History of Africa

Introduction to an "African history". Select history pages from the menu to the left.

Through time Africa has been looted in every possible way. Even the history itself was stolen and denied the Africans. It is only in recent years historians have started to put together the true history of the old continent where humans first walked. This is our common history.

White people has to some extend succeeded in convincing everybody that the Africans had not been able to build any civilisations before the arrival of the people from outside. Today we know some of the oldest civilisations at all existed in Africa, but even the Africans have started to believe the lies told in the last two centuries. Not knowing their great past, many young people lack pride and faith in Africa. It is hard to see a future without knowing the past. Today the whole world is drowned in cultural imperialism from the West. A big part of the youngest generation in Africa sadly thinks that everything worth having origins from USA. African cultural heritage are still being denied the Africans. Historic and valuable artefacts are illegally exported mainly to private collections and museums outside Africa.

Contrary to the belief of many people Africa has a history going back to a long time before the arrival of white people. But this early history is difficult to tell because few traces are left. First of all, the African societies maintained their culture and traditions verbally. Almost nothing was written down as most African cultures simply didn't have a written language. The African cultures were based on story telling from old to young. The stories gradually faded and changed through time. Names of great kings were forgotten. Only a few tribes started to write down their history (One of them, the Foumban dynasty of Cameroon, developed a unique written alphabet to do so.) Most sources to the early Africa are written down by Europeans obviously with a risk of an unbalanced view of the events.

The arrival of European helped to wipe away traces of highly developed ancient cultures. The white people did simply not believe that any African tribe could have build something like the Great Zimbabwe. They explorers, missionaries and "scientists" decided that this was surely a trace of an old WHITE civilisation in the middle of Africa. In more modern time archaeological findings in South Africa has been kept secret because they could nourish (black) African nationalism. The white people really believed that they arrived in southern Africa at the same time as the black people arrived. By claiming this, the white people could justify their rights to the country -at least to themselves.

Africa05 / Black History Month 2005

Black History Month is celebrated now in the US and other places. In UK the cultural celebration Africa05 is taking place from February-October. Here are a few links to "black history" and events.

"Of course we're guilty"

"Africa will never get the justice it needs if we refuse to acknowledge our role in the continent's failures." - Don't miss the comment by Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian. Read: Of course we're guilty

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