If this is the African way….

If this is the African Way, it explains a great deal about modern Africa.

My daughter, in her history class at school, has been spending some weeks on African history.  Not Egyptian history, but African history.  I mention this distinction because my daughter has noted that there’s very little material there.  They’re mostly being taught to memorize proverbs.

I don’t mean comment to be a swipe at Africa, but more of a notation about the fact that writing is truly what distinguishes successful civilizations in the past from unsuccessful ones.  The ones that thrived and that were able to impose themselves on others, and that were able to live in memory long after their people and buildings sank into dust, were the ones with writing.  That’s true for the Jews, certainly, whose book has kept them alive for longer than any other single culture.  It’s true for the Greeks and the Romans, and for the Christian culture, and for the Chinese and Japanese cultures.  No writing, means no history.  All you’ve got then , are proverbs.  And in the case of Africa, incredible, horrific, self-directed brutality.