© Cairo Museum (Source: Histoire générale de l'Afrique, vol.II, Editions UNESCO, 1980)
Head of statue from Taharqa (Karnak), 25th dynasty (circa 670 B.C.).

Once African countries had won their independence in the 1960s, the challenge taken up by a group of intellectuals from Africa, or of African descent, was to rid people’s minds of prejudice by remedying a widespread ignorance of African history.

The Ajami, the hundreds of thousands of written archives in African languages are still neglected today.

Most racial prejudices about Africans can trace their origin back to arguments justifying the slave trade and colonization, which have perpetuated a belief that Africa is a continent without history or civilization. An example of the persistence of this belief can be seen in a statement, made as late as 1963, by Hugh Trevor-Roper, an eminent professor of modern history at Oxford University. “Nowadays,” he wrote, “students want us to teach them about the history of black Africa. Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none, or very little: there is only the history of Europe in Africa. The rest is largely darkness […] and darkness is not the subject of history.”

One can understand why intellectuals from Africa or of African descent involved in the liberation of black people have been fighting since the early 20th century to ‘decontaminate peoples’ minds’, as some put it, and why African states, a soon as they acquired independence in the 1960s, called on UNESCO to help them rise to the challenge.

When, in 1964, UNESCO decided to produce a General History of Africa, it was, above all, to remedy the widespread ignorance about the continent’s history and to break free of discriminatory prejudices. The best way to do this was to give Africans the opportunity to rewrite their own history, with the necessary scientific support.

An international scientific committee of 39 specialists was therefore set up, representing different disciplines within the social and human sciences. Two-thirds of the members were African, in order to encourage an African standpoint, while nevertheless remaining open to challenges from outside specialists, with other perspectives.

Within the framework of this project, Cheik Anta Diop (Senegal), Hampaté Ba (Mali), Joseph Ki-Zerbo (Burkina Faso), Ali Mazrui (Kenya) and Théophile Obenga (Republic of Congo), to cite just this era’s more illustrious members, held seminal discussions with their peers from other regions of the world, which were to transform ideas about Africa and black people.

These discussions were lively, even stormy at times, especially when, for historiographic purposes, use was made of African oral traditions and the Ajami – the African language archives, transcribed using the Arabic alphabet, which are still relatively unknown (see box). The more passionate discussions were to be taken up in volume II.

The scientific committee abandoned any ambitions of producing an exhaustive history, opting instead for more condensed overviews showing the current state of knowledge and the main contemporary research trends. It also decided to emphasise the history of ideas, civilizations, societies and institutions, as well as favouring an interdisciplinary approach that drew on all available sources. These included oral traditions and the Ajami, as well as disciplines such as linguistics, musicology and even the physical and natural sciences. The committee also chose a continent-based approach, which considers Africa as a whole and abandons the usual dichotomy between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

The eight volumes in the collection, which were published between 1980 and 1999, traverse the entire continent, which is recognized as the cradle of civilization, from the appearance of hominids over three million years ago, to the eve of the new millennium. The collection passes through ancient Egypt, the Fatimid dynasty, the Swahili civilization, the kingdoms of the Horn of Africa, the slave trade, independence, etc. Some 6500 pages in all.

The collection also departs from some preconceived ideas, like the continent’s isolation. It demonstrates that the Sahara, far from being a barrier, has always been a place of exchanges and that Africa has maintained enduring contacts with Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.

Long before UNESCO’s ‘Slave Route’ project launched in 1994, the General History of Africa helped to break the silence over the slave trade and its impact on the difficulties encountered in Africa ever since. It devoted an entire volume to the subject in its “Studies and Documents” supplement series.

Over 20 supplementary publications, often on controversial subjects such as sources for writing history, the populating of ancient Egypt and the decolonization of Africa, add to this monumental undertaking, which involved over 230 specialists.

As soon as its first volumes were published, the General History of Africahad a phenomenal impact in scientific and academic milieus, both on the African continent and elsewhere. The entire collection was published in Arabic, English and French – and parts of it in Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Portuguese. It is considered to have made a major contribution to our understanding of African history and historiography.

However, the collection has remained largely inaccessible to the general public and has not sufficiently been used in African schools, even though an abridged version was published in English, French and three African languages (Hausa, Kiswahili and Pulaar).

Very few history textbooks published in African countries have turned to the collection for source material and the teaching of African history still reflects a Eurocentric viewpoint. Worse still, there is a clear tendency for these textbooks to offer a nationalistic vision of history, which exaggerates the importance of the colonial partition of Africa.

This is why UNESCO has once again been approached to make greater use of the collection as the basis for educational material. A US$2 million project was launched in 2008, financed by Libya. “Study the past if you would know the future” is the principle behind a set of educational materials due to be published at the end of next year.

The aim is to remind us that, despite its diversity, Africa shares a common history and values, upon which the African Union should be able to construct the United States of Africa.

The series is targeted at the very young – primary and secondary school children – who will be offered teaching materials that are standardized across all of Africa, aiming to reconcile, on the one hand, themes that promote unity, such as cultural identity and pan-African citizenship, and, on the other hand, national differences. The main collection, along with the abridged version, will also be made more readily available in higher education establishments. The series will also be tailored for use by teachers, providing them with manuals, educational CD-ROMs and a Historical Atlas , bringing them up to date with advances in historical research and improving the way it is taught. There is also, of course, the general public, which will have access to a wealth of information on the UNESCO web site.

The anticipated outcome of this endeavour is a better-informed African public regarding the history of their continent and the contribution their cultures have made to the progress of mankind, thus aiding them to respond more appropriately to the novel challenges of the modern world. A new task, no less difficult than publishing the General History of Africa.

Ali Moussa Iye, Chief of the Intercultural Dialogue section, Chief of the Intercultural Dialogue Section, in charge of the Histories Projects (UNESCO)

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Photo 2: © UNESCO/Bernard Jacquot
Cape Coast (Ghana), point of departure for the slave trade.

Photo 3: © UNESCO/Eric Schwab
Literacy class for young adults in the local language of Togo (1952).