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The Fallacy Of The “Triple Heritage” Thesis: A Critique
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2019
Extract
Ali Mazrui's “The Semitic Impact on Black Africa: Arab and Jewish Cultural Influences” is interesting reading. That is perhaps the only kind thing one can say about it. As sheer academic exercise, it is its own justification. However, its purpose is much more obscure, its pontifical pronouncements shaky, and its historical allusions as accurate as often as not. The theme of Africa as a “cultural bazaar” where “a wide variety of ideas and values, drawn from different civilizations compete for the attention of African buyers” has been labored to a nauseating degree. Its hidden premise is the existence of an African cultural vacuum, or near-vacuum, destined to be filled by “universalistic” civilizations such as Greco-Roman (Christian, European, Western, etc.) or Judaeo-Arabic (Semitic, Hebraic, Arabic, etc.), although Judaism has not historically exhibited a proselytizing strain, and insularity, on the contrary, appeared to characterize it.
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- Copyright © African Studies Association 1984
References
Notes
1 Exodus, XVIII.
2 Genesis, XIV, 18-20. Also: Psalm 110:4.
3 Diop, C. A. The African Origin of Civilization, tr. Mercer Cook (New York: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1974), pp. 135-38.
4 This raises the question of whether the term “Ethiopia” is, as often stated, derived from the Greek “Ethiops” for “sun-burnt”. Eric Partridge (Origins, 1983, p. 188) suggests that the “Gr. Aithiops is perhaps ‘folk-etymology’ for Egyptian athtiu-aku meaning robber of hearts, ? conquerors, from dthu, robber, conqueror.”
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