Why was Africa the last continent to be developed? Wait a minute, you ask, who said that Africa was the last continent to be developed? Haven't you (that is, I) heard of the great Egyptian, Nubian and Ethiopian civilizations, were they not African civilizations? Haven't you heard of Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Congo, Ashanti, Oyo, Dahomey, Benin, Buganda and other African civilizations? I have heard about them.

Right now, however, I am typing this essay on a word processor, on a computer and those Africans civilizations did not produce this computer. Therefore, I am not inclined to equate them with civilizations that produced the computer that has made my life a lot easier.

I am not motivated to be defensive, to argue that Africa had great civilizations. My motivation is different, to wonder why Africa did not produce great civilizations. If you believe that Africa produced great civilizations, I say, good for you; perhaps, this essay is not for you.

This essay is for those, who, like me, wonder why we, Africans, did not produce any of the things we employ in our current daily lives, such as the wheel, writing, printing press, cars, trains, airplanes, telephones, radios, televisions, microwave ovens, electricity, ocean-going ships, computers, Internet, fax, movies, rockets and so on and so on.

Is there a reason why Africa was bypassed by the great civilizations of the past? Let us look at the ancient Egyptian civilization. It is on the Nile. The Egyptians, apparently, developed long voyage, sea worthy vessels and explored the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile River up to present day Sudan. Now, why didn't they have the curiosity to keep going on south on the Nile until they found out where it came from, Lake Victoria, in South Africa? (If they encountered the various falls on the Nile, I am sure that they could have found a way around those obstacles to sailing.)

The Egyptians had the military and naval capability to sail the Nile to its source, so why didn't they do it? If they had continued down the river they would have reached South Africa four thousand years ago. Egyptian colonies would have sprouted up along the Nile River and some Egyptians would have gone further inland to civilize the African hinterland.

The Greeks explored Egypt. History tells us that Alexander the great captured Egypt around 350 BC. Greek shipping and naval vessels explored the Mediterranean and certainly could have explored the Nile to Lake Victoria, but they did not. Why didn't they explore interior Africa? If they did, Africa would have been exposed to Greek civilization.

Towards the end of the era before our common era, Rome conquered the Middle East, including Egypt. The Roman Navy was rather sophisticated. It certainly could have journeyed down the Nile to its fount and thereby opened interior Africa to civilization, as they did for Europe, two thousand years ago. Why didn't the Romans venture into interior black Africa? Why was black Africa left out of ancient civilizations?

In the 1400s, the Portuguese, under the leadership of Prince Henry the navigator, explored the West Coast of Africa. By 1488 they had reached South Africa, Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese and later the Spanish, Dutch, English, French etc established slave trading posts along the West Coast of Africa and did not bother exploring interior Africa. It was not until the mid 1800s that Europeans, during the scramble for Africa, finally entered interior Africa (the Livingstone-Stanley saga is well known).

Some say that the reason why the Europeans did not go into interior Africa was the hot climate of tropical Africa and the presence of mosquitoes in Africa. Well, certain parts of the United States, where Europeans settled, are hotter than most parts of Africa. New York City, during the summer, is certainly hotter than Lagos, Nigeria at any time of the year.

Regarding mosquitoes, may I ask you if you have been to certain parts of the USA, say, Alaska? There, mosquito swamps literally becloud summer months that you can hardly see long distances! The point is that mosquitoes were everywhere, including tropical Latin America and yet Europeans settled in those places. So why didn't Europeans settle in interior Africa?

There must be a reason why ancient civilizations did not enter into interior Africa. I do not believe that this happened as a result of accident. I believe that it was by design. I think that Africans have a destiny, a rendezvous with history.

Ancient civilizations touched the peripheries of Africa and did not enter into Africa. Even Asiatic civilizations like the Arabs, Indians and Chinese had contact with Africans over a thousand years ago. Chinese trading ships visited East Africa, over a thousand years ago; Arabs visited East Africa over a thousand years ago (and certainly visited Sahel West Africa over a thousand years ago.

Indian traders visited Africa or at least traded with Africans over a thousand years ago (excavations at Igbo Ukwu showed artifacts from India and this was in the ninth century). So, why did ancient civilizations all dance around the periphery of Africa but did not get into the bowls of Africa? Why didn't they enter what Joseph Conrad, the arrogant Polish writer, called the heart of darkness; were they afraid of being swallowed by a black hole?

(Sarcasm aside, in space there are black holes that suck up stars, planets and light; these objects disappear into a black hole and are transformed into other forms of energy and are eventually spilled out as other forms of energy. Black holes have warm holes from which objects enter and leave them in different forms.)

Why was Africa left to its self until the twentieth century when, finally, she joined the rest of the world and cultural diffusion is now taking place in Africa? Why this isolation from the rest of the world, this is what I want to understand.

Africans have only recently entered into world civilization. Perhaps, the first real influx of Africans to the rest of the world began in the 900s when African slaves were sold in Arabia and in the 1500s with the Trans Atlantic slave trade. With slave trade Africans were brought to Arabia, the Americas and Europe.

Today, Africans live in Arabia, the Americas and Europe.( Africans are also making their presence known in India, China, Japan, Australia etc; please do not tell me that the Dravidians of India and the aborigines of Australia etc were Africans; they do not call themselves Africans, so let us dispense with radical chic, okay.)

At the rate Africans are spreading, there is no doubt that in the next five hundred years Africans or a mixture of Africans and other people would form the majority of the populations of the world. That is to say that Africans have the capacity to spread and multiply, as other groups did. (Arabs spread from their Arabia home and multiplied and took over all of North Africa and the Middle East; Europeans spread from their caves in Central Asia and multiplied and took over Europe and the Americas etc.)

Africans are quite capable of doing what other groups did: develop and expand, so why didn't they do so in the past; why didn't Africa have civilizations that conquered and ruled the world?

Was it because Africans are not intelligent enough, as white racists tell us? Those white racists are a disappearing act. Before their own eyes their world is been taken over, therefore, those taking over their world cannot possibly be less intelligent than they. And least they get ideas into their heads that they can stop the tide of evolution, there is absolutely nothing that they can do to reverse historical trends. The world is passing over to Africans.

At the rate, Europeans are becoming decadent; just think of their increasing tendency to homosexuality and you appreciate that they would disappear from the scene in less time than folks imagine. In five hundred years one doubts that there would be white men as we know them today. These people are self destructing at an alarming rate. Their time, apparently, is up and they are on a fast track to oblivion. They are joining the Native Americans to the bed they made for each other.

Why were Africans bypassed by past civilizations only to be forcefully injected into civilization beginning in around 900 as slaves to Arabia and later the new world and in the 1900s into all other parts of the world? Obviously, there is no unequivocal answer to this question. I am going to postulate a hypothesis for our consideration.

I believe that Africa was saved for the last. History wanted other groups of human beings to dance their own dance of civilization, mess up and for Africans to enter the picture at last and correct things. Africans are meant to enter the scene and save mankind from itself.

Left to European rule, clearly, the world would be destroyed, sooner than later, but nature and nature's God wanted Africans to enter the world scene at the last minute to rescue the world, to save it from the antisocial personalities that descended on the world from Northern Europe.

I am saying that it is by design that Africa and Africans were the last to enter into world civilization. Other groups were supposed to dance their own dance on the world stage, screw things up and. for, at last, Africans to enter the picture and begin the process of correcting the mess other groups made.

Continued >>>

© May 2007 By Afromerica