Africa Was a Cultural Wasteland Until European Sowed the Seed of Civilization on How Cultural Barren Shores
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INTRODUCTION
Over the years, many continents were colonialzed by different people from different race, and where ever and when ever these colonial master conquers, they tend to surpass and bring their own ideologies and innovations, and their colony ahs no option that to succumb and follow their ordinances of the colonials master at the expense of their cultures, values, heritages, norms and festivals, to follow the so called colonial masters rule. Be that as it may, Africans are not far from this predicament, furthermore Africans are white and black in terms of color, the inhabitants of African either by birth, descent or by naturalization are called Africans which is a lexical derivatives from Africa. Africans before the advent of the Europeans has culture experience and achievements, this could be seen or traced back from the works of the ancient Benin, Ife, Nok, Terra Cotta and so on, after the coming of the European who brought their so called “civilization” and soiled the land of Africa, since then Africa never remained the same, and this is in the negative sense. As a rider to this work, the concepts; Africa and its culture, European and civilization, Africa and civilization shall be discussed in an attempt to truly see if Africa was a cultural waste land until the European sowed the seed of Civilization on their cultural barren shore or not, and also this work shall not be devoid of my personal evaluation and conclusion, and if it fall short of the above aim, it could as a result of the dynamism of culture and relative meaning of Civilization.
AFRICA AND ITS CULTURES
Africa, a great continent has its rich history and its deep rooted culture, and to begin with, one would start with the pre history and the emergence of homosapiens in the east of Africa continuing into the present as a patchwork for of diverse and politically developing nation states. Some early evidence of agriculture in Africa dates back to 16000 B.C and metallurgy from about 4000 B.C. the recorded history of early civilization arose in Egypt and late in Nubia, the Mogreb and the horn of Africa. During the middle ages, Islam spread through the regions crossing the Magreb and the Sahel, also a major center of Muslim culture was Timbuktu. Some notable pre colonial states that could have been found in Africa include the Nok, Mali, Ashanti empires, Kingdoms of Zimbabwe, Kingo, ancient Cathage, and Adal sultanate.
All these so many different culture have their various histories attached to each of them and they seem to be grounded in them that are seeing this from the basis that these cultures could not have fallen from the sky. These groups of people organizably ruled themselves at certain periods, they created a great and arguably rich and grounds culture for themselves and even with the coming of the Europeans and Arabs in the 15th century and took them on slave trade they still held firm to some extent. Even after we were seen as slaves by the Europeans, one way or the other we have held strong by these cultures. These cultures may not necessarily have died down, but what exactly can be opined from this is that form a point of view they have only been refurbished with the passage of time and also the cultures have been sharpened by these changes. Even the Europeans and the Eurocentric scholars have one way or the other imbibed some of this our cultures. Though them imbibing is not our major problem in this discuss, but what exactly motivates one to debunk the fact that Africa has a history is annoying and heart breaking.
It can be seen that the first hominids evolved in Africa, according to paleontology, the early hominids skull anatomy was similar to that of the gorilla and the chimpanzee, great apes that evolved in Africa. But the hominids had adopted a bipedal locomotion and freed their hands. This gave them a crucial advantage, enabling them to live in both forested areas and the open savannah at a time when Africa was drying up the savannah and the savannah was encroaching in forested areas, this occurred at about 50 million years ago.
It can be seen therefore that the history of Africa can be traced to the ancient times of the hominids and this are traced to millions of years ago. This groups help to prove to us that there is a rich ground in Africa where things can be gotten from historically. In the sense of going back to the stone ages in contrasts to what Eurocentrics conserve in their minds, they make us see things differently in the light in which the above is written, Africa is greatly blessed but this blessing is seen less by its people grow out of a way that what exactly is seen is horror.
EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION
The development of European civilization has basically to do with their culture and how they grew as a people, Like in any other group who claim to have history and culture. The culture of Europe might better be described as a series of multiple cultures whether it is north as opposed to south west or to the east; orthodoxies as opposed to Protestantism as opposed to Catholicism as opposed to secularism; many have claimed to identify cultural fault lines across the continent. There are many cultural innovations and movements often at odds with each other, such as Christianity and humanism. Thus the question of common cultures or common values is far more complex than it seems to be.
The foundation of European culture was laid by the Greeks, strengthened by the Romans, stabilized by Christianity, reformed and modernized by the fifteenth century renaissance and globalized by successive European empires between the sixteenth and twentieth centurys. Thus the culture of Europe developed into a very complex phenomenon of wider range of philosophy, Christian and secular Romanism, rational way of life and logical thinking developed through the a long age of change and formation with the experiments and enlightenments, nationalism, romanticism, science, democracy and socialism. Because of its global connection, the European culture grew with an all inclusive urge to adopt, adapt and ultimately improve and influence other forms of culture. As a matter of fact, from the middle of the nineteenth century with the expansion of European education and the spread of Christianity, European culture and way of life to a great extent turned to be global culture.
The European civilization cannot go without bringing out the part played by the missionary in the sense of the church. The church played a great deal to the effect of Europes civilization. Also trading of all sorts cannot be over looked in the sense that most times, before the emergence of trade there were people who lived on their own