I've been re-reading that book about the Timbuktu manuscripts, and have another with a rather American title:-
(I had to google 'bad-ass' to see what it means .... "tough, uncompromising, or intimidating")
My word ! I look forward to reading it !!
But in re-reading the first book, it struck me that we in the 'civilised' west have always assumed that writing, knowledge and recorded wisdom originated in places like China, the Middle East and Europe, and that 'black' Africa never had these things. I am reminded of the question asked by Nathanael in Johns gospel:- “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” ... or "Can anything good come out of Africa?" How wrong, arrogant and self-important we were, and are, to think that !
The British explorer Samuel Baker in 1874 stated: "In the savage country of Central Africa there are no vestiges of the past; no ancient architecture, no sculpture .... so we must therefore conclude that the races of man which now inhabit Central Africa are unchanged from the prehistoric tribes who were the original inhabitants."
And as late as 1923, less than 100 years ago, an historian (A. P. Newton) said that "Africa has practically no history before the coming of the European, since history only begins when men take to writing."
How could these people ignore the great (Arabic) written works of Islam which had spread west across Africa from the East African coast, and south from north Africa ? What about the hieroglyphic writing in the Egyptian tombs ? And when it comes to great architecture, there are the pyramids of Egypt and Sudan, the Great Zimbabwe ruins, places like Gedi on the Kenya coast ...
It is obvious that in the past, just as nowadays, people saw what they wanted to see, and not the truth; people had an agenda and made everything fit that agenda. How we, the Europeans, misjudged and misunderstood Africa and the inhabitants of the land where man first appeared.
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