The Risk Of Racist Accustaions.

[Theland]

A genuine question. I am not a racist, but feel the necessity to display my credentials.
My Sudanese daughter in law is now three days overdue with my ninth grandchild.
So to the heart of the question.
Western European culture has given the world football, cricket, rugby, great classical music, great art, plays, world dominating pop culture, fashion, democracy, inventions, scientific advancement etc etc etc to name but a tiny few.

So what has Africa contributed to human advancement?

[vetuste_ennemi]

Correction. One line summary of Christianity ought to have read "Everybody matters": "We are neither slave nor free, male nor female. We are all one under Christ".

(If I remember St Paul correctly. Corinthians? Can't be bothered to check. Topping myself up. Just fed hungry cat (one of six), and am about to watch UC - followed by the ten years of turmoil thing.

API+arist[ocrat]

[vetuste_ennemi]

OK, I am that bothered. It's Galateans (in my favourite King James version):

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

[EDDIE51]

The Human species originated in Africa so we are all 'African'.

[woofgang]

Any question or statement that starts "I am not a racist but....." certainly throws up a signal flag to me. Have you asked your Sudanese daughter in law this question?

[Cloverjo]

Flippin’eck! Theland. //I’m not racist but...//

[woofgang]

oh and as a bible believing christian, beware.....someone once asked the same question about Nazareth. (John 1. 43-46)

[Tilly2]

South African wine is nice and the oranges are lovely.

[Baldric]

@ 01:39
/// And now our country is being overwhelmed by Africans immigrating, and I doubt that apart from the music scene, and knife crime, they have little to offer ///

No, you don't appear to be Racist at all, do you?

[Cloverjo]

That Mo Farah was rubbish, wasn’t he?

[-Talbot-]

Must be fun round your dining table when you have the family around, Theland.

[Zacs-Master]

‘I am not a racist, but feel the necessity to display my credentials’ (which then go on to contradict your first 5 words). And to refer to your grandchildren as contributing to global warming......words fail me. You’re a real charmer, ain’t ya, Theland!

[KARL]

It is worth noting that contemplating "leaps forward" never mind creating art and such is an unaffordable luxury for people living in a state of anxiety as to what calamity may strike next or even where the next meal will come from. There is also the question of preservation of evidence, not least when invading "advanced" people are bent on wiping out "primitive rubbish" in favour of "civilised" stuff such as a "superior" religion.

There are examples within Europe where physical advances were basically none for centuries, but literary thought was preserved much against the odds - priceless books nevertheless survived, some in fragments only after they had been cut up for use of the vellum to other purposes including suggestions that it was boiled for food. The poverty and hardship was dire to the point where by comparison talking of poverty or hardship in today's Europe amounts to just so much nonsense.

"Advances" have almost always come about as a manifestation of privilege (globally speaking) in times of surplus (time and resources), with the possible exception of inventions promoted by the concentration of resources (at the expense of other causes) in an effort to win a war.

[Sqad]

World's largest penis.
Sudanese negroes have the largest penis in the world ...fact.
1953 anatomy class in a London teaching hospital where the prof was a bit of a sexist and often made sexisit remarks in the lectures....all quite natural then. Five female medical students decided that they had had enough and decided to walk out of the lecture if another sexist remark was made.
Prof announced with a smile that the Sudanese negroes had the largest penis in the world at which point, as one, the five female students stood up and proceed to exit the lecture theatre.
As they approached the door, the prof remarked in a loud voice:
" No hurry ladies, the flight to Khartoum doesn't leave for another 5 hours."
Laughter all round.

[naomi24]

Given the wealth of valuable resources available to them, had the people of Africa had the wherewithal they would have been streets ahead of the rest of the world – but they haven’t. I don’t think Africa has contributed a great deal to human advancement.

[Zacs-Master]

What, exactly, is ‘wherewithall’?

[naomi24]

In this sense, the ability or drive.

[Kromovaracun]

Of course there is African poetry, literature, art, and diplomacy. Many of the greats you mention, Theland, like Picasso, drew heavily on them for inspiration. Unfortunately many of the institutions we have for recognising such attainment date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - a time in which Africa was colonised and Africans were commonly considered innately inferior as people. So it's no wonder there isn't a long list of Nobel Laureates from that continent - it's been ignored for a large swathe of the time that Nobel prizes have existed. This is a bias that the world has only started to overcome relatively recently. Since we started doing this, surprise surprise, there have been a fair few African Nobel laureates:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_Nobel_laureates

[Zacs-Master]

As someone has referenced earlier in the thread, do you think the fact that most Africans have had something of a hard time of it, historically, may mean they aren’t able to fulfil their potential?

[Theland]

Then I look forward to the next rubber dinghy arriving on our shores, full of doctors, architects, scientists, and of course, BBC reporters.

Maybe being such peaceful people they will let me live here, and not throw me out as they are doing with the white farmers in South Africa.

[Peter Pedant]

well, you could usefully read
Nubia Corridor to Africa - - - William Adams
for background reading

and this one
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Old Nubian Texts from Qasr Ibrim I: Pt. 1 (Texts from Excavations Memoirs) Hardcover – 30 Jun 1988
by J. Martin Plumley (Author), Gerald M. Browne (Author)

what dialect does your daughter in law speak
Mahass or Dongolawi? either of those she could usefully revise the translations in Plumley's book
( Browne said he understood the texts but read it and it is pretty obnvious that he doesnt)

a nubian pharaoh gets mench in the Bible - a book I know you are keen on ( Taharqa )

Isaiah 37:9 Tirhakah This is probably Taharqa, the Pharaoh of Egypt about 690–664 B.C.;

he also gets a mench in 2 Kings but I can never remember if that is RC or Prot

I seem to recollect that no one in the united kingdom is ever mentioned in the bible - I cd be wrong

well that's a start

oh, more pyramids in the Sudan than there are in Egypt!