It’s widely agreed that humanity originated in Africa. There is a wealth of human history to be taught about the continent, which was home to some of the oldest empires on earth, from the ancient Egyptian Empire, to the Kingdom of Kush, to the Aksumite Empire.
Yet just the other day, I was reading Erik Gilbert and Jonathan T. Reynolds’ Africa in World History on the 145 bus, and another SFU student interrupted me to ask, “Why are you reading that? They’re savages. They don’t even know how to make fire.” He sounded like he was speaking to a small child who had just smeared peanut butter on the wall.
I was appalled. I did my best to impress on him just how wrong he was, but it is difficult to mend a lifetime of ignorance in just one argument.
A lot of racism against black people is based on the notion that Africa has no history, and has never had any kind of civilization. In fact, according to Africa in World History, this was one of the (made-up) ideas used by Europeans in an attempt to justify the transatlantic slave trade. As stated by Gilbert and Reynolds, Europeans tried to redefine the history of Africa as “a barbaric land of witchcraft, cannibalism, and primitive stone age tribes…”
One would hope that it’s obvious to everyone by now that that is untrue. I’ve heard stories of professors who have allegedly claimed, “Africa is poor because it has always been too hot there.”
These kinds of statements are especially ridiculous when contrasted with the impression that Europeans had of Africa upon early contact with the continent. As noted by Gilbert and Reynolds, European traders often mentioned how similar they thought the African nations they encountered were to the European nations they had sailed from.
The high school curriculum I was exposed to gave very little background on the history of the continent. We were taught about ancient Egypt, then the transatlantic slave trade, then about Apartheid, and later, “Third World countries.”
Much Western education on the continent neglects to mention any of the great African empires that came after ancient Egypt. The whole of the Common Era is ignored until the start of the transatlantic slave trade. This dangerous lack of context has fueled racist ideologies for hundreds of years, such as the notion that Europeans brought civilization to Africa.
SFU offers several courses on the history of the continent: HIST 231 – History of Africa to the 19th Century: From Ancient Times to the Slave Trade, HIST 344 – Themes in Modern East Africa, and HIST 348 – A History of Twentieth Century South Africa to name a few. The SFU Department of Political Science also offers a certificate in African studies.
While these courses and programs are valuable in that they provide some context for the world we live in today, there is still far more of a focus on recent events than on Africa before colonialism. I also noticed that there is no concentration in African history currently offered by SFU.
That said, SFU is currently looking to revamp their African history offerings and are looking to hire a new Africanist to work on this. Whom they hire will determine what region of Africa will be focused on, but it is my hope that they will also consider the time period. So far I have only been able to take one course that specifically focused on African nations and empires before colonization. It is unclear if the same course will be offered again, but I would love to see more attention given to this subject.
Perhaps if more people were educated on the empires of Africa they would stop thinking of Africa as one big game reserve. Perhaps Hollywood would stop making movies depicting Ancient Egyptians as white. Who knows? Maybe the President of the USA would not have called several African nations “shitholes.”
I know that SFU will continue to fight the ignorance that has fueled racist agendas for hundreds of years, and I am curious to see what new courses will be offered. In the meantime, I highly recommend that you take the aforementioned HIST 344 if you would like to know more.
