Common Origin Model and the Dilemma of African Scholars in the New World Order

African intellectuals generally agree on the presence of ancient African civilizations, but they often fail to reach a general consensus on their common origin. It appears to me that many African intellectuals and even some of their Western counterparts cannot seem to distinguish between the Niger and the Nile valley civilizations on one hand and the Tigris and the Euphrates civilizations on the other. So, it is not surprising that the men on the street in Africa today are totally confused about the origin of the ancient African civilizations because African intellectuals have failed in their duty to establish one for them.

Many Africans, especially the religious ones, often attempt to plug in their ancient history into the Abrahamic religious mythologies. The more Afrocentric ones, however, utterly reject “Abrahamic origin model” in favor of “ethnic-oriented model.” The problem with the “ethnic-oriented model” is that it is too narrow and it is directed more towards culture and ethnicity than civilization – it is like using the narrowest possible definition of one’s cultural identity to proclaim one’s civilization. For example, if you proudly proclaim your Fanti identity of the Akan people of ancient Ghana and reject any affiliations with Egypto-Cush and Babylonian civilizations; then, you need to ask yourself about the origin of Akan people and the ancient Ghanaian civilization because being a Fanti is an ethnicity not a civilization.

Why is a common origin of civilization very important? A common origin of civilization is very important because it gives people a common historical reference point - every invention and creation has a common origin. The lack of consensus on the common origin of ancient African civilizations, however, has generated “identity misnomers” among Africans today. Many Africans today walk around calling themselves: black Hebrew/Israelites, Jews, Canaanites, Sumerians, Moors, Arabs, Kemites, and other ridiculous misnomers. When a common origin is finally established, there would be no need for all these different misnomers, only one out of the many would be sufficient. 

To establish a common origin for the ancient African cultures and civilizations, one must first define what constitutes ancient Africa and Culture. Firstly, in the ancient times, Africa was generally referred to as Abyssinia, Ethiopia, or Cush and its reach extended from the Southern Coast of ancient India to the North Eastern coast of Africa. John Garnier, in his book “The worship of the Dead: or the origin and nature of Pagan Idolatry” stated that the old Sanskrit geographers spoke of two lands of Cush, or Ethiopia, which they called “Cusha Dwipa” within and “Cusha Dwipa” without. “Cusha Dwipa” within covered the borders of ancient India and “Cusha Dwipa” without included Arabia, Western Asia, Syria from the mouth of the Nile, the countries on the Euphrates and Tigris, a large part of the North of the Persian Gulf and an extended region in Africa. It is worth mentioning that the old Sanskrit geographers applied the term “Cusha-Dwipa” without to very nearly the same regions which the ancient Greeks (i.e., Herodotus, Strabo etc.) described as Ethiopia. Drusilla Dunjee, in her book "The wonderful Ethiopians of the ancient Cushite empire," remarked that Egypt and Chaldean were sister colonies of a parent state. She further remarked: "the earliest civilized inhabitant of Chaldean were Sumerians. The Sanskrit books called Chaldean one of the divisions of Cusha-Dwipa...These Sumerians were the inventors of the Cuneiform system of writing, which was later adopted by their Semitic conquerors.  Their langauge was still cultivated until the time of Alexander." John Denison Baldwin, in his book "Pre-historic nations," remarked that it was generally admitted by the ancient Greek scholars and historians that a people of the Cushite or Ethiopian race were the first civilizers and builders throughout Western Asia, the shores of the Mediterranean, Eastern Africa, and the Nile Valley.

So, based on the unbiased ancient history and information available to us, we now know that the “Middle East” of today was part of North East Africa in antiquity. We also know that Ethiopia was divided into two Dwipas: the Eastern Ethiopia (i.e., ancient India) and the Western Ethiopia (Western Asia/North East Africa). And, lastly we know that the Tigris and the Euphrates civilizations were a derivative of the Egypto-Cushite civilization. In fact, the earliest settlers of “Babylon” and the builders of “Mesopotamia” were Cushites. The ancient historians described the Cushites as wonderful builders with no interest in homeless nomadism, whose traces reveal so plainly the habit of fixed life and the spirit of developed nationality (John Baldwin, “Pre-historic nations”). While I acknowledge some racial admixture in Western Asia (i.e., Middle East), which later gave rise to the Semitic stock (i.e., Arabs/Hebrews), I maintain that the racial admixture occurred much later and that the original inhabitants of Western Asia and the builders of the ancient Western Asian civilizations were Cushites. Although, the Semites are largely credited today for the creation and the development of the Tigris and the Euphrates civilizations; however, this was an attempt by the racist scholars of 19^th century school of thought to bastardize and falsify ancient African history. Not only did these scholars erroneously attribute the creation and the development of the Tigris and the Euphrates civilizations to the Semites, they sparingly conceded even the African origin of the Niger Valley civilization, and their scholarly analyses often eschewed the African origin of the Nile Valley civilization.

There is no question that the ancient African History, more specifically in the Arabian Peninsula or in the Asia Minor, has been falsified. However, you can begin to unravel some of these falsifications when you study the history of Cushite Arabs like: Bilal Ibn al-Habashi, Al-Jahiz, Antar the Lion etc. While the falsifiers of the ancient African history often attempt to reduce the background of these sons of Cush to servitude and slavery, it is very difficult for the falsifiers to undermine the intellectual contributions of these gentlemen to the Arabian history and civilization – their literary masterpieces are popular in the “Middle East” and Europe even today.

In conclusion, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop argued that it was politically important to demonstrate the cultural and linguistic unity of Africa, and to base this unity on the Egyptian past. He further argued that Africans must link the origin of their ancient cultures and civilizations to Egyto-Cushite civilization just the same way Europeans linked the origin of their Western civilization to Greece; even though, Greek culture was heavily influenced by the Egypto-Cushite culture. Will the African intellectuals and scholars listen to Diop?

Note
Cusha-Dwipa within was ancient India
Cusha-Dwipa without was Africa proper, which covered part of the Mediterranean, Middle East and East Africa.
Many ancient geographers and historians said that people from Cusha-Dwipa within emigrated to Cusha Dwipa without(the Middle East and North East africa) to build civilizations, others said it was the other way around, and some argued that the people from the two Dwipas were one and the same.
Asia Minor or Western Asia was part of North East Africa in antiquity, but is now called the Middle East.
The people generally called "Arabs" today are made up of: Semites, Africans, Turks, Greeks and Romans. The word"Arab" is not a race, but a linguistic categorization (i.e., Arabic speakers) - same can be said of the word "Jew."