This week, yours truly humbly apologises to the sixth form students of Speyside High School for not being able to reach their school to engage in a discourse on the presence of Africans in this part of the world before the coming of Columbus.

Being still a 'foot soldier' in the African redemption struggle, it was difficult for me to work out my return from Speyside even though the trip to go was organised.

Be that as it may, I still feel duty bound to share some information on the subject matter, not only for my youths of Speyside High School, but also for African youths wherever they may be. It is quite evident that the state of the African mind-set in this post-colonial period needs to be reset.

Just two weeks ago, I made the trip to Skinner Park in South Trinidad to support some of the artistes from Tobago who made it to the National Calypso Semi-finals. What happened there was reflective of the state of mind of the African Trinidadian. There was an African Trinidadian artiste Sugar Aloes on stage performing his song and he was showered with 'toilet paper' by African Trinidadians, because of their belief that he was no longer supporting a supposedly 'African' political party.

How can adult African Trinidadian or Tobagonians preparing to go to a show where the African art form of calypso is being featured, pack rolls of toilet paper in their bags to wave at and insult a fellow African artiste who they perceive does not support their views. If that is not fascist behaviour, then I do not know what is. How must the African Trinidadian youth relate to such behaviour by their adults? It is not hard to understand why the African Trinidadian youths are so prone to violent behaviour against each other.

A major part of the mental and psychological problem facing the African Tobagonian and Trinidadian is their lack of historical knowledge of their fore-parents' contribution to the development of world civilisation. Many of us grew up with the belief that the African motherland was always a place of backwardness which contributed absolutely nothing to world civilisation. In fact, even though in Trinidad and Tobago, we were governed by a supposedly 'African' government for over forty years, African history has never been taught in our schools. So generations of African youths grew up in total ignorance about their peoples contribution to Planet Earth.

It is now an established scientific and historical fact that humankind first existed in Africa. From Africa, they moved to various parts of the planet, such as Australia, India and other parts of Asia. They also went to Europe. Some historians even claim that Africans got trapped in an 'ice age' in Europe and 'mutated'. Africans also came to the Caribbean and the Americas long before Columbus. Hence the reason why I am recommending to the students of Speyside High School and other African youths that they get and read a copy of the late Guyanese Professor Ivan Van Sertima's book, 'They Came Before Columbus.' In that book, the monumental contributions of Africans to the development of the Inca and Aztec civilisations in Central and South America are well detailed.

In fact, the diaries of the crew on the ships who came with Columbus to the Caribbean revealed that they saw Africans in Caribbean islands such as St Vincent and also on the Central American coast. The truth is that historical research has shown Africans establishing civilisations as far back as ten thousand years ago and such research is ongoing. Such civilisations were not only in North Africa but also in Central and South Africa.

We do not know that in architecture, science, astrology, medicine, governance structures and spirituality to name a few were areas of development which early Africans focussed on. Those early African civilisations placed emphasis on the development of the human being. In other words, the human being was central to forward movement of the society. Their search for knowledge was constant and much time was spent on acquiring knowledge on all matters escalated to Planet Earth and the wider universe.

It was in Africa where Jesus Christ and Greek scholars such as Aristotle, Plato and Socrates got their knowledge. African thinkers and scholars established vast libraries for study and research.

See the rest here:
To Speyside High School youths with love