Dr. Van Sertima discusses the historical exclusion of Black people from discussions of Egyptian culture and the importance of understanding the true history of Egypt.
Transcript
Piling in for all over the world to have a look at this and Blacks have completely excluded in the sense that they're supposed to have nothing to do with it. They're supposed to have no relationship whatsoever to that early Egyptian. And Egyptian Minister of Culture in fact made a statement saying that he doesn't want to get involved. Egyptians do not want to get involved in this black thing over here because Ramsey's a second is beyond black or white. And in fact he made the statements further that Africans have nothing to do with his Egyptian culture. Now, the point I made was that he is speaking the truth. We have nothing to do with his culture because he's not an African. It is very important to understand that Egyptian Minister of Culture today is not an African. It is like if President Reagan got up to speak for the Native American. The Native American is not in Washington. He's very rare there. He is found in Central Mexico. Central America rather he's found in South America. We have to understand that in relation to modern Egypt. You can go into Cairo and you can sit in a room as you sit here and there are no native Egyptians. There are Egyptians but they're modern Egyptians. Do not confuse the modern Egyptians with the native Egyptian who built the pyramid. As you grow further down towards the South, even in the north itself of Egypt today you can find a great number of black African speakers. But many people that you see in Egypt today are not native to place. This is two of America. Many Americans are white. The Native American is not white. Many Americans are late if she acts like the Japanese, the Chinese, etc. The Native American may have had some elements of Japanese and Chinese but the Native American is not Japanese or Chinese. So we have to be extremely careful about that. In fact, not until 1830 as late as 1830, no one seriously in Europe doubted that the early Egyptian was a black African. The Europeans who had seen him, the Europeans who had entered that country, the Greeks, the first great Europeans. The Europeans who had defeated the Egyptians, the Europeans who entered that civilization made it quite clear that they were dealing with black. People they said it again and again, whenever it was necessity to say they made it clear in their documents. Herobitus said quite clearly these are black skin people with woody tears. When however, in 1974, the UNESCO conference shake onto the upvented great pains to show that his melanin dosage tests have been developed. The established that the melanin content between the German and the Epiderm showed clearly that the mummies that examined in the Museum of Men were black skin. Abdullah Egyptian that had jumped up. Nobody has got so upset except Egyptian who is not native. Jumped up and said, even if they are black skin, they are white. It was very important to him to say that. Now I am not attacking the arrow because the arrow in the tongue, joining with the black African, the rabion type that is because 100 million black's e-carabics. Don't get confused with people speaking Arabic and Arabs because many people are not Arab, speak Arabic and the Arab script for example was created by an African Abel as well. So I am going to use the term a rabion type because the arrow could be black or white. Just like the Jew could be black or white. In fact, many of the original Jews were black. It's related to Jews who were white. So we have to be very careful that period we are dealing with. Okay, now it is very important to understand why the concern, why are we talking about Egypt, why is it so important? Why does it always a route such strong emotions? Nothing. Nothing around this stronger emotion in academic circles today than the discussion of Egypt. Even in my university, when I was introducing black civilisations as a course and I included Egypt, history professors got up and said why you put Egypt in black civilisation is not supposed to be there. It's an Africa yes, but it is not African. And that's that's valid. The fact that this is an Africa doesn't make it African because they are fast of African today that are not controlled by Africans. Okay, so that you have the fact that this is an Africa itself doesn't make it African because it's open to the Mediterranean, it's open to Asia. And the argument, therefore, with that things black people are in Syria and cannot form civilisation. Those people who were on the border invaded came in and created the civilisation and lifted the poor united black up into civilisation. And that argument did not have any validity until the slave trade reached a certain point where the black was profoundly disadvantaged. And the exclusion from everything so that when they discovered that Egypt had had to perform influence on European civilisation, its science, its particular, its philosophy, its all of its great concepts. The black could have nothing to do with it, perhaps it's these people on the border to came in and built this civilisation. And when we go back, when we go back to the pyramid age and you will learn something to that that is very astonishing, which I only became aware of in fact a few months ago, in connection with the Japanese trying to build a pyramid. We are not dealing with in Syria, blacks, we are dealing with blacks at the very top of the world. And the reason why we are going back is for two main reasons, one we who come out of the Shatters world can be made whole again by bringing the pieces of our heritage together. Secondly, it is because we can establish on scientific grounds that man is not in Syria or in Syria. That is equality is not built in any biblical fantasy or liberal sentiment, it is rooted in hard historical reality. What we have in evidence before us is an overwhelming body of things that establish that early Egyptian as African. Shake and to the up, prepared before the UNESCO Conference in 1974, established up the hours presenting in basketball, you may have been showing the intimate interconnections and threads in Africa, showing that everything Egyptian is African. It is non-origin, particularly which had been classified as Afro-Ajjafic, Afro-Hamithic, Afro-Semitic, Afro-Dismissin that it was African. For the first time, for the first time in 200 years, a world body of greed that they could not argue with that anymore. The circumstances overwhelming Egyptian language was established as an African language. Those elements that came in much later, the invaders, the interlocal, they introduced certain symmetric and has isiatic elements. Those things did not also the fundamental structure of the language, they were just superficial elements that came in later. He up showed that the two times were African. He showed that the culture was African. Many of their riches and customs there beliefs, their ideas were Africans. And he showed the traces he could trace, he could go back into the hot land, the birthplace. And a general Matthew had shown, the word Africa comes from Afro-Eqa, an Egyptian word meaning beginning. And do you know how it came to be Africa when Arabs invaded it was changed if we're here, and then the Romans changed it to Africa? And so that is how we have Africa. The African fact is the only continent that ever named itself. Europe did not name itself. Europe comes from an African princess called Europa. America did not name itself. America with names by that, genuves, not the genuves. Adventurer, the friend of Christopher Columbus, a merry-go-best pussy. That's not the name of America, that's not the name of Europe. And Africa was given all sorts of names like Ethiopia, Libya, etc. Africa is the true name of Africa. The words were South, for example, the people of the South, South of Egypt.