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The
most potent threat to contemporary status quo is image reversal. The world has
gotten itself caught up in a series of habitual ways of doing things
politically, economically, socially and most importantly today,
religiously. A cabal of a few worldly figures have found it expedient to
promote certain values in these spheres to uphold the status quo, where
about 5% of the world population control more than ninety percent of world
riches, throwing an increasingly bigger proportion of world population into
financial difficulties, and more than fifty percent of them in poverty. One
of the weapons, and as we say the most portent of them is the creation and
sustaining of an image that serves their purpose.
What then is an image? In our present times, image, whether rooted in reality or illusion is everything. It is all a question of perception. By this we mean how a vast majority of the world population view someone, something, a group, a nation or an idea. What kind of emotion gets aroused when the group, person, or nation is mentioned? Do you get a good or else positive feeling with the utterance of that name? Or is it your defenses and protective mechanism that immediately comes to the foreground. Do you feel motivated to learn what is happening to the person or group, or do you feel like you do not want to even go beyond the mention of the group name, because either it is not important to you and your life, perception and value, or do you feel motivated to help, understand, sympathize, or else at the very least learn more about what is happening to that specific group of people, nation or person? That, in essence, is what we are talking about.
Today Africa and its nations are struggling to receive its true worth in the eyes of the world. Of all the six inhabited continents on this earth, Africa is the most despised, perceived as the poorest (in terms of real worth in resources, it is not), most disease and poverty prone, and the most expendable. As a result it is the most neglected and usually pushed off, in a world that continues to unite and consolidate regionally.
Our world today basically consists of seven continents, six of which humans populate. Africa is the second largest continent on earth, occupying roughly one fifth of its total land area. The Sahara desert takes up one fourth of its total land area, a desert that is also the world’s largest. The continent is made up of fifty three (53) countries, all of which are members of African Union, a regional body that has been in existence since 1963, when it was first launched at the dawn of the attainment of self government by many African nations (away from European colonial rule).
Having given our reader the basics about Africa as a continent, and its image in today’s world, what then is its true worth, what is Africa made up of, and what is its contribution to the world? These are some of the issues that need addressing consistently to weed away the image and self esteem problem so painted, and forcefully maintained. The image and self worth problem in existence today enormously impacts Africans on the continent, and all people of color in the Diaspora, who based on race must trace their roots back to Africa. Any attempt therefore to stir any people so affected to positive action, must start with clarifying the true Africa from the image others have painted about it.
The World’s Most Enduring Civilization
The world’s most enduring civilization on record arose along the Nile River with the most popular and documented section of it being the Delta area that pours into the Mediterranean in present day Egypt. In actual fact however, because Egypt is mostly mentioned by name, people tend to forget that the ancient civilization runs along almost the whole length of the Nile River. And it had at various times within its history that lasted thousands of years beginning at about 3,000 years before Christ (BC), moved capitals upland into areas populated by Abyssinian stock (Ethiopians), Nubians (mostly in Sudan and Egypt) and all those nations today that the Nile river passes through them.
Nile is the longest river in the whole world and runs a course of about 4,000 miles. That is the stretch of such vast civilization. In fact if you were to visit the few mummies on display today in museums in Egypt and elsewhere, you will realize the striking resemblance of those mummies to modern day Ethiopians (Abyssinians) more than any other people of African stock including modern day Egyptians. And the Hamito-Semitic languages found from the Egyptian Delta at the northernmost tip of the continent, which is ancient and includes the languages of the holy scriptures (Hebrew included), goes as far as the West African Coast, the Hausa Language of Northern Nigeria being one of them.
In the contemporary image battering of chiefly the European dominated era, Africa found itself being denied its contribution or rightful place as the cradle of mankind, mankind's most dominant and enduring civilization, and one which generated for mankind's development serious study into such subject areas as geometry, astronomy, math and metaphysics, arts and basically all sciences.
The current bastardization of Africa has become so bad, so inherently deliberate that today that part of world that was undeniably important in historical development of mankind, has been excised, even if mentally and tagged part of the Middle East; even as we physically see that it is glaringly on the African continent. That is when image destruction to castrate a people becomes a crime, in my humble opinion. And also it was illusionary implanted in the psyche of everyone but most unfortunately African themselves that they had nothing to do with that civilization and its contribution despite the fact that the Arab invasion that brought numerous Arab Middle Easterners into the area until present day did not occur until about three thousand six hundred years 630AD after the inception of that civilization (Egyptian first Kingdom).
To be candid, Africans are not denying the Asiatic stock (which the Arabs are categorized into by the same contemporary historians in their illusionary image game) their place in the scheme of things, but authentication of everyone's place serves everyone positively. In His works first appearing 1986 on U S Television as a series and later as a book "The Africans", Professor Ali Mazrui argues that the Arabian Peninsula, attached to the African continent on its North Eastern region, was regarded as part of the African continent centuries ago, and they intermingled and shared adventures in commerce and knowledge seeking for centuries. Professor Mazrui is an Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton. He is of Kenyan origin, born in Mombasa.
Also on the same issue of playing image games to the detriment and bashing of people of African descent, Professor Mazrui highlights the deliberate push by European nations to build the Suez Canal, as a physical and calculated attempt to physically separate Africa and its attached Arabian Peninsula or what was later tagged by contemporary European historians as "Middle East" long after the gradual campaign to rename North Africa also, as part of the "Middle East."
Abdullahi Yusuf Ali, the most popular translator of the Holy Quran today, in his work “The Meaning of the Quran” has this to say about the significance and central role Egyptian Civilization of thousands of years played in world’s historical development.
“Of the surviving old civilizations, Egypt and China go back furthest in time with historical material. Egypt has more interest for us, because geographically it was centrally situated, and was influenced by almost every important cultural movement in Asia, Europe, Africa. Nothing happened in Mediterranean history that had not some parts of contact with Egypt.” (Appendix IV, Pg. 404)
Most people have been conditioned to run away negatively from that civilization and its contribution to world’s development because of the famous story of the tyrannical pharaoh that ruled during the Prophethood of Musa (Moses) on him be peace. This negative image, though common across the board, you will find more common among the Muslims. But one has to understand that in a kingdom or civilization especially in dynasties that lasted thousands of years; of course some of the rulers were tyrants and oppressors. But there is no way that all these years, or even most of these years the rulers were a such. The dynasties would not have lasted that long without some sort of credible organization, strong governing structure, and some sort of state policy that supports the community enough to ensure the peace, prosperity and development it enjoyed.
In fact throughout Egyptian history the concept of worship was there, so also life after death as symbolized by the complex burial rituals and belief in resurrection. Such concepts were developed gradually for thousands of years. In fact, it has been deciphered from Egyptian recorded history that the Pharaoh Amenophis IV (about 1350BC) did adopt the worship of One Supreme God, consequently building a whole new city dedicated to that worship. He called the One God Aton. Imam A.Y. Ali placed the Jewish Prophet Solomon at about “a little after 1000BC”, meaning One God worship in Egypt by Amenophis is more than three hundred years earlier than the times of Prophet Solomon.
Abdullahi Yusuf Ali believes more study and appreciation of the contribution of Egyptian knowledge in religious terms is needed as it has generally been neglected in favor of others, such as the ancient Indian religion. In relation to Egyptian civilization he writes
“Their religious sense was led, in spite of many rebuffs, gradually to a purer conception of man’s eternal destiny, until Muhammad’s message was preached in the very language in which it was originally preached in Arabia. And that language, Arabic, became and is now the language of the Egyptian people themselves.” (Appendix V, Pg. 408)
The worship of one God has today become stabilized in Egypt after the Islamic religious influence, and has remained the nation’s predominant religion for about one thousand four hundred (1400) years now.
Tracing the roots and attaching the various African ethnic communities (languages) is a vast arena, but it has fortunately been documented for thousands of years. Sometimes such facts are etched boldly on rocks and monuments, never to be easily obliterated by destructive image abusers. More recently, anthropology, archeology and the art of linguistics has been very useful in helping piece back together a deliberately dissected communal civilization. It’s destroyed and mostly disfigured relics which developed the intricate artistic, scientific, and religious knowledge over many centuries, and actually thousands of years, have been recovered by its sons and daughters long after the event.
Most recently, the same destructive elements who are not really interested in a just and developed world, have out of vested interest, for example, caused a chaotic situation between some of the most respected intellectual authorities living among us today, who might have helped us further in such quests. When Professor Ali Mazrui uncovered and introduced these dichotomies, filling in the details of hard truths about what Africa is (back in 1986), and what its population has offered and continues to offer the world, another Professor was sponsored out of Harvard University to counter some of those hard truths in 1999 by virtually the same sponsors PBS, with his series Wonders of the African World which premiered October 25-27, 1999. That Professor is Henry Louis Gates. But for African greater interest, this is not necessary, and is actually counterproductive. It is a ploy, in my opinion, to make sure the Africans on the continent, and those in the Diaspora do not join together for any common good.
My opinion is, the sponsors used, most importantly among other possible factors, the difference in religion between the two to cause that discord. Professor Henry Louis Gates is a Christian African American, while Professor Ali Mazrui is a Muslim born on the continent of Africa (Mombasa, Kenya), but has resided for many of his productive years in the U.S. as a Professor. That deliberate friction created between the two- one going out to counter the other later- is not necessary as the facts they set their minds to bring out are of common importance to them both and their individual regional communities, plus all three Abrahamic faiths. I will give you a typical example. As an undergraduate student on the continent of Africa during the acquisition of this writer’s first degree (Mass Communications), this writer studied along the way, African History. Though casually introduced to such issues (because her degree specialization was in communications), she was blinded to some of those basic connective facts until she took up a job as an International Radio Broadcaster.
While we broadcast in Hausa (a widely spoken West African language concentrated in Nigeria), my Ethiopian neighbors did in Amharic, both of which are from ancient Hamito-Semitic languages of all three scriptures. Because we have common internal radio monitors direct from the studios of broadcasts, while listening to their language I will walk over to them and say you have many Hausa words in your language, what does such and such means in your language? They will tell me. Most of the time, it does not directly mean the same thing, owing to the fact that the connection between the two languages was from thousands of years, but the meaning is not completely off. Mostly the meaning within both languages is still within a general context, i.e. the general subject area within which the word was used.
A broadcasting colleague at that time named Yeheyes Wuhib (Christian), with a collaborated name with my son Yahaya Wada (Muslim), both first names going back to the same root word, once mentioned in a discussion that the idea that Aramaic, the language Isa (Jesus) on him be peace spoke is almost lost (as most contemporary image destructive historians say is not a living language today), is not true. Amharic, his language is believed by his people to be closely related to Aramaic (the language Jesus preached in). But here is the point most people miss, causing most of us to allow ourselves to be manipulated by image destructors into barking at each other, tearing each other down, or else doing the extreme, picking weapons to fight and kill each other. It is just not necessary.
Both languages of Hausa and Amharic have thousands of year’s connections beyond the three Abrahamic scriptures (Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic). It is a result of myopic and narrow mindedness that the adherents of the two religions on the continent and abroad might think their world is that different, enough to lunge at each other at any time down the line as history continues to unfold. In short ancient Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew), Aramaic, and Arabic have common ancestral connections with the speakers of Hausa and Amharic. So in short what are the two intellectuals fighting about? And what are we as a people who follow the religions of our common ancestors fighting about?
Coming back to our common language awakening I had in those years, I remember well when a broadcaster by the name of Girma was first introduced at the Ethiopian languages section, I walked over to him, naturally curious all the time about such connections across the continent; I told him your name means something in my language. Girma is an adjective, sometimes used as a noun to denote status. It is aligned to post, position etc sometimes used as a “post.” and sometimes “position.” Later down the road I learnt today the Ethiopian President is named Girma.
That is only a connection with another Hamito-Semitic language. In actual fact however, the Hamito-Semitic languages have been further classified into five branches, each branch more connected with each other than the other four. Incidentally, Hausa as a language, the Chadic branch, has more direct and close connection with the Ancient Egyptian language (at the Delta region of modern day Egypt) than Amharic. With that language also, I have had my own personal reflections. In the field of Linguistics, language connections, plus the route of migration of various groups are traced based on the percentage of shared vocabularies, as well as other factors among them sharing basic root words that describe the simplest form of existence in prehistoric eras. For example words that describes water, fire, hunting, etc
In the writers reflections based on such arts, she came to a realization of the direct religious connections with Early Egyptian civilizations from the word “Ra” for example, that describes a deity worshipped thousands of years ago in dynastic era Egypt. Amun Ra is a Sun god, in Egyptian mythology, who was actually supposed to be a higher god to which the others culminate under, to become one god. In Hausa language the celestial Sun is called “Rana.” Ra can stand on its own as a word within Hausa syntax with “Rana” making it a possessive noun meaning “My Ra.” In linguistic analysis, that factual connection, along with other factors, may denote sun worship at some time in the past. This has indeed been substantiated by other relevant data. That further connects the Hausa with biblical Queen of Sheba, who became the wife of Biblical Solomon, and whose people were sun worshippers from Abyssinia.
Then listening to a former Nigerian Ambassador to the United Nations Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule speak at this writer’s college campus in Nigeria during “Hausa Week” it further vindicates the writer’s quest. In an annual event to study and further enrich the cultural heritage of its speakers, Alhaji Maitama (speaking at the occasion) was recounting that he could remember a legendary song from childhood that denotes to him some sort of sun worship thousands of years back by the Hausa. He also in his lecture at the event, argued credibly that connection with Abyssinians. The song goes like this “Rana, rana fito fito in yanka miki ragon baba ki sha jinni tsar tsar.” The literal translation is The Sun please rise, and I will sacrifice for you my father’s ram.”
So in short, the Hausa community who are predominantly Muslim by religion today, with about eighty percent of them living in Nigeria (at least ninety five percent of those and above Muslim), and also existing in lesser numbers in many countries of West Africa (Chad, Cameroon, Ghana and Niger) have in their ancestral past been part and parcel of an ancient civilization that strove in the quest for artistic, scientific, and religious knowledge which consequently culminated in all three scriptural religions (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) as practiced today on the face of the earth. It appears that the Hausa ancestors have gone through all such religious eras spanning thousands of years, each time accepting the higher knowledge that makes sense to them, as it evolves, and incorporating it in their lives, to arrive at the present day Muslim Hausa..
They also have an ancestral connection to the people that made it possible today to manufacture and develop all these scientific inventions in science, medicine, technology etc. It is time for them to rediscover their rich ancestral past, and rise above the destructive mechanizations of image destroyers working under the grip of the evil one, aiming to throw their people and land into perpetual chaos and bloodshed. A positive sense of self worth, or what today may be termed image repair and contribution acknowledgment, will go a long way in putting the Hausa people back on the right course.
The Hausas are an honorable people, honored by their contribution to a great civilization dating back thousands of year, and honored by God by being part of a greater nation of people through which His three scriptural revelations were delivered to mankind.
This excerpt is an abridged version of this writer’s book, coming out God willing this upcoming summer.
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