The world breathed a sigh of relief as the presidency of Trump ended. Trump is a fascist, who holds racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, and climate change-denying views. A disrespectful person, Trump told 30,000 lies and shattered every accepted norm of decorum. He represents the far-right fascists and the white supremacists, and he incited his followers to attack democracy by creating violence and mayhem at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. On the eve of Biden’s inauguration, the Voice of America reported, Washington was on high alert, with precautionary measures, and the federal, state and local law enforcement provided security for state capitals and government buildings in all 50 states. The apprehension was that the fascists and the white supremacists, the followers of Trump, could launch an attack, which, however, did not happen in the end.
Biden is now tasked not only to reverse the damages caused by Trump, but also to bring in a new dawn. The fascists and the white supremacists need to be defeated politically, economically, socially and culturally, and the genuine policies of democracy implemented. This is important as, before boarding Air Force One for Florida on 20 January 2021, ahead of the inauguration of his successor, Biden, Trump said he would be ‘back in some form’. The election result shows starkly that Trump received 232 electoral votes, 46.9% of the votes and 74 million votes from the fascists, white supremacists and the general supporters of the Republican party. Therefore, the fascists and the white supremacists are very much there, a force to reckon with.
White Supremacy
White supremacy has its origins in European colonialism, which started in 1402 and ended within a couple of decades after the end of WWII in 1945. In order to justify colonialism, the racists invented the doctrine of ‘scientific racism’ in the 17th century, which claimed that the white race is superior to other races. This was based on a pseudoscientific theory, which has now been rejected and discredited by modern genetic research. The mainstream scientific assertion today is that race is a social construct, which has no biological or genetic basis. Genetic studies have established that humans are just one family. The false theory of white supremacy was propounded by the European colonists, but the Europeans themselves largely descended from the immigrant farmers from the Middle East about 10,000 years ago. Although the pseudoscientific racism theory, or the theory of white supremacy, has been discarded totally, the white supremacists are very much there. They pose danger not only to the US, but also to the rest of the world. They are not much likely to heed Biden’s call to end the “uncivil war”. Sustained struggle is needed to defeat fascism and white supremacy.
European colonization of the Americas started from 1492 with the arrival of Christopher Columbus. The European colonialists arrived generally with a mindset of racism and white supremacy towards the non-Europeans. The land mass, now known as the US, was a contesting ground among the colonialists from France, Spain, Holland and Britain. The contest eventually was won by Britain.
The mindset of racism and white supremacy hardened with the introduction of slavery and its gradual wide application in economic and other activities. The Atlantic slave trade to the Americas brought, according to current estimates, 12 million to 12.8 million Africans as slaves. This number excludes approximately 1.2–2.4 million, who died during the voyage, millions more who died in the seasoning camps and also millions more who died in slave raids, wars, etc. However, the dehumanization of the slave trade did not go unchallenged. For wherever there is oppression, there is resistance.
The Atlantic slave trade continued for 300 years on the one hand, but on the other, the moral and the actual struggle against it was carried out daily throughout the time, both by the victims and by those high-minded conscientious white people who were against slavery and white supremacy. The world consensus today is very much against white supremacy and slavery. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, on 25 January 2021, urged coordinated global action against Neo-Nazism and white supremacy, as well as against xenophobia and anti-Semitism. On 26 January 2021, it was reported that the Aborigines of Australia protested against the mistreatment of Aboriginal people. The message should reverberate throughout the settlement colonies.
Although the targets of racism and white supremacy in the US are Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people, the black people are having to bear the brunt of it. It is because of the history of slavery in the US, although slavery was common in the history of antiquity up to the end of the Roman empire in the 5th century. People of all colors were slaves then, and the slave masters were also from people of all colors.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963 has been regarded as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory. The march and the speech helped facilitate the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The much-quoted line from the speech is: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” The line is unforgettable. It tells about the poignant story of racism and white supremacy from the side of the victims.
When a black person in the US says, “Black history is more than just slavery”, it usually means that there were black people in the US who were not slaves, and also that Black people have an equal footing with the white people in the post-slavery period of history. There are suggestions to include the idea in the curriculums of educational institutes in the US. Black history actually means a lot more than slavery in the US. Africa is where the dawn of humanity appeared and it is also Africa, along with Asia, where the cradle of civilization was located. Black people have a great and glorious history.
Luminous Africa
Africa is luminous. Firstly, the history of mankind started in Africa. In the evolution of humans, the modern humans (homo sapiens) appeared first in East Africa (there are other views that it was in South Africa) from 200,000 to 300,000 years ago (estimates vary, some say from 130,000 years ago). They migrated throughout the world from 70,000 to 100,000 years ago. All races originate from them. It is only the utterly stupid fascists like Hitler, who think that they are the master race, superior to all other races. No race is superior to any other race. Africans, therefore, are the first human race, from which all other races were originated.
Secondly, the first civilizations in recorded history (when writing emerged) were in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. There is dispute among the historians, whether ancient Egyptians were black Africans, but it is a fair assumption that the majority of them were black Africans. The first civilizations therefore started in Africa along with Asia.
The thinkers of the ancient Greek civilization learnt from ancient Egypt. Greece had the Mycenaean civilization from 1900 to 1100 B.C., but it went into the Dark Ages for 500 years. After that, the Greek civilization awoke again and flourished. This time, they learnt from ancient Egypt. The Greek scholars Thales, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and others travelled to Ancient Egypt, where they studied at the temple-universities Waset and Ipet Isut. The Greeks learnt from the civilization that built the Sphinx, raised the pyramids and built the world’s first library. The civilization also produced the world’s first physician, created geometry and astronomy and were among the first to explore the nature of our existence. Modern people, in turn, have benefited greatly from this early education.
There are claims that the Greek and Roman civilizations were started by the black Africans living in Europe. The Greeks called the black Africans, including Egyptians, as Ethiopians (Aethiopes) and many of their gods such as Zeus were adopted from Ethiopian gods, though this is contested. Hercules was an Ethiopian or Egyptian black hero. According to Homer, Hercules seems to have come from Upper Egypt.
“In Ancient Rome, people of African, though not necessarily Sub-Saharan, ancestry appeared throughout the empire. The Romans called black people “Aethiopes.” African Romans would not be uncommon in cities; there are records and skeletons of black Romans in Britain.”
Indeed, there are mounting evidences that the first Europeans were pale and Black from Africa. Africans had kingdoms in India too. Historians have studied a large number of empires and kingdoms in Africa. From an article on 9 ancient African kingdoms, I quote the first two paragraphs:
“With the Cradle of Humankind found in modern-day South Africa and some of the oldest learning centers in the world spread across the continent, there can be no argument that Africa is the very root of human civilization as we know it. From her fertile soils, societies were formed and homo sapiens spread across the globe, leaving empirical legacies in the form of Aztec and Mayan ruins in the Americas to remnants of the Roman Empire which we see dotted across Eurasia.
That said, there were plenty of African kingdoms and empires spread out across the continent, too; regional and political powerhouses much like those that fill our history books today. Ancient Egypt is perhaps the most famous of all, but the hubbub around it sorely overlooks other impressive civilizations and the effects they had on the continent. Let’s take a look at some of Africa’s most notable empires and civilizations.”
The fascists, racists and the white supremacists are ignorant of the history of humans, their origins, their migrations throughout the world, the cradle of civilizations, and particularly the ancestry and heritage of the Europeans. They do not understand that humans are just one family, and the family is determined to bring in peace and harmony.
*The writer is a London-based political commentator and a former activist and columnist constantly campaigning for Freedom, Democracy, Justice, Human Rights and Harmonious Development in Bangladesh. He appeared many times on Bengali TV talk shows in London speaking on the political affairs of Bangladesh. A retired computer consultant with a Master’s degree in Mathematics, he left his PhD studies in the UK to travel to Kolkata, India, in 1971 to join the Independence War of Bangladesh.
February 8, 2021
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
