BLOODSTAINED MONUMENTS

BLOODSTAINED MONUMENTS

Before the 5th century CE, there was no record of wars and tribal conflicts or desolation in the Sahel and west Africa (which was known as the Soudan and later became known as Guinee, hence the waters on the coast was known as 'gulf of guinea' in the 17th century CE). Not even in the oral traditions of the 'griots' of West Africa nor the 'tyo' of the Benue trough nor the 'Isibidi' records of the aja'gbam people of the Bight of Biafara in south-east Nigeria and the South-west of present day Cameroon was there any records or folklores that had telltales of bitter wars, tribal conflicts and desolation in Africa. This does not mean that Africans never had differences among the national, tribal groups. 

 

As patient researches indicates, there were "inner circles" in every African society, especially in the west and southern Africa. This was a place where the 'elders' of the communities gather to make decisions in secret. Crisis were resolved here and kings were chosen here. There were kings who ruled without ever attending this "inner circle". Nelson Mandela spoke of this circle in which 'all the elders sat in a circle' formation and his uncle, the regent was often the last to speak. Not every ruling king qualified to be in this inner circle as Mandela pointed out.

  

Among the Ngala people of of the Congo and the Tiv people of the Benue river in Nigeria, this  "inner circle" ultimately had a stronger hold on the society, more than the ruling kings and lords and chiefs of the land, most of who had never gone to the "inner circle." For example 'ityo' was the inner circle of the Tiv people.

 Abydos was an ancient place in ancient Kemet where Africans travelled to, through long distance along the Nile and through the Sahara desert for spiritual observance and decision making. Osiris was the God of this land at about 3600 BCE. It was required that when you are in another's land, you pay homage to their god. Each region had their god and it was traditional to pay homage to the gods of a land when visiting or passing through.

The city of Memphis had 'Ptah'. 'Oduduwa' was the God of the Yoruba people of West Africa. Nyame, dogbes'lisa, Kweti, were the Gods of the Ashanti people and so on. Abydos was the first ever place of pilgrimage in the whole world. This was before the first Hebrew came into existence in 1675 BC. Before there was the concept of a Jehovah nor Allah(a'lat) nor Jesus and Muhammad. These concepts were to come at different later times. This was before the coming of the Hyksos, the Persians and the Caucasoid groups known today as Arabs. It was before there was Rome, Greece Jerusalem or Mecca and it was centuries before the first western European 'learnt to wear shoes or live in a house that had a window' -Dr John Henrik Clarke.

These "inner circles" ensured that there was peace and trade relationships as well as the exchange of skills and know-how. That was why, in the 19th century CE, most researchers and Anthropologists discovered that, most of Africa had similar or the same farm tools as well as spices and ways of preparing and eating or storing their food. 

 Wherever there was extended conflicts among people, it was obvious that 'negotiations' in the 'inner circles' had fallen apart. One example of this was when the Dogan people moved away from the Nile region towards west Africa when they were forced to worship another god other than their own. Some researchers concluded that the Yoruba( who are now in 

Nigeria, Benin republic, Togo, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago etc) and Igala are said to have initially moved to West Africa from the North-east too.

These 'inner circles' were mostly eclipsed by the forces of Islam in the 7th century CE, especially in the west and east Africa. 

 Trans-Saharan trade routes connected African markets to the Mediterranean from about the 3rd century CE. Through these main routes(which were three in total), flowed goods, but with it, also came foreign cultures. In the 7th century CE, Islam as a religious ideology arrived north African and spread to the east, to Zanzibar and to the west, to Timbuktu and the Senegal river. Whatever these 'inner circles' represented was in complete contrast with the foreign ideology from the Arabian peninsula. For better understanding of this, we have to look at what was the situation in the Arabian peninsula, in the 7th century CE before Sa'id Bin Abdullah marched on north Africa in 634 CE. Masjid al haraam (the forbidden gathering place) which was a similar place to the 'inner circles' in Africa, and was located in Petra was shattered by Al Zubair and the focus of all Islamic gathering was later centred on Mecca. 

Any land taken over by islam was meant to look over to Mecca for directions and guidance. African 'inner circles' began to shatter like eggshells when thousand were forced to embrace Islam through a "Koran or the sword and slavery" approach that was initiated by the Arabs. A good example of this form of 'shattering' could be historical seen, from when the Fulani people moved to the land of the Hausa people in the 16th century CE. The Fulanis were Muslims and had aided in the propagation of Islam in west Africa through their 'holy wars' and nomadic travels. 

The Hausa people were sun worshipers and believed in farming and their traditional ways. With the aid of Islamic indoctrination, the Fulani people who had come in from the Fouta D'jallon highlands in Eastern Guinea were able to subjugate the Hausa people, culturally and politically till the Hausa became the slaves of the Fulani. This domination had endured among these two groups till date. 

 In East Africa, Zanzibar for example, when the Persians, Omani/Arabs came to the island, through religious indoctrination, they, within a short period, became the slave masters and rulers of the island, other than the native Africans.

 Tippu Tib was Omani, with an African mother. He was a notorious slave trader. He once buried 40 slaves in the foundation of his house in order "to straighten the foundation of the building." This house still stands till date and at some point was occupied by Tippu Tib's grand, grand, grand, grand daughter known as Ummi. The famous slave market where slaves were auctioned at a post is now occupied by the Anglican cathedral of Zanzibar, and the post where slaves were whipped to test their strength and health is now the altar of the cathedral. 

This, according to the priest "was to atone for centuries of bloodshed at that location. Because, captured persons whom a price could not be gotten for, from the prospective buyers, were dragged off the post and killed at the spot by the slave trader who brought them to the market. 

The extent of this form of enslavement can be measured with the extent to which the 'inner circles' of the society had cracked like eggshells and Zanzibar later became, mockingly, the 'cindellela of the east.'  "Things had fallen apart and the center could no longer hold" -Chinua Achebe.

When the Portuguese arrived west Africa in the 15th century CE, and were later joined by poor European nations of then, like the French, British and the Dutch, African polity was already unstable. For example, in 1492 when Sunni Ali, emperor of the Songhai empire died and was succeeded later by Askia Mohammed, internal turmoil had already disrupted agriculture and trade. The Tuareg of Tenere had taken over the Trans-Saharan trade routes and were exploiting both merchants of goods and the Arab slave traders until Askia Mohammed waged war on them and was able to reinstall order. 

The scribes of Timbuktu who had fled during the repressive rule of Sunni Ali, returned with their own armies. 

When the Portuguese began penetrating into African societies through trade and exploration, and the British later joined with the use of religion as a tool of deception, Africans, especially West African national groups like the Fulbe, Igbo, Akan, Mossi, Madinka, Wolof, Yoruba, Bambara and so on, were so pulled apart from each other, out of distrust, as a result of differences that could not be resolved at the already shattered "inner circles..." 

And when one community saw foreigners ravaging a neighbouring community that they had concluded were their enemies, they stood aside and watched, sometimes even aided the process. They might have viewed it in this way; that the 'foreigners were just doing away with their enemies.' This was how less than a thousand people who had arrived on ships at a time, from across the ocean were able to tear apart millions of people, sometimes in a very dramatic way. And it was the aiding process that made most modern, western historians to conclude that "Africans sold Africans." Otherwise "there was nothing in Europe that Europeans could give to the African" to entice him/her, enough to make the African seek humans to sell to the Europeans.

 This is often countered with the saying that Africans "received guns, gunpowder and booze" in exchange.

 Today, what is left of these "inner circles" is considered by the natives and city people in Africa, whose minds had been shaped by Abrahamic religions and western indoctrination, as secret societies or a domain of witchcraft and evil activities. In most cases though, there are  good reasons for this conclusions. The "inner circles" do not serve the purpose they used to stand for in ancient times... 

But little too, do the Africans think a bit of the fact that, the Europeans who took the items belonging to the "inner circles' of ancient times, did not destroyed them but took them and preserved them in Museums, private collections and homes of royal families in Europe, America and western Asia.

As microscopically few as the Europeans were,  in comparison with the teeming millions of Africans, "Europe had dominated us for the past 500 years," as Dr Ivan Van Sertima put it.

 "A people can not be destroyed from without, except those people had already destroyed themselves from within...." 

 David Diop, wrote of the African experience since the first modern contact with western Europe in the 15th century CE, in a poem known as 'The Vulture.'

"In those days

When civilization kicks us in the face, when holy water slapped our cringing brows, the vulture built in the shadow of their talons, the bloodstained monument of tutelage.

In those days,

There were painful laughter on the metallic hell of the roads

...and the monotonous rhythm of the paternoster, drowned the howling on the plantations.

O bitter memories of extorted kisses

Of promises broken at the point of a gun.

Of foreigners who did not seem human, who knew all books but did not know love.

But we whose hands fertilize the womb of the earth; in spite of your songs of pride,

In spite of desolate villages of torn Africa, 

Hope was preserved in us as in a fortress.

And from the mines of Swaziland to the factories of Europe,

Spring will be reborn under our bright steps." - The vulture, by David Diop.