Author |
Share Topic Topic Search Topic Options
|
malizai_
Sultan
Alcinous
Joined: 05-Feb-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2252
|
Quote Reply
Topic: Africa: the White man's burden???? Posted: 10-Jul-2006 at 15:24 |
The Ayuubids recognized the Abbasids as the centre of the caliphate, having ended the regional polarity created by the Fatimds. The Mamluks came into power after the last Ayuubid. They did not reinstate the Abbasid caliphate but held to the lands governed by the Ayuubids. Namely Damascus and Egypt.
So in fact it wasn't the survival of the Abbasids, but the survival of the Mamluks. they halted the mongols in Syria and Egypt but did not dislodge them from Mesopotamia and Iran. Although the mamlukes claimed to rule in the name of the Abbasids to draw on a source of legitimacy.
The mamluks could however not protect themselves from an even greater 'culture', that of Napoleon. Obviously not, they lost to superior firepower.
As i have said before cultures can not be supplanted and they gradually evolve under varying influences. Culture is what makes humans human, we all posses it. Mongols, turks, cambodians, zulus, etc..
|
|
Aster Thrax Eupator
Suspended
Suspended
Joined: 18-Jul-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1929
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 20-Jul-2006 at 16:39 |
Forgive me if i'm wrong; i have the most appaling knowledge of Islamic Middle Ages history, but wasn't Saladin from the Ayuubid Caliphate?
|
|
Preobrazhenskoe
Consul
Joined: 27-Jul-2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 398
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 27-Jul-2006 at 16:22 |
What baffles me most is when many people throughout the past disenfranchised African history by saying nothing of global significance or great importance was ever achieved on that continent, and that cultural achievements were relatively primitive in comparison to other regions of the world. They, of course, forgot to mention the kingdoms, states, and empires of the dynasties over ancient Egypt, Carthage in Tunisia (although spawned from a Phoenician colony), the Nubians and Kush, the Christianized Axumites of the Kingdom of Aksum in modern-day Ethiopia, the ancient kingdoms of Mali and Ghana, Islamic centers like Mombassa, etc.
Eric
P.S. Ayuubid Caliphate? Not sure if there was a concurrent Caliphate with that of the Abassid Caliphate centered in ancient Baghdad, as Saladin lived during these times and of the same time of Richard the Lionheart of England, during the Middle-Age crusades in the Middle-East. Of course, the Abassids weren't finished as a Caliphate until the invading Mongols sacked Baghdad in the first half of the 13th century AD.
|
|
Joe Boxer
Immortal Guard
Joined: 30-Jun-2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 0
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 01-Jul-2007 at 12:23 |
Egyptian Empire
Nubia-Kush
Axumite Empire
Mali Empire
Ghana Empire
Songhay Empire
Kanem-Bornu Empire
Zulu Federation
Hausa Federation
Ashante Federation and more . . .
Two reasons its hard to pin down African History and Contributions . . .
no record of indigenous literature/written language
As for Africa being white man's fault fault: there is partial truth to this. However the whole truth is the Africans' inability to cope with themselves.
The economy of slavery that black people love to blame on whites; blacks were selling each other to the Europeans. Once the slave trade ended, the tribesmen of the enslaved wanted to get even on the slave merchants on behalf of their enslaved and shipped compatriots.
Hence we have wars. Then the Europeans created the states based on arbitraty (or designed to induce friction) state lines. Hence Africa is where it is today.
Are Africans stupid by nature? No.
Are Africans capable of putting up a war? Ask the British who died at the hands of the Ashante; the Zulu and the French who called Samori Toure the Napolean of the Sudan.
Truth be told, white people had a superiority complex - as anyone can imagine they would. Doesnt excuse them of course.
Edited by Joe Boxer - 01-Jul-2007 at 12:29
|
Mughal-e-Azam
|
|
Guests
Guest
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 01-Jul-2007 at 12:54 |
Originally posted by Kids
.... As long as people and academic world do not redefine "civilizations", African and Natives of America would always be treated as "less sophisticated". |
Where do you get that? Do you really believe people think on Mayans as "less sophisticated"?
First, why you put Africans and Native Americans in the same set? They are not more related than East Indians with Inuits, for instance.
Now, the studies of the civilizations of the Americas is very complex and advanced. The Americas had dozens of different civilizations in a degree of development that could compite easily with ancient Greece of China.
Schollars know that. The study of the maya writing alone have dozens of professionals that dedicate the full life to that.
I don't know what you want with Africa, but it is interesting to notice that civilizations stand by theirs own merit. Everybody knows Mayans and Incas, not because they were Amerindians, but because they were extraordinary.
That's what really counts.
Pinguin
|
|
edgewaters
Sultan
Snake in the Grass-Banned
Joined: 13-Mar-2006
Location: Canada
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2394
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 01-Jul-2007 at 19:56 |
Go back far enough - and we're all Africans. :)
|
|
pekau
Caliph
Atlantean Prophet
Joined: 08-Oct-2006
Location: Korea, South
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3335
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 01-Jul-2007 at 23:28 |
Originally posted by Kids
I am a political science honor student and proverty in Africa has always hot debate in my class. Most of my classmates blame European colonization and a African friend argue white people have 100% responsiblity for the proverty and AIDS in Africa. However, I know that South Korea was much poorer than most of Afrian countires 50 years ago, and China and India wasnt better than Africans few decades ago. Yet, today they are the driving force of global economic growth.
So, whats wrong?
|
South Korea after the Korean War was extremely poor... but we got back from the track like Japan mainly due to tons of Western aids, investments... fearing the Communist expansions from China. This does not necessary mean that South Koreans are "superior" than Africans. Koreans just happen to be in the right place at the right time.
Look at Israel, a nation quite close to Africa. In the beginning, there were almost nothing. Literally. Then the Israelites came and settled there. They got massive aids from the West (Especially from America) and now... they are certainly doing well.
Africa is largely ignored because these nations are not necessary endangering the Western civilization... yet. Western world do not need to help Africa to get back to its feat because it is not necessary.
I don't know for sure, but it's possible that Western world will profit when Africa is in chaos. Rebels and government fighting need weapons. Where are the weapons produced? In the Western world. When there are famines, where do the rich Africans get their food? From the West.
Of course, I am not saying that African culture is irrevelent from the reason of African decline...
Edited by pekau - 02-Jul-2007 at 00:59
|
Join us.
|
|
think
Baron
Joined: 25-Sep-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 435
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 02-Jul-2007 at 00:09 |
Originally posted by Tobodai
Make no mistake Kids, I have no problem with empires and think that conquest is the best way to exchange ideas before the internet. Nontheless I think your logic is flawed in that it is reversed. It is not that nobody is intrested in Africa because nothing happened there, it is that nobody knows what happened there and thus is not intrested.
European empires messed with the borders, but they brought many things with them as well. The empires arent to blame for lack of development, but the slave trade is. A contient with low population density, robbed of 20 million people, and a trade that became the entire economy, and then stopped suddenly. Thats a big deal, and its not just Africa, the more slave dependent a place was the worse off its economy is around the world. In the United States the former slave states are observably poorer and more backward, so too in Europe where the east with the "slavs" who were subject to slavers tend to be worse off than the west. |
Your comparing Africans to Russians an you really think thats a reasonable comparison ? The problem with Africa is African culture. I see no reason why people should make excuses for other peoples troubles. Turkey never industrialised because of their culture an mindset, people accept that but when discussing Africa excuses or blaming the White man is acceptable.
I don't know what you want with Africa, but it is interesting to notice
that civilizations stand by theirs own merit. Everybody knows Mayans
and Incas, not because they were Amerindians, but because they were
extraordinary |
Exactly.
Edited by think - 02-Jul-2007 at 00:12
|
|
Guests
Guest
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 02-Jul-2007 at 00:32 |
Originally posted by think
...The problem with Africa is African culture. I see no reason why people should make excuses for other peoples troubles....
|
Absolutely!
Look at the Americas, destroyed by Europeans and repopulated in large scale. Look at the centuries of suffering in wars against Europe, in endless revolts and with communism and drug traffic. However, the Americas developed in a great degree. And today we can't blame others of our problems but ourselves.
Look at Japan, Korea and China, countries literality destroyed by wars and hunger, and the way they have developed thanks to hard work.
Look at Europe itself, destroyed during the second world war and rebuild in a decade.
Everywhere one looks, there are people trying hard to progress, and don't blaming anyone else for theirs success or failure.
Like Omar Kaddafi once said, Africa has to stop playing the role of beggar of the world and that the challenge of developing in theirs own hands. There is no other way out.
Pinguin
|
|
elenos
Chieftain
Joined: 13-Jun-2007
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1457
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 02-Jul-2007 at 01:16 |
Calling Africa as the white mans burden is fair
or unfair depending upon the way the subject is viewed. Sometimes these
questions can never be answered in a logical way.
The country
suffers for its geography by passing through the middle of the tropical zone. Life in Africa was always short until turned
around by medical advances from other places. At first the promise of a near
empty continent to for the huddles masses of Europe move into was denied by rampant
jungle diseases, let alone the wild animals. The place was called the white
mans graveyard. Life expectancy for Europeans was no more than three to five
years. Finding of a cure for the most common cause of death, malaria was just a
band aid for one of the nasty and deadly diseases out of a vast array of the bugs
that breed and endlessly mutate in the generally hot and humid conditions.
Preventing
outbreaks of the worst diseases helped open up the African frontiers for
further European settlement, until the time of African nationalism. One of the
big players, the one-time British Empire had over-expanded. After WWII the cash strapped British government
began dumping the unprofitable parts of their former Empire by granting
independence to small nations, even when not ready to go it alone. There are
even worse stories to tell of other European powers that did not sense the
winds of change that swept over Africa as early as the more aware British did.
One example
I know of (not African) is of New Guinea, where the British suddenly quit
despite Australia pleas to stay. The country has
limped along ever since. The Australian Government still helps to prop up their
fragile democracy. Parts of Africa have not been so lucky as to have an
understanding neighbour, and have descended into modern anarchy. Even the UN
does not want to get involved in the senseless tribal wars.
|
elenos
|
|
Aster Thrax Eupator
Suspended
Suspended
Joined: 18-Jul-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1929
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 16-Jul-2007 at 14:27 |
Well, Timbuktoo and the Songhai empire were both veritable Bastions of civilization- even in pre-Islamic times, Timbuktoo held a vast literary and scholastic repution. Great Zimbabwe was a pretty advanced civilisation too :)
...But let's be frank- most of the major developments in civilisations happened in the corssover point between Africa and Eurasia- Mesopotamia, Iran, India and Egypt. That, nobody can deny. As several people mentioned earlier, the climate was simply so harsh, and thus the mortality rate so high, that many thousands of people moved north to Mesopotamia and the other areas that i've mentioned.
I think that sometimes (and no doubt that what I'm going to say will get me branded as a rascist and ignorant) political correctness cancels out historical fact, and people have to admit that some countries have advanced civilisations in a way that they quite frankly have not. No doubt that nations like the Songai and Great Zimbabwe did, but all the major developments were made, nobody can deny, in Mespotamia, Egypt, Iran and India.
|
|
elenos
Chieftain
Joined: 13-Jun-2007
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1457
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 16-Jul-2007 at 18:30 |
I just noticed Earl Aster, you have passed your 500th post, congratulations! Even some world leaders privately call the development of Africa as a basket case and leave it, but we wouldn't want to do that would we?
|
elenos
|
|
Aster Thrax Eupator
Suspended
Suspended
Joined: 18-Jul-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1929
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 16-Jul-2007 at 19:29 |
No, but political correctness seems to often blame the WHOLE issue on Africa's colonial heritage. Actually, many African nations did quite well in the immediate years after the colonial occupiers left in the '50s and '60s, so frankly it's not all due to European oppression- many other factors come into it as well. ...Oh! But for saying that, i'm a Rascist, aren't I???
....YAY! 500th post!
|
|
elenos
Chieftain
Joined: 13-Jun-2007
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1457
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 16-Jul-2007 at 19:58 |
You bring up an interesting point, Earl Astor. How well countries rule themselves is not a racist question, there are many other questions involved. To say all countries of the world are the same and are all born equal is starry-eyed rubbish. Of course not! So far as I know my family haven't sacrificed a goat or danced around a totem pole, not that they told me about anyway. It would be interesting if they did. I have been brought up in certain way because they were brought up in much the same way.
The same goes for Africa. Somehow it breaks my heart to see the Africans becoming cloned Europeans, or their dictators becoming barbarians. Yet there has been no variation from the old formula, once an old way of way breaks up there always have been wars, slaughters and mass murders until the country becomes reestablished into the ways of new era and that can take generations.
|
elenos
|
|
Aster Thrax Eupator
Suspended
Suspended
Joined: 18-Jul-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1929
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 17-Jul-2007 at 07:13 |
Yes, I understand that after all that they've been through, Africans will want to (and In many cases quite justifibily) celebrate their civilisation, but for us seemingly by guilt to be almost forcing into saying that they were more progressive than Sumer is rubbish. Many African nations were still nomadic tribes when Sumer was in organised cities, or when the first mechanical clock was being perfected.
|
|
Parnell
Suspended
Suspended
Joined: 04-Apr-2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1409
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 17-Jul-2007 at 07:22 |
I think the most important question to ask is if treating the Black man in a paternalistic manner is doing more harm than good. The problem is, when any white man tries to do some real progress in Africa he gets shouted down by such evil men like Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
|
|
Guests
Guest
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 17-Jul-2007 at 11:20 |
Originally posted by Parnell
I think the most important question to ask is if treating the Black man in a paternalistic manner is doing more harm than good. The problem is, when any white man tries to do some real progress in Africa he gets shouted down by such evil men like Mugabe in Zimbabwe. |
|
|
Parnell
Suspended
Suspended
Joined: 04-Apr-2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1409
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 17-Jul-2007 at 11:41 |
Bit rich.
|
|
Aster Thrax Eupator
Suspended
Suspended
Joined: 18-Jul-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1929
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 17-Jul-2007 at 12:26 |
It's not so much treaty a black person in a paternalistic manner, it's more accepting historical truths - I don't think that the fact that civilization fully took off in the ancient near east gives anyone the right to have any kind of racial prejudice. I don't know why people think that neccesarily admiting historical truths will end in someone treating Africans in a more paternalistic way.
|
|
Guests
Guest
|
Quote Reply
Posted: 18-Jul-2007 at 23:35 |
We should ask ourselves what is more important "political correctness" or truth. If we go for truth, it is quite obvious that most of Subsaharan Africa was, measured by any standards, one of the less developed regions of the old world. And it was in that state up to the arrival of the Arabs during the Middle Ages.
Pnguin
|
|