AN INTRODUCTION TO A PAN-AFRICAN WORLDVIEW

By Julius W. Garvey, M.D.

At the heart of every society and every individual in that society is a belief system
that shapes its ideas, culture, day-to-day activities and future goals. This is derived
from tradition, a history, and knowledge of past experience. It is the ethos that
motivates the person to participate in the community of life.
Marcus Garvey said, A people without a knowledge of their history and culture, is
like a tree without roots.
Maulana Karenga said, By studying our history and engaging self-consciously in our
history, we begin to understand ourselves and then to speak our special truth not
only to ourselves, but to the world.
Bearing in mind the billions of our ancestors and that thousands of years of our
human history have gone by. I wish to make a small contribution to our story.
Africa is the most important continent in the history of humanity and civilization. The
oldest archeological evidence of modern humanity (homo sapiens) was found at 4
areas in Africa. The oldest in Ethiopia approximately from 200,000 years of age. The
oldest found outside Africa in Europe date to approximately 40,000 years ago and
was Negroid in type. The earliest Caucasians found in Europe date to 20,000 years
old and the earliest Mongolians in Asia to 15,000 years old.
The current Monogenetic theory of human origins supported by archeological and
DNA evidence suggest that original man was black, born on the African continent,
remained there for 150,000 years during which time he migrated within the continent
and then 40,000 years ago he migrated outside the continent to Europe and Asia via
the straits of Gibraltar and the Sinai Peninsula.
From there mutation and mixture took place creating in addition to Negroes,
Caucasians and Mongolians, the 3 races of humanity. So for 150,000 years humanity
consisted only of Africans. Our experiences as a people created the first cultures.
The oldest culture documented at the present time developed in the Katanda region
of North East Congo 90,000 years ago. This was a fishing culture. Mining goes back
40,000 years in South Africa and Zambia.

Domestication of cattle took place in Kenya 15,000 years ago and agriculture
developed along the banks of the Nile more than 10,000 B.C. Cereals were ground
to make flour and wild game, cattle, geese and ducks were hunted. Agriculture and
animal husbandry were the 2 pillars on which large settlements and culture were
built. All the early civilizations arose in river valleys.
The earliest developments leading to civilization occurred in the Upper Nile Valley
and the Lakes Region of eastern Africa. The Nile Valley extends over 4000 miles.
The White Nile begins in the Great Lakes Region of Uganda, Congo and Kenya. The
Blue Nile begins in the Lake Tana region of northern Ethiopia.
These 2 branches come together in Kartoum, Sudan and then flow through Egypt to
the delta region and the Mediterranean. The Nubian civilization which arose in the
Sudan is the oldest known civilization with the first monarchy. 12 Nubians kings ruled
in Ta-seti before the 1st Egyptian Dynasty. The excavations here predate Egyptian
Pharaohs by 300 years. The spread of civilization was from south to north and is
acknowledged by the Egyptians. The Edfu Text tells of the origin of Egyptian
Civilization by a band of invaders from the South led by King Horus.
The Papyrus of Hunefer states that the Egyptians come from the beginning of the
Nile at the foothills of the mountains of the Moon (Mt. Kilamanjaro). Egyptian
civilization is dated historically from about 3200 B.C. to 391 C.E. when Roman
Emperor Theodosius banned the teaching of the Egyptian religious systems and
closed all the Temples after Christianity had been declared the official state religion
in 333 C.E. by Constantine.
During this 4000 year period of settled habitation and study of self and environment
Egypt gave us the basic disciplines of human knowledge. Studying the Nile and its
annual inundation produced the sciences of hydrology, irrigation and agriculture.
Studying the sky, sun, moon and stars gave us astronomy, astro|ogy, the solar
calendar, the lunar month, the 24 hour day and the Zodiac.
In observing the environment further came the knowledge of limestone, basalt,
quartz, the mining and smelting of metals, the development of instruments for
agriculture, hunting, building materials and hence the sciences of mathematics,
engineering and architecture.

Observing the human body gave rise to medical science. Medical texts began being
written more than 5000 years ago. The 2 most important that have come down to us
are the Ebers and Edwin Smith-Papyrus. They developed the first writing systems,
hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic and also the paper on which to write from the
papyrus plants in the Delta Region. In mathematics the Moscow and Rind Papyrus
reveal their knowledge of algebra, geometry and arithmetic. In the aesthetic area,
there were paintings, sculptures, jewelry, furnishings, and temples.
In observing oneself the Egyptians produced the first and most penetrating mental
science in its psycho-social tale of Ausar, Auset, Seth, Nephthys and Heru, the 5
aspects of consciousness. The first religious and philosophical texts in the world are
the Pyramid and Coffin texts.
The first book on virtues, ethics and social justice are The Book of Declaration of
Virtues, the Book of Ptah-Hotep, The Book of Khun-Anup and others. The Priests
and Sebait of Egypt created a nondual cosmology that was their understanding of
their relationship with the environment. It was the basis for all of their sciences and
the art of living, which was not separate but was one integrated science of life in
which all parts were interrelated and interconnected.
Thus in dealing with the problems of nature and society Nile Valley civilization
developed the original ideas of government, sociology, science, art, philosophy and
religion. From Kemetic Egypt and Nubia human civilization moved westward and
gave rise to the Dogon, The Yoruba, the Ashanti, the Bambara, the Fon and great
states such as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem-Bornu and the Hausa states.
It moved northward and gave rise to Sumer, Elam and the early Babylonian
civilizations in the Tigris/Euphrates Valley. It moved eastward and gave rise to
Mohenjo-Daro,Chanhu-Daro and Harappa, early civilizations in the Indus Valley and
it moved into Europe via Greece, Rome and the Iberian peninsula.
The dissemination continued from there to Asia and the Americas. Thus Africans
were the first humans to see the light of day, 200,000 years ago. Began populating
other continents 40,000 years ago and civilizing them 10,000 years ago. What has
happened to us in recent history? It can only be outlined here.

Hyksos Shepherds from the neighboring Palestinian area invaded the Delta region,
1783 B.C. The Assyrians invaded Egypt in 667 BC. Alexander of Macedonia
conquered Egypt in 332 B.C. Rome defeated Carthage in the 3rd Punic War in 146
B.C. and Augustus Cesar declared Egypt a province of Rome in 30 B.C. The Arabs
conquered Egypt and introduced Islam in 642 C.E.
The east coast of Africa was similarly being invaded by Arabs and Africans were
being enslaved. European slavery began in the 15th century and lasted until the 19th
century. A minimum of 60 million Africans either died in the attempt to enslave them
or were transported to the Americas by the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch
and the English. African colonialism began in 1885 with the Berlin Conference and
lasted until the middle of the 20th century.
The Hegemony of Europe over African people has been systematized under the
institutions of the U.N., the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO and the international court
at the Hague. This has given us neo-colonialism, globalization of the economic
system and Europeanization of the consciousness of the world, i.e., domination of
the world by Europe, its people and its ideas. The Romans, under Julius Caesar,
destroyed the library at Alexandria, Egypt in 48 B.C., containing 400,000 books. They
destroyed the library in Carthage in 146 B.C. containing 500,000 books.
The library in Alexandria was burnt a second time in 389 C.E. by a mob of Christian
monks. This time 300,000 books were burnt and teachers executed. The fall of
Granada in 1492 marked the end of 800 years of Moorish rule and influence in
Europe. Catholic Cardinal Ximenes ordered the destruction of the libraries and over
500,000 books were burned. Queen Isabella of Castile appointed Torquemada to
head the Holy Inquisition and 3 million Moors were banished from Spain during the
next 100 years.
Enough African, Jewish and Greek knowledge escaped the fires to fuel the
Renaissance and lift Europe out of the dark ages which began with the fall of Rome
in 410 C.E. when the eternal city was sacked by the Visigoths. Thus all the books
containing the history and wisdom of the known world, were burned and Europe
began to rewrite world history in its own image.
Our minds have been exposed to the inaccuracies of this perversion of history for the
last 500 years and we have become incarcerated in a mindset that guarantees us a

destiny of dependence and suboptimal performance. The British were one of the
founders of the slave trade between Africa and the Americas. By 1900 Britain had
the largest empire in world history with France a close second controlling most of
North Africa.
King Leopold of Belgium in the Congo caused the death of 10 million Congolese
between 1885 and 1909. To conquer the various African countries the kill ratio could
be as high as 500 to 1. An indication of superior weaponry and a brutality that was at
the heart of the Empire. In order to slaughter large numbers of people, take their land
and resources and sell them as commodities for profit it is necessary to define them
as sub-human and inferior and yourself as superior.
This ideology flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries and as Europe got richer from
its ill-gotten gains, its universities flourished as institutions of learning. The
assumptions and basis for the sciences, humanities and socio-political ideas taught
were shaped by the basic concept of the superiority of Europeans and by the 18th
century history had been rewritten to support this and the Ancient Model was
replaced by the Aryan Model.
The rupture in African society was thorough and in all areas: economic, political,
social, religious and philosophical. This cultural imperialism was designed to produce
permanent dependency and a conviction of inferiority. The trinitarian assailants were
Christianity, capitalism and culture.
The humanistic African philosophy and way of life was replaced by mechanistic
concepts of the individual as a cog in the megamachine called society. His value is
determined by his utility and moraconduct is determined by self-interest. As Rene
Descartes and Francis Bacon, those 17th century prophets of science said, the
human mind through scientific materialism could command nature and master the
human body".
So spirit was non-existent, God was dead and through science and technology
humans would subjugate nature, utilize her resources for economic wealth and
assure exponential progress. So with a materialist philosophy, scientific materialism,
technological industrialization and a capitalist economic system Europe has ruled
Africa and has gained worldwide currency for its ideas.

These have exacerbated conflicts between people, brought the world to the brink of
nuclear disaster, while depleting the non-renewable resources of the planet and
creating deforestation, soil erosion, toxic waste and pesticide build up. We are
running out of resources to feed the industrial economy. Oil, gas, fresh water, clean
air, food, forests, biodiversity, species diversity, genetic diversity, wild fish stocks,
coral reefs, garbage dumps and ocean space for our trash, chemical pollution,
acidification of the ocean, climate change, and global warming.
A global crash is fast approaching and another recession similar to 2008 is just
around the corner. In Dani Nabuderes book, Afriko|ogy, I found this quote from
Matthew Arnold, Civilization is the humanising of man in society. Clearly what
Europe has produced is not this, but a technological civilization based on the values
and philosophy of scientific materialism. Africa and Africans in order to survive and
prosper must discard the European ideologies and create a new paradigm.
Fortunately the African experience has always been a search for and a practice of
what it means to be human. To return to the ancient Africans of the Nile Valley
civilizations, out of 150,000 years of observation of themselves and nature and the
experience of living in settled communities they gave the world its first and most
accurate cosmology, psychology and religion. The separate cosmogonies that
constituted the cosmology were taught at 4 different university towns in Egypt.
Thebes, HermoPolis, Memphis and Heliopolis.
At Thebes it was taught that Amun was the sole creator God (Neter) and that all
other divine functions (Neteru) and the material universe were manifestations of his
imperceptible essence. Amun is consciousness, his creative energy is Ra and his
creative intelligence is Ptah. The first divine trinity. Amun is transcendent, selfcreated, and at the same time immanent in the primeval matter that will manifest as
the universe and all creatures.
So monotheism is intrinsic to Egyptian religion and all other deities (Neteru) are
functional aspects of the one creator God (Amun), Omnipresent consciousness with
qualities of creative intelligence (Ptah), Omniscience, and creative E (Ra)
Omnipotence. Monotheism did not start with semitic people, but in Africa with African
people more than 6,000 years ago. The primeval matter is described in the
cosmogony at Memphis as an Ogdoad, a group of 8 creative agents, 4 couples:

Nu Naunet - primal waters

Heh Hauhet - eternity and infinity
Kek Kauket darkness
Amun Amaunet - conscious essence.
Out of this balanced totality matter was formed by a dynamic burst of energy
variously portrayed metaphorically as an isle of Flame, a primeval mound, a primeval
goose, derived from a cosmic egg, honking with a piercing screech that sets the
whole process in motion. So from this unified field of infinite potential comes a
prescribed area of light, matter and vibrational energy which is how the Big Bang
came about and evolution started as an unfolding of consciousness.
So 5000 years ago we had a unified field theory and we knew that consciousness
preceded the formation of matter at the time of the Big Bang. The cosmogony at
Heliopolis goes into more detail about how the cosmos was structured after the Big
Bang.
Atum which is the personification of the active will of God (Amun) along with 8
agents, 4 representing physical forces Shu motion (wind, vibration), Tefnut water
(wetness, fluidity), Geb matter (solidity), Nut space/time (the cosmic egg). The other
4 representing consciousness manifesting in the universe. Ausar, Auset, Seth and
Nephthys.
At Memphis the intellectual tradition of the cosmogony is recorded. Ptah is the
personification of the creative intelligence of Amun, the one creator God, and gives
rise to all other Gods (Neters), people, animals, plants and all things that live. So
Ptah with the conception of thought and the utterance of speech becomes the
manifester of form, Ta-tenen, the primeval mound from whom all life emerge. The
psychological principles by which consciousness functions as mind in the universe
are elaborated in the widespread story of Ausar, Auset, Seth,Nephthys and Heru.
The basic story is of Ausar/Auset which are the non-dual halves of consciousness,
that is conscious of itself (Ausar) and also conscious of all things as they are (Auset).
They are the King and Queen of Egypt during its golden age of civilization. All their
subjects are happy and prosperous, the land is fertile and yields an abundance of
produce. Not being selfish, Ausar decides to visit other countries to teach them
agriculture, manufacturing, good governance and the benefits of civilization.

He leaves his wife Auset in charge, but his brother, Seth usurps the throne and kills
him on his return, cutting his body into 14 pieces. Seth is authoritarian and warlike
and soon ushers in a period of conflict, war, fragmentation, suffering, inequality and
oppression. Auset along with her sister Nephthys search the land for the different
pieces of his body, remembering them. She finds all but the penis.
However she is able to revive him enough to have an immaculate conception by his
holy spirit and give birth to a child, Horus, that grows up, defeats Seth and reclaims
the throne carrying on in his fathers tradition. Thus we have the first resurrection, the
first immaculate conception and the birth of horus, who is the first saviour of the
world, Jesus.
All of this 6000 years ago in Africa. The understanding taught by the ancient Africans
as the Egyptian Mystery System ontologically states that spirit is the basis of
being, all that is, hence, no separation between self and other. Spirit, not being
divisible is all-pervasive so that matter is spirit manifesting.
African epistemology states that self-knowledge is the basis of all knowledge and
since the essential self, spirit, is an integral part of universal spirit, learning more
about oneself is learning more about all creation and how spirit manifests creatively
in different entities. This is experiential knowledge as opposed to superficial
knowledge arrived at through the 5 senses.
All knowledge of reality starts from experience and is therefore subjective. The
recognition of oneself as conscious spirit inseparable from cosmic sprit puts one in
touch with all the manifestations of spirit since spirit is undivided, all pervasive and
interconnected. This is the basis of intuition or divine wisdom.
Communication is by symbolic imagery which leads to language. In the Memphite
cosmogony, Ptah, the personification of creative intelligence conceives in his heart
all that is to become life and then utters the word to make things real.
The word is a secondary functional process that carries out the primary conscious
creative idea. Ptah is therefore an intellectual process of creation that occurs as a
conscious activity in the heart. The heart is figuratively the seat of consciousness, not
the brain. So both wisdom and the creative intellect are subjective conscious

activities and do not require reason to come into being. This is internal knowledge
that does not require the senses to come into being. It is prior to words and prior to
logic and this is why the Egyptians never gave up the hieroglyphic which is symbolic
imagery beyond words. Consciousness is non-local and is a part of the unified field
AMUN that unites everything. As above, so below.
The Greeks never understood this and always believed that logic and reason were
the primary functions of the intellect, their logos doctrine, hence speculative
philosophy. As with Descates, Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am! Thought,
reason and logic are located in the brain and consciousness is an epiphenomenon of
neuronal function.
Western science with a vast expenditure of money and very sophisticated equipment
is still trying to prove this. It is not provable, it is a misconception. There is no
machine or type of equipment that can detect consciousness.
Only consciousness can detect consciousness. The story of divine kingship
previously mentioned is essentially the story of everyman, who must resurrect the
divine in himself (Ausar) defeat ego (Seth) and sit on the throne which is non-dual
consciousness (Auset) as King (Heru) of his country which is his physical body,
senses, and environment. So we have a continuous link between Amun the
(Divine essence), through the cosmic inteIligence, Ptah, with human consciousness
Ausar/Auset. This is absolute reality. So we are a human manifestation of that which
is timeless, infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, immanent and
transcendent. The original unified field theory (absolute reality) was known to our
ancestors 6000 years ago and taught in all the temples and universities in Egypt for
3000 years.
This understanding of self and the universe and the relationship between the 2,
personified as Maat, (balance, truth, order, harmony, interdependence) permeated
Egyptian society and was assured by the King and his administrators. This was the
basis for this first and greatest civilization, it's phenomenal accomplishments in
architecture, science, mathematics, medicine, astronomy,arithmetic, algebra,
geometry, agriculture, mining, esthetics, etc., and it lasted for over 3000 years, a
longevity still unrivaled at the present time.

We knew that all matter was animated. They derogatorily called us animists until
Einsteinin 1905, with his special theory of relativity showed that matter was frozen
energy and gave us E = mc2.
We have known that consciousness is primary and preceeded the Big Bang. That
creative intelligence guides unfolding conscious evolution and that chance mutations
and survival of the fittest has nothing to do with it as Darwin and his acolytes would
have us believe. The Greek Democritus gave us the atom in the 5th century and
Newton in his Principia in 1687 described his 3 laws of motion, thus reducing nature
to physical entities with specific properties and functions and governed by
discoverable laws.
Thus scientific materialism and physical reductionism were born. Simultaneously the
death of God was announced, as what couldnt be measured could not be said to
exist. Science replaced religion and the more benefits that were derived from
science, the less need there was for morals or values. In the early part of the 20th
century Max Planck, Niels Bohr and Werner Hiesenberg developed quantum
mechanics and turned classical Newtonian physics on its head.
They showed simply put that consciousness is a part of reality and that reality cannot
be described or understood without taking consciousness into account. Basically this
meant that scientific materialism and the mechanistic paradigm were finished as full
descriptions of reality. Like Humpty Dumpty there has been a great fall. So the west
has been searching for a new paradigm that would tie their fragmented world
together.
Enterprisisng physicists such as En/vin Laszlo are postulating a unified field theory
called the A-field which stands for Akashic which is a sanskrit word meaning ether or
space. Well we had the original unified field theory more than 5000 years ago.
Promulgated long before the Aryans invaded India from the caucasus and learned
from the indigenous people the Vedas and the Upanishads. With us the A-field
stands for Amun.
Africans in the post-colonial period have faced a crisis of identity, belief, thought and
meaning. Senghor and Aimee Cesaire proposed Negritude as a conceptual cultural
framework. Nyerere proposed Ujamaa, the east African concept of the extended
family. Kenneth Kaunda proposed African Humanism which seemed to present

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African traditional values through a Christian lens. Kwame Nkrumah proposed

African Socialism and in a nod to African traditions established his doctrine of
consciencism.
Professor Ramose has put forward the Zulu concept of Ubuntuas being at the root of
African being and philosophy. Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu a person is a person
through other persons. This belief, therefore, prescribes Ubuntu as a philosophy of
being with others. The Sotho people have a similar expression Motho ke motho ka
batho?
Similar expressions can be found in other African languages, as Mbiti tells us, I am
because you are, and you are, because we are! is basic to all Africa. Nabudere tells
us that in the philosophical domain Ubuntu is the law and politics.
Reuel Khoza has said, that Ubuntu is the philosophy of African Humanism and
constitutes the spiritual cradle of African religion and culture. Ubuntu finds expression
in virtually all walks of life - social, political and economic!
He has taken it in the direction of server leadership and projects it as the basis for
business relationships. Clearly what is needed is a hermeneutic that
comprehensively looks at our traditional time honored ontology, epistemology,
values, cultural morays and lived historical experiences and interprets the messages
and meanings that will allow us to reconstitute the dynamism of African culture in the
forward flow of history.
Whether one sees the African Worldview as based on Ubuntu, Ujamaa,
AfricanHumanism or Moyo (life) and Umunthu (personhood) as Sindima has done for
the Achewa of Malawi, these foundational concepts lead back to the concept of Maat
that was the core of the Egyptian belief system.
Maat was the creative principle laid down by divinity at he first time. In nature it
represented the orderliness of events, day follows night, the moon waxes and wanes,
the stars have fixed positions in the sky and the Nile overflows at the rainy season to
water the plants and nourish the population.
In the individual it represented self-understanding, righteousness, truth, generosity,
patience, effort, creativity. Perfectibility in community. In society it meant justice,

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order, law, harmony, a moral culture that sustains individual ethical values, the
principle of impartiality and equality and allows the ontological potential of the person
to be perfectable. After all we are not born in sin we are made in the image of our
God, there is no psychological or ontological gap between us and our divinity.
Therefore we need no outside agency for salvation, no religious anthropology. Also
we need no Marxian dialectic for guidance. After all this was constructed in the
libraries of London. We need only a trinitarian Maatian dialectic, laid down at the first
time that unifies life, the person and the society in an ongoing communication and
dialogue to co-create with this divine principle, the just society and the righteous
person.
With this ethos let us go forward with the necessary praxis to create the political,
economic, religious, education and civic institutions that will bring about the
necessary transformation for an African Renaissance based firmly on the wisdom,
sacrifice and traditions of out ancestors.
The current dominant capitalist world system generates international polarization,
conflict, income inequality, widespread unemployment, marginalization, exploitation
and dependency. To create the paradigm of African Humanism we have to delink
from the world economy. This is Samir Amins term and it means self-sufficiency and
priority given to domestic development and adjustment of external economic
relations accordingly.
Bearing in mind the subversive activities of the dominant world system and their
indigenous acolytes, this will require enormous integrity, courage and commitment of
our leadership as well as the full support of the populist forces in the country. An
educated populace is the only guarantee of the personal transformation necessary
for success. Steve Biko said, The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor
is the mind of the oppressed.
Marcus Garvey said, We must liberate our minds from mental slavery, because
whilst others may liberate the body, none but ourselves can liberate the mind. Reuel
Khoza speaks of transformational leadership. I speak today of transformational
followship. Our leaders have failed because our followers have been subverted. The
ultimate battle is for the minds of the people.

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Marcus Garvey said, Education is the medium by which a people are prepared for
the creation of their own particular civilization and the advancement and glory of their
own race. To accomplish this Professor Dani Nabudere sought to create the Marcus
Garvey Pan-Afrikan University in Mbale, Uganda, it is a work waiting to be finished
and duplicated all across Africa.
I have sketched our history, the longest in the world and the most glorious since it
gave us the basis for civilized living. We have had ups and downs over the last
10,000 years. This is one of our lows.
But we know that the human spirit has never been defeated and our ancestors have
given us the job to create the paradigm of African Humanism for the 21st century and
beyond. Humanity will not survive without it. In transforming Africa, we will civilize the
world as we did, once before. One God! One Aim! One Destiny!
Mayibuye Africa

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