up Kush, Carthage, the Songhai Empire, and the Great Zimbabwe. Learn about the impact of Portuguese traders and their desire to take over the spice trade and gold mines.

BTW, all of this is standard stuff for 7th grade history in California! At least, in the official curriculum. Lord knows how many teachers skip over it because they know nothing about it...

[quote] So, thanks for white mansplaining education to us.

Isn't there some sort of safe room near you where you can go fondle Play-Doh and kittens? Or perhaps yourself.

Clearly this entire thread is just some troll from LSA attempting to stir the shit.

R23 R24 Exactly, we are taught European History in school as a collective whole, we are not taught African History the same way if at all, which is the reason I used Asian History as an example, which on the K-12 level we are not taught as a whole either, usually by country.

There are more pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt, they aren't as grand or as large but there are more of them.

I know that the Dogon people of Mali are not only aware of Sirius, but have been aware for a long time that it is part of a binary star system and that it has a companion star. And they knew it long, long before astronomers ‘discovered’ this.

Tried to link to an article from Harvard about it but fabulous DL won’t publish the link.

R25 -

NONE of those are interesting. They’re footnotes of history, like the three partitions of Grand Duchy of Luxembourg or Srivijaya (actually interesting).

- Carthage is Phonecian and not sub-Saharan (which is what most people fight over when they talk about “African” history).

- Kush is so influenced by Egypt it’s not even that interesting. A footnote. Nubian pyramids aka the look for less. Egypt dominated the region, Egypt collapsed, oops we’re Muslim now.

- Songhai and Mali are also weak footnotes. Warmongering traders that collapsed due to their own feuding.

- Great Zimbabwe? A collection of pebbles. Compare it to the Angkor Wat from around the same period.

Anthropologically, Africa is interesting. There are some cool cultural tidbits and traditions worth studying. But trying to retcon the history of Africa and its dearth of cultural achievements in to some sort of rich glory crushed by the white man? No.

The Americas? Now there is a third column of human history obliterated by colonialism. West and Sub-Saharan Africa? Not so much.

[R31] Interesting, like many things, is in the eye of the beholder. My suggestion was that people who were curious about African history start with those topics, as it's difficult to start a search if you have nothing specific to look for. I don't recall anyone talking about "rich glory crushed by the white man." But Africa and its people have had much of their history erased, or at least ignored, for far too long. Referring to a "dearth of cultural achievements" is just ignorance. Unless you'd rather plead racism?

lol trying to call me a racist in a roundabout way is so predictable. Clearly I’m educated on the subject of African history but just don’t find it all that meaningful.

And no. The cultural achievements came from their other influencers: the Greeks, Egyptians, and Muslims. But PLEASE enumerate them.

If African culture was so great, why were they so easily "colonized"?

Why didn't they invent weapons?

Why didn't' they have written language to document their culture?

Why did they ruin South Africa the minute they took charge? It's a shit show.

I know of this guy, Mansa Musa. If you know of no African historical figures, you should at least familiarize yourself with this one.

Remember, Dataloungers are expected to be universally enlightened and conversant.

[quote] I know of this guy, Mansa Musa. If you know of no African historical figures, you should at least familiarize yourself with this one. Remember, Dataloungers are expected to be universally enlightened and conversant.

I suspect R10 is already somewhat familiar with him.

R30 I looked that up last night and there seems to be debate over whether or not it's true.

Either way, it doesn't matter. I would like to know what they think if the stars, if they have constellations, who their God's were. We know all about the Greek and Roman, and some Egyptian gods and constellations but I can't name one, not one African constellation or God. There MUST be some! They're found in Polynesian culture, Aboriginal culture, Native American culture. Why the veil of secrecy around Africa?

I'm just trying to lift that veil. For Gods sake, I watched a documentary on Great Zimbabwe and one of the gold rhinos ws kept locked in a university closet in Pretoria. That should be in muse celebrating African culture.

But what do you expect when an obelisk of Eqypt is randomly found near a downtown pier in London, or a random street in Paris. I do think they should be returned to the country the history took place in.

Everyone just block R34. There's no point in engaging.

R39 Nobody is engaging him, his statements are rhetorical and meant to derail. Did they really not have written language?

5,000 years of war, conquest, enslavement, tribalism, poverty, ignorance and brutality.

The Nubians of ancient Sudan did have a written language similar to heiroglyphics.

I love African literature. The great plays and novels.

In tribal societies, culture, traditions, history and laws are passed along orally, so there was no need for a written language. The only local African script widely used/recognized was Ge'ez/Amheric, the language of Ethiopia/Eritrea. The Muslim and European conquests brought written language to much of Africa. For example, Ki-Swahili was solely an oral language until Europeans wrote it down.

The sonnets , the poetry ! all written in symbols and animal figures.

I know about the Mefecane. That's the great Nazi-like colonial expansion and genocide perpetrated by the Bantu people on most of Southern Africa *before* whites arrived. The Bantus are the same people the white South Africans fought against so they could establish their own small homeland in depopulated Southern Africa.

I also know that unlike ignorant black American SJW revisionist "historians", most actual Africans thanked the gods for British colonial rule which liberated them from enslavement and exploitation by stronger black African kingdoms and the Arabs.

R20 Hey Dr. Hotep, Egyptian civilization spanned thousands of years-- the Nubians ruled it for 100 years. I know it gives you some sense of historical flair and regalness in the same way many Anglo-Saxon brits and Americans falsely believe themselves to be Celtic descendants, but the sad truth is if you're black and living in America there's almost a 99% chance your ancestors were snatched from clear on the other side of the continent. What's wrong with West Africa?

White supremacist propaganda like the kind peddled from R46 are why people like R20 believe there's a conspiracy to suppress the rich history of Blacklantis. Very grotesque-- not based in fact, but a very transparent "whataboutism" argument white nationalists often make to justify chattel slavery and genocide inflicted upon both Native Americans and Africans. That tribes were warring with each other does not excuse the horrors inflicted upon these peoples especially in a comparatively civilized and modern age.

It was a time where crimes were fines as long as you brought those heathen to God and a percentage to the state.

Even the freakin' Cato institute called bullshit on the white nationalist professor R46 cites.

[quote]That tribes were warring with each other does not excuse the horrors inflicted upon these peoples especially in a comparatively civilized and modern age.

Inflicted horrors? You mean like the horror of modern medicine, which allows the 75% of Africans who died before age 13 to live, thrive and overpopulate, causing yet a whole new set of, in this instance, self-inflicted horrors?

You Tarzan. Me Jane.

This is all I need to know.

R52 On to white nationalist canard part 2, I see.

[quote]European colonization had enormous effects on the health of both indigenous populations and colonists through the transfer of new diseases, mechanisms of oppression, and the process of urbanization. Today’s “global health” is the child of international health, itself rooted in colonial enterprises. Colonialism’s negative impact on public health is threefold; first, through the introduction of non-native diseases; second, through facilitation of the rapid spread of disease; and third, by the extraction of wealth that prevented indigenous people from “growing out” of the cycle of poverty and disease.

[quote]As human populations developed over the centuries, two main transformations led to the development of epidemic diseases: the growth of cities and the proximity of human living space with that of animals.(1) Because these developments did not occur uniformly throughout human civilizations, the prevalence of disease did not either. Thus, when civilizations encountered one-another, diseases were exchanged between populations that had no previous exposure or immunity. The smallpox epidemic in the Americas is a perfect example of a public health disaster directly caused by the arrival of colonists.(2) Malaria’s introduction to South America is another example of the introduction of non-native diseases.(3)

[quote]Beyond simply introducing new diseases, colonialism changed population densities in a way that made indigenous people vulnerable to the epidemics brought by Europeans.(4) The creation of crowded urban centers throughout Africa, India, and the Americas provided a breeding ground for infectious diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, and smallpox, and laid a foundation for today’s AIDS epidemic. The social transformation caused by colonialism – urbanization – was a clear catalyst for the emergence of epidemic diseases.

[quote]Lastly, on a larger scale, colonialism played a large role in the initiation of today’s poverty-begets-illness, illness-begets-poverty cycle. During the colonial era, the subjugation of individuals for profit was the impetus for health interventions. In other words, ‘public health’ served the interests of colonial powers, with improvements in local health a negligible and secondary side-effect.(5) This is because colonialism was based, first and foremost, on the extraction of wealth to benefit colonizing nations. During the height of European colonialism in the nineteenth century this wealth took a variety of forms including ivory, slaves, sugar and eventually cotton, rubber, gold, coffee, and tea. This extraction left developing nations without many of the exportable goods they may have otherwise benefited from. Today, the structures of power left by colonialism continue to exacerbate the already top-heavy distribution of wealth in nations that were once European colonies.

Colonialism as the root of distrust of modern medicine in Central Africa....

R54 The blinkered White folk are the cause of African misfortune harangue does not change one iota that the introduction of Western medicine is the principle reason for overpopulation and the concomitant destruction of the African environment.

Oh, and having a different opinion doesn't make one "White", "nationalist" or a "rumor-monger". However, it does bring into question the veracity of information from the user of such unfounded accusations.

Trolldar shows R52/R57 is the Jewish supremacist troll. You know, there are other ways of defending Israel than gleefully extolling the virtues of imperialism and genocide. Your prior canard has been debunked thoroughly.

Oh she's in full swing on a bumped Israel thread:

[quote] Ignorant Jew-hating trash squat on their fat thighs to shit on Jews/Israel. Guess the "Hasidics" threads all got deleted.

R58 R59 Stalked by a fascist juvenile with control issues. I'm so privileged!

R50 Honey, your understanding of fascism is more than a bit convoluted when you're here making a case for imperialism and genocide and quoting/sourcing white supremacists verbatim. You DO know you'll be in the cage with the rest of us when the pogroms start, right?

I know North African History very well. Unfortunately I don't know much about Sub-Saharan African history, but I have followed current political economy topics a little bit and know some events of the past 40 years. I follow dictator politic economy and money laundering and have some personal experience with the dictators and their dirty dealings in Switzerland.

Great thread, OP.

Here's a summary of Paul and Chantal in Geneve:

Paul Biya aurait passé 1645 jours à l’étranger, à titre privé, entre 1983 et 2017, le plus souvent à Genève, selon le réseau Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Des séjours qui auraient engendré des frais de 182 millions de dollars. De quoi susciter l’ire de l’opposition camerounaise, qui estime que le président dilapide le trésor public et ne travaille pas. Des sources disent que la Berne fédérale a mis la pression pour que Paul Biya quitte la Suisse.

Currently reading about Egyptian history, focussing mostly on the period of 3000BC to 300AD. Truly fascinating

How lame, R39. Instead of answering the questions just cry “block” and run away.

At least some provided some interesting info about some written language

I only read HERstory.

WW to r47 for “Dr. Hotep”!

I was in Cairo for a month in 2007. Was shocked at how much 3rd world was still blended in and viable. The city was filthy, run by chaos, and fragile. In a city so revered for it's history, I found little respect for it among the citizenry. However, Alexandria was the exact opposite. I never understood why Alexandria stands alone and it's practices not emulated throughout Africa. European colonization arguments be damned.

When things get back to normal, I'd like to visit Wakanda.

I also love Egyptian history, r65. Absolutely fascinating. And it went on for so long!

it's so sad what happened to Carthage. BTW Carthage was not 100% Phoenician. The settlers' culture, religion and language got fused with the native Berbers/Numidians. Most people when speaking of ancient history only talk about Egypt, Greece and Rome. Had Carthage not been destroyed, it'd be right up there. They had a vibrant, fascinating and powerful culture.

It's also tragic that Berber culture is completely overlooked and subdued today.

From the Roman invaders to the Muslim Arab invaders, North Africa has completely changed since ancient days.

ancient Kush and ancient Ethiopia were fascinating too.

I've often wondered what would have happened to the classical Mediterranean civilizations if Islam had never happened. How would those cultures and societies have evolved? It's a fascinating "what if?"

Islam was able to spread quickly because the damn Romans had conquered the Middle East and all of North Africa. So after Rome fell the rest of the empire was ripe for the picking.

it was a Roman-Muslim Arab combo that destroyed so many other cultures. Then of course centuries later the Brits, French, Spanish, Portuguese would destroy many cultures too

r74 that's not entirely accurate. Egyptians, Phoenicians and several others were relatively intact under the Romans.

If the Greeks hadn't defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon, Western Civilization would have been over. It's arguably the most important military battle of the antiquity.

"Of antiquity," not "of the antiquity." Sorry.

R75 but they had become christianized so they lost their native religions. Then they became islamized

The was a great series on PBS about the history of Africa

[quote] Had Carthage not been destroyed, it'd be right up there. They had a vibrant, fascinating and powerful culture.

Carthago delenda est!

You realize the "Jewish Supremacist Troll" is the right wing anti-semite Matt Batshit, or whatever his names is--failed youtube drag queen and hater of all things trans, except unfortunately, his own pathetic drag persona, right?

But his racist rants are something he really believes in.

Central African Republic could’ve put a little more effort into choosing a name for itself.

Isandlwana, Rorke's Drift, and the Zulu uprising.

R82 Not to mention getting off the fence about the East/West thing, they are clearly part of West Africa.

R82 Not to mention getting off the fence about the East/West thing, they are clearly in West Africa.

It was better under Smith