I would like to thank all my readers, and all the subscribers who have seen us through this journey. I never thought I would get to see the African Heritage blog reach the 1 Million views! Thank you to all of you for your constant support, and I promise to always bring you good content, and stories. This is truly a celebration to you, and to your readership! To celebrate, I am living you here with a gift available on Amazon!
A king, a beautiful princess, and a pot of hot chili sauce… the combination is bound to make you laugh. Enjoy this book, an African Children’s book, for young and young at heart! It is on kindle e-book.
17 September marks National Heroes’ Day in Angola, in memory of its first president Agostinho Neto‘s whose birthday was on that day in Kaxicane. To join in the celebration, I publish here one of his poems, ‘Western Civilization‘. Sad how these words still ring true to factory workers, plantation workers, miners, sweatshop workers, etc, around the world to this day. Enjoy ‘Civilização Ocidental‘ by Agostinho Neto!
Civilização ocidental
Latas pregadas em paus fixados na terra fazem a casa
Os farrapos completam a paisagem íntima
O sol atravessando as frestas acorda o seu habitante
Depois as doze horas de trabalho Escravo
Britar pedra acarretar pedra britar pedra acarretar pedra ao sol à chuva britar pedra acarretar pedra
A velhice vem cedo Uma esteira nas noites escuras
basta para ele morrer grato e de fome.
Western Civilization
Sheets of tin nailed to posts driven in the ground make up the house.
Some rags complete the intimate landscape.
The sun slanting through cracks welcomes the owner
after twelve hours of slave labour.
breaking rock shifting rock breaking rock shifting rock fair weather wet weather breaking rock shifting rock
As the battle to end the FCFA, the Slave Currency, intensifies, I have decided to share with you this video about it. It tells it all, the mathematics of it in a short time. This has to stop. We, Africans, deserve to be independent, and independence starts with the ability to define how to use our money.
To summarize, the FCFA is the colonial tax paid by African countries to France since their independence. As Mawuna R. Koutonin says it, “African leaders who refuse are killed or victim of a coup. Those who obey are supported and rewarded by France with lavish lifestyle while their people endure extreme poverty, and desperation. It’s such an evil system even denounced by the European Union, but France is not ready to move from that colonial system which puts about 500 billions dollars from Africa to its treasury year in year out.” No wonder the French people are always on strike, requesting shorter times of work (32 h vs 35 h vs 37h per week): because Africans are slaving for them, and every year they get 500 billion dollars without even having raised a finger!
Amilcar Cabral on a stamp with the flag of Guinea Bissau
“A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally only if, without complexes and without underestimating the importance of positive accretions from the oppressor and other cultures, they return to the upward paths of their own culture, which is nourished by the living reality of its environment, and which negates both harmful influences and any kind of subjection to foreign culture. Thus, it may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture.”
The value of culture as an element of resistanceto foreign domination lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated.Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence which it exerts on the evolution of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within a society, as well as among different societies.
Yes… I think most of Egypt is truly a treasure for archaeology, and for humanity as a whole. I would love to have the chance to work on one of those excavations!
The excerpt below is from the BBC. For the full article, please go to the BBC article.
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Archaeologists have discovered three tombs that date back around 2,000 years in southern Egypt.
They were found in burial grounds in the Al-Kamin al-Sahrawi area in Minya [Governorate ]/ province, south of Cairo.
The tombs contained a collection of different sarcophagi, or stone coffins, as well as clay fragments.
Egypt’s antiquities ministry said the discovery “suggests that the area was a great cemetery for a long span of time“.
One of the tombs, which was reached through a shaft carved in rock, contained four sarcophagi that had been sculpted to depict a human face.
In another, excavators found six burial holes, including one for the burial of a small child. …
Map of modern-day Niger with the Gaya region highlighted in orange, and the Liptako and Zinder regions as well.
Here is yet another French treaty signed in Niger, this time in the Gaya region. It is hard to say if this treaty was just for the area encompassing the city of Gaya, in Niger today, or the entire department of Gaya in the Dosso Region of Niger, or even if it went as far as the city of Gaya in Nigeria.
Treaty between the French Republic and the King of Gaya in Niger
Between the Undersigned,
H.E. Abdoulaye, King and owner of the city and dependencies of Gaya, assisted by his council, on one hand, and Georges Joseph Toutée, Staff captain of artillery, Knight of the legion of Honor, commander of the imperial order of Annam, acting in the name and in accordance with the instructions of the French Republic on the other hand,
It has been agreed the following treaty.
Article I
The Kingdom of Gaya is placed for life under the sovereignty and exclusive protectorate of France.
Article II
The present treaty, which will take effect immediately is hereby submitted for ratification by the French government.
Article III
On the occasion of this convention, the King of Gaya accepts the presents sent to him by the French government, as well as the tricolor flag, symbol of the union between the two countries.
Made in Gaya on the Niger river, the twenty third of June eighteen ninety five, in three expeditions, including one in Arab.
Map of modern-day Niger highlighting the Liptako region (in blue) which extended into Mali and Burkina Faso, and Gaya and Zinder.
Here is another treaty signed in Niger, this time in the Liptako region which was part of the Liptako Emirate, a hilly region beginning on the right back of the Niger river, and today part of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Modern-day Liptako, most of which falls in 10 to 19provinces of Burkina Faso, along with Niger‘s Tera and Say Departments, and small parts of Mali, is a hilly and in parts sparsely populated area. It is also known as Liptako Gourma, from the name of its original historic inhabitants the Gourmantche. Parfait-Louis Monteil was the French officer who signed this treaty on 23 May 1891 with Boubakar, son of Boari, the King of the Liptako.
Parfait-Louis Monteil: De Saint-Louis a Tripoli par le Lac Tchad, voyage au travers du Soudan et du Sahara accompli pendant les années 1890-91-92. Paris 1895
Between us, Monteil (Parfait Louis), Captain in the general staff of the infantry of Marin, Knight of the legion of Honor, Officer of the Academy, representing the government of the French Republic and imbued with necessary powers, and, Boubakar son of Boari, King of the Liptako, and mandated by him, the following treaty was concluded:
Article I
The King of the Liptako in his name and in the name of his successors places his country under the protectorate of France.
Article II
France acknowledges the independence of the Liptako under the current king and his successors.
France agrees to ensure this independence against attacks from neighboring countries.
Article III
The King of the Liptako commits to protecting by all means in his power the trade of the caravans.
Article IV
The trade will be entirely free in the Liptako, the caravans shall not be subject to any duty either upon arrival or departure.
Article V
In all countries under French domination or protectorate, the caravans coming from the Liptako will be efficiently protected and no duty shall be levied on them.
Article VI
The French or French subjects who will come to settle in the Liptako for trade will be, they, and their goods, under the sincere protection of the King who will be responsible for any looting or vexation committed against them.
Article VII
The King of the Liptako agrees not to sign any treaty with another European foreign power without submitting it to the prior sanction of the French government.
Article VIII
As a sign of our effective protection that he can use as a matter of right, the King of the Liptako has received the French flag which he agrees to keep.
Made in Dori, the twenty third of May eighteen ninety one, in two expeditions, including one which was left in the hands of the king to serve him as matter of right, the other one was kept by us.
Town of Zinder viewed from the French fort in 1906
France had many colonies in Africa. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire was the second largest colonial empire behind the British Empire . This explains why today France has a seat at the table of world powers, mostly because of its colonial heritage which continues with its French Colonial Tax in Africa in action to this day with its slave currency called CFA Franc. As a part of the Scramble for Africa, France aimed to establish a continuous west-east axis across the continent, in contrast with the proposed British north-south, Cairo to Cape, axis. It had colonies in North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, Madagascar and the Comoros.
Map of modern-day Niger with the Zinder region highlighted (this is smaller than the original 19th century version)
I am sharing with you here a treaty that was signed in an area which was part of French West Africa (AOF), in modern-day Niger, between the King of Zinder and the French representative Georges Joseph Toutée on 9 June 1895. Note that in the treaty, it states that “the king places his territory, without any restriction or reserve, under French sovereignty.” Zinder was part of the Sultanate of Damagaram, a powerful kingdom founded in 1731, which lasted until the 1890s with the French conquest. In the mid 19th century, the state covered some 70,000 square kilometers and had a population over 400,000, mostly Hausa, but also Tuareg, Fula, Kanuri, Arab and Toubou. By the end of the 19th century, Damagaram could field an army of 5,000 cavalry, 30,000 foot soldiers, and a dozen cannons, which they produced in Zinder.
Treaty between the French Republic and King Atikou of Zinder
Between the Undersigned,
Atikou, King and owner of the city and territory of Zinder in Niger, stipulating for him and his successors on one hand, and Georges Joseph Toutée, Staff Captain of artillery, Knight of the legion of Honor, Commander of the royal order of Annam on the other hand,
Convention
Article I
The King Atikou places his country, without any restriction or reserve, under the sovereignty and exclusive protectorate of France.
Article II
He makes the solemn declaration that he has never made any commitment to any other European power.
Article III
In sign of which he accepts the French flag.
Article IV
The present convention, subject to the ratification by the French government shall nevertheless enter immediately into force.
Made in Zinder, the nine June eighteen ninety five, in three expeditions, including one in Arab.
I had to share with you this video of Akon at the YouthConnekt in Kigali, Rwanda, this past July. I am not a fan of Akon, but what he says about rebranding Africa is so true. It is just the reason I started this blog, to talk about Africa, the part that we should know: our history, our lives, our realities! The fact that Africa is being represented by wars, when there is only war in maybe 4 countries out of 54, makes me mad. I remember talking to Americans, and they thought I lived on trees in the jungle; when I told them that we had real cities, and that their city in America looked worst than where I came from, they couldn’t believe me. Rebranding Africa is so important… we have to tell OUR own story, and stop letting others tell it! This is also similar to Chimamanda Adichie’s talk: The Danger of a Single Story.
“I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.” Miriam Makeba
I would like to thank all my readers, and all the subscribers who have seen us through this journey. I never thought I would get to see the African Heritage blog reach the 1 Million views! Thank you to all of you for your constant support, and I promise to always bring you good content, and stories. This is truly a celebration to you, and to your readership! To celebrate, I am living you here with a gift available on Amazon!
African Heritage 