Where's East Africa?

Where was East Africa in the 14^th Century? I need to find that out.  In the South you had Shaka Zulu’s conquest. In the West you had Timbuktu. In the North you had the Egyptian civilization. I so want to go to Egypt to just experience and be in the presence of such rich history. The jury is still out on whether it was the dark Nubians who ruled or the lighter skinned Arabs who ruled. But I won’t get into that right now.

I know if I spent more time reading African history, I would have an answer. 

The reason I ask that is there is something about my beautiful ‘neck of the African woods’; East Africa, that just seems to not have grand Kingdoms that I know about. Yes, you have the Buganda kingdom, but I am wondering is that it?

I am in search of the great stories of East African Kingdoms and conquests as vast as Songhai and Timbuktu  of the West and Shaka in the South. Why am I so bothered? Well because at times I feel like East Africa’s history is so watered down.

by  sahistory.org.za

I have a beautiful Ghanaian friend who told me they were taught of greats of the Ashanti Kingdom, the great Yaa Asantewaa and the likes, in school. We are barely taught of Mekatili wa Menza in Kenya. Kenyan History starts about a decade before independence. The rest relies on how great your family was in their oral history. If they weren’t, tough luck!

 I look at how traditionally rich West Africans are, they just ooze of it. Nigerians rock their accents wherever they go. Some of us Africans acquire really horrible imitated American accents after seeing one, leave alone living there.  The West African, Central and Southern African states rock cultural clothing. East Africans….I love us, but we just seem to miss the African oomph other brothers and sisters exude in the continent.

I just hate that. And it bothers me, I feel like in East Africa we lost something. And being a writer, I feel the need to find it and share it in the work that I do. And share the rich African oomph other regions in this continent ooze. I may write a grand historical encounter to be preserved by generations or simply keep blogging about it.

The beauty and the shortfall of African history, in parts of Africa, in my view was the reliance on oral history. I have said this several times in this blog. But the beauty is I am in a generation that understands and appreciates the power and need to preserve that. That is my task, finding out what my East African history holds for me. That is other than the slavery that was rampant due to our proximity to the Indian Ocean.

But I do remember, in my World Civilization class the lecturer did state that there was evidence of astronomy around the Lake Turkana area. I am yet to get more information on that.

Why am I fussing so much about this? Well we live in a world where we still have to prove to ourselves that Africa is more than what it is depicted as today. That one sided story that we spoke of in the previous post.

But the only way Africans can believe it and stand tall, is if they know how great their predecessors were. How else do we know that? We need to dig it up, internalize it and begin to believe and live as great as or even greater than our ancestors. There is more than a name in the African lineage; it’s called greatness. 

An African's Dilemma

I will be honest; I haven’t read Purple Hibiscus or Half of a Yellow Sun. I know! I know! Gasp! Shock! My friend tried to convince me to read at least one book, 3 years ago but I was skeptical.  I had never heard of the author and that particular time I wasn’t in the mood to read. Adiche Chimamanda , for those who do not know her is a 34 year old, Award winning Nigerian author. She is International star. I encountered her on a website, www.peceloveproclaimer.org, an acquaintance directed me to.

I read the transcript of her 2009 TED talk, the danger of a one sided story. Adichie narrates her own personal experience of the same, growing up as a middle class Nigerian and living with a certain perception of their domestic help. Because of things her mother would say, Adichie believed that since their domestic help was from a poor family they probably couldn’t actually create beautiful things which they did.

I want you to hear it from her, that’s why I posted the video. 

I just want to pick up  from where she left off. I ask myself what makes me African many times previously on this blog. But at times I honestly feel if it wasn’t for my parents constantly ferrying me off to my rural home. And  also raising us, speaking our ethnic tongue, passing on important tales of the life and practices of my ancestors. I am not quite sure what else would make me proudly African.

For so long as a child I wanted to be the blond  and fair haired, blue eyed girl from the books that I read. I loved the stories of Hansel and Gretel, The ginger bread, man and Rapunzel who let her hair down. All these stories where not mine, of where I was from, but they shaped my world view.

My first time on the continent was at the age of 5. People were stunned that I spoke my ethnic tongue fluently thanks to my mother. I do not have a strong African accent and for years I Anglo-sized the pronunciation of African names and words, because I believed it was proper.

I wanted to be white because I considered being Black and African inferior. I only faced one minor racial experience as a child, which didn’t really bother me much. But there was a subtle message around me that made me feel African was not good enough. After watching Adichie, you understand where it all began. It all began with a story that was told and shared and soon became legend.

I know better now and overcame the self hating phase. But at times I now feel that I am not African enough. I look at West Africans. And I a blown away with how culturally rich they are. Their clothes, their accents, their pride….if you are an East African you would agree with me, West Africans epitomize African pride.

But it is a tussle in my mind of what is ‘truly’ African. 

Is it the thick ethnic accent, the garb, living in the village and preparing food the way it was traditionally prepared. Speaking solely in an African language and shunning English. But I grew up in a fusion of two worlds of culture, Western and African, as is the case of most African’s today. You may not have lived in the West. But you were inculcated through the stories you read, the movies you’ve seen, or music you like to listen to.

I may not have a thick African accent when I speak English, I enjoy Hollywood movies, but I still love traditional ethnic music.

I don’t know if there was ever a traditional dress that my ancestors wore. I wear jeans, t-shirts, trainers, dresses or whatever tickles my fancy. I don’t understand why getting clothes that fit me is so hard in Kenya yet the average African women is curvaceous and with a little extra.

After centuries of reading and consuming someone else’s story, we as Africans may have lost something. But I believe that can be found and restored. And I believe it is being restored one story at a time.

A sober reminder for Kenya

Female power houses - Yaa Asantewaa of Ghana

The past few days I have been searching for very powerful women in African history and to my surprise they are numerous all over the continent.

It comes as a surprise when you are dealing with a continent that is heavily patriarchal. We complain about women not being empowered, fair enough, there is a lot of truth in that. But what can women learn from history to re-evaluate ourselves and pick ourselves up. These women were power houses. They fought for their communities’ interests mostly during the colonial period!

Today I am looking at Yaa Asantewaa of Ghana. She was popularly referred to as Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa. Like Mekatilili of Kenya, she was in the forefront in the fight against colonial powers in her native Ashanti community in Ghana.

Asantewaa was born in 1863 in the Edweso clan of the Ashanti Kingdom. She rose to be the queen of the clan. The Ashanti kingdom was one of the many powerful African Kingdoms. This kingdom was established in the 1700s and covered western and central Africa; what is known today as Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo.

The kingdom consisted of clans ruled by paramount chiefs. And it is from the paramount chiefs that the king of the Ashanti was selected. The golden stool is the symbol of the Ashanti kingdom. And it is believed that a spiritual leader summoned the golden stool from Heaven and landed on the lap of the first king of the kingdom; King Osei Tutu I.

And it is during the colonial period that the British exiled the King and other leaders at the time who failed to yield to their rule. And in 1900 the British governor general ordered a meeting with the Paramount chiefs of the Ashanti and stated that the release of their King and other leaders was on condition that the Ashanti surrender the golden stool, as a sign of submission to the British.

Yaa Asantewaa was appalled by the audacity of the British. It is said that she was the gatekeeper of the golden stool. She is quoted as saying;

No white man could have dared to speak to a leader of the Ashanti in the way the Governor spoke to you this morning.

Is it true that the bravery of the Ashanti is no more? I cannot believe it. It cannot be!

I must say this, if you the men of Ashanti will not go forward, then we will. We the women will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields."

And to the battlefields it was. Yaa Asantewaa rallied up five thousand troops to fight the British. Asantewaa was eventually caught and exiled to the Seychelles were she remained for 20 years and eventually died. But that was the beginning of the internal stir for independence that led Ghana to be the first state in Africa to receive independence in 1957. 

Laziness Defeated and Hurray for Southern Sudan!

It has been a very long time since I made an entry. To be honest it was laziness that ruined the momentum I once had. Reading and researching on history takes sometime I convinced myself. But now to get us warmed up again. I thought it would be nice to share some links on Africa's newest Kid on the block; South Sudan.

 http://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Sudan.html

I know it is a lot to read at a go. And yes as I mentioned earlier I am weaning myself off of the laziness, so I will begin to condense information from tomorrow's entry; please bare with me. :-)

More Tomorrow!

Introducing General Butt Naked

The curse of Africa's oral tradition

Oral tradition is the gift of History that we have as Africans but with the advent of colonisation, urbanisation and technology we lost our soul and worth as Africans. This is a series I stumbled upon that I thought I would share with you. You may have heard of several famous African Kingdoms...but have you heard of the Great Zimbabwe Kingdom. Have a look.