Dr John Hendrik Clarke said that
- The entire Eurocentric and white supremacist projects are aimed at dehumanising Africans and negating their grand contributions to human civilisation and progress.
- White historians claim that Africa had no history prior to the arrival of Europeans.
- The likes of Oxford University historian, Professor of Mis Philosophy Hugh Trevor-Roper and Margery Per-have of this world have deliberately distorted Africa’s history and image and today’s white supremacist and racist ideologies shape the way people view Africa across the Euro-American landscape and white society.
According to the African Fact Book
- The myth that Africa’s history began with the arrival of the Europeans, and that Africans had achieved nothing and had no culture before the Europeans arrived, is part of the more insidious myth to try and push the domination of one ‘ race ‘ by another .
- As Bob Marley put it in the Song ” War ” inspired by speech of Emperor Haile Selassie – Until that philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited everywhere is war ………
Many Africans display astonishing depth of ignorance of African history
- It is more disheartening, however, when people of African descent come to believe these statements. What is even more troubling is that far too many Africans both on the continent and in the Diaspora display an astonishing depth of ignorance of African history.
- The effect of this is that some people of African descent are embarrassed, to be identified with Africa. Some discourage their children from learning about their African heritage including language Thus, many children of African descent grow up today convinced of their own inferiority.
Educational System ignores contributions of African people to World Civilisation and Scientific inventions
- The educational system largely ignores the contributions of African people to world civilisation and scientific inventions and is full of negative perceptions of Africans and their culture.
- The education system globally, has continually perpetuated the historical myths and stereotypes about the African past.
- It is no wonder therefore that many African Americans, for example, share the comic Edie Murphy’s joke that Africans “ride around butt-naked on a zebra”. Comic joke but doing a lot of damage and done at the expense of a people.
Dr John Henrik Clarke, the African American historian and intellectual, articulated
- The need to offer a counter-narrative to the Eurocentric, white supremacist discourse that has dominated the “knowledge industry”.
- In the last hundreds of years African people and most Asian people have been reacting to the European presence in the world and responding to Europeans’ desire to control most of the land and resources in the world.
- Europeans came out of the Middle Ages poor, no good land for agriculture and poor resources.
- One-third of the population of Europe had been lost through famines and plagues
Dr Clarke called on Africans to pay proper academic attention and serious attention
- To the impact of the rise of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries.
- Europe’s greatest achievement during this period, acknowledged, was not enslavement and the military conquest of most of the world, but the conquest of the minds of most of the people of the world.
- The European conquest was achieved not by mere brute force or “brawn power” but largely by “brain power.”
Dr John Hendrik Clarke said that black African continue to believe the false narrative that Africa has contributed nothing to world civilisation. How big that myth can be gauged from the great efforts that Western historians have made to hide the immense contributions that Africa made to the civilisation of Europe in the Middle Ages.
Great deception by the Western historians
- The great deception by the West to the majority of the world today, chief among them Africans, do not know about the glorious Africans who conquered and ruled southern Europe for 781 years between 711 AD and 1492 AD, and in the process brought civilisation, education, and general enlightenment to the whole of Europe then steeped in its Dark Ages.
Glorious Africans conquered and ruled Southern Europe for 781 years between 711 AD & 1492 AD— The MOORS
This is a story about African ingenuity, brilliance and resourcefulness.
- But it is not acknowledged in contemporary history by Europeans or Westerners in general.
- At best, they give the credit to Arabs or Muslims as if an Black African who converts to Islam ceases to be an African.
- That is the kind of intellectual somersault employed by Euro-American historians that has ensured that the glorious history of the Africans (called the Moors) who conquered the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) in 711 AD and in almost 800 years thereafter brought civilisation to the whole of Europe, is not known even by most Africans.
But the stubborn fact remains that between 711 AD and 1492, these Africans, called the Moors, together with their Islamic colleagues from Arabia, put southern Europe to the sword, conquered it, governed it, and brought civilisation and general enlightenment to Europe as a whole.
Spain and Portugal benefitted from the Enlightenment brought by the African warrior -scholars
- Were one country at the time, and they became the first to benefit from the enlightenment brought by the African warrior-scholars from the northwest and west of the continent.
- With Spain and Portugal in their firm grip, the Moors proceeded to conquer southern France, then Sicily which they ruled for 200 years, and Crete for another 125 years.
- They also conquered parts of mainland southern Italy, and even besieged and sacked Rome in 846 AD, and in the process took a lot of spoils from the Vatican, some of which they later returned for gold.
This fact explains why all over Europe, putting Moor heads on the coats of arms of noble families, monarchs, towns, principalities, and by bishops and even the Catholic Church and popes, became fashionable, starting from the 13th century onwards.
It was because of the high achievements of the Moors in Europe and the honour attached to those achievements. However, today, over 500 years after the end of Moorish rule in Spain, the “Moors of heraldry” have become a controversial subject as contemporary European historians, writers and journalists continue to push the line that the Moor heads on European heraldry are symbols of defeat (by the Christian Crusaders) or as captives and slaves.
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