PS: I've unhidden your first post on that thread. Try not to modify it again so as to prevent the anti-spam bot from automatically hiding it again.

Let me start off by saying that I am Turkish, and this is one of my favorite books of all time, and I have lent it and gifted it to many people I care about! Though this is a book by a Black Studies scholar of Afrikan descent, written for a Black audience, you don't have to be Afrikan to get something out of it. The tensions and polarities she describes so eloquently (reason v. emotion, objectivity v. subjectivity, holism v. reductionism, linear v. cyclical thinking, science v. spirituality, etc.) are at the root of significant social trends in every culture, inform behavior between individuals, and influence the direction and nature of one's own personal growth. I am of Turkish descent, and this book helped me understand my culture (and more importantly MYSELF) better than it did Afrikan culture! It changed my life and influenced me to make many positive changes in the way I viewed myself and the world and related to others and my environment!

Dr. Ani's controversial, seminal, and highly misunderstood work fills a gaping crevice in academia: a CRITICAL survey of Western Civilization written with the intellectual tools of the Afrikan-Centered/Afrocentric movement of the late 20th century. I read this book in my last year of college as part of my capstone course for my degree in Black Studies, but I would say that this text is probably more appropriate for grad students...or those who are very passionate about the topic. One would probably need a background in history, philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, etc. Just as Europeans have been able to gain a critical (though sometimes very pejorative) understanding of the world through "objectivity" or rational dis-identification with the subject of study, Dr. Ani attempts to analyze Western Civilization (not the day-to-day habits of White people) without assumptions about spirituality, progress, morality, social organization, normality, objectivity, logic, etc. which are usually taken for granted by Western authors. In fact, she challenges these concepts directly, and illustrates the way that these ideas have been co-opted by the engine of Western Civilization for political convenience.

She questions the validity of "The West", "Europe", and "Whiteness", as social constructs, explores the political reasons for which they were constructed in the first place, and shows how those identities have been invoked more for purposes of domination or aggression than for inter-communal goodwill.

This is a book about "The West" as an INSTITUTION, which is a phenomenon that has a quality distinct from the sum of its individual elements (specific individuals, specific cultures, specific governments). The accusations in this book might not apply to your milkman, the Amish people, or the Polish government...but they do apply to "Western", that is, transnational, transcultural, institutions like "Christendom," "The Free World," "The Civilized World," "Developed Countries," "The G8", "The Francophonie," etc.

To clear up some of the criticisms leveled toward this book and others like it, let's talk about what this book is not:

It is NOT a guide to White people as individuals and the evil things they do. It is NOT a guide to the atrocities committed by White people or Europeans. It is NOT claiming that objectivity, logic, progress, or any of these things are BAD, nor is it claiming that their corruption and exploitation is something specific to Western Culture. It is NOT a criticism of any individual European culture (Irish, German, Italian, etc.)

It DOES however, point to general trends in the history of Western Civilization: concentration of power and wealth, usually at the expense of the masses; rapid industrialization for its own sake, usually at the expense of a constructive connection with nature; increasingly abstract and linear thinking, usually at the expense of holistic thinking; increasing universalism and evangelism in the propagation of those abstract and linear ideas, usually at the expense of the ideas of other cultures and the people who subscribe to them. Unlike Western authors, she does not sugarcoat these trends and the massive levels of destruction (human and environmental) as blips on the screen; she describes them as essential, consistent, and growing trends in Western Society. She highlights the way in which many of the social ills that are a part of human nature, and certainly not exclusive to Europeans, are manifested in an unprecedented scale in the West, in a way that sets the West apart from the rest.

To stray from academics and quote my favorite bumper sticker: "Never before have so few taken so much from so many for so long."

This book is, quite possibly, the best explanation I have ever read as to why.

Fulaman198:

What would you like to know about the Sahel?

Igbos and AAs share a lot of resemblance. Below are pictures from the Umu Igbo 9th Convention held at Dallas Texas recently. From the images, you'll find it difficult to differentiate.

adjective
"1. giving a lot of information clearly and in a few words; brief but comprehensive."

Herodotus said of the origin of the Phoenicians:

"According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea (modern Yemen), having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria…"

"Both the Cappadocians on the Pontus and those bordering on the Taurus were called Syrians by the Greeks, and White Syrians, to distinguish them from the Black Syrians beyond the Taurus". p. 271, The Penny cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1836.

"The Cha'ab Arabs who now occupy the southern parts of ancient Babylonia are almost black, while the Black Syrians mentioned by Strabo were probably the Babylonians." p. 281, The unrivaled history of the world: containing a full and complete record of the Human Race by Israel Smith Clare, 1889.

That result extinguishes Wells' theory that the migrating Sea Peoples interbred with the Canaanites to create the Phoenician culture.

"The Sea Peoples apparently had no significant genetic impact on populations in the Levant," he explains. "The people living today along the coast where the Sea Peoples would have interbred have very similar Y-chromosome patterns to those living inland. They are basically all one people."

"Not to sound mean, but..."

KidStranglehold:

lol...PAGAN9 clearly has a agenda. Its funny how he ignored this which debunks all his claims.

RandomAfricanAm:


Ahhh, umm ......Mmmm (something smells fishy here)

sniff sniff....
Hmm, I smell politics at play **and still do**
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I'll sit back and watch **thanks for the good show guys**

PAGAN 9JA:



everyone is black. even Chinese are black. mumu


check the time-frame and then talk.

@KidStranglehold:
This is getting ridiculous. How am I discounting the OOA when it is accepted by many? And when have a said the early inhabitants were not black?? I said they were NOT genetically related to modern day Africans.

The point is that everyone is related to those OOA migrates which binds all humans together. But still there are genetic distances Those Andaman Islanders and Southeast Asian Negritos may look black, but they don't carry any African components, but Asian ones. If they don't then please provide a study proving that they do.

Again phenotype=/=genetics.

The basis of Igbo Spirituality is the concept of “Chi.” Similar to the “Ori” of the Yoruba, and the “Ka” of Ancient Egyptians, Chi was the fundamental force of creation.

I would like to air my opinion with regards to this mystery surrounding the history of Garreh (I know you don’t like the spelling but give me a chance to explain it first). The identity of Garreh nation has been subject of controversies for a very long time and its time someone took the initiative to put this debate to rest. I don’t have enough words to express my gratitude to the author of this blog spot, Garri nation whose intelligence wowed me, just when i started to give up on the existence of the Garreh intelligentsia, I come across someone who is well versed in understanding the history of our people ( ka abeera kiya galat qabd). I also wish to acknowledge the input of Issack Adow although am not too sure I will agree with him but the information looks historically sensible to me the only thing he can do further is just to prove the hypothesis.

Once I was travelling with a friend of mine and while we are at the airport in the transit lounge conversing in Garreh language a woman came to us and started to make a conversation in language we later understood as Hausa of Nigeria. When we started to explain to her we don’t understand her language she said to us boldly ” I just heard you making conversation in Hausa” and we were like, no that is not Hausa its Garreh language the lady left us not convinced at all and later she came back and started talking to us in Hausa when we started laughing and totally flabbergasted by her words she believed us and said in English ” I would have sworn i heard you guys speaking Hausa”.

Coming back to the history of our nation it’s very important to understand who the Garrehs are. Many times people ask the wrong question like when they ask, Are Garrehs Oromo or Somali. The debate is everywhere especially in the diaspora and question sometimes is irritating not to mention the need for our community to solve this identity crisis. The Garrehs answered these questions in our oral tradition by statements like “Garri Garrum “or “keligiis bilisow”.

This statement explains why our people are so independent to the extent that they don’t need to affiliate themselves with any one. It’s very important to understand that Garrehs are independent nation that migrated from North Africa before the Christian era. The land of punt existed as mentioned in the bible portrays that people existed in Somalia then and this people happen to trade with the Egyptians and products like frankincense (lubaadin) and Myrrh (qumbi) whenever I thinks of this international trade I remember all my brothers who are doing business around the borders of the world Busia, Namanga, Moyale, Ndola, Juba, and Malaba. Name them you will find a Garreh man doing what his forefathers do best, trade. The reason why I excluded other Somalis from this history is very simple the fact that they all trace their lineage to the descendants of prophet Muhammad (sallalahu alleyhi wasallam) means their time line can only commence after the turmoil of the third caliph that led to many Arabian muslims to migrate to Africa and other world or when the swahabas conquered the red sea and fought the Berbers of north Africa. If you consider all the major clan of the Somalis except the Rahaweyn they claim their forefather is an Arab or specifically a Hashemite. The fact that the horn of Africa existed prior to the start of the Islamic era is very evident in the historical archives as we have solomonic emperors in our neighbouring Abyssinia and not forgetting the Kush kingdom in Sudan prior to that and judging by the historical evolution of our people majority of them were just pastoralists all this time and they have no access to any form of interactions whatsoever with the outside world except the few who are merchants in the cities.

Garrehs became Somali clan

The Somalis started organizing themselves in to sultanate and dynasties as early 1000 AD where the likes of saad din 2 and fakrudiin manage to lead them form Muslim sultanates like awdal, ajuraan and others and in this time there were major conflicts with all the clans especially ajuraan who are said to be decimated during this time. The Garrehs are Somalis during this time I will give you a simple example, think of going backwards in tracing your fore fathers am sure all the grandfathers taught their children especially the first born how to trace their lineage i.e. Abtirsacha now when I do the abtirsacha I can go back may be up to 15 great grandfathers and guess what? Many of them are Somali names, and the last one always has a funny name! (Remember the last phrase lafti duuban danqara) And I have seen that with my friends too. Anyway if we do a simple back track to the original time line we can get up to may be 400-500 years same time as kedhiguuray ( the great trek). During this time the conflict were so serious and ruthless to the extent that many clans decided to migrate towards the west of Somalia in to now Kenya and Ethiopia. Among the clans that embarked on this trek are The Garrehs, Ajuraans, Dogodia, Rendille and the Gabras.

During this conflict all the oral tradition refers to the Garrehs leaders of the Garreh community as Aw which means mister or respectable title very common with Garrehs that affiliates with the May culture possibly the current Garre koofar. Aw abookar mashar, Aw Aliow Hache and the third one that I could not remember his name had special skills or powers so to speak that had resemblance of the then spiritual piousness that was very common with the Sufis. All this happened some 600 years ago and in this time according to the borana oral tradition the Garrehs crossed their boundary from the famous Dhadach waraab. Some Garrehs chose to remain in Somalia and became Garreh koofar while the others went ahead to liban (historically Garreh County in Kenya and liban zone of Ethiopia) and interacted with borans by supplying them with the cloth loved by the borans (Abu jadi , andaar, guntiina and agoogo) and in this time the social cohesion facilitated the Garrehs to learn borana language for communication purposes and over the years the amalgamation of the Garreh language mixed with boran is now afaan Garreh. (I will bring the clip of the Garre poets in future especially Bahar Abdo and Guraacho to prove my point. if you let a borana person to listen to it and ask him to translate I am 100% sure he will get 40% right). Try this “gaaf saala sirgigaae ini sariigti dhabe….” (Bahar Abdo rahmatullahi alleyhi) or Guraacho said “Ooro buburakhtu farso bubulgaatuu! Bokhondhaw jarsaf jaartiin isaaan farso beled keesat alpaat”.

The Borans traded with Garrehs by supplying coffees and cattle and ghees. During this interaction due to the cultural difference between the Garrehs who are muslims and the Borans who are pagans there were conflict between the two communities and a lot of war was fought over the years and also they were times of peace where many Borans converted in to muslims and peaceful coexistence materialized only to be exploited by the colonialist in the form of British or the Amharas.

In conclusion there is a major missing link to our history like the famous phrase lafti duuban danqara means there is a huge communication breakdown between the last great grandfather of this generation and the other older generation due to something that happened in the past that lead to this breakdown it can be war even famine the only factors that can make the ancient clans to migrate from their original homelands.

One thing I know for sure that Garrehs are independent African tribe that originated from either chad or Sudan but the missing link should be established. A lot of questions to be asked:
1.Why is our language very familiar with languages in Nigeria and mali please listen to the songs By Ali Farkatoure of Mali. (You will be amazed by the similarities).
2. Why are the Somalis not convinced Garrehs identity as Somalis
3.Why are the Oromos insisting on claiming Garrehs are oromos
4.If you settle on saying we are Somalis what is our lineage? Hawiye, Dir, Digil or Darood

As for now I will settle being Somali for now unless you get me the identity of those great grandfathers with funny names.