The Empire of Ghana
dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
In West Africa, in what is modern day Mali and southern Mauritania, a golden age was coming into fruition. Ancient Ghana ranks as one of the most note worthy of African Kingdoms. This is part one of a journey though several of these ancient kingdoms and empires.
The Ghana Empire or Wagadou Empire (790-1076 AD) began in the eighth century, when a dramatic shift in the economy of the Sahel area south of the Sahara allowed more centralized states to form. The introduction of the camel, which preceded Muslims and Islam by several centuries, brought about a gradual change in trade, and for the first time, the extensive gold, ivory, and salt resources of the region could be sent north and east to population centers in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe in exchange for manufactured goods.
Taking the title 'Ghana' meaning King, figures through out history expanded upon these beginnings and the Ghanaian Empire began in earnest in 300 AD. Upon the death of a Ghana, he was succeeded by his sister's son. The deceased Ghana would be buried in a large dome-roofed tomb.
The religion of the kingdom involved emperor worship of the Ghana and worship of the Ougadou-Bida, a mythical water serpent of the Niger River.
Ouagadou-Bida
Despite its name, the old Empire of Ghana is not geographically, ethnically, or in any other way, related to modern Ghana. It lies about four hundred miles north west of modern Ghana. When modern Ghana acheived independance, it chose the name Ghana to both honor the strength of ancient Ghana, but also as a statement that BLACK Africa did have a great history, including advanced empires, prior to European and Arabic slave raids and the destruction of most native functioning Kingdoms (Ethiopia being the notable exception).
My interest in African history had a similar genesis to this. I was being told in my high school "World Literature" that we were not reading any books written by ancient Africans because they didn't have any written languages. But I knew from watching Roots that many Africans were Muslim, but I also knew that one of the central tenants of Islam was that people should be able to learn to read the Koran how were these two facts compatible? I also knew that Ethiopia was the 3rd oldest Christian nation, and they had a Bible that was different than the King James version. Both these facts made me question these "facts" I was being taught. Later in the series I will post copies of the writing by pre-colonial Africans that I was taught didn't exist.
Although Ethiopia had it's own written language. most of West Africa used Arabic as their written language. Arabic was used in much the same way Greek, Latin and later German served as a written language for many European nations until they developed their own written language. The slave traders who purchased slaves from West Africa knew this fact. But based on the "trouble" Brazil had with Muslim slaves (Brazil actually deported many Muslim slaves back to Africa) the slave masters quickly learned that knowledge of ones culture made slaves harder to control. Also once the Catholic church decided that Africans had human souls, the idea of letting slaves keep a language that would make Christianization more difficult was illogical. These facts lead to the suppression of West African Arabic writing.
Important archaeological discoveries in the late 1970's have revealed a more complex and much earlier development, well before Ancient Ghana of 300 AD, of early state-like communities and even early cities. Surveys and excavations in this 'Middle Niger' region completed in 1984 at no fewer than forty-three sites of ancient settlement, proved that they belonged to an Iron Age culture developing there since about 250 BC, that the settlements grew into urban centres of natural size and duration'.
Large stone masonry villages have also been discovered dating as far back as 1100 BC. Their archaeological finds include roads and walls of 2 metres high very likely erect in defense of the village.
The Sonninkes, the founders of the empire, who excelled in the use and manufacture of iron had the advantage of superior weapons, quickly dominated surrounding nations.
At its heart was Kumbi-Salah which acted as a hive of extensive trade and attracted caravans from a variety of regions. Famed for its gold from the Wangara region, commented upon by the Arab writer Ibn Fazari who called Ghana the land of gold, compered it in size to its northern contemporary Morocco, while salt came to the city from the Sahara. Due to their expertise with iron and other metals, ancient Ghana traded in some of the finest artifacts in the area. Along side cotton, it was also known for its leather work called 'Moroccan Leather' despite the fact that it indeed originated in Ghana.
Ibn Khaldun the well known Arab historian of the 14th century had this to say concerning the Ghanaian empire.
At the time of the conquest of Northern Africa by the Arabs (between the periods 639 and 708 CE), some merchants penetrated into the western regions of the blacks and found among them no king more powerful than the King of Ghana. His states extended westwards to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Ghana (Kumbi-Salah) the capital of this strong, populated cities of the world...
More wonders came from these African lands as attested too by another Arab geographer Ibn Haukal who commented in amazement on the lucrative trade that flourished in the region. His comments made in 951 CE mentions a cheque produced for the sum of 42,900 golden dinars written for a merchant in the state of Audoghast from a partner in Sidjilmassa in the north! Tales abound of one particular gold nugget weighing 30 pounds! This was truly a land of astonishing wonders and lavish wealth. A far cry from the misconception of the African languishing in barbarity and ignorance!
Ibn Khaldun again makes mention of the lifestyle of the ancient Ghanaians while quoting from a book written in 1067 by Abu Ubaid Al-Bakri. He describes the Muslim quarter which had sprung up to facilitate the trans-Saharan trade with North Africa, containing 12 mosques, buildings of stone and acacia wood, schools and centres of education. It was described further as 'the resort of the learned, of the rich and pious of all nations'.
A truly cosmopolitan city where the finest silk and brocade were worn by the populace.
In 990 CE Audoghast to the north was captured and included into the sprawling Ghanaian Empire. It was a fine addition and boasted a dense population including many from as far away as Spain. Its streets were lined with elegant houses, public buildings and mosques. The surroundings were rich in pastoral lands including sheep and cattle, making meat plentiful. Wheat was found in the market places in abundance imported from the north, honey from the south and a variety of foodstuffs from other regions. Robes of blue and red from Morocco was a popular fashion at the time. All which exchanged hands with payments of gold dust, cowrie shells or salt.
The ruler at the time emperor Tenkamenins court was described in the following terms by Al-Bakri;
When he gives and audience to his people he sits in a pavilion around which stand his horses caparisoned in cloth and gold; behind him stand 10 pages holding shields and gold-mounted swords and on his right hand are the sons of the princes of his empire, splendidly clad and with gold plaited into their hair. The governor of the city is seated on the ground in front of the King, and all around him are his ministers in the same position. The gate of the chamber is guarded by dogs of an excellent breed, who never leave the kings seat, they wear collars of gold and silver.'
However in 1079 the land was invaded from the north by Almoravids pouring out of the newly founded Moroccan city of Marrakesh. A mass exodus insued by the people of Ghana who fled southwards to escape the conflict. This may go some way in explaining why ancient and modern day Ghana are not in the same place today.
By 1087 the Almoravids lost control of the empire to the Soninkes, but the empire disintegrated into several smaller states. Leadership was again assumed by native Ghanaian leaders but the days of glory were gone and the empire soon broke up.
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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ===============================================================
Monday 7-12-2010 will mark the 6 month anniversary of the Haitian earthquake disaster. With the current disaster in the gulf of Mexico many people have place Haiti into the back of their minds. But we must not forget the situation there! Black Kos family member allie123 will once again be spearheading a fundraiser. Last time Daily Kos did a fundraiser for Haiti we raised $3200 (with an additional $700 in matching funds). allie123 has a numbered Vote poster of Obama that she will auction off. We are ask everyone who can contribute, to please do so. Those who are unable to please participate and rec the diary when in comes out on 7-12.
Thank You,
Black Kos editors
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Just because Elena Kagan is white didn't stop Republicans from injecting race into her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The Root: Trashing Thurgood Marshall.
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The second day of the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court was marked by some substantive dialogue, respectful banter and even an exchange of ethnic humor between the nominee and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans and Democrats alike seemed to have forgotten the previous day's tensions. But for many of us who'd sat in stunned silence while Republicans members of the Committee used their opening statements to unleash an orchestrated disparagement of the record and legacy of Supreme Court justice and civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall, the wounds still felt raw.
The invocation of Marshall (35 times by Republicans) was a surprising new low, even for the shameless opportunism of modern confirmation hearings. At first, it seemed astonishing as senator after senator - Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John Cornyn (R-TX) disparaged nominee Kagan's "association" with Thurgood Marshall. But the abandonment of the "Marshall as slur" tactic on Day Two suggests that the Republican senators' opening day sucker-punch may have backfired.
For Republicans, the issue of race is good for confirmation hearings. Last year's hearings for Justice Sonia Sotomayor proved an important turning point for congressional Republicans, who were uncertain in the first months of the Obama presidency how to handle their opposition to the new, popular, African-American president. It seems a long time ago now, but just last spring Americans were still genuinely caught up in the transformative moment symbolized by the election of the first black president. In the heady early months of the Obama presidency, when many thought we might be heading for a post-racial America and things seemed so magical that a plane could land on the Hudson River with all passengers unharmed, Republicans were in a quandary. How should they package their opposition to the president without ruining the public's good racial mood? The election of Michael Steele as Chair of the Republican National Committee - an action that has since generated considerable buyer's remorse - revealed the desperate effort by some GOP stalwarts to navigate the shoals of the new racial politics. That was before health-care town halls and the emergence of the Tea Party.
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He’s damned fortunate if we don’t and damned fortunate if we do allow that he is black. Race Talk: Obama’s black paradox and our own.
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We received some crazy responses by email, by phone, and as online comments to our blog post, "Could Obama dare to say that some people attack him because he’s black?" on Race Talk a week ago. Racial politics have gotten crazy, at worst, convoluted, at best, in America, with so much post-racial racism and racist post-racialism ingrained..
If we don’t see Obama as black, that’s a good thing. Many Americans proudly proclaim: "I never look at a person’s race. I don’t see a person as black or white." However, if some Americans, some very powerful Americans and/or large groups of Americans, "real Americans," they sometime call themselves. . . .if they act towards Obama as a black then that is doubly bad.
First, their attitudes give his enemies a sense of his vulnerabilities because he’s black while many of his would-be supporters don’t see him as black. So, secondly, how likely are they to see that the attacks arise because he’s black, and defend him in an appropriate manner?
Complicated, yes, complicated even to explain. The problem is we have these social constructions called "races" that affect people’s value systems, religious and moral beliefs, emotions, motives, reasoning, and behavior. Yet, in truth, "races" do not exist. There is only one race – the human race. That’s our paradox.
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The land is a national wildlife refuge, but the displaced landowners say they can coexist with nature. New York Time:
Black Landowners Fight to Reclaim Georgia Home
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When the managers from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service talk about this 2,800-acre preserve of moss-draped cypress, palmetto and marsh, they speak of endangered wood stork rookeries and disappearing marsh habitat, dike maintenance and interpretive kiosks.
In 1942, Harris Neck, a thriving community of black landowners who hunted, farmed and gathered oysters, was taken by the federal government to build an airstrip. Now, the elders — who remember barefoot childhoods spent climbing trees and waking to watch the Canada geese depart in formation — want to know why they cannot have it back.
The Harris Neck Land Trust, formed by the former residents, their descendants and a handful of white families who owned land but did not live on Harris Neck, is asking Congress to return the land. The Fish and Wildlife Service maintains that the land is a crucial part of the national refuge system.
On its face, the quest of the former residents pits the goal of environmental conservation against that of righting a historical injustice. But it is also a conflict about two ways of life — one that tries to protect natural resources from human encroachment, the other demonstrating that humans can live in harmony with nature.
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This isn't a link it's a situation for one of our fellow community members Kitsap River.
Black Kos community I wanted to ask for a favor. It's for another dialysis patient, a Black guy in Chicago, who is really having a hard time medically and whose care team has advised him to get a transplant quickly if he can, because of the hard time he is having.
He and I both have our dialysis accesses for hemodialysis created from our own body parts; it's something called an AV Fistula, which is created by splicing together a vein and an artery, This is the best kind of access to have, and most are trouble-free or virtually trouble-free for years. His is not. He's having to go in and get another angiuplasty done on it every three months or so on average, and the dialysis clinic apparently never gets his fluids taken off correctly, so he's having a lot of toxin buildup. Larry's best hope for a transplant is to locate a living donor. (That's pretty much true for everybody.) He says that in Illinois, it's something like a 5 to 7 year wait for a cadaver kidney and he may well not have the physical ability to wait on the list that long, due to the hard time he's having with his access.
Besides blood type (I think he may be a Type B, like me, but have asked so I can be sure), there is another set of matches that is as important: HLA antigens. There are six, and a person gets three from each parent. There are many, many of these antigens, and apparently some are more common in some ethnicities than they are in others. Someone who is a match for me may also be a match for my friend Jie, but it's not all that likely, because Jie is ethnic Chinese and I'm your typical white U.S. mutt. This is why I want to get Larry's need for a kidney seen by as many people in the Black Kos community as I can manage, because it's a fact that an African American person like Larry or a Chinese person like Jie is flat-out going to have to wait longer for a kidney than a white person with the same blood type. It's not any sort of racial bias, it's the matching factor, particularly the HLA antigens. If a kidney comes up that is a perfect match for Larry, he'll get it, no matter where he is on the list, but that happens rarely. If he has a living donor, though, he will get that kidney for sure if there's a good or even halfway-good match. They can even do it with a zero match these days.
I gave Larry my word that I would put the word out to people I know, particularly people who are African American (anybody else is also welcome and encouraged to get tested), about his need for a kidney. If anybody needs one more than me, it's him. Will you please echo this plea for people to get tested on Larry's behalf?
I won't post anything until I find out from Larry what his blood type is for certain, and what transplant program(s) he's registered with. Anybody who wants or might want to get tested will need that info. I'll also let him know beforehand where it will be posted and get his OK to proceed. He's really a nice guy, and if I can do anything to help him find a donor, I'd like to do it. (And I'd certainly include a plea to declare yourself an organ donor on your driver's license or ID, because if the greatest number of kidneys donated after the person's death are white people's kidneys, then white people are always going to have a shorter wait than people of other ethnicities, and that's just plain not right.)
Kidney needed - might you be my angel?
All the best,
Kitsap River at Daily Kos
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More signs of Brazil's emergence on the world stage BBC: Brazil launches international TV station for Africa
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Brazil has launched an international television station that will broadcast to African nations. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the aim of the Portuguese-language channel was to represent Brazil to to the world.
The channel shows Brazil's growing interest in Africa, correspondents say. It will also soon also be available in Latin America, Canada, Europe and the US, according to officials.
Speaking at the launch of TV Brasil Internacional at a ceremony in Brasilia, President Lula described it as the realisation of a dream.
"I don't want a TV channel to speak well of Lula," he said. "I want a channel that speaks well of the country, that can show Brazil as it really is."
TV Brasil Internacional, based in Brasilia, will be re-broadcast via Mozambique's capital, Maputo, to 49 African nations. The main audiences will be in the African nations where Portuguese is spoken: Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe.
The programming will come from domestic TV Brasil, with the emphasis on news and culture.
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The ideal of race-blind meritocracy is being tested by the efforts at the elite universities that produce the nation's leaders. New York Times: Top French Schools, Asked to Diversify, Fear for Standards
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France is embarking on a grand experiment — how to diversify the overwhelmingly white "grandes écoles," the elite universities that have produced French leaders in every walk of life — and Rizane el-Yazidi is one of the pioneers.
The daughter of protective North African parents in the tough northeastern suburb of Bondy, Ms. Yazidi is enrolled in a trial program aimed at helping smart children of the poor overcome the huge cultural disadvantages that have often spelled failure in the crucial school entrance exams.
"For now we’re still a small group, but when there will be more of us, it’ll become real progress," said Ms. Yazidi, 20. But she is nervous, too. "We’re lucky, but it’s a great risk for us," she said. "We might never make it" to a top school.
Because entrance to the best grandes écoles effectively guarantees top jobs for life, the government is prodding the schools to set a goal of increasing the percentage of scholarship students to 30 percent — more than three times the current ratio at the most selective schools. But the effort is being met with concerns from the grandes écoles, who fear it could dilute standards, and is stirring anger among the French at large, who fear it runs counter to a French ideal of a meritocracy blind to race, religion and ethnicity
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[] Attacking Thurgood Marshall? So Much For That GOP Hip-Hop Makeover by vcthree
[] Viciously Racist Book Sold By GOP Candidate For OR 4th Congressional District by Troutfishing
[] Thurgood Marshall Jr. responds by teacherken
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--- Friday Wake Up Music -- Pressure -- "Open Your Eyes" ---
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***The front porch is now open have a fun and safe 4th of July!***