Posted on 08/17/2002 9:23:34 AM PDT by vannrox
Okay, they have to throw in an anti-West slam. The truth is of course the opposite, Africans had almost no idea of their history, they didn't have history as such, but legends, myths and stories. Only with the scholarship of the West, the archaelogy as demonstrated by the effort chronicled in this article, has given Africa and other parts of the world, their history back. 200 years ago, most of the civilizations of the world were lost civilizations. No one knew a thing about them until the West and scientific scholarship arrived on the scene.
Think about the 900s! The West itself was virtually unknown - a mere dream - known better in fairy tales than in fact - Arabic archaologists and scholars worked on rediscovering it and they preserved many ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts. By the time the Western barbarian armies began marching on Jerusalem the East's passion to study the West was really underway. By the 1200s, Turkish sultans began investing heavily in the exercise.
By the 1400s so much had been recovered that Westerners themselves began to earnestly pursue their own history. Accommodations relating to the transfer of libraries of ancient knowledge were formally established in Islamic and Christian Spain so that nothing would be lost. When a Moslem city would fall, Christian scribes would move in and start copying the books.
Recovery moved ahead nicely after that.
Whether Africans in Cameroon learn about their own history from the West or from their own sources is of no consequence. It is history, and no one can change it - only illuminate it!
The man whose name I use in FreeRepublic, "Muawiyah", had risen to power over the Arab Empire and discovered how to separate church from state in the furtherance of justice while Europeans did well to cluster around open fires in wattle and daub huts while picking lice - and thought themselves lucky.
Be proud that our West is able to give the people in Cameroon a picture of themselves. This is a privilege the West did without for nearly a thousand years.
This even if conceivably their own remote ancestors DID build them. The peoples had already long since lost their own history, if they ever had it, before the West ever arrived. The West if anything, is the only reason they DO now have any knowledge of it.
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A pity the Arabs are still stuck in the 7th cntury.
Still no news from vannrox or RightWhale?
I hope they’re still alive!
They were both very active when they dropped out, and were not in any visible confrontations here.
Nope, nada.
Yup.
I was in daily contact with RightWhale...then, nothing.
He told me once that he had high cholestoral...that's all.
ping
High colesteral is no biggie for most people, but if you get talked into taking statins you set yourself up for heart attacks due to the loss of co-Q10.
Yup. I quit taking statins years ago. I've been persuaded to take 1500 mg of niacin daily as I refuse to take statins.
I have two brothers (one older - one younger) who died of heart attacks at age 51.
I'm 67, I take niacin and aspirin, that's it! (Oh...4,000IU of vitamin D daily)
“The project is being funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.”
I was shocked to see my tax money wasn’t paying for this.
Glad to see some other chump on the hook this time.
Interesting blam - I have just started on statins for my high cholesterol. Thanks for the info - any links where I can read more on the topic?
Thanks, I hadn’t heard about these.
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