Tag: Kemet

On overcoming anger

I was asked recently about how I deal with anger and frustration. This is a good question, as I, like perhaps every other person, have found myself having to manage such feelings.

In my teenage years, I realized that anger was a part of a larger complex of emotion that if not properly understood, could wreak havoc on our lives. My response at the time was to meditate. I am not sure where the inspiration came from. I did not have any formal training in meditation, nor did I have any academic knowledge of mindfulness or psychology. Nonetheless, I set myself to the task of meditating, using breathing and visualization as keys to gain clarity and awareness, as well as to recenter myself. My practice was also informed by Sun Tzu’s classic, The Art of War, which became a key element of how I moved through the world.

Once I went to college and felt that I had more control over my life, this practice fell by the wayside. However after college, as my life intensified due to its burgeoning demands and as various interpersonal difficulties took their toll, I have found it necessary to both reactivate the practice from my youth and to augment it accordingly. Unlike then, I have been exposed to different types of meditative traditions, different schools of psychology, and different philosophical discourses. Here I offer a brief overview of how I have strove to manage such challenges in the present.

Sunyata (emptiness)
I consider perception as a precondition to anger. Often our perception of things determines whether or not we become bothered or angry.

As a teenager I discovered that things (including ideas) are insubstantial in their essence. This insight came not from reading, but merely reflecting on my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own consciousness. This discovery enabled me to navigate difficult circumstances. Years later I discovered that there was a term for this in Buddhist philosophy, sunyata, a Pali word that translates into English as “emptiness”. It refers to the insubstantial nature of all things.

The concept of sunyata has been, for me, profoundly edifying. It has enabled me to more fully internalize the wisdom in the Fulani proverb which states, “Hab’b’ere buri ginawol,” or that “Actions should be judged according to intention.” This means that my perceptions of reality are not fully constitutive of reality. Often I have misperceived things. Later I have found that my initial perceptions were incorrect. The solution has not been to cling to such misperceptions, but to strive to understand reality free from the fetters of such thinking. It also means that it is often necessary to go beyond my own feelings or perception of a particular situation in order to understand things from the vantage point of another.

I recall an occasion from a decade ago when I was talking on the phone with my mother and I observed that my then seven year old son was misbehaving. As I was preparing to punish him my mother said, “Remember, he has the mind of seven.” I immediately stopped in my preparation to punish my son and begin to contemplate how his actions possibly appeared from his point of view. Attempting to view things from his perspective made what he was doing seem far more reasonable. His intent was to have fun, which given his age was to be expected. I realized that my perception was limited in not considering that there were other ways that his behavior could be interpreted. I have continued to work to apply this insight in my parenting and other situations as a way to adjust my perception, to prevent anger or to manage other feelings that could lead to it such as frustration, disappointment, and so on.

Hasara (loss)
Throughout life I have seen a number of occasions where anger compelled people to speak far more harshly than they should have. A text from ancient Kemet, The Instruction of Amenemope demonstrates that even the ancients were troubled by such speech.

“Swift is the speech of one who is angered,
More than wind [over] water.
He tears down, he builds up with his tongue,
When he makes his hurtful speech.”

This text notes that harsh words are often given velocity by anger. They also have the power to destroy.

I too have spoken harsh words, as well as being their recipient. Often such actions leave lasting damage in our interpersonal relationships. This reminds me of the Swahili proverb “Hasira, hasara.” This translates into English as “Anger [brings] loss.” This proverb notes that anger can be quite dangerous. It compel us to act in a manner which may result in loss. The losses might be material or immaterial. To my thinking, though both can be profound, material things can be replaced, however broken trust or a loss of emotional intimacy can be difficult to restore.

The king’s sword
The path from anger to loss is more fully explored in the following Yorùbá proverb which states “Ìbínú lọbá fi ńyọ idà; ìtìjú ló fi ḿbẹ ẹ,” and translates as “It is in anger that the king draws his sword; it is shame that makes him go through with the beheading.” This Yorùbá proverb expresses the ways in which anger compromises judgement. When we are angry we forsake reflective thinking, that is we cease to be critically aware of our thoughts, and with this our words and our actions. Due to this, we make foolish commitments in anger. We say or do things that set us on a ruinous path. Often, we lack the humility to turn away from it even when the anger has subsided. Hence, pride encourages commitment to those intemperate thoughts, words, and actions. Suffering is often the result.

Medew nefer (Good speech)
Given the foregoing, I have found that it is necessary to maintain practices that facilitate the kind of mindfulness that reflects good character, righteousness. A recurring theme in Kemetic thought is the practice of medew nefer, that is, “good speech”. Medew nefer is speech that reflects Maat (truth, order, righteousness, harmony, and so on) It is indicative of our commitment to the cultivation and practice of wisdom. Beyond this, medew nefer reflects self-control. As Ptah Hotep stated, “All conduct…is measured,” thus the practice of good speech requires the maintenance of mental and emotional discipline.

In his book, Intellectual Warfare, Jacob H. Carruthers, writes, “As the divine speech taught us at the beginning of our history, it is necessary that human beings, like the Creator, give life and power and health. We should examine everything that we do by that command. If our actions support life and power and health, then they are right. If not, then we ought to stop that line of action.” I think of this often. What does it mean to “give life and power and health”? How might such an imperative inform our thought, speech, and actions?

Recently I have been reading a book by Dr. Edward L. Powe titled Cosmic Combat Warriors. The book features accounts by various people from southern India about their practice of yoga and how it has impacted their lives. One of the recurring themes in their accounts is that their practice of yoga has enabled them to be calmer and less susceptible to anger.

One thing what was particularly interesting is that many of the respondents were both yoga practitioners and martial artists. Given their connection to traditions of warriorhood, as reflected by the martial arts, they echoed an idea expressed by Shaha Mfunidishi Maasi in his book The Essential Warrior where he wrote, ”The purpose of warriorship is to develop and enlightened being who is a human vortex of positive energy.” Herein, the warrior is one whose charged to serve others, to bring light into the world. Some of the respondents in Cosmic Combat Warriors reflected such a charge.

Their experience has also been my own. I too have found that the practice of yoga has been beneficial for both mind and body. In such a practice, yoga is not merely a form of exercise, but a holistic vehicle for personal transformation. I have also found similar effects by engaging in other types of movement practice mindfully and with consistency whether Qigong, Capoeira, Baguazhang, and so on.

Broken pots
I also try to remember that my efforts to live mindfully will be imperfect. I remind myself of the Ewe proverb which states “Tɔmedela ye gba na ze,” and translates into English as “Only the one who kindly accepts to fetch water may accidentally break the pot.” Hence it is in the practice of a thing where one’s errors are expressed. Were I too eschew any attempt at mental and emotional discipline, my discipline could not be found wanting, for it would not exist!

This also reflects an idea expounded by Shunryu Suzuku in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, when he wrote, “The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment.” This means that enlightenment as a type of transcendence over one’s mental fetters is not a place or destination, but a process. Thus it is in the doing that we become that which we seek to become. It is only in the doing that errors related to such actions can be made.

Given this, I try not to be too hard on myself when frustration or anger get the better of me. I evaluate my actions, attempt to make amends with anyone who was ill-affected by my actions, and devise a means to prevent a recurrence of such acts in the future.

Righteous anger
In closing, I do not believe that anger is inherently problematic. As Mwalimu Baruti writes in his book Iwa: A Warrior’s Character, anger can be purposeful, especially when it is “correctly directed against” those inimical to one’s well-being or the well-being of one’s loved one, one’s people, and so on. Hence anger, like all emotions has its place. The key is to be guided by wisdom, rather than the impetuousness of anger.

Following the heart: The Wisdom of Ptah Hotep

“Follow your heart as long as you live,
Do no more than is required,
Do not shorten the time of ‘follow-the-heart,’
Trimming its moment offends the ka.
Do not waste time on daily cares
Beyond providing for your household;
When wealth has come, follow your heart,
Wealth does no good if one is glum!”
-Ptah Hotep

Explanation: Though our lives present many necessary tasks, some of vital importance, Ptah Hotep reminds us that we should also seek fulfillment, to “follow your heart”. He emphasizes that one should give due attention to such matters and links such activity to the ka, which Obenga translates as “soul, spirit, the essence of a being, personality, fortune”. This is an important reminder, as we live in a society that not only emphasizes the pursuit of material gain over all other considerations–a striving that would have been considered vulgar in ancient Kemet, in addition to incessant toil. In fact, many today have reported an erasure of any clear separation between their personal and professional lives. For Ptah Hotep, to be consumed with work, disallows balance, which is vital to one’s development. Balance is key to our well-being. As Fu-Kiau has stated, “To be healthy is to be mu kinenga, ‘in balance’–with ourselves, our environment, and the universe.” Thus, while one should not waste time, one should, remember to satisfy one’s ka by following the heart.

The enlightened society: The fruits of struggle

Of course culture has been a core concern of a number of African intellectuals in this country. This has been more than something born of an an undue preoccupation with questions of identity, but has been centrally concerned with questions of epistemology and ideation.

Who are we? What sources inform this knowing? What special contribution might our cultural distinctiveness offer in our efforts to both envision and reshape the world in which we live? How does our degree of cultural grounding facilitate our ability to be discerning, that is critically engaged with the universalist creep of ideas ideas that are not only alien to our ancestors’ cultures, but also potentially corrosive to that which we seek to (re)establish. I fear that in our fervor to embrace increasingly shallow notions of progress, we are constantly stripping ourselves of the potential to know and move from a cultural center of our own, one requiring no sanction or approval from others.

I think of this, not only in relation to, but occasionally because of the spectacles of confusion that abound in our communities. The almost daily sight of young men walking about, pants sagging, shouting expletives in unison with the sounds streaming through their headphones, walking through the L-train selling marijuana, and seemingly bereft of an evaluative criteria of manhood outside of the empty and chronologically-determined manhood of this society is troubling. Of course this is nothing new, our confusion that is. This society has been devised to perpetuate it, to render it normal, desirable, and inescapable.

However I do not despair in the face of these things. This is not because I believe in some grand destiny where we will inevitably transform our condition, but because I see some of us, many of us doing this work using tools such as Capoeira, rites-of-passage, study groups, agriculture, language instruction, meditation, and so forth. It reminds me that processes of transformation do not necessarily begin on a scale that is grand equal to their aims. Their beginnings might be quite humble, their progress slow but inexorable. We too know this. We know that “Aendaye polepole hana budi afikile”, that is that “the person who walks with calm and care will arrive without fail”. We will arrive, at that place to which we desire to be, one wherein the reclamation of our culture and the restoration of our sovereignty are ends, and from there to even greater works which lay beyond. Works animated by the vision of sp tpy and whm mswt, that is the actualization of the cosmological and sociological ideal of a truly enlightened society.

Progressive perfection

The goal is progressive perfection and the teachings thus express the assumption of human perfectibility. As noted above in the section on ontology, this conception of progressive perfection is best expressed by the concept of ḫprt or khepert the perpetual process of becoming, perpetual striving, going through stages of moral achievement, self-mastery, reciprocity and all the other virtues or excellences (iḳrw, mnḫw, nfrw). Again, this anthropological concept is more aspiration than announcement of final achievement and evolves from a concept of progressive perfection rather than one of static perfection. In a word, it is an unfolding and becoming at ever higher levels, not a finished state of static completion.

-Maulana Karenga, Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt

On the abuse and misuse of Htp (hotep)

I recently learned of a t-shirt that shows a derivation of the word Htp and precedes to link the term with a range of problematic behaviors which are counter-productive to the interests of the Black community. I wonder how many people will wear the shirt, but can’t read this text below:
Htp001. This is the word Htp. It is a noun, and is defined by Dr. Rkhty Amen in her book Mejat Wefa as “Offerings, satisfaction, peace, greetings.”

I’m all for critiquing shallow and superficial thinking, but the term Htp (some pronounce it hotep or hetep) emerged out of one of the most vibrant Black intellectual movements of the late 20th Century. It was but one of a host of concepts borrowed from Nile Valley Culture and Civilization that was used in an attempt to understand more deeply the grand historical and cultural arc of African people as captured in the works of Cheikh Anta Diop and others. It was utilized as one small means of reviving the language of kmt or ancient Egypt, a language which Diop and Theophile Obenga shows exhibits strong connections with extant African languages. Diop’s research noted the same thing with regards to the culture of kmt and corresponding practices in pre-colonial and modern African cultures. In this way, ancient Egypt can be viewed as a vital component in the historical chain of events linking people of African descent today to their ancient past.

That this term is also used by some people who may be limited in their understanding or commitment to broader visions of social transformation does not invalidate the original thrust that gave rise to the invocation of terms such as Htp in the 1970s and 1980s from scholars such as Jacob H. Carruthers, Rkhty Amen, and so many others. Nor does it make these specious derivations (hotepping, hoteps, etc.) the most logical, appropriate, or intelligent terms to critique contradictory behaviors born of our shared oppression. Decolonizing one’s consciousness requires a new language, and can be achieved without a visceral and ahistorical rejection of one’s past.

On capitalism and post-capitalism: Five perspectives

“Every decisive gain achieved by the anti-capitalist forces will be countered by the state against the working class. This repression will be significantly greater against Blacks and other national minorities than experienced by other sectors of the working class. Socialists must come to the conclusion at the outset that there will be no peaceful culmination in the achievement of state power. ”
-Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America

“Think about the strangeness of today’s situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it’s much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism.”
-Slavoj Zizek, Zizek!

“The importance of socialism to the Kawaida project begins with the fact that the basic tenets of socialism are rooted in African communitarian thought and practice and are thus a part of our cultural heritage. As Nkrumah noted, communalism is the socio-political ancestor of socialism and socialism is communalism in modern form and circumstances. In this regard, we reaffirm the central African communitarian principles of shared work, shared wealth and shared decision-making in an unalienated communal environment–in a word, ujamaa. Secondly, socialism offers the most severe critique of capitalism and thus makes a necessary, even critical contribution to our understanding of the society we live in and struggle to change in the interest of social justice and human development.”
-Maulana Karenga, Kawaida: A Communitarian African Philosophy

“Not all economists have fallen for the notion that growth will go on forever. There are schools of economic thought that recognize nature’s limits and, while these schools have been largely marginalized in policy circles, they have developed potentially useful plans that could help society adapt.

The basic factors that will inevitably shape whatever replaces the growth economy are knowable.To survive and thrive for long, societies have to operate within the planet’s budget of sustainably extractable resources. This means that even if we don’t know in detail what a desirable post-growth economy and lifestyle will look like, we know enough to begin working toward them.

We must convince ourselves that life in a non-growing economy can be fulfilling, interesting, and secure. The absence of growth does not necessarily imply a lack of change or improvement. Within a non-growing or equilibrium economy there can still be continuous development of practical skills, artistic expression, and certain kinds of technology. In fact, some historians and social scientists argue that life in an equilibrium economy can be superior to life in a fast-growing economy: while growth creates opportunities for some, it also typically intensifies competition—there are big winners and big losers, and (as in most boom towns) the quality of relations within the community can suffer as a result. Within a non-growing economy it is possible to maximize benefits and reduce factors leading to decay, but doing so will require pursuing appropriate goals: instead of more, we must strive for better; rather than promoting increased economic activity for its own sake, we must emphasize whatever increases quality of life without stoking consumption. One way to do this is to reinvent and redefine growth itself.”
-Richard Heinberg, The End of Growth

“It is the purpose of education, which ultimately makes it Maatian. The most fundamental difference between Western and African education is its purpose. The purpose of Western education is to train people to function within a Capitalist system, to fill the ranks of the workforce as capitalists, to consume the material things produced by the society, to acquire position, money, power, to gain control over others and the planet. Quite differently, the purpose of Maatian education is the protection and development of all life, society, self, and to respect and care for others and the Earth, to show compassion and create harmonious balance and health.”
-Rkhty Amen, A Life Centered Life: Living Maat

African spirituality and the warrior tradition

After both participating in and observing a dialogue about spirituality and the martial arts, I was compelled to reflect upon the ethical and conceptual modalities informed by African cultural systems, and the ways in which these inform processes of social and personal transformation. These discourses have been situated in a range spaces wherein the combative implications might be explicit or implicit.

Explicit implications pertain to those discourses that explicate the context of war and struggle as reflected in the Odù Ifá, which states, “The constant soldier is never unready, even once.” (Òwónrín Otúrà, 159:1) Elsewhere it emphasizes the necessity of struggle, as a process which refines both one’s character and challenges the world.
“Fighting in front; fighting behind
If it does not lead to one’s death,
It will cause one to become a courageous person…” (Òkrànran Ká, 189:2)
As a sacred text, the Odu Ifa is a replete with references to vigilance, courage, and the importance of battle waged for the greater good.

Similarly we find these ideas expressed in other contexts within the sacred texts that are implicit references to a warrior tradition. One notable, but easily overlooked example is a text from Kemet (ancient Egypt), which the Egyptologists call The Prophesies of Neferti. Wherein it states, “iw mAat r iyt r st.s isft dr.ti r rwty”, which can I have translated as “Maat, in relation to injustice, is in her place. Cast out isfet.” The point here is that the expulsion of isfet, disorder, is not assumed to be beyond the realm of human agency. Quite the contrary, humans as expressions of nTr (phonetically netcher, which can be thought of as totality, which the Egyptologists translate as god or divinity), are charged with the task of restoring order in the wake of its imposition. Thus the maintenance of order (mAat) requires, among other things, vigilance–an implicit appeal to things martial. This becomes more explicit elsewhere in the text where it states “tw r Ssp xaw nw aHA anx tA m shA”, which translated states that people will “take up weapons of war” and that the “the land lives in turmoil”. Again, the martial tradition is invoked, but here in explicit terms, as the people themselves rise up to “Cast out isfet.”

Beyond the combative dimension, one should note that this text seeks to affirm the necessity of the people acting as the stewards of order. This is an extension of what Theophile Obenga states when he writes, “The pharaoh, in his capacity as guarantor of Maât…He was responsible for the maintenance of universal harmony.” Jacob H. Carruthers says something similar where he states, “The Niswt’s overall function, like that of Wosir, is the establishment of Maat in Tawi, i.e., to establish conditions where enlightenment will prevail over ignorance”. Niswt is the the ruler of upper and lower Kemet. Wosir is the nTr that the Greeks referred to as Osiris. Tawi is the united two lands (upper and lower Kemet). In this sense we see a shared social practice in the defense of order (mAat) extending from the highest levels of government to the denizens of the land.

In conclusion, I concur, African spirituality is replete with appeals to a warrior tradition. In fact, one might argue that spirituality is sufficiently diffuse in form as to represent a totalizing element of the culture, and that this is synergistically linked to an insistence upon vigilance, lest the structures which sustain order and the good condition be lost.

Here I offer some thoughts on what one such idea, mAat, means as a form of liberatory praxis:

“A lonely truth can be brought down by a pack of lies”: PBS’s Black Pharaohs, concessions, and the on-going Battle for Kemet

Introduction

The Black Pharaohs is merely the latest reflection of the on-going intellectual assault being waged against African culture, African history, and African people. We are besieged on all sides, surrounded by an implacable foe bent on our annihilation.

For some the connection between this seemingly informative film and the Intellectual War that Dr. Jacob H. Carruthers wrote of may not be obvious. Some may see this film as a valuable acknowledgement of the role of Africans in the ancient Nile Valley. Others may see it as setting the record straight as it relates to the history of Kush (Nubia). Yet, this film represents the traditional forms of duplicity characteristic of European’s historiography of African people. This perpetration of falsehood is not simply about sowing seeds of confusion, rather it is about posing our ancestors as the villains in a complex political drama, continuing on the narrative of African mental enfeeblement, and perpetuating the myth that Europeans are central or even relevant to the reconstruction of Africa’s ancient past.

Years ago during a presentation on Kush, Dr. Anderson Thompson stated that while the white intellectual world was unwilling to loose their hold on Kemet and its history and embrace the obvious notion that it was an African (Black) civilization, that they were willing to acknowledge the obvious blackness of Kush—offering a concession of sorts to African-Centered scholars. In this paper I examine The Rise of the Black Pharaohs as a multi-layered message. I argue that this film simultaneously concedes to African-Centered scholars a share of Kemet’s legacy, while also derisively characterizing that legacy.

Representation as reality reconstruction

Cultural Studies scholar Stuart Hall discusses the role representation. Representation has a dualistic nature. It is the re-presentation of reality. It is also the process of constructing a form that stands in for reality. Herein representation is afforded immense power in the constitution of reality. Thus media representations of us and our ancestors are not a casual affair, but are a means to construct reality in a manner often detrimental to our interest.

Truth and falsehood

There’s an African proverb from present-day Mali that states “A lonely truth can be brought down by a pack of lies.” This proverb offers the image of truth as a lone traveler on the road who finds themselves unwittingly surrounded by a gang of fiendish bandits appearing out of nowhere. Truth fights courageously, but in the end is subdued by the thieves. This proverb suggests that truth, though righteous and just, can be overwhelmed by falsehood. This relationship is at the core of The Black Pharaohs. The lonely truth of the African presence in the Nile Valley is enveloped within a web falsehoods that ultimately contribute to its undoing.

The film offers an overview of the relationship between Kemet and Kush. It discusses the Kemetic occupation and annexation of Kushite land at various junctures. It also discusses the eventual ascendance of Kush and its conquest of Kemet with the establishment of the 25th Dynasty. Finally, it discusses the eventual fall of the 25th Dynasty, the decline of Kush, and the efforts of modern archaeologists to reconstruct this history. However throughout the film were a number of dubious claims. I will discuss each of these in turn.

The first problematic claim was the idea of enmity was the normalized state of foreign relations between these two societies. The featured experts on Kush assure us that Kush was a site of continuous subjugation by Kemet, that the Kushites were so loathed that the Kemites practiced form of “…racial profiling”, as they, among other things, portrayed the Kushites as “…more tribal, more savage…”. Thus it is Kemet, not modern Europeans, who are the architects of race and racism. It is the Kemites who constructed the iconography of tribalism and savagery, not 19th and 20th Century Europeans. And it is Kemet that is credited with initiating the campaign against African culture and humanity, and not modern Europe.

Elsewhere I have written that “…the enterprise of history itself is not simply a matter of methods of inquiry, or the application of tools of investigation, but rather it is a process that is directed or informed by the ideational imperatives of the period of its conceptualization” (Rashid 2014, 32). Thus history, as with all human enterprise, is a function of culture. It is not simply a matter of the technical application of methods, but reflects the ideational imperatives of the society, most notably its worldview constructs.

The argument that antagonism was the driving force in Kemet-Kush relations is in part based on the European worldview, wherein the political relations of Kemet and Kush can only be viewed in militaristic terms, terms of dominion and subordination (Carruthers 1997). What is most notable here is that this oppositional dichotomy does not consider the possibility of ancestral, cultural or political affinity between these two societies. The very designation of Kush as the source of the Black pharaohs, suggest that Kemet is the source of pharaohs that are non-black. Thus while the blackness of Kush serves to moor it to the African world, one can only presume that Kemet’s mooring is to western Asia by implication. Therefore at the center of the presumption of natural and deep hostility between Kemet and Kush is the implied racial difference, and with it the racialization of the Kushites as inferiors. This assertion seeks to drive a wedge between the affinity of these societies, and link Kemet to the historical arc of the modern European world and its loathing of Africans.

This argument most aptly captures the degree to which a cultural worldview effectively shapes what is known. I call this phenomenon the epistemic horizon and describe it as a dynamic perimeter of knowledge or awareness. It proscribes the bounds of what is known and knowable. If culture, or more specifically worldview is a mediator of what is known and knowable then the capacity of European scholars, socialized within an ontological tradition of whiteness and the political-economy of white supremacy must, by necessity, enter into the study of African history and culture fettered by these conceptual frames. This poses a number of quandaries with respect to modern Europeans and their ability to forthrightly deal with Africans and their history.

The second problematic claim was that Kush lacked a cultural center, instead adopting the culture of their Kemetic conquerors. Thus Kemet is now also guilty of cultural imperialism, and the Kushites the victims of cultural suppression.

There are a number of puzzling things about this claim. One is that it ignores archaeological evidence from early Kush (such as the incense burner from Qustul) that displays iconography associated with Kemet. The anteriority of these images predates any Kemetic military incursion into Kush, thus refuting the thesis that military conquest was the principal means of any Kemet-Kush knowledge transfer. Another plausible, but absent idea from the film was that Kemet and Kush shared a common culture, one that although variegated, shared a common basis and origin.

The cultural imperialism argument fails to capture the synergistic relations of the various societies that emerged along the Hapi Iteru (Nile River). Furthermore, What this argument does succeed at reinforcing are white supremacist claims of African intellectual inferiority. Thus while the film’s commentators critiqued the archaeologists of the colonial period (most notably George Reisner) for their anti-Black racism, they reify these claims in their wholesale dismissal of Kushite cultural agency.

The third false claim is that the geographical orientation of Kemet was towards Western Eurasia, not Africa south of the first cataract. This is evident when the film’s narrator states that the Kemites, during one of their many campaigns against Kush, sees Jebel Barkal for the first time. The obvious implication here is that Kemet’s origins lie, not to the South, deeper in Africa’s interior, but to the North in Eurasia. Thus Kemet’s ancestral and cultural moorings in Africa have been severed, and it has instead been made a child of Eurasia, and Africa south of the first cataract is presented as a land of mystery (or plunder) for the ancient Kemites.

This film and its numerous deficits are not aberrations. These are not careless mistakes, or hapless errors. This is an assault on African history. Worse still, it is an attempt to undermine the efforts of Africans working towards historical reclamation by disparaging the achievements of our ancestors, and by extension, seeking to diminish the importance of our work as scholars to explicate their history. This assault however is not isolated. It is merely a repetition of earlier strikes against, and rather than incapacitating us, it reminds us to rally our forces, maintain vigilance, and to strike back knowing that this is intellectual warfare.

ASCAC and the defense of truth

The work of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization provides an essential vehicle to facilitate both the reconstruction and dissemination of African history. It provides a mechanism via which we can augment our capacity to defend the historical legacy of African civilization, in addition to sustaining our efforts to reconstruct and restore it. Central to this work is the importance of ASCAC and affiliated groups expanding our outreach capacity so as to maximize our capacity to shape the consciousness of our people. This work should utilize every available means: study groups, publications, conferences, streaming media, and so forth.

Undefended, truth will fall prey to marauders. The defense of truth is our collective charge. We must stand vigilant.

References

Carruthers, Jacob H. 1997. “A Memorandum on an African World History Project.” In The Preliminary Challenge, edited by Jacob H. Carruthers and Leon C. Harris, 356-361. Los Angeles: Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations.

Rashid, Kamau. 2014. “Thoughts on Returning Home and Healing the Casualties of Intellectual War.” Kemetic Voice no. 1 (1):31-35.