The importance of learning our correct history

In ancient times it was widely believed that Egyptians came from the Ethiopians, but in the 1800s many European scholars began to distance Egypt from black Africa. European scholars looked to Asia or even North Africa for the seeds of Egyptian civilization. The black people found in Ancient Egypt were seen as slaves in a white civilization. One of the more desperate attempts to do this was to say that Egyptian civilization came from the Libyans to the west. Libyans were light-skinned and possibly came from Europe. Libyans ruled Egypt for a while, but thousands of years after the rise of Egypt. Same can be said of all the light-skinned rulers of Egypt, the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Turks. Their settling in Egypt is proof that Egypt was not white. The Egyptians also painted their gods black. Isis, for example, always has the skin colour of a Nubian. If Egypt was a white civilization with black slaves then why the black gods? Most people paint gods in their own image, not that of their slaves. It is clear that Western authority, as a whole has conspired to suppress, distort or ignore African history with the intent of perpetuating white supremacy. This deeply entrenched practice will not give way to the truth simply because the truth is right.

Many of us are devoted to the history taught to us by the white man, our existence and achievements as Africans predate by many many centuries, the arrival of whites in Africa. For instance we here a lot of celebrations by Black saying they are the first Black person to do this or the other. Recently Dr John Mavuma Nembula (1860–1897) was honoured as the first Black Doctor in Southern Africa. Dr John Mavuma Nembula, a Zulu native, who graduated at Northwestern University in the USA in 1887. He practiced medicine in the USA and also Natal. But Africans have been physicians long before modern medicine. In fact the superstar physician of ancient times is an African known as Imhotep, that Greek guy ( Hippocrates) who is often and wrongly referred to as the father of medicine learnt from what Imhotep had already done centuries before. Imhotep wasn’t just a physician, he is also a noted architect who designed the step pyramid. Ancient Africans in their wisdom knew that one had to learn in many areas of live for one to be balanced. But in this miseducation system we learn one discipline and we wonder why the world is such a mess. Plus the miseducation system comes from a dead people and those who learn in it become deadly.

I don’t think we can survive another century of what our ancestors went through with genocide inflicted by the Arabic and European invasions. Our failure to do what is right for ourselves, comes from our lack of self knowing. Our continued mistakes as a race comes from the fact that we don’t know our history, and the history of our relations with other races. And this lack of knowledge is very deliberate. The only way to have a proper perspective and a proper understanding of ourselves is to start from the beginning, what happened, how it happened and you can begin to understand why we are here and in this way.

I often hear a lot of people (Africans and non-Africans) describe Africans, our conditions, mentality without making reference to what is the root cause of these. Often when pressed to explain their observation they quickly make it seem as if Africans are innately inferior and the root cause of their misery is their own doing due to this misconception. When we get social amnesia, that is a society forgetting its own history, we also forget or misinterpret the history and motives of others as well as our motives. The way to learn about our own creation, how we came to be what we are, is getting to know ourselves. It is through getting to know the self intimately that we get to know the forces that shaped us. Therefore knowing the self becomes a knowledge of the world. A deep study of Black History is the most profound way to learn about the psychology of Europeans, and to understand the psychology that flows from their history. If we don’t know ourselves, not only are we a puzzle to ourselves; other people are also a puzzle to us as well. We assume the wrong identity and identify ourselves with our enemies. If we don’t know who we are then we are whomever somebody tells us we are. And often it those in the society who have power over our lives who tell us who are so that in becoming that we can maintain the status quo.

Dr. Wilson used the term “Historiography” to emphasise the role of history in generating consciousness on a mass scale. He emphasised the point that “history” is not simply a reporting of facts about past events, but rather, that history is created. History is presented to the masses, and thereby, establishes a worldview that becomes the consensual framework for evaluation and analysis by individuals who absorb that history as fact. History is history telling and history telling creates in the mind a human geography of the individual within the context of life itself. This geography provides meaningful references which informs the individual (and therefore masses) of their place and relevance in human time. Since the masses are mostly presented with a European frame of reference emphasising Europeans as the standard of human activities and accomplishments, masses of people are programmed through history to view their very existence only through European frames of reference. Consequently, the masses assimilate into the world as it is reported to them; without critical analysis. This directs the level and focus of inquiry within the context of the scientific arena. All questions and answers emanate from relevance to the survival of European people. History is used intentionally to manipulate the interests and activities of people in such a way as to invest in the survival of Europeans even to the detriment of themselves. History telling often means intentional lying and disregard for certain truths so that those in power can maintain continuity of the “history” as it has been told.

In conclusion it is only through knowing our correct history as African that we can come to know who we were, what happen to us to get us to be the way that we are today. Armed with a relevant understanding and perspective of why we are the way we are today we can put together a way to change ourselves to be what we need to be for our own sake.

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