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Which were the most modern and civilised?
West Africans or East Africans?
I assume the more Southern states/empires/kingdoms came in last but not sure if true.
Well, one thing many people often do this: Alot of people think Africa is a country. It is not, it is a continent. That alone shows how misunderstood Africa is.
That was one example but why is Africa so misunderstood (in this day and age!)
Good thread. IMO Africa is misunderstood for three major reasons:
1. The power/money differential means we don't have to be understood but must bend over backwards to understand others. Money talks and many Africans are willing to sacrifice mostly everything to get it. Unfortunately instead of finding ways to perpetuate self-reliance we simply adopt other people's ways of making money or, worse yet, perpetually put our hands out for aid instead of coming up with plans to be financially independent. As a result you will see African children and even some adults chasing after the cars of tourists to get change. You will see Africans pack themselves into a boat to reach the European land of opportunity instead of pushing for change where we are. You will see African leaders groveling for aid. Of course it doesn't help that said African leaders tend to be from the puppet stock and/or concerned for only a few elites or one particular ethnic group of the country they represent.
2. We lack cultural confidence and have an amazing sense of inferiority which encourages non-Africans to disrespect and negate us. It's virtually impossible to respect people who don't have respect for themselves. Culturally confident Africans consider our cultures to be just as valuable as other peoples' cultures. We proudly wear our own style of clothing, we know that our spoken histories are just as valid as written histories, we assert that writing in African languages makes more sense to the longevity of our cultures than continuing to write in colonial languages, we insist that 10 million people make up an ethnicity rather than a "tribe." People who lack cultural confidence do silly things like spend inordinate amounts of their disposable income making sure their children go to schools with white headmasters where they will be taught that Mungo Park discovered the river Niger, buy wigs with hair textures that look nothing like their own, call their own spiritual traditions devilish, and generally value the lives of folks who don't look like them more than they value their own. Essentially we see ourselves through European eyes and we don't like what we see so we attempt to be something we are not.
3. Lack of knowing the value of what we have. So when the Chinese come to invest in Africa we don't require them to learn our languages, employ the majority of their workers from amongst our nationals, or even treat their African workers well. Instead they and Europeans pay a pittance for the resources they extract. While France is extracting uranium that it sorely needs in Niger, Nigeriens are dying of cancer because the French know they don't have to have any protective measures in place. When the world needs something for us we have fought ourselves to give it to them in places like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, etc. We don't realize that they should be fighting more to get the resources. We don't require them to treat us with respect.
I didn't say Africa didn't have a history, I said most of the modern nation states of Africa haven't existed for very long. You have some very old civilisations like Egypt and Ethiopia, of course, and some fairly advanced civilisations dating to the middle ages and before, but for the most part, they were created by the colonial empires or after that.
Africa has an extremely underrated ancient and medieval history with many influential cities, states and empires.
Egypt, Kush, Meroe, Aksum, Punt, Carthage, various ancient Somalian maritime states, Ajuran Sultanate, Adal Sultanate, Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, Sosso, Nok, Tichitt-Oulata, Oudane, Chinguetti, Audhoghost, Timuktu, Gao, Swahili, Zimbabwe culture... certainly a number of others I am forgetting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Davy-040
How can you call a continent the most diverse in the world if only 5 of the 54 countries have a 10+% non-Black population?
If you look at any genetic dendrogram on the internet, the main split of humanity is African and Out-of-Africa. The rest of us are very closely genetically related because of what is called "the founder effect." We are all descended from a very small population that left Africa, so no matter what the skin tone or eye shape of out-of-Africa peoples, we are closely related. There are of course mutations that create knew genotypes, but the principle holds.
Because Africans are descended from the large body of people who stayed in Africa, they have a great deal of genetic diversity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kronan123
what history? the subsaharan parts of africa didn't even have a written language when the colonialists arrived. ofc it had a "history", but not history in the human sense.
Hieroglyphic, Demotic, Geez, Meroitic and Tifinag are all African.
If you are talking about West Africa, then there are some limited ideographic systems such as Nsibidi and Adrinka.
Last edited by cachibatches; 11-03-2014 at 08:21 PM..
"Because Africans are descended from the large body of people who stayed in Africa, they have a great deal of genetic diversity."
Yes, but you know when people speak of "diversity", they are not meaning genetic diversity. I do not think anyone who asks "is London diverse", is asking what is the genetic diversity of the place, but rather the broad race/ethnic/socioeconomic factors.
"Because Africans are descended from the large body of people who stayed in Africa, they have a great deal of genetic diversity."
Yes, but you know when people speak of "diversity", they are not meaning genetic diversity. I do not think anyone who asks "is London diverse", is asking what is the genetic diversity of the place, but rather the broad race/ethnic/socioeconomic factors.
If you read through the thread, they were talking about genetic diversity.
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