The African Land of Spain (African Foundation Of Modern Spain II) - By Ogu-Eji-Ofo-Annu
The African Land of Spain
By Ogu-Eji-Ofo-Annu
According to the British Encyclopedia:
“Spain is shaped like a gigantic bull’s hide stretching in the sun between Europe and Africa. Spain’s large area of 195,379 square miles (506,030 square kilometers) covers about five sixths of the Iberian Peninsula. In Western Europe, only France is larger. At its widest Spain stretches some 635 miles (1,022 kilometers) from east to west. From north to south the country is about 550 miles (885 kilometers) long.”
Spain has a coastline which stretches in some parts for 1,700 miles (2,740 kilometers) along the Mediterranean Sea from the eastern end of the Pyrenees mountain chain to the Strait of Gibraltar. Spain shares with Portugal the peninsula’s coast which borders the Atlantic.
Since ancient times Spain has been physically and culturally a part of Africa because both land mass used to share a common land bridge across what is now the Strait of Gibraltar. Whereas Spain was physically connected with Africa in the ancient times and was only separated by an earth quake in relatively near antiquity, it was always separated physically and culturally from Europe by the Pyrenees Mountain.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Of all Europe’s mountain ranges, the jagged and often snowcapped Pyrenees, 270 miles (435 kilometers) long, have functioned most effectively as a barrier to human movement. Unlike the Alps, the Pyrenees have no low foothills or hospitable valleys to ease access into and through their heights. Rather, the Pyrenees rise abruptly from the flanking plains of France and Spain with only steep gorges and steep-walled natural amphitheaters that lead to almost impassable lofty summits. The French peasant’s adage, “Africa begins with the Pyrenees,” is not without a large measure of truth in emphasizing the historic significance of the Pyrenees as a barrier in the development of Spain. In the words of the U.S. historian Will Durant, Spain’s mountains, particularly the Pyrenees, “were her protection and tragedy: they gave her comparative security from external attack, but hindered her economic advance, her political unity, and her participation in European thought.” The continued political independence of the tiny principality of Andorra is largely a result of its remote location amid the Pyrenees between France and Spain.” (Encyclopedia Britannica )
The Moorish Story:
The ancient Maghreb which spanned Morrocco and Algeria has been populated for longer than most of the rest of the world. There is evidence of people living there as far back as 200,000 BC, and cave paintings depict a fairly vibrant Neolithic culture living thriving around 6000 BC, when the climate of the Sahara was very different.
Then the area that is now Sahara had giant lakes, and lush savannah land teeming with wild life. Cultural complex were developed in that area and extended to nearby Iberia, onward across Southern Europe as far as Black sea. These people have been called various confusing names (such as Cro-Magnons, Aurignacians, Grimaldi, Celto-Iberians, etc) by European anthropologists to hide their African cultural roots. Eventually the various peoples who lived in the Central Sahara area formed the people now known as the Touaregs/Moors/Berbers.
At its shortest point to Africa, Spain is separated by a strait of water about 8 kilometers in width. It is possible to stand on one end of Africa and observe actions on the Spanish side of the coast. Racist Euro-centric scholars would want us to believe that for 100, 000 years, the Africans who lived on the opposite side of the Mediterranean coast were so incurious and incapable that they could not cross an 8 mile water strait, whereas the Cro-Magnon man could do a 10,000 kilometers trek crossing the impassable Mount Pyrenees, a mountain of barrier against ingress from Europe and successfully established themselves successfully in Spain. But the ridiculousness of such a thesis is self-evident. In full recognition of the fact that Africans were the first to establish communities on both side of the Mediterranean coast, classical scholars have used such moniker as “Ibero-maurisian” culture to describe the early inhabitants of Spain. Maurisian stands for Maures…Africans.
Since the earliest periods, the Moors/Berbers had spread out from Central Sahara, Northern Africa, into Portugal Southern Spain, and Southern France. Those in North Africa are described as the Berber/Moors of North Africa while those in Spain are described as the ancient Iberians (Ibero-Maurisians). Those in the Mediterranean are called the pre-Hellenistic Aegean or Creteans. (See: Arnaiz-Villena A, Iliakis P, Gonza´lez-Regueiro Hevilla M et al. The origin of Cretan populations as determined by characterization of HLA alleles. Tissue Antigens 1999 53:213-26. See further, E. Go´mez-Casado, P. del Moral, J. Marti´nez-Laso, A. Garci´a-Go´mez, L. Allende, C. Silvera-Redondo, J. Longas, M. Gonza´lez-Hevilla, M. Kandil, J. Zamora, A. Arnaiz-Villena; HLA genes in Arabic-speaking Moroccans: Close relatedness to Berbers and Iberians; Tissue Antigens 2000: 55: 239–249.)
North Africa and the Mediterranean had in later antiquity fallen under the influence of the Black Carthaginians/Phoenicians sailors. Originally from the Horn of Africa, the Carthaginian/Phoenicians a sea faring migratory people, had settled in Canaan/Palestine and Syria. A group of them later journeyed back again to their original motherland Africa, but this time they settled along the coast of Tunisia.
The Phoenicians had arrived around 800 BC. They formed an alliance with the Berber groups which enabled them to gained power rapidly. They eventually became the most influential and strongest power in the Mediterranean partly due to their largely Berber-staffed army. They controlled the Northwest coast of Africa as well as the Iberia the regions where the Berbers have lived in since the earliest human records. They founded the Iberian city of Cadiz among many others.
Carthage and Roman were soon colliding since it was that the Romans had tried to muscle in on the lucrative maritime routes controlled exclusively by the Carthaginian Empire. The trade competition led to armed conflict known in history as the Punic wars. Carthage lost both of the Punic wars to regional upstart Rome.
After losing the first Punic War to Rome, many Berbers became disaffected with the regional power Carthage and thus rebelled and gained a large amount of independence. In modern-day Algeria, then called Numidia, two main kingdoms emerged. These eventually united under Masinissa, who teamed up with Rome (and especially with Scipio Africanus) to launch devastating attacks on Carthage.
It was also in the course of the second Punic wars that the great African General Hannibal mobilized in North Africa and Iberia and then marched into the Roman Empire and ceased most of its European territories. Hannibal actually ruled western European section of the Roman Empire with the exception of the city of Rome itself which gates he had reached several times before being fought off.
Eventually Carthage lost the Punic wars and Hannibal committed suicide after having been betrayed and disappointed by high-ranking officials of Carthage. Rome thereupon destroyed Carthage, took over possession of its territories including the Iberian Peninsula and shared out to its vassals and client states.
The Moors, the Romans and the Goths:
Roman administration continued with the age old cosmopolitan flavour of coastal North Africa and southern Iberia. Soon wide-flung persons were immigrating into North Africa and Iberia. Of these, were elements of the defunct Carthage, others were Jewish traders, Greek and Roman Christians, and some Nordic Vandals, Suebians, Alans, and Gothic guests, who later proved inimical to the political security of the region. These all lived with the traditional owners of the land the Maures (the Blacks) of Iberia and North Africa.
Following the disturbances created in areas of Europe outside the Roman Empire (central Europe) by the advancing armies of the oriental Huns in 4th century A.D. who destroyed virtually every resistance to their onslaught, many Danubian or Ostro Goths, Vandals and Alans migrated from central Europe to the relative safety of Northern and Central Spain. It was not long before those tribes were infiltrating the southern shores of Spain and France where the Berber/Moors had lived from time immemorial which was at that time under Roman administration. (Edward Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire - Vol 2. See XXV)
Sooner than one would have thought, those Nordic Vandals, Alans and Goths who were later called Visigoths (“western Goths” as opposed to the Ostrogoths, aka the eastern Goths) had become a dire security threat for the Roman administrators of the Berber principalities of old Iberia.
Spain was overrun by barbaric Vandals following the fall of the Iberian Roman administration in 409 AD. The Visigoths in turn defeated the Vandals and ran them out of Iberia into North Africa. The Visigoths quickly established an administration to fill in the void and chaos that marked the declining period of the Roman Empire about the fifth century AD. Though they were Christians, their brand of Christianity was cruel and unjust. For this reason, the people of Roman Spain, Maures/Berbers, Jews, serfs, and slaves looked hopefully for a time of liberation from such foul oppression. The Gothic kingdom of Spain lasted from 460 AD to 711 AD. (See:The Story of The Moors in Spain (1886) - Stanley Lane-Poole )
The Vandals who were booted out of Spain in the wake of the Visigoth advance then moved over to the Maghreb and seized control briefly. The Vandals were the unkindest sort of Arian barbarians, led by King Gaiseric. They persecuted orthodox Christians terribly until they themselves were booted out of the region in 533 by Justinian of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire).
The Byzantines, however, were not very good administrators and it was not long before the area grew restive. Islamic Umayyad Caliphate was a rising power of this period and quickly took advantage of the popular disaffection to increase the number of Muslim converts. The Islamic penetration began in 642 AD, and by 711 AD, had converted a great many Berbers to Islam and conquered the whole of North Africa.
This led to a long and very confusing period of time of being ruled and fought over by various Islamic caliphates and related sects. The eastern part tended to come under the control of dynasties centered in Tunisia, such as the Aghlabids and the Zayanids, while the west fell under the sway of Morocco-based powers such as the Almoravids and the Almohads. The Fatimid dynasty, based out of Algeria, began their rise to power in the 10th century.
Africans, Moors and Arabs:
One must recall that the concept of Arab nationality/race (as a sub-race of the Caucasians) was non-existent until it was created by the western political powers in the late 19th and early 20th century as a ploy to undermine the Ottoman Turk Empire.
The concept of Arab as a racial identity different from the dominant black cultures of Middle East and the horn of Africa was also non-existent at the time of Mohammed and at the time when the so called Arab invasion of Africa (a term coined and promoted by European Aryan scholarship) occurred.
Arab refers to a language and culture not to racial origin. The Arabs are indeed a mixture of different peoples. Arabs themselves recognize to come from two unrelated patriarchs: Qahtan (Southern Arabs) and Adnan (Northern Arabs), to be respectively identified with a Sabean the Afro-Arabs, and the Ishmaelites pale-skin Arabs linked with Kurds and Turkish groups. (Encyclopedia Britanicca ‘Origin of the Arabs“, http://www.
britannica.com/eb/article-45294?hook=484896#484896.hook. Visited on 20/08/06)
Habib Hassan Touma in his book Music of the Arabs (1996, p.xviii) holds that “an ‘Arab’, in the modern sense of the word, is one who is a national of an Arab state, has command of the Arabic language, and possesses a fundamental knowledge of Arabian tradition, that is, of the manners, customs, and political and social systems of the culture.” Thus, contrary to the popular media representation of “Arab” this term does not denote any particular phenotype, race or colour. Rather it indicates a cultural system that evolved through cross-fertilization of thoughts across many centuries.
Geographically Africa is connected with Middle East through the Sinai. The land of North East Africa and Middle East share the similar type of climate, topography, fauna and flora. Moreover, the Red Sea has never been a barrier to communication and contact between the people that lived along its coast lines.
Thus, the Middle East was always an extension of Africa. One wonders why there is a middle-east region but no middle-west region of the earth defined by geography. It is further observed that the term central Asia is another way of saying middle east, yet the current geographically identified region of central Asia is not anywhere near middle east. One then wonders about the parameters that have been used in defining the region currently known as the middle-east.
In the beginning, early Africans peopled the Middle East. Those Africans introduced language, culture, agriculture, masonry, writing, and sciences into Middle East. For instance, the Semitic language is an East African language, first developed and spoken in Africa before being introduced into the Middle East. (Spencer Wells, The Journey of Man, 2002, p. 106)
Ancient historical accounts do not make any distinctions between Africa and Middle East. One of the earliest political principalities of Arabia was also called Kush, the name of the earliest political Empire in Africa, Ethiopia-Kush.
Scholars agree by implication that Africans had crossed over repeatedly into Arabia in different epochs, first as the Natufians (nick names coined by western scholars), then as the PPNA and PPNB culture (more false names) and then as the Yarmurkians (another name falsifying the contribution of black Africans to Middle East). They were the first settlers of Middle East, the first cultivators and the first builders. For example see: (Garfinkel, Y. 1993. The Yarmukian Culture in Israel. Paléorient 19:115–134.)
Then again Africans came into Middle East and settled. They came as immigrant groups like the Kushites, the Egyptians, the Punitians/Phoenicians (People of Punt). They blended together and became the later Black Israelites, the Black Syrians and Canaanites) They established themselves in the land and built many amazing cultures and civilizations. The builders of these civilizations maintained very close trade and cultural linkages with their African motherland. Accordingly, there have always been constant interchanges of cultural and commercial contact between the African peoples of East Africa and the African peoples of Middle East. (See, Hamito-Semitic Africa: )
Middle East is the centre of many of the world’s biggest religions. Undoubtedly the African continent and its people played significant roles in the formation of those religions. The literatures and liturgies of those religions recount the cultural centrality of Africa in their cosmogony. Ethiopia, Libya, Kush and Egypt feature constantly in the Torah, Bible, Koran and the Hadiths. This is another clear indication of the significance of Africa to the people of the Middle East. (See Kebra Negast, The Bible, The Koran, etc)
Furthermore, just as is testified by the currently living Black Palestinians, Iraqis, Iranians, Saudi Arabians, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, etc, black people have always been the original population of Middle East and they remain an integral part of that geographical zone to this very day. The paler skinned Arabs who constitute the media definition of Arab are comparatively recent immigrants into the Middle East. Yet, those paler type Arabs have so inter-mixed with the original black owners of Middle East that they have become a sub-group of the black African race and culture. It is impossible to tell between a morphologically black Arab and a paler Arab, which is “more ethnically pure”.
Archeological and skeletal analyses confirm that black Africans were the first and original inhabitants of Arabia. Genetic studies further confirm the close biological relationship between the people of Middle East and Africa. The fact is that the entire Middle East is virtually suffused with markers of African genetic imprints that it can be correctly described as a part of Africa which European imperialism pursuing religious bias have appropriated culturally. It is always interesting that there is a culturally and geographically defined place as Middle East but there is no Middle West.
The Muslim Moors:
In the aftermath of the fall of Rome, many of its former provinces and colonies were thrown into a state of insecurity and chaos. Material progress was in retrogression and the outlook on life across the territories of the former imperial power was not very bright.
In the beginning of the seventh century, the Arab prophet, Muhammad, began to preach the word of Islam. Consumed with religious fervor, Arabs both black and pale, sought to spread the message of Islam to the entire world.
By the year 708 AD, Islam had penetrated North Africa. North Africa was until then a province of the Byzantine Empire and hence under the influence of Christianity. Consequently, many African Moors accepted Islam in large numbers, and began using Arabic, the language of Islam as the national language.
As the Muslim administrators aspired to cosmopolitanism, many immigrants moved into the great centers of the Islamic religion. Many Arabs, (again both Afro and pale), moved from the Middle East to the better opportunities offered by North Africa, with its ancient connections to ancient Egypt and metropolitan Rome, as well as scientific, trade and administrative know-how. Moreover, there was the usual Jewish community found universally across North Africa and the Middle East, as well as Syrians, and some southern Europeans.
The Conquest of Iberia:
With order reigning again in the land of the Moors, and a re-flowering of culture and learning in its wake, it was inevitable that the chaotic condition that Spain had been turned into by the Nordic Goths would have to be redressed.
Preparations were soon put in place for the liberation of Iberia from the rule of the neo-paganic Christian Goths who had wrought great and terrible depredations on the land. Tarik, a great African general was chosen to lead the Moorish Islamic army sent to raid Spain.
On April 30, 711, Tarik landed on the Spanish Coast with 7,000 troops. His troops consisted of 300 Arabs and 6,700 native Africans (Moors). A muslim writer, Ibn Husayn (ca. 950) denoted these troops as “Sudanese”, an Arabic denotation for the citizens of the then dominant African Empire of the Central Sahara).
The Moors were unstoppable, and Visigothic Spain ceased to be. The few resisting Visigoths fled to the caves of the Cantabrian Mountains. It was only later in the ages that those people would venture out of the Cantabrian Mountains and reclaim parts of northern Spain. The Black African Moors established the most important Iberian principality and ruled Spain for 700 years thereafter.
The next installment of this series will demonstrate the most fundamental contributions the Moors made to the taming and civilization of Europe, and how their impact is still felt even 500 years later after their defeat and unjust expulsion from Spain.
Ogu-Eji-Ofo-Annu
25-August-2006
September 12th, 2006 at 10:54 am
My neighbour died a while back at the age of 90. The sea was 10 miles away, but he only saw it once in his life. He simply wasn’t interested, and that may have been the case with others in other places.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Moors/Berbers were and are White/Caucasoid. Stop taking credit for things that other people did. The Egyptians, Carthaginains, Berbers and Moors all looked like present-day Arabs. They were not, and are not Black. “African” and “Black” are NOT interchangeable terms. In ancient times the boundary between the “White” and “Black” continents was recognized as being the southern borders of the Sahara desert. Only in modern times with ludicrous “Afrocentric” claims has anyone been ridiculous enough to suggest that the Moors etc were Negroid. Are Asian Syrians and Azeris Mongoloid/”Yellow”? Then stop calling the people of the Maghreb/Libya/Egypt “Black”. They ARE “African”, they aren’t “Black”. There is no such thing as an “African” race, ethnicity, or people. It’s a GEOGRAPHIC not a racial term. The Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda didn’t think they were part of a single “African” race of “Brothers”. You site is based entirely on the ridiculous belief that “African” and “Black” mean the same thing. They do not!
April 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I thought it was really odd that people thought they could call Africans something else to make people believe they were not really Africans. Didn’t they know that eventually other researchers would realize the names were just changed?
April 18th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
why is it that we have to put a name on everything, even when we real don’t know what it is. so, why are they trying to say that africans are not africans. how does that make since.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Reading this article makes me feel what I do think makes a lot of sense. I interpret that there has been a huge migration from country to country a long time ago. I feel that countries were probably connected at one point and then split apart due to issues that occur through earth science. The point I’m making is that I agree with a lot of the statements mentioned. There was a paragraph that stated “Euro-centric scholars want us to believe that for 100, 000 years, the Africans who lived on the opposite side of the Mediterranean coast were so incurious and incapable that they could not cross an 8 mile water strait, whereas the Cro-Magnon man could do a 10,000 kilometers trek crossing the impassable Mount Pyrenees, a mountain of barrier against ingress from Europe and successfully established themselves successfully in Spain.” I feel this is not true at all. I think that migration was very popular and indeed Africans as well as Europeans did migrate back and forth the water did not play a factor because there is ways to get across any body of water weather it is the ocean, a stream or a river.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I agree with Amy’s comment. Its true, why do people have to always be set into this thing we called names, or nationalities, or race instead of what their culture has contributed towards history, which seems to be always hidden by this nonsense.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I’ve come to learn that in today’s society you must expect to be criticized for anything you say. Although we live in a world where freedom of speech exists, it only exists as a price. Before saying ANYTHING you must know your audience and the potential repercussions that you may face. This articles choice of words when describing the Moors as black clearly sparked controversy as seen in a comment above. I do agree that the Moors were not black and we don’t call Asian Syrians yellow. This just goes go show how important choice of words is, especially in an academic setting.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Thus, contrary to the popular media representation of “Arab” this term does not denote any particular phenotype, race or colour. Rather it indicates a cultural system that evolved through cross-fertilization of thoughts across many centuries.” I think this was one of the quotes that stood out most in this article. It makes a lot of sense, too. However, I think it’s hard for people of the modern world (myself included) to exclude racial connotations when we hear or use the term “Arab,” because of the babble we’ve been fed by society.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Interesting because of the difference between race and culture
April 18th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Im glad to have come across such an article because it confirms how stereotypical we are and when we become this way it takes away from a person’s character in a sense. There is no need to name people because at the end of the day we are all human beings nothing less and nothing more.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
The difference between race and culture is interesting. The fact that the choice of words a person uses can be inferred to differently by many people is also interesting. The portion of this essay that caught my attention is “Arab refers to a language and culture not to racial origin.” This one sentence shows that no matter where you come from you can adopt the arabic language and culture but no one understands this. When people think of Arabs, they think of the stereotypical image of the individual.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I think people find it necessary to put a name on everything just to distinguish whats better than the other. I found it interesting that Africans setteled in the middle east and brought with them a lot of their religions.
April 19th, 2007 at 2:36 am
Firstly, nobody had to cross the Pyrenees as anyone with a small boat could make the trip back and forth across the Mediterranean(eg Italy to Tunisia, Greece to Egypt, France to Algeria etc etc. The original Arabs were of course Semitic/Middle Eastern people. Also, the reverse of what you said is true. The Arabs entered Africa and spread their culture throughout the more Northerly parts, with varying degrees of success. I suppose next you’ll say that the French language was introduced to the French by migratory Senegalese people? Or that English was introduced to the British Isles by travelling, civilised Zambians?
Here are a couple of links of some sites which expose this “African Origin Of Civilization” crud:
http://racialreality.shorturl.com
(note the “North Africans”, “Egyptians/Nubians”, “Phoenicians/Moors” and “Skin Color” pages especially
http://www.angelfire.com/md/8/moors.html (what the Moors REALLY looked like, and how they viewed themselves compared to other races)
http://www.geocities.com/enbp/ A page which refutes the “Black Egypt” crap that often accompanies the “Black Moors” lie
So…North Africans and Arabian Peninsula types are NOT “black” or “African” in the sense that you (wrongly) use that word.
They are and always have been a branch of the Caucasoid race/family that also includes Europeans, Iranians/Afghans/Armenains,Gypsies,Jews, and many Indians/Pakistanis.
The reason many North African people speak Hamito-Semitic languages is that they are not black despite being dark-skinned(if you can’t understand that you should just go away), and also from repeated incursions INTO AFRICA FROM THE MIDDLE EAST.
I wish all this “Black Moor” and “Global African Presence” stuff was amde illegal, as it is racially offensive(Semitic types are portrayed as being too dimwitted to have built their own civilisations which had to be given to them by “superior” blacks), and just plain wrong.
April 19th, 2007 at 3:31 am
There are a great deal of interesting points raised in this article, however, there is always an issue of whether or not these types of articles are giving the full story. I feel that with the migration of African people to and from various areas, there was a great deal contributions that Africans made to these civilizations, it is only a matter of learning about it. Often times , people just want to grant ownership of history, but there is so much more to the underlying meaning.
April 19th, 2007 at 4:04 am
This article had some very interesting points. But, I agree with Yaa when she says that you really don’t know if we’re really getting the full story. I’m not necessarily stating that this article is false, I just think that if you really want to know the real facts you have to do the research yourself.
April 19th, 2007 at 5:54 am
I thought the author’s proposition that if the Spanish were capable of 10000 kilometer trips to Africa, then Africans were of course capable of an 8 kilometer visit to Spain was a very valid one and worth investigating. However, it seems outlandish to dismiss African interaction with Spain. A history that totally excludes Africans from Spain probably exists, but must not be taken as overly reliable.
April 19th, 2007 at 6:13 am
I hadn’t known that Africans had settled in the middle east. Many facts such as these get left out of many classrooms. It seems that teachers in previous years don’t touch on these topics as much. Bringing multiple religions to the middle east seems pretty important, why has it been ignored?
April 21st, 2007 at 10:35 am
I believe that Spain was probably more influenced by Africa in its beginnings but in Medieval times, Spain was influenced greatly by Europe. I think that many cultures have interacted and grown on each other over time, but it is important to focus on all of these influences and not just ones that help prove your point.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:32 am
I would just like to interject for the last time to make clear the point that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “AFRICAN” PEOPLE. Many people here on this site/baord haev referred to “Africans”. What do they mean? I assume they are referring to “black” people, yet are North Africans (eg Egyptians, Berbers, Moors etc) and indigenous Southern Africans(Khoikhoi, San) any less African because they are not “black”? Genetic tests have shown greater genetic variation on the continent of Africa than the rest of the world combined yet the myth of a single “African” people persists. My personal guess as to why this is has to do with poeple’s personal sense of low self-esteem and the need to build up a “great past”. I have read on other boards about how “Black Moors” took “White European” slaves where the poster was clearly in a near-orgasmic state at the time. Sadly, while the Moors did take “white European” slaves, the Moors themselves were in no way black, but rather Middle Eastern/Semitic types. Also, just because 2 groups came together to form the Arabs doesn’t mean they were racially different to begin with. The Bavarians, Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, etc came together to become the Germans, but nobody would claim they were of different races to begin with. While it is certainly true that Northern Arabs are lighter than Southern Arabs that certainly does not make Southern Arabs “black” in the modern sense of that word. By the same token Southern Europeans are darker than Northern Europeans, yet only morons like Arthur Kemp and Karl Earlsson would claim that Southern Europeans are in any way “black”.
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:41 am
In responce to Dunn, When blackskin people talk about their story, some use modern day terminology. North africa was populated by blackskin people. The terminology for Black skin people today are called Africans, In India Blackskin people are called dravidians or koli, In the muslim world they were called sanj or abd, meaning slave, or dumah meaning dark. Moor, mores means black. Ethiopia means black.
khem or cham, kemet means black. North africa was all blackskin people. There were wars in the ancient of days from the people of the north trying to come into africa. These people were white skin coming from the baltics near russia. later times rome had a war with north africa. During the time of the pharoahs The Blackskin people took the White skin people as slaves to work underground in mines and to dig tunnels and kept them away from the mainstream society. During the Islamic period, whiteskin people were taken as slaves from venice, germany and the slave states such as yugoslavia, checkoslavia etc. these whiteskin slaves were taken to north africa. They were also taken to egypt as slaves once again. This white skin slave trade had change the complexion of north africa. The african men also took these whiteskin slave women as concubines and there was a big demand for blondes in al andulucia. mulatto children resulted from this union. And these mulatto children were taught by their concubine whiteskin mothers to hate their fathers, because in most cases they became concubines by force. Some tried to escape and run away. Some killed themseleves. Some fell in love and accepted their plight and found their living condtions were far better than, the living conditions in their former countries. their were soap to take a bath, to wash their hair, doctors if they were sick, better housing conditions. and lamps to light up their homes. an education provided for their children to learn to read and write. Laws in place to protect the women. property rights for women. Inhertitance laws for the children and civil courts to protect the women and children all provided by the sharia in an african muslim society headed by a blackskin ruler where JUST US PREVAILED. BY JUST US I mean JUST US BLACKSKIN PEOPLE. Our story has been documented by our blackskin ancestors of the ancients. We are what you call the third world people. But, We know ourselves to be THE FIRST WORLD. but to speak of World or think of ourselves as Worldly only limits our capacity. because World denotes material, for we were created from black mud shaped and fashion that was our first creation, but there was another element to our creation and that element is the angelic element and thats the spirit. Because our creator breathed the breath of life into us. Thus this breath of life is a bridge between our worldly element which is flesh and blood and our spirtual element which is spirit, that is meant for the afterlife.Thus Our creator’s breath of life gives us our conscious, so that when we do something wrong, Our creator gives us a conscious betwwen right and wrong, so that whenever we do something wrong our creator puts The blackskin men and women in check, so that we won’t become arrogant, or prejudice, or wear white sheets and burn crosses on peoples lawns and kill innocent men women and children. or see a blackskin egyptian painted on the bas reliefs and then repaint the picture to whiteskin. or change the story of a people and make them another skin color. Amongst us there is the spirit of our creator that puts us in check, so when evil is presence amongst us, we strive to make things right. we dont move from evil to evil. we move from evil to good, if evil appears we correct it. This is our spirit being directed from our creator. Our stories are written on this website for no lie can live forever. We are people of our creator we are not only flesh and blood but we are spirit, thus if we tell you of earthly things and you belive not how can we tell you of spirtual things? As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the End. Peace
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:15 pm
T
The world hears your reasoning loud and clear. You got history and truth to teach. Keep on chanting!
One Love
Jahdey
May 4th, 2007 at 3:56 am
To “T”, this sort of thing is HIGHLY racist and offensive. Could you imagine the outcry if somebody reversed the “white” and “black” comments in your post? Also, if the “blackskin people” were so advanced, why had not one of them even heard of a wheel or written language when Semites and Europeans entered the blackskin lands(the Sub-Saharan) in modern times? Did they magically lose their civilization? Yes North Africans took white slaves, and whites took North African slaves, but the North Africans are, and always were dark caucasoids(Libyans, Egyptians, Berbers etc) similar to, but not the same as, modern-day Arabs and Syrians.
You soupt your “black Egyptian” vrap, yet you have NOT ONE reference about from what “somebody said” or “what I heard”. These “black North African” fantasies are entirely modern in their origin, and have more to do with political and social movemtns than any historical or anthropological fact. Actually click on Mr Dunn’s links or read the thousands of actually RESEARCHED books and find out the truth.
You calim that what you are doing is somehow “anti-racist”, yet you are offending the indigenous North African people(who are not and never have been black) by sttempting to steal their heritage and identity, and claiming that they are “invaders”, “concubines”, and “slaves”. All of your definitions meaning black, do not. “Moor” means “Muslim”, “Khem” referred to soil etc. And why did the Ancient Egyptians portray blacks as stereotypical slaves who looked VERY different to themselves. Why did the Moors refer to the black lands as starting in the Southern Sahara, and claimed that Indians and CHINESE were darker than they themselves were? Why do many Ancient North African Gods have blue eyes, if people portray their Gods as themselves?
I couldn’t care less if you are some crack addict living in an inner city ghetto who has no self-esteem and no job. That does NOT give you the right to attempt to STEAL SOMEBODY”S ELSE’S IDENTITY AND HERITAGE. The fact is that YOUR ancestors were slaves to the white Americans, and were concubines, mineworkers, cottonpickers, prostitutes, and “niggers”. Thishas NOTHING to do with indigenous North Africans(Middle-Eastern types, who are not, and never have been, “blackskin”).
May 9th, 2007 at 2:55 am
I would like to echo certain earlier posters, and make clear that “dark skin” has NOTHING to do with someone’s race/ethnicity. People who live along the equator, and in tropical zones have dark skins. People who live in Arctic climates have light skins. This is in no way connected to biological greoupings though. Many Siberians have light skin and hair, many Central American Natives have dark brown skin. The Siberians aren’t “white”, and the Native Americans of the Equatorial Zone aren’t “black”, and they certainly aren’t African! The Dravidians aren’t “African” either, they are Indians who live very near to the Equator and thus have a dark brown skin tone. Meanwhile Indians who live nearer to the Himalayans have lighter skin, and often even blue eyes! None of this is in any way connected to the people’s biological groupings/races however. Races are determined by common biological ancestry, common genetic/DNA markers, and common skull types, bone structure etc. The people of North Africa, do, and have always, formed a unique biological clustering/subrace within the broader Caucasoid race, that also includes “white” Europeans, Middle Easterns/Semites, and some Western Asians. Meanwhile the Sub-Saharans/Blacks(who some people here gave laughingly referred to as “Africans”) are generally part of the Negroid race. In other words Moors have always been much closer related to “whites” than “blacks”, even long before the Moorish Empire.
I would also like people to stop using their past experiences, and inverting them as a way to make them feel better by themselves, especially with regard to the “Black Moors” nonsense. The whole point of “t”’s posting was to make “black” people feel better about themselves, knowing that there was a time when “blacks” invaded Europe and took “white” slaves. Of course that is pure fantasy. The Moors were a mixture of Arabs and Berbers ie. dark-skinned Caucasoids, and had no genetic connection to people like “t”, about from both being part of the species homo spaiens.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:02 am
That should obviously read “homo sapiens” and not “homo spaiens”!
May 15th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Uhm, very interesting discussion.
I want to remind people that
- “official” history - taught in schools and textbooks,is brought forward by “church and state” for their own interests. Politics are involved.
Who knows whether it’s really the truth.
Always, the old saw is ” History is written by the conquerors” is valid. Even in Meso-America, the Aztec destroyed the ancient texts of history from the Toltecs and Olmecs, and rewrote history. It’s always the same.
- 2 - Just like Eurasia, (Europe is only a peninsula of Asia) - Africa is a huge continent- just because Peoples originated there, doesn’t make them “Negroid” (forgive the usage of this old word, but what other word is there?) meaning Black. I have a Nat’l Geo map of the Tribal Peoples of Africa - and each tribe/group looks completely different and has different colors. from golden to olive-skinned.
Certainly the mixing of “races” has been going on since pre-history - an example is the Ancient Egyptians - who knows where the original Egyptians came from - but obviously all groups wree assimilated, so that each one came to consider themselves “Egyptians” - as a nation and society. AND were differnet colors - but all were and thought themselves as Egyptians.
3- In Pre-historic times -here was intermingling from Europe -tribals going back and forth from Eur. to Asia, and fr Asia back to Eur. - all influencing each other - in culture- fashion, textiles, pottery, cuisine, artifacts and everything else you can think of -evidence is there in the Red-Haired Mummies- which China wants to hide - they don’t want anyone to know that Europeans influenced Chinese culture.Yet if you check into the Chinese History Forum - you’ll find that in expanding - China took over territory from European looking Peoples - which they slaughtered by the way - fr. circa 200 B.C. - & circa 200 - 800 B.C.).
In Eur and the rest of the world -, in historical times -(Neolithic Times - pre-history is fuzzy- with the Greek Dark Ages and such)- all around the Mediterranean,in the African continent and in Southern Europe, at the ports, not only were there the Phoenicians - olive skinned People - intermingling with the indigenous peoples, but after that, around the Aegean,came the fair-skinned Ionians, & the Dorians and so on.
The coastal areas all along the Great Green Sea were settled by these colonists, Greeks and then olive-skinned Latins. And who knows who the Berbers were? Were they originally blond and blue-eyed, or was that from the Ionians and Greeks?
And then came the Persians, taking over there, and mixing with the fair-skinned people, Greek colonists, and the already genetically-mixed Egyptians. And so, adding to the stewpot of DNA.
And don’t you forget, that in the time of the Romans, Judea was a valuable trade-route, and the Peoples were were mixed DNA from the Sumerians, Persians, Egyptians(who owned it before the Sumerians, i.e. were they the Habirus? Were they the ancient Shepherd Kings? Who knows? So, certainly there were minglings with the ancient Sabeans, Palmyrians and Yemen. What we call Arabia today, was a flourishing area before, you can see it in Yemen, even today. Check it out.
And the last conquerors were from that area. But that is all a veneer overlayed in all the previous Peoples.
So - the conclusion is that a Arab and Mid-eastern person, is not a race, but a culture. But yet, they’re in the majority, of islamic religion.
They’re a DNA mixture.
After all that, there wasThere were certainly bound to be fair-skinned slaves, as well, as dar, in ancient times. The stigma of being dark only originated at the time of Henry the Navigator, and continued in the U.S. South -as an excuse to set people apart. And the obsession still continuous in the U.S.
But to get back to the subject, in truth - were all one big DNA Pool.
May 15th, 2007 at 11:58 am
CORRECTION:
culture.Yet if you check into the Chinese History Forum - you’ll find that in expanding - China took over territory from European looking Peoples - which they slaughtered by the way - fr. circa 200 B.C. - & circa 200 - 800 B.C.). ”
Correction from “circa 200 to 800 A.D.”
May 15th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
“advanced, why had not one of them even heard of a wheel or written language when Semites and Europeans entered the blackskin land.”
Why is it that everyone follows the Eurocentric archaeologists in labeling civilization “that which uses the wheel, etc.”
Perhaps the wheel was not used because it was inconvenient?
1- In jungle and swamp - one can hardly use it.
In mountains (like in the Andes)- it’s useless.
In the American Southwest, and Mexico, with Badlands, and Mesas and deserts, it was useless. (Even today, wagons off the paved roads, keep breaking down).
In desert areas, like Arabia, and the Gobi, camels were necessary.
In deep forests like Tribal Europe and North America, the wheel was useless.
Let me quote Mostafa Gadalla of :
http://www.egypt-tehuti.org/articles/
egyptology.html
“The so-called mainstream archaeology is controlled by self-appointed non-Egyptians who are the leftovers of the Colonial Era. The European countries that colonized the world brought back to Europe the loot of their aggression. Their home country felt (and still feels) that they have a monopoly on the history writing of their colonies. The self-appointed academic Archaeologists are actually comprised of inventory clerks, cataloging the booty from Ancient Civilizations.
The major sources of presently available history books are Europeans and their descendants in other continents. About 500 years ago, Europeans started conquering the outside world through colonization of countries throughout the world. As the dominant force in the world, spreading knowledge (including the world history) was in their total control.
When colonization ended in the 20th century, many people started questioning what they had been taught for so long. Such questioning unsettled these people who want to continue feeling a sense of superiority over others. ”
Does that answer the question?
May 17th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Okay, Al, you are making the same mistake as lots of other people here, ie transplanting your nation’s idealogy/social attitudes onto people from a distant time and place. Your “DNA stew” idea, while making perfect sense to a modern “multiculturalist” would likely have had you thrown in a dungeon in ancient times.
While mixing has of course been very common in the USA in its short history, the same can not be said in other parts….
As an example the Welsh and English have lived side by side in Britian for over 1500 years, they speak the same language(now), have similar cultures, are the same race, and are officially part of the same state.
Yet interbreeding has been very low, as, despite common national and linguistic ground, that sort of thing is still viewed as strange.
The original Slavic peoples entered the Balkans circa 600 AD, where the Greeks lived. For more than 1300 years the Greeks and Slavs lived in the same land, were the same religion, and had common enemies, ie The Turks. When the Wars of Independence against Ottoman tyranny were fought, Greek and Slav fought side-by-side. However, DNA testing has shown Graeco-Slavic interbreeding to have been the exception rather than the rule. Despite their similarities they still regarded “marrying out” or “breeding out” as shomewhow unnatural.
The same thing is true of the Germans/Poles, and also of groups like the Xhosa/Zulu. Despite the obvious common ground and similarities, people tend to stick to their own ethnicity.
It is only with American “melting pot” idealogy that this has been overturned. Even so in the USA today, rather than a blended American people, a populace of pockered areas is developing, ie Mexican neighbourhoods, Chinese neighbourhoods etc.
This was certainly true of the Ancient world.
This is not to say no interbreeding occured, but this has always been the exception. Thus The Egyptians were Egyptians not a “DNA stew”.
The Middle Eastern people are a race, not the result of massive hybridization.
Also, NEVER confuse someone who speaks a language with a race. Modern Egyptians are not Arabs, they are Egyptians. Arab-speaking Egyptians. Modern Palestinians are not Arabs, they are Arab-speaking Palestinians. The idea of them all being Arabs is from Zionists who argue that “The Arabs have 34 states, why can’t the Jews have 1?) In fact the Arabs have 4 states, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar.
Lastly, the wheel would have come in very handy in Sub-Saharan Africa, had someone come up with it. When later settlers arrived with wheels, it helped EVERYONE there significantly.
The “no necessity” argument holds no water. If not a wheel, then how about medicines to fight disease, farming methods, better housing/shelter, written language to convey ideas, clothing other than hides ripped straight from animal carcasses. Another “myht” is that of “Ethnic African Clothing”. When Arabs(real ones) entered the Sub-Saharan the only clothing people wore were untanned animal hides, and beads and feathers. The religious Arabs were apalled and forced the Negroid people to wera typical Arabian clothing of the era. Today that old-fashioned Arabic clothing has somehow become quintessentially “African”(used to mean black here, wrongly).
Also, “Eurocentric” is just a buzzword. If Negroid people had ever achieved anything comparable to a Confucius or a Genghis Khan(neither of whom were “European” or “white”) the world would have found out about it to be sure.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:16 am
I just can’t believe the writer said that Moors were significant in the “taming and civilization of Europe, and how their impact is still felt even 500 years later after their defeat and unjust expulsion from Spain.”
The Moors had some nice advances in Southern Spain but they were invaders into Spanish/Christian land. What was so unjust about expelling people who had temporarily conquered your homeland? That biased slant makes it very difficult for me to take what the rest of the author said seriously.
May 19th, 2007 at 9:28 am
“Thus The Egyptians were Egyptians not a “DNA stew”.
Indeed they were. You can see the features are a mixture of races.
As well, their own art work shows races, the colors - sometimes, there were Black Pharaohs - African in features - and yet - they considered themselves, Egyptians.
“The Middle Eastern people are a race, not the result of massive hybridization.”
The Middle Eastern Peoples are NOT a race. You brought up examples in history.
I’m talking in Neolithic times when tribes moved back and forth in the Continents - before the Modern States developed.
“Also, NEVER confuse someone who speaks a language with a race. Modern Egyptians are not Arabs, they are Egyptians. Arab-speaking Egyptians.”
Isn’t that what I said? I reiterate, the Egyptians in the lower strata are the same peoples as the Ancient Egyptians. THe upper strata is the veneer of the Arabic conquest.
Chris, I never said the “Moors were significant” in anything.
The islamics simply worked on what ancient cultures they conquered. The very religion of islam,disallows for evolution - they never developed anything - except perhaps “al-mohadas.”
May 19th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Yes, there was extensive interbreeding in ancient times, from Europe to Asia. Scientists have found that the DNA of the people of Scotland and Ireland, is the same as the Ancient Egyptians, strangely enough.
Check out the Red-Headed mummies in China. just as one example.
Not only was there travel in the old world, but the new world as well. Since colonial farmers in the U.S., found bones in their land, skeletons of blond and red-haired giants, and wrote about it in their diaries. Estensive burials and mounds, even mapped out.
“The original Slavic peoples entered the Balkans circa 600 AD, where the Greeks lived. For more than 1300 years the Greeks and Slavs lived in the same land, were the same religion, and had common enemies, ie The Turks…”
What Greeks are those? There was no unity. Each fought against the other. The only Greeks as in “classical ” were the Athenians, who were xenophonobic. They considered the Macedonians barbarians; even the clothing were different. And the Spartans conquered the indigenous Messenians there, making then “helots,” and supressing them savagely.
Neither Greece nor Italy was a unit until the mid-1800s. And the countries had been changing borders before, and since. The peoples at the edges, even today, don’t even know where their allegance lie. Only that if they were allowed, the entire area, from dissolve back to tribals- from Kosovo, to Iraq, including the Kurds, to China - which has vast numbes of different peoples chained into one China. Even in Eurasia, especially there, are there a mixture of peoples, -Eurasians weren’t a sudden mxing of “races” from Englishmen and American men, who married poor little Asian girls,and had little mix bloods children. Eurasians have been there all these thousands upon thousands of years. Only the new children have been “taught” by the Europeans to feel they’re a brand new Peoples.
As to “1300 yrs of a common enemy, the Turks” - they only came in around the end of the 500s A.D. Before that the peninsula was Asia Minor, according to the Greeks and Romans who colonized the edges, and Anatolia to the natives in the interior.
And may I remind you that Celts settled all over Europe, from Greece, to Spain (Celti-Iberians before the even the classical Greeks and Romans) - even jumping across to the British Isles.
THAT is how mixed the whole “Stew pot” is.
“Lastly, the wheel would have come in very handy in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
I’m not talking about the Sub-Sahara, I’m talking about outright desert - such as North Africa - and Arabia.
May 19th, 2007 at 11:36 am
CORRECTION. The word in the above posting should be “Xenophobic.”
May 19th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Check out the History of Macedonia- they were NOT Greeks. The ancient Greeks did not accept them, and the Macedonians knew it:
http://vlib.iue.it/history/europe/Macedonia/index.html
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:48 am
Y’all talking about the same thing,whether black or African , we ,just out of the 20th century, are still referred to as such(even those in America),but modern day Egyptians, as Egyptians and not African, almost all of northern(arab) Africa refer to themselves by their State,and not African with the exception of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi. Wheel or none,bell or not, people moved about and communicated one way or another.One fact remains amidst all this debate,argument,agreeing to disagree or call it whatever you may,East Africa was, is, and will always be the motherland(Early Man Remains). All that a majority of the posters/writers are doing is argue based one someone else’s thesis turned book. Truth is ,two African(black) people can give birth to white(Albino),they can also bear yellow- what in relatively darker skinned states/tribes/countries is incorrectly known as Brown(meaning light-skin, but not quite Albino). Most of the “Browns” are actually born “Red” until after a few weeks .So there, Messrs White,Dunn & Relatives,embrace Black, y’know Africans as Brothers and dey will love ya even widdout de tan
May 24th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Just briefly, but you are all once again placing your modern social values on ancient peoples who would have probabaly killed you if you suggested such things to them. Some simple fatcs:
1)There are no “black” Egyptians. The correct colour is brown or, even better, tan. Notice how the outdoors Egyptians are depicted as swarthy, while the indoor Egyptians could “pass” for “European”. If you live in a snowy climate then you don’t get that Caucasoid people get darker when they spend time in the sun. It’s hardly rocket science.
2)The Greeks were different states and “nationalities” as such, but they all knew that they were all Greek, bonded by language, religion, culture, and most importantly, bonded by blood. In fact the modern ethno-nation state is just that, modern. The same way that the various tribes of the Britons may have fought each other, had different kings etc., they still knew they were all Britons. Pople have fought their own kind as long as there has been humankind. The largest war of the Ancient world was the Peloponnesian War, which was the Inter-Greek War, Greeks fighting Greeks, but they were all Greeks.
3)The Macedonians were Greeks. The modern “Macedonian” thing dates from the 1940s and Communist propaganda in the hopes of bringing northern Greece and the coastal city of Thessalonica into the Eastern Bloc. There are literally THOUSANDS of books, websites etc which refute the “Macedonians weren’t Greek” lies and show them for what they really are.
4) If two “black” people had an albino kid, would ANYBODY seriously consider that person to be “white”? No, they’d see the nose, lips, skull shape etc and realise that he/she was the same race as his/her parents. Anybody who thinks race is just about visible skin colour needs to get a clue. Also, non-Sub-Saharans came out of an Ethiopian population. The people who were already in West/Centra;/Southern Africa were already there. In other words “whites” and “browns” as you call them are descended from East Africans, West Africans etc are NOT.
5)North Africans are not, and have never been, the same race as Sub-Saharans(who are very far from being a single race themselves, to say the least). Any argument that uses a broader “African” term to denote all the peoples of Africa as a single uniform race can not possibly be taken seriously.
6)I never said theTurks were in the Balkans all along, in fact the Turks only entered Anatolia in the Middle Ages. The point is that despite common religion, and a common goal, the Greeks and Slavs seldom interbred, and tended to marry within their respective communities.
7)Also, the whole “Mediterranean race doesn’t exist” fallacy is to make 3 different groups of people happy:
a)Nordicists/Neo-Nazis who like to think that the Greeks and Romasn were Aryans who mixed with black slaves.
b)Afrocentrics who like to think that the Egyptians and Moors were black and mixed with white slaves.
(sense a pattern?)
c)Multiculturalists who like to show how differnt groups working togetehr can create a greater state, and that Mediterraneasn are a massive blending.
Howver actually read up what the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Arabs, etc had to say about both paler people to the North, and darker people to the South, and you’ll see how ludicrous this “mixing pot” idea is. The sad fact is that all three of the above-mentioned groups desperately NEED to cling to a fictitious “glorious past” whether it’s Nordic Romans, Black Egyptians, or Multicutural Greeks. Sadly, that’s all it is, fictitious. The Mediterranean people were always, well, Mediterranean.
8)”Celts” settled in certain parts of the Caucasoid world, but how many Celts were there? And what did they look like? Are “celts” the red-haired Irish, or the black-haired, brown-eyed Welshmen? Even then Celtic, like “Arabic” today meant people who spoke forms of the language, not a “race”. And before you get all excited, what that means was that an original Celtic people conquered various tribes, forcing their language, and part of thier culture on those people. These “Celts” then spread outwards, while the original Celtic population was assimilated into these tribes leaving virtually no biological trace. And assimilating non-indigenous peoples over time doesn’t amount to a “stew”, when your people are still primarily descnded from original stock. Eg If Egyptians ahd absorbed trace amounts of Arabic, Greek, Israelite, Roman, and yes even “Black” peoples, they would still be Egyptian, as DNA testing has shown modern Egyptians to be more than 85% Ancient Egyptian. One-drop idiots may say this “proves” Egyptians are “black”, but to me it proves Egyptian continuity. All people assimilate small amounts of non-indigenous DNA over time, but as long as they don’t assimilate large amounts, and their phenotype does not change they remain the same. Only in the USA do we get the kind of rampant mongrelization that the Ancients would have found to be not only unnatural, but also a sin in the eyes of God or The Gods.
9)African does not mean “black”, or “dark-skinned”. End of story. Originally only modern-day Tunisia and Northwest Libya were Africa, ie Caucasoid peopls. Later, the whole “continent of Africa” a VERY diverse area was given the name “Africa”. To claim all Africans are one black race is either plain ignorance, or is being used for some sort of social or political cause that has nothing to do with biological reality.
10)Scots and Irish are the same BROADER race as the Egyptians(Caucasoid), but Egyptians are closer to Libyans and Berbers, whil the Scots and Irish are closer to other Northern Europeans than to the Egyptians, as anyone with any common sense could tell you.
Please stop spreading lies about the Moors, Egyptians, Arabs, Israelites, Greeks, Berbers, Romans, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and all the other Mediterranean peoples of the past in order to make yourselves feel somehow more important in modern times.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:41 am
I think a big part of this stupidity is that the Muslim Middle Easterners/North Africans regard themselves as first and foremost…Muslims. Anything that was achieved during the pre-Islamic era is regarded as pagan and unholy. Thus the Egytian history now only begins c700 AD. The Dynastic Egypt period is viewed as an affront to Allah. So the “Africentrics” jump in and say “We’ll take it!” Of course the idea that so-called “African-Americans” had ANYTHING to do with Egytian, Phoenician etc civilisations is absurd. The Moors may seem different as that was a Muslim civilisation. However modern Moroccans(who are of course Caucasoid) still view themslves as Muslims, no more, no less. Thus they don’t view this “Black Moor” garbage as an affront. It’s weird I realise, but that’s the way they see it. Also those that DO take exception seldom have their voices heard. People today are far more likely to hear what some loud-mouth arrogant “African-American” is spewing than what the humble North African Muslim says.
June 1st, 2007 at 6:57 am
Africa is Kafir, Khafre if you like.Osiris-the Bull, was “The God of Perfect Black”. Every few generations of Africans ,have borne offspring of lesser melanin(Mulatto? Albino?)even blue-eye,platinum blonde ones,dependent on diet,heritage and environment.We all came out of Africa PERIOD. To even suggest a killing shows that truth can hurt. Correction Africa was all known as Ethiopia, until supremacists(y,know which)changed the name,divided it into states, brought religion(pronounced re-legion)& Guns, conflict among tribes that had co-existed for yonks.Sorry to say Multi-cultural ism is a new age synonam, for many racisms.Islam is a religion(denomination) and a young one for that matter,not a people.Tippu Tip And Sayyid Said, the greatest of African slave traders, were themselves referred to as Black Moors. African americans, originally came out of Africa,under not so good circumstances.Israelites are but a 1948 creation,of post nazi sympathisers,and not same as when Yesus, had to run away to Khem(Egypt)with his mum(Black Madonna).Guess what? They couldn’t recognise him there either. Was Yesus an African(Black)
June 1st, 2007 at 8:04 am
Praise the mighty truth of Jah and the messengers that have echoe his purpose-Spain, Hispania, Iberian peninsula land that was and is an extension of Africa-Ethiopia not only by right, but, by knowledge that help her children throughout existence.
June 7th, 2007 at 10:35 am
lighter shade of brown- look around who wears the crown- brown brown is this my home my town- separation of the people is the false triumph they sound- all creation is a variant that no man can shackle or duplicate- one day truth will reveal a meaning only overstood by Hashem Yahweh Jah or a verse dress in a past unrehearsed
June 7th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
we must see the unification of the human race and reason the purpose of the spread of the masses with a continous mixa-blend that permeates the brutality driven spiritual curfew existence enforced by fascits- Moma Africa the land of all- oye gente miren pa Africa Ethiopia la tierra antiqua para su futuro
June 7th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
As I ran through time from a little island in the caribbean- hispanic or Latino a european idealism ism schism- I worshiped some unknown gods names in days of the week months a continuation of slavery system Latin- Spanish hispanic Portugal the same Catholic qualification to be closer to Europe as Latino- Africa Ethiopia is my roots- mi sangre en Africa- No more Santa Clause German Italian gods to kill our own thoughts- Jah Conquer all
June 9th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Any non Afro,not quite black is considered dark.to insinuate that Tom Cruise,for example can be said as “black” by Britney and will smith as “white”either by Shaka Zulu is as misleading as refering to Chinese as being either of above.
June 9th, 2007 at 6:26 am
The faces of Africa millions of beautiful profiles of a unique complicated blend of strenth not limited to external set melanine tone your children have established all that has become in lands abroad riches misunderstood as gold diamonds and rare stones an overshadowing of the sciences that a long time ago became the establishing of a people all Africa is the world.
June 10th, 2007 at 3:30 am
What a rat race- even the learned seek to give creation a status or recognized validity- open your eyes and see that blood flows like rivers before man existed and origins are unknown to the most wise- the animal kingdom a variety of many a spectrum of life not limited to one- Jah must have a sense of humor not limited as we humans can be by our own idea of the purpose of existence- One Love People Get Ready- No Man Can Establish The One True Kingdom- Negusa Negast- The Meek Will Rule- Purpose before pleasure- when all treasures are given to the poor then a clue to the kingdom is revealed………Jah Live
June 10th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Okay, “African” doesn”t mean black, and now we have to correct another ridiculous piece of US-misuse. “Latin” means someone of central Italian descent. Ie somebody descended from the original Latini tribes of Latium. One needs only to look at the millions of artworks depicting these people, or read the hundreds of thousands of written descriptions describing these people to see that they were a Caucasoid people. These days, the same idiots who refer to black or mixed-race people as “African” now use the term “Latin” to describe anybody of mixed-race(primarily of American Indian Mongoloid descent) speaking a debased form of Spanish to mean “Latin”. How is it possible that Christina Aguilera, Rosie Perez, Jennifer Lopez, Andy Garcia, and Miguel Perez are all of the same race? Also, Spanish is a language derived from latin, not Latin itself. The same way French, Italian, Poruguese and Romanian are descended from Latin. Does that mean Count Dracula was a Latino? Actually hed have a better claim to being a Latino than the brown-skinned mestizos, zambos and mulattoes of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico etc. What is it with American people corrupting the meanings of words that are used to describe Mediterranean Caucasoids?!!! Heres a brief summary of some CORRECT meanings:
1) An African is someone who is from modern-day Tunisia or Northwestern Lbya.
2) A Latin is someone who is from modern-day Central Itally
3) An Oriental is someone from moder-day Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Oman
4) An Asian is someone from the area running from Turkey to India, but NOT a Chinese, Korean or Japanese
5) Someone who is British would be described in modern usage as A Welshaman or a Cornishman, ie Catherine Zeta Jones or Tom Jones, but NOT people like Jude Law, Keira Knightley etc.
If you idiots are going to speak about ancient peoples and suchlike, at least know what the words mean. You have claimed the Southern mediterraneans as “black”. Nordicist idiots have claimed Noerthern Mediterraneans as “Nordic”, and multiculturalist iditos have claimed that the entire Mediterranean race is tyhe result of massive hybridisation between “Africans”(meaning Black apparently) and “Aryans”(meaning Nordic apparently). You should all get a clue.
June 11th, 2007 at 3:35 am
Thank you, Al. If people don’t know what a word means, they shouldn’t use it.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:01 am
My dilema a confusion of my senses- Hispanic or Latino can I be either neither- Indegenous remnants of pre-Columbus knowledgeable sailors- NativoAmerikan Taino without a destino- Iron tools to cut petroglyphs in stone- We are of a higher learning- Human race must civilize solidarity
June 13th, 2007 at 2:36 am
You’re not indigenous, as the Kennewick Man and Spirit Cave Mummy make clear. Or rather would if the ultra-PC idiots didn’t go out of their way to hide the information. It’s funny the way the media is making the whole world out to be created by “people of color[sic]” yet these same people are claiming that THEY are the victims of “racism”. If you are a so-called “Native American” then you are a Mongoloid. Whatever language you speak is irrelevant. Most people who speak English today aren’t Anglo-Saxons.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Wow thats really deep like the creator didn’t take to account the power of diversity- now men dogmatize further division ism shism that has no relation to Jah purpose- In the garden the tree of life and the tree of knowledge- purpose of man will never establish the Kingdom of Heaven- so read on segmetize divide multiply your ideas of how much your way is better than Hashem Allah Jah Elohim El Shaddae Jeovah- you can’t limit the power of the creator to play host to only a single people- Jah will conquer all through means not learned even in our best institutions- we are destined to be ONE- Man made ism schism twenty four dollars in trinkets for the enterprise manhattan has become- My spirit soul holds no rank status in the affairs of self made rulers
June 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
idiots? takes one to know one,eh?
June 17th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
John Dunn
You made very wild claims that were as obsolete as they were obscene. As such we are compelled to ask you for a few citations of your authority.
Your view there were no black Egyptians is as foolish as the view that the earth was the center of the universe. If you do not understand that simple fact, then there remains very little hope for you.
Your view that North Africans are different than other Africans would need more cultural and genetic based evidence. Please provide some authority.
Your misconception that Africa is not equivalent to Black is another of those Aryanist fantasies that would be ridiculous if they were not so pathetic. Would you provide some authority on cultural and genetic dis-similarities of North and “non-North” Africa?
The author of the well written article above backed up his proposition with authorities.
You are at the very least obliged to dis-prove his claim with authority. Not wild rantings. Not grandstanding. No pretensions, and no lies either.
Put up or shut up.
Jahdey
June 17th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Hispanic is the lable Latino the company- a child of the caribbean running amongst a cluster of culture and diversity- no concept or longing for a distant european knowing- Africa does not recognize her children for their culture and features have mingled with distant conqueres from a single motherland Africa Africa- Shiloh redemption is my home Jah have mercy on those that hold council with an assume absence of the creator- discipline starts at the halls of knowledge- wether your brown red white purple green yellow whatever color you are an African.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:42 am
JOhn Dunn
The terms “caucasoid”, “negroid”, and “mongoloid” are in themselves meanigless terms creayed by european racists.
The indigenous people of Africa from norh to south, from east and west are the same race of people. Their complexions, hair texure and minute features may vary, but they are all African. If you study all the indigenous peoples of nortn, east south, central africans you will find they all share very similiar cultures. And the Ancient Egyptians differed nothing from the other indigenous african tribes around them.
June 18th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Allergens Allergens as I and I move through the face of earth, creations many mysteries chemicals in environment food culter physical change photosynthesis ultraviolet variant temperature changes in my apperance my hair texture will I and I be recognize when home.
June 20th, 2007 at 4:16 am
If you were to take five people, one a North African, one East African, one West African, one Central African, and one Southern African, and assuming they were all indigenous to their respective areas, then anyone would be able to easily identify which is which.
If you took one North African, one Middle Eastern person, and one Southern European, people would find it considerably more difficult to see who was who.
Also, the term “African” as a broad term was created in the early modern period by European racists to justify slavery and colonialism. Since all “Africans” were the same, it was thus “okay” to colonise and trade in slaves. Of course, the North Africans were ALSO slave-traders, and there are countless examples of people questioning the “African” term because North Africans clearly are a different race to Sub-Saharans. Also, nice to see the moderator deleting messages that cite references/sources that prove these things.
Have you ever actually viewed REAl Ancient Egyptian artifacts, or were you just told by your “Black History” teacher that they were black and that anyone who says they aren’t is “racist”?
I have Egyptian friends and they are NOT black. They are, however, African.
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:37 am
Yu evidently know little about Africa and Africans. North frica has been settled and colonized from the middle east and Asia since prehistoric times. thus there has alwas been a heavily mixed population in the north. Therefore taking north Africa out of the equation, if u take forty people, ten from East Africa, ten from Central Africa, Ten from West africa, and ten from south Africa I guarantee you you would not be able to successfully distinguish them all apart. But even if you could regional diferences doesnt change the race of the people. The people of Europe are not represented by a single type, if you take a blond hair blue eyed Scandanavian, a red haired Irishman,and dark haired Greek, anyone would be able to distinguish them apart. So are these people all different races?
The racist seeking to justify slavery were the ones who tried to divide the Africans by highlighting heir differences to make them believe they were not the same people. Therefore when a Mandinka chief sold Ga tribesmen he was not selling his own people. European racists used tha old divide and conquer to keep Africans from uniting against them. And it worked for centuries. But times are changing and the peoples of Africa and Africas dipersed children are waking up to embrace the oneness of all Africans. I have not only seen REAL Egyptian artifacts I have been to the Cairo museum, and the Berlin Egypt museum . I have seen the mummies, the sculptures the paintings on the wall. And the vast majority show clear African read Black features. The fullness of the lips the high cheekbones, some pharaohs like khufu, Mentuhotep, and Amenhotep among others had flat noses. Almost all the Egyptians wigs were wooly in texture, jus like Herotodus said about the Egyptians, being “Black with wooly hair”. The hairstyles of the Egyptians can still be seen in so called “Black Africa” today. Egypt today is far from the Egypt of ancient times. Modern Egypians are heavily mixed with foreign elements, Greeks, Roman, Arab, Turks. Even still outside the big cities in the villages the Egyptian people are still black, and they know they black. I too know people from Egypt and they all identify as black.
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:57 am
http://www.cnn.com/US/9707/16/racial.suit/
An interesting article about an Egyptian immigrant to the U.S.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9707/16/racial.suit/
June 23rd, 2007 at 2:30 am
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/blackegypt101.html
June 24th, 2007 at 6:56 am
GREETINGS SALUTATIONS- I IN INTELLECTUALITY HUMBLE TO THOSE MORE LEARNED IN REALMS THAT I SEE IN THE DISTANCE NOT YET GRASP AND ASSIMILATED ON MY OWN- IT IS BEST TO HAVE A FRIEND THAN TO NEED A FRIEND- THE PROFILE OF MAN CHANGED BY NATURE THROUGHOUT THE GLOBAL LAND- WE ARE ONE A RIDDLE FOR MAN- THE EQUATION ONE LOVE UNITY- MUCH RESPECT TO THOSE THAT REASON
June 28th, 2007 at 3:37 am
As far as “Caucasoid” and “negroid” goes, I found this posting on somebody’s blog. It just shows 2 pictures, one of each race. Either you get it, or you don’t…
http://dieneks.50webs.com/blog/archives/000104.html
Or his quote…
“skin color should always be taken on some unexposed part of the body.Among Middle Easterners, this is simple, because they cover as much of the body as is consistent with their work. The xposed skin color may be a dark brown, while the skin of the underarm is ten shades lighter. (The sun shines brightly in the Middle East) While fair-skinned people are to be seen, they live chiefly in shaded bazaars and government offices, whence they rarely emerge into the dazzling light of day.”
Also not that while Ancient Egytians are usually a dark brown, when we see Queens, Priests etc in Egyptian art they are indistinguishable from these fair-skinned Middle Easterners of today. The farmers, builders etc who work in the “dazzling light of day” are clearly dark brown, but many Ancient Egyptians are very fair-skinned(the types who lived primarily indoors), and Egyptians Ancient and Modern often have blue and green eyes. The same is true of the Moors, Babylonians, Berbers etc.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Okay, here’s something I found…
“Skin color should always be taken on some unexposed part of the body. Among Middle Easterners this is simple, because they cover as much of the body as is consistent with their work. The exposed skin color may be a dark brown, while the skin of the underarm is ten shades lighter. (The sun shines very brightly in the Middle East) While fair-skinned people are to be seen, they live chiefly in shaded bazaars and government offices, whence they rarely emerge into the dazzling light of day.”
So Ancient Egyptian art often shows “dark-browned” people, but these are always farmers, builders etc who work in the “dazzling light of day”. Meanwhile the Pharaohs, Queens, and Priests are often fair-skinned, as they remained primarily indoors. And in Ancient and Modern Egypt, blue and green eyes, and red, brown and blonde hair are fairly common. The same is true of the Moors, Berbers, Babylonians etc.
I also attempted to post some links explaining this in more detail but they were spammed!
June 28th, 2007 at 3:49 am
I meant “flagged as spam”, not “spammed”!
It’s a bit sad when any evidence that disproves these articles can’t be posted. That’s a very narrowmined way of looking at things!
I have also browsed this site, and discovered that the central themes are that a) African-Americans are the Master Race, b) all white people are lepers and spooks, and c) everyone should smoke lots of pot.
Sorry, but that’s kinda lame.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:57 am
Lastly, modern Egypt is a much alrger country then Ancient Egypt. The English colony of Egypt which became the modern republic of Egypt includes much of what is Ancient Nubia. Ancient Egypt extended only as far south as Thebes. Modern Egypt contains most of Nubia, so your “Black Egyptians” are likely from Southern Egypt, and are in reality Nubians, not Egyptians.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:34 am
to the person who wrote that moors were white. so i guess shakespeare didn’t know why he made Othello, a moor, black?
Moors were black, and even the white Shakespeare knew that. Let’s not be silly.
June 30th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Tim Barker
i dont know where u get ur information but you couldn’t be more off based. Firstly Egyptian pharaohs were rarely ever depicted as “fair skinned.” Montuhotep was depicted jet black, as was the great queen mother of the glorious 18th Dynasty Ahmose Nefertari. Throughout Egyptian art, The dark red-brown complexion was standard for men,, a lighter yellowish brown for women. This was purely symbolic and didnt reflect a true difference in the color of Egyptian men and women. During the so called Amarna period where men and women were regarded as equals both men and women and children were depicted in the same dark reddishbrown color. Furthermore Libyan bediouns were always depicted as being very light skinned, much lighter than the Egyptians, despite living in the same hot African sun. Why didnt the Libyans(white skinned berbers) get darkened by the sun?? Beyond color facial features like thick lips, wooly hair, and sometimes even flat “negroid” noses wouldnt be affected by bein out in the sun. Yet such features can be seen on the majority of Egyptian artwork and statues.
As far as modern Egypt being larger than ancient Egypt.. FALSE!! Ancient Egypt’s southern limit was clearly establisned as being at the first cataract of the Nile right below Elephantine. Modern Egypts southern border? At the first cataract of the Nile right below Elephantine. Exactly the same size. Southern Egyptians arent nubians they are Egyptians of the purest blood.
These sites have nothing to do with blacks constituting a “Master Race”. Simply about reclaiming African history that has been white washed by Europeans who truly believed without question that whites were the Master Race and didn’t hesitate to lie, create pseudo sciences, conceal evidence, destroy ancient artifacts, etc, etc etc to support their white supremist agendas.
June 30th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
There were black Moors as well as white Moors. The word “Moor” derives from a latin word for black or dark complexioned. The Spanish applied the term Moor to ALL Muslims living in North west Africa, that included North African Arabs, White skinned Berbers, Dark skinned Berbers, and sub Saharan Blacks living in North Africa. They were all Moors, and all had a part in the conquest of Iberia. Go to a library and educate yourself.
July 1st, 2007 at 1:08 am
I found when I had my DNA typed to prove the quantum for my NA side that I am also African and Middle Eastern. Guessing since I am part nothern Italian (where there was Moor invasion and rule) I may have Moor heritage as well - Hard to find much history posted on-line - any ideas?
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:09 am
LIFE IS GOOD- THE COOKING POT GOT MANY INGREDIENTS BREWING- WHO ARE WE TO JUDGE- THE CHILDREN IN LANDS ABROAD DIE FROM HUNGER AND STARVATION- WICKED RULERS SLAVE DRIVERS THE TABLE IS TURNED.
July 4th, 2007 at 3:22 am
Shakespeare called the Moors “black”, but then there are also references from the same time to the Turks being “as black as pitch”, Jews being “black” and “black Irish”. The reason, as stated over and over again, is that at the time anyone who was any darker than you were was considered to be black. For instance the German writers of the 15th century called the Italians “black”. Also, remember that Shakespeare lived in England over a hundred years after the last Moor was driven out of Spain, and never saw a real Moor in his life. The actual Spanish, Portuguese, French people who saw the Moors made numerous artworks depricting Moors, and the Moors made artistic depictions of themselves. They are only ever shown as “Arabic”-looking, never “blackskinned” (whatever that means).
July 7th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
PEOPLE LISTEN UP….NO MATTER HOW YOU TURN IT THE CHILDREN OF THE RAINBOW WILL ENDURE ALL ISM SCHISM THEY CONJURE….JAJAJA….SEPT. 11,2007 ETHIOPIA WILL BE 2000 SINCE THE DREAD JESUS SHOW SIGHT TO THE MASSES….JAH…JESUS….ALLAH….ONE LOVE…NO OTHER WAY OUT…
July 16th, 2007 at 3:00 am
Your essay is riddled with error early on. Carthaginians were not black, and they didn’t originate from Africa. They originated in canaan around modern day lebanon, and they were an indo-european group in the cannannite language family, which also includes the hebrews. Hannibal Barca also never commited suicide, he fled to Antiochus of Seleucia to provide millitary advisement against the Romans. If your going to go on a racist diatribe at least get your facts straight you idiot.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:05 am
And all these groups of people you are trying to peg as “black” are definetly not white like a Norwegian, but they definetly aren’t of a sub Saharan negroid racial ancestry either. The closest thing to that would have been the Nubians who were in Ethiopia, a good ways away from the straight of Gibraltar.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:07 am
Now I do believe you are correct about the Moors, but they came a great deal after the Carthaginian/Phoenician colonists.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:27 am
Hey T. In the “Islamic” period you refer to I.E ottoman/Seljuks???? The states of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia didn’t even exist. All this racist talk about how your
black forefathers were so great and enterprising is b.s. LET’S BE REAL. BLACK AFRICANS HAVE MADE MINISCULE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WORLD IN SCIENCE, MEDICINE, CULTURE ETC… Arabs,Muslims,Berbers yes. Not Black, Negroid people. I’m sorry.
Blacks in general have a primitive tribal mentality which is the reason there are no promising black dominated countries in the entire world. In fact most blacks that have contribute to the world in fields like science and politics, medicine, culture, in the modern age were not from Africa. Sub Saharan Africa is a tribal/ethnic dump. Before the unfortunate slave harvesting by the muslim and Christian nations in the age of discovery and now after slavery and apartheid, Africa and the carribean are more valued for their cruises and safaris then for there actual contributions. Greed, corruption, evil, Disease, Famine,Genocide,slavery,Sexual slavery, Military slavery. With the exception of Hitler’s Germany itself himself there has never been a more Godless and Forgotten dump than Africa in the history of earth. If you want to prove that black people are just as capable and intelligent as whites,asians,arabs,jews etc… (I believe its a cultural problem and I know many very intelligent black individuals) then prove it in the modern world, you won’t find it in your history or in your modern ancestral homeland. Make an individual effort.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:32 am
I’m sorry if I offended anyone. Allthough I do believe what I said is true, I realize I say it at the expense of sounding like a racist bastard.