Wednesday 13 December 2017

Africa: Snippet of the Arab/islamist conquest and occupation – in retrieval and consequences


Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

WITHIN 70 years of the Arab/islamist conquest and seizure of Kemet, or “ancient” Egypt, the great African civilisation on the continent’s northeast and on the Mediterranean, in 642 CE, these conqueror forces from west Asia extended their territorial march across Africa westward, stretching onto the northwest Atlantic coast (the so-called Maghreb). Indeed by 705 CE, these invaders had taken over one-third of Africa – from the northwest Atlantic coast to the Red Sea (Indian Ocean). Soon after, an expeditionary force from the occupation’s base in the “Maghreb” attacked the westcentral Atlantic coast kingdom of Ghana (situated around contemporary Sénégal/Gambia/Guinea-Bissau/Mali/Mauritania) ravaging, pillaging and occupying.

De-Africanisation

The trend and consequences of these invasions on the continent were seismically devastating: overruns and takeovers of states, enslavements and exportations of peoples, serial pillage of phenomenal treasures, simultaneous islamisation/Arabisation and targeted and insistent de-Africanisation of the expansive, variegated cultural heritage of these regions of Africa. The Arab/islamist invasion inaugurated 1200 (0ne thousand two hundred) years of the enslavement of African peoples which extended to the east, central and southern Africa.

IN EFFECT, the Arab/islamist occupation of Africa constitutes the catastrophic relay race of invasion whose baton the Arab/islamists would hand over to Europe, beginning 15th century CE.
(Alice Coltrane Quintet “Blue Nile” [personnel: Coltrane, harp; Joe Henderson, alto flute, Pharoah Sanders, alto flute; Ron Carter, bass; Ben Riley, drums; recorded: Coltrane home studios, Dix Hills, New York, US, 26 January 1970])
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

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