I thought to myself, \u201cthese people are really hungry for a stage\u201d \u2013 a global stage, even. They wanted to relate their history to outsiders, and I therefore decided to write a history book about Africa, written from the African perspective. And that really is the key angle.<\/p>\n
Although the book is An African History of Africa<\/em> by Zeinab Badawi, I see myself more as an intercessor between the reader and these marvellous African scholars and intellectuals. And I say \u2018marvellous\u2019 because every one of them would be at home in any of the world\u2019s finest academic institutions. In fact, many of them have studied at the world\u2019s top universities overseas, but have returned to Africa to ply their trade there.<\/p>\n I do think it\u2019s absolutely important that when you look at Africa\u2019s history, you observe it through the lens of Africans themselves and from specific regions, because Africa is made up of 54 countries. If you consider the history of the people of central Africa, for example, then it makes sense to talk to people from the Congo today \u2013 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as Congo Brazzaville. If you look at Africa through a western lens all the time, you will find some things quite baffling and beyond comprehension. But that\u2019s because the value systems, the traditional beliefs, are quite different.<\/p>\n I do believe that African historians and archaeologists bring something different to the table than Africanists who don\u2019t hail from the continent themselves. There are many great Africanists and they\u2019ve written some marvellous books, but the indigenous academic scholar brings just that little extra bit of quality. Plus, they will have grown up with oral tradition, from which so much of Africa\u2019s history is derived.<\/p>\n If you ask most people, \u201cwhat do you know about Africa\u2019s history before the 19th century?\u201d or ask them to name a king or a queen, they\u2019d be hard pressed. They might come up with Tutankhamun<\/a>, they might come up with Shaka, king of the Zulus, but probably not much more than that. So, I decided I wanted to tell the story of Africa through personalities insofar as I could, and to focus on women where I could as well.<\/p>\n There are some marvellous characters that I encountered on the way, such as King Taharqo, who was the king of Kush in ancient Sudan during the seventh century BC and is named in the Bible. He was a great tactician and soldier and a very effective ruler. Under him, the kingdom of Kush became a regional superpower.<\/p>\n I also loved researching Queen Njinga, ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms in what is now Angola. She was born in the late 1500s and was marked out for greatness, having been born feet first \u2013 apparently a sign that she would go far. There are some fantastic stories about her: once, while being chased by Portuguese soldiers, she came to a rocky precipice and managed to abseil to safety using a vine, whereas the men pursuing her fell to their deaths.<\/p>\n Is it possible to regard Africa in such comprehensive terms? Obviously, I only skimmed the surface, and I was selective; you have to be. But I think that I have tried, and largely succeeded, in trying to ensure that north, south, east, west and central Africa are covered at some stage in the book.<\/p>\n I personally don\u2019t like the division that has often existed between north Africa and the rest of the continent, which has led to people viewing north Africa as being solely part of the Arab world. Of course, it is part of the Arab world, but that doesn\u2019t mean that it isn\u2019t also part of Africa. As I mentioned above, I have also tried to focus on personalities from each of these regions because I think history is better understood when it\u2019s seared into the imagination \u2013 and it\u2019s best to do this through characters.<\/p>\n I believe you will emerge from reading this book with a deeper understanding of Africa than you would have had before. More importantly, I hope that it will excite curiosity and encourage readers to go and learn more about the aspects they find especially interesting.<\/p>\n I was full of nervous excitement because I was about to meet a superstar, albeit one that had been dead for millions of years. And that was, of course, Lucy \u2013 or to use her name in the Amharic language of Ethiopia, \u2018Dinkenesh\u2019, which means \u2018you are marvellous\u2019. This really was a standout moment for me. Discovered in 1974, she was a member of the extinct Australopithecus afarensis<\/em> species that stood upright and lived about 3 million years ago. I was very privileged to be taken into a climatically controlled room at the museum, and the attendant, with great reverence, opened the drawers to show me her bones.<\/p>\n Lucy\u2019s line didn\u2019t exactly lead to the lineage that we humans are descended from, but she\u2019s part of this ever-evolving story of the origins of humankind. I wanted to start the book with her story because everyone is originally \u2018from\u2019 Africa; the science is settled, and everyone agrees that is where humanity evolved. In a world where we talk so much about racial differences, it\u2019s useful to remind our selves that we all share the same origin.<\/p>\n I was born in the Sudan, but I\u2019ve lived in the UK since I was two. I didn\u2019t have any preconceptions when I began writing this book, but I was surprised by the richness of the continent\u2019s history \u2013 and especially by the history of the country where I was born. Sudan, for example, has a thousand pyramids (with about a quarter preserving their superstructure), whereas Egypt only has around a hundred. I was also blown away by the statues of the ancient kings of Sudan and some of the artefacts associated with them. It may be because I have a greater attachment to Sudan that that was the one area of research that really surprised me in a pleasant way.<\/p>\n Sadly, there hasn\u2019t been a lot of investment in archaeology in Africa, and when there have been excavations, it has often been the domain of westerners. In some respects, that is starting to change: Egypt, for example, has well-known archaeologists like Dr Zahi Hawass, who was formerly the country\u2019s minister of antiquities. Knowledge is universal, of course, but it\u2019s wonderful to see locals now getting involved in the excavation of their ancestors\u2019 heritage.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, governments in Africa have not really put a great deal of public funds into the study of archaeology or big digs because it can be expensive. It also involves weeks, months and years of painful excavation \u2013 often in harsh terrain. Instead, countries have devoted their funds to churning out doctors and engineers, which they feel will make them better equipped in their drive for industrialisation.<\/p>\n Dr Webber Ndoro, a fantastic Zimbabwean archaeologist, has spoken out about the issue, and revealed how there are just a handful of archaeologists trying to manage all the archaeological sites in his country. It\u2019s the same with Sudan, where there are still treasures yet to be unearthed. The Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet has dedicated his life to Sudanology, and he says there will eventually come a time when Sudanology will be as well-known as Egyptology.<\/p>\n There has been a tendency outside of Africa \u2013 and even inside Africa \u2013 to see the ancient Egyptians as somehow separate from the continent. That could be because, in the AD 640s, Egypt was conquered by the Arabs, and they perhaps influenced the way that the people there defined themselves.<\/p>\n But I do say in the book that ancient Egypt is an integral part of Africa\u2019s story, and perhaps what one should do is question why we have a certain stereotype of what an African is or what an African looks like. And that does revolve to some extent around ethnicity. Egypt\u2019s pharaohs<\/a>, for instance, would have had a range of appearances over the centuries, ranging from the fairer to the darker, and so on.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also worth bearing in mind that some of ancient Egypt\u2019s greatest sites \u2013 the temple at Karnak, the Valley of the Kings in Luxor \u2013 are not located along the Mediterranean, but in southern Egypt, closer to Sudan. The major deity, Amun-Ra, was believed to reside in Jebel Barkal, which is in northern Sudan, and the Egyptians believed he lived there along with the ancient Sudanese. So, it is very much part of Africa\u2019s story, and although there is a bit of a resistance to seeing Egypt like that, I hope it\u2019s something that we will overcome.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think Africa\u2019s history should be reduced to just talking about the transatlantic slave trade<\/a>; in fact, I only get to the topic in chapter 14. There are, however, some diaspora Africans \u2013 particularly African-Americans \u2013 who have a tendency to pivot towards slavery as being the defining aspect of their history, without looking at events before that. I\u2019d like to say to them that they do actually have a fine history that far predates the slave trade.<\/p>\n Having said that, slavery was of course very much a defining chapter in Africa\u2019s history, because when you remove 12.5 million of the strongest, youngest people from a country or a region, then it is obviously going to have a huge impact on that place\u2019s development. It not only severed social structures, but it set people against each other. Some communities collaborated with the slave traders by transporting people onto waiting ships in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n Crucially, it has also shaped racism: slavery was based on the idea that Africans were \u2018inferior\u2019, and it was therefore acceptable to pack them into slave ships cheek by jowl. And I think that when people discuss the issue of racism today, you can see its roots in the slave trade, when Africans were seen as \u2018subhuman\u2019.<\/p>\n Although Africa is made up of a multitude of different ethnicities, cultures and languages, it was \u2013 and still is \u2013 united by the fact that they each suffered from either foreign invasion or colonial occupation. By the end of the 19th century, only Ethiopia and Liberia were \u2018sovereign\u2019, and I say that in inverted commas because Liberia was still very much in hock to various corporate interests, and Ethiopia was subject to attack by the British and, later, the Italians.<\/p>\nYour book aspires to centre African voices in the telling of their own history. Do you think this yields a more authentic understanding of a place?<\/h3>\n
Could you tell me about some of the long-overlooked individuals you spotlight in your book, and their achievements?<\/h3>\n
\n
What are the benefits and the disadvantages of tackling an entire continent\u2019s history?<\/h3>\n
I personally don\u2019t like the division that has often existed between north Africa and the rest of the continent, which has led to people viewing north Africa as being solely part of the Arab world <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Africa is the cradle of humanity, and you begin your book millions of years ago at the dawn of our species. What was it like to visit the National Museum of Ethiopia and come face-to-face with one of our earliest ancestors?<\/h3>\n
Has the process of researching and writing this book changed your view of your own heritage?<\/h3>\n
![\"Ancient](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-534056530-0c50563.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Ancient")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Why has archaeological research been so difficult in some parts of Africa? Have these difficulties hindered a deeper understanding of the continent\u2019s past?<\/h3>\n
Egyptomania was \u2013 and still is \u2013 a global phenomenon. But why has the reality of ancient Egypt as an African civilisation sometimes provoked controversy?<\/h3>\n
The Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet has dedicated his life to Sudanology, and he says there will eventually come a time when Sudanology will be as well-known as Egyptology <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
How should we balance the history of the transatlantic slave trade and its impact on Africa with the multitude of other stories from the continent\u2019s past?<\/h3>\n
\n
How did the rise and fall of European colonialism across Africa contribute to a sense of \u2018African-ness\u2019 among the various nations and cultures on the continent?<\/h3>\n
![\"Nelson](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-150339116-5129077.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Nelson")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>