test

[MajGenl.Meade]

Thanks, Lib. Loved the coins. Obvs. Cleopatra was actually not white but silver! Anyway, I don't really care what color skin the Ptolemys had - swarthy Greeks or whatever is fine by me.

Actually it is rather fun to hear the Mediterranean nations from Algeria to Egypt referred to as "African" as if that had some relationship (other than being on the same continent) with sub-Saharan Africa. Those countries do their best not to be "African" except when it suits them. Mind, it's certainly true that the Nubians conquered Egypt and ruled there for a long time before the Ptolemys took over. Egypt was then, as it is now, a multi-complexioned nation.

[Big RR]

Now, now Meade, we know all Africans and Arabs share a common heritage going back to Ham the son of Hamites, the Jews are descendants of Shem (Semites), and the rest of us descendants of Japeth (Japethites?). At least that's what I read once in a supposedly Christian comic book handed out by a guy on the street.

And of course, the Ethiopians are part of a semitic tribe, and have the Ark of the Covenant to prove it.

Race doesn't matter, it's lineage back to the time of the great flood.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well, the common heritage is Noah then, innit? Easy!

[liberty]

Now, now Meade, we know all Africans and Arabs share a common heritage going back to Ham the son of Hamites, the Jews are descendants of Shem (Semites), and the rest of us descendants of Japeth (Japethites?). At least that's what I read once in a supposedly Christian comic book handed out by a guy on the street.

And of course, the Ethiopians are part of a semitic tribe, and have the Ark of the Covenant to prove it.

Race doesn't matter, it's lineage back to the time of the great flood.

Well Big, it is a try heat. You might like it, not.

[Scooter]

Well Big, it is a try heat. You might like it, not.

Perhaps you might try communicating in intelligible English. You might like it, not.

[Econoline]

I have nothing to add, but here's a cartoon for lib.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well Big, it is a try heat. You might like it, not.

[liberty]

s. Cleopatra was actually not white but silver! close enough


Actually it is rather fun to hear the Mediterranean nations from Algeria to Egypt referred to as "African" as if that had some relationship (other than being on the same continent) with sub-Saharan Africa. Those countries do their best not to be "African" except when it suits them. Mind, it's certainly true that the Nubians conquered Egypt and ruled there for a long time before the Ptolemys took over. Egypt was then, as it is now, a multi-complexioned nation.

In his book, Paul Theouroux said that the Egyptians he met claimed that Egypt was not Africa, they said that Africa didn’t start until you got to Sudan. Did he only meet racist?

https://books.google.com/books/about/Da ... 5sC72BSNgC


In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances.

[Guinevere]

Paul Theroux is an egotistical ass and a mediocre writer at best.

[Burning Petard]

Theroux included that statement about Egyptians and Africa because it seemed weird and obviously wrong to him.

Geography is not a democratic scholarly study. I know there are many who think Dr. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was completely correct when he wrote as Humpty Dumpty 'a word means exactly what I say it means' but that is a distinct barrier to communication and mutually understood exchange of information.

It is 'common' for many to say 'North American' when they mean to exclude Mexico. However, geography generally concedes Mexico is part of the continent of North America; Morocco and Egypt are part of the continent of Africa.

Popular knowledge is a swamp of disinformation. In this national election year, many (such as that popular media personality Sean Hannity) believe the Declaration of Independence legally guarantees Americans a specific list of rights. In actuality it is a piece of wartime propaganda with no legal enforceability on the national entity that was created by the US Constitution. The English Magna Carta has more legal impact on US courts than the Declaration of Independence.

snailgate

[liberty]

Paul Theroux is an egotistical ass and a mediocre writer at best.

He is also an atheist but I didn’t hold that against him just because I an a Christian; I still found his story interesting. And he is also a liberal who thinks we should take our charity and NGO workers and go home and leave the African alone. He says we are, destroying them with dependence. He admits there would be more suffering for while; but in the end, the people of sub-Saharan Africa would be independent and better off.

[MajGenl.Meade]

In his book, Paul Theroux said that the Egyptians he met claimed that Egypt was not Africa; they said that Africa didn’t start until you got to Sudan. Did he only meet racists?

Possibly - who knows? While the geographic location of Egypt etc. on the continent of Africa is undeniable, it is fairly obvious that economically the closest and most likely trading partners are to the north and east - not to the south. It has little or nothing to do with race and color; the barrier of the Sahara across most of the continent below the Mediterranean countries is compounded by the tsetse fly "barrier zone" across central and equatorial Africa. Cattle herders further south learned not to graze their animals too far to the north because of this exclusionary problem.

Naturally countries like Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Libya found better markets in and better products from Europe and the Middle East than from the southerly portions of their own continent. In a way it reminds me of how often in South Africa one hears black voices that (for some understandable historic reasons) deny that white South Africans are "African". The whites, on the other hand, are very determined to be identified as "African" - they were born there and many families go back to the early 1800s.

Then again, I've heard some Boer descendants voice the opinion that Africa begins north of SA (!). Given their extreme minority status, these folks are not expressing a bias against color itself but are (I think) much like the Egyptians making a kind of value judgement about the economic status of the vast region that is so poorly served by its own leadership.

OTOH the expression heard in SA about anything that isn't working, "TIA" (This Is Africa) must have racist origins, even though I've heard non-whites people say it! They are perhaps less enlightened than their colleagues.

[liberty]

Theroux included that statement about Egyptians and Africa because it seemed weird and obviously wrong to him.

snailgate

I think I also remember him saying it was a fairly common attitude among the common people of Egypt. The point is that they didn’t want be considered part of sub-Saharan Africa. True Africa is one cotenant, but ethically and culturally North And sub-Saharan are entirely different places. One can tell the difference between the two regions just based on what one can see on the streets.

[Scooter]

The point is that they didn’t want be considered part of sub-Saharan Africa.

When has Egypt even been considered by anyone to be a part of sub-Saharan Africa? Unless they were geographically retarded.

[rubato]

Identity is to a great degree a matter of affirmation. The English call themselves 'the land of St George' even though that would make them Greek and living in Turkey. Mormons call the American Indians long-lost brothers. Some American Indians claim that the land and they were created at the same time by god and for each other; they have always been here. Thus they reject the idea that they are descended genetically from people in Asia.

I have no problem with people from sub-Saharan Africa claiming a cultural and historical connection with ancient Egypt. What could it matter.



yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

I have no problem with people from sub-Saharan Africa claiming a cultural and historical connection with ancient Egypt. What could it matter.

yrs,
rubato

Not a bit; why would you have a problem with it? I don't either.

However, the issue was presented not as sub-Saharan people claiming connections with ancient Egypt, but current-day Egyptians not wanting to be associated with sub-Saharan people. Some, according to Theroux, express that in the notion that "Africa" begins at the Sudan.

Rather in the same way, some Englishmen have been heard to declare that wogs begin at Calais.

lib asks (who knows why?) if that's racist.

[rubato]

Actually, the first mention was this:

Liberty ...

Rejection of Afrocentric contentions. There is a whole industry for generating this fake history; the UN UNESCO, I think that is what it is called pays for a lot of it. A while back some east African country was claiming that the cow was domesticated there. Pure crap, all cattle on earth originate from the same wild aurochs which is a Eurasian animal.

Which led to a later debate about whether it was inappropriate to cast Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra when the role "should" have gone to a more "African" actress.

Theroux was not expressing the opinions of Egyptians or even himself, but of most cultural descriptions which make the distinction between the Islamic and Arabic North and the more pantheist and less semitic south. This was the same distinction which drove the economic and cultural conflicts which "Chinese Gordan" was sent to sort out between the slave-raiding Arabs and their victims further south.** (He was killed in Khartoum in 1885 by the Mahdist uprising.**)


Meanwhile; The distance from London to central Turkey (where St George was born and lived) is greater than the distance from Cairo to Axum (where the Ark of the Covenant is).


And humans came from Africa anyway for the most part by a process of genetic reduction.*


yrs,
rubato

*There was a small fraction of Neanderthal genes added but for the most part humans lost genetic breadth and diversity as we moved out of Africa.

** With the usual British efficiency and courage Kitchener, after nearly a year dithering, arrived to relieved him 2 days after he was dead.

[liberty]

http://www.historyplace.com/pointsofview/not-out.htm

Excerpted from her book:
Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History

Why I wrote the book

In the fall of 1991 I was asked to write a review-article for The New Republic about Martin Bernal's Black Athena and its relation to the Afrocentrist movement. The assignment literally changed my life. Once I began to work on the article I realized that here was a subject that needed all the attention, and more, that I could give to it. Although I had been completely unaware of it, there was in existence a whole literature that denied that the ancient Greeks were the inventors of democracy, philosophy, and science. There were books in circulation that claimed that Socrates and Cleopatra were of African descent, and that Greek philosophy had actually been stolen from Egypt. Not only were these books being read and widely distributed; some of these ideas were being taught in schools and even in universities.

Ordinarily, if someone has a theory which involves a radical departure from what the experts have professed, he is expected to defend his position by providing evidence in its support. But no one seemed to think it was appropriate to ask for evidence from the instructors who claimed that the Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt.

Normally, if one has a question about a text that another instructor is using, one simply asks why he or she is using that book. But since this conventional line of inquiry was closed to me, I had to wait till I could raise my questions in a more public context. That opportunity came in February 1993, when Dr. Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan was invited to give Wellesley's Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial lecture. Posters described Dr. ben-Jochannan as a "distinguished Egyptologist," and indeed that is how he was introduced by the then President of Wellesley College. But I knew from my research in Afrocentric literature that he was not what scholars would ordinarily describe as an Egyptologist, that is a scholar of Egyptian language and civilization. Rather, he was an extreme Afrocentrist, author of many books describing how Greek civilization was stolen from Africa, how Aristotle robbed the library of Alexandria, and how the true Jews are Africans like himself.

[Joe Guy]

[Scooter]

What in the name of Jesus Christ on a roller coaster does the village idiot's ongoing obsession with race have anything to do with "Hardware"?