What will future black youths be told?
by Ian A. Marshall
THE SITUATION facing African people today has reached crisis proportions, after continuous onslaughts, since the initial one over 3 000 years ago on the African continent. There has been a conspiracy and calculated efforts by others, not of African extraction, to deny African people their rightful place in humanity and not recognise them as the great people they are. How are we to break the back of this conspiracy? How will we correct the lies, misrepresentations, stereotypes, misunderstandings and bigotry perpetrated by others against us? Will we continue to tell our children that we created nothing, but the Europeans civilised us, that we were cannibals? Or will we tell our children that we were the first scientists, mathematicians, dentists and astronomers and others who teach us now, once learnt at our feet? Will we continue to tell our children that the Europeans brought religion, business skills, culture, books and farming to us? Or will we tell our children that we developed the first concept of the one God, were the most astute business people, had a rich culture and wrote the world’s oldest book? The African genius Imhotep, the minister of state, the scribe, astronomer, magician and physician lived over 2 000 years before the Greek Hippocrates, who visited Egypt and learnt from the work of this African prodigy. Will we continue to venerate Hippocrates as “the father of medicine” or will we tell our children the truth about the real father of medicine, and his scholastic achievement? When we speak loosely of being as solid as the rock of Gibraltar, are we going to give our children some nonsensical European lie about this name or are we going to tell them that this place was named after an African by the name of Gibral Tarikh, who with his army brushed aside the Spaniards in 711 AD and initiated a near 800-year rule of southern Europe. In history classes, when we teach about Columbus, will he be still credited with discovery the Americas? Or will our children be told that Columbus never covered anything but people discovered him, because he got lost in the Atlantic and ended up meeting people he misnamed Indians, who spoke of Africans having been to South America 2 000 years before Columbus was born? Will this Columbus myth be perpetuated or will we show our children the pictures of the 16 huge stone heads, some as tall as 9 feet, unearthed in various parts of Central America, with distinct African features? Can we persist in condoning the lie that Greece was the cradle of culture and learning, and that the Portuguese were the first navigators? Or will we tell our children that the cradle of culture was in Africa and that it was no coincidence that the first European navigators of merit sailed from where there was a heavy African presence in Europe? That this part of Europe was introduced to perfumed airconditioning, various types of fruits and plants, their first university, public baths and navigation and that these things were brought out of Egypt by Africans better known as Moors. Will we allow our young African women to be defined by Eurocentric terms such as “the weaker sex”, coy and demure, or will we inform our females that they once were soldiers, that Queen Hathshepsut, the female Pharaoh, fought off herds of Asians that invaded Africa’s ancient Egyptian land? That the Queen and Empress Makeda (Queen of Sheba) defeated the Persians and sent her armies all the way to the Ganges river in India, which was named after her general-in-chief, Gangis. That Queen Nzingha of Angola, fought the Portuguese invaders fiercely,with her female army; that Queen Dahlia held off the Muslim Jihadists in North Africa for seven long years before she succumbed in battle. Would our African female children not be emboldened to know that Batieta of the Fons of Dahomey led her female army of soldiers against the French army and defeated it? Why is it so important for us to tell our children the truth about themselves? What good will this do them? If we know the truth about ourselves, then we would walk with pride, we would define ourselves, we would not try to escape from ourselves by changing our features, our hair, skin or anything else, because we would “be proud to say that we are African”. We would love our African brothers and sisters as we love ourselves, because we would consider them sacred. As a result, our people would be stronger and able to resist any attempts by others to denigrate or annihilate us. We cannot leave the socialisation of our children to chance; we must let them know that we did great things and had a glorious past and with the knowledge, commitment and inherent indomitability we will do it again. 
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