AFRICA: EUROPE’S GREATEST LIE

Henry Morton Stanley was a Welsh American journalist and explorer credited with exploration and mapping of central Africa. He wrote his encounters in two books among them Through the Dark Continent (1878) coining the term dark continent that many atrocities, suffering and exploitation would be committed. His achievements as a journalist across the world and explorer in Africa are well documented. His cruelty, racism, inhumane treatment as well as contempt for black-skinned people probably outweigh any significant achievement he claimed.

In a matter of a century or so, the Europeans forgot the wonders and beauty that the Romans spoke about Africa as a land of rolling savannas, green covered mountains and meandering rivers; they forgot about wealth that the Arabs, Persians and Indians came to carve out in the various international trade taking place in Africa; they forgot about the great and mighty army of Kush that couldn’t even be defeated by superpower Rome; they forgot about the hospitality that the East African coast people showed to the Chinese explorer Zheng He; they forgot about the splendour of the Mali and Songhai kingdoms that they were centres of Islamic excellence; they forgot about the majestic and ingenuity of pyramids of the Egyptians.

With the Age of Enlightenment sweeping Europe in 17^th century, they erased everything they knew about Africa. Africa was a dark continent. Its inhabitants were uncivilised savages. Terror, war and slavery were the order of the day. Its interior was unexplored, wealth unexploited. Therefore, it was upon them to lighten up this dark continent and civilise them. Earlier in late 1400’s, Vasco da Gama had been welcomed by the leaders of the Malindi city-state. When he returned to Portugal and reported about the booming Indian ocean trade, it was decided that Portugal must control the trade. In a short period of less than a decade, Portugal was in control of the east Africa coast from Somalia all the way down to Mozambique. This experiment by the Portuguese came to a disastrous end with the coming of the Oman’s. But the precedence had been set. Europeans having learnt with the mistakes of Portugal set about to colonize Africa in guise to civilise, explore, spread gospel and trade.

What they saw were people living in tribal villages. The people performed inhumane cultural practises, their worshipping was devilish and pagan. Wars and conflicts regularly broke out between tribal inhabitants. In effect, their imagination that had been fed and led to believe that Africa was uncivilised, uneducated and savagery had been satisfied. There were no majestic and magnificent cathedrals that you would find in any European metropolis. They didn’t find universities or scramble for education like that happening in Europe.

So, is Africa the dark uncivilised continent that Europeans ignorantly believed it to be?

African civilisation has existed before the dawn of written history. Perhaps the best example is the Egyptian civilisation that gifted the man with the majestic pyramids and bequeathed the world with priceless history. Romans had to conquer it. ‘This civilisation was fathered by the Negro ancestors of Kushite’s and today’s Africans’ (The Negro Revolution, Goldstone 1968). The Kush kingdom could not be conquered by the Roman-ruled Egypt. And in 775 B.C they conquered Egypt (Goldstone 1968). Its capital was the city of Meroe prospered and flourished for centuries. It built temples, palaces and houses that even after the fall of Kush in 330 A.D the ruins continue to tell of a kingdom that flourished in the middle of Africa savanna and deserts by Africans themselves. Though the archaeological excavation and research continue to be done and new facts emerge, it is with no doubt that Kush kingdom represent the ingenuity, intelligence mighty of Africans. The fall of Kush was hastened by the rise of the Axum kingdom in the present day Ethiopia that even the Mohammedianism ( Islam) could not defeat when they had conquered the whole of north Africa. The Europeans didn’t colonize Ethiopia.

Along the east African coast from the horn of Africa down to the Mozambique, ancient records show that an international trade existed even before the birth of Christ. The Periplus Maris Erythraei is the known earliest written account of the East African coast. The accounts were written by unknown Greek merchants living in Egypt and it describes the trade between the east Africa coast, Arabia and India. Other written historical sources include the Claudi Ptolemy Geography, Christian Topography written by a Greek merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes, Kilwa chronicles written by an anonymous author, Moroccan merchant Ibn Batutta and others. The trade gave rise to wealthy city states along the east African coast. The city of Gedi is one of the many states that flourished as a result of this trade. Although nothing much is known about the ruins in Kilifi County, it is a mystery that continues to baffle archaeologists. Occupying forty-five acres, the city consisted of a walled town, mosques, palace, stone pillar tombs and one-story houses in Swahili coast architecture. It is a sight to behold.

In west Africa, there were flourishing empires starting with that of Ghana. The fall of Ghana was followed with the rise of the Kingdom of Mali and the Kingdom of Songhai.

The matter of Africa civilisation is a subject of great interest to many people. In essence, it was the foundation to which Europeans laid claim to Africa through colonialism that had lasting effect on Africans. But time after time and as more archaeological evidence comes to light, it is evident that in the grassy savannahs across Africa, civilisations that can rival any could be found. Africans had perfected the art of mathematics and geometry to be able to construct the pyramids in Egypt, or the palaces in the kingdoms of Kush, Songhai or Mali. They were versed in commerce and arithmetic through the major trades that happened in Africa such as the Indian Ocean trade and the Trans-Saharan trade. Religion had developed such that Timbuktu would become a centre for excellence for Islamic studies in west and north Africa. The Axum kingdom in Ethiopia had a well-established religion such that the Queen of Sheba paid a pilgrimage to Solomon’s palace in Israel. Architecture, though a mixture of African, Arabic and Greeks, was unique.

Therefore, the premise on which the scramble for and partition of Africa happened was wrong and had no basis. Africa was not the uncivilised, uneducated, cruel and savagery place the Europeans believed it to be.