Persuasion: History’s Hellenic Hegemony

Interestingly enough, I found myself (as a student) once again beginning another introduction to a book required for class or academia itself in the hands of Greek and Roman philosophers. It is troubling for me, this seemingly never-ending Eurocentric inceptive view of intellectual thought always beginning with ancient western civilizations. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Ptolemy and several others are lauded as legends of intellect without any regard given to the even greater ancient civilization, Egypt, that planted the seeds of intellect within these minds. In my anthropological research over the years, I’ve found that many great scholars from Greek and Roman cultures were indeed educated by priests and other teachers in Africa. Even looking back at the infamous raiding of the venerable library in Alexandria by Alexander the Great, it is often lost in the annals of history that the aforementioned ruler took a plethora of tomes back home with him to distribute to these great minds. Astrology, medicine, mathematics, philosophy and many more tomes of knowledge were stolen and much of the intellectual prowess credited to these venerated philosophers of the West may have indeed been plagiarized or otherwise stolen. While this may be incendiary, at the least, I find it strange that ancient African civilizations, the same continent that birthed some of the greatest civilizations known to man, the earliest sailors (to the Americas and other nations) and the richest human being to ever walk the face of the earth, Mansa Musa, is silenced and washed over by Eurocentric rhetoric. Instead of paying homage to the true birth place of the knowledge, human history and intellect most often begins in Greece and Rome. It is true what they say, to the victor goes the spoils. One of those spoils must be the ability to rewrite history to fit a hegemonic view of the world. History’s rhetoric is wrought with persuasive techniques.

References

James, George G. M. Stolen legacy. United States, George G.M. James, 2016.

Sertima, Ivan Van. They came before Columbus: the African presence in ancient America. New York, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003.