Article: Renaming Africa

[imhotep06]

Greetings Phamily

I hope all is well. I have just recently finished an article in which I have suggested a new name for Africa. Please review and give me your feedback. As many of you know I have made it my life's mission to restore and reconstruct something that has been taken away from us as a result of the colonial holocaust of Africa: our identity. Here is the link to the pdf:

www.asarimhotep.com/documentdownloads/Renaming_Africa.pdf

I look forward to your feedback.

Asar Imhotep
www.asarimhotep.com

[anansi]

Well I skimmed through the pdf..will do a more through reading later but I got the jest of whats being proposed.

first off not one of the continents were self named not even Europe..Asia was a small settlement called Alysia or something to that effect.which got to cover the large land mass and Islands in the Pacific..and everyone knows about Amerigo Vespucci..having his name transferred to the large land mass to the west.

Now that saying I have no problem with the name Africa..as it once got transferred form an ethnic group or nation of people called Afer..it has a history after-all while it's true that the Yoruba and others may not have known themselves as Africans when they boarded ships destined for the America's and elsewhere they quickly learned that they were Africans when they docked.

I think moving for a continental name change that everyone can agree on will be problematic..it can be done but will take time what needs to be done however is renaming streets landmass in local areas with names that have meaning to the locals or historic heroic figures and rid of those oppressor mass murder's names like Namibia capital — Windhoek

Dya Malela..sounds an awful lot like Melhuha what the Sumerians called Kush..who knows maybe you can look into that.

A name change??? personally I am not mentally ready for that as I like the term African,African America and Mother Africa.

[imhotep06]

You will have to read the full article to understand why, as this is a matter of continental cultural development as espoused by Diop in Black Africa: An Economic and Cultural basis for a Federated State. The problem, as stated in the article, is that there is more to being "African" than a mere label. It is a world-view, a consciousness and an approach to relating to the world and the human community. With that in mind, the overwhelming tradition in Africa, among Black Bamalela (Africans) is that names provide them direction and embody the vision of the people: a character to develop. Africa provides no such guidance and how it was applied was not done in "African" tradition. Therefore, the name is clandestine.

People ONLY like the name Africa because they are used to hearing the term. 99.99% of people in the world cannot tell you what it means, which means they can't tell you how the term Afri/Aourigha was applied by the people. You don't know if that truly is indigenous to the people or if that was a name given to them like how the Massai named the Dorobo people "Dorobo" (poor people, those with no cows). If you can't even tell me what the name means and how does it relate to your human development, then you not BEING "African"; you are acting like a European where names are mere labels for identification: not aspirations to be obtained.

The spirit on the continent is to BE (kala) on your own terms. This is a practice of self-determination; something "Africans" and "African-Americans" have not known collectively for sometime. Therefore this concept seems foreign to them.

[anansi]

Ok!! I did some further reading of the pdf,lets say we try to get a name change, it is still not clear exactly how negative the term is..for example if the name was"Negro-land" we could easily relate to it's negativity and called for it's demise...however having control of defining one's self is important..getting the 54 different nations some of whom are oriented to an even more ridiculous geographical place called the "Middle East"..the big money question is how to convince the leaders and movers and shakers to get with the change?

In my opinion the thing that could work best is if one has Africa as an economic bloc get the following below to combine.

Pillars Subgroups
Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD)
Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
East African Community (EAC)
Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS/CEEAC) Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC)
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA)

West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ)
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
Southern African Development Community (SADC) Southern African Customs Union (SACU)
Arab Maghreb Union (AMU/UMA)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Economic_Community

And merge them which is possible..then have someone clever like say... you!!..create an anagram with the name that has the deep cultural meaning that you want and still make sense to the now unified bloc..that maybe a start..but for the name to succeed the economic bloc must succeed for the ordinary people to get use to referring them selves as ..insert____new name...I have African friends who proudly referred to themselves as members of ECOWAS..so maybe that's the way to go..but it has to be successful for the rank and file to feel it and beleive in it..then slowly replace the name Africa with Dya Malela..if that's the name of the economic bloc.

[imhotep06]

I highly recommend that you read Dr. Chiekh Anta Diop's Black Africa: An Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State. Here he understands something very fundamental that most leaders have yet to realize. I call this "putting the nationalist cart in front of the cultural horse."

What Diop notes is that all unification efforts have failed because the people did not address the cultural issue. I don't know if you are from the United States, or are a part of the general Diaspora, but if you are, you may have a different world-view in regards to how you relate to "black" people because of our recent historical past that stripped us of an identity and lumped us all together.

With that said, a person in the Diaspora, who is conscious, sees ALL Black people as related. That is not the case in Africa. The general population doesn't view themselves as brothers with other Africans: they don't have the same "race" consciousness as we do. This is something Diop, being born and raised there, realized. It is because of this lack of consciousness in the general population, and among leaders, that Diop sought to change this by using the fields of linguistics and cultural anthropology to make known the deep cultural similarities and origins of Africans.

If the general population can be shown that you are in fact the same people, that your languages are essentially dialects of the same language, then the people have a basis to consider their similarity and work towards unification. For Diop (Nkruma and others), a unified African state is the ONLY solution to many of the problems facing Africa. This can't happen until the people recognize their sameness amidst all their diversity.

So the name change has nothing to do with the economic unions. This is cultural. I argue, as well as Diop, Wilson, Kotkin and others, that there is no economic prosperity for a people without a unified culture. This is why in Black Africa, Diop called for a unifying African language for the continent to speak, and the creation of a unified culture. You can also see the interviews in Van Sertima's Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop.

So I hope you understand the name change within this context. I again advise that you not read the article piecemeal, but in full so you can grasp the reasons. All have been stated in the article.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

There is no lack of consciousness. Continentals do very well
recognize that they (where applicable) are black. But having
never lost their ethnic and political identities, continentals
don't view colour as the prime indicator of who and what
they are in defining relationship among themselves. Thus
ethnicity is of more importance than colour within the continent.

True, those of the western diaspora who only have a colour
consciousness because ethnic identity was forcibly stripped
from them. As an oppressed minority population an outside
imposed colour identity became adopted by them as their
internal identity in North America. But there are western
diasporans who have more than a colour consciousness.

In the western hemisphere where blacks were the majority
though not the ruling population, nationality rather than
colour is the prime identity. Even in North America some
diasporans did once create and use other internal identities
along with the colour identity.

I think that in Africa the federated state idea will only emerge
from realization of the practical advantages of adopting it rather
than on the idea of all continentals being "brothers and sisters."
Diop's book bases the federation on practical regional resources
and infrastructures.

[imhotep06]

@al, you just repeated what I said. Thus why I had the "black" in parenthesis to denote that their identity is not based on so-called "race" like those in the Diaspora. I can supply dozens of accounts that demonstrate a relationship with all "africans" is a recent occurrence in history and due to Europeans. However, it is their ethnic affiliations that prevents them from advancing together. This is what Diop noted and worked against: again, demonstrating through anthropology and linguistics that they are more the same than they are different.

The book "The Assassination of Lumumba" describes, in one occurrence, how because the Congolese army divided their troops by ethnic groups, how they lost their battles; not equipping other ethnic groups with weapons and the like. This is what che guevara noted when he went to help in their revolution.

This documentary Riots and Religion help to underscore many of the problems in Africa, although focused on Nigeria. www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2zbsEesKx8

Jordon Ngubane in his book Conflict of Minds (1979) discusses how until he went to west Africa, him being a Zulu, he didn't realize that West Africans had the same cultural and philosophical outlooks on life as the Buntu of South Africa. Diop notes in an interview that this not knowing about each other is because there is no interafrican tourism industry (at least at the time).

So when we examine these few examples out of many, we see why Africa continues to fail at a lot of large scale projects: they don't have (in general) a collective mindset that sees and desires to work together. As Diop noted they don't want to give up some sovereignty for the sake of the greater good.

The regional resources discussed by Diop only addresses the Economic portion of the Black Africa: An Economic and CULTURAL basis for a federated state. He argues, as so many other authors who deal with this issue, that until you build the culture FIRST you will NEVER realize your economic potential. All economic endeavors derive from the creative minds tuned into their culture. So unless you address that first, then there is no hope for unification.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Cultures are already built. Science, economics, etc.
don't depend on cultural collectives. Scientists and
economists, and so on, of very different cultural
backgrounds often work together without feeling
they are siblings or need to give up land.

It's my opinion that modern nation states don't exist
and thrive because their citizens believe themselves
"brothers and sisters." Outside of Asia the "advanced"
nation states are very diverse ethnically though they
were founded and rule remains with one dominant
ethny.

The pursuit of individual gain and practical self-interest
collectively drives nations to excellence. I think ths is
pretty much universal. When continental elites make
it profitable for other sectors as it is for politicians
individual states will prosper more because the
brain drain will cease (how many continentals
with home earned engineering degrees are
in the west persuing trivial employment?).

Land is a commodity that can't be manufactured and
nobody's sharing their land (natural resources) and
most certainly are not giving up their land for ideaology.

National boundaries are here to stay. There are many
national federations on the continent today. I find that
even "brothers and sisters" rationalize their individual
needs and greeds and act on them regardless of their
sibling relationship.

Bru Nansi has already noted existing regional/cultural 'federations:'

Jun 8, 2010 6:32:31 GMT -5 anansi said:

Ok!! I did some further reading of the pdf,lets say we try to get a name change, it is still not clear exactly how negative the term is..for example if the name was"Negro-land" we could easily relate to it's negativity and called for it's demise...however having control of defining one's self is important..getting the 54 different nations some of whom are oriented to an even more ridiculous geographical place called the "Middle East"..the big money question is how to convince the leaders and movers and shakers to get with the change?

In my opinion the thing that could work best is if one has Africa as an economic bloc get the following below to combine.

Pillars Subgroups
Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD)
Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
East African Community (EAC)
Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS/CEEAC) Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC)
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA)

West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ)
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
Southern African Development Community (SADC) Southern African Customs Union (SACU)
Arab Maghreb Union (AMU/UMA)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Economic_Community

And merge them which is possible..then have someone clever like say... you!!..create an anagram with the name that has the deep cultural meaning that you want and still make sense to the now unified bloc..that maybe a start..but for the name to succeed the economic bloc must succeed for the ordinary people to get use to referring them selves as ..insert____new name...I have African friends who proudly referred to themselves as members of ECOWAS..so maybe that's the way to go..but it has to be successful for the rank and file to feel it and beleive in it..then slowly replace the name Africa with Dya Malela..if that's the name of the economic bloc.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Imhotep

Just for the record, I do find your article to be very informative!

It is refreshing to see Kawaida still at work. What you are doing
is true Afrocentrism (sp) and I applaud it without, of course, being
in 100% agreement with it. Keep up the good works!

[zarahan]

Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a society built on truth, righteousness and justice (ma’at, meeyi, cyamalela)? Can you feel yourself in a society where part of the education system is geared toward making lasting friendships? What would it feel like to enter into a country where the society was organized in such a way that the political system was designed to bring about a principled and harmonious togetherness within community,… a place free of want, toil and domination,… a place ripe and well-cooked (prepared) for human and spiritual development? What would it feel like to embody these principles in the name we call ourselves? What would it be like to be the walking personification of these ideals (a mu-/lu-Malela)? You have to imagine the possibilities and work toward your ideals.
If we adopt Malela as the name for the people and Dya/Cya-Malela as the name for the land, we now have our very own north star to guide us, orient us towards these high aspirations. This is a name truly grounded in our ancestral traditions. When the name Africa (with a yet to be determined meaning) is weighted against Dya Malela, they do not compare.

None of the above will be accomplished by a name change, and indeed, a regime based on real "truth, righteousness and justice" has never been accomplished anywhere, at any time in human history. Oh, various peoples and names CLAIM and ASSERT that it is so, but assertion is NOT reality. The glowing vista you envision above is inspiring, but human beings are what they are, and they will never bring it to pass- whether under monarchism, tribalism, communism or capitalism, or socialism, or technologicalism. Hence many religions see this regime coming only by a power beyond humanity, whether the millenium of Christianity under the reign of Christ, or a disembodied Buddhist nirvana, freed from the sorrowful cycles of reincarnation, outside of human ken, and a whole lot alongside and in-between.

What you say is inspiring and appealing, but it is in essence another call for a new label, without much significant impact on the ground.


The creation of a federated Africa, because of the mere size and diversity of the continent, seems to some a daunting task: one which seems impossible. Because of the sheer size of the project, what has to be done is to build the confidence of the people in their ability to bring change.

It is unclear whether a federated Africa is a good thing. The devil is in the details and the omens are not necesarily good. The European Union is no longer a federation of independent nations, but an emerging superstate ruled by a bureaucratic elite with its own special interests, agendas and internal "enemies" to harass and persecute. And it is by no means clear that a federated Africa or Cya-Malela would not be dominated and manipulated in turn by the Eurasian superstate. A name change might set the tone, but the tone of what? The emerging creature may be WORSE than what we have now. There are much more important things to be done first than a name change if confidence is to be built. The danger is in producing a new shell structure, that concentrates power even more in the hands of corrupt African elites, who in turn "deliver" even more of the continent and its resources into the grasp of the Eurasian octopus.


So when we examine these few examples out of many, we see why Africa continues to fail at a lot of large scale projects: they don't have (in general) a collective mindset that sees and desires to work together.

Dubious. You dont need a cross-continental collectivist mindset to build strong armies, strong economies or a vibrant cultural mix. European countries like Britain did not need this, nor did Germany, nor did the Scndanavian countries to a lesser extent. Nor did Spain or Portugal during the age of Exploration. In fact the European powers were often in outright ocmpetition with one another. INDIVIDUAL African countries can be powerhouses rivaling all but the major European regimes if they pursue the right policies. South Africa is often touted as a case in point, but so is Nigeria. Mismanagement however in both places, whether under apartheid or revolving door military dictatorships has drasticaly slowed that power potential. Nigeria at least should have been like Brazil now technologically, or approaching Taiwan in terms of trade.

On of the things that has held African power back is socialism, the dead hand of governments stifling innovation, stifling growth, and stifling wealth as more government bureaucrats and politicans are given more power over the society. Tanzania tried collectivism with its "ujamma" phase and failed miserably on several counts, especially hurting the vital agriculture sector, and impovershing its people. The list goes on and on. SOcialism and collectivism ( a white European approach in any case) has been a dead hand and a disaster on large parts of the African continent. And you call for even more of the same?

[anansi]

The potential is there for from my observation all the Africans I have met are multi lingual..some speaking up to 5 African languages plus two or more European or Asian languages,mind you these are mostly traders..but I feel it is people like these that will most likely bridge the cultural barriers first..I have witness first hand folks who are divided by conflicts at home huddling together discussing corruption of government officials..ethnocentrism..religious divide as a rouse tactic to maintain power..even the much vaunted North/South divide became blunted..when talking to African students and merchants,they want easy access to travel and conduct business without going through some European capitol first when traveling to another African nation. not because it is impossible to do so but because of all the bribes that must be given to get your pass port or vista stamped if one is a casual visitor then it's a minor irritation but if you do this on a monthly basis then it becomes down right expensive .

Like Zarahan said;
The danger is in producing a new shell structure, that concentrates power even more in the hands of corrupt African elites, who in turn "deliver" even more of the continent and its resources into the grasp of the Eurasian octopus.


Is a distinct possibility^..that's why the merging of those economic blocs are important ,naming the newly merged blocs with deep rooted cultural meaning would be the polish to make it shine.

And not to get too O.T but what do we do about the Levant ??

Do we let it go as too troublesome and unrecoverable??after-all it is geologically connected to the rest of the African plate and we did maintain control over it for long periods of time.

[truthcentric]

^ The southern Levant lies on the African plate, but the northern part is on the Arabian plate, and most of Levantine culture is derived from Mesopotamia (also on the Arabian plate) rather than Africa.

[anansi]

Jun 10, 2010 17:23:42 GMT -5 truthcentric said:

^ The southern Levant lies on the African plate, but the northern part is on the Arabian plate, and most of Levantine culture is derived from Mesopotamia (also on the Arabian plate) rather than Africa.

Here is a better map it extends all the way to the Turkish mountain range

And culturally they were connected to Africa at least partially see Natufians from the very ancient times through the conquest of Pepy and others the very long dominance of Kemites in the area so much so that the Greeks mythologize an Ethiopian kingdom in the area of Andromeda's fame.

[imhotep06]

I think here we tend to avoid what experts know about nation building. As Dr. Amos Wilson notes in Blue Print For Black Power (1998:308), "An economic system cannot exist prior to or apart from a system of social relations."

Joel Kotkin in his book Tribes: How Race, Religion and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy, discusses why the top five "tribes" (British, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Jews) are prepared to dominate in the 21st century. This is what they all have in common:

# A strong ethnic identity and sense of mutual dependence that helps the group adjust to changes in the global economic and political order without losing its essential unity.

# A global network based on mutual trust that allows the tribe to function collectively beyond the confines of national or regional borders

# A passion for technical and other knowledge from all possible sources, combined with an essential and scientific development critical for success in the late twentieth century world economy.

Those who study this in depth all come to the same conclusion. It will be worthless, as Diop has noted several times, to try to create this big economic block when you don't have strong social relations (culture) among the people.

Here Theophile Obenga mentions that they are TRYING to build an African Consciousness because one doesn't exist on the continent.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd6ixZ0IjyQ&feature=youtube_gdata

We can't keep trying to put on a consciousness for the people of Africa if the Africans themselves are saying there isn't one, YET, but they are working on it.

Here is an article that backs up what my article is stating:

African Without Knowing It
234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Opinion/5527418-184/shibboleth_being_african_without_knowing_it.csp

This is written by Dr. Obododimma Oha, an Igbo living and teaching in Nigeria.

Jun 8, 2010 15:33:12 GMT -5 Tukuler al~Takruri said:

Cultures are already built. Science, economics, etc.
don't depend on cultural collectives. Scientists and
economists, and so on, of very different cultural
backgrounds often work together without feeling
they are siblings or need to give up land.

It's my opinion that modern nation states don't exist
and thrive because their citizens believe themselves
"brothers and sisters." Outside of Asia the "advanced"
nation states are very diverse ethnically though they
were founded and rule remains with one dominant
ethny.

The pursuit of individual gain and practical self-interest
collectively drives nations to excellence. I think ths is
pretty much universal. When continental elites make
it profitable for other sectors as it is for politicians
individual states will prosper more because the
brain drain will cease (how many continentals
with home earned engineering degrees are
in the west persuing trivial employment?).

Land is a commodity that can't be manufactured and
nobody's sharing their land (natural resources) and
most certainly are not giving up their land for ideaology.

National boundaries are here to stay. There are many
national federations on the continent today. I find that
even "brothers and sisters" rationalize their individual
needs and greeds and act on them regardless of their
sibling relationship.

Bru Nansi has already noted existing regional/cultural 'federations:'

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Do note these are "tribes" as you say, not vast continental or colour groupings.
Mentioning them disproves any case for continental or regional consciousness
or combine as necessary or a requirement for growth or advancement.

Jun 14, 2010 12:12:05 GMT -5 imhotep06 said:

Joel Kotkin in his book Tribes: How Race, Religion and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy, discusses why the top five "tribes" (British, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Jews) are prepared to dominate in the 21st century. This is what they all have in common:

# A strong ethnic identity and sense of mutual dependence that helps the group adjust to changes in the global economic and political order without losing its essential unity.

# A global network based on mutual trust that allows the tribe to function collectively beyond the confines of national or regional borders

# A passion for technical and other knowledge from all possible sources, combined with an essential and scientific development critical for success in the late twentieth century world economy.