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SOURCE-INTERNETFellowship Training Programme for Masters Degrees at Universities and Colleges in Ireland, 2018Applications are open for Irish Aid Fellowship Training Programme for suitably qualified candidates from developing countries to undertake Masters degreesThe aim of the fellowship unique opportunity to study in an international setting and benefit from the research facilities provided by Irish Universities and Institutes of Technology which rank among some of the top education and learning centres in the world.Irish Aid Fellowships aim to support capacity strengthening for the attainment of long-term development goals through enhancing the skills and capacities of key individuals, generally drawn from the public services and NGO sectors.Scholarship Description:Application Deadline: December 8, 2017Course Level: The fellowship is available to pursue a master degree.Study Subject: The fellowship is awarded in the following fields:Gender Studies and Public AdvocacyAgriculture, Environmental Science and Rural DevelopmentSustainable TechnologyScholarship Award: The scholarship award covers course fees, required flights, accommodation (for out of the country study), monthly allowances, insurance and other incidental expenses.Nationality: Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Palestine, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia and ZimbabweNumber of Scholarships: Not givenScholarship can be taken in IrelandEligibility for the Scholarship:Eligible Countries: Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Palestine, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia and ZimbabweEntrance Requirements: Applicants must meet following criteria:Be a citizen of one of Irish Aid’s partner countries (i.e. Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia), or of Cambodia, Kenya, Liberia, Palestine, Myanmar, Rwanda or Zimbabwe.Be resident in that country.Have achieved the necessary academic standard to be accepted into a Master’s degree course in a higher education institution in Ireland or within their own region.Be able to demonstrate a strong commitment to the development of their home country.Have identified relevant college courses in a higher education institution in Ireland or within their own region. For study in Ireland, you must select courses from the Irish Aid Directory of eligible Postgraduate Courses.Be applying to commence a new qualification and not be seeking to fund a course they have already commenced or which will begin before fellowship awards have been notified.Be able to take up the fellowship in the academic year 2018/2019.Provide a letter of reference from their employer and a completed Employer Endorsement Form.English Language Requirements: Applicants must have an IELTS English language qualification of 6.5 or higher by the time they submit their application. Applications that do not provide evidence of this qualification will not be considered.Math Postdoctoral Opportunities for Developing Countries in Italy, 2018The ICTP is delighted to offer outstanding mathematicians from developing countries, including postdoctorate the opportunity to do research in Italy. The fellowships have 12-month duration with a possible extension for a further 12 months; the initial period will be 1 September 2018 – 31 August 2019.For more than 50 years, the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has been a driving force behind global efforts to advance scientific expertise in the developing world.Applicants whose first language is not English are usually required to provide evidence of proficiency in English at the higher level required by the University.Scholarship Description:Applications Deadline: January 7, 2018Course Level: Fellowships are available to pursue postdoctoral programme.Study Subject: Fellowships are awarded in the field of Mathematics.Nationality: Developing CountriesNumber of Scholarships: Numbers not given.Scholarship can be taken in ItalyEligibility for the Scholarship:Eligible Countries: Applicants from Developing countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African, Republic Chad, Chile, People’s Republic of China, Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea, Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, India, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint- Vincent and the Grenadines, South Sudan, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe) are eligible to apply for this fellowship.Entrance Requirements: Postdoctoral Fellowships are intended for young mathematicians with a strong research record. Fellows must have completed a Ph.D. in mathematics prior to the start of their fellowship. Women are particularly encouraged to apply. The fellowships have 12-month duration with a possible extension for a further 12 months; the initial period will be 1 September 2018 – 31 August 2019.Preference will be given to candidates who: 1) will benefit most from the time spent at ICTP in pursuit of their own research, using the ICTP facilities and participating in ICTP activities; and 2) will interact with local scientists and visitors and will contribute to the intellectual vitality of the Centre.English Language Requirements: Adequate proficiency in English language is required.Developing Countries ScholarshipsApplication Procedure:How to Apply: Candidates must apply using the online application. Candidates are required to arrange for the submission of three letters of recommendation by established researchers. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Successful candidates might be offered a Shiing-Shen Chern Senior Post-Doctoral Fellowship. The Fellowship, named after Shiing-Chern, has especially attractive terms with a total possible tenure of 3+2 years.Orange Knowledge Programme for Developing Countries in Netherlands, 2018Sponsored LinksThe Erasmus University Rotterdam is seeking applicants for Orange Knowledge Programme funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the budget for development cooperation. The programme is open to developing countries applicants.The aim of the programme is to aid the development of the capacity, knowledge and quality of individuals as well as institutions in the field of higher and vocational education.Erasmus University Rotterdam is a public university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Erasmus MC is the largest and one of the foremost academic medical centres and trauma centres in the Netherlands.Scholarship Description:Application deadline: February 2018Course Level: The fellowship is available to pursue the following programme:Urban Management and Development (UMD)Month course on Urban Management and Development Theory (UMDT)Week course on Developing Social Housing Projects (DSHP)Study Subject: The fellowship is awarded in the field of management.Scholarship Award: The Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP) is a Dutch scholarships programme from Nuffic, financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the budget for development cooperation.Nationality: In the first OKP round there were 28 developing countries eligible for this programme.Number of Scholarships: Not givenScholarship can be taken in NetherlandsEligibility for the Scholarship:Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burma/Myanmar, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Colombia, Congo (DRC), Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Surinam, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.Entrance Requirements: Applicants must meet following criteria:Be a professional and national of, and working and living in one of the countries on the OKP country list.Have an employer’s statement that complies with a prescribed format. All information must be provided and all commitments that are included in the format must be endorsed in the statement. (You will not be eligible for the fellowship if you fail to submit this document)Not be employed by an organization that has its own means of staff-development. Organizations that are considered to have their own means for staff development are for example:multinational corporations (e.g. Shell, Unilever, Microsoft), large national and/or a large commercial organisations, bilateral donor organisations (e.g. USAID, DFID, Danida, Sida, Dutch ministry of Foreign affairs, FinAid, AusAid, ADC, SwissAid), multilateral donor organisations, (e.g. a UN organisation, the World Bank, the IMF, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, IADB), international NGO’s (e.g. Oxfam, Plan, Care).Must have an official and valid passportMust not receive more than one fellowship for courses that take place at the same timeMust have an NFP government statement that meets the requirements of the country in which the employer is establishedEnglish Language Requirements: Applicants must have sufficient knowledge of the language of instruction of the host university.Master ScholarshipApplication Procedure:Applicants should first apply for the IHS academic course via IHS Online Application Form and receive your academic admission offer.How to Apply:Applicants should first apply for the IHS academic course and then they will be invited by IHS to apply for the OKP fellowship. An invitation email with detailed instructions will be sent to them.Scholarships for Developing Countries at Hasselt University in Belgium, 2018-2019Sponsored LinksThe Flemish Interuniversity Council offers 12 scholarships each year at Hasselt University. Scholarships are available for pursuing ICP Master’s programme Master of Statistics.Hasselt University’s Master of Statistics acquired accreditation from the prestigious Royal Statistical Society.Hasselt University is a university with campuses in Hasselt and Diepenbeek, Belgium. It was officially established in 1971, as the Limburgs Universitair Centrum. On June 15, 2005, the university changed its name to Hasselt University.Candidates who wish to apply have to demonstrate the good command of the English language, both spoken and written.Course Level: Scholarships are available for pursuing ICP Master’s programme Master of Statistics.Study Subject: Scholarships are awarded in the field of Statistics.Number of Scholarship: The Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR-UOS) offers 12 scholarships each year for ICP Master’s programme Master of Statistics.Scholarship Award: Costs covered by the scholarshipAllowance: € 890/monthAccommodation allowance: € 390/monthFamily allowance: € 62 per dependent person/monthSeveral one-time paymentsInsurance, international travel and tuition feeScholarship can be taken in BelgiumEligibility: Applicants must meet the following eligibility requirements:Nationality and Country of Residence: A candidate should be a national and resident of one of the following 31 countries (not necessarily the same country) at the time of application: Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Niger; Asia: Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, Palestinian Territories, Vietnam and Latin America: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, PeruAge: The maximum age for a Master programme candidate is 35 years. The candidate cannot succeed this age on January 1 of the intake year.Nationality: ICP scholarships are available for applicants from the following 31 eligible countries:Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, NigerAsia: Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, Palestinian Territories, VietnamLatin America: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, PeruCollege Admission RequirementEntrance Requirement: Students should hold at least a university diploma or degree certificate or a diploma of higher education equivalent to a bachelor degree (180 ECTS credit points). Applications of holders of a bachelor degree in mathematics, physics, computer sciences, chemistry, biology, life sciences, bio-, business-, civil engineering, medicine, sociology, psychology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology with a sufficiently strong background in mathematics and statistics can apply.Test Requirement: NoEnglish Language Requirement: Candidates who wish to apply have to demonstrate the good command of the English language, both spoken and written. English language skills need to be confirmed by a recent score on the Test of English as Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or any recognised proficiency test:A TOEFL score report (paper-based: score 550 or more, computer-based: score 213 or more, internet-based: score 79-80)IELTS certificate (overall band score 6.0)The English Language Test can be waived on the basis of an interview or if English language proficiency is proven otherwise (e.g. if education or part of it was in English or if English is a national language in your home country).How to Apply: To apply for an ICP scholarships several steps need to be done. Please make sure that you start on time with your application to avoid that your dossier cannot be completed before the deadline.Step 1: Online registrationVisit the link online registrationComplete the online registration formPage STUDY PROGRAMME: select “Master of Statistics”Page LEARNING ACCOUNT: if you have not yet obtained a degree in Belgium, the balance of your learning account is 140Page SUCCESS RATE: if you weren’t enrolled at Hasselt University in the previous year, skip this page and proceed to the next page of the application formIf you are eligible to apply for the ICP scholarship, you will see this on the page FINANCES in the online application. To apply for the scholarship, you first have to mark the option “yes” on thatpage (application for a VLIR-ICP-scholarship: “yes”)Step 2: VLIR-UOS scholarship application form: To apply for the ICP scholarship, you have to follow a specific procedure. You’ll find more information about this procedure on the VLIR-application form, which you can download on top of the UP/DOWNLOAD page in your online application.After completing the online registration form, you also have to upload your documents on the up/download page.Step 3: Send hard copies of your application by postPrintout of the VLIR-UOS scholarship application formHard copies of legalised* degree certificates and academic transcriptsHard copies of additional necessary documents: certified English translations of diplomas and degrees, proof of English proficiency, 2 letters of recommendation, passport picture, … (see checklist)Application Deadline: The application deadline is March 1, 2018.

Adam Burkhardt's answer to How much does Africa impact human civilization?Well as far as any sort of a Contribution to the world, they don’t contribute anything. They simply hold everyone back. I’m not talking shit it’s just the truth. Stating truths and things that are obvious doesn’t make you a bad person. Being unwilling to see the truth and denying what is right in front of you does make you a bad person. If there was even one thing they contribute to the world, I don’t think you would have even posed this questionThis comes straight from the mouth of a European slaver and/or colonizer who lied to the world by saying that Africans were the last to develop and the last to impact the world. Africans did nothing, were nothing, had nothing before the coming of the White man. Their brainwashed descendants echo and repeat the same lies like programmed robots.Africa is the first continent of light and life. Africa is where it all began for all of us and Africa did not stop there.Africans, we are the elders of the world and the first explorers.Someone said it beautifully: In Africa, we have an impressive list of firsts: These Africans created the first inscribers of meaning, the first written records; the first monumental structures; the first architecture; the first walled cities, the first systematic removal of metals from the earth; the first copper mines; the first use of beds, tables, and chairs. In short, they established the “beginning of civilization”.Nathaniel Dana Carlile Hodges - Wikipediahttps://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1763687.pdfAfrica, Its Past and Future Source: Science, Vol. 13, No. 311 (Jan. 18, 1889), pp. 42-50 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1763687AFRICA, ITS PAST AND FUTURE.1AFRICA, the oldest of the continents, containing the earliest remains of man, and the birthplace of European civilization, is the last to be explored. Long before the temples of India or the palaces of Nineveh were built, before the hanging garden of Babylon was planted, the pyramids of Cheops and Cephren had been constructed, the temples of Palmyra and Thebes filled with worshippers.Greece owes its civilization to Egypt: its beautiful orders of architecture came from the land of the Nile. The civilization of Egypt had grown old, and was in its decay, when Rome was born. Think what a vast abyss of time separates us from the days of Romulus and Remus! And yet the pyramids of Egypt were then older by a thousand years than all the centuries that have passed since then.….We know that Africa is capable of the very highest civilization; that it was the birthplace of all civilization. To it we are indebted for the origin of all our arts and sciences, and it possesses to-day the most wonderful works of man. I believe that Africa, whose morning was so bright, and whose night has been so dark, will yet live to see the light of another and a higher civilization.…Here are key discoveries that came out of Africa.It is in South and Central Africa that inscribing meaning has its roots (Blombos 77.000, Ishango 28.000). The Ishango Bone which displays precise geometric markings is irrefutable evidence that that an advanced level of counting and mathematics existed in Africa more than 28,000 years ago. The Blombos Cave contains stones with marks revealing the oldest form of recorded counting ever found.The Muslim scholars of Timbuktu created the Bamana code, which is at the root of the binary code used in digital sciences and technologies. As someone put it : the Bamana Code and its different variants throughout Africa are the base of the invention of digital mathematics used for the binary coding of computers.Papyrus paper is the first paper in history. Found in the tombs and temples of Ancient Egyptians as far back as 2700 B.C. It was made by Ancient Egyptians from papyrus plant.Thanks to the discovery of the papyrus on the banks of the Nile, the African continent was the first in history to produce books. Long before the use of paper became widespread, an Egyptian brotherhood of scribes had already begun to make books under the leadership of the elite of priests.Fractal geomety. Fractals permeate traditional African cultures. Fractals are part of Africa’s hidden cultural capital. Fractals are considered to be important because they define images that are otherwise cannot be defined by Euclidean geometry. Fractals are described using algorithms and deals with objects that don't have integer dimensionsThe oldest megalithic calendar in the world discovered in the Egyptian Sahara, dating back to 7000 years ago. The Julian Calendar (365.25 days) was created thanks to the assistance of an Egyptian astronomer.…..Out of Africa - inventions from the greatest continent! | FinGlobalEarly African Inventions And DiscoveriesAfrica has an impressive list of firsts starting with ancient Egypt, the River Nile Civilization.Here are 25 of these firsts; there are others.The first as the cradle of humanity;The first written records;The first superpower (Egypt),The first flash of thought,The first inscribers of meaning (Blombos 77.000, Ishango 28.000);The first in technology discovery and use, in governance and (collective) government, and in statehood;The first city-state;The first awakening of intelligence in the human species;The first in history to produce books;The first monumental structures;The first architecture;The first systematic removal of metals from the earth;The first copper mines;The first use of beds, tables, and chairs;The first paved road (by Khufu 3 000 BC);The first walled cities;The first megalithic calendar;The first medical textbooks;The first kingship;The first geometry experts.The first bone tools;The first abstract art;The first jewellery;The first stone tipped spears and arrows:The first creation of carbon steel.History of science and technology in Africa - WikipediaAfrica has the world's oldest record of human technological achievement: the oldest stone tools in the world have been found in eastern Africa, and later evidence for tool production by our hominin ancestors has been found across Sub-Saharan Africa. The history of science and technology in Africa since then has, however, received relatively little attention compared to other regions of the world, despite notable African developments in mathematics, metallurgy, architecture, and other fields.Great achievements in science and technology in ancient AfricaSadly, the vast majority of discussions on the origins of science include only the Greeks, Romans and other whites. But in fact most of their discoveries came thousands of years after African developments. While the remarkable black civilization in Egypt remains alluring, there was sophistication and impressive inventions throughout ancient sub-Saharan Africa as well.How ancient Africans were the first nerds: Birth of technology traced back 70,000 years to the continent's southern tipModern human technology began more than 70,000 years ago in South Africa before spreading to communities elsewhere, a new study claims.It was there that our ancestors made the first bone tools, the first abstract art, the first jewellery and probably the first stone tipped spears and arrows, research shows.Ancient technology - WikipediaAfricaMain article: Science and technology in AfricaTechnology in Africa has a history stretching to the beginning of the human species, stretching back to the first evidence of tool use by hominid ancestors in the areas of Africa where humans are believed to have evolved.Africa saw the advent of some of the earliest ironworking technology in the Aïr Mountains region of what is today Niger and the erection of some of the world's oldest monuments, pyramids and towers in Egypt, Nubia, and North Africa. In Nubia and ancient Kush, glazed quartzite and building in brick was developed to a greater extent than in Egypt. Parts of the East African Swahili Coast saw the creation of the world's oldest carbon steel creation with high-temperature blast furnaces created by the Haya people of Tanzania.….Paul Gaffarel, a French scholar, wrote that Africa has always been the mysterious continent, the land of surprises and horrors, the land of unexpected contrasts, extreme barbarism and extreme civilization.There are marked contrasts between the Egypt of the Pharaohs, the Ethiopian empire and the group of pigmies in the Congo. There are even striking contrasts within the same geographical area. The Kingdom of Kongo was a well-organized and sophisticated kingdom.Kongo people - WikipediaDetailed and copious description about the Kongo people who lived next to the Atlantic ports of the region, as a sophisticated culture, language and infrastructure, appear in the 15th century, written by the Portuguese explorers.Later anthropological work on the Kongo of the region come from the colonial era writers, particularly the French and Belgians (Loango, Vungu, and the Niari Valley), but this too is limited and does not exhaustively cover all of the Kongo people. The evidence suggests, states Vansina, that the Kongo people were advanced in their culture and socio-political systems with multiple kingdoms well before the arrival of first Portuguese ships in the late 15th century.HistoriographyLeo Frobenius (1873-1938)Leo Frobenius, Histoire de la Civilisation AfricaineWhen they the first European navigators of the end of the Middle Ages arrived in the Gulf of Guinea and landed at Vaida, the captains were astonished to find the streets well cared for, bordered for several leagues in length by two rows of trees; for many days they passed through a country of magnificent fields, a country inhabited by men clad in brilliant costumes, the stuff of which they had woven themselves!More to the South in the Kingdom of Congo, a swarming crowd dressed in silk and velvet; great states well ordered, and even to the smallest details, powerful sovereigns, rich industries, -- civilized to the marrow of their bones. And the condition of the countries on the eastern coasts -- Mozambique, for example -- was quite the same.“The idea of the ‘barbarous Negro’ is a European invention, which has as a consequence, dominated Europe until the beginning of this century"What these old captains recounted, these chiefs of expeditions -- Delbes,Marchais, Pigafetta, and all the others, what they recounted is true. It can be verified. In the old Royal Kunstkammer of Dresden, in the Weydemann colection of Ulm, in many another 'cabinet of curiosities' of Europe, we still find West African collections dating from this epoch. Marvelous plush velvets of an extreme softness, made of the tenderest leaves of a certain kind of banana plant; stuffs soft and supple, brilliant and delicate, like silks, woven with the fiber of a raffia, well prepared; powerful javelins with points encrusted with copper in the most elegant fashion; bows so graceful in form and so beautifully ornamented that they would do honor to any museum of arms whatsoever; calabashes decorated with the greatest taste; sculpture in ivory and wood of which the work shows a very great deal of application and style."And all that came from countries of the African periphery, delivered over after that to slave merchants, . .In the last 500 years or so white Europeans exploded a “cultural bomb” all over the world, diminishing the value of non-white people and their ways—through colonization, imperialism, industrialization and globalization--Anonymous“The effect of the cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves, for instance, with other peoples’ languages rather than their own. It makes them identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces that would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral righteousness of struggle. Possibilities of triumph or victory are seen as remote, ridiculous dreams. The intended results are despair, despondency and a collective death-wish--Ngugi wa Thiong’ohttps://www.jstor.org/stable/41856846THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHARACTER OF PRE-COLONIAL STATES IN TROPICAL AFRICAThea ButtnerThe peoples of Africa are presently engaged in writing their own history. They have the right to discover the whole truth about their historical past.In the pre-colonial period, many peoples of Tropical Africa (varying in locality) attained a relatively high standard of development which, by every measure, compared favourably with that of other peoples. In the region south of the Sahara there existed for many centuries before colonial partition many important state formations. The most important of them being: Ghana (climax 9th-llth centuries), Mali (13th and 14th centuries), the city-states of Ife and Benin on the Guinea Coast as well as Kilwa, Mombasa, Malindi, Sofala etc. on the East African Coast (13th- 16th centuries, and in some cases earlier), the feudal Ethiopian Empire (from the 13th century), Songhai, Bornu, Kongo, Loango and Lunda Empires, Monomotapa (i.e. Mwene Mutapa and also Monoemugi (climax 15th-17th centuries) as well as the recent feudal creations of the 18th and 19th centuries, viz. the states of Buganda, Rwanda, Urundi, Dahomey, the Fulani and Toucouleur Islamic states, Futa Toro, Futa Jalon, Massina, Sokoto and not the least - to mention a few- late tribal organizations of the Zulus, Matabele and Ashanti - testify to the relatively high standard of the development of the productive forces, of economic and social differentiation and culture.There was significant heterogeneity in political centralization across African ethnicities before colonization (Murdock (1967)). At the one extreme, there were states with centralized administration and hierarchical organization, such as the Shongai Empire in Western Africa, the Luba kingdom in Central Africa, and the kingdoms of Buganda and Ankole in Eastern Africa. At the other ex treme, there were acephalous societies without political organization beyond the village level, such as the Nuer in Sudan or the Konkomba in Ghana and Togo. The middle of the spectrum occupied societies organized in large chief doms and loose alliances, such as the Ewe and the Wolof in Western AfricaHowever, like in other continents, the development of the African peoples progressed along contradicting lines and attained varying levels. Like in all pre-capitalist social structures, peoples and tribes of entirely different socio- economic standards of development were able to live together on the same territory and at the same time. Beside the formation of properly organized states in this period, there remained and, to an extent, there still partly remain, a few tribes and peoples of Africa who live in their communal forms of clan organization, chieftainship and in village communities without being able to cross the primeval communal social borders of the mesolithic and neolithic periods of human development.The existence of many African tribes and clans still living under the primitive communal order must not however lead us to the conclusion that Africa has always remained backward and under-developed. The conscious and unconscious focus on historically backward areas, noticeable in many works of social anthropologists undoubtedly still contains vestigial forms of an unvarnished, colonial-historical mentality and approach. W. R. Bascom and M. J. Herskovits, two leading American anthropologists, remarked that the Pygmies and Bushmen, who are not typical of Africa and are numerically unimportant, were better known in the U.S.A. than for instance, the Ashanti, Hausa, Fulani, etc.Without doubt, the introduction of iron played an important role in the social progress of many peoples with regard to the creation of city-trading centres along crossroads of external trade. Since the first millennium of our time such trade had acted as a catalytic agent for the formation of states.In West Africa bronze and brass casting flourished in an astounding manner. Here again, archaeologists and art-historians have confirmed that the bronze- statues and sculptures of Benin, which originated between the 14th and 16th centuries, stand well above European bronze products of the same period in the quality of casting and the careful processing of the bronze products. The relatively high standard of development in agriculture and craftsmanship also necessitated more highly developed systems of ownership than could possibly have been evolved in a primitive-communal order.I have always wondered why our royal palaces and sacred shrines were looted during colonial wars.I have always wondered what happened to the local industries and factories that littered the West and East African coasts before the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th.I have always wondered why the Scramble for Africa was soon followed by the Scramble for African art.I have always wondered why Stanley and other European explorers and mercenaries boasted that they destroyed cities and major towns in Africa.I have always wondered what European missionaries and merchants were doing while visiting our kings and queens.I have always wondered what happened to the archives of the trade and diplomatic missions opened by the African kingdoms in Europe and Brazil.I have always wondered why European missionaries deemed our initiation schools secret societies serving the Devil.I have always wondered why European colonials discouraged the use of indigenous scripts.I have always wondered how European historians knew more about our ancient and medieval history than the average African.I have always wondered why.——I got the answer.“Unlike the Tasmanians or Ancient Peruvians, the West African will never be wiped off the face of the earth, but intercourse with the white man alters his beliefs, ideas, customs, and technology, and proper records of these should be made before we destroy them. The destruction is going on apace, one of the chief contributory cause being the unsuitable European teaching given to the native races generally—unsuitable to them on the wide differences between the white and black man.”—Henry Ling Roth.…Technocolonialism is a lie. It is all part of the Civilizing Mission hoax.Not many people have heard of the fight against the technocolonialism discourse around the world. More often than not, the White man did not bring advanced technology but copied and borrowed from “primitive people” without given proper credit or recognition. In many places, The White man destroyed local crafts and industries.Here are key facts that European colonialists and their brainwashed descendants want us all to forget.Due to advances in native forge technology, smiths in some regions of sub-Saharan Africa were producing steels of a better grade than those of their counterparts in Europe, and the highly developed West African textile workshops had produced fine cloths for export long before the arrival of European traders.Much of the industry, arts and skills thus described by travelers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have changed and disappeared today: agriculture has retrograded among many tribes; cattle raising has led to erosion and lean and ill-fed herds; the work of native artisans has been replaced by cheap European manufactures in iron, earthenware and fiber.Sometimes new skills and methods borrowed from the white invaders or imitated have come in to replace the old, sometimes there has been nothing but retrogression; and, on the other hand, in many cases there is entire adaptation of European arts and methods, or of such portions of them as natives are permitted to learn.Benin also was a manufacturer of glass and glass beads, two types of iron furnaces were used in Sub-Saharan Africa: the trench dug below ground and circular clay structures built above the ground. Iron ores were crushed and placed in furnaces layered with the right proportion of hardwood.A 1508 account of Kongo textiles by Portuguese sea-captain Duarte Pacheco Pereira indicates how much these items were appreciated in Europe: “In the kingdom of the Congo they produce cloth from palm fibers with velvet-like pile of such beauty that better ones are not made in Italy.Recentring African Indigenous Knowledge and Belief Systems: Amazon.in: Nhemachena, Artwell, Hlabangane, Nokuthula, Matowanyika, Joseph Z Z: BooksPositing the notions of coloniality of ignorance and geopolitics of ignorance as central to coloniality and colonisation, this book examines how colonialists socially produced ignorance among colonised indigenous peoples so as to render them docile and manageable.Dismissing colonial descriptions of indigenous people as savages, illiterate, irrational, prelogical, mystical, primitive, barbaric and backward, the book argues that imperialists/colonialists contrived geopolitics of ignorance wherein indigenous regions were forced to become ignorant, hence containable and manageable in the imperial world.Questioning the provenance of modernist epistemologies, the book asks why Eurocentric scholars only contest the provenance of indigenous knowledges, artefacts and scientific collections. Interrogating why empire sponsors the decolonisation of universities/epistemologies in indigenous territories while resisting the repatriation/restitution of indigenous artefacts, the book also wonders why Westerners who still retain indigenous artefacts, skulls and skeletons in their museums, universities and private collections do not consider such artefacts and skulls to be colonising them as well. The book is valuable to scholars and activists in the fields of anthropology, museums and heritage studies, science and technology studies, decoloniality, policymaking, education, politics, sociology and development studies.

Because there are many Africas.In order to understand Africa, you have to understand it in all her aspects : physical, geological, climatic, etc.Figure 1. Map of the bedrock geology of Africa, outlining the major...Physical Map of AfricaFree Printable Maps: Map Of Climate Of AfricaBecause Africa is huge, really huge.Africa is huge, really huge. It is the second largest continent of 58 countries and territories and 5 geopolitical regions : North Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, West Africa and Southern Africa.Each African country is unique. Each African people is unique. Madagacar, a Southern African country has a unique history and reality as compared with the Gambia in West Africa.Africa - WikitravelAfrica is a very diverse continent, with each country, or even each part of a country having its own unique culture. While some people in the West refer to Africa as if it were a single country, one should remember the sheer size of the continent, and that Africa is not one country but 54 different countries, meaning that it is impossible to make generalisations of Africa as a whole.Africa today is a vast continent with many bustling metropolises, some of the friendliest people you'll ever meet, and amazingly diverse and beautiful landscapes.Map of AfricaNorth Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara)The countries that rim the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.Sahel (Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Sudan)The desert and savanna nations that span the Sahel and southern half of the Sahara Desert.West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo)The tropical Atlantic coastal nations.Central Africa (Angola, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, São Tomé and Príncipe, South Sudan)The heart of Africa.East Africa (Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Reunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda)The nations that border the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.Southern Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Zambia, Zimbabwe)Nations at Africa's southern tip.Because Africa has two histories in the Eurocentric discourse : before and after 15th (before and after the Triangular Trade).Africa in World HistoryBreathtaking are the broad sweeps in African history: Bantu expansion from what is now the Cameroon-Nigeria border through the breadth of equatorial Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean; the spread of iron metallurgy; the growth of agricultural technology and plant domestication; the creation and disintegration of vast empires; the devastating impact of European intrusions and the retardation of real economic growth in Africa; and the new imperialism of the nineteenth century which touched all but the most remote regions of the continent. This is the history of Africa painted in oil with the broad sweep of the palette knife. Notes of caution have been sounded by scholars concerning uncritical acceptance of hypotheses based on the broad canvas approach to African history, or overemphasis on alleged differences in, for example, a country as small as present-day Cameroon. But there are the many Africas in miniature, whose depiction requires water paint and a delicacy of individual strokes only achievable by the finest of sable brushes: individual personages; individual ethnic groups; individual families; highly personalized skills, the domain of the few—-A. J.R Russell-WoodAs someone put it : “The whole continent of Africa was taken over, its wealth exploited and its people dehumanized through enslavement, all in the name of Jesus Christ, Allah and civilization.THE DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF KONGOThe Portuguese, for their part, continued to be impressed with the African kingdom. They recast the Kongo court in the image of the late medieval world: Kongo nobility were designated dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons; their servants major-domos, chamberlains, squires, and cup-bearers.The Portuguese christened Kongo with Portuguese names: in their mouths, Afonso became Fusu; Bernardo, Mbelenadu; Pedro, Mpetelo; and Cristina, Kitidina. In translation much, inevitably, was lost: in the Lord’s Prayer, the word the Portuguese chose for “our daily bread” was nfundi, which was actually a starchy gruel; when the Portuguese used the word nkisi they meant holy, not fetish; when they said nganga they meant priest, not sorcerer; and however much they wanted to impress their hosts, when they spoke of Nzambi Mpungu, they definitely meant the Christian God, and not, as the Kongo at first assumed, the King of Portugal.In 1508, when a young black woman arrived in Scotland, (off a wrecked pirate ship, possibly), King James IV held and won a royal joust in honor of “that ladye with the mekle lippis.” A century later, Shakespeare and Rembrandt gave to their portraits of Africans an intelligence and dignity that later centuries would scarcely credit, and dozens of lesser painters of the Italian and Northern Renaissance sprinkled their canvases with images of blacks that were no more or less condescending than their image of Europeans.In the fifteenth and sixteenth century the Pope and the secular kings of Europe welcomed African potentates to their courts, and treated them with all the deference due royalty.But slavery needed a myth to sustain and justify itself.So in the bedrooms of the Brazilian sugar estates, where oriental drapery wilted from balustrades in the humid air, and from the lecterns of the cathedrals that the missionaries built on the fetid islands of the Atlantic, stories took root of the African as a tom-tom player and a devil-worshiper, an uncivilized savage, a sex-fiend and cheerful submissive. “The people of Guinea,” wrote one German scientist in the eighteenth century, “are more insensible than others towards pain and natural evils, as well as towards injurious and unjust treatment. In short, there are none so well adapted to be the slaves of others, and who therefore have been armed with so much passive obedience.”And Thomas Carlyle proclaimed, dizzily, “Before the West Indies could grow a pumpkin for any Negro, how much European heroism had to spend itself in obscure battle; to sink, in mortal agony, before the jungles, the putrescences and waste savageries could become arable, and the Devils in some measure chained up!”In this ideological transformation the Kingdom of the Kongo played a pivotal role. For it was with the discovery and exploitation of the Kongo, coming hard upon the establishment of the Atlantic sugar plantation, that the European demand for slaves was re-kindled, and the identification of slavery and race made explicit. In the century prior to 1482, the number of black slaves taken annually from Africa numbered, at most, in the hundreds.Most worked in Mediterranean Europe as household servants, hospital orderlies, garbage collectors, or in similar, menial positions. Color at that time was no bar to servitude: Greeks, Turks, Russians, Slavs, and Cretans were also enslaved, and most of the very first slaves shipped to Brazil were white. But after 1482, the number of slaves coming from Africa rose dramatically. By 1550, a Portuguese ditty could sum up Europe’s changing perception of Africa, and of the Kongo in particular:uns aos outros se vendem;& ha muitos merdadores que nisso somente entemdem;& hos enganam & prendem;& trazem aos tratadores.(They sell each other there are many merchants whose specialty it is to trick and capture them and sell them to the slavers.)Thus the question of who could enslave whom, and under what conditions, which had been a topic of lively debate in the early years of the European discovery and conquest of the New World, received a decisive answer.The die was cast: even today-some three hundred years after the Battle of Mbwila—thriller novels and college bars still borrow the Kongo’s name for its suggestion of the primitive. The old kingdom, its territory neatly bisected by the border between present-day Angola and Zaire [DR Congo], continues to exert an atavistic attraction, like an out-of-the-way theater in a once-fashionable.…..Leo Frobenius said it all.HistoriographyLeo Frobenius (1873-1938)Leo Frobenius, Histoire de la Civilisation AfricaineWhen they [the first European navigators of the end of the Middle Ages arrived in the Gulf of Guinea and landed at Vaida, the captains were astonished to find the streets well cared for, bordered for several leagues in length by two rows of trees; for many days they passed through a country of magnificent fields, a country inhabited by men clad in brilliant costumes, the stuff of which they had woven themselves!More to the South in the Kingdom of Congo, a swarming crowd dressed in silk and velvet; great states well ordered, and even to the smallest details, powerful sovereigns, rich industries, -- civilized to the marrow of their bones. And the condition of the countries on the eastern coasts -- Mozambique, for example -- was quite the same."What was revealed by the navigators of the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries furnishes an absolute proof that Negro Africa, which extended south of the desert zone of the Sahara, was in full efflorescence which the European conquistadors annihilated as far as they progressed. For the new country of America needed slaves, and Africa had them to offer, hundreds, thousands,whole cargoes of slaves. However, the slave trade was never an affair which meant a perfectly easy conscience, and it exacted a justification; hence one made of the Negro a half-animal, an article of merchandise. And in the same way the notion of fetish (Portuguese feticeiro) was invented as a symbol of African religion. As for me, I have seen in no part of Africa the Negroes worshipping a fetish.The idea of the 'barbarous Negro' is a European invention which has consequently prevailed in Europe until the beginning of this century."What these old captains recounted, these chiefs of expeditions -- Delbes, Marchais, Pigafetta, and all the others, what they recounted is true. It can be verified. In the old Royal Kunstkammer of Dresden, in the Weydemann colection of Ulm, in many another 'cabinet of curiosities' of Europe, we still find West African collections dating from this epoch. Marvellous plush velvets of an extreme softness, made of the tenderest leaves of a certain kind of banana plant; stuffs soft and supple, brilliant and delicate, like silks, woven with the fiber of a raffia, well prepared; powerful javelins with points encrusted with copper in the most elegant fashion; bows so graceful in form and so beautifully ornamented that they would do honor to any museum of arms whatsoever; calabashes decorated with the greatest taste; sculpture in ivory and wood of which the work shows a very greatdeal of application and style."And all that came from cuntries of the African periphery, delivered over after that to slave merchants, . . ."But when the pioneers of the last century pierced this zone of 'European civilization' and the wall of protection which had, for the time being raised behind it -- the wall of protection of the Negro still 'intact' --they found everywhere the same marvels which the captains had found on the coast