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> If it had never occurred and Africans never learned to read or write Do you have any familiarity with the history of Africa pre-colonization, because this is

> If it had never occurred and Africans never learned to read or write Do you have any familiarity with the history of Africa pre-colonization, because this is a little bit counterfactual. "Timbuktu's rapid economic growth in the 13th and 14th centuries drew many scholars from nearby Walata (today in Mauretania),[72] leading up to the city's golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries that proved fertile ground for scholarship of religions, arts and sciences. An active trade in books between Timbuktu and other parts of the Islamic world and emperor Askia Mohammed's strong support led to the writing of thousands of manuscripts.[73]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#Centre_of_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#Centre_of_learning See also: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe

astrodust 11y ago
I'm sure those living in Timbuktu were writing books about how the English living in London at the time were barbarians in capable of learning to read or write. The only people that think Africa was devoid of culture or civilization are those that look only at the debris that was left after the colonial powers beat everyone down into submission and stripped everything bare. Reading about what the colonial powers did is just plain depressing. Being ignorant of this past and blaming the victims is also a pretty severe injustice. http://www.siliconafrica.com/terra-nullius/ http://www.siliconafrica.com/terra-nullius/
- cb18 11y ago
  I'm sure those living in Timbuktu were writing books about how the English living in London at the time were barbarians in capable of learning to read or write. You're sure about that, even though there is zero evidence whatsoever for it? Also, nowhere in this discussion has anyone said that anybody was incapable of learning to read or write. But rather that this was a skill imparted to the Africans by the Europeans.
  - astrodust 11y ago
    > But rather that this was a skill imparted to the Africans by the Europeans. Well, wow. Nope. Africans have been reading and writing before there even was such a thing as Europe. They had Aramaic and Arabic by way of Egypt and Ethiopia alone.
cb18 11y ago
Timbuktu/Mali is on the outskirts of the Arab/Islamic world. Not the area the text referenced as lacking literacy. What does the Great Zimbabwe link have to do with literacy? Other than lack of any evidence for. Gertrude Caton-Thompson recognised that the builders were indigenous Africans, but she characterised the site as the "product of an infantile mind" built by a subjugated society. Archaeologists generally agree that the builders probably spoke one of the Shona languages The writing system for Shona is Latin Script, meaning it was introduced at a much later date.

astrodust 11y ago

I'm sure those living in Timbuktu were writing books about how the English living in London at the time were barbarians in capable of learning to read or write. The only people that think Africa was devoid of culture or civilization are those that look only at the debris that was left after the colonial powers beat everyone down into submission and stripped everything bare. Reading about what the colonial powers did is just plain depressing. Being ignorant of this past and blaming the victims is also a pretty severe injustice. http://www.siliconafrica.com/terra-nullius/ http://www.siliconafrica.com/terra-nullius/

cb18 11y ago
I'm sure those living in Timbuktu were writing books about how the English living in London at the time were barbarians in capable of learning to read or write. You're sure about that, even though there is zero evidence whatsoever for it? Also, nowhere in this discussion has anyone said that anybody was incapable of learning to read or write. But rather that this was a skill imparted to the Africans by the Europeans.
- astrodust 11y ago
  > But rather that this was a skill imparted to the Africans by the Europeans. Well, wow. Nope. Africans have been reading and writing before there even was such a thing as Europe. They had Aramaic and Arabic by way of Egypt and Ethiopia alone.

cb18 11y ago

Timbuktu/Mali is on the outskirts of the Arab/Islamic world. Not the area the text referenced as lacking literacy. What does the Great Zimbabwe link have to do with literacy? Other than lack of any evidence for. Gertrude Caton-Thompson recognised that the builders were indigenous Africans, but she characterised the site as the "product of an infantile mind" built by a subjugated society. Archaeologists generally agree that the builders probably spoke one of the Shona languages The writing system for Shona is Latin Script, meaning it was introduced at a much later date.