Re: Africa and the Modern World

Just some trivia points:

1)Africa's forced labour during the colonial era led to the accumulation of capital in selected Western countries and that led to RD in those ccountries.

2)Africa's mineral(The British Queen's crown jewels were obviously looted from Africa) and agricultural resources such as rubber extracted under most cruel coditions led to the development of the modern world in Europe.

3)In the area of AESTHETICS African symbolic and cubic sculpture served as the template for modern European art--painting sculpture, etc.

4)In the field of music(Aesthetics) the African motif is preferred world-wide in popular music expression and its articulation in the aesthetic area of modern dance. And in the field of athletics Africa's long distance runners have revolutionised distance running. Westerners now go to Kenya to learn new distnace running techniques.

5)Africa has made contributions in space exploration: A mechanical engineer from Mali designed the camera and other technologies for NASA's Pathfinder Programme

6)An African computer scientist did pioneering work in parallel processing that led at one time to the world's fastest processing time

7)Christian Barnard, who did the first heart transplant operation, confessed after his retirement that his African attendant was actually his mentor in the procedures used for this new kind of surgical operation.

And there are others....

AFRICA AND THE ORIGINS OF THE MODERN WORLD

The invention of writing, paper, geometry(some argue that Euclid was Egyptian) and trigonometry, engineering, stone architecture, physiology, the 365 day calendar, the steam engine(Heron of Alexandria was a native Egyptian) all made the modern West possible by way of the Greeks, and Arab and Moorish culture transmitters to Europe. Newton the English mechanist acknowledged his indebtedness to Egyptian astronomy. In fact the only really original idea that the West has developed in the area of technology is the idea of electro-magnetism(Maxwell). The idea of the steam engine was prototyped in Alexandria, Egypt.

Iron smelting at high temperatures were also an African contribution to modern technology. Nubia and other parts of Africa were pioneers in iron smelting--a necessity for modern technology.

The West also assimilated the rational element for Christian theology from Plotinus--a native Egyptian from Lycopolis in Upper Egypt. Augustine of North Africa also gave the West its theological moorings.

Ibn Khaldun from Tunis was the first to develop a theory of social science in his Al Muqaddimah--long before Hegel or Marx.

So the claim that Africa has made no contribution to the modern world is false.

1. I do agree that Europe benifited greatly from forced labor taken from Africa. After 1500 all of what we would call the 'frontier' poured substantial wealth back into Europe. This included Africa, Asia and latin America. Europe was able to exploit these areas because it more advanced military organization and technology. Europeans encountered near tribal socities in many of these areas and others in a much lower state of development than their own. Was their conquest of these areas fair? On some sort of utopian ethical level it was not but on a practical level it was logical and in keeping with the conduct of all nations in all times. Stronger cultures prevail over weaker cultures. Any lesser developed society in the path of ancient egypt, Rome , Greece, the UK etc etc would have also been over run. We live in the real world and in that world the strong survive and the weak do not.
Further, what would have happend to these societies had the Europeans NOT colonized them? How would they have cought up with the advancing world from a technology and structure standpoint? Was Uganda better off with local tyrants or under a benevolent British Empire where they were given as much democratic government as their institutions could handle.Under the UK in Africa thay had schools for their kids, hospitals, and a semblance of law and order. my argument is that colonialism was not only neccessary but vital for these societies to bridge the gap between the less advanced states they were in and the modern world. because of the cold war and other factors this process was not completed and Africa is paying that price today.
In conlusion, explotitation by Europeans was not only the only POSSIBLE outcome but a positive good. Africa was not going to be left alone under any set of reasonable circumstances.

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Ausar, Lamin addressed these questions to me so I would like to respond to them even though they are political in nature.

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To HOREMHEB:

1)So why not generalise your "might makes right" theory of human behaviour to intrasocial human interactions? Your theory seems to imply that the well-armed in society have the right to steal, rob, murder and rape if their victims cannot defend themselves.

2)The West tried to colonise China but failed and China is no worse off for that. India was colonised by Britain and is much worse off economically than China.

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The West tried to colonise China but failed and China is no worse off for that. India was colonised by Britain and is much worse off economically than China

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Indeed, in the early 1400's China had perhaps the most powerful Navy on Earth, sailing to India and and East Africa at a time when Japan was weak and comparitively primative technically and pre Columbus Europeans were generally afraid of long sea voyages.

BTW, I feel that there was an underlining motive for this "worship" of Zahi Hawass. Nonetheless, while I feel that Zahi does an adequate job in his "trained" field of archeology, I definitely wouldn't place him as an authoritative figure on other sciences that go into Egyptology, namely linguistics, forensics and bio-anthropology. A food for thought!

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
The more we see of Dr. Hawass the more impressed we have to be. he obvious passion for all things involving ancient Egypt are clear in every special he does.

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Horemheb,
I'm starting to think you might be a little sincere in this thread's topic. I have to agree with you in one aspect of your topic. Dr. Hawass is passionate about Egyptology and is fighting hard to return the ancient artifacts to Eygpt. If it wasn't for Dr. Hawass, I'm not sure if Egypt would be getting some of the ancinet artifacts back or if Egypt would be in the advance state to research and preserve it ancient artifacts.
However, countries like Germany, England, and France dodn't want to give back inportant ancient artifact that they stole or acquired improperly.

Horemheb,
I'll quote you on your words.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Them evil Europeans!

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Europe was centuries ahead of Africa in terms of military technology.

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Thought Writes:

The Chinese, who invented gunpowder (http://www.savetheguns.com/kids_questions.htm), used it for celebrations. There is some eveidence, posted on this forum some time ago, that Egyptians had some form of gun powder, but they too used it in celebrations. It was the Europeans who had the idea that "hey, we can use this stuff to kill people." It was the Greeks and Romans who felt that to get to heaven, you had to be brave on the ballefield. Africans, Egyptians included, felt that you have to do things like give to the poor and lead a righteous life to get to heaven. It was Alexander the Great and Julius Ceasar who wanted to rule the world. Name an African with those aspirations.

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Originally posted by alTakruri:
I would not like to idealize African peoples since they were and are human beings with all
the merits and faults common to humanity. Its just a matter of degree. African history
has its fair share of war and violent armed conflict not involving outsiders.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Thought ... European military technology was years ahead of African technology from 1500 on during the period of Europena expansion. It remains superior to this day. The United states fored the British and french to divest of their colonies after world war II. It was in the best interest of the US to have all of these areas open to global business in terms of gaining raw materials and later to find sources of cheap labor.

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Thought Writes:

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Thought ... European military technology was years ahead of African technology from 1500 on during the period of Europena expansion. It remains superior to this day. The United states fored the British and french to divest of their colonies after world war II. It was in the best interest of the US to have all of these areas open to global business in terms of gaining raw materials and later to find sources of cheap labor.

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by the way south african technology is higher than today europe,thanks to the racist whites and blacks learning that update knowhow since the 1990's or a little earlier.south africa has spread the nuclear knowhow to 26 african states and now speading other forms of update tech. knowhow in africa.it was in one of the african news service sites.so for the rest of africa that gap is closing.i keep up with things like this,because i care for africa,unlike some folks who always try to find ways of dissing it or dismissing africa and black folks anywhere.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Thought ... European military technology was years ahead of African technology from 1500 on during the period of Europena expansion. It remains superior to this day. The United states fored the British and french to divest of their colonies after world war II. It was in the best interest of the US to have all of these areas open to global business in terms of gaining raw materials and later to find sources of cheap labor.

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I can only speculate as to why nonesense like this goes unnoticed. First of European technology wasn't that far off from African societies, until much later in the 1800s.

Just to give you an example of this, here is an excerpt from BBC:

"The old muskets first made in the 17th century took one whole minute to load before giving off one shot, which three times out of ten misfired. These gave way to the breech loading rifles in 1866 which were quick loading, (cartridges were used, not loose gunpowder), shot further and were more accurate. Even more fire power was afforded by the repeating rifles which the French adopted in 1885 in West Africa. In the 1830's, Africans and Europeans had comparable firepower. By the 1880's, Europeans had superior fire power."

The source: The Story of Africa: Europe & Africa

The same source gives a fair idea about the timelines of African interaction with European "explorers", which in turn, shows that prior to those timelines, Europeans didn't know much about much of Africa!!!

Also note: European technology advancement in the early 1900s was thanks to the Industrial revolution (starting in Britain), which in turn, led to the events associated the "Scramble for Africa".

Horemheb has forwarded this myth before, saying that Africans were throwing spears against European firepower. He was also way off in his timelines, concerning European contact with the vast majority of Africans. The guy has no clue about African history, and that is why it surprises me that he manages to get away with these outrageous distortions.

Very important to familiarize with African history, for which there is still a considerable amount to be learned. To this day, Europeans still don't have much clue on ancient African history, particularly prior to Arab invasions. Just as they have done with Ancient Egypt, they have tried to take credit for other African achievements, needless to say, which occured prior to their arrival; claiming that Africans were incapable of such developments.

Almost forgot this:

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Horemheb:
The United states fored the British and french to divest of their colonies after world war II. It was in the best interest of the US to have all of these areas open to global business in terms of gaining raw materials and later to find sources of cheap labor

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A bunch of baloney. Most European imperialists didn't want to let go of their colonies, but due to being drawned out from the World Wars, and even more fierce ressistance movements all over Africa and around the globe, it become no longer viable to sustain that mode of terrorism. In other words, they were mainly forced to leave those colonies, by the pressure of the inhabitants of those colonies. Now these "Western" nations use a new form of colonization, through colonial and immediate post-colonial debts. They also maintain influence through "proxy" governments in the so-called third world countries. In fact, if it weren't for the cover from US military dominance, European "forceful" influence around to globe would be seriously challenged, and has indeed been challenged! If the Ancient Egyptians had used such cruelty on the Greeks, I bet the Greeks would still be resentful of Egyptians. The same goes for the Moors in Southern Europe.

But Menelik of Ethiopia defeated the Italian invaders(dreaming of a neo-Rome) at Adowa in 1896. The Italians returned however in 1935 and occupied the place but colonial rival Britain ousted them in 1941.

The only prior really significant defeat of African forces took place in what is now South Africa in 1838--Battle of Blood River. Chaka's assegai--short stabbing spear--was not successful against the long range rifles of the European invaders.