Constantin-François Volney (Afrocentric scholars generally know him as Count Volney) was a member of the marauders scientific team that accompanied Napolean Bonaparte's invasion/expedition of/to Egypt in 1798.[1] Volney, as it turns out, was a keen observer.
What did he say?
He said the ancient Egyptians were Africans and that Africa was the root all other civilized life on the planet. He remarked on the irony of Afrophobic Europeans when it was Africans who gave civilization to the world.
Why is this the first recorded Afrocentric statement?
(1) "Africa is the mother of civilization" is a classic Afrocentric statement.
(2) Relinking stereotypically black Africans with ancient Egypt is a key aim of Afrocentric thought.
(3) Blacks or Africans did not see themselves as a single people (pan-African). This idea originated with Europeans (and perhaps Arabs before them) who saw Blacks/Africans as a single inferior group. Enslaved Africans and so-called "free blacks" in the New World take up the idea in the 1700s and use it as a weapon of collective resistance. The notion of a collective African identity does not take root among Africans in Africa until several decades later. GI
What did he say?
He said the ancient Egyptians were Africans and that Africa was the root all other civilized life on the planet. He remarked on the irony of Afrophobic Europeans when it was Africans who gave civilization to the world. Why is this the first recorded Afrocentric statement?
(1) "Africa is the mother of civilization" is a classic Afrocentric statement.
(2) Relinking stereotypically black Africans with ancient Egypt is a key aim of Afrocentric thought.
(3) Blacks or Africans did not see themselves as a single people (pan-African). This idea originated with Europeans (and perhaps Arabs before them) who saw Blacks/Africans as a single inferior group. Enslaved Africans and so-called "free blacks" in the New World take up the idea in the 1700s and use it as a weapon of collective resistance. The notion of a collective African identity does not take root among Africans in Africa until several decades later. GI
The Ruins, Or, A Survey of the Revolutions of Empires (Or Ruins of Empire) by Constantin-François Volney
It was there, that a people, now obsolete and forgotten, discovered the elementary principles of science and of the arts, at a period when all others lived in an uncivilized slate of barbarism; it was there that a race, (now regarded as the refuse and outcast of society, because forsooth their hair is naturally frizzled and wooly, and their skin black,) studied the laws and phenomena of nature, and borrowed from thence the archetype and model of those civil and religious systems, which still obtain, with some variation, in every nation of the globe.
[1] Napoleon and the Scientific Expedition to Egypt | Linda Hall Library
You can download the entire book here.
Picture Credit: Virtualology
tags: afrocentric, constantine volney, egypt, france
Also see:
- Nile Valley Peoples
- Africa: Mother of Western civilization By Yosef Ben-Jochannan
- What is Afrocentrism? by Kwame Zulu Shabazz
- Ancient Egypt: Race of ancient Egyptians
- The Persistence of Racial Thinking- by Rick Kittles and Shomarka Keita
- YouTube - S.O.Y. Keita - The Bio Cultural Origins of Egypt - Part 2
- Egypt in its African Context webpage « Egypt at the Manchester Museum (abstracts)
- Basil Davidson, Dead @ 95. This is episode 1 of "Different but Equal"
- Paul Kagame and the Myth of Tutsi Supremacy
- Afrocentrism in Relation to Egypt Part 1 | Black in Cairo
- Koola Boof calls out Afrocentric community
- Ancient Egyptian history is Black American history by Asa Hilliard
- The Pyramid and the Sphere: Two Visions for Alkebulan (Afrika)
- Egypt: child of Africa by Ivan Van Sertima
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