Medieval History

» thesnowleopard - Africa in the Middle Ages

Discuss African medieval history here.

And if I missed anything, that's because there's a lot more to African history than you can fit in five hundred words.

-- posted by thesnowleopard

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» thesnowleopard - Constructive criticism.

In response to Constructive criticism. posted by eocilian:
I'm well aware of the cultural and racial divide between North Africa and SubSaharan Africa, having lived in a small Muslim village in in eastern Cameroon for two years back in the '90s. But I strongly disagree with the idea that the two areas are so distinct that they share no history. Anyone who has actually lived there knows that the Sahara is not the absolute barrier that historians overly focused on the Mediterranean think it is. And Islam has been a major link between West Africa and North Africa for a millennium. It would be ahistorical to ignore it.

North African history may not have been "obscured", but it is generally treated first and foremost as Mediterranean history. Its geographical place in the continent of Africa trails far behind and is even deliberately obscured by those who don't want to think about African history in anything but simple terms.

Case in point: historians who vociferously argue against the idea that civilization originated in Africa seem to have forgotten that the currently oldest known civilization, Egypt, is in Africa. Now, you can certainly argue that civilization originated elsewhere (though not here, since it's off topic for Medieval History). But the civilization you choose would have to predate Egypt's Dynasty 0 and be situated elsewhere.

Regarding Timbuktu, I never said anything about who founded it. I only said that it was part of the later Mali Empire, which it was from 1324 to 1468. To deny this is a bit like saying that Constantinople was founded by the Romans, therefore, it couldn't possibly have been the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

King and other activists in the Civil Rights Movement struggled to portray African-Americans as people with a heritage that went far beyond the "hewers of wood, carriers of water" prejudices of their day. To discuss African history and its influence on Mediterranean (and therefore, European) history, commemorates that struggle.

As for being "straightforward and honest", I would be very dishonest and inaccurate to ignore the strong trends in recent Medieval History toward a more global view of events during that period and toward exploring issues of ethnicity, racism, tolerance and prejudice. If I "believe [these] have been ignored due to racism", I'm supported by plenty of my colleagues on that score. Try looking at the listings of papers at the Kalamazoo or Leeds conferences to get an idea of just how many.

-- posted by thesnowleopard

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