And the Mullah's Voice Droned On:The Story of an Afghan Holocaust

In 1987-1989, I visited the Afghan refugee camps of Munda Pul, Jalozai, Akora Khattak, and Pabi, near Peshawar, as well as others near Chitral. Conditions were bad in the camps, and almost every refugee to whom I spoke expressed the common sentiment of wanting to return home to their beloved Afghanistan, where everything was better. At that time, most of these refugees were at least somewhat confident that they would indeed one day return home. Today, there remain 2 – 3 million Afghans in refugee camps. What remains of the beautiful homeland to which they dreamt of returning, is unrecognizable after three months of U.S. bombing, far beyond the war-ravaged product of ten years of Russian imperialist war, which yet exhibited some signs of infrastructure. Today’s Afghanistan is reminescent of Cambodia in the horrors which have been visited upon it by both the U.S. and U.S.S.R., completely devoid of infrastructure and incapable of supporting its population. Indeed its landscape has been so disfigured by war that returning to it is a dangerous if not unlikely proposition. Both the U.S. and Russia are guilty of war crimes against Afghanistan. The country is in dire need of rebuilding. One obvious way to rebuild the country, without reducing it to the status of perpetual slavery to the World Bank and other cut throats, is for the parties responsible for its destruction to pay reparations. In an epoch purportedly governed by International Laws, Geneva Conventions, War Crimes Tribunals, and United Nations mediation, why then are reparations not in the offing?

One of my most vivid recollections of the camp is of one Friday (in the summer of 1988), when I tried to attend juma’a prayers at the little mud mosque in the camp. I was peeved because I was excluded from attending. Women didn’t go to the mosque for prayer, my hosts apologetically told me. To dispute this was to invite accusations that one was communist (recall that this was during a period of forced Soviet-style “emancipation”). Only communists advocated such outlandish things as women in the mosque. Finally the Friday prayer was over, and the men should have been on their way home. But, for some reason, the mullah’s voice droned on. I was getting impatient. And he was reciting names. Children’s names. The list was long. I counted fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen....twenty-three children were named. How nice, I thought, he must be reciting the names of all the children who finished the Qur’an, or who had won some Islamic contest, as they did at the posh mosque I attended in White Oak, Maryland.

Suddenly there came a sound of sobbing from the neighboring compound. Then further away, in the distance, a wailing became apparent. Sensing my confusion, the elder of the household, who had stayed home from the Friday prayer due to illness, came to my rescue: “The imam is reading the names of the children who have died in our camp this week,” he told me solemnly. “Zamana karab ast,”—it is a bad time—he said, echoing the words of dozens of refugees whom I met. It was a particularly difficult time for the children, he continued, growing up in the refugee camp. Beautiful Afghan children, dead from malaria, T.B., hepatitis, diarrhea, rickets, or generalized malnutrition. The refugee camp was no longer a refuge, but a mass grave for the children of the mujahideen and the mohajireen.

The children were trying to memorize their lessons for the day, as I sat trying to learn my Dari lesson. It was very hot and humid as we sat in the courtyard outside the “bedroom,” a single room mud structure which functioned variously as sleeping quarters, living room, and storage area. We sat underneath the shade created by some overhanging branches thrown over the mud house as a makeshift roof, the sweat dripping from our backs and from our brows, our backs tingling with heat rash. Large, buzzing, biting flies kept settling on the children, as they tried diligently to recite their lessons. I kept swatting at them, only to have them return a few moments later. But the children kept at their lessons with admirable persistence. A few yards away, a baby slept on a small mat on the ground in the courtyard where we were studying. Her mother worked hard kneeding dough for the afternoon meal a few feet away in the makeshift kitchen. When I looked again, the baby’s body was covered with flies. Horrified, I jumped up and shooed them away. The baby, Malalai, became to me a metaphor for Afghanistan. Sweet, naive, innocent, with no animosity for anyone, she is preyed upon by the American and Russian parasites who wish to drink her life blood, in the form of oil, natural gas, and mineral resources.

Afghans love their children. In a country full of widows and orphans, it was next to impossible (at the time of my visit, although this may have changed due to the desperate conditions arising after the U.S. bombing) to locate an Afghan child for adoption, as even those who had lost parents were immediately taken in by their extended family. Truly it is a society in which the aphorism “It takes a village to raise child,” comes to life. In 2001, when the Taliban were approached by the United Nations representatives who wanted to refurbish the Buddhist statues in Bamiyan province, they asked the U.N. reps if they might take a fraction of the money to feed hungry Afghan children. The U.N. response was a point blank "NO." No money to feed the children who cannot sleep at night because they are so hungry; whose viscera risk permanent damage from malnutrition; whose entrails are running out of them in fatal diarrhea; but plenty of money to repair statues. Just as in the U.S., the dogs and cats of the rich have more access to everything from toothpaste to surgery than do the children of the poor in most Third World countries.

In response to this categoric denial of their humanity, and anguished at the impending death of tens of thousands of Afghan children, the Taliban, angry and frustrated, decided to destroy the Buddhist statues. The mentality which cavalierly dismisses the impending death of Afghan and Iraqi children is the same mentality which cuts school lunches for impoverished children in America’s inner cities, and evicts welfare mothers for the misdemenors of their family members, while funding ventures like, in the words of Gil Scott-Heron, “Whitey on the moon.”

Recently, an expatriate Afghan sculptor was given much kudos in the U.S. press when he announced his intentions of returning to “liberated” Afghanistan to refurbish the largest of the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban. He melodramatically told the tale of his escape from Afghanistan as the Taliban came to power, and how he had tearfully smashed his own sculptures himself before fleeing the country, so that the Taliban might not get their hands on them. He declared that he would not restore the smaller statues, so that the nation might never forget the barbaric nature of the Taliban. Immediately, numerous pro-zionist organizations jumped to his assistance with promises of funding.

Let’s think about this: the original statues have already been destroyed by the Taliban. Much of the country is starving, due to the combined effects of severe weather, war, and apathy on part of the world community. But hundreds of thousands of dollars are going to be spent on making a copy of a Buddha statue, whose very value was in its antiquity, never mind the five million Afghan people who face starvation. Clear as mud.

Recently, the U.S. press lauded the first celebration of Nowruz (New Year) in “Free” Afghanistan. For the first time since the Taliban’s rise to power, the people could finally dance, prance, and yes—drink in the streets with complete abandon. The media seemed to overlook the minor detail that Afghanistan is a predominantly Muslim country, and Nowruz, haram under Islamic law, is a Zorastrian holiday not celebrated by most Afghans. Ramadan, on the other hand, is recognized and celebrated by the vast majority of Afghans. Indeed the importance of this holy month, central to Afghan tradition, was recognized by the U.S. government—with some of the heaviest bomb tonnage dropped on a country in modern history. Sort of like bombing New York or Washington on Christmas Day. As for the liberating celebrations of Nowruz, I’d venture that most of the folks celebrating that holiday might be Karzai’s homies, part of the democratic government that George Dubya “put in.”

It has been ten years since the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, and not a word about reparations for the incredible war crimes committed by the Red Army in that country. What exempts the Russians from paying reparations to a people against whom they perpetuated every possible atrocity, from the near universal distribution of landmines, to killing, jailing, and torture of the civilian population, and widespread use of chemical and biological agents?

What off U.S. violations of international law in Afghanistan: bombing and decimation of whole villages and cities; destruction of hospitals, relief centers, and food supply lines; cold-blooded murder of 4,000 Afghan civilians by U.S. estimates (with independent local media estimates placing the civilian death toll as high as 60,000); and more landmines to add to the existing Soviet ones. For that matter, the U.S. has to date presented no evidence to the World Court at the Hague, against Osama (r.a.), the putative puppeteer behind 9-11. Who, in truth, is the war criminal?

Does none of this warrant reparations? Or perhaps reparations, like holocausts, Nobel Peace prizes, and suffering, are the domain of one and only one privileged group?

In the camps, and in Afghanistan herself, the mullah is reading a longer and longer list of children’s names each Friday—dead not just from malnutrition and diarrhea, but from daisycutters, cruise missiles, and American landmines to augment with the Soviet ones.

The Other Ascent

Bismillah, Ir-Rahman, Ir-Raheem, I breathed, starting my usual five-mile run during break (at work). It was late afternoon, almost evening, my optimum running time. I’d slept well the previous night, stretched well before the run, and eaten well earlier—the three essential components of a good run.

I felt myself picking up speed as I raced down the ramp near the beginning of my run, but the feeling of lightness didn’t end with the descent. Today, unlike some days, when the ascent required effort, I felt as powerful on the first uphill, as I’d felt on the initial downhill. The absence of sidewalk, and the fact that I was sharing a major roadway with 40 – 60 mph traffic did not strike a ripple in the utter calm of my mind. Nor did it diminish the feeling of power in my legs. Ujjayi Pranayama (yogic breathing technique) really worked.

Ahead was a light rail crossing which I traversed each day during my run. "Please God, don't let a train come through just as I arrive at the crossing," I prayed. Even if I ran in place while waiting for the train to cross, such an event killed the momentum of the run. Then it would be "The thrill is gone, Bernie."

As I got close, I heard the whistle. I’d just raced up a hill which some might consider a monster, but I was in the zone, barely breathing. Alas, the train was approaching, and the gates began to lower, barring traffic and the odd runner from crossing in front of it.

In an instant I knew what I must do. I speeded up, and in a few swift strides, I’d crossed from the road shoulder, to the center of the road, where there was a small gap between the railroad crossing gates. Then—to the consternation of motorists patiently lined up at the crossing—I slipped through the gap. I flew over the tracks and to the other side, just ahead of the train, epinephrine pouring out of my adrenal gland. So much for calm. I completed the remaining several miles of run in overdrive, and made it back to work just in the nick of time, with only my secret smile betraying my workout victory to my co-workers.

Ramadan at Camp Munda

Ramadan greetings, and may the strength of this holy month bring us close to the Creator, and close to those who struggle against oppression the world over. In particular, this Ramadan, please join me in praying for the people of Iraq, against whom the U.S. government has instigated a criminal policy of submit or starve. The courage of the people of Iraq brings to mind my experiences in Afghanistan and in the Afghan refugee camps on the Pakistan border....
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I remember one Ramadan spent in the Afghan refugee camp of Munda Pul. Afghan mujahideen moved in and out of the camps, where their families lived, with regularity, their movements dictated by the timing and direction of the various guerrilla offensives. It was the night before Ramadan, and I, filled with an immense energy and excitement, which I could only attribute to the power of the Holy Month, could scarcely sleep as I lay on my matt outside the single-room mud dwelling which my hosts called home. I awoke to the sounds of people talking in muted tones, and others crouching a distance away, washing arms, legs, feet, etc. with water from ancient-looking ceramic urns, in preparation for prayer. To my surprise, it was still dark; in fact, it seemed, it was still the dead of night, and not the pre-dawn hour when I would expect to awake in my suburban Maryland house back in the States, to rapidly microwave and consume food cooked and refrigerated for a week (with my busy student schedule). What are they doing up this early, I wondered. As I washed up, I noticed the children already moving about. One little boy chased a chicken around the compound. The women waited to pull water from the well in aluminum buckets just outside the single mud wall of the compound. Soon tea was boiling merrily in a heavy black cauldron over an open (cow pie) fire. As we sat cross-legged on a sheet which had been spread across the floor, and ate delicious, fresh, Afghan bread with a bit of jam which my muj hosts had somehow managed to acquire in my honor (peanut butter, jam, and other spreads are extremely expensive and difficult to obtain in the refugee camps) and cups of green tea, I reflected on how little the people had in terms of material wealth, and yet how much at peace they seemed with themselves, particularly surrounded by constant reminders of the war as they were.

A beautiful young Afghan woman sat a short distance away from me, breast-feeding her wide-eyed infant. Even the infant seemed aware that this was a special morning, the first morning of the most powerful month, in which forces of good are at their strongest, and the forces of evil can and must be challenged. Through the doorway of the single enclosed room, a gangly boy of six or seven, named Bilal, sat reading his Qur’an, in preparation for his morning lesson; his mother, Qanita, sweetly kept offering me more bread and jam. We finished our suhoor with a simple du’ah, common to most of the poor Dari-speaking Afghan mujahideen and their families, in whose homes I was a visitor—a prayer which seemed to reflect their attitude toward the incredible sacrifices they had made in leaving their homes and their beloved land:

Alhamdulillah-e-lazii
ataman-nah
wa sakanah
wa ja ulna minul muslimeen

(We give thanks, o Allah, for giving us food, for giving us shelter, and for placing us on the Path of Islam.)

A short while later, the relative silence of the camp was broken by the powerful and awe-inspiring azaan. Quickly and quietly, the mujahideen filed out of the compound in the direction of the mosque. As if heading to battle.

Pharaonic Egypt: A Black African Civilization

Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese-born African historian, shed new light on a question which has long plagued historians and non historians alike: the racial identity of the ancient Egyptians, whose advanced civilization was the cradle of early scientific discipline. The question is of paramount importance for all humanity, for, as Diop eloquently stated,

 

The ancient Egyptians were Negroes. The moral fruit of their civilization is to be counted among the assets of the Black world. Instead of presenting itself to history as an insolvent debtor, the Black world is the very initiator of the “western” civilization flaunted before our eyes today. Pythagorean mathematics, the theory of the four elements of Thales of Miletus, Epicurean materialism, Platonic idealism, Judaism, Islam, and modern science are rooted in Egyptian cosmology and science. One needs only to meditate on Osiris, the redeemer-god, who sacrifices himself, dies, and is resurrected to save mankind, a figure essentially identifiable with Christ (1974, xiv). (Emphasis added.)

 

With multi-disciplinary training in Egyptology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, cultural anthropology, history, and linguistics, Diop was perhaps uniquely qualified to address the question (Hilliard, 139). Presenting evidence collected through several decades of work (Hilliard, 132) Diop argued convincingly that the ancient Egyptians were unequivocally Black, and that their exclusion from recognition as such was a function of racially motivated agendas.

 

Before examining the evidence on both sides of the issue, a vital clarification is necessary: the question of what exactly does one defend/challenge in this argument? Am I, in seeking to defend Diop’s standpoint, guilty of an “inverted racism,” gratuitously giving more import to the skin color of a people, than to their contribution to humanity (Brace et al, 130)? Van Sertima, who, to the extent possible, took over the mantle of research into Egypt’s Black African origins since Diop’s death, asserted,

 

Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White? is not the ideal way in which such an issue should be posed, for, unintentional though it may be, it is a trap. It enables those who seek to undermine the contribution of early Africans to civilization, to appear in this debate as fair and balanced, blessed with a sweet reasonableness, while I, who only seek to set the historical record straight, am, by the very wording of the proposition, encouraged to take stands which, if not racist, are, at the very least, simplistic and facile (75).

 

A more honest wording of the question, according to Van Sertima, would be:

 

First whether the ancient Egyptians were predominantly African or Africoid in a physical sense during the major native dynasties before the late invasions of the Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab foreigners. Second, whether—and this is even more important—their language, their writing, their vision of god and the universe, their concept of the divine kingship, their ritual ceremonies and practices, their administrative and architectural symbols and structures, their techno-complex, were quintessentially African (that is, based essentially upon models and patterns developed in the continental heartland of Africa) and not (I repeat not) in any major particular, projected from those in Europe or Asia in that or any previous time (75).

 

Thus, it is with the question and one’s reasons for asking it clearly in mind that one may cogently weight the arguments of both Dr. Diop and of his adversaries.

 

Dr. Diop presented eleven categories of evidence at the UNESCO symposium on “The Peopling of Ancient Egypt” held in Cairo in 1974, to support his argument for a native black African Egypt, including Ancient Egyptian self-descriptions, divine epithets, and art; the eyewitness testimony of classical writers who visited Egypt; physical anthropology data, including evidence from osteological studies, from the melanin dosage test, and from blood type studies; linguistic and cultural comparisons between Egyupt and the rest of Africa; and Bible history. This paper discusses each of these in turn, in light of recent studies in support or in refutation of them.

 

Kemetic Self-Descriptions

 

“Kmt,” or “the Negroes,” was the single word used by the ancient Egyptians to designate themselves; it was the strongest term in their language which indicated blackness (Diop, 1978, 27). At the UNESCO symposium, Abdalla, discarding the extremely detailed and cogent linguistic demonstration provided by Diop [see Linguistic Evidence below], accepted by nearly all the conference participants, made the wholly unsubstantiated claim that km did not mean “black,” and that its derivatives did not refer to the color of individuals (UNESCO, 39). Sauneron and Obenga, another linguistics expert, provided additional evidence at the conference to support Diop’s claim (UNESCO, 40).

 

Further, according to Hilliard, K-M-T, a name written in MDW NTR (Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics), a writing system without vowels, meant “The Black Place,” or “place of the blacks,” and was one of three primary names that native African people in the northern Nile Valley used to refer to their nation. “Egypt” was the foreign name given to KMT by the Greeks, nearly two thousand years after the nation was established. In addition to KMT, two other names that natives used were Ta-Mry (meaning “The Beloved Land”) and Tawi (meaning “The Two Lands”—Upper and Lower KMT) (127). It defies logic that a people who were not black would refer to their land as “place of the blacks,” to themselves as “the Negroes.” This paper will henceforth use KMT to refer to the area popularly called “Ancient Egypt.”

 

Kemetic Religious References

 

The names used by the inhabitants of KMT in designating their deities pointed once again to the inescapable fact that they were black. In MDW NTR, Kmwr, meaning the “Great Negro,” was used to designate the God Osiris. Similarly Set Kmt, meaning “the Black Woman,” was the designation for the Goddess Isis. In general, km (“the black,” but used only for males) prefixed to the name of a god, or kmt (“the black,” but used only for females) prefixed to the name of a goddess, constituted the surname of that god or goddess (Diop, 1978, 27). The likelihood that a white, predominantly white, or even mixed KMT would refer to their deities as Black is as good as that of a Scanandavian or Japanese nation today promulgating images of a Black Jesus or Buddha.

 

Kemetic Carvings and Paintings

 

There is no shortage of artwork from KMT, from the proto-historic, to the Late Dynastic period, all lending strong support to the black identity of the Ancient Egyptians. According to Diop, wherever the autochthonous racial type was represented with any degree of clearness, it was evidently Negroid (1978, 17). The artwork can be classified in two broad categories: 1) sculptures and statues, and 2) paintings and carvings.

 

Sculptures and statues have the advantage of three dimensional depiction of facial features and leave little doubt about the race of the person whose image they reconstruct. Starting from Narmer, the first king, to the Sphinx and spanning nearly every dynasty (with the notable exceptions of the low periods) Kemetic statuary recorded the visual images of unquestionably Black kings and queens and Black Gods and Goddesses.

 

Paintings of KMT discriminate very clearly in their depictions of the black inhabitants of KMT and other races. The question of the portrayal in some bas-reliefs of selected individuals in a dark red color and others in black raised the possibility of a distinction between the race of the Egyptians and other Africans. But Diop pointed out that scientifically speaking, no dark red race existed, nor was there a truly black, Black man in the literal sense of the word; the disparity, he noted, merely reflects the spectrum of skin color found among black people (Diop, 1974, 48). Further, stance and symbols, such as the tied hands of a captive always differentiated foreigners in Kemetic art (Diop, 1978, 17). Paintings such as the one from the tomb of Ramses III, portraying an Egyptian, a Black from some other part of Africa, an “Indo-European,” and a Semite, showed with great certainty that the Egyptains might portray themselves in the manner of the former two, but never the latter two (Van Sertima, prologue).

 

Table 1. Depictions of Blacks in Kemetic Paintings

 

Time Period                Description of Work                                      Comment/Reference

Proto-historic              Painting of Lord Tera Neter of                       Anu were first inhabitants of

                                    the Negro Anu race                                        KMT (Diop, 1974, 12)

Dynasty XX                  Painting depicts Egyptians                              Shows Egyptians saw

                                                                                                            themselves as Blacks (Van

                                                                                                            Sertima, prologue)

Dynasty III                   Stone plate of King Djoser                              Shows Djoser to have

typically Negroid features

(Diop, 1974, 14)

Dynasty XII                  Painting of King Sesostris I                              Same as above (Diop, 1974,

                                                                                                            18)

Dynasty XII                  Bas-relief of King Sesostris                             Black prisoners were

                                    Holding prisoners by the hair                         depicted in same manner

                                                                                                            as King Sesostris

 

 

 

Table 2. Black Kings and Queens in Kemetic Statuary

 

Time Period                King or Queen                                                            Reference

----                               The God Osiris                                                            Diop, 1974, 11

Dynasty I                     King Narmer or Menes                                   Diop, 1974, 13

Dynasty IV                   Cheops                                                            Diop, 1974, 15

Dynasty IV                   Mycerinus and the Goddess Hathor               Diop, 1974, 16

Dynasty V                    King Sahure                                                     Rashidi, 84

Dynasty XI                   King Mentuhotep I                                          Diop, 1974, 17

Dynasty XII                  King Nubkaure Amenemhet II                                    Rashidi, 86

Dynasty XII                  King Nymare Amenemhet III                          Rashidi, 88

Dynasty XVIII               King Nebmare Amenhotep III                         Rashidi, 90

Dynasty XVIII               Queen Tiye                                                      Rashidi, 92

Dynasty XVIII               King Thutmoses III                                           Diop, 1974, 20

Dynasty XIX                 King Usermare Ramses II                               Rashidi, 94

Dynasty XIX                 King Ramses II                                                 Diop, 1974

Dynasty XXV                King Taharqa                                                   Rashidi, 96

 

 

Eyewitness Testimony of Classical Writers

 

Evidence from classical Greek and Roman writers contain innumerable references to the blackness of the Ancient Egyptians (Diop, 1978, 21). Diop mentioned three separate instances on which Herodotus refers to their race:  1) in speaking on the origins of the Colchians; 2) in speaking of the origin of the Nile floods; and 3) in discussing the oracle of Zeus-Amon (UNESCO, 45). Count Constantin de Volney, who visited and studied in KMT, referred to the Ancient Egyptians in unequivocal terms: “There a people now forgotten discovered while others were still barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe” (Hilliard, 143-144). Others such as Aristotle, Lucian, Appolodorus, Aeschylus, Achilles Tatius of Alexandria, Strabo, Diogenes, Laertius, and Ammianus Marcellinus can be cited in the same vein (Van Sertima, 78).

 

Physical Anthropology Data

 

Diop posed three major arguments based on the results of physical anthropology data: 1) A Black race existed in KMT from prehistoric times through the dynastic period; 2) During the pre-dynastic epoch, the very basis of the Kemetic population was Black; 3) The criteria employed by anthropologists working in this area have frequently been prejudicial. An examination of each argument follows in turn.

 

A Black Race Existed in KMT from Prehistoric Times Through the Dynastic Period

 

Diop cited classical studies done by Fawcett, Falkenburger, Elliot-Smith, Sergei, and Petrie to support his contention that the existence of a white Egyptian race was ambiguous at best, and that physical anthropology data, despite its lack of conclusiveness, pointed to the existence of a black race. He noted both Fawcett and Falkenburger’s vacillation in identifying their skulls as black or Germanic/Cro-Magnoid (1978, 15). Osteological evidence from work done by Lepsius also placed the Egyptians “among the black races.” Similarity between blood groups of modern day Egyptians and West Africans and their dissimilarity with those of homogeneous white populations was taken as additional physical evidence for black origins. Finally, the melanin dosage test, Diop’s own invention, showed that the royal mummies in the Museum of Man in Paris, had, without exception, melanin levels consistent with a “black” population (1978, 20).

 

At odds with Diop’s position was a study done by Brace, placing pre-Dynastic and Late Dynastic Egyptians closer to Europeans than to any other ethnographic cluster (140). Brace further claimed that Nubia “comes close to being excluded from the Late Dynastic sample from Giza: in Lower KMT (Brace et al 145). Nubia came only a few percentage points from being excluded from Sub-Saharan Africa as well, but could not be excluded from modern Europe (Brace, 145). Lastly, data in this study purportedly showed the people of the Horn of Africa to be craniofacially less distinct from a spectrum of samples that includes South Asia, the Middle East, and northwestern Europe than they were to any group in Sub-Saharan Africa (Brace, 151).

 

A growing number of studies employing a broad range of techniques—including morphometric analysis of crania, cephalometric studies, estimates of stature, genetic analysis of both non-metric traits and blood groups, and studies of hair—support Diop’s thesis. Among them:

 

Morphological studies done by Morton, Nott, and Gliddon; MacIver and Thomson; Smith, Smith, and Derry; Guiffrida-Ruggeri; and numerous others, all conceded, to the extent that their early twentieth century racial mind sets permitted, the existence of the “Egyptian-with-Negro influence,” “Negroid,” “Austral-Egyptian,” “Brown,” “Mediterranean,” or “Hamitic” element in varying degrees in the populations they studied (Keita, 133-34). Morphometric studies yielded results similar to those obtained from the morphological studies, in that non-Negroid and Negroid traits, or varying degrees of Negroid traits were observed (Keita, 136).

 

Howells’ (1973) global study of 17 cranial series showed that the late dynastic Giza series from northern KMT clustered with tropical Africans or northern Europeans depending on the technique used (Keita, 137). In Brauer’s (1976, 1980) work, no discrete major clustering of Nile Valley series apart from more tropical Africans occurred; other African groups appeared in primary clusters with various Nile valley groups (Keita, 137).

 

Three non-metric studies supported the Diop thesis: 1) Berry and Berry (1972) found that the Egyptian series examined were more similar overall to other African series than to European or Near Eastern series (Keita, 139); 2) Berry et al (1967) showed that numerous Egyptian series from different regions and epochs usually had greater affinity to one another than to Sudanese, Palestinian, and West African series (Keita, 139); in the same study, Egyptian crania evaluated in a Near Eastern versus African context had affinity with the Africans (Keita, 139); 3) Strouhal and Jungwirth (1979) showed great overlap of southern Nile Valley crania with more southerly Africans in the frequency of numerous non-metric traits (Keita, 139).

 

Paoli (1972) found dynastic mummies to have ABO frequencies most like those of the northern Haratin, a group believed to be largely descended from the ancient Saharans. (Keita, 140).

 

Robins and Schute (1983, 1986) noted a Negroid ratio in a sample of New Kingdom dynastic remains (Keita, 140). Robins and Schute (1983) examined the physical proportions of New Kingdom Pharaohs including those of the 18^th dynasty (Amenhotep I, II, II, Ahmose, Thutmose I, II, III, IV, Smenkhkare, and Tutankhamen) and 19^th dynasty (Merneptah, Rameses II, Sati I and II, and Siptah) found all the Pharaonic values to lie much closer to the Negro curve than to the white curve. Also since the estimation of stature took into account limb proportions, the data from the studies of stature in New Kingdom Egyptians indicated that they possessed the same adaptations as Africans in tropical climates (Crawford, 66).

 

An x-ray profile of the mummy of King Thutmose IV (Dynasty XVIII) showed facial prognathism, a feature generally not found in Caucasoid populations (Van Sertima, 74). Recently, an examination of 11 Egyptian mummies revealed two of them to have carpal fusion, a disease almost unknown among Europeans and which is considered an African disease (Van Sertima, 78).

 

During the pre-dynastic epoch, the very basis of the Kemetic population was Black.

 

Since the studies done by both Fawcett and Falkenburger included pre-dynastic specimens, and both conceded to varying degrees the existence of blacks in KMT very early on, the degree of their convergence showed, according to Diop, that the basis of the Egyptian population was black in the pre-Dynastic epoch (1978, 16).

 

Here again, the single dissenting opinion came from Brace, who opined that the Egyptians, based on craniofacial morphology, had nothing whatsoever in common with Sub-Saharan Africans, and that the data provided no support for the claim of a “strong Negroid element” in pre-Dynastic KMT (145).

 

Diop’s claims were substantiated by a number of studies:

 

Pre-Dynastic Badarian crania, termed as the basic defining “Egyptian” morphology, was found by multiple teams of researchers to be fundamentally “Negroid” (Keita, 134-135). A morphometric study done by Petit-Maine and Dutour (1987) suggested that early southern Egyptian series shared crania metric patterns with early Saharans deemed to be “Negroid” (Keita, 138).

 

Metric studies cited by Keita suggested a broad biological affinity of early and southern Nile Valley peoples with other more southerly Africans. Even more striking, metric analyses clearly suggested that at least southern “Egyptian” groups were a part of indigenous Holocene Saharo-tropical African variation (Keita, 138).

 

Ruffer (1920) noticed an overlap in the presence of numerous anomalies in pre-Dynastic Egyptian and Nubian teeth. The presence of fourth molar variants in these populations was also significant (though always rare). Fourth molar variants seem to be more common in southerly African populations than in Europeans (Keita, 141).

 

Trinkhaus (1981) study of limb ratios placed the pre-Dynastic Egyptian values near those of tropical Africans, not Mediterranean Europeans (Keita, 140). Also Warren (1897) observed that these ratios for early Naqada Egyptians were similar to those of “Negroes” (Keita, 140). Robins and Shute (1983, 1986) evaluated pre-Dynastic and Dynastic limb ratios and found the former to be “supernegroid” (Crawford, 66).

 

Criteria Employed by Anthropologists Working in this Area have Frequently been Prejudicial

 

Diop, noting Fawcett and Falkenburger’s vacillation between identifying their skulls as black or Germanic/ Cro-Magnoid, remarked on the elasticity of the criteria used in the physiological tests of the day (1978, 15). Additionally, Diop noted problems arising from oversimplification, remarking that there were at least two different variants of the black race—the straight-haired, represented in Africa by the Nubians, among others; and the kinky-haired blacks of the Equatorial region—not just one stereotypical Negro as previously assumed by many researchers (1978, 17).

 

According to Crawford, the misreading and misinterpretation of the skeletal evidence has been the greatest stumbling block to an acceptance of the African origins of the ancient Egyptian and to an appreciation of the persistence and predominance of the African type during the critical formative dynasties of KMT (58). It is difficult for many to understand how the so-called “true Negro” does not even represent the majority of African types on the continent (Crawford, 58). Most skeletal studies have focused on the form or fiction of one variant of indigenous African (Crawford, 58). Crawford identified at least six African variants (elongated, Nilotic, classical, Pygmy, Bushman, and other localized variants) [For detailed discussion on the various types, see Crawford, 58]. Some of these variants have elements of their facial appearance that is characteristic of other races. This must be the case, since all races evolved from an African prototype and it was necessary that this type possess the potential to express multiple traits which could then be modified by the environment (Crawford, 58).

 

Typology assumes races can be characterized and distinguished by mutually exclusive features that are stable through time. Researchers who have used a cluster of specific traits for defining a race encounter the problem of marked heterogeneity within the race for the presumed defining traits. African populations display a great deal of variation in the expression of “diagnostically Negroid” traits (Crawford, 60).

 

Stereotypically mulatto hair found preserved on a Badarian skull once again exhibits the tremendous phenotypic variation possible within various Negroid types, all autochthonous to Africa. Badarians, the earliest pre-Dynastic Egyptians, were, most historians now agree, fundamentally Negroid. Thus the presence of mulatto hair on a Negroid skull dispels some of the notions about a fixed or invariable Negro stereotype (Keita, 140).

 

Perhaps the best example of elasticity of criteria, faulted by Diop, is that found in the Brace study. Brace selected a set of 24 variables (such as nasal height, basion prosthion, and bizygomatic breadth) from a measurement battery originally used to sort for anthropological classification of inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago, while conceding that the precision of the measurement battery, when applied to groups other than the original one for which it was designed, was questionable (Brace, 132). Using this battery of measurements, he attempted to find differences in non-adaptive inherited traits between populations, and used this as a measurement of elapsed time since they shared a common ancestor. Then using Euclidean Distance dendrograms, he arrived at the conclusions enumerated above. Since the variables measured appear to be arbitrary chosen, it is not at all clear whether the outcome of the same study, employing a different measurement battery, would have yielded significantly different results. In fact, two subsequent metric studies showed that this may indeed have been the case, (Keita, 137).

 

The apparent methodological weakness of Brace’s method was nowhere more clear than when he attempted to sever Nubia from KMT and from Sub-Saharan Africa, but not from modern Europe. In this case, cultural and anthropological data were enough to nullify his sophistry (e.g., architectural, archeological, as well as written evidence from MDW NTR showing the extraordinary role Nubia played in KMT, first as its creator—the Nubians initiated the first Pharaonic dynasty, Ta-Seti—later as its unifier and conqueror in the Eighth Century B.C., and throughout as its cultural preserve) (Brooks-Bertram, 150). Unfortunately, supporting data are not always available when such methodologically-weak studies target other less well-explored areas.

 

Finally, using appropriate comparative groups and statistical methods, “Hamitic” populations could be shown to be related to other African populations, and not to Caucasoids from Europe or Asia. Modern populations considered to be “Hamitic” (e.g., some Ethiopians) have been shown genetically to cluster with other Africoid variants and not racial groups or populations outside of Africa (Crawford, 60).

 

Linguistic Comparisons with the Rest of Africa

 

Diop painstakingly elucidated the similarities between the West African language of Wolof and ancient Egyptian. Egyptian expressed the past tense by the same morpheme, n, as Wolof; it had a suffixal conjugation which reappeared verbatim in Wolof; most pronouns were identical to those in Wolof. The two pronoun suffixes, ef and es, had the same meaning in Wolof; demonstratives were the same in both languages; the passive voice was expressed by the same morpheme, u or w, in both languages. Replacement of n in Egyptian by l in Wolof was sufficient to transform an Egyptian word into a Wolof word with the same meaning. All of these linguistic factors pointed to Egyptian origins in a Black Africa (Diop, 1974, 155).

 

Cultural Comparisons with the Rest of Africa/Bible History

 

Diop cited innumerable cultural traits common in present-day Black Africa and also espoused by the ancient Egyptians: circumcision, totemism, kingship, matriarchy, cosmogony, and social organization (1974, 134). Biblical references, casting the Egyptians as among the sons of Ham all incorporate the term “black,” used with great reverence (Diop, 1978, 27).

 

Race cannot be Excluded as a Defining Characteristic without the Sacrifice of Intellectual Integrity:

Time Trame and History of Devaluing, Detracting from, and Refusal to Credit Black Contribution Predicate the Necessity of Preservation of Race in Case of KMT

 

A recent Washington Post article, citing “differences that don’t correspond to racial categories;” that no physical feature, or even combination of features, distinguishes any race; and that arguments can be made for as many as 37 different “races,” concludes that, “Races don’t really exist, at least not outside our imaginations” (Rensberger, 3). Brace, in a similar vein, contents that dispensing of the matter of race is requisite to the resolution of the question of the “biological relations of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley” (130).

 

Based on current knowledge of international travel during the pre-Dynastic and Dynastic period, mating between members of different racial or ethnic groups was severely constrained by geographical realities. Further, it can be postulated that in accordance with the somewhat insular cultural views of the time, cross-cultural marriages had not yet attained a high level of acceptability, again limiting racial interbreeding. Both of these factors probably contributed to a high degree of “racial purity,” placing race on a different plane than today, and making it entirely possibly that Nile Valley Blacks were, in Diop’s words, “ethnically homogeneous and negroid.” (1978,15)

 

Even discounting the historical significance of a Black African KMT, and relying solely on modern scientific techniques derived from advances in the fields of genetics and molecular biology, the results point unwaveringly to the existence of a distinct Black African population, which included the Ancient Egyptians. Studies calculating the degree of relatedness between world populations based on genetic similarities for certain protein reveal that present day African populations with markedly different physical traits emerge as a group distinct from other world populations (Crawford, 55-56). Sanchez-Mazas et al (1986) show Senegalese from sub-Saharan West Africa and Ethiopians from the Horn of Africa forming a distinct grouping. This study examined genetic similarities in five blood group and HLA systems between 14 populations. Similarly, Nei (1978) shows West Africans from Ghana and Bantu Africans from Southeastern Africa emerging together, again distinct from the other European, Asian, and American populations. These relationships were based on gene frequency data for 11 protein and blood group genes and compared 12 populations for which this data was available. Cavalli-Sforza et al (1988) presented a study of gene frequencies for 120 alleles (genetic variations of a particular trait) in 42 World populations. Africans, including Mbuti pygmies, West Africans, Ethiopians, Bantu speakers, Bushmen, and Nilo-Saharan speakers, formed a cluster (Africoid) distinct from all other world populations. They also show that all these African populations speak languages from African linguistic families (Crawford, 56).

 

Conclusions

 

Off the categories of evidence produced by Dr. Diop in support of his thesis, that the people of KMT were of racially, culturally, and linguistically black origin, the following categories were accepted without challenge: the melanin dosage test results, blood group evidence, eyewitness testimony from classical writers, Kemetic self-descriptions, Kemetic divine epithets, Bible history, culture data, and linguistic affinity.

 

In art work of KMT, the only valid questions pertained to possibly conflicting meanings of black or red color used to portray varying racial types in paintings found in some tombs. This however, was insignificant next to the voluminous carvings, statues, and statuettes spanning from the pre-Dynastic to late dynastic period all portraying unambiguously Negroid features.

 

The greatest conflict arose in some of the physical anthropology data, but this was primarily due to conflicting definitions of race (i.e., whether or not a black race could be said to exist distinct from other races either now or in the past) and then to lack of awareness of (or in some cases, deliberate lack of attention to) the great variation in indigenous African types, of which at least six were identified and unsagacious or prejudiced selection of criteria in some of the studies. Once these hurdles were overcome, however, the results of the studies overwhelmingly confirmed Dr. Diop’s thesis.

 

Notes

 

Brace, C. Loring et al., “Clines and Clusters Versus Race: A Test in Ancient Egypt and the Case of a Death on the Nile.” Black Athena Revisited, Edited by Mary Lefkowitz. Chapel Hill: Univeristy of North Carolina Press, 1996, 129-62.

 

Brooks-Bertram, Peggy A., “The Sixth Napatan Dynasty of Kush.” Egypt, Child of Africa. Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick: Journal of African Civilizations, 1994, 149-86.

 

Crawford, Keith W., “The Racial Identity of Ancient Egyptian Populations Based on the Analysis of Physical Remains.” Egypt, Child of Africa. Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick: Journal of African Civilizations, 1994, 55-74.

 

Diop, Cheikh Anta, The African Origin of Civilization—Myth or Reality. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1974.

 

Diop, Cheikh Anta, “Origin of the Ancient Egyptians,” The General History of Africa—Studies and Documents, No. 1, Paris: UNESCO, 1978, 15-32.

 

Hilliard III, Asa G., “Bringing Maat, Destroying Isfet: The African and African Diasporan Presence in the Study of Ancient KMT.” Egypt, Child of Africa. Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick: Journal of African Civilizations, 1994, 127-147.

 

Keita, S.O.Y., “Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships.” History of Africa 20, 1993, 129-54.

 

Rensberger, Boyce, “Forget the Old Labels. Here’s a New Way to Look at Race.” The Washington Post, Nov 16, 1994, 1.

 

Van Sertima, Ivan, “Egypt is in Africa But was Ancient Egypt African?” Egypt, Child of Africa. Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick: Journal of African Civilizations, 1994: 75-79.

 

---- “Annex to Chapter 1: Report of the Symposium on ‘The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script.’” The General History of Africa—Studies and Documents, No. 1. Edited by G. Mokhtar. Paris: UNESCO, 1978, 33-57.

©1997 By Nadrat Siddique