I remember Cheikh Anta Diop, a well known Senegalese historian telling his ... I know that Dr. Nkrumah would agree with Cheikh Diop's submission that âEgypt.
‘Whitening’
Human
Civilization
and
‘Blackening’
Human
Imperfections
A
conversation
with
Dr.
Kwame
Nkrumah
Thembani
Mbadlanyana
I
know
that
Dr.
Nkrumah
would
be
happy
to
hear
me
saying
that,
indeed,
Africa
has
a
noble
and
rich
history.
He
would
agree
with
me
when
asserting
that,
for
many
centuries,
it
was
the
political
project
of
the
Global
North
and/or
West
to
‘whiten’
human
civilization
while
‘blackening’
human
imperfections.
Africa
was
portrayed
as
a
dark
continent
that
contributed
to
the
human
civilization
only
“by
the
grace
of
foreign
tutelage’.
In
recent
years,
the
prevailing
narratives
that
came
to
dominate
the
Western/European
intellectual
discourse
were
those
of
Africans
as
people
without
any
past
and
culture
and
with
no
contribution,
what
so
ever,
to
the
civilization
of
mankind.
I
could
see
the
smile
on
Dr.
Nkrumah’s
face
when
nodding
in
agreement
with
him
that,
it
was
and
it
is
still
unfortunate
that,
despite
clear
scientific
evidence
of
Africa’s
contribution
to
human
civilization,
men
of
learning
and
men
of
letters
in
the
West
“from
a
century
ago
down
to
yesterday,
have
spent
much
valuable
time
to
establish
this
unscientific
and
ridiculous
notion
of
African
inferiority”.
Africa
the
Craddle
of
Human
Kind
and
Source
of
modern
day
civilization
On
closer
look,
it
seems
that
the
Europeans
forgot
that
the
earliest
known
evidence
anywhere
in
the
world
of
the
existence
of
man
and
the
appearance
of
first
human
civilization
comes
from
Africa;
the
cradle
of
civilization
and
the
origin
of
human
society
(see:
Rashidi
Rukono.
On
his
“The
African
roots
of
humanity
and
Civilization”).
Africa
is
a
place
where
ancient
civilization
was
recorded
long
before
the
advancement
of
the
human
culture.
I
remember
Cheikh
Anta
Diop,
a
well
known
Senegalese
historian
telling
his
disciple,
Congolese
born
American
philosopher
and
historian,
Dr.
Théophile
Obenga
that
“the
Upper
Nile
Valley
of
Africa
has
been
credited
for
giving
rise
to
the
world’s
oldest
monarchy
well
known
as
the
Ta‐Seti
1
in
Ethiopia”.
I
know
that
Dr.
Nkrumah
would
agree
with
Cheikh
Diop’s
submission
that
“Egypt
has
been
regarded
as
the
greatest
nation
of
antiquity
and
the
Pharaoh
system
famously
known
as
the
ancient
Kemetic
civilization
is
thought
to
be
the
proudest
and
the
loftiest
accomplishments
ever
to
have
been
witnessed
in
human
annals”.
I
know
that
Dr.
Nkrumah
would
find
joy
in
the
fact
that,
centuries
before
the
Europeans
in
their
Treaty
of
Westphalia
in
1648
defined
and
introduced
this
concept
of
a
state,
Africans
already
had
their
‘states’
and
other
systems
of
self
governance
as
exemplified
by
Soninke
Rulers
of
Wagadou
Empire,
Sundiata
Keita’s
Kingdom
of
Mali
and
the
African
Kingdoms
of
Nubia.
History
of
knowledge:
Africans
as
producers
of
knowledge
As
Obenga
puts
it,
“
Aristotle
(384‐322
B.C.)
himself,
writing
in
Metaphysics
confesses
in
Greek
Hellenic
language
that:
“thus
the
mathematical
sciences
first
(proton)
originated
in
Egypt‐
Egypt
is
the
cradle
of
mathematics‐that
is,
the
country
of
origin
for
Greek
mathematics”.
So
what
one
discerns
from
Aristotle’s
assertion
is
that
the
mathematical
arts
had
never
before
been
formed,
constituted
or
elaborated
anywhere
else‐but
originating
in
Egypt
only.
In
prologue
to
Prodlus’s
Commentaries
on
Euclid’s
Elements,
a
disciple
of
Aristotle
named
Eudemus,
who
lived
in
the
forth
century
B.C.,
confirms:
“we
shall
say,
following
the
general
tradition,
that
the
Egyptians
were
the
first
to
have
invented
Geometry,
(that)
Thales,
the
first
Greek
to
have
been
in
Egypt,
brought
this
theory
thereof
to
Greece”
(Obenga,
p.
48).
As
Obenga
reveals,
“Herodotus
said
it,
Plato
confirmed
it,
and
Aristotle
never
denied
it
that
the
ancient
Greeks
traced
all
human
inventions
to
the
Egyptians,
from
Calculus,
Geometry,
Astronomy
and
Dice
Games
to
Writing...Since
the
time
of
Homer,
Egyptian
antiquity
functioned
strictly
as
a
highly
memorialized
component
of
Greek
history”.
A
question
then
is,
which
ahistorical,
uncultured
and
uncivilized
Africa
Europeans
were
referring
to?
Aristotle,
whom
European
scholars
of
the
enlightenment
age
revered
and
cited
widely
in
their
writings,
ranked
Egypt
as
“the
most
ancient
archeological
reserve
in
the
world”.
I’m
in
2
agreement
with
Nkrumah;
Europeans
were
by
no
means
the
pioneers
of
intellectual
ideas.
Historical
and
archaeological
research
indicates
that
“half
of
man’s
recorded
history
had
passed
before
anyone
in
Europe
could
read
or
write”.
The
priests
of
Egypt
began
to
keep
written
records
between
4000
and
3000
B.C.,
but
more
than
two
thousand
years
later,
the
poems
of
Homer
were
still
being
circulated
in
medieval
Europe
(Obenga).
I
know
that
Nkrumah
would
agree
with
Rashidi
Rukono
when
telling
us
that
what
we
don’t
know
and
never
hear
about
in
the
mainstream
intellectual
literature
and
the
literature
on
the
history
of
African
though
is
that,
well
known
Greek
scholars
of
antiquity
(Europeans)
whom
we
study
and
revere
in
our
African
university
curricula
today
all
studied
at
the
feet
of
ancient
Egyptians
in
the
Nile
Valley,
Kemet.
Plato
studied
at
the
Temple
of
Waset
for
11
years;
Aristotle
was
there
for
11‐13
years;
Socrates
15
years
Euclid
stayed
for
10‐11
years;
Pythagoras
for
22
years
and
Hypocrates
studies
for
20
years
(ibid).
Indeed,
the
Greek,
St.
Clement
of
Alexandria,
once
said,
“
if
you
were
to
write
a
book
of
1,000
pages,
you
would
not
be
able
to
put
down
the
names
of
all
the
Greeks
who
went
to
Kemet
to
be
educated
and
even
those
who
did
not
surreptitiously
claim
they
went
because
it
was
prestigious”
(Diop
Chiekh).
I
know
Nkrumah
would
not
be
in
disagreement
with
the
fact
that
Greek
intellectual
life
started
with
the
Egyptian‐trained
student,
Thales
who
went
on
to
become
the
founder
of
the
first
Greek
school
of
philosophy
and
science
and
who
later
on
strongly
recommended
that
Pythagoras
travel
to
Egypt
to
receive
his
basic
education
and
to
converse
as
often
as
possible
with
the
priests
of
Memphis
and
Thekes
(see
Obenga;
Diop,
Chiekh
Anta
&
Dr.
John
Henrik
Clarke,
Africa
is
the
Cradle
of
Civilization,
2006).
Having
listened
to
the
great
wisdom
of
Obenga
and
Chiekh
Diop,
I
could
picture
Nkrumah
saying,
undoubtedly
my
child,
Africa
has
long
been
the
centre
of
knowledge
generation
since
antiquity.
What
Nkrumah
doesn’t
know
though
since
he
is
no
longer
with
us
(peace
be
upon
him)
is
that,
the
2010
Thomson
Reuters’
Global
Research
Report‐Africa
confirmed
his
long
held
views
about
the
continent.
The
report
concluded
that
“the
continent
is
home
to
a
rich
history
of
higher
education
and
knowledge
creation….the
University
of
Al
Karaoulne
at
Fez
in
Morocco
was
founded
in
CE
859
as
a
madrasa
and
is
identified
by
many
as
the
oldest
degree
awarding
3
institution
in
the
world”.
The
report
also
points
out
that
Al
Karaoulne
University
was
followed
by
another
North
Africa
based
University,
an
Egyptian
Al‐Azhar
University
established
in
970.
I
remember
Nkrumah
telling
me
that,
the
Timbuktu
region
in
Mali
is
also
known
for
its
ancient
‘intellectual
discursive
communities’
and
epistemic
communities.
Writing
in
the
1960s,
Cheikh
Diop,
echoed
the
same
sentiment
and
further
explained
that,
centuries
before
Europe
colonized
the
continent
and
questioned
the
primitive
character
of
African
‘mentality’,
Aristotelian
logic
was
being
discussed
by
local
African
scholars
(such
as
Ahmad
Baba
al‐Massufi
al‐Tinbukti
(October
26,
1556
–
1627)
in
places
like
Timbuktu
(see
Shamil
Jeppie
and
Souleymane
Bachir
Diagne
(eds);
‘The
Meanings
of
Timbuktu’).
According
to
Diop,
“Four
centuries
before
Levy‐Bruhl
wrote
his
primitive
mentality
(also
known
by
the
title
How
Natives
Think)
Black
Muslim
Africa
was
commenting
on
Aristotle’s
‘formal
logic’
and
was
devoted
to
dialectics”.
21st
Century
Africa:
knowledge
generation
and
visions
for
the
future
As
we
are
deep
into
our
conversation
and
trying
to
reconstruct
the
history
and
map
out
and
elaborate
new
visions
for
the
future
of
the
continent,
Nkrumah
whispers
to
me,
“there
is
a
need
for
Africans
to
explain
their
own
culture,
and
interpret
their
own
thought
and
soul
life,
if
the
complete
truth
is
to
be
given
to
the
other
races
of
the
earth”.
He
insists,
“the
next
edition
of
Encyclopaedia
Africana
should
be
produced
in
Africa,
under
the
direction
and
editorship
of
Africans,
and
with
the
maximum
participation
of
African
scholars
in
all
countries”.
He
further
tells
me
that
“if
the
intellectual
project
is
to
be
relevant
to
Africans,
there
is
a
need
for
an
Afro‐ centric
point
of
view
for
the
Encyclopaedia
Africana
and
he
fiercely
maintains
that
the
Encyclopaedia
Africana
must
reject
non‐African
value
judgments
of
things
African”.
I
easily
agree
with
him.
I
tell
him
that
my
agreement
with
him
is
based
on
my
historical
deduction
and
my
imagineering
of
plausible
and
probably
African
futures.
I
remind
him
that,
having
observed
Africa’s
glorious
past,
Old
Romans
concluded
that
"Semper
aliquid
novi
ex
Africa"
(From
Africa
always
something
new).
I
add,
one
wonders
whether
when
it
comes
to
present
day
Africa
with
regard
to
knowledge
generation,
does
the
old
Roman
saying
still
holds
and
can
we
confidently
say
today
that
from
Africa
always
come
new
ideas?
I
ask
him
4
whether
with
the
introduction
of
Encyclopaedia
Africana,
from
Africa
something
new
will
once
again
come?
I
tell
him
that,
my
answer
to
the
two
questions
is
a
resolute
no!
Africa
lost
its
former
glory
and
nothing,
at
least
for
now,
that
has
international
relevance
will
come
from
our
continent.
To
me,
the
continent
lost
its
former
glory
and
our
political
history
is
the
culprit.
African
intellectual
traditions
and
discursive
communities
were
suppressed.
The
new
army
of
missionaries,
social
anthropologists,
sociologists
and
political
scientists
trooping
into
Africa
in
the
periods
immediately
before
and
after
‘independence’
would
go
on
to
deploy
their
‘extroverted’
mode
of
writing
and
thinking
about
Africa
and
Africans
(see
writings
by
the
late
Archibald
Mafeje).
They
made
their
job
to
narrativize
about
Africans
and
Africa
from
their
own
ill‐informed
perspectives.
Anthropology
as
the
discipline
which
was
specifically
associated
with
colonialism
and
alterity
and
dissociated
with
African
ontological
experiences,
assumed
that
Africans
were
not
conscious
of
their
own
philosophy,
and
that
only
Europeans
observing
Africans
without
an
‘emic’
view
could
give
a
systematic
account
of
their
wisdom.
I
tell
Nkrumah
that
if
he
reads
writings
by
Father
Placide
Tempels,
a
Belgian
missionary
working
in
the
former
Belgian
Congo,
he
could
easily
find
Westerner’s
unfounded
assumptions
about
Africans.
Tempels
wrote
elsewhere
that:
“Let
us
not
expect
the
first
Black‐in‐the‐street
(especially
if
he
is
young)
to
give
us
a
systematic
account
of
his
ontological
system.
Nevertheless
this
ontology
exists;
it
penetrates
and
informs
all
the
primitive’s
thinking
and
dominates
all
his
behaviour.
Using
the
methods
of
analysis
and
synthesis
of
our
own
intellectual
disciplines,
we
can
and
therefore
must
do
the
‘primitive’
the
service
of
looking
for,
classifying
and
systematizing
the
elements
of
his
ontological
system
“
(Tempels,
1969:
15).
He
further
argued:
We
do
not
claim
that
the
Bantus
are
capable
of
presenting
us
with
a
philosophical
treatise
complete
with
an
adequate
vocabulary.
It
is
our
own
intellectual
training
that
enables
us
to
effect
its
systematic
development.
It
is
up
to
us
to
provide
them
with
an
accurate
account
of
their
conception
of
entities,
in
such
a
way
that
they
will
recognize
themselves
in
our
words
and
5
will
agree,
saying:
“You
have
understood
us,
you
know
us
now
completely,
you
‘know’
in
the
same
way
we
‘know’.
(Tempels,
1969:24)
Tempels
and
some
of
his
contemporaries
sought
to
preoccupy
themselves
with
a
‘civilising
mission’
in
relation
to
non‐European
peoples.
As
children
of
imperialism,
they
excelled
on
inferior
othering
of
their
‘objects’
of
study‐
in
the
process,
blackening
all
that
was
considered
imperfect
in
the
eyes
of
Europeans.
As
Mafeje
rightfully
observes,
anthropologists
focused
on
epistemic
‘othering’,
aiming
not
only
at
explaining
Africans
and
their
cultures
but
also
rather
at
extirpating
their
Africannes.
They
were
preoccupied
with
the
‘“epistemology
of
alterity”,
“sociology
of
the
primitive
other”
and
(mis)
representations
of
Africa
and
Africans.
However,
during
the
period
preceding
independence,
many
critical
African
scholars
became
critical
of
this
extroverted
nature
of
‘ideas
business’
and
epistemic
communities
in
the
continent.
Scholars
from
the
Dakar
School
of
Thought
and
the
Dar
Es
Salaam
School
of
Thought
became
vocal
in
critiquing
modes
of
knowledge
generation
in
Africa,
the
work
of
epistemic
communities,
the
paradigms
and
languages
that
are
used
in
narrativizing
about
African
realities
To
some
radical/Marxist
African
Scholars
knowledge
generation
in
the
continent
represented
an
institutionalized
paradigmatic
domination
of
the
continent
by
Europeans
and
Westerners.
In
fact,
these
scholars
viewed
the
‘ideas
business’
in
Africa
as
extroverted
and
reinforcing
the
“subordination
of
African
traditional
knowledge
to
the
world
system
of
knowledge”.
These
scholars
were
also
critical
of
their
own
African
colleagues.
They
argued
that,
some
African
scholars
investigated
subjects
that
were
of
interest
first
and
foremost
to
a
Western
audience
(see
Paulin
Hountondji).
Most
of
their
articles
were
published
in
journals
located
outside
Africa
and
were
meant
therefore
for
a
non‐African
readership.
As
Paulin
Hountondji
argued
“in
this
sense,
our
scientific
activity
is
extraverted,
i.e.
externally
oriented,
intended
to
meet
the
theoretical
needs
of
our
Western
counterparts
and
answer
the
questions
they
pose”.
6
To
his
surprise,
I
then
tell
Dr.
Nkrumah
that,
the
new
postcolonial
thinking
class
and
the
following
generation
of
African
public
intellectuals
also
contributed
to
misrepresentation
of
Africa.
They
heralded
a
break
with
earlier
African
intellectual
traditions
epitomized
by
such
thinkers
as
Ahmed
Baba.
Their
central
thematics
were
not
grounded
in
and
driven
by
the
affirmation
of
African
experiences
and
ontological
accounting
for
the
self.
They
didn’t
show
an
uncompromising
refutation
of
the
epistemology
of
alterity
that
shaped
colonial
modes
of
gazing
and
writing
about
Africa
and
Africans.
They
didn’t
embrace
a
method
of
scholarship
rooted
in
the
collective
Self.
However,
there
were
some
changes
over
the
years.
As
an
appeasement
to
Nkrumah,
around
early
70s
until
early
90s
a
new
breed
of
African
intellectuals
as
shown
by
Achilles
Mbebe,
started
to
explain
their
own
culture,
and
interpret
their
own
African
philosophical
thought.
This
new
breed
of
intellectuals
explained
new
experiences
and
ideas
in
the
most
accessible
and
understandable
ways
to
the
rest
of
society.
They
didn’t
rely
on
‘importation
of
ideas’
and
they
didn’t
address
African
issues
in
borrowed
languages
and
paradigms.
Nonetheless,
this
didn’t
last.
To
his
surprise,
I
recently
told
Nkrumah
that,
today’s
African
thinking
class
is
now
preoccupied
with
‘status
anxiety’,
how
it
is
seen
by
the
other
in
the
Global
North.
Despite
all
the
progress
made
in
trying
to
bring
back
the
former
glory
of
the
continent,
today’s
thinking
class
in
Africa
fail
to
infuse
afrocentric
view
in
their
analysis,
research
and
writing.
Afraid
to
disappoint
him,
I
reluctantly
tell
Nkrumah
that,
despite
all
the
progress
made
by
our
Radical
Scholars
from
the
Dakar
and
Dar
Es
Salaam
Schools
of
Thought,
there
is
still
a
long
way
to
go.
We
desperately
need
redeemers
to
reconnect
us
to
the
profound
scholarship
of
the
real
intellectuals
of
the
bygone
era.
He
smiles
when
I
tell
him
that,
Africa
needs
intellectuals
who
are
grounded
on
something,
that
is
their
ontological
experiences;
intellectuals
with
continentally
relevant
paradigms
and
languages;
intellectuals
who
are
preoccupied
with
the
labour
of
the
mind
and
soul
not
status
anxiety;
intellectuals
that
are
committed
to
the
intellectual,
social,
7
economic
and
political
transformation
of
the
continent
and
more
importantly;
intellectuals
who
are
committed
in
assisting
the
continent
as
it
is
busy
reconstructing
its
past,
interpreting
the
present
and
navigating
or
mapping
out
new
visions
for
the
future.
I
then
tell
Dr.
Nkrumah
that,
the
time
for
public
intellectuals
who
excel
in
decontetxualized
abstraction
and
catalogues
and
in
methodological
inexactitude
is
gone.
As
the
late
Archie
Mafeje
would
say,
wayward
intellectuals
who
confuses
feigned
erudition
with
committed
scholarship
have
no
place
in
our
society.
The
time
for
derivative
scholarship
is
passé;
it
has
reached
its
sell‐by
date.
Nkrumah
becomes
so
relieved
when
I
tell
him
that,
there
is
an
increasing
acknowledgement
amongst
the
emerging
and
young
cream
of
African
intelligentsia
that,
there
is
a
need
to
show
an
uncompromising
aversion
to
the
‘epistemology
of
alterity’
–
the
‘othering’
of
Africa
and
Africans.
I
see
a
smile
on
his
face
when
I
tell
him
that;
there
is
a
need
for
the
advancement
of
scholarship
grounded
in
the
centering
of
African
ontological
experiences
As
we
conclude
our
conversation,
we
reach
an
agreement
that,
if
we
are
going
to
have
the
rest
of
the
world
to
say
"Semper
aliquid
novi
ex
Africa"
(From
Africa
always
something
new),
we
need
African
intellectuals
who
will
continue
infusing
afrocentric
views
in
their
analysis,
research
and
writing.
We
need
intellectuals
who
will
focus
on
churning
out
new
endogenous
ideas
so
that
we
can
continue
to
de‐whiten
human
civilization
and
paint
human
imperfections
with
a
black
and
white
colour.
8
