>begrudgingly by some, that hominids--the ancestors of all
>human beings--first appeared on earth some five million to
>eight million years ago in Africa. It is not illogical to
>believe, then, that this is where civilization first
>developed.
>
>THREE GOLDEN AGES
>
>Dr. John Henrik Clarke documented three "golden ages of
>grandeur" involving massive state and empire building in
>ancient Africa. "The first two reached their climax and were
>in decline before Europe as a functioning entity in human
>society was born," noted Clarke.
>
>It all began around 6,000 B.C. when Egypt emerged as the
>first organized nation, inspired largely by the cultural
>influences of Black Africa. Development then spanned the
>period of three great successive empires, starting in 1062
>A.D. with the rise of Ghana, the Mali nation with its
>legendary capital at Timbuktu, and the Songhai. It ended
>when the European slave trade broke up West Africa's coastal
>states and expanded further into the interior.
>
>On this vast continent in ancient times fire and tools
>were used for the first time. Medical practice was later
>developed and the first phonetic writing system was invented
>in Egypt. The drum was used for long-distance communication
>in a way that rivaled the telegraph.
>
>Raw materials were mined and metals forged. In fact,
>scientific evidence now proves that Africans were producing
>carbon steel some 2,000 years ago on the shores of Lake
>Victoria in furnaces unmatched until the 19th century by the
>Europeans.
>
>During the long periods of ascendancy, science, technology
>and the arts flourished. The calendar was invented and
>agricultural science grew in early Africa, several thousand
>years before the cultivation of crops on any other
>continent. Africans used mathematics for trading and
>astronomy as well as for executing great engineering feats--
>from rope suspension bridges to massive stone structures,
>including the pyramids of Egypt and the Sudan.
>
>Some ancient sites, including the pyramids, were aligned
>with the stars, reflecting an early knowledge of astronomy.
>In fact, at around the same time that the steel furnace was
>discovered, scientists found an astronomical observatory in
>Kenya dated 300 B.C.
>
>"It was the ruins of an African Stonehenge, with huge
>pillars of basalt like the stumps of petrified trees lying
>at angles in the ground. Each stone was aligned with a star
>as it rose in 300 B.C.," wrote Guyanese scholar, Prof. Ivan
>Van Sertima.
>
>"This evidence attests to the complexity of prehistoric
>cultural developments in sub-Saharan Africa," concluded the
>scientists who measured the site. "It strongly suggests that
>an accurate and complex calendar system based on
>astronomical reckoning was developed by the first millenium
>B.C. in eastern Africa."
>
>KNOWLEDGE OF ASTRONOMY
>
>Even more amazing was the discovery of a complex knowledge
>of astronomy among the Dogon people of West Africa, whose
>centuries-long understanding of the universe matches later
>scientific "discoveries."
>
>The Dogon lived in the Republic of Mali, some 200 miles
>from the capital of Timbuktu. They knew of the rings of
>Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and the spiral structure of the
>Milky Way galaxy. They knew that the universe was composed
>of billions of stars spiraling in space and that the moon
>was barren.
>
>They also knew, said Van Sertima, "far in advance of their
>time, intricate details about a star which no one can see
>except with the most powerful of telescopes. They not only
>saw it. They observed or intuited its mass and its nature.
>They plotted its orbit almost up until the year 2,000. And
>they did all this between five and seven hundred years ago."
>
>It is not entirely clear how the Dogon were able to detect
>a companion star within the Sirius star system so dense that
>a German astronomer viewed the white dwarf in only 1862,
>using the most advanced instrument of that day. But
>scientists have unearthed evidence which suggests the
>mountain-dwelling Dogon might have used telescopes as did
>the ancient Egyptians during Egypt's African-dominated
>period.
>
>Galileo himself reportedly insisted that "the ancients
>used telescopes." Well before 1609, when he built one in
>Venice, Africa in fact had an astronomical system based on
>mathematics. This was long before 1202, when Hindu numerals
>were first introduced into Western Europe.
>
>"Among the earliest evidence of the use of numbers is a
>find in Africa in the Congo," wrote Van Sertima. "These are
>markings--a notation count--on a bone 8,000 years old."
>Scientists believe the bone was used as a lunar calendar.
>It's the first of its kind found in Africa and one of the
>world's original calendars.
>
>Mathematics was also used for trading and for engineering
>projects, from pyramids to palaces, churches and ceremonial
>centers.
>
>The building of "Great Zimbabwe," a massive stone complex
>located in sub-Saharan Africa, required tremendous
>engineering skill. It was once a seat of civilization, the
>development of which was not restricted to Egypt in the
>north. "Great Zimbabwe" was in fact one of over 200 stone
>villages scattered across Zimbabwe and Mozambique. After the
>pyramids, it was one of the most enormous construction sites
>found in Africa. But even before "Great Zimbabwe" rose to
>prominence, Africans in the south had dug the most ancient
>mines discovered on the continent.
>
>Another great feat of African civilization involved
>navigation in the search for trade routes and the crossing
>of the Atlantic at least 100 years before Columbus'
>unfortunate arrival in the Western Hemisphere.
>
>[Part Two will cover the pre-Columbian presence of
>Africans in America and in early Asia and Europe. But no
>work would be complete without an analysis of the economic
>and class basis of the European trade in human cargo
>snatched from the African continent.]
>
>Sources:
>
>Clarke, John Henrik, Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan
>Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism,
>1993; Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, The World and Africa: An
>inquiry into the part which Africa has played in world
>history, 1965; Josephy, Jr., Alvin M., 500 Nations, 1994;
>Van Sertima, Ivan , ed., Blacks in Science: ancient and
>modern, 1983; Van Sertima, Ivan, They Came Before Columbus,
>1976.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 23:54:06 -0500
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Repression Spurs Resistance for Mumia
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Feb. 24, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>DEATH PENALTY TURMOIL: REPRESSION SPURS
>RESISTANCE FOR MUMIA
>
>By Greg Butterfield
>
>Across the country--especially in Mumia Abu-Jamal's home
>town--police repression is focusing on supporters of this
>African American political prisoner.
>
>Last year saw a string of arrests targeting young people
>nationwide. Now a year-long lockdown of Philadelphia is
>underway--partly in anticipation of pro-Abu-Jamal
>demonstrations at the Republican National Convention this
>summer.
>
>The Fraternal Order of Police has even called on the
>Republican Party to move its convention from the First Union
>Center because that venue hosted a Rage Against the Machine
>concert last year. (Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 13)
>
>But advocates of the death-row journalist aren't taking it
>lying down. Repression is spurring resistance.
>
>>From Washington--where activists are busily planning for a
>national civil disobedience at the Supreme Court Feb. 28--to
>Germany, where 8,000 people marched Feb. 5 demanding a new
>trial for Abu-Jamal--the struggle is picking up.
>
>On Jan. 31, dozens of protesters carried placards outside
>Pacifica Radio station KPFK in Los Angeles. They protested
>recent anti-Abu-Jamal remarks by talk show host Marc Cooper.
>An article by Cooper attacking Abu-Jamal's supporters
>appeared in Mother Jones, the New York Press and other
>media.
>
>The marchers, who also oppose growing censorship of the
>left at Pacifica, chanted, "Free press, free speech, free
>Mumia!" (Los Angeles Times, Feb. 2)
>
>And from the other side of the world, a Jan. 22 letter
>from Zenjiro Yamada, chair of the 50,000-strong Peoples Aid
>and Relief Association of Japan, warned federal Judge
>William Yohn, "We are very concerned about the fact that the
>Pennsylvania State courts have ignored every evidence or
>witness in favor of the accused and passed on him a death
>sentence."
>
>And as hundreds gather in New York Feb. 19 for an
>emergency strategy conference, leaders of the Free Mumia
>movement say an even bigger, bolder event is in the works.
>
>`POLITICAL FERMENT' ON DEATH PENALTY
>
>The renewal of energy couldn't come at a better--or more
>critical--time.
>
>After years of fruitless appeals in Pennsylvania state
>courts, Abu-Jamal's case has finally entered the federal
>court system. Attorneys for the former Black Panther want
>Judge Yohn to let them make the case for a total federal
>review of the twisted, racist proceedings of Abu-Jamal's
>1982 murder trial. They want an opportunity to present the
>overwhelming evidence that Abu-Jamal was framed for killing
>Daniel Faulkner, a white cop.
>
>"Mumia's case would not have come this far without the
>concerted struggle of people all around the world," says
>Monica Moorehead of Millions for Mumia. "He would not be
>alive today.
>
>"In 1995, he was just days from being executed when a
>panicked judge and government officials in Pennsylvania had
>to call it off," Moorehead recalls, "because of the
>organizing for a mass national demonstration there."
>
>More than 10,000 people converged in Philadelphia on Aug.
>12, 1995.
>
>Last year, 30,000 people joined the April 24 Millions for
>Mumia protest there, and 20,000 marched in San Francisco.
>
>"There is a lot of political ferment right now on the
>question of the death penalty," Moorehead says, noting the
>U.S. Justice Department's Feb. 10 announcement that it is
>conducting an investigation of racial disparity in the
>federal death penalty.
>
>Of 21 people on federal death row, 14 are Black.
>
>Illinois Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on
>executions in that state at the end of January after 13
>innocent death-row prisoners were freed from wrongful
>convictions. Ryan, a Republican, is the state head of Texas
>Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign.
>
>"Clearly mass opposition to the death penalty is growing.
>Being an election year, bourgeois politicians of both
>parties are being forced to take it up," says Moorehead, the
>socialist presidential candidate of Workers World Party.
>
>"But this is no time to sit back and feel satisfied. This
>is the moment for the movement to move boldly forward. Now's
>the time to reach millions of poor and working people with
>the message that Mumia's struggle represents their own daily
>battles against police brutality, racism and the death
>penalty."
>
>MORATORIUM CALL GAINS FORCE
>
>On Feb. 10 the Philadelphia City Council voted 12-4 for a
>resolution urging a moratorium on Pennsylvania executions.
>Pennsylvania's State Senate is scheduled to debate a
>moratorium bill Feb. 22.
>
>Although the council's resolution doesn't specifically
>mention Mumia Abu-Jamal, its passage shows the depth of
>feeling against the death penalty, especially in the African
>American community.
>
>Of the 226 people on death row in Pennsylvania, 126 are
>from Philadelphia--and 82 percent of those are people of
>color, according to law professor David Baldus. The city
>alone has more death-row prisoners than 37 states.
>
>Since coming to office in 1995, Gov. Tom Ridge has signed
>193 death warrants, including two for Abu-Jamal. The latest,
>signed last October, was stayed by Judge Yohn pending the
>outcome of the federal appeal.
>
>On Feb. 9, the Greensboro, N.C., Human Rights Commission,
>a local government-appointed body, approved a resolution
>calling for a new trial for Abu-Jamal.
>
>Calling Abu-Jamal's first trial "highly suspicious," the
>resolution states: "recent incidents of violence related to
>law enforcement and to the criminal justice system have once
>again called into question fairness and equal justice under
>the law. "
>
>The council also noted that "there is overwhelming
>evidence that race is the single most important factor in
>determining who will be sentenced to death as punishment for
>a crime."
>
>Last year a similar resolution passed 7-0, but was voided
>after threats by city police.
>
>Greensboro was the site of a 1979 confrontation between
>anti-racist protesters and the Ku Klux Klan. Five anti-Klan
>activists were shot and killed by the fascists while police
>looked the other way.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 00:00:48 -0500
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Brits out of Ireland!
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Feb. 24, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL: BRITS OUT OF IRELAND!
>
>What do the Irish want? After all is said and done, it's
>very simple. They want to break free of Britain's imperial
>control over a part of their country. They want to see
>Ireland united and independent.
>
>It's what all nations want. To be able to run their own
>affairs, practice their own culture, speak their own
>language. What deprives people of this right is the
>interference of other nations. That interference can take
>several forms: grabbing hold of the economy, sending troops,
>controlling the political structure of the country.
>
>Britain has done all three to Ireland. It first invaded
>800 years ago. British landlords so controlled the economy
>that they caused the horrendous potato famine of the 19th
>century that made millions of Irish either die of starvation
>or leave their homeland. And even though most of Ireland
>finally fought its way to winning a republic in the 1920s,
>six northern counties remained under British control. Called
>Northern Ireland today, or Ulster by the British, they were
>developed as an enclave of British influence and capital in
>the Emerald Isle. For years, the pro-republic Irish there
>have been relegated to second-class citizenship in a society
>ruled by those loyal to Britain.
>
>The British Empire was supposed to have died a long time
>ago--when rebellions began sweeping its colonies after World
>War II. But imperialism is still very much alive in the
>world. It is the form that developed capitalism has taken
>since the biggest banks and corporations went transnational.
>Largely through the stranglehold of finance capital--
>especially the seemingly innocent lending whose ties are
>heavier and more unbreakable than iron chains--the countries
>where these wealth-sucking institutions are concentrated
>dictate to the rest of the world. And how did they get so
>wealthy to begin with? Centuries of open colonialism--or, in
>the case of the United States, the thinly concealed
>colonialism of the Monroe Doctrine plus the super-
>exploitation of an internal colony of enslaved Africans.
>
>In Northern Ireland, Britain has just revealed its iron
>fist of imperial power by declaring unilaterally that it is
>assuming direct political control once again. What preceded
>this announcement? A slick maneuver. Britain and its allies,
>the Ulster unionists, demanded that the Irish Republican
>Army start to disarm by Feb. 1--which had not been agreed to
>in last year's peace accords that for the first time allowed
>the Irish Republican movement, in the form of the Sinn Fein
>party, to be part of the government. Britain took this step
>just hours before a scheduled announcement by Gen. John de
>Chastelain that the "decommissioning," or disarming, pro
>cess was moving ahead. In other words, it preempted any
>further progress toward peace.
>
>The Social Democratic Labor Party is playing a treacherous
>role in all this, siding with British imperialist Prime
>Minister Tony Blair. Now is the time for all who believe in
>true self-determination to support Sinn Fein and the IRA,
>who courageously have refused to engage in further
>decommissioning talks as long as British troops and police
>exert direct rule over Northern Ireland.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
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