Aristotle Botched Afrikan Mystery Schools

Master Teacher of Afrikan History-Prof. John Henrik Clarke: African's Survival From Antiquity to Beyond the 21st Century

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The Master Teachers all had one thing in common, they read and wrote a lot-in addition to that, they gave lectures and traveled all over the world lecturing and collecting, or as Prof. Clarke said he and Prof. Jackson would be "Hunting"" for books in old used book stores, libraries and so forth throughout the world.

Even in the lectures below, Prof. Clarke cites some books and writers and in a direct way by encouraging listeners the way he tells and asks the audience that he knows that they have not 'read' the books he is talking about-and confirms it by asking them the question and receives embarrassed giggles and inaudible sounds or nervous stifled laughs-but in the end encouraging them to try to get the books he was giving/telling them about.

This is the real problem that he was faced with in as he states this in his lectures - the fact that most of them did not do the necessary and 'deep reading' in order for them or us to be able to deal with African History.

From the challenges issued by Dr. Clarke that Africans should write their own history and not expect that the former oppressor will write it for Africans-he exhorts his listeners to read and write their own story through history; I have tried to heed to their clarion call: writing and composing African history from an African-centered perspective.

On the face of it, it sounds reasonable and a good idea. Doing it is another matter when one begins to listen to Clarke in his lectures and the references he doles out with such ease, that in the end it becomes very intimidating and a huge task.

The proficiency, efficiency and intellectual vastness of his lectures, writing and speeches defy and dwarf any effort one was going to have in writing anything clear, compact and choc-full of information and data.

when one attempts to write about the Historian's lessons and lectures about African history, and formulate or write the history one has learnt from schools or from the Master teachers themselves-it becomes apparent what a huge task and undertaking it is.

I will not use all the tapes that there are about his lectures; and there are still those lectures that he recorded whenever he lectured over the decades as a professor and African historian-which if ever transcribed, hold a wealth of information and more references.

He had a very deep personal library of rare books, manuscripts and audio files along with video/films. A bit of mention about his greatness and the libraries that have been named after him, and the Web sites will be in order here to pay tribute to a man who read and encouraged African people to read and write.

- In 1986, the Africana Library was named in honor of John Henrik Clarke, who was widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of Africana Studies. Dr. Clarke played an important role in the early history of Cornell University's Africana Studies & Research Center. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at the Center in the 1970s. He also made an invaluable contribution to the establishment of its curricula.

- Dr. Clarke is the author of numerous articles that have appeared in leading scholarly journals. He also served as the author, contributor, or editor of 24 books. In 1968 along with the Black Caucus of the African Studies Association, Dr. Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association. In 1969 he was appointed as the founding chairman of the Black and Puerto Rican Studies Department at Hunter College in New York City.

- Dr. Clarke was most known and highly regarded for his lifelong devotion to studying and documenting the histories and contributions of African peoples in Africa and the Diaspora.

- Dr. Clarke is often quoted as stating that "History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be."

- The John Henrik Clarke Africana Library is a special library located within Cornell University's Africana Studies and Research Center. The library is one of nineteen units of the University Library system, and offers a full range of services. Its collection of volumes focuses on the social and political dimensions of the history and culture of peoples of African ancestry. It supports the curriculum of the Africana Studies and Research Center and sustained, independent study.

Included here are basic books, complete collections of works of important writers, and highly selective research materials that complement the collections housed in Cornell University's research libraries. The Africana Library's documentation collection contains valuable primary source materials, including copies of rare monographs, manuscripts, newspapers, and journal publications on microfilm and microfiche. Those resources focus on especially important material on the American civil rights and Black Power movements.

- The Africana Center was founded in 1969 following black student protests on the Cornell Campus. One notable event involved black students depositing hundreds of books at the undergraduate library circulation desk and denouncing them as irrelevant to their experiences. Historically, the faculty of the Africana Studies and Research Center has always had a strong commitment towards maintaining its own library. The Africana Center included a library when it was first established. Later, after its building was destroyed by arsonists (April 1, 1970), it garnered funds from the university and local community to replace materials lost from its library collection. Once it relocated to its present site the library was prominently established near the building's entrance.

- In the late 1970s there was heated debate on campus about relocating the Africana Center once more. Because it's location was some distance away from central campus (approximately 20 minutes walking time) and many of its courses were taught at the Center, some considered the Africana Studies program too segregated. A number of more central locations were proposed for relocation. In the end these were rejected because they entailed substantial reductions in space. Ultimately, the Center's fledgling library benefited from this consequence. A reduction in space would have affected collection size and overall growth.

- During 1984-85 the Africana Center and University Library reached an agreement to transfer the library administratively to the University Library. Faculty of the Africana Studies & Research Center named the library in honor of Dr. John Henrik Clarke during the summer of 1985. As a distinguished historian, Dr. Clarke was instrumental in establishing the Africana Center's curriculum in the 1970s and taught courses in black history at Cornell.

Several years later, in 1990, the Africana Center and University Library collaborated to raise $50,000 to renovate the library's space and enhance the overall level of service. The John Henrik Clarke Africana Library now occupies most of the lower level of the Africana Center's three-story building. A third of this space is shared with a graduate student lounge and a computer lab. All of the library's holdings are included in the University Library's online catalog, and the Africana Library itself houses several online catalog terminals, a circulation terminal, CD-ROM and various audio-visual equipment, and has access to numerous locally networked bibliographic databases.

I set out to compose an article on the suggestions he touches upon and repeatedly states that we need to read and write our own history.

The confusion that is apparent today in South Africa, is because Africans either write their books with the collaboration of Whites, and do not yet produce that kind of historical reading that can be easily read by the population they are writing that history-without any collaboration of White people.

Whenever one listens to Clarke's lectures and lessons, he is always giving the listeners references as to what to read concerning what he is speaking about. He was simply a walking African History library.

He always stressed and encouraged the listeners or students to read, and would give a bit about every book or writer or stories or characters/dates of the books he was recommending.

I have given a bit about his libraries in memory of the fact that he himself was a walking library, bibliography and encyclopedia of African Historiography, History books and authors with themes that pertained to African history and made efforts at trying to make it much more understandable and easy to get, for those who were listening to his lessons or lectures, and even on his videos, he still does the same thing: give a reference(s) of books that should be consulted by the listener or students to further their own understanding of that part of history he might have been talking about during a lecture or lesson, especially in his YouTube videos, liberally yet extensively posted below for anyone interested to listen to and pick up whatever they want from Clarke.

The piece above about his libraries, are in part my way of acknowledging this aspect of Prof. Clarke: that of consistently and constantly giving names and books that can be consulted for further reading and understanding of the lectures he was giving. And, by the way, these were and rare and hard to find books, but could trace them if one "Hunted" seriously in any old used book stores, as advised by Clarke when he was talking about himself and Jackson, hanging out, discussing, and "Hunting" for books in old and used bookstores; libraries and the web too have most of the books he recommended. This Hub is in part honoring a great African History scholar, and my own paltry efforts in writing and showing the relevance of his lectures to the African history of South Africa, by attempting to compose and rewrite African South African history from an African Centered Perspective.
Dr. John Hendrik Clarke - African World Revolution: Africans At The Crossroads
A Historical Bird's Eye-view On The Master Teacher

See And View the 13 Master Teachers" videos Conducted By Gil Noble on "Like It Is" TV Show[at the end of the Hub]

When and Old Griot or Historian Passes On-It's Like a library Burned

Studying and learning from Clarke is very important and rewarding and edifying. One's consciousness is aroused and gaining knowledge becomes a weapon which he so selflessly gives of. Clarke also teaches one about "learning" and "understanding' history he has a way of cajoling his listeners to evaluate their own effort and reading into African History, and others he inspires to begin to write history by learning from him and his lectures and speeches on African Historiography.

The lectures that follow below are lengthy, so is the written material of the writing of Professor Clarke and mine included, was my 'experimental' efforts at composing and correcting African history in South Africa. But his lectures, in their length, touch on various themes of African Historiography as only a Master Teacher like Prof. Clarke could deliver.

Clarke does his speeches, lectures and writing in a way that anchors Africa History in the "respectful commentary of World History", as he would point out over and over again, to drive the point home. What he also does so well either writing, delivering a lecture or making a speech, he doles-out reference for further reading on the subjects he would be talking about to his audience, author, date and all, and without skipping a beat, continue and elaborate on other interesting and new issues while treading on his main theme of the lesson or speech and lecture.

I will not attempt to explain all the videos of the lectures and speeches by prof. Clarke. I refer that the reader/viewer listen to them themselves, and all I will do is delineate and tabulate the writings of Prof. Clarke, and indulge in experimental historical writing akin to or closely following that of Clarke in his lectures throughout the writing of this Hub. The writing I will be attempting, will be culled from different historical time lines- say from the 11th century to 2013 and beyond.

Prof. Clarke left us a body of work that is extensive including the libraries in different institutions named after him. He also had his own personal library in his house which will be see in one of the video below where he is being interviewed in his house and he donated these on his passing. He was himself a walking library and bibliography and he dispensed liberally of these to his listeners and students. He always reminded his listeners or students to read more, and pay attention to the literature that is found all over the world, and that modern day African history students should collect and collate these into their reading, research and studying.

Now that he has passed on to the ancestors, it is up to us to take up on his challenge and begin to do what I have done in this article: begin to take baby steps in composing and rewriting the History of Africans in Africa and in the Diaspora. I will also be posting a lot of African History speeches and lecture by Prof. Clarke and hope that the readers and viewers of this Hub will get a thorough and better Understanding as to why we called Professor Clark and others, "Master Teachers". Throughout the Hub, I have posted videos of different lectures by Clarke, but lengthy for the readers/viewers to listen to some of the Master Teachers takes, who I will be creating Hubs for and presenting them and hawking their historical wares to all and sundry.
Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism Paperback by John Henrik Clarke
The Slave Trade, Cultural Dependency and Cultural Terrorism

Just as Clarke, in the videos above throughout and below in the Hub gives the narrative of his life, he was also just as prolific with his delivery of the History of the Africans. As he said, he was looking for his people in the Bible, and could not understand why they were missing from the book of God. This then led him to search for the true history of Africans, that in the end, had learned since then that story of the Bible was stolen by Europeans from Africans in Africa. In his later scholarly years, he had reached a level of talking and lecturing and writing about Africa that can be seen throughout his tapes below which he characterized as if it was breathing to him. He then understood, postulated and formulated that we as Africans needed to control the image of God, as our own image. This ultimately led him to write:

"Early in the history of man there was no name for the human condition we refer to as slavery because no one had ever been relegated to that condition. The circumstances that would create the condition did not exist and the idea had never influenced a single mind. The enslavement of one people by another, in my opinion, grew out of fear, need and greed. In order to appease the conscience of the enslaver, a rationale had to be created - the enslaver had to convince himself and his victim that this new condition placed the victim and his family outside the realm of humanity.

"The general problem confronting African history is this: how to reorganize effectively, through meaningful research, all of the fragments of the past into a single ancient epoch, an origin which will establish African continuity; if the ancients were not victims of a mirage, it should be easy enough to draw upon another series of arguments and proofs for the union of history of Ethiopian and Egyptian societies with the rest of Africa. Thus combined, these histories would lead to a properly patterned past which it would be seen that (ancient) Ghana rose in the interior (West Africa) of the continent at the moment of Egyptian decline, just as the western European empires were born with the decline of Rome.

"Europe was emerging from the lethargy of the Middle Ages. It was regaining its confidence, manifesting a new from of nationalism and extending that nationalism into racism. The Africans had goods and services that the European needed, and the European had the basic technology that the African needed. Had the African needs and the European needs been considered on an equal basis, there could have been an honest exchange between African and European and the african could have gained from the technology needed and the European could still have had labor in large numbers without the Slave Trade and the massive destruction of humanity that went into the Slave Trade. This idea, only a dream in the minds of a few men, could have changed the world for the better had it been seriously considered.

That is why we need to rewrite and reconsider our narratives about African History. Diop writes: "The history of Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written until African Historians connect it with the history of Egypt [and I hasten to add, with the History of South africa-which has now been dated with civilization that existed 170,000 years ago-I will be embarking on this historical Hub as soon as time and opportunity presents itself]

Diop shows the interrelationship between African nations, North and South, and proves, [because in this case proof is needed again and again], that ancient Egypt was a distinct African nation and was not historically or culturally a part of Asia or Europe. Diop and other writers of African history called for a reconsideration of the role that African people have played in history and their impact on the development of early societies and institutions. Basil Davidson, makes the following statement of how, Africans being in Africa, was left out of the respectable commentary of world history:

"But isn't Egypt, other issues apart, quite simply a part of Africa? That, it seems, is a merely geographical irrelevance. The civilization of Pharaohnic Egypt, arising sometime around 3500 B.C. and continuing at least until the Roman dispositions, has been explained to us as evolving either in more or less total isolation from Africa or as a product of West Asian stimulus. On this deeply held view, the land of ancient Egypt appears to have detached itself from the delta of the Nile, some five and a half thousand years ago, and sailed off into the mediterranean on a course veering broadly towards the coasts of Syria. And there it apparently remained, floating somewhere in the seas of the Levant, until Arab conquerors hauled it back to where it had once belonged.

"Now what is one to make of this unlikely view of the case, coming as it has from venerable seats of learning? Does its strength derive from a long tradition of research and explanation? Is it what Europeans have always thought to be true? Have the records of ancient times been found to support it? As Martin Bernal has now ably shown in his "Black Athena", the remarkable book about which I am chiefly writing here, the answer to such questions is plainly and unequivocally in the negative.

"The ancient Egyptians were Black(African)-is a belief which has been denied in Europe since about 1830, not before. It is a denial, in short, that belongs to the rise of modern European imperialsim. I say, "new racism" because it followed and further expanded the older racism which spread around Europe after the Atlantic Slave Trade had reached its high point of "take off" in about 1630." This contributed to the miseducation of Africans in various ways.

Cultural Dependency And Cultural Terrorism

The cultural depenndnency of African people and many other ethnic groups is due to years of miseducation and the gradual loss of control of intergenerational cultural transmision. Most Africans are in deep debt.Culturally dependent people will believe, internalize and utilize anything that they are socialized to believe is correct. For this reason, Africans around the globe copy European standards of beauty. In certainAfrican countries, (Korea and some Asiatic countries), there is a crises in the number of people who bleach their skin in an effort to lighten it and look more European.

"Instead of growing food or practicing natural medical practices, that were passed on to us eons ago, we are totally dependent on others. It is ironic that those who make money on the medicine and other medical remedies today, studied and copied the practices of indigenous people around the world; the very people that they called backward. Now, instead of benefiting from the legacy of their ancestors, the descendants are dependent for medicine, food, and other things needed to survive.

"Africans have begun to internalize the views that exploiters have of us and our traditions. Many of us have become eager seekers to be educated in alien traditions, without criticism of them. For the past few centuries, the mass education that we receive in Africa and the Diaspora is rooted largely in Western European education orientation and practice.

"This condition has led to financial and political dependence. We no longer create the things that we need to survive; not food, clothing, or shelter. Even those things that we do create such as our music are under the control of others who have turned these very creativities against us. Destructive images are carried back into African communities, where the messages of uplift should be found."

In short then, dependency and lack of national autonomy has made Africans slaves to other foreign people who hold autonomy and their own brand of independence(Imperialism,etc.) over Africans. It is attempting to unshackle and free themselves fro such servitude that African writers and activists are needed to right the wrongs being perpetrated upon the billions of Africans globally. That is why I am writing about Master Teachers, and attempting to learn how to do what they are doing within and through the lectures, speeches, writing and references they so freely give of.
Race and Resistance: African-Americans in the Twenty-First Century (Race and Resistance, 3) [Paperback] Herb Boyd
Recovering The Lost Concept And Notion Of A "Nation"...

I am not capable to write about Prof. John Hendrik Clarke, per se, but I can attempt to discuss and write on what he wrote or lectured about and try to tie that to the history and struggle of South Africans Africans. It is his teachings I will and might be able to jot down and use them as a crutch in building the history of South Africa or use his lessons to enable Africans of South Africa to understand their position, role and direction in history, from his historical lectures and lessons, in order for them to begin to deal with their own historical enslavement and predicament in a much more clearer and informed manner.

Before I delve much deeper into the writings of Professor Clarke and his historical teachings, I would like to sample some of my thoughts and historical creations by experimenting with the pieces below. And when I write much more about the lessons and teachings of Prof. Clarke below, I will use the same synergy/South African historical data in attempting to anchor South African historical reality, also by piggy-backing on top of his research, lectures, writings and his lecture videos, to learn more from him and work on resuscitating the history, culture and critical consciousness of Africans in South Africa.

Attempts At Original Historical Composition Using Dr. Clarke's works as a Crutch in Re-Writing South African History

If we do a serious evaluation of African history, and because it is so broad, I will confine myself to South African African history, and how it has been shaped right up to the point it is today, it has been an amazing and revealing journey. It is a revealing journey now that we have a 20/20 vision and perspective as to what happened to African people all over the globe when colonization took creeped up on their sense of nationhood-because of the African Historiography now available.. And the teachings and speeches of Dr. Clarke and many/several other Master Teachers of African History.

This point was not lost to one Master Teacher, Prof. J.H. Clarke who astutely observed and prolifically wrote that:

"The major loss in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the concept of nation, the attaching of Africans onto other nations: some to England, some to France, some to Portugal, and then some to the worst of the elements to come out of Europe-the United States.

"Europe was getting rid of its human waster matter. It sent some to Australia; it sent some to the Pacific. And here we have to look again at what happened to the Africans in the Pacific. What happened to the Africans in Tasmania? The entire Island was destroyed. The British sent a lot of Irish prisoners, oppressed White people, to Tasmania, the Islands near Australia, where every man,woman and child was destroyed. The British knocked one year to five years off an Irish prisoner's sentence, depending on how many Tasmanians he killed. And bringing two matching ears to the British authorities to show that you had killed a Tasmanian, would mean one year to five years off of your sentence."

Therefore, according to Clarke, a people memories were wiped out in various ways. Criminals were exported from the British prisons and sent to the Islands in the middle of the ocean with the hope that they will not be able to survive and might die out there. There was also reports from other sources that these prisoners were shipped out to sea because there was the belief that the earth was flat, and that these prisoners put onto these ships, for the Islands, as we learned from Clarke, would come to the precipice or edge of the *flat earth*(Sot the Flat Earth proponents believed, and die off).

But, as Clarke pointed out, a provision was made in case they survived, and they were forced to be more criminal in their populating those Island and by killing-off the inhabitants, they were assured of some years shaved off their sentence.
A genocide of a people is one way of assuring that the memories they had about nationhood get wiped -off the face of the earth. Another way was conditioning Africans, amongst themselves, through the governing techniques of 'divide and conquer', the Africans were made to forget about what kind of people or nation as they were; instead, they have been reduced to fighting one another to earn the bread-crubs, favorability, and acceptance into the White world by abusing and and ill-treating their own people, Brothers and fellow Beings. Clarke reminds us thus:

"Here is something we do not understand today: "the nature of oppressed people preying on other oppressed people in order to resist oppression". When we use the the term "Third World," we better use it carefully. Because there are a whole lot of people in the "Third World" who, in order to ingratiate themselves to their oppressor, would gladly become an "honorary" oppressor where we are concerned." This surely applies to the present ANC-led and ruling cabal in South Africa.

With the advent of the Web and the proliferating social media, Africans in South Africa reading this post will become aware of what Clarke is saying, immediately, because they are now faced with a quislings and cabals draped in Black skins,who are peddling and pushing the former oppressor's agenda with such exuberance and gusto, that they end up being belligerent towards their own people who put them in power, and they end up(these elected leaders) in the service of Imperial and Corporate service and their deep fiscal pockets.

One need read most of the posts here on the FB, of which, the majority of them are decrying the fact that the present-day ANC government is nothing but a stooge of Big Capital and a lackey of Imperial governments doing their bidding, and they getting their 'commission' for their omission/neglect of human rights and oppression of their own people from the Capitalist wealth and being in the loop of the riches of the countries. The ANC reports the body-count to Pharmaceutical conglomerates; they report their body counts of malnourished polity and who ingest food poisoned by Monsanto; They get their uniforms and guns fin the SADF, through the American Military and Industrial Megalomaniac Complex. They are in cahoots with and in compliance with the whims and demands of the International corporations and Rich Western government- They are a pseudo-bootleg government that is not serving any material and basic needs of the African people who put them into power, in the first place.

They get their share of some sort of payback/kickback/political payola from DeBeers, Anglo American and other mining magnates for allowing them to scoop out the diamonds and gold of South Africa and Warehousing it in London and Swiss Banks-leaving our mines depleted and too deep and expensive to dig for more gold; the present-day ANC government has been parcelling land out for the highest bidders and getting their shares from the investors and these mighty Conglomerates and predatory Imperial Capitalist honchos.One can see and learn about this from the "Book: "The Confessions of the Economic Hit Man"

Because Africans are still smarting to the world as African people who have "Ubuntu", but the majority oppressed still have to wrap their heads around the fact that they are the losers in what is happening to their country and its minerals. Africans are willing accomplices, in admiring and trying to woo these government vultures, thieves and crooks at the expense of the future of their children and the poor, who are faced with the prospects of inheriting barren and depleted-of-minerals lands. Professor Clarke hit it spot-on when he writes:

"Yet with our goodness (our built-in hope), our beautiful humanity, our belief in justice for all people, we fall into their traps." Most of those non-Africans and those who consider themselves not Africans unless it is convenient for them to do so, "they watch to see you fight fight for something," Clarke adds, "and the minute you win they come in and ask for half of it, when they were never even in the fight. And many times they get it.. You give them some of your pie, and they want parity, which means half.

"Because we have not learned to practice, figuratively speaking, the essential selfishness of survival, we should give no piece of the pie until every member of our family has a piece of the pie. If you fight for a pie, then you fight for it for your family, and I wish you well. But I fought for this for my own kith and kin, and they take the priority in its distribution.

"If we are going to be free[the African world] and the whole world from Western domination, we have to envision ourselves as having the ability to do so, and we have to have some understanding of the world when it was under the domination of Europe. European domination has nothing to do with the European having a superior mind, or having ability that you do not have. It has to do with the fact that the European believed he could do it and gained enough confidence to do it.. We can do the same if we make up our minds to do it.

"Now, as a result of the European's rise to power, a revolution began in the world, one we must now revolt against. To revolt against it, we must understand how it began. How did we lose lose our Africanness? What will we have to do to regain it? How did we lose the concept of "Nationness and develop a concept of dependency?[Clarke Aswers and addresses these questions in most of the videos below].

"The most dangerous of all dependencies is to depend on your powerful oppressor to free you and share power with you, because powerful people never train powerless people to take their power away from them. So, we're dealing with a contradiction in terms.

"It is a contradiction to go into schools and to expect education; there is only a form of indoctrination.There are certain basic curricula that we can use to educate ourselves. Therefore, for us, most of our education must happen in the home, in the community and the church. You think the church is a less spiritual institution when it is engaging in education? It is not; it is a more spiritual institution. There are many ways of praying and there are many ways of serving whatever deity you happen to choose. What should concern us is how we got into this trap so that we can estimate how we're going to get out of it."(watch Clarke's lecture on "Christianity" below)

Whether African South Africans like what I am about to say or not, anyone is free to disagree. They have walked into a trap in their haste to acquire "freedom" and economic "parity" with Whites-not necessarily taking control of our land and economy.. They took their children to the White people's expensive and private schools. Their children lost their ability to speak their mother tongues, acknowledge their cultures, customs and traditions; these children look at their parents with indifference and as buffoons(parents and extended elder families and their peers) as backward, and uneducated about anything and lacking etiquette and knowledge of the finer things of life they see with their White peers and their parents.

In this way, they rebel and are abusive to all and sundry in their African milieu, to their own culture, history, traditions, customs, sacred rites and practices. This adds to the already marinating social dysfunction. And still, Africans seeing this disaster they have wrought with their children, they still do not change their ways, instead, they are still taking their children to the White schools to be educated into ignorance by their former and present master. This is further dealt with within the Hub, below.
Reconstructing the Authoritarian State in Africa (Routledge Studies in African Politics and International Relations) [Hardcover] George Klay Kieh Jr. (Editor),
African History And Its Lessons About Nation-building

"We need to bridge these words with the meanings of our times" stated Obama."

African people need not only display our fluency in being able to cite intellectuals or coveted leaders only. Their words and actions ought to direct and give meaning to their understanding the action and the roles they need to play and work on. Their words(the martyrs) and the meanings of their daring actions need not only be something Africans should only regurgitate, but be blueprints and protocols for the emancipation of their people. Africans of South Africa have to know by now, since most are Web savvy, what the Web and surfing in the meta data of the viral stream what it is all about and how it should be used(as in the case of the social media). Social Media should be the vehicle through which Africans should bridge the gaps of divisions amongst themselves into a collaborative working forum that moves the stagnant struggles they are mired-in, forward.

People in the African communities are besieged by drugs of all sorts they have never had before the coming of the ANC(This will be discussed below in the Hub fully). They knew, then, that Sol Kezner was peddling coke, along with some other well-known soccer magnates and potentates; they also knew that there was something called the Mandrax,and sold through many illicit ways. Now there's a deluge of every drug conceivable circulating in the midst of all the poor African and rich ; children are splurged with violent games and pornography, and, most people save it in their cell phones; Rape is on the rise and rampage so do some other deadly crimes of "Africans on Africans"; the people who are suffering with HIV/AIDS, are left to wither away before they are given the Anti-Virals; chronic joblessness is creating all kinds devastation and despair not yet calibrated as to what does it all mean as it is ongoing as of the writing of this piece.

Africans of South Africa know that there is a culture that is practiced nationally by all the African groups that make the nation of Mzantsi. They have to first of all get rid of the hangover that has been the left-over from the Apartheid era. Africans are not "Tribes". By referring to themselves as such, they will be defeating the idea of seeing themselves as a free and united nation. African Consciousness means African awareness of the African's place in the world today, and the possibility as to where they could be tomorrow were they conscious. Knowing more about each other will help in the growth of a holistic understanding and appreciation of their own culture as a unified culture and one Nation.

So that, to be able to see themselves as a nation, they need to be cognizant and aware of their national make-up today as we speak. They have marriage customs and traditions; there are rules governing families and societies in their cultural protocols; there are specific laws and rules for labor and community services; Africans have a given expanse of African history, and within African history's curricula that can serve their needs as an African people, as touched-upon by Clarke above, and deep below in this Hub. Africans have a history of everything they might endeavor to take upon, without borrowing or aping other cultures, customs, traditions, languages, dance and music-the whole bit! This will be dealt with a little more down below in the hub

The day Africans in South Africa are able to link their present-here-and-now reality, to historical data and future planning, that will be the day the revolution of any kind will begin moving ahead. Understanding What the Media is and how to use it for one's gains is very important to come to grips with. Media, therefore, is just like oral communication, but using a gadget-a medium. I am not here talking about the TV, Radio or newspaper media, but technological media of the computer sort. Supporting one another and not being careless about their relationships with one another is of prime importance. The fulcrum of African South African culture is "UBuntu/Botho" along with "Inhlonipho/Hlompho"(Respect). This, if observed, can facilitate for cohesive and tight interpersonal relationships and interactions-and enable Africans of South Africa in building their history, culture and nation.

I am saying all the above because some of the 'have-plenties'(African Elite, in particular)have become so Westernized, that they have imbibed Western values, mores, moral and norms to the detriment of their own culture and people as I have described it above, because they boast and claim to know that "Shakespeare was a great writer and whatever; because Richard Elliot was the greatest poet; because eating out in restaurants has been imposed as a new African normal; McDonald's/now Burger King, KFC. et al, is the fastest way in and out for ones daily activities; that is, the Africans of South Africa, in larger numbers, are buying hook-and-sink into Westernized consumer patterns, fashion clothes that is parlayed as the sign of modernity(which Clarke addresses in this Hub).

The buying of expensive cars, housing, mannerisms, literature, music and mind-set, has become a way to show-off one's status in society, and sophistication about what others do not have, that one is the only one that has material wealth, and Western education; acquirement of Western individualism and fake accents and fake knowledge of a history, culture, tradition, custom and languages not of their own, is the way to go-the rule-something to be vied for and aspired towards attaining. Africans have and are living large in the shadows of other peoples ways of life, stories, and mannerism, culture, traditions except their own indigenous cultures, customs and traditions. They have discarded their own ways; and have also shown disdain and shame about and for their own culture, that in the end, instead of focusing on building a nation based on what their cultures offers, whereas, they 'pick up their noses' at it as if its unpalatable and has an odious odor, they label it derisively and dismissively in degrading terms and tones.

They brag about their jobs(which they do not own), cars, big houses in the suburbs(which they owe); sporting the finest clothes of Europe and America making them not local people-and that they believe makes them an important people; they wear expensive perfumes(French, Italian and American); they import and purchase house wares, dishes, shoes; go to these foreign countries and spend thousands of Rands on clothes and other trinkets and stay in five star hotels; they hobnob with VIP and Heads of States; they stay in suburban areas areas whose real estate prices could finance whole Townships with everything; they take planeloads of rich fun-lovers to remote Islands and rent-out a whole hotels and party for days. They are pigging away their paltry riches towards their own destruction-especially the monied African Elite and their hangers-on, relatives, friends and the whole nepotism, cronyism networked which has huge devastating and deleterious effects on the governance of the poor African masses and the poor themselves.

Nations are not build from such chaotic ways of being and forgetting communal existence in the African sense of living in that cultural manner.. Africans seem to fall into the trap that they are seeing big money for the first time, that this takes them out of our minds and wits as to what to do with it. There are many tales of waste and reckless spending that have become the lore of the rich African elite in South africa. Their children burn clothes and money to show-off the their vanity and ignorance along with boredom, plus lack of direction.

It would be better if African people knew what they were doing than wax political and rant revolutionary on Facebook and other Social media, and to no one in particular. All are pretentious acts that are an effort of a people running away from what is facing them: ignorance, mental illnesses; devastating illnesses like Cholera, TB, Scurvy, Alcoholism, Drug Addiction; rampant and callous corruption; insecurities; gloom and doom; bleak futures; joblessness; decaying communities and cultures, morals, mores, norms, customs, traditions,languages, discarding of sacred rites and practices which are fast disappearing permanently; miseducation and oppression, depression, repression. No Nation Will Ever Arise From A Disunited And Dysfunctional People!
Language Policy and Nation-Building in Post-Apartheid South Africa [Hardcover] Jon Orman
Nation-Building and Historical Cultural Refitting

This is what Professor Clarke has to say about all I have been talking about in the previous paragraphs:

"What I am trying to look into is how people maintain certain techniques that make them believe enough in themseles and become less dependent on other people in order to be whole again. And that the nature of oppression robs us of our wholeness, a lot of our confidnence, and, if we're going to have a cultural revolution, this cultural revolution must first be based on regaining our confidence in our ability to handle everything in a nation."

Prof. Clarke continues:
"That is why I have always disagreed with the current approach to South Africa, that we need to fight more than Apartheid. Apartheid is a real issue. Apartheid has caused misery to millions of people. We need to fight it all the way, but, while fighting it we need to prepare to take over that nation. A nation needs railroads. Who's going to build them? But if we buy steel from someone else, we've got to pay a high price. Who's going to develop an internal steel industry? Who's going to master the mines? Who's going to market what comes out of the mines? All of this is part of the restoration of self-confidence, and all of this involves a return to things that we've already done at a previous time in history.

"That is why, especially in [South africa] we are literally kept from our history. If you expect the present-day school system to give history to you, you are dreaming. This, we have to do ourselves. The Chinese didn't go out in the world and beg people to teach Chinese studies or let them them teach Chinese Studies. the Japanese didn't do that either. People don't beg other people to restore their history; they do it themselves. They learn something about freedom that we have to learn, that Freedom is something we must take with our own hands and secure it with our own hands. If other people's hands secure it for us, other people's hands can take it away from us." Our main ally and our most dependable ally in the fight for Africa, is us, and nobody is really addressing these facts, and yet when you read most of the posts on FB, you read people hollering for "Revolution and overthrowing the government", and yet, they are not even cognizant of the facts noted by Clarke above, or the goings on on the ground in their sectors.

In their thinking/talking about revolution and carrying out a revolution, Africans had better come to grips with what is a nation and how they are going to go about creating and building a viable and authentic and autonomous nation. Words should give meaning to our intentions and our intentions is to execute those meanings, words work as part of Afrcans' struggle and reality. As this piece is being written, it can be regarded and taken as a preface of the writing of African's own history and all that it requires from their own perspective and mindset.

They shall only succeed if they read what each is composing, not only copying from someone, and it al comes with original ideas that are relevant and relatable to their reality on the ground-from the Townships to the villages and suburbs, and might in the end be original in highlighting those pertinent and basic issues which resonate and are relevant to the people those seeking change for all those they are trying to mobilize and organize/uplift.

It is true, quotations, such as I have used from Clarke in this article should be used to edify one's points, perspective or point of view; also, those basic needs the people are decrying should should be etched onto their writing just as powerful in their rhetoric as those they would be citing. What they cite, should most of the time confirm what they are writing about, from the African perspective and concrete experience. What they are writing about and composing should be spot-on and relatable and relevant for the people to whom the writing is done on behalf of: the army of the poor and currently oppressedAfricans.

Just as in national-building, the material, ideas and ways and means that they will be utilizing should come from what the culture offers and has picked up on along the centuries-morphing and modifying itself from the new and the old-that, forming that cultural entity, which Africans can create and form a nation from, is one of the essential national building blogs. But it will take understanding the meaning of the reality, words and their relevance to their present-and how they articulate, elucidate, execute and manifest that which they know, have learnt and master from and about their cultures, customs, traditions,histories, music, dance, traditional dress, languages, sacred rites and practices within the make-up and formation of a nation as they see fit.... And with aesthetical erudition

If they can learn about learning from each other, respect their own ideas, thoughts and intentions, they might be able to grasp, fully and clearly, the notion and ways and possibilities of Nation building and unification... They need to better stop acting like they know it all, and accept that they have still so much much ground and learning to do about building a nation, let alone executing a revolution. Africans will never ever be Americans, nor Europeans or any other nation, but Africans of South Africa(Mzantsi). Maybe if African people start with that recognition, they might have their eyes, minds and hearts opened as to the importance of all that is theirs, originally and authentically and autonomously: .... a nation; maybe manage to start to build a nation in 2014-as the voting is around the corner, and they are only a nation when it is time for voting-after that, are discarded like snuff mucous. Africans in South Africa are far much better than this... This must be put to an end-the sooner, the better.
Dr. John Hendrik Clarke - African People in World History (Black Classic Press Contemporary Lecture) [Paperback]
"Africa's Walk In The Sun" With John Hendrik Clarke

What Africa Is For Africans and The World

One of the most difficult things to do is to write anything about Prof. John Hendrik Clarke, the African Historian and Historiographer Master Teacher par excellence with few equals. I started the Hub with a piece I have written walking and following on the steps of Dr. Clarke to begin writing African history, and in this case, I used his citations to guide me through my piece. So that, here I will make a few notes about Clarke, and draw heavily from what he wrote about certain important aspects of African history and historiography, and will also utilize his lecture/videos[which must be viewed by the reader/viewer to get the total effect of what Clarke is about] for him to make his points, which he does better than what I could write about him.

The first video is his critique that evaluates and questions Africans commitment and readiness to really take up the struggle another notch. Dr. Ben, and Prof. Clarke were teaching about the African conditions and what they should do about it. His speech and lecture is followed by Dr. Ben both of whom were offering us a critical Dialogue and Comments about themselves and African History and its role in the lives and existence of African people. The Second Video is about the old themes of oppression and what Africans are to do about it. The third video is a tour de force of his past lectures and raising our consciousness about the effects and affects of all the inhumanity foisted upon the Africans, and the lessons to be learned from that.

One of the constant themes that runs the gamut of the body of work by Prof. Clarke is that he often repeated the fact that: "Civilization did not start in European countries, and the rest of the world did not wait in darkness for the Europeans to bring the light" Clarke says that in order for us to understand how this attitude came along, "one needs to look at the sate of what is called "World History. He says that that there is no single book in existence called "World History," that is an honest commentary on the history of the world and its people. Most of the history books in the last five hundred years have been written to glorify Europeans at the expense of other peoples. The history of Asia has been as shamefully distorted as the history of Africa."

Europeans in South Africa(British/Boer regimes) have consistently insisted that Africans have no history nor culture to speak of, and that which is called african culture, customs and traditions is nothing else but backwardness Barbaric and useless along with the African history, customs, traditions and customs. To debunk, and deconstruct this lie, we will look at what was the culture of Africans of South Africa in the 11th century, prior to the coming of Bartholomew Diaz, Vasco- da Gama and Jan Van Van Riebeeck, in 1490, 1492 and 1652 respectively.

The Ways Of Ubuntu From European Sailors

What Clarke is saying above is similar to the case of Africa and in particular, in the history of South Africa. Africans, they were and are still being told not only that were they civilized by the Dutch settlers, but they arrived into the country today known as South Africa when they(The Boers) 'trekked' from the north, at the same time the setters were landing in the Cape in 1652. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have written about the the sailors of the shipwrecked Stavenisse off the coast of Natal, in another Hub, whose story is told by George McCall Theal as follows:

"In the records of the Cape Colony, there is a graphic account of the adventures of the crew of a Dutch vessel named the Stavenisse, which was wrecked at the entrance of the Bay of Natal if February, 1686. It was wrecked written for the use of the directors of the Netherlands' East India Company, and contains a good deal of interesting information concerning the country and its inhabitants. Near at hand , and English vessel had been lost a few months previously, and still another was driven ashore a few months later.

"All the wrecked seamen were received with kindness by the (Natives) Africans; they were supplied with food, and what property they could save was respected. By the unified efforts of the Dutch and English, assisted to some extend by the Africans[of [Mzantsi], a vessel fifty feet long was constructed, partly from the wreck of the the Stavenisse and partly from the timber found growing there. In this little craft, the captain, three oficers, and seven seamen of the Stavenisse, with nine English sailors, set sail for Cape Town, taking with them abundance of provisions and three tons of ivory obtained in exchange for some beads and copper saved from one of the the wrecks. They made the passage form Natal to Cape Town in Twelve days.

"An English vessel which had opportunely called before thy sailed, took some others away and they left at Natal forty-seven of the crew of the Stavenisse, one Frenchman, and four Englishmen. Upon their arrival in Table Bay, the Cape government purchased their tiny vessel, fitted her out, and dispatched her to make discoveries along the coast and rescue the remaining sea men.

"In the meantime, most of those unfortunate people had attempted to make their way overland to Cape Town. Some perished on the journey and, nearly twelve months after their departure, nineteen of them were picked up on the African coast of the Cape by the little vessel they had assisted to build in Natal. They had by this time been living two years among the African peoples, whom they described as friendly, hospitable, obliging, intelligent and ingenious, with laws and customs the same as those of the present-day African South Africans. Of the countries in which they had resided and through which they had travelled, they spoke in high terms of praise."

Another account about the Africans before the coming of the Dutch, or before they collided with the British/Boer belligerent culture, the Ship, Noord, arrived in Natal on the 4th of January, 1689, and entered the bay, there being at the time a considerable depth of water on the bar. In the evening of the same day the commander accompanied two of the sailors of the Stavenisse, who had gone on board, to their residence, where they had been living in plenty since the loss of their vessel, and were then in possession of several head of cattle. The commander was conducted to a neighboring kraal(village), where he was feasted on milk and fresh millet, and found the people civil and kind- ... During the nineteen days that the Noord remained in the Bay of Natal, the utmost harmony was maintained between the African people and Europeans."

"These seamen were not the only Europeans who had been kindly treated by the Africans of South Africa, for they found an aged Portuguese in the country, who had been wrecked on the coast forty years ago before, on his homeward voyage from India. The man had forgotten the language of his youth, and even his God; he had adopted the African customs, and had a wife and cattle in plenty"

What has the history of Africans in South Africa have to do with what I am writing about Prof. Clarke, one may ask. Well, One of the things that Clarke did was his encouragement to Africans to begin to read and write their history. In their writings, Wilson et al, Stavenisse is that "in 1688, survivors from the Stavenisse wreck on the Transkei coast and those who were shipwrecked around the 1500s described a population and a way of life of Xhosa-speaking people has been like that for many centuries, which demonstrated that the Xhosas who had been living there for some antiquated centuries/millennium before they came into contact with them in from the 1500s to the 1600s and beyond; that these were the ancestors of the present occupants of Xhosa People they met and those that presently lived there for eons to date.' (M. Wison and L. Thompson(eds)

The detailed accounts given by these survivors suggest that change in the way of life of the Xhosa-speaking people was very slow for very many centuries(Credo Mutwa gave the earliest account of this in his book "Indaba My Children," 1966). What the shipwrecked men described was not very different from the domestic life from antiquity to today, despite the fact that the people had by now lost their political independence and economic self-sufficiency.

One other point that I will like to make and revise is the fact that Around the 5th century A.D. there was iron smelting in the Transvaal(South Africa) and there was also the stock-keeping iron workers at Ntshekane, South of the Drakensberg Mountains in what is now Natal in the ninth century. There was also pottery found along the coast as far west as the Chalumna river indicate early iron-age settlement, typical of the Pondo and distinct from that at Ntshekane, and was dated back to around the eleventh century.

These historical factoids are conveniently left out by the Dutch Historians isthat the African people of South Africa were living in the places and regions they found them in, for eons before 1652, and that it is not true that the Africans came to South Africa around the time the Dutch landed in the Cape in 1652; also,they had fully function societies and families with culture, customs, traditions, languages, practices, rites that they adhered to throughout time form the remote antiquity(This will be briefly touched upon below).

So that, when Prof Clarke points out that for the past 500 years of African colonialism there has been no authentic book written as World history that makes an honest comment about the people of the world, I am simply filling up the gaps that are inherent and strewn throughout the literature which is hard to get, and bring them to the fore in order to point out to and and on behalf of African people of South Africa that their present history, culture, traditions, custom, practices, music, dances and language, have been in place, millennium before the coming of the Dutch, and the Dutch sailors, Portuguese and the British knew about the kindness, hospitality and Peaceful people the nation of Africans, and saw their cultures, custom, traditions as viable,and that the africans were civil and ingenuous, before the arrival of the warring and belligerent British/Boer coalition of the country that is called by the Africans of Mzantsi today, were like.

Learning from Clarke and using him as a crutch through-which we can present the histories of the people's of Africa, is one way I find to be helpful in originating and resuscitating the history of Africans in South Africa because what Clarke is saying, is the same thing that africans in South Africa know, and this is why I am highlighting, too, different points of concern about African South African history, and show, in the process, the relevance of Clarke's lecture and his lectures and lessons. That is why I regard him and dubbed him as a Master Teacher of African Historiography, Culture, Customs,Traditions, Sacred Rites, practices, languages and History.
Afrikan-Centered Consciousness Versus the New World Order: Garveyism in the Age of Globalism (AWIS Lecture Series) Paperback
Africans Being Africans Again

The Denial Of African History and African Humanity

Writing about a Master Teacher, there must then be something about his mastery of the work that qualifies him to be so. In his soulful and oratory way, African history was for him something he could share with anyone, with the hope that it will make them become more aware and conscious persons. As I have indicated above in this Hub, I am going to write about Prof. Clarke's work, not his life, in order that I can begin to take my baby steps in helping re-create and rewrite African history(South african History in particular) from an African perspective whilst deferring heavily and extensively onto Prof. Clarke's work. What I have written above about African people of South Africa being very kind to the ship-wrecked sailors pre-Van Riebeeck in 1652 is to deconstruct and debunk the myth that has been expounded upon by the Apartheidizers and their disinformation machine, that South africa does not belong to Africans who came when they, the 1652 Settlers landed in the Cape, and that the Africans were simultaneously 'trekking' from the North of Africa into South africa..

The Video above is wherein Prof. Clark explores the fact as to whether we can be Africans again. He teaches us by making examples with the other nations that they(the Asiatics) did not copy any one's God, although they were all Buddhists. Their God looked like them or the local people. The starting point of this lesson begins with Clarke saying: "Most Western Historians have not been willing to admit that there is an African history to be written about, and that this history predates the emergence of Europe by thousands of years. It is not possible for the world to have waited in darkness for the Europeans to bring light because, for most of the early history of Man, the Europeans themselves were in Darkness(and somewhere he adds that 'no one ever knew they(Europeans) even existed').

If Africans believe this, they will not be able to write their History because most of the time they will learning and reading what the Europeans supposedly was bring to them as knowledge and light. And yet Clarke keeps on reminding us that our historical memory has all the things we need to be normal again. He said Africans have[had] a culture, a history, ways of governance, ways of living and existing with other people from anywhere in the world. What I have written above confirms what Clarke is saying. The very Dutch, some of who landed in the Cape, but those Dutch sailors of the wreck, stated clearly as how they had been kindly treated by the Africans, and they also observed that they had a strong culture, tradition and were ingenious and a fully functioning and legit society. They had a system that worked in harmony with nature, and the communities were based on consensus-but was now(as we see it today) demobilized(to some extent) by the Europeans-and Clarke insists that we should look at these customs, traditions, cultures, languages anew, and recreate them in the image of what is authentically left as African Culture of yesteryear, today.

So that, one of the things that Clarke points out that caused us to loose our being Africans was because:

"It is too often forgotten that, when the Europeans emerged and began to extend themselves into the broader world of Africa and Asia during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they went on to colonize most of mankind. Later, they would colonize world scholarship, mainly the writing of history. History was then written or rewritten to show or imply that Europeans were the only creators of what could be called a 'civilization'. In order to accomplish this, the Europeans had to forget, or pretend to forget, all they previously knew about Africa."

The problem that we as African people are facing, according to Clarke is that we are enamored and taken up trying to be like our oppressors, believing them as they tout their lies about educating us, and we help boost their economies because we buy and sell everything that is theirs. We presently rush pell-mell into being accepted into their European milieu/society, to the point where we are willing to discard and shed-off the culture that bore, shaped and is still running in our blood. But despite all that, we awkwardly try to force our way into their(European) graces and acceptance, whilst we have a culture that is beckoning to us to be of it and use it as we see fit. Even to this day, this is still the conundrum that the Africans cannot resolve, as yet..

The other problem as an upcoming researcher, myself, is that I see Africans working assiduously to be European i

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