Чтобы выжить, Израиль должен превратить 2023 год в новый 1956 год.
Contents
Introduction
I. Between Israelis and Palestinians peace can be achieved with justice only from now on
II. Two conditions for success in achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians
III. Why the entire population of Gaza should be temporarily relocated for 3-4 years to Kazakhstan
IV. Why the borders with Egypt from Rafah to Taba should be entirely closed forever
V. Why all the existing structures on the surface of the earth (in West Bank) should be entirely demolished and removed
VI. Why the Palestinian State should share common borders with Israel but not with Jordan
VII. 1956, 2023, and a different contextualization of the Israeli-Palestinian problem
Содержание
Введение
I. Мир между израильтянами и палестинцами может быть достигнут справедливо только отныне
II. Два условия успеха в достижении мира между израильтянами и палестинцами
III. Почему все население Газы должно быть временно переселено на 3-4 года в Казахстан
IV. Почему границы с Египтом от Рафаха до Табы должны быть полностью закрыты навсегда
V. Почему все существующие сооружения на поверхности земли (на Западном Берегу) должны быть полностью снесены и удалены
VI. Почему Палестинское государство должно иметь общие границы с Израилем, но не с Иорданией
VII. 1956, 2023 годы и иная контекстуализация израильско-палестинской проблемы
Following the publication of an article of mine about Kazakhstan’s chances to bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians and to resolve the Palestinian problem once for all, a Muslim friend wrote to me, asking me to expand on the reasons for some of my proposals. The present article is my reply to his questions. My previous articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (including subtitles and units) and links to them you will find at the end of the present article.
Introduction
What most people do not properly assess about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the inevitable fact that every development does not only count as such, but it also adds on the accumulated problems, which therefore involve -amongst others- increased mistrust, unreadiness to negotiate, unwillingness to discuss about a common future, total disbelief of the intentions of the other side, and suspicion about the reliability of the interlocutors.
As I fully understand this situation, I don’t believe that peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians would be an easy affair. In fact, the negotiations are always difficult between two parts of which
– the winner is not sure of his victory, and
– the loser reached a level in which he has nothing more to lose.
This is a very dangerous situation.
I. Between Israelis and Palestinians peace can be achieved with justice only from now on
In this regard, all those, who declare ‘no peace without justice in Palestine’, are nonsensical because they involve an element (namely justice), which threatens the presence of the Israelis on the lands that they control. Israelis know that what was done to the Palestinians by their forefathers before 75 or 100 years was unjust; it is absurd to even imagine that they do not know. As a matter of fact, the Zionist project is an undeniable plan of specific usurpation of land.
So, the rightful mediator cannot possibly relate justice to peace when trying to resolve the Palestinian problem; the reason for this is entirely psychological. To oppose adversary demands of justice, the Israelis will instinctively resort to cases of unjust deeds perpetrated by the Palestinians. Then, this will become the dialogue of the deaf, because every part will easily come up with numerous examples of unjust acts for which the other part will always have a ‘convincing’ interpretation.
If we refer to major acts, which cannot be misinterpreted and are accepted as such by all, we will encounter a particular and constant trait of the conflict; it all started with the total rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (also known as General Assembly resolution on Partition; 29 November 1947) by the Palestinians and the surrounding countries of Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and Egypt. In the ensuing low-scale civil war (1947), full scale civil war (1947-1948), and Arab-Israeli War (15 May 1948 – 10 March 1949), the Palestinians and their allies opposed indeed the international community. By so doing they lost. In other words, if they accepted the UN Partition Plan, they would have 50% of their land; by rejecting the Plan and by fighting against a resolution voted by a 2/3 majority of the UN member-states, they were left with only 22% of their land after the war, and in addition, no less than 700000 Palestinians were forced to migrate.
This trait persisted after 1948; it simply took another form, namely that of unrealistic evaluation of the rapport de force (balance of power); in fact, the anti-Israeli alliance lost all the wars. The so-called ‘Egyptian victory’ in the 1973 (Yom Kippur) War is in reality a filthy lie and a propaganda artifice, because what truly happened at the time (following meticulously prepared and secretly concluded agreements between US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and Anwar el Sadat’s representative Hafez Ismail, the Egyptian National Security Adviser) is that Egypt got the Sinai Peninsula back, but Israel totally neutralized Egypt. This is how Tel Aviv managed to infiltrate first there and thence elsewhere.
I expanded on the topic because it is essential to understand that today, 75 years after the first explosion of the Palestinian problem at the international level, it is essential for a potential mediator to know that part of what the leading administrative figures and the most charismatic representatives will inevitably have in their heads will be forged myths and absurd misperceptions; they certainly know most of the true facts related to the topic, but they view them in the light of altered perceptions of reality. Consequently, this situation affects them sentimentally and mentally, and for this reason peace can certainly be made, but with no reference to justice.
This may look cynical or even odd to righteous people, but it truly is not; human justice is not Divine Justice, and every attempt to make it look similar to that concept will certainly fail. Divine Justice is forever; human justice is instantaneous. Among humans, justice can be made with some delay; but there is no ‘justice’ to be made for undeniable crimes committed by the great grandfather of a person against the great grandmother of another person. If this is so at the personal level, it must certainly be the same at the collective, social, ethnic or national level. It goes without saying that revenge (which can be taken after much time) is not justice; it is rather an injustice perpetrated in response to an earlier unjust act. That’s why revenge is a synonym for retaliation.
Faithful people know that the Ultimate Judge is God; nothing ends here, and an injustice made in our material world brings forth an inevitable punishment either during our lifetime or in the Hereafter. But those, who intentionally commit crimes now in revenge of evil deeds and crimes perpetrated by others before 50 or 75 years, lose their souls in vain. No one comes to this world as an avenger. These things must be very clear to anyone willing to suggest solutions to a grave problem that gets incessantly worse.
By all means, one has to always bear in mind that the condition of a winner, who is not sure of his victory, is never enviable. Israelis know that in few months, they can destroy all the buildings of Gaza and they can push the entire local population out. I don’t expand on the consequences which may cause further wars, but I limit myself in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, the top Israeli governmental and military authorities also know that even with the entire Gazan population evacuated, the Palestinian problem will not end. Israelis will still have to live with the Palestinians of the West Bank and with those called ‘1948 Palestinians’ in Israel proper; their grave radicalization will be inevitable. Even if the Israeli authorities manage to effectively evacuate them all at a later date, the only possible result will be that Israel will then have to face extremely noxious developments in surrounding lands and to expect a real war of attrition involving attacks from the North, the East, and the Southwest. It will never end.
II. Two conditions for success in achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians
That is why the position of a mediator between a winner, who is not sure of his victory, and a loser, who reached a level in which he has nothing more to lose, can be effective and his work successful only under two conditions:
– he has to leave justice aside and to compartmentalize the past (in other words, to put the jinn in a bottle) and
– he has to find another context in which to place the entire problem and thus, by introducing new factors, manage to assuage the worries of the winner and to console the sorrow of the loser.
Through this approach, the effective mediator is not in search of justice, but peace. This implies that all the necessary guarantees will be offered to both parts and that major concern will be deployed as to how no further hatred, rancor, and malignancy will be allowed to take hold of the hearts of people. Justice and equity will have to apply from the moment the new agreement is signed.
Consequently, and in striking contrast to the Oslo Accords, great effort will be carried out and detailed measures will be taken as regards the educational systems, the scientific life, the intellectual milieu, the national identity and the cultural integrity, the socio-behavioral principles, and the moral values of both nations. Politics do not and actually cannot play an exclusive role in the negotiations and the deliberations concerning the resolution of this long conflict; quite contrarily, the civil society -from both sides- must come to the forefront. The negotiations will have to look like an initial encounter between two communities meant to live together in peace.
Final success will be achieved when all fears, doubts and worries will disappear from the minds and the hearts of both sides. Fully understanding this need, I came up with the proposal for an initiative, which I am sure that Kazakhstan can effectively carry out. My responses to the questions asked by my Muslim friend can be better assessed in the light of the aforementioned thoughts.
III. Why the entire population of Gaza should be temporarily relocated for 3-4 years to Kazakhstan
At this very moment, Israel is under an unprecedented shock; this is attested on many occasions and at all levels of the Israeli administration, army and society. The acts of the military forces dispatched in Gaza testify to unnecessary brutality that causes further damage to Israel. There are not many in the Israeli political elite to understand that it is absolute pointless to attempt to exterminate an elusive adversary while at the same time massacring dozens of thousands of innocent civilians, children, women and elders who cannot possibly be held as responsible for the 7th October 2023 attacks. By so acting, Israel turns against itself the outright majority of people worldwide and sends an alarming warning to capitals of great nuclear powers like Beijing and Moscow.
The disregard shown by Israel to the numerous Muslim states for many long decades did not have an impact; this was due to the, hypocritical but undetected, Western support to Tel Aviv that the Israelis quite unfortunately for them have taken as true and sincere for too long. It was also due to the importance that the major Western countries (US, Germany, France, England, Italy) happened to have at the economic, military, diplomatic and political levels. However, this situation does not exist anymore. The Western powers are eclipsed by the rising BRICS at all levels; even more importantly, by allying with the BRICS, other -hitherto deemed unimportant- countries started acquiring a greater impact on the world affairs.
Israel needs therefore a certain space of time to absorb the shock and to realize that not only the Hamas attacks were a dreadful and horrible event, but also that it took place in 2023 – and not 1991 or in 2001. The world is not anymore as many among the country’s ruling elite think or believe.
I therefore proposed that the entire population of Gaza should be temporarily relocated for 3-4 years for two reasons:
– first, the country is being destroyed by the invading Israeli army, which leaves ruins everywhere; what has already been done in the northern part of Gaza will take place in the southern sector too. It is clear that there is no force, no state, in the world that will interfere in order to stop Israel by force; if this was attempted by a nuclear power, it would apparently entail nuclear confrontation. So, the Western nuclear powers (US, France and England) are certain that no other nuclear power (Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Iran) will be exposed to reprisals only for the sake of the Palestinians.
It is therefore evident that for the main targets of the Israeli military operations to be achieved, Israel will need to push the totality of the Gazan populations out of Gaza Strip to North Sinai, Egypt. This intention risks certainly giving an entirely different dimension to this hitherto limited war and triggering a major conflict in the region. Either Egypt’s el-Sisi is going to enter to war with Israel to prevent the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza or he will fail to oppose this and will be overthrown in a most thunderous Islamist rebellion. In the case of an Islamist insurgence, the new Islamist regime of Egypt will inevitably clash with Israel in a most bloody war.
By intervening in Gaza as mediator between Israelis and Palestinians and by offering a plan for peace, involving also a temporary (for 3-4 years) relocation of the entire population of Gaza in Kazakhstan, Astana offers
– to Israel the opportunity to peacefully achieve their military goals (total elimination of Hamas) without further casualties;
– to Egypt the chance to avert all nefarious scenarios, namely a war, a revolt, and/or a permanent relocation (‘resettlement’) of the Gazan populations in North Sinai (that many extremist Zionists want to carry out);
– to Palestinians the perspective of safe survival, peaceful relocation, humane living conditions in the near future (within the next few months), and return back home under better, highly improved, terms after few years;
– to Chinese and Indians the possibility to get initially involved as partners of Kazakhstan in the construction of the new urban centers to accommodate the temporarily relocated Gazans and thus later make a strong impact as warranty powers of the final accord between the states of Israel and Palestine.
– second, the unprecedented destruction of the local infrastructure caused during the Israeli military operations in the northern sector of Gaza is only the preliminary stage of this war. After the entire local population is evacuated (one way or another), the Israeli army will carry out similar operations in the southern sector of the Strip; that’s why I suggested and I do hope that this part of military activities will take place peacefully and with no more casualties. It is to be anticipated that the Israelis will continue demolishing innumerable buildings in search of potential terrorists, hidden arms, and secret passageways to Egypt. They will apparently do the same in the labyrinthine system of underground tunnels of Gaza that were constructed over the past decades. This will surely take several months after the completion of the evacuation process.
Then, the ruins of Gaza will have to be removed and cleaned off. A totally new landscape will appear. This process will also take much time; in the meantime, a consortium of Kazakh, Chinese and Indian construction companies will prepare the complete design of New Gaza’s urban plan. The building phase will certainly take more than two years according to the best scheduling calculations.
It goes without saying that the entire reconstruction of Gaza project will have to be undertaken under the meticulous inspection of Israel’s military forces because the Israelis have to be placed in total command of all security measures so that they are fully and permanently aware that nothing will be in a position to be smuggled into Gaza again and no anti-Israeli activity will possibly take place in the Palestinian state that they will agree to accept and help build and recognize at the international level.
IV. Why the borders with Egypt from Rafah to Taba should be entirely closed forever
As it is well-known, the main issues for the Israelis are the safety and the security of their state; I stated this fact from the very beginning. In this regard, there is a truly crucial difficulty; security and safety are feelings, and this means that they are not possibly quantifiable.
One can measure the area and the population of a land, the performance of an economy, the demographics of a nation, the artifacts of a museum and the weapons of an army. The security and safety measures are indeed quantifiable; but the feeling of security or safety is not.
One can firmly quantify the training of soldiers, the knowledge of the officers, and the arguments of diplomats; but there is no such thing as a phobo-meter to help us measure the fear, the worries, and the anxiety of people – let alone the consternation and the angst of statesmen and politicians who do not trust the intentions of their neighbors and do not believe the words of the rulers of the surrounding countries. The suspicions about the ulterior motives of the others are not a quantifiable affair.
The parallel that one can draw, rephrasing the contrast that I made in the third paragraph of the present article, is the following; coming to the table of negotiations, both sides will instinctively and reciprocally acknowledge that
– the Israelis have lost their safety, their security, and their trust of the Palestinians;
– the Palestinians have lost their land.
There is evident loss on either side, but the type of loss is of diverse nature.
One can therefore conclude that both sides’ desiderata are -at the same time- unequal and different.
The loss of the Palestinians is visible to the naked eye; and so is the loss of the Israelis because, as I already stated, their overreaction to the 7th October 2023 attacks and their asymmetrical response to Hamas’ killings fully demonstrate that they are under the impact of a shock.
Furthermore, it is also known that for a very long period the Palestinian resistance movements and organizations did not set as final target of the Palestinian nation the acceptance of the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, but they constantly evoked the total annihilation of the state of Israel. Following the signing of the Oslo Accords (1993), Hamas started a campaign against them, thus dragging a certain part of the Palestinian people to extreme positions, which were always at the antipodes of the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II). https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/038/88/PDF/NR003888.pdf?OpenElement
The radicalization of the resistance against a formidable adversary can have negative results, and this is what actually happened over the past two decades, notably after the death of Yasser Arafat.
That is why I believe that, if peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians can ever have a chance to end in a true, sincere and final agreement, the state of Israel must be offered full responsibility for the security and the safety of both states. In other words, the Israeli security forces must be in full control of
a) the borders with Egypt and Jordan,
b) the harbors, and
c) the airports.
I don’t mention the borders with Lebanon and Syria, because the Palestinian state does not have borders with these two states. Unity of land and unity of people are to be safeguarded as West Bank and Gaza shall be linked with elevated highways and underground trains.
However, to erase every reason of fear and anxiety from the minds and the hearts of the Israelis, an effective mediator should offer them the exclusive privilege to guard the borders and have control over every person and every item, i.e. every baggage, parcel, and cargo that enters the land in which the two states will coexist.
The basic concept behind my approach, which involves exclusive Israeli control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, is that of a complete enclave; to put it otherwise, for security reasons, Palestine must become an entire enclave within Israel. A small strip of 100 m wide land across the Palestinian-Jordanian and the Gazan-Egyptian borderlines will have to belong administratively (not politically) to Israel. When it will be the task of the Israelis to patrol the borders and to control all the persons and all the items that enter or exit the territory, they will not have any reason to worry about their security and safety.
There will certainly be a civilian police authority in the state of Palestine, but it will be trained, equipped and supervised by the state of Israel. In addition, as I already said, a major effort will be deployed (in striking contrast to the processes and the methods used before the Oslo Accords) at the level of education, science, culture, and civil society.
Every indication noticed and every incident occurred on either side, which may have involved racial contempt, ethnic disregard, social enmity, religious antagonism or spiritual/national superiority will have to be timely and properly denounced, tackled and resolved.
V. Why all the existing structures on the surface of the earth (in West Bank) should be entirely demolished and removed
In fact, what I suggest for the West Bank is a mere repetition of what I proposed for the Gaza Strip first. Consequently, all the Israeli settlers shall first be permanently relocated elsewhere in Israel; their urban infrastructure shall remain intact and then be offered to the West Bank Palestinians, who shall be temporarily relocated to Kazakhstan (after the Gaza Palestinians return in the newly reconstructed Gaza) and then return.
The temporary relocation of the West Bank Palestinians to Kazakhstan will offer Israelis plenty of time to fully inspect the land, the structures, and the underground, remove potentially smuggled and hidden arms and ammunitions, and perfectly clear the territory up.
The repetition of the temporary relocation process, which I suggested first for the populations of Gaza, and its application to the West Bank Palestinians will simply help remove all the remaining doubts and worries from the minds of the Israelis because the process will offer them the possibility to fully inspect the entire territory from where several attacks against Israelis emanated in the past.
VI. Why the Palestinian State should share common borders with Israel but not with Jordan
As I already said, a narrow, 100 m wide, strip shall be delineated alongside the old borderline between West Bank and Jordan; this strip shall belong administratively to Israel. As I stated above, to assuage all the worries and the security concerns of the Israelis, the state of Palestine must take the form of a complete enclave within Israel. The same concept must apply in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
VII. 1956, 2023, and a different contextualization of the Israeli-Palestinian problem
The concept of pacification between Israel and Palestine is inevitably linked to the rehabilitation, reconstruction, and salvation of the wider region between Eastern Mediterranean, India and Central Asia. This vast area comprises lands, which in the past belonged to major empires (like the Ottoman, the Safavid Iranian, and the Mughal states) and nomad kingdoms (like the Kazakh, Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand khanates).
The various types of colonial rule that were applied by the French and the English during the 19th and the early 20th centuries caused divisions, nefarious repercussions, conflicts and wars; quite contrarily, Russia/USSR -being a continental empire- was never a colonial power in Central Asia. That’s why Kazakhstan is not Syria and Uzbekistan is not Yemen.
If we momentarily forget the nightmarish past of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while looking back at the historical heritage of this wider region, we will instantaneously realize that many wars took place, great antagonisms developed, and sectarian rivalry was intentionally incited in numerous locations throughout this vast land. There are many spots where the evil colonial deeds can trigger endless wars and extraordinary destructions; in other words, the Israel-Palestine problem is only one of the numerous troubles deliberately caused by the colonial gangsters of France and England, and their successor, America.
Many among the numerous states, which exist nowadays in the said region, have been characterized by a certain form of direct or indirect involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and Turkey. Notably and up to a certain extent, the Armenia-Azerbaijan hostilities and enmity hinge also on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
It is therefore essential for an effective mediator to envision not only the right means, the inventive approaches, the correct steps, the solid arguments, and the convincing motives that can bring permanent peace, coexistence and cooperation to Israelis and Palestinians, but also the way this propitious and auspicious development will affect positively other parts of the wider region. Slowly but steadily, other countries in the region, which currently do not officially recognize Israel should be called to enter into peace agreements with Israel, thus consolidating the final accord between Palestine and Israel.
For this purpose, after successfully mediating between Israelis and Palestinians, Kazakhstan -in cooperation with China, India and Russia- should spearhead further initiatives in view of first, several bilateral agreements of mutual recognition and pacification and second, a wider regional peace accord.
This perspective will consolidate the Israel-Palestine final accord; it is exactly the opposite of what was attempted by Donald Trump, namely the Abraham Accords or normalization treaties. The 7th October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks were the logical consequence of those absurd and biased agreements, which are by now almost cancelled. It could not be otherwise; the Americans did not truly care to solve the Israel-Palestine problem, and this must sound as an alarming warning to the Israelis. The true target of the US diplomacy was merely a hypocritical initiative triggered by the ridiculous need to achieve spectacular but meaningless results, which would be duly used by the criminal mainstream mass media in order to fascinate ignorant and idiotic people across the Earth without truly changing anything.
Kazakhstan, China, India and Russia must make it clear to Israel that the only proper manner to proceed in order to convince several surrounding, currently unfriendly, countries to accept its existence and to consolidate and fortify its presence in the wider region is the exact opposite of all hitherto deployed attempts. Problems are like health issues; they are solved from inside out. The resolution of the Israel-Palestine problem is the inevitable priority no 1.
After all, it is clear to all that even if Saudi Arabia and Qatar recognized Israel and established diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, there would still be more than 25 UN member states, which would not do so. More importantly Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran would still remain staunch opponents constantly demanding the dismantlement of the state of Israel. All these countries would certainly reconsider following a final peace accord between Israel and Palestine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Israel#Present_situation
At this moment, it would perhaps be necessary for Israeli decision makers to recall the humiliating experience that their country underwent in 1956; the older among them surely remember and the younger certainly studied in nauseating detail the Operation Kadesh and the Anglo-French-Israeli planned invasion of the Sinai Peninsula and the Suez Canal (between 29th October and 7th November 1956). This colonially brilliant project was highly successful from a military viewpoint, but it proved to be a disastrous failure for the three allied countries, as they were proven unable to resist the concerted diplomatic pressure exerted by the US and the USSR.
Israel realized then that it was on the wrong side of History, because when it refused to withdraw its army from Sharm el Sheikh, other parts of the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip, President Eisenhower rebuffed all demands made by representatives of the Zionist lobby and spoke in public, stating that there was “no choice but to exert pressure upon Israel”. Although initially the Tel Aviv government rejected the UN demand to remove all the Israeli soldiers from the lands that they had conquered in alliance with France and England, finally Ben Gurion was forced to call Eisenhower (8th November 1956) and tell him that Israel would finally comply with the UN Resolution 997 (ES-I), which was a US proposal (General Assembly vote of 2nd November 1956: 64 in favor, 6 abstentions, and 5 against, namely Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, and Israel).
Due to that humiliation, Israel decided not to be anymore the close ally of Paris and London, and to start relying exclusively on the US as regards its security. As a matter of fact, 1956 was a turning point for Israel. From that year on, Israeli politics, defense and diplomacy were attached to and intertwined with the US administrations. Now, it is high time for the Israeli decision-makers to reconsider their alliance and bond with the Sick Man of the Western World, evaluate the multiple benefits ensuing from a Euro-Asiatic alliance with Kazakhstan, China, India, Russia and other major states, resolve the unnecessarily deteriorated Palestinian problem, enter into reciprocal and mutual recognition with major regional powers (Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) and other neighboring countries (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, etc.), and finally become a full member state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and a significant partner of the world’s major superpowers across the New Silk Road.
It is high time for Israel to choose:
– either to remain an ally of the West and experience further killings, terrorist attacks, wars and bloodshed
– or to abandon the West, become a partner of the East, and live in peace, cooperation and prosperity with all the other forces of the rising new, de-westernized, and multipolar world.
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Earlier articles about the Palestinian-Israeli problem (titles, subtitles, units and links):
Palestinians vs. Israelis: 11 Hidden Historical Truths about a Futile War
I. No Religion subsists without Moral, and no Nation exists due to Fake History II. 11 Points of Historical Clarification about the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Point 1: the Israelis are not ethnically Hebrew Point 2: the Israelis are not religiously Hebrew Point 3: ‘Judaism’ is not identical to the Ancient Hebrew religion Point 4: Jews represented an apostate minority of the Hebrews Recapitulation Point 5: the last historical state of the Jews was named Judah / Judaea, not ‘Israel’ Point 6: there is no right to the Promised Land for the Jews Point 7: the entire Old Testament is a posterior fabrication full of distortions Point 8: among today’s so-called ‘Jews’ only 10-15% are truly Jews: the Sephardi Point 9: today’s so-called ‘Jews’ are not ethnically Jewish: the Ashkenazim Point 10: Reform Judaism is not Judaism Point 11: Modern Hebrew (Ivrit) is a fake, constructed, non-Semitic language
Israelis vs. Palestinians: 6 Concealed Historical Truths about the Lost Wars
I. The Spiritual and Moral Conditions of National Resistance II. 6 Points of Historical Clarification about the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict Point 1: Palestinians are not Arabs, but victims of Arabization and Pan-Arabism. Point 2: The Aramaean and Philistine Past of the Palestinians Point 3: The Sea Peoples and the Peleset-Pelasgian-Cretan Ancestry of the Palestinians Point 4: Palestinian Islamists and Israeli Zionists: Criminal Accomplices in the Formation of a Deracinated Nation that functions as Expendable Material Point 5: Lack of Self-criticism brings Disaster, Death and Damnation Point 6: the Interminable Failures of the Palestinians
Response to Ayelet Gilboa’s Letter about Hamas in Israel
Проблема Израиля – это Запад, а не ХАМАС!
Ответ на письмо Айелет Гильбоа о ХАМАС в Израиле
When I first read Ayelet Gilboa’s letter, I was shocked to the extent that I initially thought that it was eventually written by an Israeli woman with the same personal and family names as the well-known archaeologist whose publications about Tel Dor (Tell el Burj in Arabic) and several other topics pertaining to the Archaeology of Palestine draw only positive comments and praise. But no! It was the famous excavator and professor!
UN Palestine Partition Plan 1947
The brief text (1300-1400 words) is not only a personal outburst of emotions that anyone can understand and certainly expect from everyone who happened to be exposed to such an adversity and iniquity; beyond that level, which was perhaps the main motive behind this unusual text, the Letter involved historical, sociological, religious-theological, educational, political, and geopolitical notions, considerations and suggestions that are the main reason of my present reaction and response.
Содержание
Введение
I. Огромный образовательный разрыв между израильтянами и палестинцами
II. Не существует нации без надлежащего национального строительства и национальной истории.
III. Колониальная ловушка была приготовлена евреям перед возвращением (Алия)
IV. Помощь палестинцам стать полноценной нацией с национальной историей — лучшая линия защиты еврейского государства.
V. Либо еврейские востоковеды убьют колониальный «арабский» миф, освободив все окружающие народы, либо вы все будете уничтожены.
VI. Западная колониальная фабрикация «арабов», несуществующей нации
VII. Намереваясь вернуться евреями, вы прибыли жителями Запада.
Дальнейший поиск в Интернете
Contents
Introduction
I. The enormous educational divide between the Israelis and the Palestinians
II. There is no nation without proper nation-building and National History
III. The colonial trap was prepared for the Jews before the return (Aliyah)
IV. Helping Palestinians become a proper nation with a National History is the best line of defense for the Jewish state
V. Either Jewish Orientalists kill the colonial ‘Arab’ myth, liberating all the surrounding nations, or you will all be annihilated
VI. The Western colonial fabrication of ‘Arabs’, a nonexistent nation
VII. Intending to return as Jews, you arrived as Westerners
Further online search
Introduction
Of course, if Prof. Ayelet Gilboa were a mathematician, an economist or a chemist, I would not be surprised; but her field of specialization, her knowledge of History, and her comprehension of field findings are -all- related to fights, battles, sudden attacks, and deaths. I still remember the noticeable sentence from the famous Anitta Text (the Deeds of Anitta of Kuššara), the earliest text written in an Indo-European language (i.e. Hittite): “one rainy night, Anitta conquered the city” (said about Neša or Kanesh, namely Caesarea of Cappadocia, today’s Kayseri). This is what History has always been: unexpected and unforeseen developments, involving killings and assassinations, destructions and detrimental loss.
A historian and an archaeologist are by definition the people who have to anticipate anything anytime anywhere and under any circumstances whatsoever; otherwise their life quests, interests, explorations and studies are worthless. Beyond this level, several key issues matter greatly and absolutely determine the chances of nations to survive or disintegrate: identity, integrity, cultural heritage, state conceptualization, foe identification, threat contextualization, etc.
Undeniably, there are many other also serious dimensions in this problem, like the perception of the other, the treatment of the other, and the attitude toward the other; if the ‘other’ is your enemy, you can certainly study the case in depth and eventually terminate this mutually disastrous attitude. But if a state’s attitude incessantly generates enemies, that state, however formidable at the military level, will never become viable. It is like killing Hamas military leaders; in real, historical terms, it is not a victory but a failure. Why? Because, quite unfortunately, the Israeli army turns them to Russian Matryoshka dolls! They kill one fighter, but another fighter prompts up! It is futile.
Last, but not the least, all historians and all archaeologists know that there is no ‘problem’ that lasts for 75 years; it is imperative to understand this. There are wars that lasted hundreds of years (Assyrians against Babylonians, Seleucids against Ptolemies, Romans against Iranians, etc.), but the wars were not ‘problems’. Wars are the most common normalcy of human life. It is up to a society and up to a state to decide whether they will live in war or in peace; but there is no peace with a problem that lasts 75 years. This is either a lie or a misperception; in this case, the state is clearly manipulated, managed and maneuvered without its choosing. Then, all the lies and the forgeries, the misperceptions and the fallacies must be unveiled and dealt with, if we want to make it sure that the state is not a product with expiry date.
Papyrus with the text of Wenamun
Following the 7th October terrorist attacks, all the constituent myths of Israel as a Jewish state must be questioned in depth; I use the term ‘constituent’, because I don’t want to be confused with the famous book of Zeev Sternhell. That is why I decided to publicly respond to Prof. Ayelet Gilboa’s Letter.
-Open Letter Response to Prof. Ayelet Gilboa’s ‘Hamas in Israel’-
Dear Prof. Gilboa,
It is with great consternation that I read your Letter; this is so because I had already gone through some of your excellent papers and publications about Tel Dor, notably about ‘Dor and Egypt in the early Iron Age: An archaeological perspective of (part of) the Wenamun report’.
As I have published a book with extensive introduction, comments and the only Modern Greek translation of Wenamun (1992), I found your research very useful and quite enlightening; although I studied Egyptology in France, England, Belgium and Germany, the adventures of Wenamun is a narrative that always reminds me of Jerusalem and Mount Scopus University where I studied precisely this story with Prof. Sarah Israelit Groll back in 1984. She made a wonderful analysis of the famous 11th c. BCE account of travel, and I included many of my notes in my book, which I also dedicated to her. In addition, I had very fruitful conversations with Prof. Hayim Tadmor at the time.
The Greek edition of Wenamun, edited and commented by me; Athens, 1992
My sojourn in Israel at a time no Intifada had started was an enriching period during which I did not only visit archaeological sites and museums but I also observed and studied social, cultural, economic and political trends and situation. I later pursued my researches in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere, but my conclusion about the ensued consequences of the UN Palestine Partition Plan (1947) and the then only 37-year long Palestinian Problem was very somber and dark. It was clear to my eyes that disastrous events would follow and the whole situation would erupt very badly.
Sarah Israelit Groll
I. The enormous educational divide between the Israelis and the Palestinians
It is perhaps necessary to brief you about my observations back at those days, because the same situation persisted in the period of 39 years that have passed since those days. I will start from education because I was astounded with what I observed and you already mention in your Letter three words related to ‘education’. Although Orientalist, Egyptological, Assyriological, etc. seminars and courses in European universities customarily had an international attendance and in spite of the fact that a large part of the local population was Palestinian, all the participants of the seminars of Sarah Israelit Groll were Israeli students; same for the courses of Hayim Tadmor! Not one Palestinian!
I am sure that as an Israeli academic, you understand what I am talking about. The bizarre situation would end in disaster. In Egypt, there are Egyptian Egyptologists, in Iraq there are Iraqi Assyriologists, but Palestinians do not have specialists in the different branches of Orientalism. In fact, there is no National History of Palestine at the level of the Palestinian universities and, even more catastrophically, for the primary and secondary schools. If this is truly disastrous for the Palestinians, it is absolutely calamitous for Israelis. Deracinated people are expendable stuff for all evasive connivers, and by this I don’t mean the state of Israel but the real enemies of both nations. I did not develop a comprehensive understanding of the subject when in Israel; I only collected pieces of data.
However, ten years later (1994), while teaching in Turkish and Northern Cypriot universities, I realized the depth and the extent of the problem; my Palestinian students were very happy with me speaking about their land, the locations and the monuments, but they were absolutely stupefied when I started speaking about the Peleset and their origin, the Sea Peoples and their invasions, let alone the inscriptions on the walls of Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. Among my students, there were Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt; none of them knew about the Ark of the Covenant having been captured by the Philistines, none of them had heard anything about the Aramaean Synagogue of Dura Europos (and the frescoes transported in the National Museum of Damascus), the Samaritans, and Palestinian Aramaic.
Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, Luxor West
Ramesses III fights the Sea Peoples
The First Intifada had ended and the Oslo Accords were signed (Oslo I Accord), but I kept having a doomster’s idea about the future of that land, not because many among my Palestinian students did not trust the agreement, but on account of their ignorance of their own historical past and heritage, and of that of their presumed enemies, i.e. the Israelis. When I spoke to them about Flavius Josephus and his story concerning the encounter of Alexander the Great with the priest Jaddua in Jerusalem, my Palestinian students immediately asked me whether the Macedonian invader of Iran met with any Palestinian magistrate.
I believe that you can guess that my response astounded them even more; I referred to Eusebius of Caesarea and to his friendship with Constantine the Great. When they heard that the greatest historian of Early Christianity was a Palestinian, they were shocked and proud at the same time. Useless to add that their knowledge about the History of the Islamic World was next to nothing; they knew Ibn Hajar al Asqalani only as a name. The same is valid for Al Biruni, Tabari, Al Farabi, and many others.
Al Biruni, ‘Chronology of the Ancient Nations’
This is the beginning of the problem; as long as this situation persists, all the fights, all the security measures, all the reprisals, and -unfortunately- all the agreements will be futile or superfluous. Have a look at Birzeit University portal! There is Palestinian Archaeology, but the History of Palestinians starts with the arrival of Islam – which is a colonial lie. As you certainly know quite well, the fundamental texts with which their History starts are the Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions of Ramesses III and the cuneiform Assyrian Babylonian texts of the 1st millennium BCE (mainly the Annals of the Neo-Assyrian Emperors).
II. There is no nation without proper nation-building and National History
For the Palestinians to reach the average nation level with their National History, it would therefore take an entire nation-building effort involving several Palestinian specialists, historians and writers, who would first write down a National History of Palestine. This was done in Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey, in Iran, and in several other countries, notably Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. As I have lived in many countries in Asia and Africa, I can eventually postulate a plausible response to the above statement; the serious problem that the Palestinians currently face occurs also in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, etc. That’s true; in their primary and secondary education, there is no proper, coherent, and effective presentation of their respective past and heritage.
What is even worse with all those bogus-systems of education of the aforementioned fake states is that, in the historical manuals for the primary and secondary education, there is not even proportional presentation of all the historical stages of their past and heritage; it is absolutely ludicrous that in the schools of Egypt, pupils learn about Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Ramesses II, and Ramesses III, only to be forced to move thence straight to the Islamic times.
Today’s disastrously ignorant and perversely educated Egyptians know
– nothing about the rivalry of the 25th Cushitic (: Sudanese, called ‘Ethiopian’) dynasty with the Berbers (called ‘Libyans’) of the 26th dynasty,
– nothing about the Achaemenid Iranian invasion and rule of Egypt (let alone the famous Darius I the Great’s inscription and the re-opening of the Suez Canal),
– nothing about the Ptolemies and the Romans,
– nothing about the diffusion of Isiac cults and spirituality throughout Greece, Rome, the Roman Empire, and the rest of Europe,
– nothing about the Periplus of the Red (‘Erythraean’) Sea,
– nothing about Philo of Alexandria, Onias IV and his temple, the clashes between the Jews and the Greeks of Alexandria, the Gnostics and the Nag Hammadi texts, Hermes Trismegistus, and the Manichaeans of Alexandria, who constituted for Diocletian a danger greater than the Christians, and many other glorious pages of the Egyptian past.
I could expand more, but I am sure that you understand quite well what I mean. But then, you don’t just have a ‘Palestinian’ problem but also an ‘Egyptian’ problem, and similarly many other problems that you as a society, as well as your present and all the previous governments, failed to even identify, let alone deal with. You did not understand that not one properly and nationally educated citizen would possibly become a terrorist. All these sick and rotten postcolonial societies are made of fake people without national identity, without any sense of their role in the History of Mankind, and without any elementary knowledge about the true History of Islam.
They therefore automatically become expendable stuff in the hands of various local and international crooks, gangsters, and pseudo-Muslim sheikhs who totally misrepresent the Islamic religion, tradition, integrity and history. Then, this is a purely colonial affair in which you and they are taken as hostages of the criminal Western European powers (France and England), and of their successor (after 1956), namely the US.
The Stela of Shaluf, issued by Darius I on the occasion of the re-opening of the Suez Canal – totally unknown to the average Egyptians
III. The colonial trap was prepared for the Jews before the return (Aliyah)
The abysmal truth is that the Western Europeans and the Americans, who always smile to you in order to exterminate you, did not send you back to your ancestral land but to the world’s worst trap that they had prepared accordingly ever since Napoleon set foot in Abuqir, west of Alexandria, back in July 1798. They deliberately produced this educational, academic, intellectual, academic, scientific, socio-behavioral and cultural backwardism and obscurantism throughout the lands that they colonized in the wider region in order to duly utilize the local populations at will.
When the Zionist movement came up with the idea of the ‘return’, it was already too late. You certainly went through the excellent book by Donald Malcolm Reid “Whose Pharaohs?” (University of California Press, 2002); this is a must for every Orientalist, Africanist and political scientist. Amongst others, the book reveals to the non-specialist reader something that is very well known to all Egyptologists: only 100 years after the decipherment of the Egyptian Hieroglyphic writing by Jean-François Champollion was an Egyptian Egyptologist properly formed at last.
This colonial attitude, behavior and environment corresponded to the interests of the French, the English and the Americans, but as you know quite well, they did not live in Algeria, Egypt or Syria; they effectuated brief or long sojourns there. If suddenly things turned worse, they could go back home. Even the Pied-Noirs left in 1962 in a rather anodyne form. But for you this situation can become lethal. You therefore truly need to open your eyes now!
You are not surrounded by Muslims; your ancestors were in the Ottoman Empire, in Mamluk Egypt, in Umayyad Cordoba, and in Abbasid Baghdad. And they lived in peace with the Muslims at the time. Maimonides left Cordoba and lived in Morocco, Palestine and Egypt, but he did not go to France or England. Quite unfortunately, you do not live at the time of Moshe ben Maimon, and your neighbors are not true Muslims but misfortunate people who, after a long period of cultural-intellectual-spiritual decadence and social decay, were defaced because of the colonial rule, impaired by the Orientalists, and fooled by uneducated political stooges, idiotic military officers, and ignorant pseudo-imams. Your neighbors constitute merely a well-produced expendable stuff. You can call them robots, cyborgs or humanoids, if you like, because they are fully programmed to react according to the needs of their colonial masters. They are totally deprived of proper education, nation-building, national dignity, historical identity, and cultural integrity.
So, can’t you see how futile it is to attempt to kill all the fighters and the leaders of Hamas? You will kill 100000 (a hundred thousand) people only to realize that the next Hamas shift will start – eventually under another name, but does this really matter? Will the next shift be made by Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Algerians, Iraqis or Pakistanis? Would you really care about this? There will always be some expendable stuff to be used by your true enemies, who really enjoy the spectacle from far. Your enemies do not dwell in Ariha (Jericho), Khalil (Hebron), Jenin or Nablus; they live in London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Dublin, Rome, Canberra, Ottawa, and Washington D.C.
IV. Helping Palestinians become a proper nation with a National History is the best line of defense for the Jewish state
So, it was your fault to move to a place that you had not properly studied and to live in your country, having an absolute disregard of the ‘others’; you should have cared about what had been done to the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Lebanese, and the rest. And it was the fault of your ancestors, who did not notice that the name ‘Lebanon’ is a bad joke, that the country north of your borders is Phoenicia, and that its historical name should by all means be its true national name. In fact, Syriac-Aramaic is the only true national language of Lebanon, and as long as it is not proclaimed as such, the fake state of Lebanon will be a special factory that produces expendable stuff.
You were not the victims of the colonial powers until 1948; but by relocating and living among the highly victimized people of Palestine, by having as neighbors the disastrously deluded people of Lebanon (Phoenicia), Syria-Mesopotamia (Aram-Nahrain), Egypt (Kemet or Masr), and Libya-Tunisia-Algeria-Morocco (Berberia), and by failing to rescue them from their colonial engulfment first for your own sake, you became victims of the colonial powers too.
You may say that the Palestinians back in the 1890s and the 1920s did not show an interest for their pre-Islamic past and heritage; but this is a non-response! Similarly, the Egyptians back in the 1750s and the 1810s did not have an inclination to explore their pre-Islamic heritage, history and identity. It should therefore be your own true concern to explain to the Palestinians that no nation exists without historical identity and cultural integrity. And I don’t speak for the 1950s or the 1990s but the 1920s and the 1930s, because I know that you are fully aware of the progress that the Orientalist studies and disciplines made at those days.
Over more than a century, you had the chance to contemplate and examine how you would live in peace, concord and cooperation with your neighbors in Palestine and all the surrounding lands, but you failed to find the path; quite contrarily, you truly disregarded them all in exactly the same colonial manner that the gangsters of England, France and America have dealt with the indigenous populations that they colonized.
The very disastrous result was that you wanted to return to the ‘Promised Land’ as Jews, but you arrived as non-Jewish Westerners. The entire problem exploded when in 1969 the then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in an interview with Frank Giles (The Sunday Times) made the paranoid statement that “there was no such thing as Palestinians”. In real terms, the absurd sentence was more lethal than Hamas attack because it forced you to disregard all the Palestinians, to act in your ancestral land as colonial aliens, and to push the undeniably ancient nation of Palestinians to the most extreme forms of resistance, reaction and retaliation.
The problem had already existed for more than two decades before Golda Meir’s disastrous maxim; its earlier form encompassed also the nonsensical appellation ‘Israeli Arabs’ for the Palestinians who stayed within the territory of Israel after the 1948 war, thus becoming Israeli citizens. In fact, there are no Arabs at all! This was the colonial invention that plunged the entire region between the Atlantic and Pakistan in chaos, ignorance, obscurantism and hatred.
Peleset/Palestinians and other Sea Peoples as depicted on the walls of Medinet Habu mortuary temple of Ramesses III, more than 3150 years before Golda Meir’s absurd words
V. Either Jewish Orientalists kill the colonial ‘Arab’ myth, liberating all the surrounding nations, or you will all be annihilated
Actually, there were no Turks, no Iranians, no Uzbeks, no Kazakhs, no Somalis, no Yemenites and no Indians prior to the colonial arrival in all those vast lands. The concept of ‘nation’ in the Eastern Roman Empire, in the Islamic Caliphates, and in the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires was very different, and the connotation of this word involved totally different worldview and world conceptualization. As you know quite well, this fact goes back in time and it does indeed concern the Achaemenid Empire of Iran and even earlier universal(-ist) states.
However, if the modern concept of nation had to be diffused from the African Atlas to Oman and from North Mesopotamia to Hadhramaut, the national identity at the local level would have to be based on the historical knowledge, the archaeological record, the philological documentation, and the interdisciplinary interpretation of the data. The cultural integrity of a nation does not encapsulate any ideological indoctrination or a theological approach but popular religion, folklore and traditions that may eventually antedate the arrival of the latest prevailing religion.
Not a drop of Arab blood can be found in the veins of all the various nations of the wider region; similarly not a vestige of Arab culture can be attested among them.
The Libyans, the Tunisians, the Algerians, the Moroccans and the Mauritanians are all ethnically Berbers.
The Egyptians are ethnically Copts — except for few Berbers in the NW, the Nubians in the South, and the Beja in the SE.
The Sudanese belong to many nations, either Cushitic (like the Beja, the Furi, and the Arabic-speaking people of the central provinces) or Nilo-Saharan {like the Nubians, the Nuba, and the Berta, who also live in the Benishangul province of Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia)}.
The Yemenites and the Omanis are the descendants of the Ancient Yemenites and Ancient Omanis, who were ethnically Semitic but not Arab. Ancient Yemenite inscriptions have been deciphered thanks to the Ancient Abyssinian writing and language (Ge’ez), which is entirely Yemenite of origin (and this shows that the Amhara and the Tigray are not Africans, but Yemenites who crossed the Red Sea and settled initially around Massawa). As you know, during the last 100 years before Islam, there were several bilingual inscriptions Sabaean and Arabic, Himyaritic and Arabic, and this shows that the idea that the Yemenites are Arabs is entirely wrong. Simply, they were linguistically Arabized because they accepted Islam; but this fact did not turn them to Arabs, pretty much like the African Americans are not Anglo-Saxons.
Last, the Syrians, the Iraqis, the Lebanese, the Jordanians, the Palestinians, the Arabic-speaking populations of SE Turkey and SW Iran, the Kuwaitis, the Qataris, and the Emiratis are Aramaeans (Semitic like the Phoenicians, the Hebrews, the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Canaanites, and the Yemenites, but not Arab).
In this wide region, the Aramaeans were linguistically Arabized because they accepted Islam; but this fact did not turn them to Arabs.
VI. The Western colonial fabrication of ‘Arabs’, a nonexistent nation
In fact, «Arab Nation» has only been a fake Western colonial Orientalist construction to which the Western scholars attributed any repugnant trait they wanted in order to make it as disgusting as possible. It was an ahistorical, illusory description and an intentional, fallacious fabrication; its use was double.
First, the concept was gradually projected onto all the colonized populations of Algeria, Egypt, Aden, Tunisia, Sudan, Morocco, Libya, etc. ‘Arabization’ campaigns were undertaken for this purpose; but as you surely understand very well, you can ‘Arabize’ only the non-Arab.
Second, colonial lies in extraordinary multitude started being propagated at home (in Western Europe and North America) as early as the beginning of the 19th c. about the Berbers, who were falsely depicted as «Arab», i.e. the fallacious construction that I have just mentioned. Europeans and Americans started then having a very wrong idea about the Berbers.
Locally, in their colonies, the French authorities did the exactly opposite work: through their stooges, they forced the Berbers to stop being culturally Berber and to become something similar to the caricature of Arab that the colonial Orientalists had constructed. For this spiritual genocide to be done the criminal French colonials killed as many Berbers as they needed; they prohibited pre-Islamic Berber popular traditions and sacred festivals in order to tyrannically turn the existent Berbers into something nonexistent: «Arabs»; they did their best to uproot Berber language and to extinguish Berber identity.
This is the trickery that all the silly political leaders, cruel military officers, fake academics, servile journalists, and ignorant pseudo-sheikhs from Morocco to Oman and from Syria to Yemen failed to detect, let alone understand; but before 250 years, not one man among their ancestors would identify himself as ‘Arab’. Yet, the elites of the colonized nations fell into the trap that the Western colonials prepared for them, thus causing enduring disastrous conditions for their respective peoples.
– What is an «Arab»?
– The lawless villain, the filthiest rascal, the most execrable felon!
This is the Western response.
But this concept is unreal; it does not exist.
It is the delusional fabrication of the Orientalists.
Have a look at Delacroix’s Sardanapalus, and you will grasp the extent of the extreme fallacy!
In fact, after Prophet Muhammad, historical Arabs ceased to exist; by accepting Islam, they were culturally Aramaized and totally de-Arabized. All the same, 18th-19th c. European colonials fabricated them and, by tyrannically projecting them onto Berbers, Copts, Aramaeans, Cushites and Yemenites, they carried out multiple spiritual genocides. This claim is not extraordinary because, in the process, the criminal Western colonials exterminated the Berber, the Coptic, the Cushitic Sudanese, the Yemenite, the Aramaean cultural integrity, tradition and superiority which so much disturbed the Europeans and their evildoing.
Tadmor-Palmyra, a high place of Aramaean heritage
Ethnically viewed
Ethnically speaking, historical Arabs do not exist either. They progressively vanished after they spread outside the Arabian Peninsula because they settled in different lands and there they intermingled with Aramaeans, Iranians, Turanians, Indians, Yemenites, Copts, Sudanese Cushites, Somali Cushites, Berbers and even Iberians (Spain and Portugal). From another viewpoint, the Arabs became ethnically extinct because many Muslims from various parts of the Islamic World used to relocate and settle in the Hejaz in numerous waves, thus extensively amalgamating with the local Arabs who remained in their ancestral land. This process took place uninterruptedly for no less than 1400 years.
Linguistically viewed
Linguistically, Arabic is a dead language — just like Assyrian-Babylonian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Ancient Phoenician, and Biblical Hebrew. This is easy to understand because the so-called ‘Arab-natives’ (a totally fallacious term) cannot fluently read the texts written by a major author of the Golden Era of Islam, namely Al Farabi, Al Biruni, Ibn Sina, etc.
Classical Arabic was developed as language on the basis of Quranic Arabic and incorporated numerous Aramaic, Farsi, Coptic and other words during the Golden Era of Islamic Civilization. But none of these languages is the mother tongue of any person today. The mixed dialects that prevail from place to place cannot become the proper national language of a sound nation. The so-called Modern Standard Arabic ( الفصحى) is an alien Orientalist construction and standardization, which apparently failed to support proper education in any country it was used.
Quite contrarily, Berber, Coptic, Afaan Oromo, Mahri Yemenite, and Syriac Aramaic have the historicity and the cultural interconnectivity with the historical heritage of the respective nations and can therefore become the true national languages of those targeted and deliberately divided nations. But then, this great perspective would calamitously damage the interests of France and England; this would be inevitably so, because -to offer an example- the entire North Africa from Siwa to Nouakchott would automatically become an enormous Hamitic Berber confederate secular state the size of Brazil (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Chad, Niger and Mali) with all the chances to become a major power worldwide.
Modern Standard Arabic, imposed by the colonial powers, was then the lethally divisive factor, which triggered educational-academic obscurantism, socio-economic misery, unnecessary political divisions, endless fratricidal conflicts, incredible bloodshed, unprecedented oppression (from the part of the Pan-Arabist idiots) and strong chances for an Islamist drift (and this is what we observed at last).
Culturally viewed
Last, culturally, the Arabs disappeared when they accepted Islam (610-632 CE) in the form in which it was preached by Prophet Muhammad, because in real historical terms, the process of Islamization of the Arabs (acceptance of the ‘new’ faith by them) is tantamount to cultural Aramaization. They abandoned the old Arab idolatrous, nomadic and barbaric culture, and they accepted Aramaean culture with a religion that was slightly different from Aramaean Nestorian Christianity. For this reason, the early caliphates were consolidated in Syria and Mesopotamia, whereas Hejaz remained a marginal zone throughout the Islamic times.
And that’s why the History of Early Islam has been so much distorted in Western universities where they teach a false, extremist (and quite often Arabized) version of History only to show that the execrable traits of this fictitious «Arab» concept involve razzias (raids), thefts, rapes, conquests, killings, massacres, atrocities, unrestrained rage, uncouth behavior, womanizing, homosexuality, pedophilia, and all the other hideous acts that you can imagine. In fact, properly fabricated in the darkness of the Orientalist ateliers, 19th c. Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism are communicating vessels.
As long as Berber, Coptic, and Syriac Aramaic do not become respectively the official national languages in all these states, with Mahri in Yemen, Dhofari in Oman, Beja in Eastern Sudan, Furi in Western Sudan, and Afaan Oromo in Central Sudan, all the useless and fake postcolonial states will be simple playthings pitilessly thrown against one another or multi-divided and ruined. Without having formerly been anti-Jewish, these colonized populations have intentionally and craftily been turned into the enemies of the Jews or of anyone whom the colonial powers intend to involve as per their evildoing and schemes.
Call to Prophethood; miniature from a folio manuscript of Hafiz-i Abru’s Majma’ al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Histories); 15th c.
Because you failed to identify the colonial deeds carried out locally and regionally, you arrived in the trap which was set there and you did not understand that Aliyah would automatically backfire on you, if you did not deploy an enormous academic, educational, intellectual, scientific and cultural effort to liberate all those different nations from the already implanted colonial myths that victimized them. Then, the ignorant sheikhs, who have no idea about the true, historical Islam, and the knowledgeable Israeli academics, who know much but fail to identify the vicious colonial plots of England, France and Vatican, are equivalently and unequivocally driven to mutual calamity, terminal destruction, and undeserved ruination. Can’t you see that?
All the diverse nations that surround you failed to find in you the true ally against the evil colonial powers that had already ruined them; and you failed to find in them your sole valuable partner and protector against the Western forces that mercilessly killed you in Europe and now want to exterminate you in Asia. The reciprocal error threatens you all; the indigenous nations were in a long decadence process, but you had a very crucial problem of identity: the right to the Promised Land, which has -as you know quite well- questionable historical credentials, is not relevant to Law, International Law, Politics, International Relations or Human Rights but exclusively to Religion, namely the Ancient Hebrew Religion and its surviving branch, i.e. Judaism.
VII. Intending to return as Jews, you arrived as Westerners
I don’t intend to reproduce here the vast literature that many modern rabbis like the deferential Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro have created, rejecting and condemning Zionism as an alien system that ‘hijacked’ Judaism (see below); but I am sure that you are well aware of their approaches, analyses and criticisms. There is however an undeniable fact; you, in your Letter, described yourself as “a sworn leftist activist”. The statement is the epicenter of your personal problem, and at the same time, it highlights aspects of the overall problem.
Dear Prof. Gilboa,
I am sorry, but there is no such thing as a ‘leftist Jew’; modern concepts are alien to all religions; the very paradoxical and totally unnatural marriage of Anglo-Saxon ‘politics’ and French ‘Lumières’ with local cultures and regional religions has caused diverse types of wars and conflicts which are entirely due to the monstrous essence of the Western system of governance that we call politics; the maladroit and rogue system is totally unsuitable to all, because it disregards, erodes and eradicates all local traditions, cultures, and popular religions.
Various types of systems of governance existed throughout Human History; in every land, governance reflected local traditions, world conceptualization, and moral values. The systems were different from but not opposite to one another; that’s why it was easy for Benjamin of Tudela, who was familiar with the tawa’if (taifas) of the Iberian Peninsula, to accept all the locally diverse types of rule and spend time peacefully in the lands that he visited in the second half of the 12th c. But in the colonized and therefore traumatized region where you intended to return in the first half of the 20th c., a terrible shock had occurred due to the overwhelmingly rejected, colonially/tyrannically enforced, Western intervention and brutal regime change that the disreputable Sykes-Picot trash had triggered.
There cannot be ‘Socialist Christian’, ‘Liberal Muslim’, ‘Leftist Jew’, ‘Extreme Right Hindu’ or ‘Conservative Buddhist’; Renaissance, Classicism, Enlightenment and the Western European – North American political system of governance prevailed in those lands as a local reaction against, and rejection of, the earlier normal, natural and historical systems of governance.
What is abnormal in its own place cannot possibly become the norm in another location!
But unfortunately many Jews, returning to the ‘Promised Land’ in the early 20th c., arrived there not as true Jews, but as real Westerners.
How can you not see the enormous difference that separates you from the Sephardic Jews who were invited to the Ottoman Empire in 1492 by Bayezid II?
They arrived as Jews, but you arrived as Westerners.
What do you think the fate of the expelled (from Spain) Jews would have been in 1492, had they arrived in the Ottoman Empire under the mask of a Crusader?
Göke was the flagship of Kemal Reis; before constructing the large ship (1495), he was dispatched (1492) from Istanbul to Spain in order to transport Andalusian Jews to Izmir (Smyrna) and Selanik (Salonica).
Certainly, pretty much like nowadays, the Jews who arrived in the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 20th c. belonged to different branches of Judaism, movements and systems of faith; but the undeniable fact that many of them were Westernized fully jeopardized your chances of peacefully settling and living with the indigenous populations.
It was only normal for them to consider and perceive you negatively as an extension of Western colonialism or as a second stage of colonial enmity and hatred against both, the Christians and the Muslims of Palestine.
And you, by arriving as Westerners, only aggravated this feeling, whereas if you returned as real Jews, you would be accepted and befriended. As you certainly understand, it is not a matter of Holocaust, because I speak for the period prior to the early 1930s.
By being the least Jewish possible, you turned your potential friends and allies into enemies.
And by being the most Western possible, you served the most anti-Jewish plans in World History; those prepared by your worst enemies.
To further reference the historical past and heritage, I will formulate two questions that highlight the terrible mistakes of the 19th–20th c. Zionist movement, its wrong practices, false visions, and calamitous practices, fully presenting them as entirely detrimental to all the Jews. I do not mean that you should not ‘return’ or that you should move to another land – which was part of deliberations as you know quite well. Quite contrarily, I want to underscore the fact that, as it happens on many other occasions, what is important is not what you do, but how you do it.
How did you not realize (as early as 1882) that, for your Aliyah plan to be easily materialized, you needed the Ottoman Empire to remain intact within its borders so that, as a sizeable realm, it had no difficulty accommodating large newcoming populations?
Alternatively, and in the light of the emergence of Modern Turkey under Kemal Ataturk (1919-1923), how did you not realize that your Aliyah plan would be implemented with fewer obstacles only in the case of formation of a major secular confederate state named Aram Nahrain that would stretch throughout the wider region, involving the territories of today’s Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, the northern parts of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates?
Such a sizeable, anti-colonial state would ipso facto be a multiethnic, multilingual and multicultural realm in which Syriac Aramaic would be the national language, Quranic Arabic would be the religious language of the Muslims, and the numerous indigenous ethno-religious groups would peacefully live, cooperate and prosper. Only this type of state would offer reciprocal knowledge, equitable chances, and emancipatory conditions of life to all the citizens. Although many Israeli academics and statesmen were worthwhile scholars and renowned intellectuals, there was none among them to think truly out-of-the-box and identify viable solutions for the problems that you faced.
Even now, the forces are there for you to reach out to and work with; but you must first remove the repugnant colonial mask which de-Judaized and westernized you, perceive the History of Judaism in its true, Oriental, dimensions, and finally prefer Nehardea to Rome, Iran to England, Russia to France, and China to America. As soon as you think, speak and act as a Westerner, you are overwhelmingly rejected, loathed and reviled – perhaps undeservedly, but so it is! You have to open your eyes and see!
Either you will die with your Western executioners who think they can survive by using you as expendable stuff or you will survive with your Oriental brethren who think that you want to survive at their expense!
For קֹהֶלֶת (Qohelet, Εκκλησιαστής, Ecclesiastes; 7:23-24) to be proven right, you need to prove them both wrong!
Cuncta tentavi in sapientia. Dixi: Sapiens efficiar: et ipsa longius recessit a me multo magis quam erat, et alta profunditas; Quis inveniet eam?
All this I tested by wisdom and I said, “I am determined to be wise”— but this was beyond me. Whatever exists is far off and most profound— who can discover it?
Best regards,
Shamsaddin
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Further online search
General, introductory reading for non-specialist readership (references to Wikipedia links do not mean acceptance of the contents):
Может ли президент Казахстана Касым-Жомарт Токаев принести мир Палестине и Израилю?
The successive stages of the preparation of a Palestinian-Israeli peaceful co-habitation plan
Последовательные этапы подготовки палестино-израильского плана мирного сосуществования
Содержание
Введение
I. Палестина-Израиль: 10 пунктов общей оценки фактов прошлого и настоящего
II. Палестина-Израиль: 10 пунктов общего восприятия скрытых опасностей
III. Палестина-Израиль: 10 пунктов базового соглашения по сектору Газа
IV. Палестина-Израиль: 10 пунктов базового соглашения по Западному Берегу
V. Десять сильных сторон, которые дают Казахстану возможность добиться единственно эффективного мирного разрешения палестино-израильского конфликта
VI. Десять столпов подхода Казахстана к разрешению палестино-израильского конфликта
VII. Десять этапов плана Казахстана по прекращению палестино-израильского конфликта – резюме и диаграмма
Основные ссылки / ориентиры, по которым в конечном итоге можно будет проконсультироваться:
Contents
Introduction
I. Palestine-Israel: 10 points of common evaluation of past and present facts
II. Palestine-Israel: 10 points of shared perception of the lurking dangers
III. Palestine-Israel: 10 points of a basic agreement on Gaza Strip
IV. Palestine-Israel: 10 points of a basic agreement on West Bank
V. Ten strengths that empower Kazakhstan to bring about the only effective peaceful resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict
VI. Ten pillars of Kazakhstan’s approach to the resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict
VII. Ten stages of Kazakhstan’s plan to terminate the Palestine-Israel conflict – recapitulation and diagram
Basic links/points of reference to eventually consult:
Introduction
The historical depth of the Palestine-Israel conflict is abysmal; it is lost in millennia and in human acts and stories that can be misinterpreted, concealed or forgotten. However, the practical impact of this conflict is already abhorrent, and chances are that it becomes fatal for all.
Observing the astonishment of people across the Earth and monitoring the reaction of governments to the recent developments, one can easily conclude that the force of vision and the drive of life have abandoned the humans. There is a phenomenal dearth of creative imagination and an enormous lack of drastic decision to put an end to an endlessly deteriorating trouble.
Although nothing guarantees the victory of one side over the other, the passive observers and the naïve narrators of the new, exasperating stage that the conflict took seem to be impotent witnesses and therefore unwilling accomplices in a human calamity that can turn far worse for all.
Brainlessly, pathetically, and deplorably, different governments, organizations, groups of countries, mass media, and -worst of all- independent scholars, specialists, and intellectuals find the occasion propitious to reiterate their preferences, choices, desires and ideas, which are -all- the invariable reasons of the trouble, and of its deterioration. People fail to understand that, before they speak about the problem, they have created it, due to their own inaccurate thoughts, misperceptions, biases, prejudices, errors, oversights, omissions and calamitous acts.
Before taking position and prior to siding with one or the other part of the conflict (which is the case of most people and governments), all the participants of the trouble and all the external commentators and intricate analysts fail to realize that they are part of the problem, they contributed to it and to its misperception, and they failed to take the necessary distance to see things from far in order to thus better assess the reality and identify innovative approaches and inventive solutions, which could reduce the incommensurable collateral damages that constitute the Palestine-Israel conflict’s worst aspect.
Is it possible for Kazakhstan, a historical nation that always managed to maintain the balance of power between the Dzungar Mongolians, the Chinese, the Russians and the Uzbeks, and for President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, a career diplomat and a consummate statesman, to help resolve the Palestinian-Israeli problem now that it takes a most menacing appearance?
Many people do not know that in the past President Tokayev served as Under Secretary-General, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and Personal Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General to the Conference on Disarmament (2011-2018). Apparently, this is an indication that he may be successful in areas where others failed or were simply discredited.
Is it possible to find a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?
The answer to this question hinges on the balance one can establish between perception, knowledge and understanding of the problem from one side and realistic evaluation of the potential formula to resolve the problem once for all from the other side. Irrespective of the burden of the past, regardless of the vested interests to pull strings, and in spite of calamitous choices or unrealistic dreams that the main actors of the conflict may still harbor in their befuddled heads, there is always a way to make sense, a ground to meet reciprocal needs, a point to agree on, and an inherent ability to comprehend the vicinity of the disaster.
In order to find a reciprocally beneficial exit from the Palestine-Israel quagmire, one should first help the main factors of the problem (i.e. the two sides of the conflict) shape a common evaluation of the past and present facts, a shared perception of the lurking dangers, and a basic agreement on steps to make mutually.
I. Palestine-Israel: 10 points of common evaluation of past and present facts
Referring to ‘past and present facts’, I mean the period of the last 30 years that passed after the signature of the Oslo Accords (13 September 1993); it is essential to note that the recent terrorist attack undertaken by Hamas did indeed take place less than a month after the 30th anniversary of the Oslo I Accord. Major facts about which Israelis and Palestinians should form a common evaluation are the following:
1- the non-implementation of the Oslo Accords, the weakening of the authority of the Palestinian Authority, and the harsh treatment of ordinary Palestinians were entirely counter-productive and disastrous for both, Palestine and Israel;
2- the deliberate discrediting of the Palestinian Authority was a disastrous choice;
3- the support and/or promotion of Hamas was a calamitous decision;
4- the imprisonment of militants and politicians (like Marwan Barghouti), who would prevent Hamas from gaining support among Palestinians, was catastrophic;
MarwanBarghouti, a popular Palestinian leader, gestures as Israeli police bring him into the District Court for his judgment hearing in Tel Aviv May 20, 2004
5- the conviction of the Israeli governments and the Israeli people that the policies implemented and the attitudes expressed with respect to the Palestinians were correct proved to be entirely wrong;
6- every step toward a solution of the conflict must be made within the context of the International Law, with the support and the guarantee of the international body, in accordance with the Oslo Accords, and as continuation of the expectations created because of the said agreements;
7- every future negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians has to be carried out in appreciation of the overwhelming changes that took place worldwide over the past 30 years;
8- the nominal and the real support offered to Israel by its so-called ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ did not finally help the Jewish state to achieve safety, security, peace and non-aggression from the part of its declared enemies;
9- consequently, the new agreements must be signed by sincere and committed statesmen and representatives ready to accept an entirely different international context within which to successfully position the new, final and permanent agreement;
10- there cannot be any Israeli military victory over Hamas; the Israeli statesmen, who believe in or diffuse this delusion, must step aside.
First, material destruction does not provide moral victory and social peace.
Second, more innocent Palestinian victims die in Gaza, smaller the chances of a new agreement become.
Third, after a deep and long Israeli involvement in Gaza and following extraordinary bloodshed, terrible destruction of the material infrastructure, and unprecedented casualties for the Israeli army, the Israeli government will finally realize that, the top leadership of Hamas has escaped and -even worse- that there will then be even more Palestinians ready to fight (not for Palestine anymore but) for Hamas. At that very moment, the majority of the Israelis will start abandoning the country (Yerida), being absolutely sure of its inevitable unviability.
Is it necessary to reach that level in order to understand?
Most probably, not!
Instead, a national unity government in Israel now will help the country prepare for the necessary negotiations.
II. Palestine-Israel: 10 points of shared perception of the lurking dangers
It is now essential that both parts of the conflict shared the same perception of the existing, very serious, dangers that exist for both nations; they are as per below:
1- the Israeli government must assess very seriously the position in which it found itself, when the terrorist attacks of 7th October 2023 forced Israelis to understand the down-to-earth reality that surrounds them. In fact, Israel is not only entrapped in a situation that forces the local government to perpetrate a repugnant butchery in revenge of an unspeakable slaughter. The Jewish state is subtly pushed -in a most dexterous manner- to demonstrate incomparable cynicism, atrocious rage, and foremost inhumanity while appearing as the avenger of a monstrous crime. In other words, the sophisticated machination was geared in order to induce Israel to act in an impermissible manner, which deprives similarly acting states from any right to exist.
2- Israel’s hidden enemies, all those organizations and governments that guide the puppet states of Qatar, Iran and Turkey, expect the Israeli government to do exactly what most of the Israelis find as a logical and rightful response to the massacre perpetrated before 24 days. The lurking danger is that Israel, reacting in the way many Israelis and Jews at large desire, achieves nothing else than a high degree of self-deprecatory action, which would entirely discredit the Jewish state, thus irreparably damaging bilateral relations and international presence.
3- associated to the aforementioned situations is the risk of Israel taking distance from the international common sense and appearing as markedly distinct from the other nations in the evaluation of typical situations that occur worldwide; quite unfortunately, massacres and genocides do happen, either they become known and they are denounced or not. Consequently, the Hamas terrorist attack, albeit surely abhorrent, is not a unique case.
As it happens in similar circumstances, there is always discussion as to whether the attacks were triggered by earlier developments; it is only normal for humans to try to identify every time the beginning of the circle of violence. Were the Hamas attacks provoked by some reason? Were they unprovoked? These points were reflected in the UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Security Council on the Middle East (“It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.”) This sentence prompted the rage of the Israeli representative, but … are there truly “unprovoked” attacks?
4- the risks of Israel carrying out a mass murder in retaliation (no 1), discrediting itself (no 2), and looking distinct from the rest of the world (no 3) are not the only; sparring with the UN Secretary-General (or demanding that he quits, etc.) only plays into the game of Israel’s worst enemies who meticulously work in order to generate the image of a Jewish state totally isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. ‘The castaway’ is certainly not the model that Jews all over the world really intend to present as that of their state.
5- one of the worst dangers that can be produced due to the present explosive situation is the extreme radicalization of the Palestinians and the subsequent inability of the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with any Israeli representative. Israel does not have the power to throw all the Palestinians out of Palestine; it is therefore essential that all Israeli statesmen, parliamentarians, politicians, rabbis, academics, journalists and average people have no delusions in this regard. On the contrary, they must do their ingenious best to maintain the dialogue and to select among the Palestinians the most sound, balanced, reasonable and unbiased interlocutors.
6- trying to dissociate Hamas from the average Palestinians is a murky terrain and a foolish attempt; for instance, the speech that the Israeli Permanent Representative to the UN, ambassador Gilad Erdan, addressed to his counterparts started with the expression of the concept that Israel is not at war with all the Palestinian people, but “with the genocidal Jihadist Hamas terror organization”; however, only few minutes later, the rather confused speaker stated that the Palestinian people in Gaza were enthusiastically participating in, and fully rejoicing with, the spectacle that Hamas organized in the streets of Gaza with all the Israeli -maltreated- parading hostages (from 05:15 to 05:30: Israeli ambassador to the UN addresses General Assembly
7- the dangers ensuing from the already started military operation in Gaza are considerable. This is perhaps subconsciously admitted by senior Israeli officials, who seem -these days- unable to understand what they are saying. The following is a statement made by the Israeli Defense Forces in the social media:
“Hamas’ terrorist headquarters under the Shifa hospital is draining the necessities—fuel, oxygen, water and electricity—from the Gazans and staff and using them for terrorism” https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1718203005231665657
My personal comment –response was the following:
“You just published the full proof of why such war is futile. You cannot win or you will win with an extremely high record of casualties; and then you will realize that the bulk of Hamas escaped and remains intact outside Palestine”.
The peril that Israelis kill an extremely high number of Palestinians without bringing substantive results is great; the menace of Israelis having thousands of dead in the military operations that they started undertaking in Gaza is real. And the danger of IDF causing indescribable destruction to Gaza and dreadful casualties in Israel without really exterminating Hamas is evident.
8- the perspective that the ongoing military operations will radicalize hundreds of millions of people in Asia, Africa and Europe is clearly visible; furthermore, the chances of turning moderate and reasonable governments to extremist and hostile administrations are high; even worse, the possibility that temperate statesmen are overthrown and then chaos prevails in several countries located in the wider region is strong.
The eventuality of a regional ordeal and the likelihood of the formation of a great number of actively anti-Israeli states from Algeria to Pakistan and from Kazakhstan to Tanzania cannot be possibly the wish of an Israeli government; only fanatic guys and paranoid plotters would be happy with the perspective of a generalized war between Israel and 15-20 countries situated between the Atlantic and China.
9- the probability that the worst enemies of Israel have framed the appalling recent developments and have entrapped the Jewish state in order to generate a frontal war between Tel Aviv and the Muslim World cannot be disregarded. After properly examining this scenario, the diverse Israeli statesmen, military, intelligence agents, diplomats, and other administrators will have to conclude that, in spite of all the guarantees that they may have got from potential friends and various allies, nothing can possibly justify a contemptuous downturn to nuclear war. There cannot be Israeli statesmen whose actions will ultimately ‘prove’ that the so-called ‘Albert Pike letter to Mazzini’ may be something more than a conspiracy theory. Consequently, an eventual massive confrontation with the Islamic world cannot be an option for any Israeli government.
10- while all the warring parts normally wish to attain victory, it is necessary for all wise statesmen and administrators to always examine every possible option, even that of a defeat. By all accounts, the effort to avert a downfall -by means of timely negotiations and constructive time schedules- is always to be praised at the end.
III. Palestine-Israel: 10 points of a basic agreement on Gaza Strip
The following steps are conditio sine qua non for the establishment of a free, independent, peaceful, and dignified society in the Gaza Strip:
1- the Palestinians and the Israelis have to agree on the permanent solution of the enduring conflict, advancing on the ‘land for peace’ approach (namely the UN Security Council Resolution 242). Palestinians shall have their land (West Bank and Gaza, linked by a highway bridge for cars, buses, long-vehicles, and trains) and Israelis shall have peace in their land – unquestionably, unwaveringly, and permanently.
2- the Palestinian state shall entrust the security of the national borders to a force set up by the UN and Israel; the internal security in Palestine will be the task of a statutory body, which shall be organized and trained by the respective Israeli organization, whereas it will be manned entirely by Palestinians.
3- within two years after the agreement is signed, the Israeli settlements in the West Bank shall be relocated to new agglomerations located in Israel. No Israeli settlement will be allowed in the West Bank and Gaza.
4- the entire population of Gaza shall be temporarily relocated for 3-4 years.
Rafah to Taba trench construction project
5- the border with Egypt from Rafah to Taba shall be entirely closed. An enormous Kazakh-Chinese-Indian-Israeli consortium of construction companies will be established and teams of Kazakh and Israeli workers will construct an enormous trench 100 m deep and 100 m wide, from coast to coast (Mediterranean Sea to Gulf of Aqaba: ca. 210 km). In this systematic manner, no subterranean passages between Egypt and Israel will be left undetected, unidentified and unblocked after the enormous construction project. It will be up to the Israelis whether they will later use the trench as an alternative passageway to the Suez Canal, duly completing the works for this purpose.
Gaza demolition project
6- the Israeli army, the Kazakh-Chinese-Indian-Israeli consortium, and additional teams of Kazakh and Israeli workers shall have two years to entirely demolish and remove all the existing structures on the surface of the earth and in the underground, without however destroying cultivated lands and fields for agricultural purposes. Every type of subterranean passages and structures will thus be totally eliminated. Only the historical buildings, churches and mosques will be spared.
Gaza reconstruction project
7- subsequently, a major project of Gaza reconstruction shall be undertaken by the Kazakh-Chinese-Indian-Israeli consortium, and the same teams of Kazakh and Israeli workers. Residential districts, roads and squares, hospitals, schools, municipality and administration buildings, universities and several research centers, shopping centers, malls, sports installations, cinemas and mosques, the harbor, train and bus stations, etc. shall be entirely reconstructed from scratch according to the provisions of a worldwide unprecedented project of urbanization.
8- following the partly completion of the Gaza reconstruction project, parts of Gaza Palestinian populations, which were temporarily relocated, shall return to their old-new homes. With the completion of the project, the totality of the local population will be accommodated in their new homes. Upon arrival, all Palestinians shall have to independently sign a text published by the Palestinian Authority, according to which they will publicly accept the existence of the state of Israel and the related agreements made by the Palestinian Authority.
9- the resumption of socio-economic, political, academic, educational and cultural life in the Gaza Strip shall be spearheaded by Kazakhstan, China and India; for this purpose, Kazakh, Chinese and Indian businessmen will enter in joint ventures will their Palestinian counterparts. Kazakh, Chinese and Indian administrators will help Gaza Palestinians better manage their affairs; Kazakh, Chinese and Indian doctors will man the new hospitals. Kazakh, Chinese and Indian universities shall offer advanced bilingual education (Arabic/Kazakh, Arabic/Russian, Arabic/Chinese, and Arabic/Urdu-Hindi respectively) to Palestinian students, thus setting the proper foundations of a Primary and Secondary Education totally free of Western impact.
10- the New Gaza Strip shall be an integral territory of the Palestinian state, which will be proclaimed in due course of time; it shall share common border with Israel, but not with Egypt. The Palestinian Basic Law will be used until the later elaboration and proclamation of a New Palestinian Constitution. Contacts with the West Bank will not be resumed immediately, taken into consideration the changes that the main part of the state of Palestine will have to undergo.
IV. Palestine-Israel: 10 points of a basic agreement on West Bank
Following the terrorist attacks of 7th October 2023, it would truly be inadequate and impertinent to believe that, by rectifying the chaos of Gaza, one can resolve the dire conditions of life, which prevail among all the Palestinians; yet, these conditions are the true reason of all the troubles, attacks, killings, and clashes. It is evident to all that the unrestrained deterioration of the situation in Gaza affected calamitously West Bank Palestinians.
1- due to the inability of the Palestinian Authority to cope with developments triggered by alien factors, religious extremism and Jihadist radicalization spread among West Bank Palestinians. This was utterly disastrous for both, Israelis and Palestinians. Because of this unfortunate development, if the aforementioned 10-point plan of basic agreement on Gaza Strip is materialized without a major change occurring in West Bank, the returning Palestinians, who will inhabit the New Gaza Strip, will inevitably be negatively impacted by West Bank Palestinian radicals.
2- on the other hand, it goes without saying that these two parts of the Palestinian national territory cannot be kept separated from one another; this means that, for the same security reasons for which the aforementioned plan (see above section III) was devised and implemented, another plan shall be also scheduled and carried out for the entire population of the West Bank. This will take another 3-4 years to be entirely accomplished.
3- after the return of the Gaza Palestinians is completed and following their final and peaceful settlement in the New Gaza Strip, the entire population of West Bank too shall be temporarily relocated for 3-4 years.
4- after the Israeli settlements in the West Bank will be evacuated, all the buildings and the overall urban infrastructure will be fully maintained, renovated, and renamed in order to be handed over to the West Bank Palestinians, when they will return after their temporary relocation.
5- Israeli army and scientific personnel shall undertake a comprehensive geotechnical and geophysical investigation, effectively using remote sensing techniques in order to thoroughly examine parts of the underground throughout the territory of the West Bank. This operation will make it sure that, once the Palestinian populations return, they will not find any structures that may enable smuggling, illegal activities, and warfare.
West Bank demolition project
6- As it was done in the case of Gaza, the Israeli army, the Kazakh-Chinese-Indian-Israeli consortium of construction companies, and the same teams of Kazakh and Israeli workers shall have two years to entirely demolish and remove all the existing structures on the surface of the earth, as well as those that may happen to be found in the underground. Only historical buildings, churches, mosques, museums and archeological sites will be spared. It goes without saying that cultivated lands and fields for agricultural purposes will not be damaged in any sense.
West Bank reconstruction project
7- similarly with what was carried out in Gaza, a project of West Bank reconstruction shall be undertaken by the Kazakh-Chinese-India-Israeli consortium, whereas properly renovated, the urban infrastructure of the Israeli settlements will be made available to West Bank Palestinians after they return from their temporary relocation. In addition, a highway bridge for cars, buses, long-vehicles, and trains shall link West Bank to Gaza whereas special underground tunnels may also be constructed for this purpose.
8- following the partly completion of the West Bank reconstruction project, parts of West Bank Palestinian populations, which were temporarily relocated, shall return to their old-new homes. With the completion of the project, the totality of the local population will finally return and they be accommodated in their new homes. Upon arrival, all Palestinians shall have to independently sign a text published by the Palestinian Authority, according to which they will publicly accept the existence of the state of Israel and the related agreements made by the Palestinian Authority.
9- as it may have already occurred in Gaza, the resumption of socio-economic, political, academic, educational and cultural life in the West Bank shall be actively spearheaded by Kazakhstan, China and India.
10- the New West Bank shall be an integral territory of the Palestinian State, which will be solemnly proclaimed after the completion of this project; it shall share common borders with Israel but not with Jordan, because a narrow strip 100 m wide will be delineated alongside the old borderline between West Bank and Jordan. This strip will belong to Israel, thus turning the Palestinian state into an enclave inside Israel; Israeli soldiers will be regularly patrolling there, but communication and transportation from and to Jordan will be made easy through Allenby/King Hussein border crossing. A similar scheme will then be devised for Gaza Strip/Egypt border passage. A New Palestinian Constitution will be passed by the Palestinian National Assembly, which will be elected by universal suffrage. Contact between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be resumed immediately.
V. Ten strengths that empower Kazakhstan to bring about the only effective peaceful resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict
The following points reveal the widely unnoticed but real and remarkable strengths of Kazakhstan, which position the major Central Asiatic country at the epicenter of the international life and enable Astana to play the key role in the desperately needed pacification of the 75-year old conflict:
1- Kazakhstan is a major Muslim country, member-state of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation; in this capacity, Astana can help enormously deflect the passions and divert the tensions caused throughout the Muslim World as regards Israel. This is a very crucial step, because it will prevent the ongoing war from becoming an open religious confrontation between Jews and Muslims across the Earth.
2- Kazakhstan is by far the largest Turkic nation with an area totaling 2725000 km2 and with an ideally central position between Western Turks (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraqi Turkmeneli, etc.) and Eastern Turanians (Uighurs, Buryatians, Mongolians Yakutians, etc.). It can therefore bring a balanced understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to all the Turkic people (Turanians) throughout Eurasia, diverting fanaticism and extremism. This would be a remarkable contribution to peace.
3- As a secular and multicultural state, Kazakhstan is well positioned to see things differently, unconventionally, and out-of-the-box. On this ability hinges the chance that the entire Mankind has to resolve the problem. In fact, for 200 years, Islam and Christianity coexisted peacefully in Kazakhstan and more recently, after the fall of the USSR, adepts of different religions have lived in concord and fraternity with local atheists and irreligious people.
4- Muslim country with a ca. 20 percent Christian Orthodox minority, Kazakhstan has been a land where Judaism thrived for centuries; Bukharan and Juhuro (or Mountain) Jews live nowadays in Kazakhstan, peacefully practicing their faith and straightforwardly participating in all aspects of the socio-professional, economic and political life. Thanks to these undeniable facts, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is advantageously positioned to offer President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hindsight and forethought, alternative viewpoints, and hitherto unseen perspectives.
5- Founding member of the Shanghai Five (1996) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (2001), Kazakhstan is for Israel and Palestine the ideal ‘Gate to the East’. The same can be said about Kazakhstan’s participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Eurasian Economic Union. One should also extend this reference to approaches like ‘Connect Central Asia’ and initiatives like the ‘India-Central Asia Dialogue’, which bring Kazakhstan, the rest of Central Asia, and India closer. In other words, Kazakhstan, in striking contrast to almost any other country, is able to entirely de-contextualize the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, take it totally out of the nefarious limits of the Western World, and contextualize the problem within an entirely different environment in which hitherto unimagined possibilities and unsought alternatives are abundant.
6- Ninth largest country in the world in terms of area, Kazakhstan can effectively contribute to the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict not only at the level of diplomatic contacts, political negotiations, inventive considerations, resourceful approaches, and creative visions, but also during the consecutive stages that the resolution process will demand for several years. It is clear to all insiders that the 75-year old problem has become a most perplex issue involving contradictory views, opposite interests, conflicting demands, unjustified concerns, uncontrollable worries and total mistrust. Removing these obstacles is not an easy job for any diplomacy, for any proficient administration, and for any ingenious negotiator. Counterbalancing all the negative elements that have been accumulated over the past 7-8 decades will be a highly challenging task.
Still, the above mentioned thorny issues concern only the negotiation stages. But, brokering an agreement, addressing national security concerns, and satisfying demands of statehood and national independence, after all the evildoing that has occurred, involve massive relocation of populations, temporary residence in other lands, extensive demolition plans, vast construction projects, and -at the end- return of all the relocated populations.
Atop of all, one has to stress the need for a proper nation building process, which never occurred in the case of the Palestinians; the lack of this critical undertaking constituted a major reason for the misfortunate experience that Palestinians and Israelis shared together for decades, while being unable to solve the incessantly deteriorating problem.
However, it is not by coincidence that many Israeli statesmen, diplomats, analysts and academics repeatedly demand from Egypt to accept the relocation of the Gaza Palestinians to the sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula. It goes without saying that Cairo simply cannot accept this eventuality. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt was absolute right; it is not a matter of producing the necessary infrastructure or accommodating more than two million people or affording the exorbitant expenses for this enormous project or securing the necessary provisions or maintaining control among radicalized population. It is not even an issue of transporting populations to an arid land like North Sinai where Egypt has already and repeatedly faced serious security concerns due to the activities of Egyptian Islamists and terrorists.
The main problem, which would immediately arise after an eventual relocation of the Gazan population, is that, once in North Sinai, the deeply radicalized Palestinians will consider it necessary to take revenge on Israel for the atrocious and enduring treatment that the Jewish state applied to them. Then, they will certainly have the chance to contact numerous radicalized Egyptians among whom with great difficulty the al-Sisi administration managed to impose order, peace and calmness until now.
When the desperate, relocated Palestinians will express their secret desire to the Egyptians who lived -pretty much like their parents and grandparents- in an unprecedented paroxysm and in foremost hysteria against Israel, they will surely get from them the necessary tools, equipment, and weapons in order to attack Israel. An assault from the Egyptian side of the borders would soon transform the limited Israel-Gaza war into a generalized confrontation between Egypt and Israel, thus forcing the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to instinctively and unreservedly support Cairo.
Quite contrary to this infernal scenario, Kazakhstan -while leading the negotiations between Palestine and Israel- can temporarily accommodate the Gaza Palestinian populations in new cities, which can be constructed relatively fast with the help of a Kazakh-Chinese-Indian consortium that will be established on purpose.
7- Economically sound and solid, Kazakhstan -by establishing a major consortium of construction companies- will offer to China and India the chance to participate in the materialization of the forthcoming peace agreement between Israel and Palestine; in this manner, the two Asiatic superpowers will be actively brought to the forefront of international diplomacy, as they will be constructively involved in the world’s most enduring conflict.
Supporting Kazakhstan in the construction of the necessary urban infrastructure for the temporary relocation of the Gaza Palestinian populations, China and India will appear as the leading contributors to a major effort geared to bring peace in Israel-Palestine and as the principal sponsors of the most demanding projects involved in the successive stages of the agreement’s materialization.
Following the terms of an agreement signed by Palestine, Israel, and Kazakhstan, Astana can demarcate a piece of land in the southern confines of Aktobe Region and in the western fringes of Kyzylorda Region where to construct the infrastructure in which the temporarily relocated Gaza Palestinians will be accommodated; the same venue will be later used for the West Bank Palestinians. By strongly subsidizing the construction project and by facilitating the air transportation of the said populations, China and India will mark a major step in their transformation from leading regional powers to worldwide superpowers actively involved in the major conflict resolution.
8- Ostensibly located at the historical crossroads, which are known as the Silk Road, Kazakhstan can change World History due to a groundbreaking initiative to bring peace to Palestine and Israel entirely outside the context of the Western World. Duly relying on Central Asia’s historical background and the heritage of the Silk Roads, Kazakhstan can convincingly bring the Palestinians and the Israelis to the table of negotiations, brandishing the lure of future wealth, multicultural creativity, peaceful coexistence, and multilateral cooperation.
By reviving the multicultural environment that typified the Silk Roads, by re-introducing tolerance among religious faiths and cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis, and by offering SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Dialogue Partner status to both, Israel and Palestine, immediately after the signature of the pacification, land reorganization and rehabilitation agreement, Kazakhstan, China and India fully confirm the far reaching potentialities that the Belt and Road Initiative (One Belt One Road) infrastructure development strategy can have.
9- As the focal Oriental and Eurasiatic land, Kazakhstan has not only the potential to offer conflict resolution, peaceful cohabitation, and viable cooperation to Palestinians and Israelis; it also has the capability to become the country of first choice for many Jews who currently face an increasingly hostile environment in EU and the US. This will only increase the country’s credibility as the mediator par excellence between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as Jews and Muslims.
10- Thanks to Astana’s strong alliance with Russia, China and India, three major superpowers of today’s world, and following a peaceful resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict, Kazakhstan will apparently be in a position to launch a major debate within the Islamic world as regards the secular nature of the Islamic civilization and the nonpolitical role of the religion in the lives of people, thus helping Muslims from all the walks of life to emancipate from the darkness of the ignorant and radical imams who have deliberately confused religion with politics in order to extract material benefits, thus becoming the puppets of evil forces that spread enmity and killings.
First built in the 5th c. and rebuilt in the 12th c., the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza, which belongs to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, was attacked on 19th October 2023 during an Israeli air strike; the building was partly damaged and there were ca. 20 casualties.
VI. Ten pillars of Kazakhstan’s approach to the resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict
Pillar 1- The Western World failed to resolve the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Since 1947 (more specifically: 29 November 1947) and the UN Palestine Partition Plan {also known as UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II)}, the Palestinian-Israeli conflicts were mostly a Western affair; USSR (or, after 1991, Russia), China, India, Indonesia, Africa, and Latin America played only a markedly marginal role in the problem that was created with the said partition plan. This fact is at the origin of all problems, crimes, killings, and massacres that occurred in Palestine/Israel.
Beyond the normal regional involvement (namely that of Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen), the developments that took place in Palestine were exclusively impacted by Western European and North American countries. This has the appearance of colonial interference and remotely exercised control; as such, it is overwhelmingly rejected by the vast majority of mankind.
Until 1956, Israel relied on France and England in order to fend off attacks from neighboring countries, which supported the Palestinians. After the disaster of 1956, Israel has been closely connected with the US. The ensued damage for the Jews and Israel was twofold; by creating the impression of a biased, partial, unilateral, and detrimental support uninterruptedly, unconditionally and unreservedly offered by the major Western countries to Israel, the Western countries deliberately generated a situation which galvanized the Palestinians, sensitized numerous Muslims within eschatological context, and garnered sympathy for Palestine across most of the world’s nations. If this concluded the case, one would eventually accept the development as positive, albeit vividly partial.
However, the unilateral support offered by the Western World did not bring peace, safety and security to Israel and to the Jews who find it necessary to settle there (the ‘Aliyah’); as we all know, this reality is greatly manifested these days. Suffice it to read brief texts published by Israeli scholars on this occasion; you can understand the extreme panic that they feel. Prof. Ayelet Gilboa’s ‘Hamas in Israel’ is a good example in this regard. But when the ‘Yerida’ (emigration from Israel) eclipses the Aliyah, the Marche Funèbre will sound, heralding the funeral arrangement for Israel. Then, all the people will realize that the Western support to Israel was fake, hypocritical and intentionally deceitful.
The irreversible truth is that the only thing Anglo-Saxons, Franks, and the Roman pseudo-popes intend to do to Jews and to Israelis is to eat them alive, incessantly highlighting their innocence in the matter. The sooner the Israelis and the Jews understand this fact, the better for them.
The Western World is not friendly to Israel; it is criminal, hypocritical and inimical. As it is well known, they produced innumerable genocides in America, Asia, Africa and Europe. The remake of the Holocaust will be at hand, if Israelis do not shut the door to US, UK and EU. There is only one condition for Israel to disintegrate: to continue believing the delusional concept of its alliance with the Western World. There is only one way for Israel and the World Jewry to effectively avoid the next Holocaust that secret orders, mystical societies, and major forces in Western Europe and North America prepare for them: they have to embrace the Orient where the Jews and the Ancient Hebrews have always lived, being integral part of the Ancient Oriental, Christian and Islamic worlds. Kazakhstan can make all this clear to Israeli leadership.
Pillar 2- At 75, Israel must emancipate and live like all the other nations, namely without protectors, biased supporters, and lethal allies.
The destructive device that the West has used to tarnish, corrupt and erode the Jewish state is precisely the unconditional support that the Western governments offer Israel. This makes the outright majority of the people worldwide hate that state; while systematically discrediting and effectively isolating Israel from the rest, the Western support appears to be always constant, generous and abundant. However, in spite of it all, Israel has always failed to truly eliminate the Palestinian problem; in true terms, the Jewish state has only exacerbated the thorny issue. One would have easily attributed it to an inherent self-destructive force, had one failed to identify the reason for this evildoing in the malignant forces of Western Europe and North America.
This absurd and sinister situation leads to only one conclusion: Israel does not have any Palestinian problem; quite contrarily, Israel has a Western problem. Everything will change astoundingly, if Israel gets rid of the nefarious impact of the West. When the Israeli government shows a sign that Israelis intend to live peacefully with their Palestinian neighbors without being the spoiled children of the West, the rest of the world will apparently demonstrate a different standpoint and attitude; then it will be possible for the major superpowers China, India and Russia to further advance the effort and initiate peace accords and normalization agreements with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Israel will thus be saved.
Pillar 3- All security threats must be removed in peace prior to the final settlement
Kazakhstan shall fully demonstrate a deep understanding of Israel’s need for security and safety. All the nations have had their weak moments, but Israel now lives in the aftermath of an unusually painful experience, namely the 7th October 2023 attacks. The demand for invulnerability, impregnability, and unassailability is very strong. Therefore, for Israel every notion of settlement of the Palestinian problem means total elimination of the dangers. When it comes to the Gaza Strip, this means that the totality of the territory must be evacuated, the ruins explored, the underground traversed, the existing tunnels inspected, the structures destroyed, and the weapons removed. Consequently, it is inevitable that the entire territory of Gaza will have to be initially evacuated and totally demolished, before being fully reconstructed from scratch. Israeli soldiers and security forces will have to also inspect, scrupulously and meticulously, the return and the reinstallation of the Gaza populations, which have evidently to dwell for some time in another location.
These operations will certainly take about two years; during this period, while the Israeli military forces will be comprehensively screening the entire territory and the respective underground and effectively destroying all structures that have to be destroyed, the Palestinian population of Gaza must be treated in dignity, solidarity, compassion, empathy, fraternity, and humanity. That is why Kazakhstan shall take the initiative, positioning itself within the international community at the level in which the major Central Asiatic state’s strengths (see above section V) fully empower Astana to act.
Pillar 4- Temporary relocation of Gaza Palestinians is imperative
Promptly offering mediation between Israel and Palestine, Astana does not only save the lives of thousands of Palestinians, but also helps spare those of hundreds or thousands of Israeli soldiers and civilians, who will surely die as long as the war continues. For this to be done, a First Peace Agreement between Israel, Palestine and Kazakhstan shall be signed detailing the parallel processes, the various modalities, the successive stages, the duration thereof, and the indissoluble determination of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to reach a terminal agreement for ultimate peace and reconciliation.
Time shall be offered to Israel to clear the territory of Gaza Strip and to the Kazakh-Chinese-Indian consortium of construction companies to reconstruct the entire region from scratch; for this to be done, the same consortium shall first construct -in especially selected zones in Kazakhstan (see above section V 7)- all the necessary infrastructure for the entire Palestinian population of Gaza to be relocated there and temporarily accommodated.
In addition to the donations that an independent organization under the auspices of the UN shall be established to collect, it will be up to the Kazakh governmental authorities to also decide whether types of provisory employment should be offered to those among the relocated Palestinians who would wish to work; in this case, the diverse factories, plants, manufacturing units or workshops shall be constructed in the same zone as the urban infrastructure, and they shall be later (after the departure/return of the relocated Palestinians) used for other, Kazakh or foreign workers who will find employment there, contributing to the national GDP.
According to the terms of the First Peace Agreement between Israel, Palestine and Kazakhstan, an initial ceasefire shall be followed by the beginning of the relocation process which will cover several stages; finally, the entire population of Gaza shall be evacuated and temporarily relocated to Kazakhstan. It shall be decided whether the evacuation will be effectuated via Tel Aviv airport or El Arish International Airport (45 km from Rafah border crossing); in either case, special convoys will be set up to accompany the buses with the Gaza Palestinian evacuees, duly supervised by either Israeli or Egyptian military.
It will be entirely up to the hosting Kazakh authorities to determine the flight destination (eventually Kyzylorda International Airport or Aliya Moldagulova International Airport in Aktobe) and the transportation process to the final location where the Palestinian populations will be temporarily relocated and accommodated.
Pillar 5- Evacuation of all Israeli settlers from the West Bank
Following the terms of the First Peace Agreement between Israel, Palestine and Kazakhstan, and during the processes of a) Gaza infrastructure demolition, b) Gaza Palestinian population evacuation/relocation, and c) Gaza reconstruction, a national unity government in Israel shall initiate and carry out the next project, evacuating and relocating the Israeli settlers from the West Bank. This will be the first serious effort of Israel to persuade the international community about its good will toward the Palestinian Nation, its honesty as regards the surrounding neighbors, and its commitment to the final pacification process.
All Israeli settlers shall be gradually removed from the West Bank (see above section IV 4), but all the buildings and the overall urban infrastructure shall be effectively maintained, renovated, and renamed in order to be handed over to the West Bank Palestinians, when they will return after their temporary relocation. It will be truly essential -as a confidence building measure- for Israel to complete the evacuation of all Israeli settlers from the West Bank before the Palestinian populations of that land are temporarily relocated and accommodated in Kazakhstan, after the completion of the Gaza reconstruction project and the return of the earlier relocated Gazans.
Pillar 6- Reconstruction of Gaza
Following the process of Gaza demolition undertaken by the Israeli army and the evacuation/relocation of the entire Palestinian population, the Kazakh-Chinese-Israeli consortium, and additional teams of Kazakh and Israeli workers shall have two additional years before making the land of Gaza an enviable place for Gazan Palestinians to peacefully live and prosper (see above section III 7-10).
Pillar 7- Border control must stay with Israel
After the reconstruction of Gaza and the return of the temporarily relocated Gazan Palestinians, a totally new system of social-military-political life shall start. As I have already stated for the case of West Bank, the Gaza Strip will have no common border with Egypt (see above section IV 10). A narrow strip 100 m wide will be delineated alongside the old borderline between Gaza Strip and Egypt. This strip will belong to Israel, thus turning the Palestinian state into an enclave inside Israel; Israeli soldiers will be regularly patrolling there, but communication and transportation from and to Egypt will be made easy through Rafah border crossing.
Because of the aforementioned enormous trench that shall be constructed (see above section III 5: Rafah to Taba trench construction project) and thanks to the exhaustive demolition-reconstruction project in the Gaza Strip, conditions of absolute security will prevail across the borders, which will be entirely kept by Israeli soldiers, who will ensure border impenetrability for both, Palestinians and Israelis.
The State of Palestine will function as an entirely independent state with one seat in the UN General Assembly on the basis of mutual recognition with Israel. At the geographical level, Palestine will be an enclave within Israel; that’s why there will be minimal security forces (Palestinian and Israeli) in the ‘inner’ borders (between Palestine and Israel), whereas Israeli soldiers will guard the ‘outer’ (external) borders (with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon). Two airports (one in Gaza Strip and another in the West Bank) and one port (in Gaza City) will be fully operable in Palestine. Airport and port security in Palestine will be undertaken by Israeli security forces. In the beginning, there will be no flights from Palestine to countries that do not recognize Israel; later, this problem will be resolved.
Pillar 8- The processes applied to Gaza shall also be implemented in the West Bank
To complete the entire process and carry out a comprehensive investigation in view of a bright and peaceful future, Palestinians and Israelis shall agree to implement the same approach and apply the same procedure to the West Bank Palestinians. After all the Israeli settlements are evacuated from the West Bank and after the relocated Gazan populations return to their new old-new homeland, it will be the turn of the populations of West Bank to be relocated for 3-4 years, before returning to an entirely reconstructed homeland in which they will inherit the entire infrastructure left by the Israeli settlers.
Pillar 9- Mutual recognition of the two states – location of the two capitals
Following the completion of the aforementioned stages, the First Peace Agreement between Israel, Palestine and Kazakhstan (see above section VI Pillar 4) shall be replaced by the Final Peace Agreement, which will stipulate in detail the multiple exchanges and the bilateral cooperation that the two states will be ready to resume with one another. Except the signatories of the first treaty, the Final Peace Agreement will be co-signed by China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. The capital of Israel shall be in Western Jerusalem, and the capital of Palestine shall be in Eastern Jerusalem.
Many confidence building measures and mutual understanding initiatives will be undertaken in order to enable the two nations to come closer to one another. Modern Arabic will become no1 foreign language in the schools of Israel, whereas Modern Hebrew will become no1 foreign language in the schools of Palestine. Kazakh, Chinese, Hindi and Russian will replace all the Western languages that were previously taught in the primary and secondary education schools in both lands.
Israel shall support Palestine’s demand of admission as a full member state in the UN General Assembly, and the two states shall pursue similar foreign policy, identical orientations, and concerted geostrategic decisions. Israel and Palestine will opt for the same major partners in economic synergy, joint ventures, trade, education, scientific cooperation, and tourism, notably Kazakhstan, China, India, Russia, Central Asia, SE Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Palestine will downgrade its participation in the Arab League, and Israel will gradually lessen its relations with NATO countries. Palestine will boost relations with secular Muslim countries, blocking contacts with Islamist regimes; acting reciprocally, Israel will ban from Israel all Protestants, and in particular the Zionist Christians, who proved to be the scourge of the Jewish state with their farcical and false interpretations of the Bible and their absurd eschatological schemes, which confused Israelis and Jews, pushing them to extreme and disastrous considerations.
Pillar 10- Simultaneous adhesion to the same military alliances, economic groups and international organizations
Following the implementation of the aforementioned Peace Plan and the successful fulfillment of the groundbreaking measures, the diplomacies of China, India and Russia will deploy a considerable effort to inflect the position of countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, demanding the dissolution of groups that threaten the pacification process and the ensuing peaceful cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis. This will open the way to further bilateral peace agreements, notably with Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.
This crucial fact is viciously disregarded and systematically concealed by the colonial Western powers and their local stooges; by trying to arrange ridiculous and clownish peace agreements between Israel, UAE and Bahrain, the US and their allies only tried to fool the Israelis, offering them meaningless normalization accords with countries, which would never make a war against Israel or support various anti-Israel groups. The notorious Abraham Accords (signed on 15th September 2020) are phony. They are true in the sense that the dictatorial rulers of UAE and Bahrain accepted to sign those papers, but they are as meaningless and useless for Israel as an agreement with Tuvalu and Nauru.
This is the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish hypocrisy of the Western World at its best; it was quite stupid of the Israeli government to arrange and participate in festivities on the occasion of the Abraham Accords. What truly matters for Israel’s peace, safety and security is a normalization agreement with Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. But this is something that the criminal and dictatorial Western regimes of France, UK, Australia, Canada, Holland and the US first are unable to deliver and second do not want to see it happen. This is so because only a normalization accord and a peace treaty with Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran would guarantee Israel’s real survival. And quite contrarily to this eventuality, the inhuman monsters, which control Western Europe and North America, prepare the final solution for Israel and the Jews, while hypocritically smiling to and embracing the embattled Israeli prime ministers and presidents.
The simultaneous adhesion of Israel and Palestine to the same military alliances, economic groups, and international organizations, like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, the BRICS and the New Development Bank will definitely become the matter of preparatory negotiations as soon as the Final Peace Agreement will be solemnly signed offering both beleaguered nations peace, freedom, prosperity and freedom far from the ominous schemes of the Western World. The perspective of any future enmity and hostility will be thus reduced to nil.
VII. Ten stages of Kazakhstan’s plan to terminate the Palestine-Israel conflict – recapitulation and diagram
Summarizing the above in a brief diagram, I outline the major stages:
Basic links/points of reference to eventually consult:
What follows is a long response to the messages that an Oromo academic and friend sent me via the messaging section of one portal; as he expressed his admiration for my knowledge and in-depth understanding of numerous critical issues pertaining to many different fields of sciences, I felt obliged to describe extensively the purpose and the circumstances of my postgraduate studies, underscore my differences from the other students, highlight my confrontation with several of my professors during my postgraduate studies in Paris, and in the process raise key problems of academic methodology, present the true dimensions of the Oromo-Amhara divide for the colonial academia of Western Europe and North America, and expand on several key periods of historical upheaval either in Ancient Egypt or in pre-Islamic Yemen.
I removed from my ca. 10000-word answer every part and element that would serve to possibly identify my friend, because this would endanger his career and life.
By its nature, this lengthy response takes a biographical character, because I don’t only focus on what, when and with whom I studied but mainly on how and why. As thematic biography, it presents indirectly but transparently my moral approach to scholarship, exploration, study, knowledge and wisdom. To lesser extent, it reveals the paths and the outlines of my investigations, also presenting how from liberating myself from the shackles of today’s decayed, corrupt and terminating world in order to best assess and acquire the supremacy Ancient Oriental Genius, I was able to inculcate myself with the Ancient Oriental world conceptualization, principles and moral standards in order to examine today’s world with the criteria of the only archetypal humans – those who were still able to recollect the circumstances of the Creation and the abhorrent occurrences of the pre-creational Non-being.
This is what my studies, explorations, contemplations and ruminations have always been: a permanent process of spiritual effluxion and influxion. It has to do with Soft Waters and not with Air; or like my Assyriologist professor Jean Bottéro used to persistently repeat, with Ea and not Enlil.
But when you make the equation of Ilu (Sumerian: DINGIR) with Allah, with Whom should you associate the original Sumerogram? With Ashur, with Anu or with Apsu? I am afraid that only the 600 Anunnaki will respond to this question – to those who will manage to reach them in the extreme depths. Until then, the entire Mankind is totally impotent, as it has been held captive, and all the rest does not matter.
Response to an Oromo academic and friend about my studies and professors
My dear friend,
Thank you very much for mentioning my name and speech/publication in your pioneering article for which I congratulate you!
Apologies for the delay with which I respond to your three messages for which I also thank you! I already noticed your fourth message!
………………………….
Thank you very much for your admiration and compliments for which I also express my gratitude, although late. It is my firm decision and I always implement it: when I need some time to plainly respond, I never respond briefly and quickly! I am not an imperial Chinese mandarin or a miserable EU/US administrator to ‘expedite’ affairs; I never do this! I hate it, I despise it, and I disdain it. I am the master of my time, and the man has not been born who will make me change my mind and erratically accord less time to a letter that deserves a longer response. To what extent can this happen? I will give you an example.
A US-based Oromo medical doctor and epidemiologist (by coincidence!) wrote to me in late September 2020 an email, asking me how I would consider the chances of Egypt supporting consciously and systematically the struggle of Oromos for national liberation and independence. His email was brief; no more than 10-12 lines. My response arrived late – again! I started responding in November 2020! How long was it?
Well, it consisted of five parts; each of them became immediately an uploaded article; and all five articles -that are nothing more than just my response to a 10-12 lines- email total … 37000 words (!!). They are going to be soon published in an independent book!
Personally, I would find myself ashamed to respond in 5-10 lines to that guy, who happens to be the younger brother of a Wollega friend and academic with whom I exchanged many emails as early as 2006! This situation has nothing to do with the correspondent; it is about me, about the topic of discussion, and also about how I react to the surrounding environment.
Back to you now! Your messages prove that you don’t know me and this can happen, even if you visited the parts of my, not recently updated, CV that are the pages of this blog: https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/ This can also happen even if you read the quadripartite online interview that I gave to a California-based Christian Oromo scholar back in 2004; he had been monitoring my texts and my responses in passionate discussions that were then published in an online forum where an extreme polarization had taken place between Oromos and others from one side and Tigray – Amhara Ethiopianists from the other side. Of course, I sided with the former. In that interview, I was offered the chance to speak to some extent about my life, studies and researches, and you can find all four parts republished as one unit here (of course, 35000 words in total!; the part about my background is the first): https://www.academia.edu/23432753/Voice_Finfinne_Organization_Interview_with_Professor_Muhammad_Shamsaddin_Megalommatis_on_the_Oromos_Ethiopia_Sudan_Abyssinia_and_East_Africa I still remember myself sitting in a Sidi Gabr (district) Alexandria Internet Café (located on the Corniche – at the seafront) during the weekends and writing it, while watching the Mediterranean Sea in my break time! It was August and September 2004.
You are “captivated” by my “rich experience” and my “rich knowledge” and thank you for that, but you should not! In my response, I will offer you some insightful biographical details, describing personal choices and habits. I will also narrate some colorful events from my studies.
In the past, instead of using the term ‘Orientalist’ to describe myself, I was writing under my name the following: ‘Egyptologist, Assyriologist, Iranologist, Islamologist’. I did not add more, although I could, because I am also a Sovietologist and a specialist on Russia, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, a political scientist, and an economist. There were several people, who expressed either curiosity or skepticism as regards how one person can be specialized in four five or more different fields.
Several pernicious Amhara and Tigray participants, after they noticed that I rejected their evildoing and I denounced the tribal tyranny that they had imposed on numerous Cushitic, Nilo-Saharan and Bantu nations across the colonial state of Abyssinia, started deriding my numerous academic titles. More they advanced into it, more I revealed about their barbaric past and their evildoing! And this story went on and on and on, until some hysterical guys among them started asking others to kill me and even to have me hanged in Tahrir Square (long before the notorious events of the so-called ‘Arab’ ‘Spring’ took place in that ominous location)! It was extremely amusing to an extent that you cannot imagine! Death? My death? Who cares? Death for a noble cause is the most honorable exit from this world and the most augural transience to the Hereafter.
However, the original question about one scholar’s many titles is always valid and very normal. There are indeed very few people specializing in even two fields. A simple answer to this question, as far as I am concerned, can be obtained through a careful reading of my CV: https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/about/
If you scroll down (after the first half of the web page) and reach the unit ‘Education’, you will see a very analytical presentation of my studies at all levels: secondary, graduate, postgraduate, and doctoral. You will find out the names of the universities that I attended, the years of my attendance, and the topics that I studied. You will even find (section 5) the names of my professors during my postgraduate and doctoral studies – in many different countries.
Of course, you will ask simply “how all this”? This is what I will reveal to you now.
In fact, anyone can do it; surely one person can be a fully accredited specialist in 4, 5 or 6 branches of Humanities or in other sectors of the science. Suffice it that he wants to do it – or that he needs to do it. This situation marks a at times chaotic difference from the rest. And as you can guess, a totally different purpose of life is usually sought after by the people who differ so much from the rest. This is exactly what I intend to reveal to you right away.
I. My Difference from the Rest: Postgraduate Specialization in 6 Different Fields
As all people know very well, pursuing postgraduate studies or preparing a Master’s degree takes seminar attendance of 6-10 hours per week for two years and the submission of one (Master’s degree) thesis. You are a historian or an archeologist with a graduation (BA) and you are an Egyptologist or a Classicist with a MA or MPhil.
Well, as far as I am concerned, during only my 3-year postgraduate studies in Paris (1978-1981), which was only the beginning of my postgraduate studies, I attended seminars for 63-65 hours per week (during a week of 6 working days). I was the student, who ran daily from 7:30 am until 10 pm to classes and universities. The rest of the time, you could still find me either in libraries to ask/pay photocopies or in the metro, buses and taxis, when I was moving from one course to another. No cafés, no restaurants, no cabarets, no bars, no discos, no friends, no cinemas, no theaters, no girlfriends, and no free time. (And certainly no football matches, because I find this barbaric act and paranoid pseudo-game as a vicious and devious English invention to destroy the human character. Playing or watching football is totally inhuman and utterly self-disastrous.) When arriving back home at 10:30 or 11 pm, I still had to study and read either books or photocopies until 2 am. I never slept more than 4h30 or 5 hours per day, except for weekends.
In my vacations, of course, I spent the time differently, but my ‘vacations’ were rather explorations, travels, and visits to important sites, plus -of course- night life. But I never slept at 3 am after a nocturnal explosion without waking up at 7 am in order to climb up mountains and visit sites and monuments. I surely spent time in hundreds of 5 stars hotels in my life; but I was never a useful idiot wasting time on the beach and in the paranoid, self-disastrous, and evil modern habit of sunbathing. I am a very good swimmer and I can swim or sail in the rough sea, but I detest and do not frequent organized tourist beaches.
II. A Major Differentiation from the Rest: I never studied in order to find a ‘Job’
There is another, perhaps even more important, difference between me and most of my friends and mates of those days; back then, I sensed it too, but -I must admit it- only vaguely. Later, in my 40s, I understood it very clearly. And I thank God, who helped me find my path easily. The others, the useful idiots, studied only to obtain a ‘paper’! These are the miserable wreckages and the ruined humanoids who ‘work’ now in today’s useless universities of the West, i.e. all those disreputable institutions of darkness, forgery and deliberate falsification that emit billions of tons of pseudo-academic garbage and intellectual contamination with their monstrous lies, which cause genocides, civil wars, conflicts, oppression and persecution of numerous subjugated nations worldwide, as well as disaster, misery and calamity to all. For them, their degrees, certificates and diplomas were more valuable than the Quran, the Gospels, the Torah, the Avesta, the Ancient Egyptian holy book of the Amduat, the Hittite holy book of Ullikummi, and the Assyrian-Babylonian holy book of Enuma Elish combined!!!
All that these lowly and execrable humanoids wanted when young was just to obtain a paper in order to validate a nonsensical, disgusting and nauseating career as mendacious bureaucrats, duplicitous functionaries, inhumanely elitist apparatchiks, ludicrous fanfare employees, money-producing devilish rats, anthropomorphic dogs (like rabid Madeleine Albright and Jendayi Frazer, the Rastafarian mistress of dozens of thousands of filthy men and monstrous Satan-worshippers), hypocritical and evil administrators, pseudo-academic slaves who can teach every type of nonsense that serves the criminal Western system, ambition-driven liars who -for the sake of a professional promotion- could sell their mothers as prostitutes in the bazaars of Mozambique, mask-wearing hyenas for whom the destiny of a nation matters less than their wife’s newly bought shoes (like those of the disreputably Turkish whore Emine Erdogan that cost 10000 dollars!) and foolish political clowns.
This was what most of my friends and mates opted for or -in the best case scenario for them- what they were dragged into, because of their lack of significant purpose in life and due to their calamitous lack of reaction and steadfast rejection of the lie, the false, and the evil. In brief, these people were characterized by a passive life stance that made their lives useless and worthless. And this is my judgment of them: my generation (in the Western World and in the Soviet Bloc) was inferior, valueless and shameful; as unmerited children of better parents and superior grandparents, my generation (and in a wider sense, all those born between 1930 and 1970) should have never existed.
III. My Firm and Fearless Search of Truth
Why do millions of people not react to today’s paranoia, which imposes Kosovo to be a separate country from Albania, Oromia to be enslaved to Amhara bastards, and Pashtun gangsters, disguised as Islamists and ‘Taliban’, to kill Hazaras, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmen, and Iranians in the fake state of Afghanistan, which is nothing else than “the” Asiatic “Ethiopia”?
The answer is simple: because of fear.
Contrarily to them, I did not study in order to obtain a paper that I would use to apply for a position in a university, ministry or international organization. My degrees, diplomas and certificates only confirm my assiduity and my knowledge. I studied, because I wanted to discover the original genius of the Mankind and the archetypal spiritual identity of the first and supreme humans, who have remained unmatched, unequaled and unrivaled down to our days: the early Egyptians, Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. From the beginning, I knew that this would not come through just the studies themselves, but only thanks to my own personal work, which I would undertake after the completion of my studies and following my critical stance toward, and judgment about, my studies and the methods of my professors.
I wanted to discover their worldview – and not to simply project today’s obligatorily imposed (via home, school and university education) but arbitrary and erroneous worldview on the ancient nations and their sacred texts, cosmogonies, cosmologies, wisdom and literatures. I knew already that projecting today’s criteria on ancient nations and on their contemplations, spiritual intuitions, wisdom and worldviews would not allow me to possibly pretend that I “know” them. Such an attempt would only be foolish, and as such useless.
Modern science took a wrong path, deviated, and turned against all moral standards that for thousands of years defined Ancient Science, which is now lost and extremely difficult to reconstitute; modern science currently leads to nowhere, except for lie, falsehood, and deception. These elements bring about the destruction, the death and the annihilation of the Mankind. Modern scholars clearly did not have respect for their object of study whatever this may have been (Ancient Egyptian religions, Babylonian cosmology, Achaemenid Zoroastrian imperial universalism or Kaffa oral traditions).
Instead, they projected their own, erroneous, deceptive, unreal, false and evil worldview on their object of study, and they evaluated the past with their own, genuinely erratic and utterly inhuman, criteria. But by so doing, they only saw themselves in Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian-Akkadian, Assyrian-Babylonian, Hittite, Hurrian, Elamite, Canaanite-Phoenician, Cushitic, Iranian-Turanian, Dravidian and Chinese clothes. Their approaches were uneven and petulant, and therefore their conclusions were confusing, misleading, and distortive. All this sounds eventually general or generic, but it ends up being extremely specified and concerning a multitude of unique points/issues. I will give you an example.
IV. The Oromo–Amhara Divide: a Permanent Litmus Paper for All
It is only because Western European explorers, researchers and scholars projected their viewpoints onto their study objects and they saw themselves in the ‘other’ that 19th c. Western explorers in Africa so much preferred the Amharas to the Oromos: because the Amhara had texts, which are to large extent evil forgeries like Kebra Negast, whereas the Oromos had oral traditions, which were not ‘trustworthy’ for the Western forgers, because simply they could not forge and distort anything in them.
The Western scholars were not able to draw the correct conclusion from Achaemenid Iran; Avesta, the holy book of Zoroastrianism, was never written at those days. Why? Because the ‘written’ can be forged, but the ‘oral’ cannot. How?
This is so because the ‘oral’ tradition means community without segregated elites, which can eventually be divided into several groups that are in secretive conflict with one another.
But the ‘written’ source means a divided community and segregated groups of elite, which ceaselessly ‘write’ their ‘own’ (so: fake) version of the past or their own worldview or their own cosmology or their own eschatology.
All religious wars are initially conflicts among monks, scribes, priests and authors of different versions of texts. But for this to happen, secluded orders and secretive societies must exist among the others, the gullible members of a divided society. Every secret group is a cancerous tumor and a crime against the Mankind. And this is what the Western European nations have been for two millennia: deeply divided societies in conflict about differently written or interpreted sacred texts. As the Western explorers were unable to implement self-criticism, they automatically preferred the Amhara divided and barbaric society that was based in forgery of written sources. Unfortunately for them, there cannot be secret societies; it is impermissible and as such, it brings the end of the society.
This is the tragic superiority of the Oromos over the Amharas: whereas the Oromos have had a genuine community that shared knowledge, values, wisdom, moral principles, and traditions, the Amharas were led by segregated debteras, who worked in isolation and darkness to forge or at times destroy their written sources and to come up with viciously distorted versions that involved racist concepts and generated hatred and fanaticism. All the others among them lived like animals and waited the debteras to pick up one incestuous gangster after another so that they call them ’emperors’; there has never been any ‘Solomonic’ (or other) dynasty among the Amharas, because the Amharas were genuinely unable to ever imagine (let alone know) what nobility and royalty are.
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This is what the Western academics failed to grasp:
Civilization, Humanity and Originality are to be found here (Oromos in community meeting):
but not here (manuscript of Kebra Negast in an Amhara monastery):
True Humanity existed before the invention of the Writing; Writing brought about the lies, the forgeries, the fallacies, the corruption, the decay and the end of the Mankind; and there is no Writing in the Original Paradise or in the Perfect Society after the End of Times
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But unfortunately, not one modern Oromo managed to assess in depth the Oromo superiority over the Amhara and subsequently conclude why the English, the French, the Americans and all the colonial forces would never allow the Oromos in peace, would never prevent the enslavement of the Oromos, and would never tolerate an Independent Oromia. That is why not one Oromo can ever discuss, meet or just say ‘hello’ to any English, French, American or any other colonial diplomat, politician, businessman, academic and army officer.
That is why you cannot call the historical Oromo social organization system of traditions and moral values Gadaa … a ‘democratic’ system! It is an insulting and denigrating adjective, as well as defamatory and pejorative. In reality, there is nothing so low and so villainous as ‘democratic’ in your traditional social system! As a matter of fact, Gadaa is a noble and lofty system compatible with a Motii/King (https://research.vu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/42153299/complete+dissertation.pdf)and the true reflection of peaceful communality, transcendental wisdom, ancestral respect intertwined with Oromo spirituality and Waaqeffannaa piety and cult. Quite contrarily, the outrageously inhuman, sinful and rotten system of ‘democracy’, the world’s most barbaric invention of the uncivilized Ancient Greeks, i.e. the failed students of the Ancient Egyptian temples, involves utmost racism (slaves were considered ‘things’), gender discrimination (women had no rights), children’s abuse, impiety and disbelief, materialism, atheism, and inhumanity. About:
Either in the disreputable, ugly, filthy (due to the lack of sewerage), syphilis-stricken, homosexuality-infested, pedophilia-plagued and cursed city of Ancient Athens or in the modern Satanic realms of US, France, England, etc., democracy is the culmination of inhumanity, rejection of and enmity towards Waaqo / Allah / God, foremost barbarism, merciless cruelty, and excruciating sin. Because they were ‘democratic’, they were colonial – and not the vice versa.
Is it therefore strange that the bastard, pseudo-royal elites of Portugal, England and France preferred and supported the Amharas against the Somalis, the Afars, the Oromos, the Kaffas, the Agaws, and all the rest from the early 16th c. down to the 21st century?
No!
Why don’t you study the filthy story of the criminal pseudo-royal families of these colonial states? No one can accurately count who -among them- may have been filthy homosexuals, who were the queens who ruled alone by having every night occult sexual orgies with groups of men, and who had sexual intercourse with his daughter or her son! This excrement of History and Barbarism is called ‘Western Europe’: Germans were not like this! Italians were not like this! Poles and Russians were not like this!
V. In Great Contrast with the Rest: to understand the ‘Other’, I rejected myself
So, to return to my studies and explorations, I can surely say that, in striking contrast with the others, who saw in an excavation or in an archaeological site the means of their own profession, I never reached a historical place or any portion of a tract and I never arrived in a location except as a pilgrim and as a suppliant.
I was always well-prepared at the material level (having gone through the scholarly publications and also elaborated my eventual criticism of some of them) and I mainly dedicated myself to the spiritual study of the hundreds of places that I explored. I was able to decompose and assess the elements of every different land: there is no piece of land composed out of only ‘land’; in every land, there are: land, air, soft water, aether (which is the quintessence out of which everything emanated), and some portion of salt. The different composition of each and every portion of tract predetermines the differentiation of the people, who will settle there and make it theirs, from the others.
The Assyrians were different from the Babylonians because the land itself of their original city (Ashur) was different from the piece of land where Babylon was erected. In other words, if the Assyrians settled in another land, they would be very different. And they knew it; their vast knowledge on the matter, i.e. the Ancient Oriental Science of Geographical Determinism, was a major factor of the lives of all Ancient Oriental nations either in Asia or in Africa. The Ancient Egyptians and Cushites – Meroites were very well versed in this knowledge.
Same for the great Meroitic – Oromo migration: the Meroitic priests, who drove you to your location, knew very well what they did. You are the product of the highlands and the plateau of Oromia, and these lands formed you and preserved you as you are. You would be destroyed if you settled in the arid mountains around Gondar; and those mountains affected the Amhara. There is even a Biblical verse about those mountains, but few people care to study it in-depth, although it is prophetic. Not all arid mountains are the same; not all fertile lands are the same; and every land is a particularity.
VI. Colonization: a Sacrilegious Act bringing forth the End of France and England
Unfortunately, all this did not matter for the outright majority of the 18th–19th–20th c. European scholars, who arrived in the colonized lands as conquerors and -even worse- viewed themselves as proud vanquishers of foreign lands, as enemies of the indigenous nations, and as destroyers. The expressed arrogance, enmity, hatred and utmost negativity prevented them from understanding the lands that they invaded and the great nations that they inhabited them. That’s why they were never able to build a pyramid like those of Kemet (Egypt), Cush (Ancient Ethiopia: Napata and Meroe) or Mesopotamia (Sumer and Elam).
They failed to assess that their own lands were inferior to the lands that they colonized and -even more importantly- that their sources (the corpus of Ancient Greek and Latin texts) were inferior to the Ancient Oriental sources that they managed to decipher. In a way, the modern decipherment of so many ancient writing systems, and primarily of the Ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, Elamite, Akkadian, Assyrian-Babylonian, Hurrian, Hittite, Ugaritic Canaanite, and Iranian sources, did not truly prove to be truly beneficial to Western scholarship because of the Western academics’ attitude to ceaselessly project themselves onto the object of their study,
The result was that they deciphered ancient texts only to misunderstand them. This was in fact the revenge of the lands that they invaded; the arrogant invaders in reality failed to reach the level of advanced science that the Wise Elders and High priests of Mesopotamia, Kemet (Egypt), and Cush (Sudan-Ethiopia, but not Abyssinia) and had attained before 4500 years. The exceptional case of Edward Leedskalnin proves that the entire Western European – North American pseudo-science, which started with the unprecedented fallacy of Inhuman Renaissance, is a devious self-indoctrination with lies and paranoid maxims arbitrarily expressed, unwisely accepted, uncritically reproduced, and thoughtlessly extended.
The diverse, disparate and inconsistent tribes that European colonial gangsters fashioned as ‘Ancient Greeks’ never existed as a unity of civilization. The same concerns also the Ancient Romans, although they were a coherent, military nation. The Ancient Romans and Greeks were civilized only when they were flooded by numerous Oriental cults, religions, systems of spirituality, cosmogonies, wisdom, cosmologies, eschatology, soteriology, universal(-ist) imperial conceptualization, and transcendental performance.
There was never an ancient state named ‘Greece’; and all those, whom the European academic criminals label ‘Greeks’, used to name themselves with diverse names, incessantly expressing rancor and evilness against one another. Their misplaced mythology testifies to their delusion and hallucination; and because they knew that they were ignorant barbarians, they went to Babylonia, to Iran, to Phoenicia and to Egypt in order to study for many long years. Do you know an Ancient Babylonian, Egyptian or Phoenician, who traveled to Ancient ‘Greece’ in order to … study? None! Why? Because there was nothing to study there! ‘Greece’ was on the wrong side of the Mediterranean; and the same is valid for the Romans, who are in fact Trojans (Anatolians), who moved to that land.
With this incontrollable deception in their heads, the Western colonial academia carried out a sacrilegious act of extreme vulgarity and utmost paranoia; they projected their peremptory and delusional worldview onto the lands (and subsequently the nations) that they invaded. Because the Ancient Romans had invaded Kemet (Egypt), the ignorant French barbarian Napoleon was paranoid enough to imagine that he had the right (as a fictional descendant of the Romans) to eventually ‘conquer’ and ‘civilize’ Masr in 1798 (whereas -quite contrarily- in the Antiquity the Egyptians civilized Rome, Greece and the Roman Empire, after they were conquered by Octavian in 30 BCE)
Quite unfortunately for Napoleon, he invaded another land (Masr was not Kemet anymore), he and his scholars failed to understand the wisdom of the ancient monuments and texts, nd he gravely disrespected the land projecting on the Masriyin (modern ‘Egyptians’) his own barbarism, deception, heresy, forgery and falsehood. Consequence of the Anglo-French colonization of Kemet-Egypt-Masr will be the forthcoming African-Asiatic-Islamic invasion of Western Europe, the much needed elimination of the cursed and incestuous French and English pseudo-nations, the final dissolution of France and England, and the confiscation of all possessions of Western European museums, libraries and universities which will return to Asia and Africa. This will be the revenge of the Valley of the Nile – or if you prefer, the Curse of the Pharaoh!
VII. Self-Denial, Understanding of the ‘Other’ through their Criteria, and the Ensuing Benefits
Not only did I truly and wholeheartedly care to understand every civilization by means of their own criteria, principles, standards and methods, but I also managed to use their viewpoints to examine and evaluate today’s world. And since then, I have been repeatedly and absolutely shocked while gradually discovering how inhuman it is.
This is by definition the true, normal and natural path of a student, researcher, explorer and scholar: you don’t study for money, professional position, financial benefit, social promotion, reputation, presence in the social life, and respectability among the ruling idiots, paranoids, gangsters, criminals, fraudsters and crooks. Money is evil and therefore useless; it can only corrupt those who possess it. The only thing you can do, as soon as you have much money, is to pass it onto others and distribute it to the needy.
You study for yourself and for the world; and the world is everything – except for today’s evil elites. Why? Because they are dead and rotten! Contrarily, the study and the exploration are for the alive. And in every historical moment, there are both, people who are alive and past generations that remain alive through the historical sources, the monuments, and the vibrations (meditations, contemplations, emotions and thoughts) that they left for us. Suffice it that you reject yourself and you can live in their bodies! Then, you can assess today’s decayed and terminating world through their eyes! This is the essence of historical scholarship for a man who possesses both, a living soul and a living body: you study to discover the real genius of the past generations and find -through them and on the basis of their principles- yourself. After attaining that level, you can assess and judge today’s world safely, wisely and accurately.
As you can understand, when one really cares about Shorkaror of Meroe, Akhenaten of Kemet (Egypt), Sargon II of Assyria, and many other noble rulers, one cannot possibly care about today’s rotten Western world that stinks disturbingly for all the rest, asking for its utmost elimination and irrevocable disappearance.
VIII. A Determinant Distinctiveness: Opposing Professors who made Mistakes or said Lies
Due to the aforementioned situations, another -also significant- dissimilarity, which truly characterized me, was the fact that I did not imitate the other students, friends and mates, who were credulous, hypocritical, obedient, servile and submissive enough to accept unquestionably everything that our professors said. Those guys finally became the miserable, useful idiots of today’s evil administrations of the Western world. Because they studied having (in their useless and corrupt mind) as final target a position, money and personal material interests, they never disagreed with our professors – not even when these professors said nonsensical lies, made deliberate mistakes, and distorted critical historical sources in order to promote present political interests.
Personally, ever since I remember myself (at the age of 2 and 3), I always had the conviction that life matters only when in Truth, honesty, rightfulness, justice and normalcy (i.e. the inherent moral code that is embedded in every human as per the Laws of the Creation). I never kept my mouth closed when I heard a mistake, a premeditated forgery or an excruciating lie. There is a supreme rule in human life: “you cannot say lies”. Saying lies is tantamount to killing. By saying lies, you damage a part of the Universe. There is no Creation without Truth. That is why anyone who says lies pays a terrible price at the end; but of course then, it is too late.
So, contrarily to the rest, all those miserable and petty students who feared that they would damage their lives by opposing or attacking (verbally) professors when they were saying lies or eventually making mistakes, I straightforwardly reacted on the spur of the moment, when something wrong or false was said. This concerns you, I mean, all the Oromos, very much indeed! I will give you now two examples that concern you.
IX. My Professor, the Egyptologist Jean Leclant, his friend Haile Selassie, and the fabrication of Fake Ethiopia
The first example concerns my Egyptologist professor in France, Jean Leclant (1920-2011), an academician, who became (1984) the Permanent Secretary of the (founded in 1663) Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres for 27 years (until he died, 2011):
As a young scholar, Leclant became a personal friend of Haile Selassie in 1956, when he was tasked by the pseudo-emperor to found the local Service of Antiquities. At the same time, he convinced Haile Selassie to insist on usurping the fair name of ‘Ethiopia’ (which really corresponds only to Sudan – as land), instead of using for his country the only permissible name, i.e. ‘Abyssinia’. He even narrated to the ignorant and loathed dictator that, in the past, there was an Egyptian dynasty (notably the 25th), which was named ‘Ethiopian’ by the Late Antiquity Egyptian historian Manetho. This was true, but it was not an ‘invasion’, as silly and useless Abyssinian ‘diplomats’ pretend. Manetho’s term ‘Ethiopian dynasty’ concerned, as you already know, the Ancient Sudanese (Cushites) of Napata (today’s Karima), who were invited by the priests of Amun of Niwt (Ancient Thebes, today’s Luxor) to rule Egypt in order to oppose the alliance of the opposite priesthood of Iwnw (Heliopolis, in today’s Matariya district of Cairo) with the Berber (‘Libyan’/Lebu) princes of the Delta. In fact, it was an episode of a terrible internal division that had started at ca. 1080 BCE, so more than 400 years before Taharqa ruled at Thebes of Egypt in what surely was the peak period of the 25th (Ethiopian/Cushitic – and not Abyssinian) dynasty of Egypt.
Leclant was a great Egyptologist, and he was at the time working on his post-doctoral thesis (doctorat d’État) exactly on the 25th dynasty of Egypt; Montuemhat was an incredible figure and an able administrator who managed to survive all the ups and downs of the 670s, 660s and 650s (of the 1st millennium BCE), when thrice the Assyrians invaded Egypt to kick the Sudanese Cushites (‘Ethiopians’) out and to impose their Berber (‘Libyan’) friends, i.e. the various Nechao and Psamtek, who thus formed the 26th, known (thanks again to Manetho) as ‘Libyan’, dynasty:
Taharqa’s column in Karnak, Luxor – Upper Egypt: the Cushites – Ethiopians did not ‘invade’ Ancient Egypt; they were called by the Theban priests, who were their coreligionists, to fight the opposite priesthood of Iwnw (Heliopolis) and their Berber (‘Libyan’) allies
By saying this story to Haile Selassie and by making the ignorant and idiotic pseudo-emperor imagine that he was the ‘ancestor’ of Taharqa, the strongest ruler of the 25th ‘Ethiopian’ dynasty, Leclant simply
a. ensured that the traditional Abyssinian enmity for the Muslims of Sudan and Egypt would attain a much higher, nationalistic, degree of paroxysm;
b. guaranteed that the then nascent state and modern nation of Sudan
1. would not be named ‘Ethiopia’ (as it should);
2. would be disconnected from their own brethren, i.e. the Oromos and the other subjugated Cushitic nations of Abyssinia;
3. would be dissociated from their own past and monuments (which would be attributed to ‘Nubians’ in order to provide a nonexistent past to the state of ‘Nubia’ that French and English Freemasons plan to fabricate by detaching the southern part of Egypt and the northern part of Sudan); and
4. would be plunged into the colonial cholera of Pan-Arabism and Arab Nationalism that are fake ideologies derived from conscious distortion of History and are unrelated to either the Cushitic Arabic-speaking Sudanese, the Cushitic Beja, the Nilo-Saharan Nubians, Berta and Furis;
c. made it sure that all these lands and nations would never achieve proper nation-building and emancipate themselves; and
d. prepared them for their future usage (as colonized states) that forthcoming generations of colonial diplomats and academics would decide what to make.
Taharqa’s soldiers as depicted in Assyrian reliefs at Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian EmpireThe rise of the Assyrian universalist Empire and the Sargonid dynasty (722-609 BCE)
When two nations are entrapped in false identity schemes and the Abyssinians think that they are ‘Ethiopians’ whereas the Sudanese Ethiopians do not know that they are Ethiopians, then the colonial masters have an incredible weapon in their hands: they can plunge the two disoriented and deceived countries, elites and governments into endless wars very easily; just when their military industries need to sell more arms.
So, when you happen by mistake to be in front of nonsensical texts like those below, you must know that my professor produced all that:
I still remember that back in 1978-1979, in my first year of postgraduate studies, in Leclant’s postgraduate seminar, which was attended by many French, and several other European, as well as Egyptian, Sudanese and other African students, this topic was once raised. It must have been April 1979, when one student referred to the 25th dynasty that he named in French “dite éthiopienne” (so-called Ethiopian), and I intervened to say that this term was confusing. Then, Leclant asked me why this was confusing, although it was in the historical sources (notably in Manetho), and I said that it would be better to call the 25th dynasty ‘Cushitic’ or ‘Sudanese’, so that no one confuses the ‘Ethiopians’ of the Antiquity with the modern state of Abyssinia that is illegally named ‘Ethiopia’.
Taharqa, the most powerful pharaoh of the 25th (‘Ethiopian’) dynasty was a Cushite of Ancient Sudan – not an ancestor to the Semitic Abyssinian tribes of Tigray and Amhara
All were at once taken by surprise, Leclant included (I saw it on their faces), but I continued to the end adding the following: “alternatively, the UN must reject Abyssinia’s new name, force that communist country (it was 1979) to be named ‘Abyssinia’, and also ask Sudan to be renamed as ‘Ethiopia’. I still remember the enormous eyes of a shocked Sudanese colleague; they were open wide! Leclant did not say anything, but his face was apparently disturbed. However, he always liked me and supported me; making great compliments about me to anyone he spoke with, he once said to the Israeli Egyptologist Sarah Israelit Groll (when she asked him prior to my arrival in Israel where I continued my studies with her in 1984-1985) about me “he learns languages like nothing”!
But the embarrassing truth is that Leclant was forging names of countries like nothing.
X. Attending the Seminar of Maxime Rodinson, the French Orientalist
As an anti-Zionist Ashkenazi, anti-Soviet Marxist, and atheist, Rodinson (1915-2004) was perhaps the most famous, the most intellectual, and the most controversial among all of my professors. He did not have the illustrious career and the important positions of Jean Leclant (who was also a director in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was supervising all French archaeological missions outside France – an enormous task), but he was an exceptional polyglot, a formidable ideologist, and a skillful academic able to offer vast theoretical background to his interpretation of historical developments. He was a very popular intellectual among all leftist youngsters who happened to originate from former French colonies or anywhere else (Iran, India, Indonesia and Latin America, etc.).
The fact that he, as an Ashkenazi (this means a ‘fake Jew’, but few people understand it) turned against the state of Israel and supported the Palestinians against the so-called Jewish settlers offered him an aura of moral and intellectual authority and the fame of a righteous opponent of all oppressors. Hhhmm! He was a leading figure of Pan-Arabism in the sense that his Marxist worldview ‘had’ to cope with the French colonial interests, and it is very well known that the French gangsters started already in the 18th c. fabricating the fake ‘Arab’ nation in order to regroup numerous, very different nations between Mauritania and Oman into one force that they wanted to use as a proxy. Of course, Rodinson was very correct when opposing Political Islam and all types of Islamism, but his criticism never led to the Truth properly speaking, but to other misconceptions. Here you find a genuine representation of who Maxime Robinson was:
His ‘Islam and Capitalism’ is remarkable in that he trashed all the ridiculous Sharia ‘laws’ (to which today so many idiotic, ignorant and uneducated Islamists aspire), by demonstrating that, throughout Islamic History, the useless and worthless Sharia was not implemented for the sake of Quranic ‘orthodoxy’ or out of Islamic piety, but simply because of dirty socio-economic interests, passion for absolute power, and usurpation of the governance. But then, if for no less than 1400 years Sharia was merely the good Marketing performance of every criminal gangster willing to posture as ‘acting according to the divine law’, why supporting the implementation of Sharia today? It would be idiotic, hypocritical and shameful for a Muslim. Better than any other publication, this book makes it clear that today’s evil pseudo-Muslim politicians, who call for Sharia, want merely to show their filthy interests as ‘Islamic’.
His ‘Muhammad’ was surely Rodinson’s most controversial book, in the sense that (https://www.nyrb.com/products/muhammad?variant=32798258200713) it generated rage and wrath among all Islamists, Jihadists, Wahhabis and the other idiots of Political Islam, who are all fake Muslims without even understanding it. Even Edward Said wrote a eulogy (and I say ‘even’, because the two scholars did not have good relations, as Maxime Rodinson did not endorse the ardent anti-colonial positions of the Christian Palestinian intellectual. Personally, I find several good points in that book (Muhammad), but I reject it in the approach that it expresses, because Rodinson very often stops being a perspicacious explorer and projects his own considerations, feelings and ideas onto the natural environment out of which Muhammad emanated.
Was Maxime Rodinson the defender of all oppressed people and nations? Surely not!
Quite on the contrary! When it came to the colonial interests of France, he knew how to keep his mouth closed and accept discriminatory, racist terms. He was certainly an academic who could teach in more than 10 academic fields; I attended for three years (1978-1981) his seminars at the famous École pratique des hautes etudes, 4th section (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_pratique_des_hautes_%C3%A9tudes#Historical_and_Philological_Sciences)
His two seminars were a) on the Pre-Islamic History of Red Sea and Indian Ocean and b) unpublished Ge’ez theological and literary manuscripts. The first seminar involved the study of many historical sources in several ancient languages, notably Ancient Yemenite (Sabaean, Himyarite), Syriac Aramaic, Ge’ez, Ancient Greek and Medieval Greek, and Latin. As you can guess, we used to study excerpts from the famous 19th c. monumental series Patrologia Graeca (160 volumes), Patrologia Latina (217 volumes), and Patrologia Orientalis (50 volumes). About:
In the second seminar, we studied several Ge’ez texts notably the Ge’ez version of the illustrious early Christian and/or Gnostic text of Physiologos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiologus
There were about 10-15 scholars and postgraduate students attending the seminar. I still remember a Pan-Arabist Yemenite from Sanaa, two Amhara Abyssinians (pro-royalists and against the then new Derg regime that Maxime Rodinson supported), and except me, all the rest were French and Western Europeans (one Swiss, one English Jewish lady, and two Germans).
XI. Maxime Rodinson took position against the Liberation of Ogaden (1977-1978) and supported the Imperialist Soviet and Cuban colonials against Somalia
I still remember that Maxime Rodinson, the righteous ‘Marxist’, called the very rightful attack of President Siyaad Barre of Somalia on the impermissible colonial relic of Abyssinia an ‘expansionist’ war! I opposed him, because I knew already that the Ogadeni were Somali and that Ogaden was a historical land of Somalia. The Amhara guy, Argaw Makonnen, interfered to say that the Ogadenis hate the other Somalis and that the other Somalis do not want them with them, which was of course a lie. This was quite early, because I started my studies with him in October 1978 and the Ogaden war had just finished.
Rodinson was evidently and partially pro-Amhara. I also remember that he made parallels between the attempt of Siyaad Barre to bring justice to the Horn of Africa and King Ahmed ibn Ibrahim’s effort to destroy the pseudo-Christian Amhara kingdom of Gondar in the early 16th c., when the Portuguese colonial gangsters managed to sustain the dispersed and defeated Amhara soldiers. I also remember that Rodinson presented the ‘Conquest of Abyssinia’ as a ‘religious war’, which is wrong.
XII. Maxime Rodinson shamelessly speaking about the “Gallas”
On another occasion, I heard a discussion about the “Gallas”. As I was just 22 and I did not know much about the wider Horn Region, I tried to remember what a young Greek friend had told me in Greece; she was born in Abyssinia and she spoke 2-3 local languages, but she had to leave with her family in 1974 due to the regime change. She had the same age as I had, and we were students at the University of Athens, Faculty of Letters. She would stay and live in Greece, but as my plans included long travels and faraway movements, I was avid to learn more from her about the region, because she had already traveled much there; she used to go to Mogadishu and she preferred Somalia that she described in the best possible words (as a far more progressive country), whereas she offered dark pictures of Abyssinia as an incredibly backward and oppressive state. She was in Diredawa, in Djibouti, in Assab, and of course Lalibela, Axum and Gondar, but she used to always turn the discussion to Somalia and how pleasant everything was there.
But Maria, that Greek Abyssinian university mate, had never spoken to me about the “Gallas”! So, I did not say anything in Rodinson’s seminar, but forced myself to find out the response in the available bibliography. There I realized that Maria’s “Oromos” were Maxime Rodinson’s “Gallas”! So, next week, I started with the remark before the seminar started! I asked why they had called the Oromos “Gallas”, stating that their true name was “Oromo” and mentioning some of the books that I had read. We were at the moment of resuming our seats and Rodinson was about to open his mouth and respond, when the Amhara guy, Argaw Makonnen, answered first saying that the real name was “Galla”, that “Oromo” was a propaganda construction, and that the name was not attested in historical sources. He also added that the “Gallas” were ‘restless’ (!) -I still remember his word “agités”- and he ended like this: “in any case, we call them Gallas”.
The strange was not that he responded first (whereas I had asked Rodinson and not him) or that Rodinson did not add anything after that, thus showing that he accepted and ‘endorsed’ the response or that the issue had ended, but that Argaw Makonnen had spoken angrily for what I had asked, as if the topic had to be a matter of dispute and embarrassment. Of course, I immediately found the whole case as absolutely abnormal; I realized that there were many issues of which I had no idea as regards this topic; then, I remembered that few years earlier, in Athens, Maria had told me that many atrocities had taken place in Abyssinia in the recent past (the last 100 years) and I concluded that the entire issue necessitated a vast investigation from my side.
However, with me, you have to know that you deal with someone who primordially cares much about, and is fascinated with, the Antiquity. In fact, I always find Modern History (the last 500 years) as a less interesting topic. It took me therefore many years to really learn how bloody the formation of the Abyssinian colonial state truly was, and how many genocides took then place in Eastern Africa of which nobody ever spoke openly. My first encounter with the books of Bulatovich (in Russian) that I read in 1991 in Russia was shocking, because his narrative puts everything beyond any doubt. That’s why I popularized his book’s English translation back in 2010 by republishing it in parts and by adding introductory paragraphs as comments; I came up finally with no less than 29 articles that are republished here; this is their complete list: https://www.academia.edu/43645563/Links_to_my_articles_about_Official_Czarist_Russian_Envoy_Alexander_Bulatovichs_books_on_1890s_Abyssinia_and_his_expedition
And of course, as I understood many times in my life, one cannot truly learn in libraries, seminars, museums and universities, but … in situ! My meetings with exiled Oromos in Sudan, with Ogadeni and Afar refugees in Yemen, with illegally displaced Bertas in Sudan, and with many others, Amhara and Tigray included, helped me shape a clear understanding of the entire problem named ‘Ethiopia’.
XIII. Gregentius of Taphar, Prophet Muhammad, Christological Disputes, Jews, and today’s False Narratives about Early Islam
Beyond the aforementioned, I had another clash with Maxime Rodinson in 1980. It was about Gregentius’ Laws of the Himyarites, a text written few years before the birth of Prophet Muhammad by the Christian Orthodox bishop of Taphar (Zafar), the capital of the pre-Islamic Yemenite kingdom of Himyar. Bishop Gregentius was one of the most powerful spiritual heads of Christianity and he was dispatched from Alexandria to Axum only to be further sent to Yemen, after the victorious invasion undertaken by king Caleb of Axum, who had been asked by the Constantinopolitan kings to intervene in Yemen and dissolve the Christian Nestorian–Jewish Yemenite kingdom of Dhu Nu’was.
Dhamar Aliy Yahbur II, king of Himyar ca. 180 CEHimyarite inscription
In fact, at the time, there was a deep Christological dispute and division in Yemen (of which Najran is the northern part) with Nestorians being majoritarian in the South (Himyar) and Monophysites (like the Copts and the Axumite Abyssinians) being predominant in the North. The Jews sided of course with the Nestorians, and although the Constantinopolitan king was Orthodox, he had to side with the Monophysites, because the Nestorian-Jewish alliance anytime anywhere would promote anti-Roman, Sassanid Iranian interests.
Christian King of Himyar
This tormented period (the last 50 years preceding the birth of prophet Muhammad: 520-570 CE) is of the utmost importance for today’s Freemasons, Zionists and Jesuits, because it inevitably predetermines what truly happened in the early Islamic years – and which is totally unknown to the entire world nowadays (or, to put it otherwise, everything that we ‘know’ about that period is totally wrong as result of systematic and sophisticated misinterpretation).
This inconsistent map shows the main Ancient Yemenite kingdoms and the Axumite state of Abyssinia, but it covers different periods: Qataban ceased to exist at the end of the 2nd c. BCE. The Axumite invasion of Najran dates in the 6th c. CE; the Abyssinian occupation of Najran was precarious.
The events of this period (520-570 CE) are the best proof of who the true followers of prophet Muhammad were; the facts that took place at those days help us clearly identify who the hypocrites around prophet Muhammad were: all those who pretended to be friends, but were indeed vicious enemies. All the disputes, conflicts and ferocious polarizations of the first decades of Islam were due to them; but they have been hidden -down to our times- behind the mask of the follower or companion of prophet Muhammad. However, because all these terrible disputes, conflicts and polarizations did not start in 610-630 CE, but 150 years earlier (becoming apparent and frontal in both, the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE and the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE), and were spread throughout the Red Sea in the early 6th c. CE, we can accurately and effectively track opinions, stances, considerations and positions over time and thus uncover the true face of several people around prophet Muhammad. In reality, the History of Islam starts with the 50-year period preceding prophet Muhammad’s birth. About:
All the other sources dating back to the early days of Islam are silent, when it comes to critical issues, or have been tempered with. The unspeakable realities of those days are something that today’s colonial academic elites want to keep concealing, as they have been systematically doing after they managed to confuse, disorient and mystify the modern, ignorant and pseudo-Muslim authorities of all the Muslim nations (I speak of the local religious, academic and governmental elites in their totality). That’s why they invented the nonsensical pseudo-theory of ‘literary topos’, a nonexistent concept, in order to deflate every concerted effort to reconstitute the past. Curtius’ nonsensical commonplaces simply do not exist; an element of Ancient Egyptian literature that looks similar to another of the Assyrian Babylonian literature is not truly comparable because within different context, it gets a totally different meaning, sense and place. Thanks to the paranoid pseudo-theory of ‘literary topos’, the Messiah and the Antichrist may be the … same person! It is absurd. About:
But we know very well that before 600 years, at the time of Timur (Tamerlane), things were not like that and there were true Muslims who knew what terrible plots had taken place around prophet Muhammad, being then carried out by those who hypocritically presented themselves as ‘friends’ and ‘companions’: Timur himself knew and Ibn Khaldun knew. The Early History of Islam needs to be rewritten from scratch, and those, who want to prevent this, are not today’s ignorant and idiotic Muslims, but the secretive elites of the colonial countries. This is so because today’s false Islam is so convenient for them: this is the hidden part of the evil and lethal iceberg that you know as ‘Anglo-Saxon – Saudi alliance’; but this is another issue.
After Caleb (named Ella Asbeha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleb_of_Axum in several sources) killed Dhu Nuwas, the Nestorian-Jewish state in Yemen was dissolved, and Gregentius imposed Orthodox Christianity in Taphar (Zafar) and in Najran as the local bishop. It is certain that he remained there longer than the Axxumite Abyssinian soldiers who apparently were forced out by the invading Sassanid Iranian armies that annexed (ca. 540) Yemen, turning it into an Iranian satrapy (province) like Oman (which had been Iranian for more than 1000 years at the time). It is quite interesting to note that, whereas the Yemenites, who were/are not Arab, rejoiced and accepted Christianity in the period 525-550 CE, the barbarian Arabs of the desert (the tribal pseudo-kingdom of Kinda) wept for the death of Dhu Nuwas: these were later the true supporters and allies of prophet Muhammad’s worst Meccan enemies.
Caleb of Axum in later representation
XIV. Polarization with Maxime Rodinson about Gregentius of Taphar
All this is the background that Maxime Rodinson and I (and surely several others in the seminar) knew already quite well back in 1980. As far as I am concerned, I must clarify that at those days I knew the events of that period well, but I had not reached a pertinent interpretation or conclusion. But Maxime Rodinson wanted to deny facts, and that is why we clashed, as you will see below.
The major issue was however nothing of the above; what matters is not Gregentius of Taphar but his books. One of the books that he elaborated was “the Laws of the Himyarites” (who were named in Greek Homerites); this is known among Western scholars as Leges Homeritarum (in Latin translation). Maxime Rodinson spoke very contemptuously about it, but I had already read it, and I defended it greatly. The rest of the participants were astounded; none of them spoke. After a certain moment, I realized that Maxime Rodinson had not read the text itself, which is a great source of information about the Himyarites of Yemen and it does not contravene any data discovered in the corpus of the excavated and published pre-Islamic inscriptions in Himyarite language. I continued narrating the contents and Rodinson continued rejecting all the contents on the basis of modern bibliography (about this historical text) that he had ostensibly studied very well. But his persistence was bizarre; or at least it so appeared to me at the time.
Gregentius of Taphar in 12th c. wall painting from a monastery in Cyprus: named as ‘Gregory the archbishop of the Homerites’
In fact, it was as if there was an evil spirit that wanted to systematically discredit the Medieval Greek text, and to do this, it associated each and every part of the text to a posterior event that have some relation with a part of the contents. This would therefore hypothetically lead to the conclusion that the text was not written in the middle of the 6th c. CE but much later, eventually in the 10th c. (!!!!), by a monastic forger God only knows in what monastery of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The very interesting point is that the text was subsequently translated in many other languages, but there are several divergences between let’s say the original Greek text and the Slavonic or the Arabic translation. The frontal opposition with Maxime Rodinson lasted much time (more than 30 minutes) and not one person was able to prove the text of Gregentius wrong in anything. I must add that among the disciples and associates of Rodinson was Christian Robin, then young specialist of pre-Islamic Yemenite Literature and History (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Robin). He clearly had not read the Laws of the Himyarites at the time. About:
The entry of Wikipedia is a most sophisticated forgery that I would need at least 30000 words to analytically refute; the same is true for the entry about Dhu Nuwas!
Who calls Gregentius …. “Bishop of Ethiopia”??? !!! Of course, the -disreputable and multiply denounced as Anti-Christian Zionist- head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America! You can surely laugh with this rubbish:
In Slavic hagiography: as Gregory Omiritski (the ‘Homerite’)
Of course, back in 1980, I was 24 and therefore still naïve and unable to discern why all this happened. I remained friendly predisposed to Maxime Rodinson, who used to invite us all to a restaurant for lunch not far from Sorbonne once per year. I even dedicated to him one of my books (published in Greek in 1994), I sent it to him and he thanked me. But by that time, I had already realized why this entire ordeal had happened about Gregentius.
The beginning of the Laws of the Himyarites from a Gaza manuscript
In another text, the great bishop (who died just few years before prophet Muhammad was born) described in great details his public debate with a Yemenite Jew, whom Gregentius was able to refute, lampoon and ridicule. In the debate, Gregentius demonstrated that the Biblical tradition did not stay anymore with the Jews, that they did not actually represent anything except a vicious negativity and an inhuman hatred, and that they had no right to claim anything as regards the Ancient Hebrew religion and the Old Testament. What today’s colonial pseudo-scholars of the Western bogus-universities hate most in this case is the fact that, in addition to his oratory skills, the bishop of Taphar performed in public majestic miracles of formidable spiritual potency, making all understand the Jewish deviate mind, venomous heart, spiritual impotency, faithless materialism, and utmost uselessness.
What did prophet Muhammad add to bishop Gregentius’ denunciation of the Jews few decades later? Nothing! He only reconfirmed that God rejected the Jews and that He deprived them of their earlier status of ‘chosen people’. The extraordinary identity of Gregentius’ and prophet Muhammad’s overwhelming rejection of the Jews fully demonstrates that in fact the religion of Gregentius was not what we call today ‘Christianity’, but what was called ‘Islam’ in the early decades of the 7th c. CE. This only corroborates Emperor Heraclius’ stance toward prophet Muhammad’s envoy, as narrated by Tabari and many others.
XV. Conclusion
I expanded much on this topic because I wanted to give you some examples of my activities and endeavors as a student and young researcher. One person’s early years predetermine his life, and I have been most happy for it being so. This cannot be seen easily through the lines of my articles, books and publications, but since you so much like me, I had to expand and offer a plain response. I don’t find it either important or rich or emphatic or bold or unapologetic or anything; I find it just mine. I never change and I permanently remain the person I have always been. Always very different from the rest; I have nothing in common with the others, all those whose life is an endless fear of dying.
Thank you for your interest to meet me and for your kindness to invite me to Occupied Oromia! My dear, I am afraid that instead of helping you, I will harm you! I would never like to cause you problems with the government. They know me very well. Any type of academic or personal association with me can be detrimental for you; they may easily accuse you of speaking with the enemies of the state and the government. Personally, I would be ready to come to Oromia anytime. I don’t mind dying for Oromia; I will not be the first and I will not be the last. Dying for a noble cause is the best manner to transcend this false world and enter in the real world whom none can ever forge. But I real worry for you, if the local authorities come to know your relationship with me.
In an 8-page article, which was initially published in a Greek monthly magazine back in 1988 and more recently republished online (in Greek) in several sites as both, text and video, I unequivocally described Constantinople – Istanbul as ‘the Lunar City’ (https://www.academia.edu/23392671/Κωνσταντινούπολη_η_Σεληνιακή_Πολιτεία_του_καθ_Μουχάμαντ_Σαμσαντίν_πρώην_Κοσμά_Μεγαλομμάτη). And in article published last year (29 May 2021), I determined that Sultan Mehmet II Fatih’s conquest of Constantinople (29 May 1453) was the most useless Ottoman victory, extensively analyzing the reasons, which should imperatively make the brainless and easily suggestible sultan abstain from such meaningless attempt at the time.
Quite unfortunately for him and his ignorant and unsuspicious successors, they made their capital of a city that was bearing an enormous historical burden, also involving a very perplex and extremely conflicting relationship with Rome, the real capital of Western European Christianity. Inanely enough the Ottoman sultans thought at the time that it would be possible to exorcize an unknown (to them) past with some incomprehensible (to them) verses of the Quran, and they therefore fell victims of few Satanic theologians (currently named ‘Sunni’, although the term is a neologism lacking any historicity), who falsely represented, viciously introduced, and abjectly misinterpreted Islam as a task of conquering, thus drawing Prophet Muhammad’s curse on them, their evil deeds and unfathomable idiocy. Here: https://www.academia.edu/43199538/29_May_1453_The_most_Useless_Ottoman_Victory
This article was translated into Greek and then republished in several Greek sites and blogs due to the interest that many Greeks showed for a very unusual, non-sectarian, non-conventional, and genuinely objective, historical scholarly analysis that did not start from an idiotically preconceived standpoint in order to try to defend a Christian thesis if the author is Christian, a Muslim thesis if the author is Muslim or an atheist thesis if the author is an atheist. Such a stance is genuinely ludicrous and quasi-automatically self-discredited – anytime anywhere and under any circumstances whatsoever. The Greek translation was also republished here:
I. Today’s Fake Religions and Fake Sciences: Obstacles on our Way to find the Truth
II. No Imperial Capital can be located on the Seaside
III. Troy: Constantinople’s Real Predecessor
IV. Hittite-Achaean Alliance against Accursed Troy
V. Sea Peoples’ Invasions: Reaction to the Hittite-Achaean Alliance and the Trojan War
VI. Constantinople: as Troy’s Descendants, the Romans return …
VII. Iranians and Macedonians in the Turkish Straits, and the pro-Roman Stance of the Attalids
VIII. Constitutio Antoniniana: Death Certificate of the Ancient Greeks
IX. The Rise of Sassanid Iran, Roman Defeats in the East, and the Roman Administrative Divisions
X. Praefectus Urbi; at the very Origin of the World’s most Perverse Theocracy: Papoceasarism
XI. Constantine I, the Slow Rise of Christianity, and the Events Preceding the Construction of Constantinople
XII. Constantine I, New Rome (Constantinople), and the Reasons for it
XIII. New Rome (Constantinople): a Disadvantaged Location as per the Principles of Geographical Determinism
XIV. New Rome (Constantinople): a Christian Empire’s Capital lacking Christian Credentials
I. Today’s Fake Religions and Fake Sciences: Obstacles on our Way to find the Truth
Historical truth does not ‘justify’ any sectarianism and does not comply with the silly religious pseudo-beliefs of modern times. Today, there are no religions left, except for few systems of spirituality and faith shared by the indigenous inhabitants of remote societies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that live far from the modern technological world and the political regimes that tyrannize the Mankind. Today’s so-called official dogmas of the world’s major religions have been monstrously distorted and their spiritual – metaphysical essence disfigured. Their cosmogonic, cosmological, eschatological and soteriological dimensions were forged, and their moral doctrine was corrupted and conditioned on the modern world’s inhuman evilness. Their terms have been altered, the connotation of their key words and codes perverted, their cults falsified (‘reformed’ is the anodyne description of the fact), and their practice reduced to ludicrous and meaningless caricatures. That’s why today’s fake religions function as political ideological systems and ignorant, uneducated, uncultured and thoughtless ‘believers’ accept the monstrous lies that today’s pseudo-religious ‘leaders’ shamelessly propagate before joining Satan, their god, at the bottom of the Hell.
On the other hand, the modern historical science, as part of the wider circle of Humanities, has been founded on biased Renaissance times’ aberrations and peremptory assumptions, on the racist myths and arbitrary maxims of Classicism, on the inhuman aphorism of the Enlightenment, and on all useless and paranoid axioms of modern Western colonial political ideological systems (the infinite contamination of Jacobinism, Marxism-Leninism, parliamentarianism, conservatism, liberalism, Leftism, socialism, communism, Euro-centrism, neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, evolutionism, rationalism, Hegelianism, modernism, materialism, postmodernism, de-constructivism, etc.). Any scholarly research, which is parameterized on any of the aforementioned and other minor systems, represents a deliberate distortion and an ignominious fallacy.
To discover the historical truth in any field of research one must go beyond all fake religions of our times, all philosophical systems, all political ideologies, all academic schools, all preconceived aberrations, all sorts of subjectivism and ego-centrism, and every inherent inclination to project today’s ‘values’, ‘principles’, criteria and measures on the historical times that one may wish to examine.
II. No Imperial Capital can be located on the Seaside
I am afraid that, for Christians and Muslims alike, for Turks and Greeks equally, historical truth is far bitterer, far direr, and far darker than they can even imagine. And when it comes to the Mediterranean Sea’s incomparably greater city today, quite unfortunately, its true greatness is specified in terms of sinister failure, ominous calamity, and obnoxious destruction.
In brief, Constantinople – Istanbul should have never existed. And, if by an erratic coincidence and abominable misfortune, few demented people constructed a town in that location, this agglomeration of edifices should always remain a sly passageway, a furtive station, and a basis for further expeditions or eventually a fated porthmus (strait; https://logeion.uchicago.edu/porthmos).
Either in the Mediterranean or worldwide, there was never a coastal city that became the capital of an empire in historical, pre-Renaissance times, except that city was the metropolis of a maritime realm (like Carthage) or the headquarters of a commercial network (like Alexandria). It is quite indicative: Alexandria’s importance in the trade routes between East and West (i.e. the silk, spice and frankincense trade routes across lands, deserts and seas) increased when Octavian invaded the Ptolemaic capital (30 BCE) and Alexandria ceased to be the capital of a kingdom; even then, Alexandria ad Aegyptum was somewhat eclipsed by the arch-rival city of Gerrha in the Persian Gulf, at least until the end of the Arsacid Parthian times (250 BCE – 224 CE). About: https://www.academia.edu/23214313/Meluhha_Gerrha_and_the_Emirates_by_Muhammad_Shamsaddin_Megalommatis
There had however been -long before Constantinople, long before Byzantium (the 1st millennium BCE city which was located on the same geographical spot, being first called ‘Lygos’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Istanbul#Lygos / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantium)- another, very ancient, coastal city in the wider region, which comprises the Bosporus (İstanbul Boğazı), the Marmara Sea (Marmara Denizi), and the Dardanelles (Çanakkale Boğazı); this very ancient city was an exceptionally wealthy commercial center and the capital of a confederation, but not an imperial capital: Troy.
If we carefully observe and effectively contemplate the outline of the wider region, which separates the Black Sea from the Mediterranean Sea, we understand very well that 3rd–2nd millennium BCE Troy (Taruisha or Wilusa in Hittite; Truva or Troya in Turkish) was Constantinople’s real predecessor in a broader sense. As a wealthy rival of the Hittite Empire, Taruisha had the power to mobilize the Lukka (also known as Assuwa) Confederacy and generate serious troubles to the imperial capital Hattusha (Boğazköy), particularly when the Hittite army was fighting against the Babylonians, the Mitanni Hurrians, and the Egyptians in the vast empire’s S-SE borders.
From the highly informative Hittite archives, we learn that the Hittite Empire’s western confines were constantly in turmoil; the reason for this was the fact that the Balkan Peninsula was not part of the then civilized world, which involved Mesopotamia, SW Iran (Elam), Anatolia, Canaan (Phoenicia and Syro-Palestine), Egypt and Cush (Ancient Ethiopia, i.e. today’s Sudan). Crete, the Aegean Sea, the Balkan Peninsula and the rest of 2nd millennium BCE Europe were an unimportant, barbaric and consequently chaotic fringe that did not matter at all for the then centers of World Civilization.
In Western Anatolia, even now and then, disorderly elements among the Lukka, the Arzawa, the Hapalla, the Mira, the Wilusa, and the Assuwa (which stretch across the north-western confines of Anatolia) forced the Hittite army to forthwith cancel military operations in Mesopotamia and Canaan (then known as Amurru) and undertake expeditions to the West in order to pacify the chaotic periphery.
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Download Joachim Latacz’s interesting viewpoint on Wilusa (Wilios/Troia) as Center of Hittite Confederate in North-West Asia Minor:
IV. Hittite-Achaean Alliance against Accursed Troy
At a certain moment, the Hittites found it proper to strike a formal alliance with their relatives and subordinates in the Balkan Peninsula’s southernmost extremities, namely the Ahhijawa, who are identified by all Hittitologists with the tribe of the Achaeans (later considered as the earliest tribe of the Ancient Greeks). Hittite sources reveal that the tiny and marginal Achaean kingdoms were duly utilized by the imperial court at Hattusha in order to ensure safety in the empire’s western confines, when the bulk of the Hittite military force was engaged against the other great empires of the then known world in the S-SE borders, i.e. in territories of today’s Northern Iraq, Northern Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine.
One cannot have any doubt about the force, the wealth and the size of the rivals:
– Hattusha, the imperial Hittite capital, stretched over an area of ca. 270 ha, without counting the Hittite sacred land and religious capital at nearby Yazilikaya.
– However, the 13th c. BCE walled city of Troy (so, at its culminating point) did not cover an area larger than 74 acres (: 30 ha).
– And the tiny Achaean kingdom’s capital Mycenae had an area of 32 ha (including however the citadel and the lower town). Details and bibliography:
What was later mythologized in Homer’s epics as Trojan War was nothing more than an expedition in support of the Hittite Empire and an attack of the South Balkans’ Achaeans, the relatives and allies of the Hittites, against the wealthy commercial center (Taruisha) that instigated all the anti-Hittite activities in Western Anatolia. The Achaean success, which satisfied the imperial Hittite needs in the empire’s western confines, proved however to be short-lived and ultimately calamitous for both allies, the Hittites and the Achaeans.
V. Sea Peoples’ Invasions: Reaction to the Hittite-Achaean Alliance and the Trojan War
Exasperated with the destruction of Troy, all elements of the anti-Hittite and anti-Achaean alliance, known as ‘Sea Peoples’ in the Ancient Egyptian historical sources, fomented a rebellion in South Balkans, Western Anatolia, the Aegean Sea, and Crete, destroyed the Mycenaean and other friendly kingdoms, burned all Achaean citadels, attacked and destroyed the Hittite capital Hattusa, spread throughout Canaan and Amurru (today’s Syria), and attacked Egypt where only after three land and sea battles was Ramses III able at last to disperse and annihilate them. The Annals of Ramses III, inscribed amongst others on the walls of his mortuary temple at Madinat Habu in Thebes West (today’s Luxor) describe in extreme details the events.
The conclusion that we can safely draw from this briefly mentioned major event of the History of Ancient Orient during the 2nd millennium BCE is that
a) the Turkish straits (the Bosporus, the Marmara Sea, and the Dardanelles) region cannot be the region of a major imperial capital; and
b) the Turkish straits region stands instinctively in opposition to Anatolia, and more particularly, the central Anatolian plateau can be the region of a major imperial capital.
In other words, the Pre-History of Constantinople-Istanbul proved to be nefarious, already 1500 years before Constantinople was first built in 324-330 CE (solemnly inaugurated on 11th May 330) and 2650 years before the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II invaded it on 29th May 1453.
Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, Thebes of Egypt (Luxor West): on the temple’s walls the most accurate depictions of the Sea Peoples and the longest narratives of the Egyptian victory over them can be found.
VI. Constantinople: as Troy’s Descendants, the Romans return …
It goes without saying that for no less than one and half millennia after Troy’s siege and destruction (1200 BCE – 330 CE) the Turkish straits region remained a largely unimportant periphery in the History of the Mankind; to be exact, the region was good enough for the role that the geomorphological environment determined it, namely that of a passageway – not that of an imperial center. No major city or state was developed in this region between the fall of Troy and the exquisite, monumental construction of the city that Constantine I wanted to function as an Eastern Rome or New Rome.
It is however noteworthy that it took 100 years for the new city to be endowed with an official description of its parts and monuments, namely the illustrious and lengthy Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae. Today’s stupid Greeks and idiotic Turks, who –both- so much claim that the accursed city is “theirs”, have failed to come up with a Modern Turkish or a Modern Greek translation of the fundamental text, which was elaborated in Latin, the then official language of the Eastern Roman Empire (the old Roman Empire was divided into two parts after Theodosius I’s death in 395 CE).
This fact concludes the case of the two peoples, who incessantly prefer to live in darkness, ignorance, disbelief and falsehood, choosing the fallacy of their elites instead of the truth of their common historical documentation. This situation can only herald an ominous destruction for both peoples.
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Download the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae in Latin:
The historical reality that Romans (and not Phrygians, Assyrians, Iranians or Macedonians) were the first to imagine it possible for a major imperial city to be constructed and function in that location only confirms Rome’s greatest poet Virgil and all the ancient Roman traditions, as per which the Romans were the descendants of the legendary Aeneas, one of the few Trojans who escaped the destruction of Troy, being of noble origin, since his father was the first cousin of Troy’s last king Priam.
These legends reflect a historical connection between the Romans and the NW confines of Anatolia and the wider region of the Turkish straits. Of course, the Ancient Greek and Romans myths are unreliable and we cannot afford to take them as historical texts, but the decipherment of Luwian hieroglyphic script and the study of contemporaneous, 2nd millennium BCE historical sources help us reveal the Luwian origin of that name: Pa-ri-a-mu-a (‘unusually brave). This name has been historically attested in several cases. In any case, the language of the Trojans was a Luwian dialect. About:
Colosseum, RomeThe Hippodrome of New Rome – Constantinople (now transformed into Sultan Ahmet Square / Sultanahmet Meydanı)
VII. Iranians and Macedonians in the Turkish Straits, and the pro-Roman Stance of the Attalids
As one can easily surmise, many great historical developments took place worldwide during the period that starts with the departure of the last Trojans from their ill-fated and destroyed capital and ends with the construction of Constantinople. As a matter of fact, after many centuries of migrations, instability, divisions, and constant wars, in the late 5th and early 4th c. BCE, the wider region of the Turkish straits and almost the entire Balkan Peninsula became integral part and administrative units (‘satrapies’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire) of the Achaemenid Empire of Iran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts_of_the_Achaemenid_Empire: 550-330 BCE).
Both, Xerxes I the Great (in 480 BCE) and Alexander the Great (in 334 BCE) passed by the re-inhabited city of Troy and made sacrifices in the local temples’ altars. The latter invaded the chaotic periphery of the Ancient Greek cities and used Greek soldiers to prevail over the Iranian armies at a particular conjuncture: the imperial Achaemenid force was in decline and the Egyptians had revolted against Iran. As Alexander felt no enmity but admiration for the magnificence of the Iranian (not ‘Persian’) Empire, his otherwise misinterpreted campaigns’ sole result was the continuation of the Iranian Empire with another capital, namely Babylon. One must however add that it is very interesting that, although Alexander the Great founded many cities named after him, he did not find it opportune to found one city in the wider region of the Turkish straits.
His divided successors’ inability to maintain unity and stability in the vast empire led to the so-called Partition of Babylon (323 BCE), which in fact was the partition of the Iranian Empire among the numerous and incompetent pretenders to the throne. With the Asiatic and European coastlands of the Turkish straits divided between the remnant of the Macedonian kingdoms and the Attalids of Pergamon, it was only a matter of time for the Romans to secure a successful return to Anatolia. Quite revelatory of several intriguing trends, the Pergamon-based Attalid dynasty, which controlled the old territory of Troy, became the best ally of the Romans against the Macedonians, the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. And Augustus rebuilt Troy to its past glory, naming the city Ilium.
Achaemenid Empire of IranThe Royal Road from Susa to SardisXerxes I the GreatThe magnificence of Parsa (Persepolis): an unprecedented grandeur that never existed in the Mediterranean world.Reliefs from the Achaemenid palace at SusaThe state of Alexander the Great divided among his quarrelling successors – 300 BCE Res Publica Romana 146 BCE Res Publica Romana ca. 85 BCE
VIII. Constitutio Antoniniana: Death Certificate of the Ancient Greeks
A major development that preceded the construction of Constantinople was the disappearance of the various ‘ethnicities’ (: nations) within the Roman Empire. Due to the groundbreaking Constitutio Antoniniana (which is also known as the Edict of Caracalla; 212 CE), every free inhabitant of the empire was given full Roman citizenship. About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutio_Antoniniana
Because of the edict of Caracalla, the Greeks, the Cappadocians, the Phoenicians, the Syrians (Aramaeans), the Egyptians, the Gauls, and all the other nations of the vast empire were reduced to mere linguistic particularities around an overwhelming Orientalization – Latinization process of nation building. Following the extensive diffusion of Oriental religions, cults, mysticisms, worldviews, trends and ways of life throughout the empire, the old and obsolete pantheons of the Greeks, the Romans, the Celts and the other European nations were erased, and all the nations of the Roman Empire shared one common, typically Oriental, culture encompassing various religions, spiritual initiations, wisdom, cosmologies, cosmogonies, eschatology, soteriology, cults, and mysticisms of Iranian, Egyptian, Anatolian, Aramaean and Phoenician origin.
Progressively, the traditional cultural identities of the Greeks, the Romans and the other Europeans were thus totally altered and fully Orientalized. And when all the old nations that had been conquered by the Romans became Roman citizens within the Roman Empire, they were all amalgamated and transformed into a genuinely Oriental nation, the Roman nation, thus reducing their linguistic particularities and their literary narratives about the past into meaningless reminiscences. It was an unprecedented overwhelming victory of the people over the elite, of the collectivity over the individuality, and of the spiritual over the material.
Thus, when Constantinople was constructed, there were no more ‘Greeks’ (Achaeans, Ionians, Aeolians and Dorians) throughout the South Balkans and Western Anatolia; following the Roman occupation (146 BCE), the Greeks, like many other nations, namely the Illyrians, the Macedonians, the Thracians, the Phrygians, the Lydians, the Carians, the Lycians, the Cappadocians, became a subject nation of the Roman Republic. With the progressive cultural Orientalization (1st c. CE – 3rd c. CE), the Greeks became a culturally Oriental nation worshipping Mithra and Isis, while obliterating Athena and Zeus. Accepting the edict of Caracalla (212 CE), the Greeks admitted that there was no genuine Greek nation anymore, because they had no royal or other concept and system of governance that they would eventually prefer, cherish and opt for. With the imposition of the Roman imperial ideology, the Ancient Greek politics were irrevocably dead.
CaracallaCaracalla’s public baths in Rome – Terme di Caracalla
This means that, before the descendants of the Ancient Greeks went physically extinct in South Balkans, following a) the extensive and merciless persecution of the pagans in the Christianized Roman Empire (4th – 6th c. CE) and b) the excessive depopulation process that followed the so-called ‘Barbarian invasions’ (4th – 7th c. CE), there were no descendants of Ancient Greeks, who valued their ancestry and defunct traditions.
Not one Greek-speaking inhabitant of Roman Greece (during the 1st – 3rd c. CE), let alone a local authority, bothered to
1- commemorate the ridiculous factoids and insignificant events of the so-called ‘victories’ of Marathon and Salamis (the 5th c. BCE fights against the invading Iranian armies, which became however of paramount importance only in the 19th c. (!!??) for the ludicrous modern pseudo-Greek state, which is merely an Anglo-French colonial fabrication),
2- pay tribute to the various worthless Ancient Greek kings, tyrants, authors or statesmen of the past (the likes of Agis, Cleomenes, Peisistratus, Pericles, Thucydides, Sophocles Aristotle, Euripides, Demosthenes, etc.), and
3- honor the memory of the otherwise disreputable Delian League.
That ludicrous past was not anymore theirs; so trivial it was that they left it in oblivion.
Anatolian Greeks survived however in Ionia and Pontus, being spiritually Iranized and Egyptianized (after adopting Mithraism and Isidism), culturally Orientalized, nationally Romanized, and linguistically Latinized. Still today, they represent a historical continuity of three millennia after having been Christianized (Eastern Romans, Ρωμιοί/Romii, Rumlar) and Islamized (Turks, Τούρκοι, Türkler). Basics:
Gothic invasions of the 3rd c. CE3rd c. InvasionsA priest of Jupiter Dolichenus (Aramaean hypostasis of Mithra in Roman Syria) makes a dedication to Mithra for the Salvation of the Roman EmperorsCeiling mosaic from the necropolis under St. Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican (Grotte Vaticane/vault mosaic in the Mausoleum of the Julii): Jesus identified with Mithra. Date: middle of the 3rd century
When it comes to the various Greek-speaking nations (i.e. the various descendants of the Phrygians, the Lydians, the Carians, the Lycians, the Cappadocians, the Thracians, the Macedonians, the Illyrians and the Pelasgians), during the first centuries of the Christian era they were not ethnically Greek, they were not culturally Greek, and they were heavily Latinized. About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civis_romanus_sum
IX. The Rise of Sassanid Iran, Roman Defeats in the East, and the Roman Administrative Divisions
It is on this historical background that Constantine I decided to construct the new city. It was a period of upheaval for the entire empire; in the eastern borders, the wars with Iran, which started with the rise of the Sassanid dynasty (224 CE), caused disastrous defeats at the hands of Shapur I (240-270), one of the World History’s greatest conquerors and harsher combatants. Between 242 and 252, despite many wars in almost all of his frontiers, Shapur I defeated Timesitheus, Gordian III, and Philip the Arab, who had to sign a humiliating peace treaty after the Battle of Meshik (Mesiche/Μεσιχή; 244).
Following the subjugation of Armenia and Georgia, Shapur I won over Roman armies at the battle of Barbalissos (today’s Qala’at Balis) near Euphrates in 252, invaded Syria and Antioch, forcing the Romans to focus on the Eastern front. Valerian recaptured Antioch only to be defeated in 260 CE at the Battle of Urhoy (Edessa of Osrhoene, today’s Urfa in SE Turkey), which is the permanent nadir of Roman History, because Valerian was also held captive and grossly humiliated by the Iranians.
Cameo with representation of the victory of Shapur I (right) over Valerian (left) at Urhoy / Urfa (Edessa of Osrhoene) in 260 CENaqsh-e Rustam (7 km west of Persepolis): Bas-relief representing the victory of Shapur I over the Roman Emperors Philip the Arabe and Valerian (who was held captive in 260 CE). Behind Shapur I, stands Kartir, the high priest and religious reformer, who formulated Mazdeism, i.e. the Sassanid times’ version of Zoroastrianism.Shapur I using the defeated and captive Roman emperor Valerian as a foot-stool to mount his horseThe colossal statue of Shapur I in the cave of Bishapur, near Kazerun (Fars, Iran)
The serious challenges in the East were not the Roman Empire’s sole problem in the middle of the 3rd c. CE; in the northern borders, the wars with the Germans, the Goths and the various invaders produced an alarming situation too. Furthermore, financial difficulties caused because of various irregularities in the internal and external trade, the ensuing internal unrest, various natural disasters, the problems related to the succession, and the difficulty to efficiently rule the vast empire ended up in a system of administrative division as per which the empire would be governed by two senior emperors (titled ‘augusti’) and their deputies (named ‘caesar’), so four distinct rulers, each controlling one part of the empire.
The administrative novelty lasted for four decades from Diocletian to Constantine I (284-324). As system, it was effective because it helped the imperial class of Rome to reinstate public order, military discipline, urban safety, institutional functionality and operability. However, this development generated four operational capitals, thus reducing Rome to merely a nominal capital under a praefectus urbanus (or praefectus urbi), who was not anymore under the direct supervision of the emperor.
During this period, the four capitals of the respective administrative divisions were:
– Mediolanum (today’s Milan) for Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and Northern Africa west of Cyrenaica;
– Augusta Treverorum (today’s Trier) for the territories of today’s France, England, Western Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands;
– Sirmium (today’s Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia’s Voivodina) for the empire’s Balkan territories; and
– Nicomedia (today’s Ismit in Turkey), for the Roman territories in Anatolia, North Mesopotamia, Syro-Palestine, Egypt, and Cyrenaica.
The aforementioned system is now called ‘Tetrarchy’, but this is a modern scholarly term, and it does not have any historicity; the analogies with the Judean Tetrarchy (after the death of Herod I) and the infamous persons involved in the coinage of the term (notably the Social Darwinist German historian Otto Karl Seeck) render its use absolutely unnecessary.
However, Diocletian’s administrative reform was a must; to some extent, it reflected a Roman reaction to another earlier and very obnoxious development, which did not last long, but rang a warning bell for the imperial Roman elite; in 271 CE, the imperial territory was dramatically shrunk due to the secession of the Palmyrene (Tadmur) kingdom (270-273 CE) in the East and the Gallic state (260-274 CE) in the West. Basics:
The Roman Empire in extreme danger, as the Aramaean kingdom of Tadmur (Palmyra) and the Gallic kingdom seceded around 270 CE.Diocletian’s administrative reform and division of the Roman Empire into four parts (284 CE)
X. Praefectus Urbi; at the very Origin of the World’s most Perverse Theocracy: Papoceasarism
It is however noteworthy that Diocletian’s reform
a) familiarized Romans with operational capitals located far from Rome and at times on the very borderlines (notably Augusta Treverorum and Sirmium);
b) revealed that the empire’s main weakness was in the East, and this was due to the rise of the powerful Sassanid dynasty in Iran. The eastern Roman capital was located in the wider region of the Turkish straits and not in one of the two major cities in the East, namely Antioch and Alexandria, which were evidently viewed as very exposed to the Iranian armies and to other unpredictable challenges, notably various wealthy Aramaean ‘buffer kingdoms’ and caravan cities located between the Romans and the Iranians, such as Tadmur (Palmyra), Osrhoene (Edessa/Urhoy/Urfa), Adiabene, Hatra, Characene); and
c) generated as side-effect the concept of Rome being self-ruled and preserved in peace, while the operational capitals are far.
This reality, embodied in the status and the tenure of praefectus urbi, is the earliest form of Papocaesarism, i.e. the concept and practice of the Anti-Constantinopolitan popes of Rome. This concept stands at the antipodes of Caesaropapism, which was practiced in Constantinople and was imposed on Rome by Justinian I.
However, the opposition between Palace and Temple was the real historical background out of which the both, Caesaropapism and Papocaesarism, emanated as forms of spiritual, religious, theological and imperial juxtaposition and polarization; and this enormous background antedates the appearance of Constantinopolitan Caesaropapism and Roman Papocaesarism by at least 3500 years, as it is first attested in Sumer (South Mesopotamia) at the very middle of the 4th millennium BCE, even in period when no writing system had been introduced, but the archaeological material record is quite revelatory.
Without further expanding on the topic, which is vast and vastly documented either in the History of the Ancient Oriental empires or in the case of the ill-fated Roman Empire, I have however to admit that this contrasting issue (Caesaropapism vs. Papocaesarism) has played a determinant role in the permanent, fierce opposition between Rome and New Rome (Constantinople), extensively interacting also with the equally vast topic of the Sibylline Oracles and Books. The fact that the ominous contrast was carefully and systematically forsworn during no less than 3.5 centuries of pre-Christian imperial Roman rule demonstrates and confirms the absolutely sinister nature of Rome’s Christianization, which is something that very few people today are able to dissociate (as one always should) from the widespread diffusion of the early Christian faith and the rise of the Christian theology, namely the schools of Antioch, Alexandria, Caesarea of Cappadocia, Nisibis, Edessa of Osrhoene, and Seleucia-Ctesiphon (the Fathers of the Christian Church). Basics:
It is quite interesting that the last holder of the title of praefectus urbi, after Rome’s fall (476 CE) and evidently much after the term had lost its entire importance, was none other than Pope Gregory I (590-604), one of the most anti-Constantinopolitan popes of the fallen Rome.
Texts, translations and further readings about the Sbylline Oracles and Books:
XI. Constantine I, the Slow Rise of Christianity, and the Events Preceding the Construction of Constantinople
Constantine I advanced through the ranks during the times of Diocletian’s reform, which means that he understood the functionality of the system, its strengths and its weaknesses. His father, Constantius (also known as Constantius I; in later periods, he was usually called Chlorus), served as Caesar under Maximian. His capital was Augusta Treverorum (Trier, Germany). In 305, he was proclaimed Augustus with Mediolanum (Milan) as capital, while Galerius became Augustus in the East with capital at Laodicea (Izmit, Turkey). However, campaigning against the Picts in Scotland, he died in 306, thus opening the way for his son, Constantine (Flavius Valerius Constantinus), to be proclaimed Augustus by the Roman armies at Eboracum (York, North England). Constantine had spent many years in the courts first of Diocletian and then of Galerius, and during that period, he fought against barbarian invaders in the Balkan North and against the Iranians in Syria and Mesopotamia. Having asked permission to leave, Constantine joined his father in England few months before Constantius died.
Constantine’s territory comprised Gaul, Spain and England, but he was soon (end 306) challenged by Maxentius, who rebelled against him; a compromise was achieved between Maxentius’ father Maximian and Constantine, involving an imperial marriage between the latter and Maximian’s daughter Fausta. However, this solution did not last long, and the western half of the Roman Empire lived in absolute instability during 307-308. Since Galerius’ effort to pacify the rivals did not endure, Maximian revolted against Constantine in 310, but was defeated and forced to commit suicide. Constantine’s position was however very weak in the empire, as he was lacking a significant support; he therefore tried to get some religious backing, by replacing Ancient Roman gods with Sol Invictus Mithra as the supreme imperial deity and his own patron.
The period 310-324 CE represents a time of unrest and upheaval, not only at the administrative but also at the spiritual, cultural, and religious levels. The rivalry, fights, compromises, alliances and plots of several pretenders to the four imperial positions of the administratively divided empire produced a total chaos, which is not properly and impartially known to us, because many historical sources were deliberately destroyed (example: Constantine imposed damnatio memoriae on Maximian), various authors contradict one another, and even worse, the main Christian sources are highly untrustworthy, due to the extensively distortive effort, which was involved in writing a revisionist, pro-Constantine, biased narrative and a highly subjective and partial version of the facts.
A typical example of the degree of event falsification, which is commonly attested in these sources, is what we now call the Edict of Milan (Edictum Mediolanense; 313 CE). This was not a proper, solemn ‘edict’, but just an imperial letter dispatched by Licinius to the Roman administrative heads of his domain, namely the East; and it was sent from Nicomedia (only the meeting between Licinius and Constantine took place in Milan). This is how Lactantius, writing in Latin, describes it in his De Mortibus Persecutorum (On the Deaths of the Persecutors); however, Eusebius of Caesarea (Caesarea Maritima in Palestine), in his Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ ἱστορία (Latin: Historia Ecclesiastica/ English: Church History), presents the fact in a most solemn manner. About:
Tyche-New Rome-Constantinople and Constantine in the 330s; the slow progress of Christianization is evident.
Of course, preposterous accusations of Eusebius for anti-Semitism are baseless and nonsensical, but one must admit that the Father of the Christian Church History presented his topics in very contrasting manner on a black and white background, eulogizing Constantine and vilifying Licinius in very subjective and peremptory way.
Following Galerius’ death, Constantine and Licinius had to strike an alliance to oppose their respective contenders, who made a strong bond against the two augusti. Constantine won Maxentius in the battle of Turin (Augusta Taurinorum) in 312 and little time later, in the battle of the Milvian Bridge (28 October 312), which has been highly mythologized by contemporaneous and posterior Christian historiographers, involving narratives about epiphany, dream revelations, supernatural phenomena, and spectacular solar halos. Basics:
Following Maxentius’ death and post-mortem dismemberment, systematic elimination of his public monuments and dismantlement of his guards, a real anti-Roman purge took place in Rome; the army of the imperial capital was totally disbanded. The Constantinian pogrom bore typical characteristics of a military coup. Numerous edifices were demolished and new structures built, while an enormous imperial propaganda was orchestrated to depict Constantine as ‘liberator’ in an effort to evidently break ground and depart from earlier Roman practices and traditions. Few people understand correctly what happened at those days; as a matter of fact, it had nothing to do with the rise of Christianity, as many erroneously assume, but it was rather the installation of an Anti-Christian regime in the semi-destroyed capital of the Roman Empire.
The disastrous developments brought Licinius back to the West, and it is on this background that the critical meeting between Licinius and Constantine took place in Milan (313). This event was later popularized as the beginning of the acceptance of Christianity in the Roman Empire, whereas in reality the then established force was determined to break down the imperial cult of Ancient Rome, i.e. the quintessence of the Roman identity, while progressively introducing doctrinal elements that had nothing in common with what the great theological schools of Christianity could ever accept (notably the temporal power of the so-called ‘holy see’).
Of course, as a military man with elementary education and insubstantial intellectual faculties, Constantine had absolutely no idea of what was going on around him. His supporters’, allies’ and advisers’ back thoughts, evil ideas, and sophisticated schemes would outlive him by millennia. That is why he unintentionally but easily fell victim of the flattering descriptions and comments, which still today constitute the major elements of what is called ‘Constantinian shift’ or ‘Constantinianism’. Basics:
However, the aforementioned developments did not ensure peace in the divided Roman Empire; Licinius had to fight against Maximinus Daza in the battle of Tzirallum (in today’s Tekirdağ province of Turkey near the shore of the Sea of Marmara) and then to chase him up to Cilicia (Tarsus) where the unfortunate pretender died. Centrifugal forces were pulling the two augusti apart from one another, and the first battle between Licinius and Constantine took place in Cibalae (currently Vinkovci in Croatia) in late 316. Licinius lost also the battle in Mardia (presently Harmanli in Bulgaria’s Haskovo province), but Constantine’s subsequent miscalculations exposed him to risks and obliged him to make a peace deal at Serdica (Sofia) in early 317. It was clear that this would not last long and finally, after an early naval battle in 323, the battle of Adrianople (Edirne) in July 324, the naval battle of Hellespont (Dardanelles) in July 324, and the battle of Chrysopolis {Üsküdar on Istanbul’s Asiatic seaside, near Chalcedon ( Kadıköy)}, Licinius was finally defeated, imprisoned and then killed.
New Rome as it may have looked in the middle of the 4th c. CE
XII. Constantine I, New Rome (Constantinople), and the Reasons for it
Taking into consideration the fact that, few years before his final defeat, Licinius had restarted the persecutions against the Christians, Constantine I’s victory did not have only a personal but also an imperial dimension, underscoring the slow but solid process of Christianization that was already underway. There were several reasons that imposed the selection or construction of a new imperial capital. The Roman Quadrumvirate (or ‘tetrarchy’), which was initiated by Diocletian, proved to be as troublesome as the Roman Triumvirates, 400 years earlier, because it generated an inevitable antagonism. However, it also showed that critical changes had to be implemented and more importantly, there was an evident need of at least another capital closer to the northern and eastern borders. On the other hand, Diocletian’s capital (Nicomedia/Ismit), ca. 100 km east of the Bosporus straits, was known as the headquarters of the worst persecution against the Christians. Subsequently, the numerous, unprecedented developments that had taken place during the previous 40 years ruled out the selection of that city as new capital.
The apparent reasons that led Constantine I to the decision of founding a new capital in the location of today’s Istanbul are:
A- the need to better defend the eastern and the northern borders of the empire;
B- the urgency to often dispatch armies and fleets to the east within shorter time;
C- the demand for an impregnable capital;
In this regard, it is essential to note that the Bosporus and the Dardanelles constitute superb natural defenses against attacking fleets sailing from either the Black Sea or the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the Bosporus constitutes a formidable defense line against attacking armies coming from the East (Iran). In such occasions, Nicomedia would be far more exposed to the enemy.
D- the necessity to rupture with the earlier forms of spirituality, mysticism, religious traditions, eschatology, soteriology, and initiation rites that existed throughout the empire;
E- the exigency to strengthen the region (Roman civil diocese) of Macedonia where Christians were fewer than in the Italian Peninsula; here it has to be clarified that the Roman civil diocese of Macedonia encompassed all the southern confines of the Balkans, because the geographical / administrative term ‘Greece’ had already been abolished (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_diocese); and
F- the requirement to accommodate the desire to progressively transform Rome into a distant, yet authoritarian, religious capital for the entire Oecumene, which meant that either no emperor would have the city as capital or every local ruler would be subordinated to Rome’s urban and worldwide religious authority.
The comprehensive construction of the new city leaves no doubt that the earlier settlement (Byzantium) was -to its greatest extent- leveled to the ground and the entire site expanded after a new, entirely genuine and rather grandiose plan. The term ‘Byzantium’ was then obliterated and the city was proclaimed as capital on 11th May 330 CE under the name Nova Roma (‘New Rome’). Other names were also used, namely ‘Second Rome’ and ‘Eastern Rome’. We know that Constantine I did not name the city after himself; contrarily, he named a city in Palestine after his mother. This is actually the city’s worst point in its almost 1700-year long history. New Rome was also named Κωνσταντίνου Πόλις (‘Constantinou Polis’; Latin: Constantinopolis, i.e. Constantine’s city) later, but this was rather an adjectival use or a descriptive reference – and not an official name (Nova Roma Constantinopolitana).
This means that ‘Constantinople’ was not a name given to the city by its founder. It is therefore very wrong to make a parallelism between Alexander the Great and Constantine I, and imagine that ‘Constantinople’ is a name similar to ‘Alexandria’. The difference is not just the fact that the former is a composite name with two components, namely the emperor’s name and the Greek word for ‘city’ (polis); if Constantine I named after him the city that he founded, the name would be ‘Constantinia’. If that were the case, then most probably, Constantine I would also found other cities after him; but we know quite well that he did not do anything of the sort, although his architectural work is enormous in terms of urban expansion, military fortification, and sacral architectonics.
Several historical sources are missing due to successive destructions and at times because of premeditated acts; that is why our information is based on slightly later and often conflicting sources as per which in the official decree the city was called ‘Roma secunda’/’secunda Roma’ (Second Rome) or ‘Nova Roma’ (New Rome). The latter appellation is confirmed by Socrates of Constantinople, a 5th c. historian who is also known as Σωκράτης Σχολαστικός/Socrates Scholasticus; the former name is mentioned by Cassiodorus, a mainly 6th c. historian, who amongst others translated excerpts from Socrates Scholasticus’ works into Latin.
New Rome, the Forum of Constantine
This is what Socrates of Constantinople states:
“he enlarged, surrounded with massive walls, and adorned with various edifices; and having rendered it equal to imperial Rome, he named it Constantinople, establishing by law that it should be designated New Rome. This law was engraven on a pillar of stone erected in public view in the Strategium, near the emperor’s equestrian statue“.
This is what Cassiodorus relates, translating Socrates Scholasticus’ text into Latin:
“Quae cum primitus Byzantium vocaretur, auxit, et maximo eam muro circumdedit, et diversis ornatum fabricis aequam Imperiali Romae constituit; et denominatam Constantinopolim appellari secundam Romam lege firmavit, sicut lex ipsa in marmoreal platona noscitur esse conscripta, et in Strategio juxta equestrem statuam eius est constituta“.
Constantine I presenting New Rome and Justinian I presenting Sancta Sophia church to Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus as depicted on Ayasofya Museum mosaics.
XIII. New Rome (Constantinople): a Disadvantaged Location as per the Principles of Geographical Determinism
The imperial capital name issue was indeed a time bomb, which played a critically determinant role in the History of Christianity, in the History of the Roman Empire, in the History of the Mediterranean, in the History of Europe, and consequently in the History of the World. However, few people today know, let alone understand, the nature of this ferocious rivalry, which was due to many different factors.
A very crucial factor was the location of the new capital, if viewed through the viewpoint and the perspective of the ancient science of Geographical Determinism, which was greatly elaborated, continually studied, and effectively relied upon in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, Canaan-Phoenicia, Iran, Turan and China, before being further diffused among other nations and further developed down to Renaissance, when the rise of modern sciences overshadowed it. As per the principles of Geographical Determinism, the geomorphological location of New Rome (Constantinople) has several privileges, but in no way does it endow the city with traits of imperial capital. There cannot be capital of an empire that is located on the seashore, except for the case this empire is a counterfeit, devilish and ominous or eventually a cursed and maledicted state.
Successful capitals of empires can only be located nearby (or crossed by) rivers, at the confluence of two rivers, by the shores of a lake, at the foothills of mountains, and in vast plains or high plateaus. In other words, New Rome (Constantinople) would never make a Nineveh, a Babylon, an Assyria, a Hattusha, a Persepolis, an Istakhr or a Baghdad. Constantine’s city would never be the equivalent of Thebes of Egypt, Susa (the Ancient Elamite capital that the Achaemenids and Alexander made also theirs), Afrasiab – Samarqand, Xi’an {西安, i.e. the historical capital Chang’an (長安) of China} and Delhi. And it could not be a match for Rome.
Even worse, and despite its several undoubted privileges, New Rome was located in the maritime passageway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea (namely the region of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus strait), which is not a recommendable location for cities, let alone capitals. It is interesting to note that, throughout World History and with the sole exception of Troy, there have not been major cities built in the maritime passageways. This concerns the Red Sea straits, the Persian Gulf straits, the Gibraltar straits, which are the most notable maritime passageways that have been historically documented and described.
To add insult to injury, New Rome (or Second Rome or Constantinople), constructed on European soil, contrarily to Diocletian’s capital Nicomedia, was the first imperial capital ever built in the Balkan Peninsula. This unprecedented fact highlights the urgency with which Constantine I was forced to act after his victory over Licinius. Back in the beginning of the 4th c. CE, it was very well known that no empire had ever existed on the Balkans. Alexander the Great abandoned his insignificant capital of Pella, and after conquering the Iranian Empire, selected the millennia long, holy Mesopotamian city of Babylon as his imperial capital.
When the Macedonian king arrived at the legendary city as a suppliant, the ‘Gate of God’ (this is the real name of Babylon: Bab-ili in Assyrian-Babylonian and KA-DINGIR-RAKI in Sumerian) had already a two millennia long historicity. No other city in the world, not even Thebes of Egypt, could at that time raise such a claim. As a pious and faithful emperor, Alexander zestfully renovated and resolutely rebuilt temples, altars, walls and palaces, therefore embellishing and expanding the only city in the History of the Mankind that was believed to be the center of the universe. This concept was later copied and reproduced by the Ancient Hebrews, the Jews, and the Muslims but in a rather trivial and extraneous manner.
As a matter of fact, the Balkan Peninsula was never home to great empires, even if we take into consideration the small kingdom of Macedonia, which was enormously despised and hated by the Greeks of the Balkans’ southern regions, if we are not ignorant, oblivious or mendacious enough to forget Demosthenes and his incessant diatribes and insults against the non-Greek Macedonians. When the empire of Alexander the Great was divided among the Epigones, the island of Crete was considered as Egyptian (not Macedonian) territory and it was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty. Only the Eastern Roman and the Ottoman Empires were significant realms that controlled the Balkans, but the real center, the heart and the ‘soul’ of both states was Anatolia, not the Balkan Peninsula. Everything started in Anatolia and was then diffused in the Balkans; this has been the typical trait of History for more than 5000 years.
The above truthful remarks do not however mean that New Rome (Constantinople) was doomed since Day 1; no, not at all! But, on the basis of ancient sciences, wisdom, and geomorphological analysis, it would be very difficult for an empire to effectively endure, advance, and focus on an expanding line of imperial order, while having its capital located there. Perhaps, Constantine’s capital would be good enough for two or three centuries. Then, the imperial capital should eventually be transferred to another location, and more specifically in the central plateau of Anatolia, which had already been the high place of a remarkably successful empire.
For the case of Constantine’s capital, the earlier negative impression that was left out of the experience of four imperial capitals (Diocletian’s administrative reform and division) only prevented the sole ruler of the Roman Empire from reconsidering the option – under totally different terms of course. Yet, there were many empires known for having more than one capital at a time; Achaemenid Iran is the perfect example in this case. Parsa (Persepolis) was the main capital of Darius I the Great; Pasargad (Pasargadae) was the old capital of Cyrus II the Great; and Hegmat-ane (Ecbatana, today’s Hamedan), the old Median capital, was their summer capital. Furthermore, Susa (Shushin, today’s Shush), known as major urban center of civilization since the 4th millennium BCE and capital of the kingdom of Elam, was also made capital. Last but not the least, Babylon, one of Mesopotamia’s holiest and most ancient sites, capital of the Nabonid dynasty (625-539 BCE), which was overthrown by Cyrus, and one of the pre-Islamic world’s most advanced scientific, academic, spiritual and religious centers, was also an Achaemenid capital. But the eventuality of multiple Roman capitals was ruled out, at least for the rest of Constantine’s lifetime.
However, in addition to the improper location of the new capital, the name itself produced a major problem, which functioned, as I already said, like a real time bomb. If Antioch or Alexandria was then proclaimed as imperial capital, it would be eventually risky from a military/geostrategic viewpoint, but the entire trouble with the name would be avoided.
Gradually, the appearance of Constantine changed in Eastern Roman Christian Art: Constantine’s vision and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in a 9th-century Eastern Roman manuscript.Constantine’s dream as depicted in a 9th century Eastern Roman manuscript
XIV. New Rome (Constantinople): a Christian Empire’s Capital lacking Christian Credentials
Founding a new capital in a disadvantaged location for imperial capitals and naming it after the earlier imperial capital, which was in the process of becoming the empire’s religious capital (at least this was then in the minds of Rome’s ‘Christian’ authorities) were not the sole ominous parameters of the foundation of New Rome. Although badly needed (the First Council of Christian Churches had to be held in Nicaea, today’s Iznik/Turkey, in May 325 CE), the new capital was quite prematurely constructed for a Christian Empire. Most of the people forget that, when New Rome was inaugurated in 330, the appearance of the newly-built capital had nothing in common with what one could describe 100 years later (around 430 CE) as a ‘Christian city’.
Although the gradual transformation of New Rome into a fully-fledged, ostensibly Christian urban center would not be, and proved not to be, a problem (and the new capital became an apparently Christian city after 380 CE, when the famous Edict of Thessalonica was promulgated), the real issue in 330 CE was a totally different issue. In reality, New Rome – Constantinople definitely lacked any Christian credentials, and -even worse- it was not located in a region known for its significant contribution to the then under formation Christian theology. Already, Rome was not a significant center of Christian theology and the local theologians were not doctrinally self-luminous; on the contrary, they extensively relied on the major schools of Christian theology, which were located in the East. This fact concerned New Rome even more markedly.
It is certain that Constantine I did his best to rapidly build great palaces, public buildings and temples; the famous Church of the Holy Apostles (after 1463-1470 it was rebuilt as Fatih Camii/Mosque) was constructed with the intention to transfer and accommodate the relics of all the twelve apostles of Jesus. Other objects deemed holy were also brought to the city in order to consecrate and protect the new capital: part of the Christian True Cross, the Rod of Moses, etc.; in this regard, it is essential to always bear in mind that most of these traditions may be part of the later need to build stronger testimonies justifying the position of New Rome as the imperial capital par excellence and as the leading Christian Church in the Orient. Basics:
The Church of the Holy Apostles as depicted in 12th c. Eastern Roman manuscript (Vatican Codex Vat.gr.1162)
Despite the aforementioned effort and the evident magnificence of the new capital, which featured impressive squares like the Augustaeum, monumental gates like the Chalke and the Golden Gate, great palaces like the Great Palace and the Palace of Daphne, a Praetorium, a Curia, an hippodrome, impressive colonnades along the main streets, majestic edifices like the Milion, several fora (forums), and the walls, New Rome’s imperial propaganda could not match that of Rome, which had already been firmly propagated as the main religious center of Christianity on the basis of systematic myths and unsubstantiated legends.
A major point of the Roman propaganda about Rome’s credentials of Christianity is the narrative as per which apostles Peter and Paul founded the ‘Church of Rome’, before being supposedly martyred there at the time of Emperor Nero. The fable about Linus being ‘reportedly’ appointed as first bishop of Rome originates out of thin air; the entire story was fabricated by Irenaeus at a most crucial moment, when he was fighting against the Gnostic onslaught on the Christian faith in the middle of the 2nd c. CE. Irenaeus’ nonsensical comment about Tatian (the 2nd century’s leading theologian, author and exegete) being a follower of the Christian Gnostic theologian is quite enough to fully and irreversibly discredit the author of ‘Against Heresies’ (Adversus haereses/Κατά αιρέσεων).
Irrespective of Irenaeus’ veracity or prevarication, the fact is that Rome’s ‘Christian’ establishment had already produced its legends and propaganda tales, when New Rome was under construction. This situation, as it could be expected, produced its own dynamics which functioned in favor of Rome’s primacy (i.e. papal primacy). While building the new capital, Constantine also started and executed two major Christian architectural projects, namely the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the erection of the old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This is a good example of how the Roman primacy propaganda functioned at the time; the church was built on the hill where St. Peter had been supposedly buried and in this manner, an unsubstantiated narrative was ‘expected’ to be confirmed by a totally unfounded endeavor. All these aberrations would later be held as ‘proofs’ of Roman primacy. About:
The elements of religious forgery usually intermingle with the various components of theological life, therefore creating tensions; all accounts made, the down-to-earth reality of the Early Christian Church was that of incessant theological polarizations, debates, interpretations, doctrines, disputes and treatises. In that level, neither Rome nor New Rome really mattered; in an era of ferocious Christological controversies, which started in the East, none of the two cities was known for its erudite scholars, knowledgeable exegetes, and wise Fathers of the Christian Church.
In this regard, the Alexandrian school of Christian theology had already greatly advanced in the 2nd c. CE; the main rival schools of Christian hermeneutics were the School of Antioch and the School of Urhoy (Edessa of Osrhoene). Later, in the middle of the 4th c. CE, great theological schools appeared also in Caesarea of Cappadocia, Nisibis (Northeastern Mesopotamia) and Seleucia-Ctesiphon (Central Mesopotamia). However, neither Rome nor New Rome had formed until the middle of the 4th c. CE similar centers of Christian Patristic literature. Almost all major Fathers of the Christian Church belonged to the schools of Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, Caesarea, Nisibis and Seleucia-Ctesiphon. About:
John Chrysostom, Father of the Christian Church and the most famous theologian of the School of Antioch (mosaic from the Ayasofya Museum)Athanasius of Alexandria, the most famous theologian of the School of Alexandria (11th c. fresco from Hosios Loukas monastery, Athens)St. Ephrem the Aramaean (Syriac), one of the leading Fathers of the Christian Church and the most famous theologian of the School of Urhoy/Urfa (Edessa of Osrhoene)
While victorious Constantine attempted to create an entirely new, Christian Roman Empire with capital in the East, the forces that had earlier supported him applied a wrong treatment on him; for these forces that dwelled in Rome, Constantine’s construction of a new capital far from Rome was conform to their interests, but his appellation of the new capital (New Rome) was unacceptable. Even worse, the great respect and love that the emperor felt and expressed toward Eusebius of Caesarea and Constantine’s tendency towards Arianism were intolerable and incalculably disastrous for them and their elaborately concealed version of counterfeit Christianity.
Today most of the people believe that Constantine was against Arius, but this is very wrong indeed; this is only the interpretation given to the facts by the systematic forgers, who many centuries later turned so openly and so vociferously against New Rome – Constantinople. In reality, in the beginning, Constantine I was rather neutral between the ardent theologian Arius and bishop Alexander of Alexandria; but he could not afford to oppose the majority of the participants of the First Council of Nicaea. However, one must remark that this theological dispute, which was in fact an internal affair of the Church of Alexandria (and had therefore to be solved within the limits of that Church), skillfully became a key topic for all Christian bishops and theologians only to subtly promote Rome’s position among the other Christian churches, already at a moment when the new capital, New Rome, was under construction (325).
The First Council of Nicaea as depicted in the Eastern Roman Christian ArtPosterior propaganda and falsification: Arius depicted as defeated and fallen down (!!) in the First Council of Nicaea. From a painting of the 14th c. Great Monastery of Meteora, GreeceRaffaello’s viciously fallacious version of the First Council of Nicaea in Vatican’s Capella Sistina
This helps us also understand why the fervently built new capital did not have all the highest level dignitaries of Rome; there would not be and finally there were not ‘quaestors’ to supervise the public treasury, elected ‘tribunes’ to protect the people’s interests or ‘praetors’ to administer justice. The ‘senators’ of New Rome did not have the superlative title ‘clarissimus’, but the simple adjectival form (positive degree) of ‘clarus’. And atop of the new capital, there was a proconsul and not a praefectus urbanus (or praefectus urbi). This situation tells us clearly that, while New Rome was still under construction, there was already an opposite force at work.
For the forces that wanted to turn Rome into a religious capital of the entire empire, the new capital’s name New Rome was a permanent source of destabilization and discredit.
These are the forces that propagated the use of the name ‘Constantinople’ instead of ‘New Rome’ throughout the Roman Empire and kept pressurizing on this issue until the middle of the 15th c.
These are the same forces, which did not accept the New Roman/Constantinopolitan selection of the Roman popes, as Justinian I stipulated (a practice that lasted from 537 until 752).
These are the forces that opposed the Quinisext Ecumenical Council (Πενθέκτη Σύνοδος – Concilium Quinisextum), which was held in 692.
These are the forces that coined the nickname ‘Graeci’ (Greeks) for the Romans of the Eastern Roman Empire as early as the 8th c. CE.
These are the forces that triggered the Schism (first in 863-867 and finally in 1054) between Rome and New Rome – Constantinople.
– How can we identify them?
– The easiest and commonest way would be to call them ‘the anti-Constantinopolitan party of Rome’; they also had their fifth column in New Rome – Constantinople, i.e. the ‘pro-Roman party of Constantinople’.
However, this way of identification is external, confusing, and clearly misleading. This is so because for the forces that wanted to turn Rome into a religious capital of the entire empire (and later of the world/’Ecumene’), the imperial capital name issue was in reality only the smokescreen. As such, it was used by them to conceal a calamitous reality, which concerns the entire world today.
This reality was however known to the anonymous author of the illustrious Chronicon Paschale – only too well. That is why he denounced the calamitous reality, by naming New Rome – Constantinople simply, briefly and strictly ‘Rome’.
By so doing, the author of the Chronicon Paschale, who lived at the time of Emperor Heraclius (610-641), simply rejected flatly the Christian identity of Rome. If New Rome – Constantinople is the only Rome, then the old Rome is not ‘Rome’ anymore. This automatically means that the old Rome is not Christian at all.
How the centuries-long confrontation with the non-Christian (or pseudo-Christian or Anti-Christian) Rome dragged New Rome – Constantinople to several unnecessary compromises that brought about the collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire, I will explain in the forthcoming second part of the present series of articles.
And how the confrontation between Rome and New Rome – Constantinople or, to put it correctly, between the Counterfeit Anti-Christian Rome and the True Rome (which is New Rome – Constantinople) continued during the Ottoman times (1453-1923), because Mehmet II’s ignorance, foolishness and idiocy led him to uselessly and calamitously invade New Rome – Constantinople, claim Roman continuity, and even proclaim himself as Roman Emperor (without having a clue of what it takes to be a Roman Emperor), I will explain in the forthcoming third part of the present series of articles.
One point can be surely deduced from the aforementioned presentation: the forces that wanted to turn Rome into a religious capital of the entire empire would have surely been satisfied, if in 476 CE both parts of the Roman Empire had collapsed and disintegrated at the same time. Then, they would not have needed to keep an ace up their sleeve for longer; they would have revealed their ominous intentions quite sooner. And the final deception, i.e. the anti-human, anti-Christian, and anti-Godly Renaissance, would have taken place almost 1000 years earlier.
And this is the Satanic fallacy that Raffaello, the Benedictines-Jesuits, and the Anti-Christian Rome (Vatican) dare to diffuse as Constantine I the Great’s ‘baptism’ by Eusebius of Nicomedia!
A. My speech in 5th Annual International Conference of the Network of Oromo Studies
B. Historical Diagram of the Cushitic Presence in Eastern Africa
I. A-Group Culture
II. The Kingdom of Kerma
III. C-Group Culture
IV. Kemetian (Egyptian) Invasion of Cush (Sudan: Ethiopia)
V. Deep Spiritual-Religious Divisions among both, Kemetians (Egyptians) and Cushites (Sudanese: Ethiopians)
VI. C-Group Culture Natives’ Migration to the Red Sea Coast Lands
VII. The Cushitic Blehu/Brehem – Blemmyes – Bejas
VIII. Red Sea Coast Cushites: the Kingdom of Punt
IX. Queen Hatshepsut of Kemet (Egypt) and the ‘Expedition to Punt’
X. Cush-Meroe: Ancestral Land of Oromos – Sidamas & Punt: Fatherland of Afars – Somalis
XI. Afars-Somalis, Roman Egypt, China, the Trade between East and West, and the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’
XII. Afars-Somalis, ‘Berberia’, the ‘Other Berberia’, and the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’
XIII. Axumite Abyssinians: Semitic Yemenite Fugitives in Africa
XIV. Punt is Opone (Ras Hafun, Somalia): Impossible to locate it elsewhere
XV. The Cushites of the Horn (Punt – Opone) were never controlled by the impotent king Zoscales of Axumite Abyssinia
XVI. Ancient Afars & Somalis: ‘Other Berberia’, Azania, and the Yemenites Sabaeans (Sheba) and Himyarites in the Horn
XVII. Meroe’s Relations with Kemet/Egypt under the Ptolemies (305-30 BCE)
XVIII. The War between Meroe and Rome (25-23 BCE)
XIX. The Meroe Head: Bronze Head of Octavian Augustus Unearthed in the Capital of Cush
XX. Jebel Qeili, Qore (‘King’) Shorkaror, and the Meroitic Victory over the Axumite Abyssinians
XXI. Meroitic-Roman Relations (30 BCE-4th c. CE) and their Impact on Explorations and Sciences
XXII. Universalization of the Mediterranean World: Meroe, Rome, Armenia, and Mithraism – Meroitic Ethiopian Gladiators in front of Emperor Nero and King Tiridates I
XXIII. Orientalization of the Roman Empire: Meroe, Rome, and Isidism – when Egyptians, Meroitic Ethiopians & Berbers taught their Greek and Roman Pupils the Supreme Spiritual Wisdom
XXIV. The Mysteries of Isis and Plutarch: when the Highest Priest of Greece became a devotee and an enthusiast of the Kemetian-Egyptian and Cushitic-Ethiopian Spirituality
XXV. Silk Roads and the Prevalence of Oriental Civilization in Greece, Rome and Europe: Aramaean, Anatolian, Phoenician Spirituality, Gnostics, and the Manichaeans of Alexandria
XXVI. Heliodorus, Aethiopica, and the Sublime Idealization of Meroe in Greco-Roman Literature
XXVII. Blemmyes, Nubians, Axumites and the End of Meroe
XXVIII. The End of Meroe and the Rise of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia: Terminus-post-quem and Terminus-ante-quem for the Early Migratory Wave
XXIX. Nobatia, Makuria, Axum, and the Christianization of Alodia (Alwa)
XXX. Jebel Moya, the First and the Second Migratory Waves, and the Transformation of the Migrant Meroites and Alodians into Oromos
A. My speech in 5th Annual International Conference of the Network of Oromo Studies
Honored to be invited, I participated in the 5th Annual International Conference of the Network of Oromo Studies (NOS: http://networkoromostudies.com/); the event was held electronically due to the present conditions last Saturday (27 February 2021). My speech (“Fake Nubia: a Colonial Forgery to deprive Cushitic Nations from National Independence, Historical Identity and Cultural Heritage”) concerned the possible ramifications of the systematic but absolutely erroneous attribution of Ancient Kemetic (Egyptian) and Ancient Cushitic (Sudanese) monuments, antiquities, archaeological sites and historical heritage to Nubians, who -although present in both, Ancient Kemet (Egypt) and Ancient Cush (Sudan, i.e. the true, historical Ethiopia)- did not constitute the driving force of the two great Ancient African civilizations and never ruled either states. I described this dishonest and disreputable attitude, attempt and endeavor as “Nubianization” of Northeast Africa.
In fact, undertaken by Western colonial academics, Orientalists, explorers and historians, Nubianization is a distortive academic effort that involves
a) an enormous deal of confiscation of Cushitic monuments,
b) an unprecedented usurpation of ca. 5000 years of Cushitic History,
c) a systematic expropriation of historical past from today’s Cushitic nations, and
d) a disastrous national division among the descendants of the Ancient Hamitic-Cushitic nations of
The text of my speech and the associated notes and bibliography will soon be published in one of my blogs, whereas the Network of Oromo Studies announced that it will publish all the speeches of the distinguished contributors in a volume. During the electronic event, which took place on the platform of Zoom, several participants asked about various points or commented on the groundbreaking speeches, thus contributing to several debates; as it was expected, all the speakers interacted with one another, exchanging messages, opinions and viewpoints.
One of the participants sent me the following message, which includes mainly two questions:
I am very interested in the Cushitic civilization. Do we have historical evidence and dates when the Eastern Cushitic people moved to highland regions of the present Oromia, Somalia and Northern Ethiopia and Kenya and Tanzania? Do we know when these groups of languages differed from one another, e.g. Somali and Afaan Oromo? Thank you!
What follows is my brief response, which was sent with a delay of few days. The text is not written as a concise historical manual, but as a mere diagram with several highlighted points. Links to Wikipedia entries are included only to offer access to bibliography and further research – not for the contents.
B. Historical Diagram of the Cushitic Presence in Eastern Africa
The earliest Cushitic presence in today’s Egypt’s South and Sudan’s North goes back to the 4th millennium BCE; there are evident links between the early cultures that George A. Reisner defined as A-Group culture and B-Group culture, the latter being now viewed as the period of decay of the former. Covering almost the entire 4th millennium BCE (3800-3100 BCE), this early Hamitic-Cushitic culture is attested in monuments unearthed in Kubaniyya, Aswan, Sayala, Toshka, Qustul, Buhen, and other sites mainly between the first and the second cataracts of the Nile.
I. A-Group Culture
The rise of the First Dynasty of Kemet (Egypt) seems to bring an end to the local Cushitic rulers of A-Group culture; this is not only deduced from the material record and the archaeological data but also described in Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) texts and legends pertaining to the rise of a unified (Upper and Lower) Hamitic Kemet. Quite interestingly in this regard, the relief of Jebel Sheikh Suleiman testifies to an early Kemetian expansion at the detriment of the A-Group culture Cushites, being therefore one of the world’s earlier representations of historical events.
The hypothesis of a “war between the Egyptians and the A-Group Nubian people” is purely colonial French propaganda as there is not one single proof to possibly identify the material record of A-Group culture as “Nubians”. This is a lie. A-Group culture people were Cushites, i.e. Hamites, and this means that they were totally different from the Nilo-Saharan Nubians.
The next major phase of the Ancient Cushitic civilization is attested further in the South, around today’s Kerma in North Sudan; the Kerma kingdom (2500-1550 BCE) was the earliest Cushitic royal structure. Although it is evident that the Cushitic kingdom of Kerma had commercial relations with Early Dynastic Kemet/Egypt (3150 -2690 BCE), the Old Kingdom of Kemet (2690-2181), and the Middle Kingdom of Kemet (2055-1650 BCE), it seems that different concepts of spirituality and religion prevailed in these two realms (Kemet/Egypt and Cush/Sudan), thus generating rivalry, enmity and animosity.
The Wikipedia entry ” List of monarchs of Kerma” is an entire fallacy and its parts are evidently self-contradictory: although it is initially stated that “the Kingdom of Kerma existed as an independent state from around 2500 BCE to 1520 BCE”, in the following section, the forged and propagandistic entry includes (in the “Rulers of Kerma”) the fake, ahistorical and nonexistent “Makeda (queen, c. 1005–950 BCE)”, which is the product of the forged, racist and evil document “Kebra Negast” that is a bogus-historical diatribe compiled ca. 1200 CE – i.e. more than 2700 years after the Kerma kingdom collapsed! It is necessary to underscore at this point that the forgers of Kebra Negast did not have a clue about the Ancient Cushitic kingdom of Kerma. In fact, the only few names of Cushitic rulers that we have during the period of Kerma kingdom are due to references in Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) hieroglyphic texts. Including the fake queen Makeda in the list is an act of malignant forgery.
Opposite to both, Kemet and Cush (A-Group culture and the Kerma kingdom), the early culture that George A. Reisner defined as C-Group culture represents a historical phase during which Hamitic invaders from the Sahara and the Atlas regions of Northern-Northeastern Africa settled in the region as pastoralists and intermingled with the local Kemetians and Cushites. They expanded from today’s Egypt’s South down to the Dongola Reach in today’s Sudan’s North, being easily identified through their distinct pottery. C-Group culture sites bear witness to a historical continuity between 2400 BCE and 1600 BCE, but the disappearance of the C-Group culture people, who consisted of both farmers and herders, remained a mystery for long.
However, the outstanding diffusion of C-Group culture across lands east of the Nile down to today’s Eritrea’s northernmost confines seems to offer a plausible explanation. Contrarily to the Kerma kingdom’s Cushites, who remained in the Nile Valley after the Kemetian (Egyptian) invasion of Cush under Ahmose I (1549-1524), Amenhotep I (1525-1504) and Thutmose I (1506-1493), C-Group culture natives seem to have continued their migration, reaching the Red Sea coastlands of today’s southern Egypt and Sudan, settling there and advancing even further to the Horn region.
IV. Kemetian (Egyptian) Invasion of Cush (Sudan: Ethiopia)
The Kemetian (Egyptian) invasion of Cush at the end of the 16th c. is a major event in the History of Eastern Africa from the Mediterranean to the East African coastlands down to today’s Tanzania. This great military exploit and the subsequent annexation of Cush by Kemet (Egypt) were due to the Kemetian determination to punish the Kerma Cushites for their cooperation with the Hyksos invaders of Kemet; the latter were viewed by the Kemetians as the personification of the evil (Seth) and, after the Hyksos rule was overthrown and the conquerors expelled out of Kemet to Asia (from where they had arrived), all their names were deleted from every text and inscription across the country.
Amun Temple at Napata – a representation
As event with enormous repercussions, the Kemetian invasion of Cush generated a great schism among the Cushites, namely between those who cooperated with the Kemetians (Egyptians) and those who opposed them. This polarization was spiritual, religious, theological and royal; it had no ethnic character or dimension. Kemetian Pharaohs, like Amenhotep III and Tutankhamun, venerated Cush and built many temples there, e.g. the temple of Amun at Kawa (near today’s Dongola) which was built and rebuilt several times. And all the Kemetian followers of Amun (i.e. the main god of one of the Ancient Kemetian religions) considered Napata as the holy place of Amun’s birth.
The Prussian expedition at Jebel Barkal (Karima – Ancient Napata) 1842-5 hired hundreds of workers for the transportation of heavy monuments up to the Nile for their subsequent transfer to Berlin.
V. Deep Spiritual-Religious Divisions among both, Kemetians (Egyptians) and Cushites (Sudanese: Ethiopians)
However, the deep spiritual, religious, and theological division existed already within Kemet (Egypt) and during the 18th (1549-1292 BCE), 19th (1292-1189 BCE) and 20th (1189-1077) dynasties, many pharaohs supported and promoted concepts, ideas, faiths and cults that were diametrically opposed to those of their predecessors or successors. Two totally opposite tendencies, one monotheistic and aniconic and another polytheistic and idolatrous, divided both, Kemet and Cush, causing strives, civil wars, priestly disputes, conflicting practices, and a vast social discord, as the populations were spiritually-religiously divided and the followers of the opposite spiritual-religious systems were fanaticized against one another. The developments reached a culmination point during the reign of Akhenaten (1351-1334), but the rise and fall of the Ancient Kemetian and Cushitic Monotheism (presently defined as Atenism, after the name of Akhenaten’s Only and Sole God Aten) predetermined the historical evolution and the events that took place across the Valley of the Nile for the next 1700 years until the late end of Meroe.
Akhenaten: the First Monotheistic King and High Priest of Aten, the Only God who is not represented but symbolized as Sun through whom emanate rays of light offering Ankh (Life)
All post-Akhenaten developments that took later place in Kemet and Cush can be properly interpreted only after the correct understanding of the initial clash, because they constitute in reality posterior stages of the same division and the same clash:
1) the weakening of the internal front at the times of Ramses II (reign: 1279-1213 BCE),
2) the decadence of Kemet after the reign of Ramses III (1198-1167 BCE; and despite his victories over the Sea Peoples),
3) the divisions of Kemet into two or three kingdoms, starting with the 21st dynasty (1070-945 BCE),
4) the loosening of the Kemetian control over Cush and the subsequent secession of the Napatan rulers,
5) the rise of the Kingdom of Cush (ca. 800-315 BCE; with capital at Napata),
6) its involvement in Kemet/Egypt under the form of the 25th (described by Manetho as Cushitic, i.e. Ethiopian) dynasty (747-656 BCE),
7) the Assyrian conquest of Kemet (670-640),
8) the rise of the Berber princes and allies of Assyria as the 25th (described by Manetho as Libyan) dynasty (664-525 BCE), and
9) all the later internal developments in Kemet
a) during the Iranian occupation (525-332 BCE), as well as
b) under the Ptolemies (305-30 BCE) and
c) throughout the Roman period; before and after the Christianization (30 CE – 642 CE).
The same can also be said about the Ancient History of Cush, after the successive Kemetian (under the Berber Pharaoh Psamtek II in 591 BCE) and Iranian (under the Achaemenid Shah Cambyses in 525 BCE) invasions and sacks of Napata, when progressively the capital was transferred to Meroe (‘Medewi’ in Ancient Meroitic). At the origin of all major historical developments, there was a continuous, spiritual, religious and theological conflict between two opposite priesthoods.
Wainwright, G. A. “The Date of the Rise of Meroë.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 38, 1952, pp. 75–77. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3855497
Similarly, the development of Waaqeffannaa as a historical religion and its evident monotheistic nature cannot be fully understood in the absence of a comparative study and without retracing Waaqeffannaa concepts, principles, considerations and beliefs to the respective earlier elements of the ancient spiritual systems and religions of Cush and Kemet. The rejection of 3rd–4th c. Christianity by Kemetians and Meroitic Cushites was the result of their perception of the new faith as polytheistic and fanatic.
About the aforementioned periods and events, more analytical presentation can be found in my series of articles that were published first in 2010 and later republished (herewith in the correct order):
VI.C-Group Culture Natives’ Migration to the Red Sea Coast Lands
The earliest traces of Hamitic-Cushitic presence alongside the African Red Sea coast that date in historical times are related to the early expansion and the later migration of the C-Group culture natives from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea coastlands around 1600-1550 BCE. This phenomenon led the Hamitic people of the coastlands to spread further in the South always in search of natural resources and better climatological conditions and to thus settle in regions located quite far from the Valley of the Nile. It then created two distinct groups of Hamitic-Cushitic populations throughout Eastern Africa:
a) the Hamitic-Cushitic populations of the Nile Valley from the Delta to the junction of the Blue and White Nile (in today’s Khartoum): these were the Kemetians of Egypt (Masr) and the Cushites of Ethiopia (Sudan), and
b) the Hamitic-Cushitic populations of the Eastern African coastland.
There is major distinction between the two groups as regards their ethnic-linguistic conditions of life; except the Hamitic-Cushitic populations, also early Nilo-Saharan ethnic groups lived in parts of the Nile Valley, constituting of course a minority and being in continuous contact with their lands of origin, which were located in parts of the Eastern and the Western Desert. One of these early Nilo-Saharan ethnic groups was the Nehesiu, who became later known in the Ancient Greek and Latin sources as Nobadai, in Islamic sources as Nubiin, and in modern Western languages as Nubians.
VII. The Cushitic Blehu/Brehem – Blemmyes – Bejas
However, there were also Cushitic groups that originated from various parts of the Sahara desert and were in continuous interaction with the Valley of the Nile; the best known among them were the Blehu (their name can also be vocalized as Brehem) of the Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) hieroglyphic sources, who became known as Blemmyes among Ancient Greeks and Romans and were the ancestors of today’s Beja.
At this point, I must add that, during the Antiquity down to the Roman times in Egypt, the Cushitic Blehu/Brehem – Blemmyes – Beja lived west of the Nile and only in the first centuries of the Christian era, the existing historical sources started reporting them as dwellers of the Eastern Desert.
It is therefore clear that the ancestors of the Beja did not reach the region where they have been dwelling over the past 1500 years in today’s Eastern Sudan and the surrounding regions prior to the collapse of Meroe (ca. 360-370 CE). For several centuries, the Blemmyes created an explosive situation in the border region between Roman Egypt and Meroe, also establishing a fully acknowledged kingdom that may have also contributed to the weakening of the Meroitic royal stature.
VIII. Red Sea Coast Cushites: the Kingdom of Punt
Contrarily to the ethno-linguistic conditions of life that prevailed in the Nile Valley and the surrounding regions, across the Eastern African coastlands from today’s Egypt’s Red Sea coast to the wider region around Daresalaam in Tanzania, the Hamitic – Cushitic presence was overwhelming and unchallenged for at least a millennium; apparently, the spread of small populations across vast and long coastal lands generated numerous, impotent local authorities, thus triggering an obvious lack of important centralized royal power. Certainly, we cannot know how far the early C-Group culture natives advanced in the South, but we have good reasons to believe that they settled as far as the area of the Horn and even beyond up to today’s Somali region of Ras Hafun. This was due to the fact that the area seems to have already been known to the Ancient Kemetians (Egyptians) earlier, i.e. before the approximate time of the C-Group culture people’s arrival (around 1550-1500).
The Ancient Kemetians had two particular names to describe that long coastal region of Eastern Africa and/or a particular part of it: Punt. The first mentions of navigation to and trade with Punt in Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) hieroglyphics appear in the early times of the Middle Kingdom, so around 2000 BCE. Navigation from Kemet’s (Egypt’s) Red Sea ports to Punt was frequent, as the marvelous land was described as extremely rich in resources.
The exact location of Punt has long been debated among colonial Orientalists and Western Egyptologists, who permanently seek to minimize the magnificence of the Ancient Kemetian and Cushitic civilizations in order to maintain in ‘validity’ their distorted, fallacious and racist dogma of Euro-centrism and Greco-centrism, by magnifying the hypothetical ‘achievements’ of the White Ancient Greeks and Romans. There have even been Egyptologists, who intentionally and idiotically tried to ‘locate’ Punt somewhere around the eastern banks of Nile between the 5th and the 6th cataract (!), so practically speaking in the wider region where Meroe rose to prominence during the last pre-Christian and the early Christian centuries.
The entire debate about the location of Punt may well have occurred in vain, because it is quite possible that, for the Ancient Kemetians of the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, Punt was located closer to Kemet (Egypt), i.e. somewhere in today’s Eritrea’s coastland, and 500 years later, for the Kemetians of the New Kingdom (1549-1077 BCE), Punt may have been situated around the Horn Region and the Ras Hafun peninsula in today’s Somalia. The reason for the ‘re-location hypothesis’ is the better familiarization of the C-Group culture migrants with the wider region of Eastern African coastlands; better exploring lands located further in the South, they resettled repeatedly, ‘taking’ their toponym with them.
IX. Queen Hatshepsut of Kemet (Egypt) and the ‘Expedition to Punt’
The most analytical description of Ancient Punt that we have in Kemetian (Egyptian) hieroglyphics is the legendary ‘Expedition to Punt’ by Queen Hatshepsut. This text bears witness to the good, friendly commercial relations that Kemet had with the kingdom of Punt. This narrative was inscribed on the southern (short), western (long) and northern (short) walls of the second colonnade of Queen Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari (Thebes West, in today’s Luxor, Upper Egypt).
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir el Bahari (Thebes West), Luxor
It was accompanied by numerous bas reliefs that portrayed the Egyptian fleet Admiral Nehesy, the King Perehu of Punt, the Queen Eti, their donkey, and a great number of anonymous Puntites (Somalis) and Kemetian sailors transporting goods and storing them on vessels. The representation of numerous fish in the depicted sea waters of the bas reliefs puts beyond any doubt the fact that the Expedition to Punt (ca. 1480-1475 BCE) was not undertaken somewhere in the Nile Valley and close to the later Cushitic capital Meroe, because the fish have been identified as part of the well-known Red Sea and Indian Ocean sea-life (pisci-fauna).
Hatshepsut established the trade networks that had been disrupted during the Hyksos occupation of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, thereby building the wealth of the eighteenth dynasty.
She oversaw the preparations and funding for a mission to the Land of Punt. The expedition set out in her name with five ships, each measuring 70 feet (21 m) long bearing several sails and accommodating 210 men that included sailors and 30 rowers. Many trade goods were bought in Punt, notably myrrh.
Most notably, however, the Egyptians returned from the voyage bearing thirty-one live myrrh trees, the roots of which were carefully kept in baskets for the duration of the voyage. This was the first recorded attempt to transplant foreign trees. It is reported that Hatshepsut had these trees planted in the courts of her Deir el Bahri mortuary temple complex.
She had the expedition commemorated in relief at Deir el-Bahri, which is also famous for its realistic depiction of the Queen of the Land of Punt, Queen Iti, who appears to have had a genetic trait called steatopygia (a large amount of fat accumulating around the buttocks). Hatshepsut also sent raiding expeditions to Byblos and Sinai shortly after the Punt expedition.
The ‘Expedition to Punt’ consists in the founding text of Somali History; it is the World History’s first reference to a kingdom located in the tropical, equatorial zone. Long before Iran, Turan, India and Europe, Somalia was instituted as a kingdom on parity with Kemet (Egypt). The conversation between Perehu and Nehesy, as presented within the ‘Expedition to Punt’ texts and bas reliefs, was direct and without interpreters. This fact testifies to the common linguistic background and enables modern scholarship to establish a link between the original phase of the Somali and Afar languages with the languages of Ancient Kemet and Cush. The conversation bears also witness to the identical spiritual, religious, cultural, and royal background that Punt (Somalia) and Kemet (Egypt) had at the time. The sanctity of Punt for the Ancient Kemetians is also underscored by the alternative name that they used to denote the location: Ta Netser (i.e. the Land of Gods).
X. Cush-Meroe: Ancestral Land of Oromos – Sidamas & Punt: Fatherland of Afars – Somalis
So, as you see, the original stages of the Somali and Oromo languages can be retraced back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE; it is then that these groups of languages differed from one another for the first time.
In this case, I categorize Afar (Qafaraf) and Somali (Af-Soomaali) as coastland Cushitic languages and Oromo (Afaan Oromoo), Sidama (Sidaamu Afoo), and other languages (Kambaata, Hadiyyisa, etc.) as inland Cushitic languages.
Of course, coastland Cushites and inland Cushites and Hamites (Kemetians) were in continuous contact throughout the millennia, which is a situation that involves many ups and downs in the communication and the relationship between the two groups due to various historical developments in the inland and the coastland of Eastern Africa.
XI.Afars-Somalis, Roman Egypt, China, the Trade between East and West, and the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’
Late Antiquity historical sources testify to the common Cushitic identity that the inhabitants of today’s Sudan’s Red Sea coastland and the populations of today’s Northern Somali coasts had; Late Antiquity is the historical period that starts with the rise of the Achaemenid dynasty of Iran to prominence following the Iranian conquest of Babylonia (539 BCE) and ends with the preaching of Islam by Prophet Muhammad (622 CE). In contrast with the Oriental Antiquity (3300-539 BCE), during the Late Antiquity, for ca. 1200 years, all major paragons of civilizations and imperial states between the Atlantic and the Pacific interacted in many levels: commercial, cultural, and spiritual.
Written by an Alexandrian Egyptian merchant and captain, the Periplus of the Red Sea (also rendered as ‘Periplus of the Erythraean Sea’) is an Ancient Greek text that dates back to the second half of the first century CE. It details the navigation processes, the commercial products exported from and imported in each and every important harbor, port of call and trade center between Roman Egypt and China alongside the eastern African coastlands and the Asiatic coasts starting from Arsinoe (Suez); furthermore, the text offers valuable information about the different kingdoms and states, the indigenous societies, and the nations that lived at the time in that part of the world.
To lesser extent, the author felt obliged to narrate ‘recent’ historical events (some of which may have occurred 150 years before his time). In ca. 22 pages of modern text, the anonymous author of this text describes all that mattered at those days for Egyptian and other traders and navigators between the Roman Empire and all the other empires and kingdoms of the world’s southern, southeastern and eastern confines.
Stories of globalisation: the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf from late prehistory to early modernity: selected papers of Red Sea Project VII
XII.Afars-Somalis, ‘Berberia’, the ‘Other Berberia’, and the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’
The region of today’s Eastern Sudan is named “Berberia” (or Barbaria) within the text of the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’ (paragraphs 2-3); Ptolemais Theron, an Egyptian Prolemaic (305-30 BCE) colony was located there, in the area of today’s Suakin. Meroe is also mentioned, as the great capital (‘metropolis’) of the inland kingdom.
The region of today’s Eritrea is mentioned as part of the Semitic Axum kingdom of Abyssinia (paragraphs 4-6); Adulis (near today’s Massawa) was the sole Abyssinian harbor in the African Red Sea coast. Beyond that region, the coastline of today’s Djibouti and Northern Somalia is called as the “Other Berberia” in the Periplus of the Red Sea (paragraphs 7-12); this means that the entire coastal land up to the Horn of Africa (Ras Asir; Somali: Raas Caseyr; Italian: Capo Guardafui) is described as the continuation of the realm of the Berbers who inhabited the shore of today’s Eastern Sudan (“Berberia”), i.e. south of Berenice (Roman Egypt’s southernmost port of call, which is located near today’s Ras Banas in Masr/Egypt) and north of Adulis.
This description lets us understand that, following the migration of the Ancient Yemenite tribe of Abashat (Abyssinians) from Yemen to Eastern Africa some time in the first half of the first millennium BCE, the territorial continuity of the Eastern African coastland Cushitic populations was interrupted and Semitic Yemenite populations, expelled or chased from Ancient Yemen (and most probably originating from the Kingdom of the Sabaeans or Sheba), settled first in the region around Massawa (in Adulis), and later expanded in the mountainous inland up to Yeha and Axum, which became their capital.
XIII. Axumite Abyssinians: Semitic Yemenite Fugitives in Africa
The Abashat tribesmen (already mentioned in Pre-Christian Sabaean inscriptions from Yemen) are the ancestors of the modern (Tigrinya-speaking, Tigre-speaking and Amharic-speaking) Abyssinians. Their language and writing (Ge’ez) originate from the Pre-Christian languages and writings of Ancient Yemen (Sabaean, Awsani, Qatabani, Himyarite, and Hadhrami), which are all Semitic, but greatly differ from Arabic. The fact that, although having emigrated from Yemen and focalized their trade activities around Adulis, the early Abyssinians preferred to definitely settle and erect their capital at a safe distance from their harbor in the mountainous inland (Axum and all other major Abyssinian sites except Adulis) demonstrates clearly that they were chased from and kicked out of Yemen, and that, after they settled in the coastal land, they had the foresight to secure themselves behind the mountains that offered them the chance to best prepare their defense.
It was well known to these early Yemenite-Abyssinians that the Eastern African coastland Cushitic populations had advanced further to the South and they had not founded a major city, port or trade center in the region of today’s Massawa. It was also clear to them that the Nile Valley Cushites (either of Napata or Meroe) had never expanded up to the mountainous region north of today’s Lake Tana; this has in fact been corroborated by Modern Archaeology, since no Cushitic or Meroitic antiquities have ever been excavated in the region of mountains located beyond today’s Sudan’s eastern borderlines.
This is very important for us to take into consideration, because those peripheries never belonged to any Cushitic/Meroitic royal authority and never ever during the Antiquity did Meroitic and Axumite territories overlapped prior to the Axumite Abyssinian king Ezana’s invasion and destruction of Meroe (ca. 360-370 CE). This fact fully cancels the ahistorical and absurd propaganda of today’s criminal Abyssinian ruling class about the (distortedly popularized as ‘Abyssinian’) Ethiopian (i.e. Ancient Sudanese, Cushitic) occupation of Ancient Kemet (Egypt), which is said with reference to the 25th Cushitic (‘Ethiopian’ as per Manetho) dynasty. As a matter of fact, no ancestor of today’s Amhara or Tigray Abyssinians ruled Kemet (Egypt); ancestors of today’s Oromos, Sidamas and Arabic-speaking Sudanese did, because they are the offspring of the Ancient Cush (Ethiopia) in today’s Sudan.
Egyptologists and Sudan archaeologists have discussed for long the topic of the southern and the eastern borders of the empires of Cush (Napata) and Meroe. The two Cushitic empires traded with Egypt and the Mediterranean world and were linked through desert routes across Sahara with Northwestern and Western Africa’s farthermost confines; but they did not have maritime vocation and they never controlled today’s Sudan’s coastlands. Furthermore, it is known that neither Napata nor Meroe extended their control beyond the region of Butana (Kessala, al-Gedaref, Wad-Madani and Khartoum) in today’s Sudan.
XIV. Punt is Opone (Ras Hafun, Somalia): Impossible to locate it elsewhere
Written ca. 1550 years after the ‘Expedition to Punt’, the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’ mentions also Punt (paragraphs 13-15); this time we don’t have references to a kingdom but to a city and post of call, which was the very last region of the “Other Berberia”, and like all the rest it was self-ruled. The very name Punt of the Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) hieroglyphic sources is rendered as Ὀπώνη – Opone in Ancient Greek and Latin sources.
This puts the entire matter of Punt’s location beyond any doubt, because, contrarily to the ‘Expedition of Punt’, the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’ offers determinant practical details and, more importantly, the distance of every port of call, trade center, and harbor from the next, starting with Arsinoe (Suez). The unit of measurement is the stadium (for links to the text, see above: unit XII). The entire text is composed in the way paragraph 13 is written:
“Beyond Tabae, after four hundred stadia, there is the village of Pano. And then, after sailing four hundred stadia along a promontory, toward which place the current also draws you, there is another market-town called Opone”,…
The approximate length of the stadium is known and thus, with the help of the anonymous author of the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’, we are able to accurately locate Berenice, Ptolemais Theron, Adulis, Avalites, Malao (today’s Berbera) and all the other ports of call until Opone and further beyond until Rhapta (today’s Daresalaam in Tanzania). Not one modern scholar disagreed with the identification of the exact location of Opone in today’s Hafun (Somali: Xaafuun; Arabic: حافون), near the cape Ras Hafun (Somali: Ras Xaafuun, Arabic: رأس حـافـون).
Cape Ras Hafun is located at a distance of ca. 100 miles (160 km) south the Horn of Africa, i.e. Cape Guardafui, which is known as Ras Asir in Somali (Raas Caseyr). Ras Asir is also mentioned in the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’ (paragraph 12) as ‘Cape of Spices’ (Ancient Greek: Ἀκρωτήριον Ἀρωμάτων / Akroterion Aromaton); in modern bibliography, it is also referred to as ‘Aromata’ (in the Nominative case; because ‘Aromaton’ is in the Genitive case, i.e. ‘of the Spices’). There was actually a local trade center at the Akroterion Aromaton, and this was the reason for which the location was mentioned in that text (Ἀρωμάτων ἐμπόριον καὶ ἀκρωτήριον / Aromaton Emporion kai Akroterion / the Market and Cape of Spices).
Punt and Opone are exactly the same word. For Punt, the basics are available here: Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, Cambridge 1957: Pwnt / (Pwenet), p. 565, left column, lower part (p. 601/683 of the PDF; here: https://www.coptica.ch/Gardiner-EgyptianGrammar.pdf). The Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) hieroglyphic writing included also an alphabet, but all the letters were considered as consonants, and therefore the vocalization of several words is not always accurate. Written with the signs Q3, E34, N35, X1 (that all have phonetic value) and N25 (as ideogram), the toponym Punt could have been pronounced by Ancient Kemetians (Egyptians) as Punt, Pune, Puene, Punet, Puenet, Punet or Puen. Detailed information about these hieroglyphic signs is available here: index of signs on p. 544-547 (or p. 580 to 583 out of 683 of the PDF) and list of signs on p. 442-543 (or p. 478 to 579 out of 683 of the PDF) in the aforementioned link.
In the Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) name, the final –t (sign X1) may have had no phonetic value at all, being then a determinative only to indicate that the preceding name was that of a place, i.e. a toponym. This is quite plausible, but in this case the correct pronunciation would be Puene, Puen or Pune.
Similarly, in the Ancient Greek name of this location, the final –e (-η), which is one of the typical endings of Ancient Greek toponyms, may have only been added as a form of Hellenization of the Ancient Somali place name for the needs of the author’s Greek readership in Alexandria. Furthermore, the Ancient Greek writing of the toponym Opone with omega (in the second syllable: Ω, ω) testifies to the existence of a long vowel (omega already means ‘great o’), which have been pronounced as –u (-ou/-w).
The only remaining slight phonetic difference between Punt and Opone appears to be the initial Greek vowel O-. In Phonology, this may well be a typical phenomenon of epenthesis, i.e. addition of one sound to a word. More specifically, as it happens at the beginning of the word, it can be categorized as prothesis; furthermore, it can be described as anaptyxis, because it involves a vowel (O-).
XV. The Cushites of the Horn (Punt – Opone) were never controlled by the impotent king Zoscales of Axumite Abyssinia
The identification of the Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) toponym, which has hitherto been only conventionally known as ‘Punt’, with the Ancient Greek appellation of the same place (‘Opone’), and the recognition of the exact location of Punt/Opone thanks to the topographical details included in the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’ irrevocably cancel every attempt to locate Punt elsewhere or to link it in any manner with territories related to Axum and Abyssinia.
This puts an end to the extraordinarily fallacious Abyssinian state propaganda and to several Zionist, anti-African pseudo-historians’ publications and speeches in which they pretend the opposite in order to promote their racist theories and various historical distortions. In this regard, any maps that may have been posted online, which show the land of Punt as connected in any sense with either Axumite Abyssinia or Cushitic Ethiopia (in today’s Sudan), are totally irrelevant and absolutely fake.
The ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’ makes it clear that the kingdom of Axumite Abyssinia never reached up to Avalites (Assab in Eritrea). In paragraph 3 of the text, King Zoscales of Axum is said to control the lands after the Call-Eaters, who were located south of the territories of the Berbers and beyond Ptolemais Theron (Suakin in Sudan’s coastland), somewhere in the area of Tokar (طوكر), i.e. close to Sudan’s borderline with Eritrea. And in paragraph 5, we learn that Zoscales’ rule reached up to the borders of the ‘Other Berberia’. Avalites (Assab) is then mentioned as the first trade center and port of call of the Other Berberia; there cannot be any doubt about the location of Avalites. The author of the text states: “to this place the voyage from Arabia to the far-side coast is the shortest” (as ‘far-side coast’ the text’s anonymous author means the Other Berberia). This concludes the case about the area of the Axumite kingdom: it covered maximum ca. 50-75% of today’s Eritrea’s territory and few more lands in the inland.
Even in Adulis, which was the only port of call of the Axumite kingdom, a great part of the trade mentioned used to take place in order to cover the needs of the Cushitic populations of the adjacent regions. I will herewith present the details given in the 6th paragraph of the text as regards the commercial activities in the port of Adulis in order to compare the products imported for the Cushites with the products imported for the king of Axum; this will help us better illuminate the trade realities of those days, which were proportional to the financial potentialities of the Cushites and the meager needs of the Axumite king.
Adulis imports for the Cushites were the following:
There are imported into these places, undressed cloth made in Egypt for the Berbers; robes from Arsinoe; cloaks of poor quality dyed in colors; double-fringed linen mantles; many articles of flint glass, and others of murrhine, made in Diospolis; and brass, which is used for ornament and in cut pieces instead of coin; sheets of soft copper, used for cooking-utensils and cut up for bracelets and anklets for the women; iron, which is made into spears used against the elephants and other wild beasts, and in their wars. Besides these, small axes are imported, and adzes and swords; copper drinking-cups, round and large; a little coin for those coming to the market; wine of Laodicea and Italy, not much; olive oil, not much;
{I note that Wilfred H. Schoff’s translation (Longmans, Green, and Co. fourth avenue & 30th street, New York, London, Bombay and Calcutta 1912) is quite confusing for the non-specialist reader because he does not offer immediate geographical notes; Arsinoe is today’s Suez; Diospolis is Thebes of Egypt, today’s Luxor; and Laodicea is today’s Lattakiyeh in Syria’s coastland.}
Adulis imports for the king Zoscales of Axumite Abyssinia were the following:
for the king, gold and silver plate made after the fashion of the country, and for clothing, military cloaks, and thin coats of skin, of no great value. Likewise from the district of Ariaca across this sea, there are imported Indian iron, and steel, and Indian cotton cloth; the broad cloth called monachê and that called sagimtogênê, and girdles, and coats of skin and mallow-colored cloth, and a few muslins, and colored lac.
Through the description, it becomes clear that the Cushites (‘Berbers’ as per the text) imported items that were necessary for tribal societies in their struggle with Africa’s wildlife, whereas Axum imported products necessary for the limited Axumite stratocracy. Having a decentralized structure with no centripetal royal authority, the Cushites lived evidently a better life, as they were reportedly importing several articles of flint glass, olive oil, and wine.
Since the text mentions the Cushitic presence (‘Berberia’) around Ptolemais Theron (Suakin) and also from Avalites (Assab) further on alongside Northern Somalia’s coastline (the ‘Other Berberia’) up to the Horn of Africa and beyond, also detailing imports in and exports from each port of call and trade center, the average reader may eventually come up with the following question:
– Why products destined for the Cushites were also imported in Adulis, which was the only Axumite harbor?
The response is simple: the text helps us understand that several regions of the Axumite kingdom were also inhabited by Cushites whose presence on some nearby islands (easily identifiable with Dahlak islands) is also mentioned in the Periplus of the Red Sea. In other words, Eritrean regions like today’s Keren, Agordat and Teseney (west of Massawa) or Meder, Shali and Ti’yo (east of Massawa) and Tigray regions like Adigrat and Mekelle (currently occupied by gangster Abiy Ahmed’s army) were inhabited by Cushites over whom Zoscales’ authority was merely nominal.
This also explains the text’s references (paragraph 4) to the ivory trade from lands beyond the Nile (meaning the Blue Nile); the trade was evidently in the hands of Cushitic tribesmen, who inhabited the inland and preferred to pass their trade through Axum (called ‘Auxumites’ in the test), instead of transporting it through Meroe and Ptolemais Theron, where they would certainly pay heavier taxes to the Qore (King).
The specific excerpt reads (paragraph 4):
Opposite Mountain Island, on the mainland twenty stadia from shore, lies Adulis, a fair-sized village, from which there is a three-days’ journey to Coloe, an inland town and the first market for ivory. From that place to the city of the people called Auxumites there is a five days’ journey more; to that place all the ivory is brought from the country beyond the Nile through the district called Cyeneum, and thence to Adulis.
Apparently, Cyeneum (Κυήνειον) was located in the area between today’s Gedaref, Kessala (in Sudan) and Teseney (or Tessenei, in Eritrea) and its place on the way from the ‘country beyond the Nile’ to Axum was important. We can therefore suppose that the distances beyond Axum were considerably greater than those mentioned in the text between the capital of Abyssinia and Adulis on the coastland (Axum-Coloe/Qohaito: 5 days – Coloe/Qohaito-Adulis: 3 days). Although ethnically related to the Qore (King) of Meroe, the Cushitic tribesmen preferred to deal with the Abyssinian king of Axum and thus extract greater profit for themselves. However, there is no mention of Axumite military presence beyond the aforementioned transportation route that travelers needed 8 days in total to cross.
XVI. Ancient Afars & Somalis: ‘Other Berberia’, Azania, and the Yemenites Sabaeans (Sheba) and Himyarites in the Horn
The description of the Cushitic populations of the Other Berberia within the Periplus of the Red Sea is quite striking; the Egyptian captains and the Aramaean traders of those days may have encountered hard partners and pushy sellers in those coasts. At the end of paragraph 7, the Cushites of Avalites are described as “more unruly than the rest”. In paragraph 9, the Cushites of Mundu (near today’s Heis/Xiis or Maydh) are called as “harder to deal with”. The absence of central royal power and the self-administration of each and every port of call of the Other Berberia are underscored at the end of paragraph 14, which recapitulates the basic navigational schedules from Egypt to the Horn region up to Opone. The local rulers are then called ‘tyrants’; this word had at the time a different connotation, totally distinct from the one it had had 400-500 years earlier in Ancient Greece and fully unrelated to its modern meaning. It essentially denoted a local chief, who was acclaimed by the elite of the natives but deprived of hereditary power. The rulers of the cities-states of the Other Berberia were merchants and administration chiefs very similar to the well-documented ‘mukarrib’ of Ancient Yemen; at the same time, they were also pious persons with elementary priestly tasks.
However, beyond Opone (Hafun, near Ras Hafun), the unruly and indomitable Cushites of the Other Berberia did not find any counterpart. Although according to all the historical sources and the archaeological material record the populations living further in the South were evidently of Cushitic origin too, the land from Opone down to Rhapta (today’s Daresalaam) formed a different socio-administrative entity. It was called Azania; covering more than 3000 km of coastlands, Azania constituted a Cushitic land administered as colony by the Ancient Yemenites. Capital and major port of call – trade center of Azania was Rhapta, which was linked not only to Alexandria, the trade centers of the Persian Gulf, and the ports of call of the Indus River Delta, but also with the ports of call and trade centers in the Deccan (today’s India’s southern half), Sri Lanka, Indochina-Indonesia (called ‘Chryse’, i.e. ‘Golden’), and China.
In the subsequent paragraphs (15-18), the text gives ample information about the Sabaean-Himyarite colonization of Azania and the early intermarriages that the Ancient Yemenites arranged with the indigenous Cushitic Somalis, also learning their language. The intermarriages seem to have been an old custom perhaps initially introduced by the Qatabani Yemenites, who were the first great navigators and the premier maritime power of the Indian Ocean during the 5th – 2nd c. BCE. The alliance of Sheba and Himyar at the end of the 2nd c. BCE put an end to Qataban, but it seems that the allied Sabaeans and Himyarites inherited the already established colonial infrastructure in Azania and continued the same practices, thus becoming acceptable partners for the local Somalis. The text describes in detail the situation, putting beyond any doubt the fact that the supreme ruler of the East African lands south of Opone at the time was the Himyarite King Charibael, whose palace was located at Zafar (‘Maphar’ in the Periplus of the Red Sea) in today’s Yemen.
The text reads (paragraphs 16-18):
Two days’ sail beyond, there lies the very last market-town of the continent of Azania, which is called Rhapta; which has its name from the sewed boats (rhaptôn ploiariôn) already mentioned; in which there is ivory in great quantity, and tortoise-shell. Along this coast live men of piratical habits, very great in stature, and under separate chiefs for each place. The Mapharitic chief governs it under some ancient right that subjects it to the sovereignty of the state that is become first in Arabia. And the people of Muza now hold it under his authority, and send thither many large ships, using Arab captains and agents, who are familiar with the natives and intermarry with them, and who know the whole coast and understand the language.
There are imported into these markets the lances made at Muza especially for this trade, and hatchets and daggers and awls, and various kinds of glass; and at some places a little wine, and wheat, not for trade, but to serve for getting the good-will of the savages*1 . There are exported from these places a great quantity of ivory, but inferior to that of Adulis, and rhinoceros-horn and tortoise-shell (which is in best demand after that from India), and a little palm-oil.
And these markets of Azania are the very last of the continent that stretches down on the right hand from Berenice; for beyond these places the unexplored ocean curves around toward the west, and running along by the regions to the south of Aethiopia and Libya and Africa, it mingles with the western sea.
*1 I must note at this point that the translation (‘of the savages’) in the middle of the paragraph 17 is erroneous, because the text mentions the ‘Berbers’ (Barbars), like in any other part (between paragraphs 2 and 17), as an ethnic name for the Eastern African coastland Cushites (and not as ‘barbarians’). This mistake at this point is also bizarre, if we take into consideration that the English translator and scholar Wilfred Harvey Schoff (1874–1932) did not translate it mistakenly in other parts of his translation. About:
The Yemenite (Sabaean-Himyarite) colonization of part of Eastern African coastlands proves that in the wider region of Eastern Africa and Arabian Peninsula, the only major imperial power that existed was the overseas empire of Sheba-Himyar, which had inherited the Qatabani thalassocracy. Compared to the Sabaeans-Himyarites, Axum was a pale, lackluster entity that lacked both, the continental radiation and riparian expansion of Meroe and the maritime prowess and colonial experience of Ancient Yemen. In other words, it was a second class power.
The tight and absolute Yemenite control of the maritime trade between the Mediterranean basin and the expanse of sea around the Earth’s southern-southeastern confines caused actually the Roman military reaction, involving a land attack and a maritime expedition against Yemen, which is widely documented (by Strabo, Dio Cassius, and Pliny the Elder) and also mentioned in the Periplus of the Red Sea (in paragraph 26). The event took place immediately after the Roman invasion and occupation of Egypt (30 BCE); Emperor Octavian Augustus dispatched Aelius Gallus to attack the Sabaean-Himyarite kingdom, which had caused economic troubles to the Romans by heavily taxing all Oriental products passing from Aden and by preventing straight navigation from the Red Sea’s Egyptian harbors to the coastlands of Deccan (which is also known as Coast of Malabar). About:
The differentiation among the Eastern African coastland Cushites in terms of governance (self-rule for the Other Berberia, Sabaean-Himyarite colony for Azania) and social-behavioral system (unruly and hard to deal with for the Other Berbers; urbane and friendly for the Azanians) does not denote an early linguistic-ethnic differentiation into the first stages of Afar and Somali languages and nations. This development must have happened after the arrival of Islam in Africa. However, even today both languages retain ample Ancient Cushitic vocabulary that was written in Meroitic hieroglyphic and cursive writing before 2000 years. The Somali word ‘boqor’ (king) is identical to the title of the Cushitic kings of Meroe: ‘Qore’.
XVII. Meroe’s Relations with Kemet/Egypt under the Ptolemies (305-30 BCE)
As Meroe (today’s Bagrawiyah) was located very far from Kemet (Egypt), there was never a chance for attackers coming from the North (be they Kemetians/Egyptians, Iranians, Macedonians or Romans) to reach the new Cushitic capital that rose to prominence in the 5th and the 4th c. BCE. Alexander the Great never advanced beyond Niwt, i.e. ‘the city par excellence’, as the Ancient Kemetians named their own capital, Thebes of Egypt (today’s Luxor). The Macedonian dynasty of the Ptolemies was fully assimilated into the Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) imperial administration and expressed strictly Egyptian interests in the wider chessboard between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans.
In general, the relations between Ptolemaic Kemet and Meroe were good, because with the relocation of the Cushitic capital beyond the confluence of Atbarah with the (United) Nile, every foreign attack from the North was predestined to doom long before reaching the whereabouts of Meroe. In fact, the capital of the Meroites was located at a distance of 1400-1500 km south of the Kemetian – Meroitic border during the times of Ptolemaic – Roman Kemet. Taking into consideration the lack of due training and the physical limits of northern empires’ armies when crossing the desert, one can understand why all significant Ptolemaic or Roman expeditions in the South stopped in the area of today’s borders between Masr (Egypt) and Sudan.
The advance of Ptolemy II (ca. 275 BCE) ended essentially in a compromise, i.e. the establishment of Dodekaschoenus (also written as Dodekaschoinos) and Triakontaschoenus (also written as Triakontaschoinos), namely two land zones alongside the Nile, which both started in the First Cataract (immediately south of Syene / Aswan) and extended southwards, the first being the northern part of the second. As per the agreement, Dodekaschoenus would be integral part of Kemet and only Kemetian army was allowed to move there, whereas in Triakontaschoenus Kemetian and Meroitic soldiers would patrol together, while the land would be placed under condominium. The two names (written in Latin and Romanized Greek as per above) denote respectively two lands that are twelve schoeni (or schoinoi) long and thirty schoeni long. One schoenus (or schoinos) was a measurement unit to calculate the length; as unit of measurement, it was of Ancient Kemetian origin, being named i͗trw (iteru). The Ancient Greeks accepted this unit as equal to 40 stadia.
The good relations between the Ptolemies and the Qore (King) and Kandake (Queen) of Meroe were reflected in Ancient Greek and Latin texts, and Diodorus Siculus’ reference to ‘Ergamenes’ (identified with Qore Arakamani) reveals exactly the spiritual-religious divisions that I mentioned earlier, when I stated that they characterized the entire History of pre-Christian Kemet (Egypt) and Cush (Ethiopia) {in unit V. Deep Spiritual-Religious Divisions among both, Kemetians (Egyptians) and Cushites (Sudanese: Ethiopians)}. Reigning at the times of Ptolemy II, Ptolemy III and Ptolemy IV (during the 3rd c. BCE), Ergamenes is said to have clashed with part of the Meroitic priesthood and to have eliminated their spiritual control over the Meroitic nation. There can be several interpretations of this excerpt, but at this point, I only include the original Greek text and an English translation:
Thus, during the earlier times, the kings were subject to the priests, not by force of arms or due to violence, but because of the influence that the superstitions had over their minds. But, during the reign of Ptolemy II, Ergamenes, king of the Ethiopians, who had been educated after the Greek rules and was instructed in philosophy, was the first to attempt to breach the order. Since he had acquired a stature worthy of a king, he entered into the holy of holies, accompanied by soldiers; this happened to be in the golden temple of the Ethiopians. There, he slaughtered all the priests and he abolished that tradition, ruling afterwards the country as it pleased him.
Good relations between Ptolemaic Kemet and Meroe continued during the reigns of the kings Arqamani and Adikhalamani and the Queen (Kandake) Shanakdakhete in the 2nd c. BCE. However, both states faced many challenges in regions adjacent to their borders because of many unruly elements and following raids or rebellions of either ethnic/tribal or religious order. In the 2nd half of the 1st c. BCE, Kandake Amanirenas became the Meroitic counterpart of the Kemetian Queen Hatshepsut, who had ruled ca. 1450 years earlier: she ruled Meroe as Qore and Kandake (Meroitic: Kdwe). She is correctly identified as the warrior ‘Kandake’ of Strabo’s narratives. Due to the scarcity of the Meroitic sources, we do not know the real reasons and the motives that made her start the war against the Roman province of Egypt.
Meroitic Queen Amanirenas
Whereas for almost 300 years the Ptolemies, despite their Macedonian origin, ruled Kemet (Egypt) from Alexandria as real Kemetian Pharaohs, the Roman occupation of Egypt was rather reminiscent of the Achaemenid Iranian annexation of the Valley of the Nile, which was completed 500 years earlier by Cambyses and Darius the Great. Kemet was again ruled from a capital located several thousands of kilometers far from the Nile. However, there was an enormous difference between the role that Kemet had as satrapy of Iran and the position that Egypt had as province of the Roman Empire. Africa’s northeastern corner was far more important for the Iranians than for the Romans. This was due to the totally different nature of the two empires: Imperial Iran constituted the universal-imperial unification of all the lands between Eastern Europe – Eastern Mediterranean – Eastern Africa and Northern India – China – Siberia. Rome embodied the military-practical integration of all coastal lands around the Mediterranean into one centralized authority that started looking as a Western copy of an Oriental Empire but still had very low and very poor imperial theoretical and spiritual standards.
Within the Achaemenid Empire, the satrapy of Mudraya (Egypt) had a key geostrategic position, because it offered an alternative route of transportation between the Mediterranean satrapies of the Empire and its central province and capital (Fars & Parsa/Persepolis). But within the Roman Empire, Egypt was merely a marginal periphery. This development affected Meroe greatly. Although it is certainly inaccurate to state that there was a Roman lack of interest (or ability) to secure the southern boundary of the province ‘Egypt’, it is pertinent to stress that this task was not the main priority of the imperial defense system. For the Romans, the most important border to defend was that located north of the Italian Peninsula in Central Europe opposite the Germans.
Certainly, there were Roman legions everywhere to defend all borders, but regional developments did not affect Rome directly. At the same time, unruly elements, notably the Blemmyes (Βλέμυες/Bejas), the Nubai (Νοῦβαι/Nubians), the Troglodytae, the Megabaroi, and other Cushitic and Nilo-Saharan ethnic groups of the desert started demonstrating a mobility that was far more embarrassing for Meroe than for Rome. These movements, which may have involved raids, looting or even sacrilege, must have probably driven Kandake Amanirenas inside the Roman territories in pursuit of a definite victory over the ethnic groups that threatened the safety of the northern provinces of Meroe and the security of the southern confines of Roman Egypt. About:
The only noteworthy war between Meroe and the Roman Empire is questionably and poorly documented; the reason for this is the fact that Strabo’s narrative (Geographica, XVII, 1:53-54) reflects a deeply partial, pro-Roman stance. Strabo was a close friend of Aelius Gallus, who was dispatched against the Sabaeans and the Himyarites in Yemen little time before the Meroitic attack against and occupation of Egypt’s southernmost city (Syene/Aswan), premier trade center (Elephantine Island in Aswan), and supreme sanctuary (Isis Temple at the Island of Philae, 5km south of Aswan) at 25 BCE.
In Strabo’s text, Kandake Amanirenas is mentioned as a ‘masculine’ queen and a ‘one-eyed woman’ whose army attacked “because they realized that part of the Egypt-based Roman forces was dispatched under Aelius Gallus” to wage war against Yemen. This assumption, invented only to morally disparage the Meroites’ attitude, discredits the entire reference. Such a Machiavellian attempt would perhaps be possible if there had been ceaseless wars between the Ptolemies and Meroe, which was not the case.
Strabo’s description of the Meroitic attack against Roman Egypt as an opportunistic affair does not correspond to any data coming from all sources available about the Meroitic-Kemetian relations over the previous centuries; even more so, because we don’t have any other information about Meroitic incursions in Roman Egypt’s southernmost confines after Octavian invaded Alexandria (30 BCE). It is not my intention to analyze Strabo’s ca. 700-word excerpt here, but I mentioned its untrustworthiness because an enormous deal of colonial forgery has been invented and fabricated upon this excerpt. This academic forgery was then diffused worldwide with target to disparage the Kingdom of Meroe, minimize the importance of Africa’s greatest kingdom of that time, and depict it as subordinated to Rome – which was never the case.
While narrating Gaius Petronius’ military campaign and counterattack (24-23 BCE), Strabo mentions three locations south of Aswan, namely Pselchis (Ψέλχις), Primnis (Πρῆμνις), and Napata (Νάπατα). Located at 120 km south of Aswan, Pselchis (Pa Serqet in Ancient Kemetian) is the modern site of el-Dakka where the temple of Thot was built (successfully transported to a new site during the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, which was undertaken by UNESCO during the period 1954-1978). Pselchis is not far from Hiera Sykaminos (modern al-Maharraqa, 140 km south of Aswan) where the temple of Isis and Sarapis was located (being similarly transported to a new location). The Roman Emperor Octavian rebuilt and extended both temples in the first decades of his reign. Hiera Sykaminos marked the end of Dodecaschoenus in the Ptolemaic-Roman times.
Located at 200 km south of Aswan, Premnis (or Primis) is the modern site of Qasr Ibrim, an extraordinarily important location that was continually occupied over the past 2700 years. Qasr Ibrim, as it was atop of a hill overlooking the Nile during the all the historical periods, became an island after the erection of Aswan High Dam and the rise of the artificial lake waters. Among the incredible treasure of artifacts and monuments that have been excavated there, several remains bear witness to the Roman presence.
The third location that Strabo mentions in this excerpt is Napata, the old capital of Cush, which was not anymore the center of the Meroitic kingdom at the end of the 1st c. BCE. There is only one reason for which the biased, pro-Roman, Anatolian author (Strabo originated from Amaseia / Amasya, an important city of the Pontus kingdom in today’s Central-Northern Turkey) mentioned Napata. He pretended that Gaius Petronius reached there and even sacked the city! This is highly unlikely; the distance between Premnis (apparently the Roman prefect’s farther point of advance) and Napata (today’s Karima in Sudan, near the Nile’s Fourth Cataract) is more than 850 km alongside the Nile!
First, it is absolutely impossible that the Roman prefect of Egypt managed to lead his army so deeply in Cush, due to the extreme climatological conditions that they may have encountered there. Only the Berber Pharaoh Psamtek (Psammetichus) II (of the 26th -‘Libyan’ as per Manetho- dynasty) managed to sack Napata (591 BCE), but evidently his Kemetian (Egyptian) and mercenary soldiers were better acquainted with the local climate. Also, the Iranian Achaemenid Shah Cambyses (530-522 BCE) advanced and occupied sizeable portions of Cush, after invading Kemet (Egypt) in 525 BCE. Archaeological evidence from Buhen (in the area of the Nile’s Second Cataract, in Northern Sudan, close to today’s Egyptian-Sudanese border) and other sites makes it sure that the Iranians controlled that region, which is located more than 100 km south of Premnis (Primis/Qasr Ibrim).
Mussawarat as Sufra, a major Meroitic site
Second, Strabo’s mention of Cambyses’ campaign and his comparison of the two campaigns, namely the Iranian and the Roman (under Gaius Petronius), prove that his narrative was rather propagandistic, as he tried only to present the Roman advance as more important an exploit than the Iranian invasion of Cush 500 years earlier. In fact, Strabo did not need to mention Cambyses at all; even worse, Strabo’s fictional identification of the place whereby natural phenomena destroyed Cambyses’ army (if this event ever occurred) is proven as totally misplaced, because of the extant archaeological evidence. The Iranians had advanced further in the South. This is Strabo’s excerpt:
From Pselchis he (:Gaius Petronius) went to Premnis, a fortified city, after passing through the sand-dunes, where the army of Cambyses was overwhelmed when a wind-storm struck them; and having made an attack, he took the fortress at the first onset.
Immediately after that point, Strabo states that Gaius Petronius “attacked and captured Napata” (‘Nabata’)! This is typical Roman self-eulogy, untrustworthy rodomontade, and hyperbolic description elaborated as a means of state propaganda.
Third, it is totally unthinkable that the Romans reached Napata without Strabo also mentioning several other sites much larger than Pselchis and Premnis. Major Meroitic sites existed on the long way down to Napata. It is impossible that there were no battles, no assaults on fortresses, no looting of palaces, and no mention of captives. This most troublesome point makes us conclude that Strabo’s narrative about a Roman sack of Napata is totally imaginary. To be possibly credible, Strabo had to mention either a few fights or some cases pillage or both in the area of the Third Cataract, let’s say in Tabo or Kawa (Gematon). Actually, Strabo’s extraordinary pretensions are refuted by the orderly and wealthy reign that Amanirenas’ successor, Kandake Amanishakheto seems to have had, as she built many great monuments throughout her empire. Such activity could not have been possibly undertaken, had the Meroitic kingdom undergone such an extraordinary destruction.
Fourth, Strabo makes one more mistake, pretending that Napata was ‘still’ the capital of Cush. Already centuries earlier, the capital had been transferred to Meroe, as I have already said. Quite lamentably, many modern Western scholars took this text seriously and in doing so, they committed many other mistakes on the basis of successive erroneous assumptions.
Fifth, comparatively with Strabo’s description of the military expedition of Aelius Gallus against the kingdoms of Yemen (Geographica, XVI, 4:23; English translation: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/16D*.html), the description of the war against Meroe makes it look far more successful than the attack against Aden. Furthermore, there are no excerpts involving self-criticism or error analysis, contrarily to Strabo’s comments and remarks about Aelius Gallus’ stratagems and maneuvers. This probably suggests that in reality, although Aelius Gallus was exposed to many diverse adversities, he managed at the end to sack Aden (‘Eudaimon Arabia’ / ‘Arabia Felix’), and this is what Strabo explicitly states; quite contrarily, Gaius Petronius did not manage to destroy any major palatial and urban center of Meroe. Consequently, Strabo’s narrative was intentionally written in order to present the two military campaigns in a balanced manner, and that’s why he expressed some criticism about the most successful of the two campaigns (namely that of Aelius Gallus) whereas he added an enormous lie in favor of the less successful one (i.e. that of Gaius Petronius).
Last, irrespective of what Strabo narrated in his Geographica, the aftermath of both military campaigns shows the reality in a revelatory manner; the excerpt ends with the negotiations between Candace and Gaius Petronius. The conciliation took a most honorable form for the Candace and the Meroitic royals around her. The prefect of Egypt treated them as superior and suggested that they meet Octavian Augustus in person. Consequently, the Meroitic delegation crossed Kemet (Egypt) and sailed from Alexandria to Samos Island where the Roman Emperor was at the time. The specific excerpt’s English translation reads:
Meantime Candacê marched against the garrison with many thousands of men, but Petronius set out to its assistance and arrived at the fortress first; and when he had made the place thoroughly secure by sundry devices, ambassadors came, but he bade them go to Caesar; and when they asserted that they did not know who Caesar was or where they should have to go to find him, he gave them escorts; and they went to Samos, since Caesar was there and intended to proceed to Syria from there, after despatching Tiberius to Armenia. And when the ambassadors had obtained everything they pled for, he even remitted the tributes which he had imposed.
The Meroitic-Roman treaty was respected from both sides, and this means that Octavian Augustus had far greater foresight and cooler mind than Strabo. There are several reasons that support the interpretation/reconstruction attempt as per which the early Meroitic incursions (prior to the Roman military expedition) were due to the vital Meroitic need to put unruly ethnic groups under control and to ensure security in the Triakontaschoinos and the Dodekaschoinos. Most probably, some groups of Blemmyes or Nubians, initiating a raid from the Roman Egyptian territory, had attacked somewhere within the Meroitic territory at a moment the Roman army was unable to react and, to avoid the Meroitic reprisals, they ran back and scattered within the Roman Egyptian territory (Dodekaschoinos), thus dragging the Meroitic regiments deep inside Kemet (Egypt) and up to Aswan. Apparently, Octavian understood the reasons for this act.
Then, in the Anatolian Island of Samos, Octavian Augustus and the Meroitic delegation came to agreement that involved several measures of peacekeeping across the troublesome region of their borders between the First and the Second Cataracts, which was located far from their respective capitals, while being exposed to indomitable ethnic groups of the desert. Rome paid due respect and solved all problems that existed across the Dodekaschoinos. The centuries old Ptolemaic agreement, which stipulated that the local income should be entirely donated to the Isis Temple at the Island of Philae, remained fully valid. It seems that both, Nubians and Blemmyes, preferred the local sacerdotal power and recognized it as supreme authority for them.
Octavian Augustus cared much about appeasing the Nubians and the Blemmyes. He therefore ordered the reparation-reconstruction of several ancient temples across the Dodekaschoinos. The temple of the Nubian god Merul (Mandulis in Ancient Greek and Latin) in Talmis (Kalabsha) was reconstructed and expanded; on the temple’s wall Octavian was majestically depicted as Pharaoh making offerings. Also the temples of Dakka and Maharraqa were extensively rebuilt, the entire Egypt as province re-organized, the trade routes safely guarded, the temple renovation projects completed, and the Ptolemaic taxation system reinstated.
XIX. The Meroe Head: Bronze Head of Octavian Augustus Unearthed in the Capital of Cush
A particularity in this regard is a statue’s head that was excavated in Meroe and seems to bear the typical facial traits of Octavian Augustus. When John Garstang, the excavator, dispatched the larger-than-life-size head to England (1910-1911), there was still a doubt whether the monument depicted Germanicus (Octavian’s great-nephew); however, several scholars identified it -correctly- with Octavian. Various historians and archaeologists offered several, rather erroneous interpretation schemes about that monument with the typical traits of the Roman Emperor, the expressive eyes, and the black colour. Most of the opinions expressed suggest that the ‘Meroe Head’ was looted by the advancing Meroitic armies from some place in the Dodekaschoinos or Aswan. To support this opinion, they referred to Strabo’s excerpts about the Meroitic invasion of Aswan, notably the following: “and by an unexpected onset took Syenê and Elephantinê and Philae, and enslaved the inhabitants, and also pulled down the statues of Caesar (: name used as title by Octavian)”.
However, this statement does not involve any reference about looting and transporting cut heads of statues across vast distances (from Aswan to Meroe: ca. 1700 km) for no real purpose, since the Meroitic attack against Roman Egypt’s southern regions was not undertaken against Octavian Augustus personally.
One idiotic, racist and homosexual author, namely Neil MacGregor (included in The Independent’s 2007 list of “most influential gay people”!?!), wrote in his otherwise useless and nonsensical “A History of the World in 100 Objects” (Penguin Books, 2013) that statues were erected “to remind the empire’s largely illiterate population of the emperor’s power”. This ignorant and pathetic person (former director of the British Museum) failed to understand that in Ancient Kemet (Egypt) and Cush (Ethiopia: Sudan) the concept of illiteracy never existed due precisely to the hieroglyphics.
Quite contrarily to the aforementioned, unsubstantiated theories and farfetched suggestions, it is far easier to understand that the entire statue (of which only the head was found) was created in Meroe by the Meroitic royal and sacerdotal authorities in honor of the new ally of the Meroitic Kingdom, after the Samos negotiations and the ensuing treaty. It can be argued that the statue and the head were made locally, based on a mould that the Meroitic delegation got from Octavian’s courtiers and subordinates in Samos.
The exquisite artwork was found underneath a stairway that was leading to an altar of victory. It is part of premeditated scheme, racist thinking, Orientalist bias, and Western mind sickness to interpret the location of the unearthed remarkable finding as deliberately chosen in order to disparage the ‘enemy’. This miserable attitude never characterized the Ancient Kemetian and Cushitic nations and empires; it consists in mere projection of perverse Western mentality onto the study topic. In other words, colonial historians and Western archaeologists thought that the Ancient Meroites were as vindictive, choleric and barbarian as the Modern Europeans and Americans.
Precisely because the Meroe Head was found close to a mound under the staircase leading to a temple, one can deduce that the bronze statue (or bust?) of the Roman Emperor and ally of Meroe was honorifically placed in front of a temple and then, during the destruction of Meroe, which followed the raid of the Axumite King Ezana (ca. 360-370 CE), it was broken and fallen down to the position where it was found during the excavations.
XX. Jebel Qeili, Qore (‘King’) Shorkaror, and the Meroitic Victory over the Axumite Abyssinians
Jebel Qeili, which is located at around 150 km east-southeast of Khartoum (and 40 km southwest of El Murabba remains of Meroitic temple), is until now undeniably the southernmost Meroitic site. Dating back to the time of Qore (‘King’ in Meroitic language) Shorkaror (approximately 20-30 CE), the rupestral monument features an inscription and a victory relief of the Meroitic ruler, who is depicted as stepping over defeated Axumite Abyssinians, while presenting captives to and receiving blessings from the sun-god. Portraying the sun-god almost like the Iranian god Mithras with emanating rays, the Meroitic artists of the early 1st Christian century bore witness to a remarkable Mithraic influence across the wider region of Eastern Africa, as the artistic form is distinct and unique. And while Shorkaror is rewarded by Mithras with a handful of sorghum, defeated Axumites are represented as falling from mountainous cliffs, which suggests that the battle took place in the mountains east of today’s Kessala in Sudan, being therefore a punitive action over the Axumite Abyssinians from the part of the Meroites.
The astounding relief serves also as another hint at internal religious divisions among the Cushites of Meroe, because no relief of a sun-god has been preserved in any other monument excavated across the vast area of the Kingdom of Meroe. It seems that in Meroe there was one sacerdotal religion evidently documented on hitherto preserved temples and another, different, royal religion of which the only monument saved down to our days is the magnificent Jebel Qeili rock relief. Apparently, Shorkaror was undertaking military campaigns, accompanied by priests and artists, who obeyed him, and not the sacerdotal colleges that controlled the temples of Meroe. This makes the above mentioned narrative of Diodorus Siculus about King Ergamenes (Arakamani) of Meroe even more credible (see unit XVII).
The most plausible interpretation of the reasons of this early Meroitic-Axumite Abyssinian war is the use of trade routes nearby Meroe’s southern-southeastern-eastern frontiers, from beyond the Nile through the mountains and Axum to Adulis, by Cushitic tribes (‘Berbers’ as per the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’) inhabiting lands out of control of either the Qore of Meroe or the Negus of Axum. I discussed the issue above, in the last five paragraphs of the unit XV (The Cushites of the Horn (Punt – Opone) were never controlled by the impotent king Zoscales of Axumite Abyssinia). Apparently, King Shorkaror of Meroe did not want the wealth of the elephant- and rhinoceros-trade to go to other royal treasurers, arrested some Cushitic tradesmen, the king of Axum was asked to intervene, and finally the Meroites vanquished the Axumite Abyssinian army. About:
Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings (by Bertha Porter & Rosalind L. B. Moss; vol. VII: Nubia, the Deserts, and Outside Egypt)
It is to be noted that Qore Shorkaror was the son of Natakamani and Kandake (or Candace, i.e. Queen) Amanitore and that, during and/or after his reign, Kandake Amanitaraqide’s chief eunuch may have undertaken a royal travel in the Roman Empire’s southeastern provinces, notably Egypt and Palestine, being then the ‘Ethiopian’ (: Meroitic) eunuch mentioned in the New Testament as subordinate of the Candace (Acts 8:27-40).
XXI. Meroitic-Roman Relations (30 BCE-4th c. CE) and their Impact on Explorations and Sciences
All the successors of Octavian (Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero) pursued the same policy in Egypt and maintained good relations with Meroe. Dozens of Ancient Kemetian (Egyptian) temples hitherto preserved in Egypt were rebuilt or extended in the first centuries of the Christian era; they were majestically decorated with reliefs that bore the names of the Roman Emperors written in hieroglyphics from Octavian Augustus down to the late 3rd – early 4th c. CE Tetrarchy (Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, Maximinus Daia).
The good relations between Rome and Meroe have been documented on many occasions, notably the travels of the Meroitic Kandake’s eunuch in provinces of the Roman Empire (Egypt and Palestine) as reported within the New Testament (Acts 8:27-40).
Qore Amanitenmemide, who reigned in the middle of the 1st c. CE, must have been the Meroitic king, who helped the Roman mission sent by Emperor Nero advance further to the South, proceed through territories of several indigenous chieftains, and explore the sources of the Nile. Apparently, the Meroites did indeed dispatch a small detachment with the necessary provisions and letters of introduction to the various kings and tribal chieftains of the regions around the White Nile in today’s South Sudan. Few Roman sources detail rather briefly this groundbreaking attempt: Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) in his monumental Naturalis Historia (VI.XXXV, p. 181-187: https://web.archive.org/web/20161229101439/http://www.masseiana.org/pliny.htm#BOOK%20VI) and Seneca the Younger (4 BCE-65 CE) in his Naturales Quaestiones (VI.8.3-5). About:
Pliny’s brief description mentions a Roman motif other than exploration; personal friend of Emperor Vespasian (69-79), Pliny wrote that the exploratory expedition was undertaken as preparatory step in view of a forthcoming conquest of Meroe. This is however quite unlikely, because it is more probable that at an early investigatory step, the Romans wanted to first discover what lies beyond Meroe and the entire kingdom of Ethiopia and what the reason of Meroe’s extraordinary wealth was. This would eventually weigh at a later stage, and only then a military survey would be undertaken. However, Pliny’s excerpt is valuable, because he offers numerous names of ethnic groups and tribes that lived around and beyond Meroe, and also several toponyms. Seneca’s detailed and characteristic description helps us understand that the Romans, accompanied by the Meroites, reached the vast region of marshes that is known as Sudd in today’s South Sudan (ca. 60000 km2) and the Murchison Falls in Uganda that they considered as the sources of the Nile.
I herewith include the original Latin text (excerpt from Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones) and an English translation:
Original Latin text
[8,3] Nescis autem inter opiniones, quibus enarratur Nili aestiua inundatio, et hanc esse, a terra illum erumpere et augeri non supernis aquis sed ex intimo redditis? Ego quidem centuriones duos, quos Nero Caesar, ut aliarum uirtutum ita ueritatis in primis amantissimus, ad inuestigandum caput Nili miserat, audiui narrantes longum illos iter peregisse, cum a rege Aethiopiae instructi auxilio commendatique proximis regibus penetrassent ad ulteriorem. [8,4] Inde, ut quidam aiebant, peruenimus ad immensas paludes, quarum exitum nec incolae nouerant nec sperare quisquam potest: ita implicatae aquis herbae sunt et aquae nec pediti eluctabiles nec nauigio, quod nisi paruum et unius capax limosa et obsita palus non fert. Ibi, inquit, uidimus duas petras, ex quibus ingens uis fluminis excidebat. [8,5] Sed siue caput illa siue accessio est Nili, siue tunc nascitur siue in terras ex priore recepta cursu redit, nonne tu credis illam, quicquid est, ex magno terrarum lacu ascendere? Habeant enim oportet pluribus locis sparsum umorem et in uno coactum, ut eructare tanto impetu possint.
And don’t you know that among the explanations given of the occurrence of the inundation of the Nile in summer, one is that it bursts forth from the ground, and is swollen not by rain from above but by water given out from within the earth? I have myself heard from their own lips the story told by the two non-commissioned officers sent to investigate the sources of the Nile by our good Emperor Nero, a monarch devoted to virtue in every form, but especially solicitous for the interests of truth. The King of Ethiopia had supplied them with assistance and furnished letters of introduction to the neighbouring kings, and so they had penetrated into the heart of Africa and accomplished a long journey. “We came indeed,” I give their own words, “to huge marshes, the limit of which even the natives did not know, and no one else could hope to know; so completely was the river entangled with vegetable growth, so impassable the waters by foot, or even by boat, since the muddy overgrown marsh would bear only a small boat containing one person. There,” my in formants went on,” we saw with our eyes two rocks from which an immense quantity of water issued.” Now whether that is the real source or only an addition to the river; whether it rises there or merely returns to the surface after its previous course underground; don t you think that, whatever it is, that water comes up from a great lake in the earth? The earth must contain moisture scattered in numerous places and collected at depth in order to be able to belch it out with such violence.
Contrarily to what happened in other regions, notably Central and Western Africa, the existence of the vast, developed and powerful Kingdom of Meroe in Eastern Africa was a permanent stumbling block that prohibited every thought about an eventual Roman expansion to the South. In other African regions, Roman legions advanced far in the South, penetrating Sahara and reaching the first regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically, Roman military expeditions reached the regions of River Senegal and River Niger in Western Africa and Lake Chad in Central Africa. However, in Eastern Africa, after the aforementioned events that took place in the first decade of Roman rule in Egypt, there was never Roman military presence or expedition south of the Dodekaschoinos in the Valley of the Nile.
When it comes to the Red Sea basin, Roman military presence extended up to Berenice in the southern confines of Egypt’s coast; still Berenice was located far more in the South than Leuke Kome (today’s al-Wajh in Saudi Arabia / الوجه), which was the southernmost Roman outpost (and former Aramaean Nabataean port of call) on the Red Sea coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Up to the middle of the 3rd c. CE, we can also assume that there was Roman military presence in Ptolemais Theron (today’s Suakin), continuing the trade with Meroe, which the Ptolemies had initiated, founding this colony. About:
The good, peaceful and stable relations between Meroe and the Roman Empire did not only guarantee the increased trade volume and the feasibility of the explorations undertaken, but also ended up with improved knowledge of natural phenomena, expanded familiarity with other nations and remote locations, enhanced registration of data, and unprecedented diffusion of particulars and intelligence. In the 2nd c. CE no other man expressed this reality better than one of the greatest Africans of all times: Ptolemy the Geographer (Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος; Claudius Ptolemaeus – ca. 100-170 CE). Known to have authored some of the ancient world’s most ingenious works in Geography, Astronomy, Astrology, Optics, Music and several other fields, he formulated the millennia long Babylonian and Egyptian spiritual and scientific supremacy in an unmatched manner, merging transcendental perception and material detail. Egyptian of royal Ptolemaic origin, Ptolemy honored his country’s spiritual tradition by bearing the name of the last indigenous dynasty; as Roman citizen, he honored the Claudia gens by bearing the name of the Roman Emperor (Claudius, 41-54 CE), who granted Roman citizenship to one of his ancestors.
Particularly Ptolemy’s Geography is a ‘must’ for all Eastern, Northeastern, Northern and Northwestern Africans, African pupils, students, scholars, identity theoreticians, anti-colonial activists, Hamitic & Cushitic traditionalists, and liberation fighters. This monumental work (Γεωγραφικὴ Ὑφήγησις – Geographiki Hyphigisis – Geographical Guidance) constitutes a geographical dictionary and directory that contains names of locations (cities, villages, mountains, lake, bays, etc.), as well as their respective geographical coordinates, while also including names of ethnic groups and tribes. The text contains all locations and related data then known about Europe, Africa and Asia; it starts with Ireland, covers most of Europe, deals with Africa, continues with Asia up to China, and finally ends with India and South Asia. Africa is presented in Ptolemy’s fourth book and Ethiopia (i.e. Sudan) “under Egypt” is discussed in ch. 7.
In some cases, the data that Ptolemy offers demonstrate historical continuity for two millennia. It is certainly a difficult reading for the non-specialist, as it is practically speaking a catalogue of names with coordinates and few extra sentences. However, the reward will be enormous for a Modern Kaffa in today’s Abyssinia (fake Ethiopia), when he will see that Ptolemy the Geographer, writing before 1870 years, knew the coordinates of Mount Kaffa. Ptolemy offers an incredibly high number of scholarly valuable points, as it helps also as reconfirmation or corroboration of other textual references.
Crosschecking points mentioned in other historical texts with info included in Prolemy’s Geography, scholars and specialists can reconfirm projections and interpretations. I will herewith offer an example: when studying the Periplus of the Red Sea, one learns that the African coast from Assab (Avalites) to Somalia’s Ras Hafun (Opone) was named ‘the Other Berberia’ before 2000 years, and that the coast beyond Opone down to Rhapta (Daresalaam) was called ‘Azania’. This difference is basically due to the different systems of governance in either region, namely self-governance for the ‘Other Berberia’ and Sabaean-Himyarite (Yemenite) colony for Azania (see above, unit XVI: Ancient Afars & Somalis: ‘Other Berberia’, Azania, and the Yemenites Sabaeans (Sheba) and Himyarites in the Horn).
However, how can one be sure that in both, the Other Berberia and Azania, the populations were of the same origin, namely Cushitic? The text itself does not mention any particular change, so we have good reason to believe that the population of Azania was identical with that of the Other Berberia, with the only difference being the intermarriages that the Somalis of Azania had with the Sabaean/Himyarite (Yemenites) merchants and navigators. But at this point, Ptolemy’s Geography offers an enormous support (and reconfirmation of our projection), because Ptolemy calls the Azanian ports of call ‘Berberian’, therefore identifying the local population of Azania with that of the Other Berberia.
Although there are many manuscripts of the colossal opus, few complete editions have been published in the major academic languages of Europe over the past 500 years. The text is difficult to present in a way to enable the average readers to easily follow and understand. An academic attempt to analyze and comment the text’s valuable details would trigger a double or triple work of disproportionately monumental size. That’s why sizeable parts of this great geographical opus of the Ancient World are still available only in the original Ancient Greek and Latin translations. About:
XXII. Universalization of the Mediterranean World: Meroe, Rome, Armenia, and Mithraism – Meroitic Ethiopian Gladiators in front of Emperor Nero and King Tiridates I
Even more importantly, the peaceful and conciliatory relations between Meroe and the Roman Empire also contributed to a major phenomenon of the World History that colonial historians, racist theoreticians, elitist forgers and biased academics have done their ingenious best to conceal. From the first pre-Christian century to the 10th c. CE, the gradual diffusion of Oriental, Asiatic and African, spirituality and spiritual sciences (studia divina), mythical perception of the universe, cosmogonies, wisdom, cosmologies, world conceptualizations, oracles, mysteries of initiation (esoteric rites), faiths, apocalyptic soteriology, messianic eschatology, dogmas, doctrines, imperial theories, universal moral values, and cults increased dramatically.
Although the earlier elements of civilization in Greece, Rome and Europe were entirely Oriental, although the encounter of the Greek, Roman and European barbarians with civilized Asiatics and Africans had already started long ago, and despite the fact that all the aspects of civilization in Europe, Rome and Greece were entirely Oriental (namely Assyrian-Babylonian, Hittite, Kemetian/Egyptian, Hamitic-Berber, and Phoenician), an unprecedented flood of Oriental cults, religions, concepts, ideas, perceptions and expectations invaded Greece, Rome and Europe starting with the first century BCE. This -unique in World History- Oriental flood erased all earlier non-Oriental ideas, theories, behaviors and trends that may have been developed on European soil, like the racist pseudo-philosophy of Aristotle and the paranoid rationalism, materialism, and atheism that prevailed in the marginal, city of Athens.
This phenomenon testifies to the lower nature of the Ancient Greek culture and behavioral system, which had failed to accurately comprehend, duly imitate, and successfully reproduce one of the various extant models of Oriental civilization. The current concealment of this reality is a seminal parameter of all colonial fallacies, distortions, and fake historical dogmas that were produced by the colonial academics only to keep the entire world subordinated to their criminal hegemony. However, this topic is out of the scope of the present article.
What matters in this regard is the fact that the Orientalization of the Roman Empire and Europe allowed the Meroites to be in the same wavelength as (not only the Kemetians/Egyptians but also) the Aramaeans, the Phoenicians, the Berbers, the Romans, the Greeks, the Celts, the Germans, the Brits, the Anatolians, the Iberians and other Asiatic and European nations. Due to the diffusion of Oriental cultures and civilizations, the Meroites had in fact almost the same faith, concepts, cults and worldview, soteriology and revelatory mysteries as all the nations of the Roman Empire. In other words, numerous European nations accepted the Ancient Kemetian / Egyptian and Cushitic / Meroitic spirituality, mysticism, culture, faith, world conceptualization, and religion simply because the Kemetian-Cushitic civilization was evidently superior to theirs in eyes of the Greeks, the Romans and the other Europeans.
As a consequence of the Orientalization of the Roman Empire and Europe, many gods worshipped in Meroe were adored in Anatolia, Greece, Gaul, Hungary, Rome, Britain and other parts of Europe, had temples built in Delos Island (Aegean Sea), Paris, London, Pompeii and elsewhere, and saw their priests traveling to remote lands to initiate the ignorant and faithless nations of Europe to the mysteries of the Oriental spirituality. With the exception of Apademak, who was a typical Cushitic-Meroitic god, elaborately mythologized as the formidable son of the Kemetian / Egyptian goddess Sakhmet (basic element of the polytheistic Memphite doctrine and theology, as consort of Ptah), the official sacerdotal religion of Meroe comprised Kemetian gods mainly of the Theban doctrine, which revolved around god Amun (rather deprived of his solar dimension, which in Kemet was attributed through his association with Ra). Horus, Isis and Osiris, as the supreme concepts of the divine world as per the Iwnw (Heliopolitan) doctrine and theology, were also highly revered in Napata and Meroe. The same was valid for Thot (representation of the Divine Wisdom), Anubis (representation of the Divine Justice in the Hereafter), Tefnut, Satis and other Kemetian gods. And almost all of these gods started having temples and being worshipped in Anatolia, Greece and the Balkans, Rome and the Italian Peninsula, other parts of the Roman Empire, and Europe.
The immediate consequence of this development was that, when some Meroites, Blemmyes and Noubai (Nubians) undertook a pilgrimage at the Island of Philae (5 km south of Aswan) to venerate Isis’ holiest temple worldwide, they prayed next to Greek, Roman and other European pilgrims who arrived there for the same reason, after crossing an even longer distance to reach the center of the world for all adepts of Isidism (the universal-ecumenical religion which revolved around the dogma and the mysteries of Isis). And the Holy Mountain at Napata, the old Cushitic capital, was the ‘Pure Mountain’ for all the adherents of Amun’s polytheistic religion that spread across three continents. Pilgrims from across the Mediterranean basin used to flock there and venerate Amun.
Long before Islam, long before Christianity and long before Manichaeism, Isidism, Mithraism and several other Oriental religions became the shared faith, initiation, intuition, transcendental wisdom, and apocalyptic soteriology of many various believers, who originated from disparate nations, spoke different languages, and merged in their supranational illumination and cult. The diffusion of Kemetian-Egyptian/Cushitic-Meroitic faiths and doctrines throughout the Roman Empire involved a remarkably massive movement of priests, hierophants, and numerous representatives of the entire sacerdotal-academic class, who became the new tutors and masters of the Greeks, the Romans and the Europeans. Living at the times of highly intensified trade between East and West across the silk-, spice-, and incense-routes, these persons quite often combined priestly and commercial activities. As phenomenon, it was far wider than just a merely Kemetian/Cushitic impact on Europe’s religions and cultures.
The diffusion of Iranian Mithraism across the Mediterranean, the Roman Empire and Europe involved the transmission of fundamental concepts and values of Iranian culture and civilization among Greeks, Romans and Europeans. Mithraism is entirely distinct from Zoroastrianism, pre-Islamic Iran’s main, monotheistic, religion. Mithra (or Mehr) as merely one divine dimension existed already in the religion preached by Zoroaster. However, Mithra (or Mehr) within the polytheistic religion of Mithraism became a totally distinct god, after being mythologized on the basis of spiritual and moral concepts totally rejected by Zoroaster. From Iran, Mithraism was diffused through Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Commagene, Pontus, Anatolia and Cilicia first among the Greeks and then among the Romans and the other Europeans. As a matter of fact, colonial historians of religion try nowadays to portray the Mysteries of Mithras as a ‘Hellenization’ of Zoroastrianism (which is totally wrong and absolutely fallacious) in order to conceal the reality that most Greeks, Romans and Europeans of this period (1st c. BCE – 4th c. CE) were adoring an Iranian god, already worshipped in many lands west of Iran (as per above). About:
Mithra (left) in the investiture of Ardashir II (middle) by Ahura Mazda: Taq-e Bostan, Kermanshah – IranMithra in Commegene, Nemrut Dagh (Eastern Anatolia, Turkey)Toppled heads of the gods at the top of Nemrut dagi in Turkey.Mithra in Commegene, Nemrut Dagh (Eastern Anatolia, Turkey)
There are hundreds of locations where a Mithraeum (temple dedicated to Mithras) was erected and preserved or excavated in Europe, Africa and Asia; I refer to lands outside Iran, because the Iranian plateau and the region of Central Asia were in fact the cradle of Mithraism and numerous shrines of Mithra have been excavated there. Nowadays, Mithraea outside Iran can be visited in Portugal, Spain, England, Belgium, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Palestine, Egypt, and Algeria, In Germany alone, there are 17 major sites with temples dedicated to the Iranian god, who conquered Greece, Rome and Europe. About:
When it comes to the Kingdom of Meroe and to the History of Cush, the above mentioned (in unit XX: Jebel Qeili, Qore (‘King’) Shorkaror, and the Meroitic Victory over the Axumite Abyssinians) brief description only underscores the importance of the Jebel Qeili lapidary relief and the presence of the -evidently associated with Mithras- sun-god to whom Qore Shorkaror of Meroe handed over the Abyssinian captives of Axum.
The diffusion of Mithraism in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, Western Anatolia (Turkey), Greece, and Southern Italy was a matter of piracy, religious rebellion and violent acts of desecration of the otherwise useless temples and peak sanctuaries of the Ancient Greeks; these deeds were undertaken by the formidable Mediterranean pirates, who ravaged numerous harbors for several decades, while always hiring new marines among those harmed because of the Roman expansion. As they were Greek speaking Anatolians in their majority, their main headquarters were located in the Taurus Mountains and Cilicia where Mithraism had already been diffused.
Mithra in Commegene, Nemrut Dagh (Eastern Anatolia, Turkey)
The destruction and desecration of the Ancient Greek temples took place around 70 BCE, during the so-called Third Mithridatic War (73-63 BCE), which was in fact a war waged by Rome against the Iranian-Mithraic Greek kingdom of Pontus, namely the most significant military force and the most remarkable center of civilization and spirituality in the wider Black Sea region. It is evident that, reigning by the grace of the Iranian sun-god of the Magi and bearing a Mithra-related theonym, the wise and polymath King Mithridates VI of Pontus (135-63 BCE) helped his piratic co-religionists, as they consisted in a line of defense against Rome. General and Consul of Rome, Pompey was sent to fight against them and, after several indecisive battles, he managed to vanquish them in the Battle of Coracaesium (67 BCE), near today’s Alanya in Southern Turkey. About:
Writing about Pompey’s life, ca. 170 years after the events, Plutarch (mystic, spiritual master, historian, and high-priest of Ancient Greece’s holiest shrine, namely the Oracle at Delphi; 46-120 CE) expanded on the imposition of Mithraism in Western Anatolia, Greece and Italy, as well as on the desecration of the local temples by the pirates. The ‘Life of Pompey’ is part of Plutarch’s ‘Parallel Lives’. The narrative about the imposition of Mithraism in Ancient Greece is to be found in paragraph 24; quite interestingly, the pirates, who desecrated more than ten (10) important temples in many parts of today’s Turkey (Western Anatolia: Claros, near Izmir; Didyma, near Aydin; Samothrace Island, Samos Island), Greece (Mount Olympus, Hermione, Epidaurus, Isthmus, Taenarus, Actium, Leucas, Argos), and Southern Italy (Calauria, Lacinium), did not attack the Oracle at Delphi. This highlights the traditionally pro-Iranian position of this most revered religious center, which -400 years before the Mithraic pirates’ attacks- had wisely advised the Greek cities to accept the Iranian Achaemenid supremacy and become part of the Iranian Empire (but the disbelievers who ruled the Ancient Greek cities-states did not accept the oracular answer).
24. The power of the pirates first commenced in Cilicia, having in truth but a precarious and obscure beginning, but gained life and boldness afterwards in the wars of Mithridates, where they hired themselves out, and took employment in the king’s service. Afterwards, whilst the Romans were embroiled in their civil wars, being engaged against one another even before the very gates of Rome, the seas lay waste and unguarded, and by degrees enticed and drew them on not only to seize upon and spoil the merchants and ships upon the seas, but also to lay waste the islands and seaport towns.
So that now there embarked with these pirates men of wealth and noble birth and superior abilities, as if it had been a natural occupation to gain distinction in. They had divers arsenals, or piratic harbors, as likewise watch towers and beacons, all along the sea-coast; and fleets were here received that were well manned with the finest mariners, and well served with the expertest pilots, and composed of swift sailing and light-built vessels adapted for their special purpose. Nor was it merely their being thus formidable that excited indignation; they were even more odious for their ostentation than they were feared for their force. Their ships had gilded masts at their stems; the sails woven of purple, and the oars plated with silver, as if their delight were to glory in their iniquity. There was nothing but music and dancing, banqueting and revels, all along the shore. Officers in command were taken prisoners, and cities put under contribution, to the reproach and dishonor of the Roman supremacy.
There were of these corsairs above one thousand sail, and they had taken no less than four hundred cities, committing sacrilege upon the temples of the gods, and enriching themselves with the spoils of many never violated before, such as were those of Claros, Didyma, and Samothrace; and the temple of the Earth in Hermione, and that of Aesculapius in Epidaurus, those of Neptune at the Isthmus, at Taenarus, and at Calauria; those of Apollo at Actium and Leucas, and those of Juno, in Samos, at Argos, and at Lacinium. They themselves offered strange sacrifices upon Mount Olympus, and performed certain secret rites or religious mysteries, among which those of Mithras have been preserved to our own time, having received their previous institution from them.
But besides these insolencies by sea, they were also injurious to the Romans by land; for they would often go inland up the roads, plundering and destroying their villages and country-houses. And once they seized upon two Roman praetors, Sextilius and Bellinus, in their purple-edged robes, and carried them off together with their officers and lictors. The daughter also of Antonius, a man that had had the honor of a triumph, taking a journey into the country, was seized, and redeemed upon payment of a large ransom.
But it was most abusive of all, that when any of the captives declared himself to be a Roman and told his name, they affected to be surprised, and feigning fear, smote their thighs and fell down at his feet, humbly beseeching him to be gracious and forgive them. The captive seeing them so humble and suppliant, believed them to be in earnest; and some of them now would proceed to put Roman shoes on his feet, and to dress him in a Roman gown, to prevent, they said, his being mistaken another time. After all this pageantry, when they had thus deluded and mocked him long enough, at last putting out a ship’s ladder, when they were in the midst of the sea, they told him he was free to go, and wished him a pleasant journey; and if he resisted, they themselves threw him overboard, and drowned him.
The above described groundbreaking event may look like a great threat against the order and the discipline that the ailing Roman Republic wanted to impose, but 130 years later, the entire picture had changed totally and spectacularly. The generals, the senators and the consuls of the otherwise worthless Roman Republic may well have been vainly fighting against the pirates of Mithraism in 67 BCE, but in 66 CE the great Roman Emperor Nero welcomed in Rome King Tiridates I of Armenia, another Oriental king, who was reigning by the grace of Mithra. Even more importantly, Nero, who was already a Mithras adept and initiate, was offered a superior initiation and revelation of mysteries by the Armenian king, who was a high priest of Mithra in his kingdom. This fact alone shows the overwhelming diffusion of Mithraism that had already taken place across the Roman Empire.
Now, these events between Rome and Armenia may seem to be of minor importance for an Oromo, a Sidama or an Arabic-speaking Sudanese but they are not, because some of today’s Cushitic Africans’ ancestors were present in a historical Roman spectacle performed in front of Nero and Tiridates I. And this underlines the nature and the dimensions of the overwhelming development that I herewith describe as ‘Orientalization of the Roman Empire’ and ‘Universalization of the Mediterranean World’. To thank Tiridates I, Nero arranged a gladiatorial exhibition in Puteoli (today’s Pozzuoli in Naples), but to make it most exquisite, he brought in Meroitic (‘Ethiopian’) gladiators; in a most fascinating manner, the spectacle involved male, female and juvenile gladiators!
Writing in the early 3rd c. CE about the event, the Anatolian Roman consul, senator and historian Dio Cassius (155-235 CE) offers a captivating narrative (Roman History, LXIII 3).
Nero admired him for this action and entertained him in many ways, especially by giving a gladiatorial exhibition at Puteoli. It was under the direction of Patrobius, one of his freedmen, who managed to make it a most brilliant and costly affair, as may be seen from the fact that on one of the days not a person but Ethiopians — men, women, and children — appeared in the theatre. 2 By way of showing Patrobius some fitting honour Tiridates shot at wild beasts from his elevated seat, and — if one can believe it — transfixed and killed two bulls with a single arrow.
The presence of a group of Meroitic gladiators in Rome in the 2nd half of the 1st c. CE constitutes one of the hundreds of occasions, which reveal and underscore the friendly relations between Meroe and Rome and highlight the role that the Ancient Meroites played in the diffusion of Oriental cults, sciences, religions, wisdom, mysticism and spirituality across the Roman Empire and the then backward and poorly civilized European continent. These gladiators may have actually had multiple functions, being also Isis initiates, poets, authors and translators (writing Isis aretalogies in Greek or Latin), priests, Amun devotees, Anubis hierophants, servants of other Meroitic gods, merchants or sailors.
(H.) Engelmann The Delian aretalogy of Sarapis (Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’empire romain, 44.) Leiden: Brill. 1975. Pp. [viii] + 63, frontis., I text fig. Fl. 40.
Jasper gemstone intaglio engraved: Mithras on a four-horse chariot
As the Mithraea (temples dedicated to Mithras) were increasing like mushrooms across the Roman Empire, pretty much like the temples built in honor of other Oriental gods (which also involved major migration of diverse populations), it is not strange that on 25th December (birthday of Mithras) 274, the Roman Emperor Aurelianus decreed Mithraism as official Roman imperial religion. Under the title ‘Sol Invictus’ (Invincible Sun), Mithra became then the official god of the Roman Empire. Half a century later, in 321, the Roman Emperor Constantine decreed the Dies Solis (‘day of the Sun’ – Sunday) as the official day of rest across the empire; this shows Mithraism’s extent of diffusion and depth of acceptance throughout the Roman Empire. This development took place only 8 years after the Edict of Milan by which Constantine accepted Christianity as one of the religions of the empire; it therefore shows that the rise of Christianity did not consist in direction opposition to Roman Mithraism. In fact, Christianity was absorbed into the new official Roman religion, accepting all its basic characteristics (like the 25th December as feast for Christmas, Sunday as holy day of rest, etc.)
Following the diffusion of Mithraism across the Roman Empire and as a consequence of the establishment of regular communication among Iranian communities in Egypt and other parts of the Mediterranean world thanks to the Silk Roads, new faiths, trends, ideas and soteriological systems generated in Iran were more easily diffused within the Roman Empire and across Europe before or after the Christianization; among them one can mention Zurvanism, Gayomardism, and Mazdakism.
XXIII. Orientalization of the Roman Empire: Meroe, Rome, and Isidism – when Egyptians, Meroitic Ethiopians & Berbers taught their Greek and Roman Pupils the Supreme Spiritual Wisdom
The two most popular and most influential Oriental religions among those diffused in Greece, Rome, across the Roman Empire, and throughout Europe were Mithraism and Isidism. Although Mithraism in Iran and Mithraism in Rome are exactly the same systematized faith and theology, Isidism outside Kemet and Cush was not identical with the Ancient Kemetian/Cushitic religion that became rather known as the Iwnw (Heliopolitan) dogma and doctrine. First, as I said above {unit V: Deep Spiritual-Religious Divisions among both, Kemetians (Egyptians) and Cushites (Sudanese: Ethiopians)}, in Ancient Kemet and Cush, the Heliopolitan religion was only one of the existing religions – at any time.
Second, in the Nile Valley, Isis was only one nine (9) dimensions of the Divine World that formed the pillars of the Iwnw dogma (which was also known as Ennead among Greeks and Romans), and not the central one; the dogma Heliopolis (Iwnw) was revolving around Atum-Ra – whose emanations all the other divine dimensions were (Isis included). But not all the Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian religions were equally diffused in the Roman Empire; as example, the Hermupolitan dogma (also known as the Ogdoad) was not diffused outside the Valley of the Nile. In its essence, Isidism outside Kemet/Egypt and Cush was not different from the Heliopolitan religion as preached, believed and practiced alongside the Nile, but it is certainly an Isis-centered system. This development took place because of several reasons.
Isis in Kemet/Egypt and Cush-Meroe/Ethiopia
No systematic evangelization or proselytism was undertaken in Rome by a well-prepared priestly delegation sent on purpose abroad; in fact, Isis was diffused in Rome not as a state religion or as a sacerdotal dogma, but as a popular cult, faith, narrative and culture, due to the personal-professional contacts that Kemetian / Egyptian and Cushitic / Meroitic believers of Isis had with indigenous people in various parts of the Roman Empire and beyond. The earlier indications of Isis cult in Rome date back to the 2nd c. BCE, whereas Kemetian/Egyptian presence and monuments in the Aegean Sea, Western Anatolia, Crete and Greece go back to the 2nd and sometimes the 3rd millennium BCE. However, that early stage of African expansion on European soil was very different, as it involved military and sacerdotal physical presence, ended up in sheer colonization of South European lands, and consisted in a permanent impregnation giving structure, form and contents to the earliest samples of civilization in Europe.
When it comes to the diffusion of Isis cults in Rome, merchants, navigators and official delegates must have been the first to make Isis known to Romans; several among them must have also been priests, mystics, initiates, masters of spirituality, experts in spiritual sciences, doctors, etc., and through their interaction, they certainly impressed their poorly skilled Greeks, Romans and other European partners, associates, interlocutors or friends.
The exponential increase in the number of Roman and European adepts of Isis is due exactly to
– the excellence of the comprehensive mythical perception, understanding, description and explanation of the Universe that Isis’ Kemetian/Egyptian and Cushitic/Meroitic hierophants could offer,
– the net superiority of Isis’ soteriology,
– the eminent dexterity the Kemetian/Egyptian and Cushitic/Meroitic in narrating the ‘Past’ (:Cosmogony) and the ‘Future’ (:Messianic Eschatology) as an indivisible unity and as an eternal recapitulation, and
– the unique, unmatched effectiveness of the Kemetian / Egyptian and Cushitic / Meroitic magicians, astrologers and soothsayers, who ascribed their spiritual prowess to the divine power that they acquired as Isis’ apprentices, initiates and priests.
Compared to them the ignorant and impotent priests of Greece and Rome were viewed as pale and inferior competitors; more importantly, the idiotic ‘philosophers’ were understood and proven as ineffectual, useless, and perilous impostors because their childish and nonsensical systems were pathetic assumptions upon assumptions. With their vapid, insipid and boring theorizing, the ‘philosophers’ could not perform ‘miracles’, whereas the Kemetian / Egyptian and Cushitic / Meroitic magicians, astrologers and soothsayers were doing wonders.
The Temple of Isis at Philae, 5 km south of Aswan, Upper Egypt – Bas reliefs of the second pylon
Roman authorities attempted several times to stop the diffusion of Isidism and the spread of other Oriental religions, cults and esoteric mysteries, because the devotion of the Roman masses to the new cult and mysteries totally eliminated their interest for the public affairs and the dirty politics of the Roman Senate, thus evaporating the control that these elites and gangsters had over the victimized Roman people. In a way, the diffusion of Oriental spirituality, faith, worldview, soteriology and lifestyle among the Greeks and the Romans was a true liberation of these peoples from the materialistic and rationalistic impasse of the political absurdity and tyranny, which was due to their inferior religions and cultures.
Symbolic representations for the Roman initiates of Isis
Temples of Isis escaped the state control, although some of them were located very close to the neuralgic centers of the Roman administration. The fast increase of the number of believers and the absolute dedication to their new faith and cult became worrisome matters for the Roman Senate, which many times tried to destroy shrines and symbols of faith. During the period of Roman division as regards Egypt and Cleopatra’s schemes with Caesar, Caesarion and Mark Anthony (48-30 BCE), there was in Rome a deep division among the people; there were enthusiastic supporters of Isis mysteries and fanatic opponents. After annexing Kemet/Egypt, Octavian prohibited the erection of Isis temples in the traditional precinct of the city of Rome, but this was totally futile; after his successor Tiberius’ death (or assassination at 37 CE), Egyptian cults and temples flooded Rome to such extent that a visitor would truly view Rome as an entirely Oriental capital; the same was also true for many other cities across the Roman Empire. After the second half of the 1st c. CE, the traditional Roman divinities were in fact either totally eclipsed by or subordinated to the Egyptian gods.
High initiate of Anubis impersonates the divine role of Anubis in the mysteries
Next to Isis, a myriad of Kemetian/Cushitic deities or aspects of divinities were worshipped in Rome, Greece and Europe: Sarapis, Anubis, Osiris, Horus, Amun, Bes, etc. Sometimes, they acquired multiple dimensions, traits, and therefore names, being then associated with other Egyptian, Greek and Roman divinities. The vast socio-cultural phenomenon ended up with an enormous spiritual, religious, cultic and apocalyptic fragmentation, which is well reflected in names like Isis Invicta, Isis Panthea, Isis Tyche, Isis Fortuna, Isis Pelagia, Hermanoubis, Haroeris, Harpocrates, Harmakhis (hypostases of Isis, Anoubis and Horus respectively), Dionysus-Osiris, etc.
This situation exercised an overwhelming impact on Greek and Roman authors, poets and thinkers; the notion of Theophany (or Epiphany), namely the possibility of true believers to see the God (or the god) put an end to worthless philosophies, like the agnosticism, the materialism, the rationalism, the voluptuary hedonism, and to the catastrophic paranoia of the politics-related ‘Aristotelian ethics’. Devotional acts, prayers, spiritual exercises, revelation of mysteries, oracle sessions and oracular statements, divination and astrology, apocalyptic soteriology, cultic practices, and abstinence became the epicenter of life, the preference of the heart, and the interest of the mind for the average populations in Rome, Greece and Europe.
What is nowadays called as Neo-Platonism or Neo-Pythagoreanism is a Western colonial fallacy; in fact, these ‘schools of philosophy’ do not constitute groups of various philosophers in the typical sense (as in 5th – 4th c. BCE Greece) but mere apologists, advocates and propagandists of Oriental cults, religions, mysteries and spiritual exercises. Colonial historians and racist academics use these terms in order to conceal the reality that the Orientalization of the Roman Empire put an end to the otherwise fake, nonexistent, invented in Modern Times, and literally fabricated ‘Classical Civilization’. There is no Hellenistic Philosophy; there is no Hellenistic Astrology; and there is no Hellenistic Period in the first place. The correct terms are respectively: ‘Numinous Intellect of Late Antiquity Orientalizing Greco-Roman Thinkers’, ‘Orientalizing Astrology in the Roman Empire’, and ‘Orientalistic Period of European History’.
Pompeii Iseum – Wall painting with the Coffin of Osiris
When authors express concern about the restoration of Osiris’s body, Isis’ magical healing spells, the simulated descent into the underworld during the initiation rites, the instantaneous change in the ecstatic initiate’s behavior, the impersonation of Anubis and other gods during the mysteries, the spiritual visions and many other similar experiences of the apprentices, the ritualistically performed incantations, the staging of theatrical acts of numinous character and the representation of scenes of the Nether World, the transcendental, supernatural phenomena that took place during the sessions of divine art (theurgy), and the link between the mysteries and the eternal salvation, then we attest the final abandonment of philosophy, politics, rationalism, materialism, agnosticism, and atheism, and the ultimate salvation, i.e. the deliverance from human corruption and social degradation. Consequently, we understand why all the initiates prepared themselves for the distresses and the misfortunes of this life and, in addition, they enthusiastically welcomed the troubles and the adversities, the obstacles and adventures that their souls would face, when crossing the Duat (the Nether World); everything is tolerable when it comes to the human life’s supreme target and ultimate search, namely the soul immortality in the Sekhet Aaru (sḫt-jꜣrw / Paradise).
Within the context of the Orientalization of the Roman Empire and Europe, the great African mystic and author Apuleius (124-170 CE) highlighted the importance of abstinence and material purification for anyone seeking the true spiritual awakening, synergy between the soul and the mind, and final immortality. Apuleius was a Hamitic Berber from Numidia (Inumiden in Amazigh), and he became famous for his ‘Metamorphoses’, which is a masterpiece of transcendental, mystical symbolism and narrative addressed to adepts of Isidism across the Roman Empire.
We can safely claim that, as Apuleius was Black, he envisioned the story of Psyche and Cupidus within its original context, namely that of the African Berber initiates of Isis. The moralist, didactic story has therefore nothing to do with Neo-Platonism, in striking contradiction to the unsubstantiated pretensions of modern colonial and racist academics. In its origin, the moral topic is of entirely Oriental, African, Hamitic and Cushitic essence. Many centuries later, European poets, authors, painters and thinkers have appropriated the topic and in doing so, they misrepresented it and totally altered its spiritual value and moral significance, by describing it as an attempt to overcome the obstacles that exist in order to prevent the love between Psyche and Cupidus (Desire). Quite contrarily, writing for Isis’ initiates who were trained in abstinence, Apuleius wanted to warn the readers about the dangers lurking for those, who are weak enough to succumb to their desires and to lose their purity in the process.
Consequently, Apuleius’ ‘Metamorphoses’, as a masterpiece of African, Berber spirituality and literature, has nothing to do with white naked bodies that perfidious and perverse Modern European painters have depicted in an effort to totally remodel and disfigure Apuleius’ original concept, moral principles, and mystical symbolism. About:
XXIV. The Mysteries of Isis and Plutarch: when the Highest Priest of Greece became a devotee and an enthusiast of the Kemetian-Egyptian and Cushitic-Ethiopian Spirituality
The prevalence of Oriental, African, Kemetian/Egyptian and Cushitic/Meroitic spirituality, faith and culture across the Roman Empire and the enormous diffusion of Isidism are also highlighted by Plutarch’s treatise about Isis and Osiris (‘De Iside et Osiride’ in Latin translation; ‘Περὶ Ἴσιδος καὶ Ὀσίριδος’ in Ancient Greek – Peri Isidos kai Osiridos; ‘About Isis and Osiris’). This 16000-word text (in 80 paragraphs) consists in the 26th unit of a major opus (composed of 78 units in total), which is titled ‘Moralia’ (‘Ηθικά’ – Ethica). This magnificent piece of Ancient Greek sacerdotal literature was elaborated by the high priest of the Oracle at Delphi around the beginning of the 2nd c. CE. An English translation is available here:
(Plutarch’s Moralia (1927 & seq.) by Plutarch, translated by Frank Cole Babbitt, Harold Cherniss, F. H. Sandbach, Benedict Einarson, Phillip H. De Lacy, W. C. Helmbold, P. A. Clement, H. B. Hoffleit, Lionel Pearson, Edwin L. Minar Jr., & Harold North Fowler; No. 197 in the Loeb Classical Library. Index compiled by Edward N. O’Neil.; in that edition, the treatise ‘About Isis and Osiris’ can be found in the 5th volume /there are 16 volumes in total)
Because of his sacerdotal identity, his supreme spiritual authority, and his permanent predisposition to reveal the truth and to present everything and everyone in their true dimensions, Plutarch has been repeatedly targeted by Western pseudo-historians, bogus-academics and Orientalist forgers. Plutarch reduces Herodotus and Aristotle to total insignificance and reveals their repugnant malignancy; this fact demolishes the fake doctrines and the pseudo-historical dogmas diffused by the criminal intelligentsia of Western Europe and North America. That’s why in Western colonial universities, only extremely rarely can one find and attend courses and seminars about Plutarch’s and his great works, and when this happens, the instructors either attempt to denigrate Ancient Greece’s greatest mystic, sage and author or avoid speaking about topics that demolish the fallacy that the criminal universities of the Western World shamelessly teach as ‘historical truth’.
Already the fact that an Ancient Greek author cares to learn, study, know, understand, eventually adhere to, and apparently write about the Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian mysteries offers ample possibilities for enlightening comments; it is quite telling. Ancient Kemetian scribes and writers only rarely and briefly reported about the Ancient Cretans and the Ancient Greeks; they only recorded few points every now and then, when there was a need to state an interaction. What does this mean?
This question is never made (let alone answered) by the criminal gangsters of the disreputable universities of Western Europe and North America. Colonial academia and racist forgers of the World History want to hide the most determinant fact of all times, namely the indisputable reality that the Ancient Mesopotamians (Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Elamites, Hurrians), the Ancient Anatolians (Hittites, Hatti, Luwians), the Ancient Kemetians / Egyptians and Cushites / Ethiopians, the Ancient Canaanites, Phoenicians and Aramaeans, and the Ancient Iranians constituted the epicenter of the World History.
Their lands were the center of the historical evolution, the cradle of the World Civilization, the repository of human wisdom, science and knowledge, and the place where all the important developments had taken place. The Valley of the Twin Rivers, the Nile Valley, and the Plateau of Central Anatolia are the early fulcrum of human ascendancy. Outside these lands, there was only a barbarian periphery useless to study, contemptible to deal with, and good only for either civilizing it or keeping it at a distance. Antiquity existed only in the above mentioned lands where the History of the Mankind was unfolded; there was no Antiquity in Greece, Rome or Europe, and a Kemetian/Egyptian high priest or mystic, erudite sage or master of spiritual sciences had nothing to learn there, so there was no reason to care about those lands of the periphery.
Statue of Isis in the Roman Empire
For every Asiatic, for every African, and for everyone who rejects the evilness and the inhumanity of the colonial powers, it is absolutely imperative to study Plutarch’s disparagement of the racist Carian pseudo-historian Herodotus, who after betraying his own country because of the Pro-Iranian stance of his fellow countrymen, settled among the barbarians of Athens and wrote scores of villainous and paranoid lies that today’s barbarians viciously present to students and readers as ‘History’. Plutarch’s ‘On the Malice of Herodotus’ is a ca. 10000-word text that irreversibly demolishes the fake ‘Father of History’ whom the disreputable universities, the colonial academia, and the racist, bureaucratic nomenclature of the Western World have criminally propagated worldwide for centuries.
Writing about the overwhelming adhesion of Ancient Greeks, Romans and Europeans to Isidism, Plutarch offers a vivid presentation of their creational-soteriological dogma, which consisted in complete Africanization, Kemetization / Egyptianization and Cushitization of the various nations of Europe. His splendid treatise demonstrates that he was well-aware of the Ancient Greeks’ abandonment of their useless politics and inferior religion, and of their conversion to a later form of the Iwnw / Heliopolitan dogma of Ancient Kemet/Egypt.
Offering a brief historical background in the beginning of his text (10th paragraph in the above link), Plutrach states clearly the -today hidden by the criminal colonial academia- historical truth that all the Ancient Greeks knew quite well, but modern Western academics, racist intellectuals, colonial scholars, and biased, anti-African, anti-Asiatic, anti-Oriental, anti-Christian and anti-Islamic intelligentsia have been systematically attempting to conceal over the last centuries: the top among Ancient Greece’s philosophers went to Egypt, Babylonia, Phoenicia and Iran to educate themselves, because there was no spirituality, no erudition, no wisdom, no science, no knowledge, and no education among the multi-divided, fratricidal, superstitious and fanaticized barbarians of Greece. This fact concludes the case of the otherwise nonexistent Ancient Greek ‘philosophy’, reducing it to its real, evidently insignificant dimensions and proving that the Ancient Greek philosophers -in the best of their case- were merely minor pupils and inferior novices of the great hierophants, mystics, and high priests of the Orient. Plutarch mentions even the names of the known -down to his time- Kemetian / Egyptians tutors and masters of Ancient Greece’s major philosophers.
This is the specific excerpt:
Witness to this also are the wisest of the Greeks: Solon, Thales, Plato, Eudoxus, Pythagoras, who came to Egypt and consorted with the priests; and in this number some would include Lycurgus also. Eudoxus, they say, received instruction from Chonuphis of Memphis, Solon from Sonchis of Saïs, and Pythagoras from Oenuphis of Heliopolis. Pythagoras, it seems, was greatly admired, and he also greatly admired the Egyptian priests, and, copying their symbolism and occult teachings, incorporated his doctrines in enigmas. As a matter of fact most of the Pythagorean precepts do not at all fall short of the writings that are called hieroglyphs; such, for example, as these: “Do not eat upon a stool;““Do not sit upon a peck measure;““Do not lop off the shoots of a palm-tree;““Do not poke a fire with a sword within the house.”
Isis statue with Harpocrates (Hor pa khered: Horus the child)
The main part of Plutarch’s text contains the narrative of the Myth of Osiris, which is the description of the World History, viewed diachronically from the Creation to the End of Time, and expressed in symbolic terms. The mythical language of the Ancient Oriental civilizations constitutes down to our days the World History’s superior and unsurpassed manner of perceiving the eternal reality and describing it in the only possible human terms. The basic terms and ‘ciphers’ of the Myth are the symbols, which -in and by themselves- constitute the only means able to reveal the spiritual reality (of spiritual and material events) into the human heart and mind, thus connecting the layers of spiritual and material existence within a being. The ancient Oriental symbols have nothing in common with what today’s demented materialist and atheist scholars define as ‘myth’. Myth is the revelation of the only absolute Truth, which can never be understood (let alone ‘expressed’ or ‘said’) by means of ‘ratio’ or ‘logos’ or any rational system of thought.
The limits of the present article do not allow a brief presentation of the nature of the Osiris Myth, which involves spiritual and material dimensions like Osiris, Isis, Seth, Nephthys, and Horus. Their emanation from earlier forms of Divine Being, their interaction, clash and acts, and the outcome of the overwhelming affair are in fact the quintessence of what has happened in the History of the Universe and in the History of the Mankind until now and what will happen until all things end. There is no anthropomorphism in the Osiris Myth; the symbols consist of composite parts the meaning of which the newcomers to the Isis mysteries were learning progressively during their initiations in the successive degrees of spiritual mastership. Osiris’s name in Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian was ‘Wser’ and this meant the ‘Well-being’.
Seth represented the evil in all its forms; in Ancient Kemetian / Egyptian, his name was ‘Zeta’ or ‘Zute’. Although the name was regularly transliterated in Ancient Greek as Seth (Σήθ), Plutarch renders it as ‘Typhon’ to attribute to it markedly cosmic dimensions known to Hesiod’s epic ‘Theogony’ (7th c. BCE), which was an earlier effort to transfer among Greeks the Ancient Hittite Anatolian spirituality, cosmogony and epic literature. As a matter of fact, the Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian Seth, the Assyrian-Babylonian Erra, and the Anatolian Hittite Kumarbi pre-modeled and pre-fashioned ‘Satan’, i.e. the evil force as described within the Ancient Hebrew Bible, the Gospels of Christianity, and the Quran of Islam. The Myth of Osiris depicts the World History as an appendix of the Primordial Fight between Osiris (‘Well-being’) and Seth (Typhon/Satan). It is of seminal importance at this point to underscore that Osiris, according to the Iwnw (Heliopolitan) religion and to Late Antiquity Isidism, is NOT the supreme, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient Atum from Whom every divine and spiritual being emanated. The Myth of Osiris only slightly refers to the sublime Atum.
The early plot of Seth against Osiris ended with the dismemberment of the latter’s body, and then started the tenacious effort of Isis to assemble the parts of Osiris and to reconstitute them into oneness, and to rehabilitate them in life. At the end, Isis engendered, educated and groomed Horus {i.e. the Egyptian concept of the Messiah or Christ or Mahdi or Saoshyant (Zoroastrianism) or Maitreya (Buddhism) or Etana / Ninurta (there were two messianic versions in Assyrian-Babylonian eschatology) or Tasmisu (Hittite messianic soteriology)} for the ultimate battle against Seth. Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian temples’ gigantic walls are covered with inscriptions narrating and bas-reliefs depicting the circumstances and the episodes of the Osiris Myth.
The Final Battle and Victory of Horus over Seth – bas relief on the walls of Horus Temple at Edfu
The dramatic, inconclusive for long, and phenomenal battle between Horus (Messiah) and Seth (Antichrist), the final victory of Horus over Seth (Typhon), and the ensuing elimination of the Evil from among humans are narrated in numerous reliefs and texts that cover sizeable parts of the internal part of the monumental, external western wall of the magnificent temple of Horus at Edfu (Ancient Behedet, 110 km south of Luxor, in Upper Egypt).
In the Christian Book of the Revelation (chapter XII, 1-2), the description of the ‘Woman of the Apocalypse’ corresponds exactly to Isis; the attributes that the last book of the New Testament mentions in the case of that Symbolic Woman have been for millennia known as those of Isis in Kemet/Egypt and Cush/Meroe.
The excerpt reads as follows:
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
Representation of Horus (right) and Seth (left) in Egypt
The aforementioned description of solar, lunar and sidereal dimensions constitutes the mystical symbolism of Isis, who is the symbolic mother of Horus-Messiah; even more importantly, the three mythical persons of the 12th chapter of John’s Revelation (1-5) are the three main symbolic figures of Isidism, namely Isis, Seth (Typhon) and Horus:
– The ‘woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head’ is Isis, who ‘was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth’;
– The ‘enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads’ is Seth (Typhon according Plutarch); and
– The child born ‘a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter’ about which it is also said that it ‘was snatched up to God and to his throne’ is Horus.
Although Plutarch’s treatise about Isis and Osiris is a late (2nd c. CE) and external (i.e. non-Kemetian / Egyptian) source and the earlier hieroglyphic texts containing excerpts of the Myth of Osiris date back to the 3rd millennium BCE, the high priest of the Oracle at Delphi preserves indeed a very interesting apocalyptic reference to Cush (‘Ethiopia’) in his 13th paragraph. While describing (at the very beginning of the entire stroy) the plot invented by Typhon (Satan) against Osiris, Plutarch states that Typhon cooperated with an apparently most evil queen from Ethiopia (i.e. Sudan – Cush) who was named Aso. This interesting detail has not been hitherto attested in any hieroglyphic text.
The except reads as follows:
During his absence the tradition is that Typhon attempted nothing revolutionary because Isis, who was in control, was vigilant and alert; but when he returned home Typhon contrived a treacherous plot against him and formed a group of conspirators seventy-two in number. He had also the co-operation of a queen from Ethiopia who was there at the time and whose name they report as Aso. Typhon, having secretly measured Osiris’s body and having made ready a beautiful chest of corresponding size artistically ornamented, caused it to be brought into the room where the festivity was in progress.
The interpretation of Plutarch’s treatise is not the scope of the present article, but at this point and concerning the mention of Aso, the ‘queen from Ethiopia’ who offered valuable service to Seth/Typhon, I have to refer to the herewith aforementioned, major issue, which incessantly characterized the Ancient History of Kemet/Egypt and Cush/Ethiopia, namely the extremely profound spiritual, sacerdotal, and social division and the rivalry between conflicting priesthoods that ravaged nations and countries alongside the Nile for millennia {see unit V: Deep Spiritual-Religious Divisions among both, Kemetians (Egyptians) and Cushites (Sudanese: Ethiopians)}.
This division and conflict is in reality the essence of the Myth of Osiris, because this event of worldwide dimensions, which was also attested in Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia and Elam) and Anatolia (Hittites, Hatti, Luwians) and was thence diffused worldwide, determined in fact the World History. What Plutarch tells us with his mythical-symbolical mention of the early Cushitic queen Aso is that at a very early stage of that division, Ancient Cush played a critical role; this mythical reality can indeed be reconstituted thanks to numerous existing Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian sources.
Isis, as central goddess of the Roman Mysteries, welcomes Io, an Ancient Greek goddess that appears as subordinated in the Egyptian goddess.
Plutarch’s treatise about Isis and Osiris concerns the diachronic Hamitic-Cushitic spirituality, the basic trends of which had been constituted at a very early historical stage (4th–3rd millennium BCE) only to be later immortalized on the walls of various tombs and temples in Kemet/Egypt and Cush/Ethiopia, crystallized in narratives like that of Plutarch, and maintained down to our days in the faith, the oral traditions and the records, the cults and the cultures of the Oromos Waaqeffattas, the Magano-faithful Sidamas, as well as in other surviving today, traditional religions of the modern Cushitic nations.
No modern Cushitic religions can be deeply assessed, their historical formation cannot be adequately understood, and the authenticity of their concepts and rites cannot be accurately evaluated without an extensive, comparative research with the spirituality, the religious systems, the cults and the cultures of Ancient Kemet/Egypt and Cush/Meroe. This cannot be achieved at the current stage, but it is high time for the process to kick-start. Oromos, Sidamas and many other modern Cushites must systematically study Egyptology and Sudan Archaeology; they have to meticulously learn Kemetian/Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic writings, Meroitic hieroglyphic and cursive scripts, Coptic, and other modern Cushitic languages of their neighboring nations.
This is a nationwide project of the utmost importance; the Oromo Diaspora and wealthy Oromos in Occupied Oromia must set up a private fund to finance the project. Several dozens of Oromo graduates must receive grants to study abroad for at least ten (10) years and up to the level of PhD. This effort can be materialized in Germany, Russia, Italy, several Central European countries (Poland, Hungary, Austria, Czechia) and Japan because the universities of these countries offer less biased seminars and courses. This project cannot be carried out in universities of criminal colonial countries, namely England, France, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Holland, and Belgium, which have continually promoted the Greco-centric, Romano-centric and Euro-centric fallacy that consists in a most repugnant, racist distortion of the World History.
It goes without saying that the dozens of Oromo students of Egyptology and Sudan Archaeology will have to undertake this great effort of national and supranational Cushitic-Hamitic Awakening, having as compass the great contributions of scholars like Martin Bernal and Edward Said, renowned authors of the venerated ‘Black Athena’ and ‘Orientalism’ respectively. However, these prospective Oromo students will have also to keep in mind that the refutation of the colonial Western falsification of History, as undertaken by these two illustrious scholars, represents in fact less than 5% of the totality of forged points that need to be rejected, denounced and annulled. It is the duty of today’s African and Asiatic students to carry out the formidable duty of irrevocably refuting and irreversibly cancelling the Post-Renaissance Western European Historical Revisionism, which caused all the wars, the ensuing abysmal bloodshed, the materialist darkness and the spiritual ignorance, the atheist paranoia and the political amorality, the colonial discrimination and the sexist inhumanity, the historical forgery and the abject immorality that the colonial gangsters scattered worldwide.
Only after the first philosophical dissertations of Oromos about inherently Egyptological subjects will be published, will today’s Oromos realize the staggering historicity of the Irreechaa festival and subsequently find out its links with several Ancient Kemetian / Egyptian and Ancient Cushitic / Meroitic festivals that took place alongside the Nile, also involving statues of divinities sailing over holy vessels. And when it comes to the diffusion of Isidism across the Mediterranean and throughout the Roman Empire, the famous spring festival Navigium Isidis (lit. ‘the Vessel of Isis’ in Latin), which took place every year on 5th March and has been eloquently narrated by Apuleius in his Metamorphoses, revealed the blessings of Isis to all the participants of the littoral celebration. About:
Modern painting based on Ancient Egyptian celebration and procession of divinities on a boat
Frederick Arthur Bridgman, Navigium Isidis: Modern European vision of the Ancient Roman religious feast
XXV. Silk Roads and the Prevalence of Oriental Civilization in Greece, Rome and Europe: Aramaean, Anatolian, Phoenician Spirituality, Gnostics, and the Manichaeans of Alexandria
Except Mithraism and Isidism, many other Oriental cults, mysteries, religions, schools of spirituality and initiation, and cultures were diffused across the Roman Empire, throughout the Mediterranean, and in other parts of Europe. This topic totally escapes the scope of this article, but I will mention the most important of these religions, taking into consideration the extent of their diffusion; this will help today’s Cushites understand the interaction of their forefathers with believers of other religions, mystics and merchants originating from other lands, and people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.
Anatolian religions, mysteries, cults and initiation rites revolving around Cybele, Attis, and Sabazios flooded Greece, the entire Balkan Peninsula, and Rome. The origin of Cybele’s cult is definitely Mesopotamian, as the Anatolian goddess name is the adaptation of the original Sumerian name Kubaba. Viewed by the Romans as a Trojan goddess, Cybele was easily accepted as ancestral deity into the Pantheon of the Romans as early as the 3rd c. BCE.
Bronze statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions Roman, 2nd half of 2nd century CE. The cult of the Anatolian goddess Cybele was introduced into Rome during the Second Punic War in the late third century BCE and remained popular until early Christian times. The goddess is shown with her usual attributes, a patera (libation bowl) in her right hand and a large tympanum (drum) in her left. But instead of flanking her throne as they normally do, here the two oversized lions pull a chariot. This elaborate group comes from a fountain, in which spouts projected from the open mouths of the lions. The original cart, harness, and throne no longer survive; the rear left wheel is a nineteenth-century restoration.Typical representation of the Anatolian god Attis with solar attributesMarble bust of Attis with the Phrygian cap, 2nd century CE, Paris.Sabazios
Aramaean and Phoenician religions, mysteries, cults and initiation rites revolving around Atargatis (also known as ‘Dea Syria’, i.e. ‘Syrian goddess’), Jupiter Dolichenus (Jupiter of Doliche, which was a holy location, near Gaziantep in today’s SE Turkey), Elagabalus (an Aramaean sun-god with Mithraic traits amalgamated with those of the old Aramaean cult of Baal), and Astarte (a Phoenician goddess similar to Ishtar in Babylonia and Isis in Kemet/Egypt and Cush/Meroe) spread also throughout the Roman Empire and Europe. Not only the cults and the mysteries of these priesthoods were revered and accepted as salvation in Greece, Rome and across Europe, but also every related literature spread widely and eclipsed the useless political philosophies of the Ancient Greek and Roman elites.
AtargatisAtargatisAtargatis
Lucian, an erudite Aramaean author from Samosata (today’s Samsat, near Urfa in SE Turkey) who wrote in Ancient Greek in the 2nd c. CE, expanded on the ‘Syrian goddess’, writing an entire treatise about the cults associated to Atargatis. So overwhelming the diffusion of the Oriental cults, mysteries, soteriology and spirituality across the Roman Empire was that, in the early 3rd c. CE, the Roman Empire was ruled for four years by a young emperor named Elagabalus after the Aramaean god whose high priest he had served before ascending as emperor. About:
Jupiter DolichenusElagabalus Derzelas Odesseiton: a hypostasis of Elagabalus among his believers in OdessaRoman Emperor Elagabalus
To great extent the diffusion of Oriental spirituality, soteriology, religions, mysteries, cults and cultures throughout the Roman Empire and in Europe was the result of the contact and the trade with the Orient. The phenomenal consequences of the silk-, spice-, and incense-trade across land-, desert-, and sea-routes revealed to everyone the insignificance, the poverty, and the misery of the indigenous, barbarian cultures of Greece, Rome, Ancient Europe, as well as their inferiority opposite the Ancient Oriental civilizations of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Phoenicia, Carthage, Kemet/Egypt, Cush/Ethiopia, Yemen, Iran, Turan (Central Asia & Siberia), and China. What was known as important in Ancient Greece and Rome appeared to all as insignificant, useless and miserable. Compared to supernatural deeds, revelation of mysteries, acquisition of spiritual force, rites of salvation, consideration of the eternity of the spiritual world, and the universality of the imperial rule, the execrable demagoguery and the filthy interests of the ignorant, idiotic and corrupt ‘politics’ of the petty Greek cities and Rome look like an insult or blasphemy.
That’s why Christianity invaded the Roman Empire as another Oriental religion that looked like Mithraism and Isidism; all the traits of Mithras were attributed to Jesus, who was portrayed as god and all the attributes of Isis were ascribed to Virgin Mary. But the underlying reality was that Jesus was evidently performing ‘miracles’, just like the hierophants of Mithras, the high priests of Isis, and the spiritual mystics of all the Oriental cults and mysteries; in fact, all these deeds are not properly speaking miracles, but spiritual-material synergies and ordinary possibilities of every duly initiated, adequately trained, and properly subsisted mystic.
When Jesus walks on the surface of the waters, every superfluous idiot, like Aristotle, Thucydides, Demosthenes or Pericles, is reduced to absolute meaninglessness.
When Jesus gets metamorphosed and appears next to Moses and Elijah, every ignorant, like Cicero, Seneca or Caesar, is diminished to total uselessness.
When Jesus says to his disciples that, if they have little faith, they can move mountains, every corrupt and evil person, like the squalid Jewish priests, namely the villainous Pharisees and the Sadducees, every Talmudist, and every Cabbalist, is belittled to extreme worthlessness.
During the first three–four centuries of the Christian era, Christianity was not accepted in the Roman Empire as ‘the religion of love’ as today’s Zionists, Freemasons, Jesuits, fake popes and patriarchs, heretic priests, anti-Christian theologians, colonial academia, and atheist intellectuals fallaciously and shamelessly pretend. Christianity was accepted as an Oriental mystery religion with basically soteriological vocation; Christianity had nothing in common with
– the Ancient Greeks and their miserable politics,
– the Ancient Romans, their stratocracy, and ‘gravitas’,
– the Ancient Hebrews and their holy book that the Jews had deliberately and devilishly distorted after the departure of the Israelites from their land (722-719 BCE).
Another form of Oriental impact exercised on Greece, Rome and Europe during the Late Antiquity was the diffusion of numerous Oriental schools of mystical initiation, which helped members attain spiritual knowledge, conduct magical acts, acquire spiritual power, understand the spiritual truth, communicate/cooperate with souls, spirits of the elements, other spiritual beings and intelligences, and achieve a complete formation in terms of cosmogony, apocalyptic eschatology, soteriology, and cosmology. As they revolved around spiritual and material knowledge (‘gnosis’/’γνώσις’ in Ancient Greek), they became known among Modern Europeans as ‘Gnosticisms’. Their founders and members are therefore called ‘Gnostics’; this represents one more bias of the colonial academia, because the improper terminology gives the impression that these mystical systems were Greek whereas they were not.
Gnostic magical gem from AlexandriaThe Gnostic tree of Sophia/KnowledgeI A O – The three vowels of Gnostics’ spiritual mastershipAbrasax – Gnostic symbolism of the Divine WorldI A O – ABRASAX – SABAOTH: magic formulae of the GnosticsThe Serpent-Lion of the Ophites, a group of GnosticsGnostic gem-seal with hieroglyphic signs and symbols (Isis and Nephthys)Nag Hammadi codices of manuscripts belonging to the local Gnostic Christian group (Upper Egypt)Nag Hammadi manuscripts
Gnostics existed in many countries and spoke different languages; Gnostic texts have been found in Coptic, Syriac Aramaic, Pahlavi (Iranian), Sogdian, Middle Persian (Pazend), Greek, Latin, Manichaean, Armenian, Arabic, Old Uyghur, and Chinese. Some Gnostic systems were associated with early Christians and there have been several Gnostic groups, which believed faiths that would look like Christian heresies. Today’s Mandeans in Iraq constitute the only Gnostic religious system that has survived down to our times. The greatest Gnostic system was Manichaeism, which was preached by Mani in the 3rd c. CE; it soon became the world’s most expanded religion, since Manichaeans spanned from the Atlantic (Maghreb) to the Pacific (China). At the times of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (284-305 CE), the majority of the population of Alexandria were Manichaeans, and the diffusion of the religion of the Iranian Mani (216-277) throughout the Roman Empire had reached such scale that in 296 Diocletian issued a decree to order the immolation of all the Manichaean priests and the burning of all the Manichaean books. This practice was repeated at the times of Justinian I (527-565), because the Manichaeans remained a threat for the Roman Empire before and after its Christianization, thus testifying to the compact, irreversible and permanent Orientalization of the Roman Empire, and of Europe in its entirety.
Mandeans in Central Iraq: the only surviving Gnostic religious group
The historical diffusion of of Manichaeism from the Atlantic to the PacificThe execution of Mani as represented in Islamic manuscripts many centuries laterThe execution of Mani as represented in Islamic manuscripts many centuries laterThe seal of Mani, one of the very few items of early Manichaeism that have been preservedDiagram of the world prophets down to ManiTuranian Manichaeans receiving divine revelation
Except the Gnostics and the Manichaeans, several other Oriental schools of mystical systems were diffused across the Roman Empire, in Europe, and throughout the Mediterranean world, notably Chaldeanism and Ostanism. Both schools consisted in complex systems of spiritual sciences and practices revolving around Babylonian astrology and numerology, Iranian oracles, divination practices, incantation rituals, magic and demonology. Inscriptions in incantation bowls, texts of oracles, and references in various known authors’ narratives and works (such as the ‘Oracles of Hystaspes’ and the ‘Chaldean Oracles’) help us better understand these practices that spread greatly at the level of popular culture across the Roam Empire and beyond. About:
Diagrams of Chaldean Oracles Hecate and the Chaldean OraclesOstanes and the alchemist’s formula of producing gold: followed by Cleopatra VIIUroboros: swallowing its tail, the serpent symbolizes the unity of the Creation, as per the followers of Ostanes and other GnosticsOstanism and its world perception were misunderstood by post-Renaissance Europeans
When it comes to the History of the World Civilization, a very important dimension of the phenomenon that I have just described in a very brief manner is the fact that the Orientalization of the Roman Empire and Europe did not take place as an elite movement or after a state decision. The gradual diffusion of the Oriental cults, mysteries, faiths and cultures across the Mediterranean world and throughout Europe was the result of the interaction of average people, namely merchants, sailors, caravan members, and trade partners, who came thus to know one another better and evaluate the spirituality, the wisdom and the knowledge of the ‘other’. The Roman state failed every time it tried to prevent the diffusion of Oriental cults; and every time, the Roman Empire accepted a cult or a religion, that faith had already been cherished by numerous followers. In fact, the Orientalization of the Roman Empire constituted in the prevalence of the popular culture over the elite culture.
At the time the Roman elites continued speaking their jargon with references to Pericles, Thucydides, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Aristotle, Plato, and all the nonsense of the so-called ‘Classical Athens’, the Roman masses disregarded politics, disdained the Ancient Greek ignorance and faithlessness, worshipped Iranian, Anatolian, Aramaean, Kemetian/Egyptian, Cushitic/Ethiopian gods, practiced Oriental cults and focused on their salvation, instead of wasting their time in politics discussed in the ‘Agora’ of the Greek cities or the ‘Forum Romanum’. Mithras, Isis, Cybele, Osiris, Horus, Anubis and the myriad of Oriental concepts and faiths diffused across the Roman Empire eliminated the pathetic gossip of the Greek philosophers and the fake promises of the disreputable Athenian and Roman statesmen. Manichaeism and its derivative systems (Paulicianism, Bogomiles), Christianity and Islam were only the last of the Oriental religions to be diffused in Europe.
This reality had been systematically hidden from the eyes of the average people because the colonial academia and the racist politicians of Western Europe and North America do not want today’s nations to be liberated from the fake dogmas, the dirty politics, and the evil, Zionist, Jesuit and Freemasonic propaganda, which have been systematically diffused worldwide ever since the gangsters of Western Europe started expanding overseas and massacring indigenous nations (around 1500). But since the historical truth is published everywhere, the shameless academics cannot truly conceal it; that is why they either act duplicitously (speaking differently in academic conferences and in the general public) or act in a way that the truth goes unperceived by the average people. However, the sources can be easily found or even discovered online.
An enormous series of research volumes has been published over many decades to document the phenomenal spread of Oriental religions, cults, mysteries and cultures across the Roman Empire and Europe. Its title (in French) is: ‘Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’Empire romain’ (EPRO: Preliminary Studies on the Oriental Religions within the Roman Empire). The disreputable but sophisticated forgers, who launched Wikipedia only to blind the average people and fill the world with paramount disinformation, find it ‘logical’ or ‘permissible’ to feature simple and often worthless and nonsensical books in independent entries in the Wikipedia, but they did not write a word about this monumental series of more than 120 books, which consisted in only ‘preliminary’ studies of the vast and unique phenomenon of the Orientalization of Greece, Rome and Europe.
Here you can find the complete list of the 100+ volumes published in the series:
Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’Empire romain
To give only an indication of the enormous Egyptian and Egyptianizing material record, which has been excavated in Greece, Rome and Europe and bears witness to the overwhelming Orientalization of the Roman Empire, I merely mention that a group of French Egyptologists needed four entire volumes to write down the complete bibliographical inventory (no analysis) of monuments related to the cult of Isis that have been unearthed across the Roman Empire and throughout Europe; these four volumes are part of the aforementioned series (EPRO): J. Leclant; Inventaire Bibliographique des Isiaca (Ibis): Repertoire Analytique des Travaux Relatifs a La Diffusion des Cultes Isiaques, 1940-1969
Another monumental series that contains abundant information and extensive analysis about the Orientalization of the Roman Empire is the German ANRW – ‘Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt’ (Rise and Fall of the Roman World). It goes without saying that any proper, unbiased and complete presentation of the Roman World indispensably mentions the expansive diffusion of Oriental religions, cults, mysteries and cultures across the Roman Empire and Europe.
XXVI. Heliodorus, Aethiopica, and the Sublime Idealization of Meroe in Late Antiquity Greco-Roman Literature
The interconnection of the Asiatic, African and European nations that occurred over the span of many centuries, after the re-opening of the Old Suez Canal (linking the Nile to the Red Sea; ca. 520-510 BCE) by Darius the Great, the Achaemenid emperor of Iran, was the most groundbreaking change that occurred in the History of the Mankind prior to the diffusion of Islam. In the world before the establishment and expansion of the universal Achaemenid Empire, there were commercial and cultural exchanges among nations, but they remained at a rudimentary level.
However, following the maritime connection of the Iranian province of Kemet / Egypt with Persia (Fars), the central province of Iran, many earlier commercial roads were interlinked into a unified network across most of the lands between the Atlantic and the Pacific; this is exactly what we nowadays call “silk-, spice-, and incense-trade across land-, desert-, and sea-routes” or in brief, silk roads. This fact triggered the interconnection of most nations over the three continents between the Atlantic and the Pacific. As a consequence, the diffusion of Oriental religions, cults, mysteries and cultures across the Roman Empire and Europe brought about reciprocal knowledge, mutual understanding, shared values, and common heritage that –all- had nothing to do with either with the civil wars of Ancient Greece or with the Ancient Roman stratocracy.
This is the reason why references to the barbarians of Ancient Greece and the savages of Ancient Rome were necessary for the 15th c. uncivilized Western Europeans, who wanted to expand overseas; and that’s why they made of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome the supposedly ‘classical world’ of Human History. Without the Ancient Greek texts about the ceaseless local fratricidal wars among the Ancient Greek cities-states, …
without the Latin texts about the anti-Carthaginian (anti-Punic), i.e. anti-African, racism of the Romans, …
without the dirty material interests, the hypocrisy, the greed, and the sinful context of the Ancient Greek and Roman pseudo-republics, and …
without projecting all those monstrous, repugnant and hideous massacres, those immoral and valueless societies, and those ignorant and faithless mindsets onto the rest of the world, which they targeted for corruption and destruction,
….. the colonial powers would never achieve to destroy numerous lofty civilizations and to profane the entire world in the way they managed to.
In striking contrast with the modern European colonials, their racist pseudo-academia, and their bogus-historical dogma, the Ancient Greeks and the Ancient Romans, who interacted with Oriental, Asiatic and African for many long centuries, accepted the Oriental values, ideals, worldviews, and principles of a sacred life within a universal empire, and they were progressively civilized, abandoning the unholy notions of democracy, republic, and politics, and searching the ideal society, the perfect order, and the divine blessings in parts of the Orient, namely in Asia or Africa.
Writing in Ancient Greek, 900 years after the first among the Ancient Greek philosophers went to study in the great temples-universities of Babylon and Kemet/Egypt, the Aramaean mystic, priest and author Heliodorus of Emessa (today’s Homs in Syria; 3rd – 4th c. CE) locates the culmination point of his symbolic and mythical narrative in Meroe. Those days may well have been a period of decay for Meroe, as the scarcity of the Meroitic sources and monuments during the end of the 3rd and the 4th c. CE suggests instability, incursions, turmoil and gradual collapse. However, the magnificent reputation of Meroe as capital of Ethiopia in today’s Butana in Central Sudan still radiated across the Mediterranean world. In Greek, the author’s name means ‘the present of the Sun’, and this allows us to understand that his family rather stressed the Mithraic traits and concepts of their faith.
Meroe has had a long record of eulogies and encomia among Ancient Greek authors as the superlative land, capital and kingdom at the southernmost confines of the surface of the Earth. Even Herodotus, who traveled throughout Kemet/Egypt and down to Syene/Aswan in the 5th c. BCE, included majestic references to Meroe in the 3rd book of his Histories (chapters 17-18), speaking about the illustrious ‘Table of the Sun’; he briefly mentioned this mysterious and hitherto unidentified table, while describing of the military expedition that the Achaemenid Iranian Emperor Kabujiya (Cambyses) undertook against Ethiopia (Sudan). Modern scholars attempted to make a materialistic and senseless equation, pretending that Herodotus’ ‘Table of the Sun’ in Meroe is a typical Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian and Cushitic/Meroitic table of offerings; but the text of Herodotus contradicts them totally.
The excerpt reads as follows:
After this Cambyses [King of Persia] took counsel with himself, and planned three expeditions. One was against the Carthaginians, another against the Ammonians, and a third against the long-lived Ethiopians, who dwelt in that part of Libya which borders upon the southern sea. . . while his spies went into Ethiopia, under the pretense of carrying presents to the king, but in reality to take note of all they saw, and especially to observe whether there was really what is called “the table of the Sun” in Ethiopia. Now the table of the Sun according to the accounts given of it may be thus described: It is a meadow in the skirts of their city full of the boiled flesh of all manner of beasts, which the magistrates are careful to store with meat every night, and where whoever likes may come and eat during the day. The people of the land say that the earth itself brings forth the food. Such is the description which is given of this table.
Heliodorus’ Aethiopica (a text totaling ca. 103.000 words) is described as an ‘Ancient Greek novel’ by various experts in Comparative Literature, colonial philologists, ignorant Classicists, and racist historians or historians of Art. Of course, I must admit that, starting with Renaissance, Heliodorus’ text had indeed a second life, as it was not only studied by academics, but also used as inspiration for novels by European writers, adapted by playwrights, transformed into a libretto for an homonymous opera, depicted in numerous paintings, and even featured as design in palatial carpets. However, the fascination of Modern Europeans with Aethiopica is totally unrelated to Heliodorus, his great opus, its real meaning, and the purpose for which it was written.
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Modern Europeans’ fascination and misperceptions of Heliodorus’ Aithiopica
Ambroise Dubois, The procession of Thessalians and Chariclea at the triumph of Diana (around 1610)Dubois Ambroise (Ambrosius Bosschaert), Theagenes receives the torch from Charicleia’s handAmbroise Dubois, Theagenes setting fire to the altar with Chariclea’s torchThe Meeting of Theagenes and Chariclea, from the Salon Louis XIII (oil on canvas) by Dubois, Ambroise (1543-1614); Chateau de Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne, FranceDubois Ambroise, Theagenes and Chariclea injured on the shore of Egypt, and spied on by thieves – It is interested to notice how dark the natural environment of Egypt appears on this painting and how it terribly contrasts with the bright environment depicted by the same painter in cases of scenes which have taken place in Greece as per the original text of Heliodorus. But this false, fabricated contrast cannot be found even in a single line of Heliodorus’ Aithiopica.Karel van Mander III, Chariclea showing Persina and Hydaspes the mark on her elbow (1640). This painting reveals the unfathomable racism of Frankish Europe: the king and the queen of Ethiopia in Meroe are depicted as Black, but their daughter (and main character of Aithiopica) Chariclea is portrayed white and blonde. And as it could be expected from European painters, the rulers of Meroe are dressed in Ottoman or Safavid dresses, and in Pharaonic clothes. Karel van Mander III, Hydaspes and Persina, royal couple at Meroe; the 17th c. painting reflects the typically European racist thought as per which Oriental, Muslim and African people lived in a vicious, sexually free, sensual and voluptuous lifestyle, having no moral compunctionHans Horions, The first encounter of Theagenes and Chariclea (1650)Daniel Jansz Thievaert, Theagenes and Chariclea (1635)Charles-Joseph Natoire, Betrothal of Theagenes and Chariclea (ca. 1750)Abraham Bloemaert, Theagenes Receiving the Palm of Honour from Chariclea (1626)Abraham Bloemaert, Chariclea and Theagenes (1625)Chariclea led away by pirates: tapestry from the workshop of Raphael de la Planche (1635)Marriage of Theagenes and Chariclea: tapestry from the workshop of Raphael de la Planche (ca. 1630)Theagenes and Chariclea: watch case from the British Museum
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An analysis of the spectacular narrative is not within the scope of the present article, but I have however at this point to stress the fact that Heliodorus was an initiate and priest (or a high priest) of Elagabalus (see previous unit XXV: Silk Roads and the Prevalence of Oriental Civilization in Greece, Rome and Europe: Aramaean, Anatolian, Phoenician Spirituality, Gnostics, and the Manichaeans of Alexandria). The text of Aethiopica was apparently written for the needs of his disciples and the mystics, who participated in Elagabalus’ mysteries. The numerous mentions of Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian concepts, notions, and perceptions of the Divine World, the setting of the narrative in the Nile Valley (Kemet/Egypt and Cush/Ethiopia) and Greece, the Iranian names of several heroes of the story, and the location of the final episode of the plot in Meroe suggest that Heliodorus has instituted or studied in a school of spirituality, which attempted to merge Kemetian / Egyptian and Cushitic / Meroitic spirituality and soteriology, Aramaean mysteries, Iranian esoteric, mythical traditions and names, and Greek holy shrines for the needs of an apparently Greek-speaking audience of Aramaeans, Romans, Greeks and Iranians of Emessa (Homs).
In fact, Heliodorus’ Aethiopica (involving ten chapters; and thus reflecting the Kemetian/Egyptian and Cushitic/Meroitic preference for the decimal system) is a masterpiece of mystical literature full of notions of eschatology and soteriology, as it ends with a holy marriage at Meroe. The perils, obstacles, threats and adversities that the two main characters (Theagenes, Chariclea) encounter correspond to rites of initiation that Heliodorus’ school of spirituality applied to their neophytes. Already, the selection of the aforementioned theophoric names hints at the major messianic figures of the Myth of Osiris. In Greek, Chariclea means ‘the glory of the joy’ and Theagenes signifies ‘the offspring of God’.
I herewith include a brief excerpt from Heliodorus’ Aethiopica (10th chapter), in which Meroe and the surrounding landscape are described. To offer a geographical clarification, I only add the explanation that ‘Nile’ means the united Nile; ‘Astaboras’ is the Greek form of the Ancient Meroitic name of Atbarah River; and ‘Asasoba’ is another, now-extinct river, which was also tributary to the united Nile (like Atbarah / Astaboras). The text refers also to the confluence of the White Nile and Blue Nile, which takes place at today’s Khartoum. The description of Meroe as an island was quite typical during the Antiquity; a triangular piece of land surrounded by three rivers was viewed by definition as an island.
The excerpt reads as follows:
Meroe the chief city of Ethiopia is a three-cornered island about which do run navigable rivers, the Nile, and the Astabora and the Asasoba. At the topmost point is the Nile, which there divides itself into two parts; the other two rivers run on both sides one by the other, and then meeting fall into the Nile, and yield their waters and their name. The island is very large and almost imitates the mainland — for it is three hundred three score and fifteen miles long and six score and five broad — and it engenders beasts of wonderful greatness of all kinds and especially elephants. Trees grow there without the work of men, and it brings forth much other fruit. There are palm trees of great height which bear stores of dates, and corn and wheat of such tallness that it will hide a man on horseback and even sometimes though he sits upon a camel. And the reeds that grow there are such as we spake of before.
XXVII. Blemmyes, Nubians, Axumites and the End of Meroe
During the 3rd c. CE, major tribal conflicts and movements started taking place on both sides of the Nile and the region between the First and the Second Cataracts seems to have been destabilized. Desecration of holy shrines venerated by opposite ethnic groups became a practice. In the temple of the Nubian god Mandulis at Talmis (Kalabsha), the Roman Governor Aurelius Besarion {also known as Ammonius (Αὐρήλιος Βησαρίων alias Ἀμμώνιος), i.e. believer of the Theban god Amun} had to intervene (ca. 250 CE) and forbid the presence of swine; this means that Blemmyes had desecrated the temple of the Noubai (or Nobadai, i.e. the Nubians). The situation may well have interrupted the contacts between Meroe and Rome.
What Aurelius Besarion was able to do ca. 250 CE, the Romans were not able to achieve 50 years later. An attempt to interfere in the conflicts between the Blemmyes and the Noubai would be consuming too much time and even more energy from the Roman side at a time many parts of the Roman frontiers in the East were under the attacks of the Iranians and other invaders. Even worse, the entire Roman empire was crossing a period of upheaval. That is why in 298 CE Diocletian withdrew the Roman forces from Dodekaschoenus, made of the region of Aswan (the Nile’s First Cataract) the empire’s southernmost border in the Nile Valley, fortified the place, and signed a treaty with the warring parts, namely the Blemmyes and the Nubians. About:
Olympiodorus Thebaeus (i.e. from Thebes of Egypt, today’s Luxor), writing slightly more than 120 years after the events (ca. 422-424 CE), recorded the disorderly situation that prevailed in the region of Dodekaschoenus, because of the ceaseless wars between the Blemmyes and the Noubai (Nubians). Only fragments of his works have been preserved by Eastern Roman authors, sages, and polymaths, notably Photius who was twice the patriarch of Constantinople (Photius, Bibl. Cod. 80) in the 9th c. CE. Published in the series Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (5 vols), they can be found online in the Digital Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (DFHG); the specific fragment (paragraph 37) is available here (Ancient Greek text and Latin translation): http://www.dfhg-project.org/DFHG/digger.php?what%5B%5D=author%7COLYMPIODORUS+THEBAEUS&onoffswitch=on
Details were recorded more extensively, 250 years after Diocletian’s visit to Aswan, by the Eastern Roman historian Procopius, who lived at the time of Justinian I in the middle of the 6th c. CE. In the 19th book (chapters 27-37: 1.19.27-1.19.37) of his opus ‘About the Wars’ (in Ancient Greek: Υπέρ των Πολέμων – Hyper ton Polemon; Latin translation: De Bellis), Procopius of Caesarea (a city in Palestine) offers an enthralling description of Diocletian’s arrival in the Roman Empire’s south-easternmost confines and of the chaotic situation that prevailed there at those days. The text in Ancient Greek and in English translation can be found here (Procopius, De Bellis, XIX 27-37):
As it appears the relations between Meroe and Rome were cut some time in the middle of the 3rd c. CE. Archaeological evidence from the region between the First and the Third cataracts suggests that the Meroites, after the retreat of the Romans at 298 CE, invaded and inhabited several sites for some period. But the consequences of the long lasted conflict between the Blemmyes and the Noubai (Nubians) had a dire impact on Meroe, cutting the capital of Cush from its main commercial partners in Roman Egypt and the Mediterranean World. During the 4th c. CE, we know that Meroe progressively collapsed. The outcome of the Blemmyo-Nubian wars, which took place at the end of the 3rd c. and during the 4th c. CE, shook the Meroitic kingdom from its foundations and eventually brought about its end, already before the military expedition and the conquest of Meroe by king Ezana of Axumite Abyssinia (ca. 360-370) took place. These wars also predetermined the area where the two nations, i.e. the Nubians and the Blemmyes/Bejas, have lived ever since, namely the Valley of the Nile (Nubians) and the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea coastal zone (Blemmyes/Bejas).
Among the unruly nations, which were in conflict at the time on both sides of the Nile and throughout the Eastern Desert, the most bellicose element was the Cushitic Blemmyes. The Cushitic dexterity in battle apparently impressed the Copts, the Greeks, and the Romans, and a hitherto unknown poet (using most probably the pseudonym of ‘General Germanus’) composed an epic or a panegyric to celebrate the ‘Blemmyomachia’ (Fight against the Blemmyes) and his victory over the rebels. Fragments of the text have been preserved in papyri from Kemet/Egypt {P. Berol. (= Papyri der Staatlichen Museen Berlin) 5003}; it is most probably dated in the 2nd half of the 4th c. Some scholars attributed the poem to Olympiodorus Thebaeus, but this idea seems to be wrong.
The text and its English translation can be found in the series FHN (‘Fontes Historiae Nubiorum’/’Sources of the History of Nubians’), vol. III, p. 1182-1185, no 326 (The Blemmyan War). Also:
M. Steinrück, ‘Neues zur Blemyomachie’; in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 126 (1999), p. 99-114;
L.S.B. MacCoull, ‘Papyrus fragments from the Monastery of Phoebammon’, in: Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Congress of Papyrology (New York, 24-31 July 1980; Chico), p. 491-498;
E. Livrea, Anonymi fortasse Olympiodori Thebani: Blemyomachia (P.Berol.5003), Meisenheim am Glan (1978)
‘Fontes Historiae Nubiorum’/’Sources of the History of Nubians’ is a very wrong title for a very good scholarly work, because the contents included in the series, namely the textual and epigraphic evidence collected, translated and discussed, do concern indeed several different nations: the Ancient Kemetians / Egyptians, the Ancient Cushites / Meroites, the Greeks and the Romans who were present in the region, the Nubians, the Blemmyes, and several other indigenous nations. The fallacious title is therefore an unprecedented distortion, because it covers no more than 5% of the contents. It is tantamount to writing the ‘History of Portugal’ and titling the book as ‘History of Europe’. However, the subtitle of the series is correct: ‘Textual Sources for the History of the Middle Nile Region between the Eighth Century BCE and the Sixth Century CE’. Here you can get a chronological idea about the contents of the series:
More than a century separates us from the time of John Garstang’s excavations in Meroe (1910-1914), but the major questions then formulated about the demise of the great African empire remain still unanswered. With capital at Meroe, this kingdom radiated across Northern Africa and the entire Sahara for ca. 800 years (500 BCE-300 CE), but its end is a mystery until now.
Numerous excavations took place in Sudan over the past century and they abundantly documented various stages of the Meroitic civilization. Archaeological teams unearthed scores of valuable monuments in earlier unknown sites; the dramatic increase in the material record gathered and studied certainly helps better reconstruct the Ancient History of Meroe. However, this situation has had only minor impact on our understanding of the end of Meroe. There are several reasons for this. As a matter of fact, since the early 20th century, divergence of opinion among scholars has always existed as regards the reasons that caused the fall of Meroe and the conditions under which this event took place.
In my communication (Meroitic/Oromo Ethiopian Continuity: Call for a Research Project) in the Oromo Studies Conference in 2005 (Washington D.C.), I categorized the various scholarly opinions about the end of Meroe into five (5) groups. The text of the communication was published in the 2005 Conference Proceedings by the Oromo Studies Association (Journal of Oromo Studies, vol. 14 no 1 (February-March 2007), p. 7-33); the entire volume can be found here: https://www.oromostudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/JOS-Volume-14-Number-1-2007.pdf
The end of Meroe is certainly a very perplex affair and more recently, it became quite obfuscated by today’s politicized scholars’ unintelligible garbage, which is due to their extremist and uncontrollable indoctrination. The problem does not concern only the sector of Egyptology and Cushitic/Meroitic Archaeology, but it is general, covering all fields of the Humanities. In order to maintain in validity the colonial falsehood that had been diffused by earlier, pioneering Orientalists and Africanists, today many academics, specialists and scholars cover the true data under an enormous layer of uselessly ideologized jargon and thus ‘fight’ against chimeras, tilting at windmills like Don Quixote. For the non-specialist, this attitude is surely catastrophic, because it keeps all ordinary people in absolute darkness about the historical facts and the archaeological findings. In reality, average people are able to easily detect the nonsense, if this is phrased in simple words; that’s why today’s mostly ignorant and largely pathetic scholars stick to their ludicrous jargon in order to keep the normal people far from their worthless gobbledygook.
Vicious neo-colonial academics, like the notorious Patrice Lenoble, can unfortunately be opinionative enough to think everything they thought and to write everything they wrote in order only to oppose (and hypothetically ‘refute’!) every single word and sentence published by the distinguished American scholar George Andrew Reisner (1867-1942), because they imagine that ‘he was a racist’. Of course, the ‘Father of American Archaeology’ (G. A. Reisner) was not a racist, but a truthful scholar, who excavated in Cush (Sudan), Kemet (Egypt) and Palestine (not ‘Judaea’, and surely not ‘Israel’) and described his findings very accurately, while also formulating his conclusions wisely. However, these descriptions do not correspond to the fallacious concepts and the criminal politics of the modern Zionist, Jesuit and Freemasonic gangsters, who monopolize the authority of today’s bogus universities of the Western countries.
Consequently, texts like the one below testify only to deliberate distortion of facts and to fallacious interpretation due to extreme, radical and fanatic indoctrination:
Patrice Lenoble and Nigm ed Din Mohammed Sharif,’Barbarians at the gates? The royal mounds of El Hobagi and the end of Meroë’ (published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015)
El Hobagi is a remarkable site though, located 65 km southwest of Meroe; it bears witness to the fact that in some cases there was Cushitic-Meroitic continuity in post-Meroitic times; but people were apparently migrating. Plenty of typical Meroitic objects were excavated and also one brief Meroitic inscription was found there; the presence of many weapons demonstrates that this community of migrating Meroites was in war or they had to be continually ready for war. It is however interesting that the site, which has no traces of Christian remains, was abandoned, after it was inhabited for the span of few generations.
Several other archaeological sites in the region between Meroe and the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile bear witness to early migratory movements. The area of El Salha and the nearby Al Khiday cemetery near Omdurman in Central Sudan have been the focus of systematic excavations over the past decade; they testify to Late Meroitic and post-Meroitic burials. About:
Romain David, Donatella Usai, Sandro Salvatori, Tina Jakob, ‘The Al Khiday Cemetery in Central Sudan and its ‘Classic/Late Meroitic’ Period Graves’, Journal of African Archeology 12/2, 2014, p. 183-204.
It may sound bizarre, but I have to further expand on the topic, because the end of Meroe, pretty much like many other archaeological and historical topics, has today been highly politicized and ideologized. Excavating Cushitic, Meroitic and post-Meroitic sites, Reisner unearthed monuments that testify to absolute collapse of civilization across the Middle Nile Region (from Aswan to Khartoum) after the fall of Meroe. Avoiding a term that would clearly denote ethno-linguistic association and identification, Resiner named the material record left by people, who settled in numerous sites of the Meroitic Empire’s northern circumference after the fall of Meroe, as X-Group culture.
X-Group culture: the site of BallanaThe impressive findings of tomb 118 in Ballana
He rightfully described them as migrant barbarians, because compared with the earlier imperial culture and the magnificent remains of the highly developed and extremely sophisticated Cushitic-Meroitic civilization, the newcomers were inferior, unsophisticated, and primitive. This is very correct. There is nothing wrong with it; there have been civilized Africans and barbaric Africans; there have been civilized Asiatics and barbaric Asiatics; there have been civilized Europeans and barbaric Europeans; and there have been civilized Pre-Colombian Americans and barbaric Pre-Colombian Americans. Barbaric nations are part of History indeed. And the science of History consists mainly in the search for truth. Academic research, scientific scholarship, and the exploration of the past cannot be the field where anyone has to express his own psychologically unbalanced mind, ideological paranoia, farfetched theory, political corruption, and evil agenda.
On the other hand, it also correct to associate X-Group culture with Noubai/Nubians and the kingdom of Nobatia, which was constituted ca. 70-80 years after the fall of Meroe in the middle of the 5th century. About:
I mention only one type of problems associated with the interpretation of the fall of Meroe, so that average people today effectively get an insight into the dirty motives of various pseudo-academics. Non-specialists must definitely be helped to discern the reasons for which many fallacies, many false names, and an extraordinary historical forgery are attested in so numerous articles, books and speeches of today’s historians and archaeologists about Nubia. As a matter of fact, the existence of a worldwide group of power, which intends to promote the formation of a Nubian state in parts of today’s Egypt’s and Sudan’s territory, is the reason for which the members of this group of power cannot admit in public the historical fact that the ancestors of today’s Nubians were initially uncultured barbarians whose material culture was dramatically inferior to the heritage of the Ancient Cushites / Meroites and to the legacy of the Ancient Kemetians / Egyptians.
That’s why a systematic and overwhelming effort has been undertaken worldwide in order to Nubianize the Cushitic and Meroitic monuments, to falsify the Ancient History of Cush and Meroe, to fallaciously attribute it to Nubians, thus depriving today’s Oromos, Sidamas, other Cushitic nations of Ethiopia, and Central Sudan’s Arabic-speaking Sudanese from the common, national and cultural heritage that belongs to all of them. And this was the topic of my communication (“Fake Nubia: a Colonial Forgery to deprive Cushitic Nations from National Independence, Historical Identity and Cultural Heritage”) in the 5th Annual International Conference of the Network of Oromo Studies, which was held electronically on 27 February 2021 (NOS: http://networkoromostudies.com/; see above: Part A)
XXVIII. The End of Meroe and the Rise of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia: Terminus-post-quem and Terminus-ante-quem for theEarly Migratory Wave
As I already said, the end of Meroe is a very perplex historical event. Without having a clear idea about the interminable wars between the Blemmyes and the Nubians, which may have lasted over 150 years (250-400 CE), until the two nations finally settled in distinctly separate regions (the Nubians only in the Nile Valley and the Blemmyes / Bejas exclusively in the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea coastal zone), we will not be able to accurately realize how Meroe collapsed. It would also be important to know on whose side the last Qore (Kings) of Meroe fought, whose attacks they had to repel, what collateral damages incurred, and how all these developments weakened the Meroitic rule. It seems that the entire northern part of the Meroitic kingdom from the Nile to the Red Sea had been affected: the Batn al Hagar, the Abri-Delqo Reach, the Dongola Reach, and the Abu Hamed Reach were probably out of the Meroitic control during the last 50-70 years of Meroitic royal authority. Maps and geographic details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Nubia
If we take into consideration the fact that Axumite Abyssinian inscriptions in Ge’ez and in Ancient Greek mention indeed Abyssinian attacks against also the Nubians (stating the Axumite victories over them), we realize that the entire problem was of enormous extent and it endangered also Axum, which was located farther. The existence of post-Meroitic sites in the region around today’s Khartoum and in the Gezirah province of Central Sudan demonstrates that the Cushitic inhabitants of the central regions of Meroe (the ‘Shendi Reach’) had only one way to escape the attacks of the Nubians from the North and the incursions of the Axumite Abyssinians from the East, namely to migrate beyond the Meroitic kingdom’s southwestern confines and further to the south in the lands between the Blue and the White Nile.
For the issue of the Meroitic migration to the South (across Gezirah, and then alongside the White Nile, toward the area of today’s borders between the modern states of Sudan, South Sudan, and Ethiopia), the conditions and the circumstances that caused the final collapse of Meroe play a relatively small role. The apparent scarcity of population in the main Meroitic sites during the post-Meroitic period is a major issue that demands explanation. This becomes more imperative, since there is no evidence (either textual or archaeological) of massive extermination of conquered populations. Irrespective of the reasons and the circumstances under which the migration started (either some Meroites migrated first to avoid the Nubians attacking from the North or other groups of Meroites moved later following the incursion of the Axumite Abyssinian king Ezana), the relocation movement of the first groups (or the ‘early migratory wave’) generated its own dynamics and many Meroites imitated them in the subsequent decades. I have to repeat at this point that, supporting the thesis about the Meroitic migrations to the South, I mainly speak of the Cushitic inhabitants of the central (the ‘Shendi Reach’) and the southern regions of Meroe.
Various discussions about the end of Meroe can be found here:
Stanley M. Burstein, ‘Axum and the Fall of Meroe’, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, vol. 18 (1981), pp. 47-50 (4 pages)
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) 24-1246. Meroe (nunc Khartoum in Museo Historico). Epistula regis Meroae, s. Vp(?).
Entry: Titulum ab A. H. Sayce, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archaeol. XXXI 1909, 189/90, c. del. pl. XXIV, primum iuris publici factum, denuo ed. F. Altheim et R. Stiehl, Klio XXXIX 1961, 242/8, c. im. ph.
Terminus post quem, i.e. limit after which one can date the beginning of the early migratory wave, can be fixed at around the middle of the 4th c. CE. There may actually have been more than one Axumite Abyssinian attacks against Meroe, and before them, several devastating events may have already been caused by Nubian attacks. The early migrations may have consisted of many numerous local events, which over the span of some decades (340-400 CE) ultimately generated a major exodus of the central and the southern populations of the Meroitic kingdom. It is reasonable to assume that there have been numerous provisory ‘stations’ during this movement, because the expectation for a return to the old capital and cities may have been very strong in the beginning. The aforementioned site of El Hobagi must have only been one of these ‘stations’. The problem in this regard is the fact that, until recently, ‘Sudan Archaeology’ meant practically field work in few sites and almost exclusively in the area between Meroe and the Egyptian border. The misperception as per which Ancient Cush/Meroe was often viewed as an ‘annex’ of Ancient Kemet/Egypt played a negative role in this regard. The same is true also for the idea or mentality that excavations are worthwhile only when major monuments are attested in the surface survey.
Terminus ante quem, i.e. limit before which we have to date the completion of the early migratory wave, can be fixed at approximately the middle or even the final decades of the 6th c. CE. As anyone can understand, this means an enormous period of time of approximately 200-240 years (340-580 CE) during which several migration movements toward the South may have taken place; all of them viewed together consist the ‘early migratory wave’. A very interesting point is the fact that the rise of the three Christian kingdoms in the area of today’s Sudan was entirely due to impact originating from the North, i.e. Christian Roman Egypt, and not from the Southeast-East, namely Axumite Abyssinia. This clarifies something very important: king Ezana’s incursion and destruction of Meroe did not actually happen as an attempt to diffuse Christianity in Meroe. This reality will be discussed and elucidated further below, in the next unit.
Actually, there has never been found the slightest sign to indicate an Axumite Abyssinian policy to proselytize Meroites or to impose in any way Christianity as religion in the part of Meroe that seems to have been temporarily occupied by king Ezana. And there is no indication that the Axumite Abyssinian control over the southeastern regions of Meroe lasted for more than perhaps just few years. As a matter of fact, there was never an Axumite Abyssinian church built in today’s Sudanese territory. This renders king Ezana’s pretension (as written down in his victorious stele, which was found in Meroe) a worthless assertion meaninglessly articulated by his courtiers and pompously inscribed by his scribes.
Biased Western academics and racist scholars have always tried to over-magnify the supposed importance of king Ezana’s incursion in Meroe, but this serves only as reconfirmation of their well-known untrustworthiness. A quite typical example in this regard is offered by the pro-Abyssinian propagandist and author Benjamin Hendrickx, a Belgian colonialist married to a Greek and hired by the apartheid South African regime (in 1991, by the Rand Afrikaans University, which is now known as University of Johannesburg). This disreputable racist ‘scholar’ accepts Ezana’s Axumite propaganda at face value, while also erroneously calling the Axumite Abyssinian ruler Kaleb an ‘Ethiopian’ (sic!). Furthermore, B. Hendrickx invented an otherwise nonexistent ‘autonomous’ Ethiopian Meroitic ‘principality’ supposedly located in the region of Dodekaschoenus after the evacuation of the Roman soldiers. To add insult to injury, the incorrigible spin-doctor and white ‘professor’ Hendrickx of South Africa (!?!) calls the Eastern Roman Emperor Justin I (518-527) a ‘Byzantine’, only to promote the racist, pseudo-historical, Greco-centric dogma, which is still imposed in Western Europe as an insult to the rest of the world, and notably against all Africans (‘On the Withdrawal of the Roman Troops from the Dodecaschoenos in AD 298’; https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234768148.pdf).
Kalabsha Temple of Mandulis: the Nubian temple became a church after the Christianization of NobatiaKalabsha temple: the inner courtThe inscription of King Silko of NobatiaKing Silko
Although it is widely known that three Christian kingdoms were established in Sudan’s territory, namely (from North to South) Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia, not many specialists have observed that the third, southernmost kingdom was formed remarkably later than the other two. Nobatia was established first in the North, between the first and the third cataracts (for about 600 km alongside the Nile, south of Aswan) and with Faras as capital (in the area of today’s Sudanese-Egyptian border) – already ca. 400-420 CE. As the name suggests, Nobatia was the first and the last state formed by the Nubians throughout History. The inscription of king Silko on the walls of the temple of Nubian god Mandulis at Talmis (Kalabsha) details his victory over the Blemmyes. Silko is described as ‘basiliskos’ (i.e. little king) of the Noubadai (Nubians) and of all the Ethiopians (i.e. the Meroites). This is entirely propagandistic and untrue, but it also bears witness to the transformation of the Ancient Nubian temple into a Christian church, something that occurred in many Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian temples. After the middle of the 5th c. only nuclei of worshippers of Isis, Horus and other Ancient Egyptian gods were left in Upper Egypt (until they were finally prohibited by Justinian I in 537 CE). Officially, Nobatia became Christian at ca. 540 CE. About:
From the cathedral of Faras, capital of Nobatia – on the borderline between Egypt and SudanFaras Cathedral frescoes with representation of Biblical scenesWall painting from Faras CathedralWall painting from Faras Cathedral
Makuria was located south of Nobatia and stretched between the third and the sixth cataracts, thus encompassing most of the territory of the Meroitic kingdom. In fact, Makuria is the main Christian kingdom of Ethiopia (: Sudan), and it lasted for no less than 900 years from the 5th c. to the 14th c. The first historical references to Makuria date back to end of the 5th c., and apparently the kingdom rose in direct religious opposition to Nobatia; the Nubian kingdom was linked with the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria and accepted Monophysitic (Miaphysite) Christianity, whereas the kingdom of Makuria was connected to the Eastern Roman Patriarchate of Alexandria and adhered to Orthodox (‘Chalcedonian’, i.e. accepting the theological resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon – 451 CE) Christianity.
Exactly because Nobatia was an obstacle to cross, a Makurian delegation managed to reach Constantinople only as late as 573. It is however noteworthy that during the early Islamic conquests, Makuria proved to be strong enough not only to successfully repel the attacking armies (which momentarily reached as far as Dongola in the South), but also to save Nobatia and to limit the Islamic Caliphate territories in the North. For several centuries, Islamic rule was exercised only in Lower (: Northern) Egypt up to the region of Al Minia (250 km south of Cairo). The Makurian king entered into an early agreement with the armies of the Caliphate (‘Baqt’) and this was respected by both sides for many, long centuries. 8th c. Coptic chronicler John the Deacon describes the king Merkurios of Makuria as ‘the new Constantine’.
The capital of Makuria was initially located near Napata (in the 2nd half of the 5th c. CE) and then it was transferred at Dongola Agouza (Old Dongola), ca. 550 km south of the Sudanese-Egyptian border. Makuria controlled an area ca. 1400 km long next to the Nile. The Christian Makurian king commanded sizeable, adjacent parts of the Western and the Eastern deserts, notably the Bayuda. The population of Makuria was mainly Meroitic, but in the 5th c. CE, it was drastically reduced in comparison with that of Meroe several centuries earlier. And the epicenter of the Meroitic kingdom, i.e. the region around the confluence of Atbarah River with the Nile, was scarcely inhabited in the Makurian times. To oppose the advance of the Islamic armies in the early 9th c., Nobatia had to merge with Makuria.
Old Dongola, Capital of Makuria: the remains of the CathedralOld Dongola (Dongola Agouza)Old Dongola: the Islamic cemeteryOld Dongola: the Throne Hall, former Cathedral of MakuriaChristian Makurian wall paintings from Old Dongola
XXIX. Nobatia, Makuria, Axum, and the Christianization of Alodia (Alwa)
Whereas the Christological differentiation between Nobatia and Makuria testifies to the critically different ethnic-linguistic backgrounds of the two Christian kingdoms of Sudan, the fact that the southernmost Christian kingdom of Sudan accepted the Christian faith quite later shows how different the situation was in the wider region of today’s Khartoum and the Gezirah province (‘state’: wilayat’). Contrarily to Nobatia where Christianity rose to prominence in the early 5th c., and in contrast with Makuria where the Christian faith spread in the late 5th c., in the region around Khartoum, Coptic (Monophysitic or Miaphysitic) Christianity was first preached almost 100 years later: in the last two decades of the 6th c. CE. We even have very little information about the emergence of the kingdom of Alodia (or Alwa).
Soba, the known capital of Alodia, has until now been mainly known through textual historical sources (basically in Arabic Islamic historical texts). Few monuments were already noticed in that site during the 19th and the early 20th c. by several European travelers, notably the pioneering English Orientalist and Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge. The site is located at ca. 20 km from Khartoum on the eastern (right) bank of the Blue Nile; early excavations were undertaken in the 1900s by Wallis Budge, in the 1910s by Somers Clarke, and the 1930s by Ugo Monneret de Villard. Peter Shinnie excavated for two periods in the early 1950s, and later, D. A. Welsby led the work of a team of archaeologists in the 1981 and 1982 periods; the work continued for the years 1989-1992. Salvage excavations were undertaken in the 2000s (by the Sudan Antiquities Service) and more recently (2019). The site has suffered from human activities and from the Blue Nile floods, similarly with other apparently Alodian sites between Khartoum and the 6th Cataract, namely Abu Nafisa fort and Hosh el-Kab fort that testify to post-Meroitic monuments down to the Funj (Islamic) times. Soba is an enormous site (275 hectares) and until now only 1% of the area has been explored in detail and/or excavated.
Soba, the Cathedral of the Capital of Alodia
It is only to be hoped that the Polish interdisciplinary project “Soba – the heart of Alwa”, launched in 2019-2020 by the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, will bring fruitful results over the next few years, thus better documenting our knowledge about the origins and the long History of the kingdom of Alodia (or Alwa). About:
Bishop Marianos of Faras (12th c.) – after the merge of Nobatia with Makuria
Although known also as toponym in pre-Christian sources, Alodia (Alwa) may well have originally been a city. However, in the first mention of Christianization of Alodia, we find a reference to a local king, who wanted to be baptized along with his subjects. This dates back to ca. 580-585 CE, and according to historical sources of the same period, the king of Alodia sent a letter to the king of Nobatia, asking the Nobatians to dispatch to Alodia a famous Coptic (: Egyptian) Monophysite / Miaphysite Christian bishop and missionary named Longinus to preach Christianity to the Alodians.
This event highlights the Christological disputes, which disparaged the Christian communities from the Atlantic Ocean to Central Asia to the Indian Ocean; the kingdom of Makuria, in opposition to Nobatia, was aligned with the Chalcedonian Orthodox Christianity (i.e. the Patriarchate of Constantinople), as I already said in the previous unit. The fact that a non-Christian king of Alodia, at the end of the 6th c. CE, wanted to be Christianized, through the help of the Nobatian king, by a Coptic bishop (and not by the nearby Christian kingdom of Makuria) clearly demonstrates a spiritual-cultural-royal rivalry with Makuria. Apparently, the Alodians -at a moment they had no idea about Christianity- did not want to accept Christianity through any contact with the Makurians. This situation reflects spiritual and cultural differences that had existed within the Meroitic kingdom between its northern (between Napata and Kawa, and further in the North) and its southern (around Meroe) inhabitants. The origins of these pre-Christian, spiritual and religious divisions that existed in both, Kemet/Egypt and Cush/Meroe, go back to the 3rd millennium BCE {see above units V: ‘Deep Spiritual-Religious Divisions among both, Kemetians (Egyptians) and Cushites (Sudanese: Ethiopians)’ and XVII: ‘Meroe’s Relations with Kemet/Egypt under the Ptolemies (305-30 BCE)’}.
This fact fully reconfirms the aforementioned terminus ante quem; it also makes it clear that until the end of the 6th c. (580-585) CE, there were no Christians in the region of the epicenter and in the southern-southeastern periphery of the already bygone Meroitic kingdom. This shows that the ‘early migratory wave’ lasted long and consisted in the relocation of many Meroites from the Shendi Reach to today’s Gezirah province of Sudan and further to the South, up to the area of the modern city of Malakal. The conversion of Alodia to Christianity, following the royal invitation extended to a Copt Monophysitic bishop, is a major and truly critical historical development that greatly concerns the History of the Meroitic-Oromo migrations and the History of Christianity in Eastern Africa.
First, it is quite indicative of the fact that the Axumite kingdom of Abyssinia never controlled any part of the territories of today’s Sudan and South Sudan, except perhaps the territories up to Meroe and only for few years. So, one understands very clearly that the map of the kingdom of Axum, which is disreputably published in the respective Wikipedia entry, is a complete forgery, probably paid by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia), which has systematically undertaken over the past decades a major propaganda effort. The Abyssinian state’s historical falsification campaign involves the over-magnification of all things Abyssinian in order to promote worldwide its bogus-historical dogma, while also starving and massacring the subjugated and persecuted nations imprisoned in this obsolete, colonial and genocidal tyranny. This is the fake map paid by the Abyssinians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Aksum#/media/File:The_Kingdom_of_Aksum.png
Second, it shows that the Axumites were not trusted by the Cushitic/Meroitic populations of Alodia. Despite the fact that Axum was far closer to Alodia than either Alexandria (capital of the Eastern Roman province of Egypt and headquarters of a leading Patriarchate) or Faras (capital of the kingdom of Nobatia), the king of Alodia did not send letters to Axum to ask for a bishop to evangelize Alodia.
Third, it also proves that the Axumite kingdom of Abyssinia, although linked with the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria and connected with the Eastern Roman Emperor at Constantinople, never carried out proper Christian missionary activities, rather constituting an isolated and marginal case. By the time the king of Alodia dispatched his letter to his counterpart in Nobatia, the descendants of king Kaleb in Axum had faced a stinging defeat in Yemen at the hands of the Sassanid Iranian army sent there by Emperor Khusraw I of Iran (Axum had sent an army to Yemen, following an imperial demand from Constantinople).
Fourth, this event also shows that, in fact, the kingdom of Axum was a non-African, Yemenite kingdom on African soil and therefore alien to all the Hamitic and Cushitic kingdoms and states, which stretched from Africa’s northeastern corner to the Black Continent’s south-easternmost confines inhabited during the Late Antiquity (the northern coast of today’s Mozambique). We can consequently realize that Ezana’s incursion of Meroe was rather an isolated event, which took place most probably due to the threatening Nubian attacks across the eastern territories of the then ailing Meroitic kingdom.
Fifth, it is also interesting to notice that, although Constantinople used Axum to support the Eastern Roman interests in Yemen against Iran, no Eastern Roman emperor had the ‘foresight’ to ask the Axumites to evangelize the Alodian Meroites. This is also quite telling.
Longinus was a famous bishop and missionary, who consolidated Coptic Monophysitic / Miaphysitic Christianity in Nobatia first; he spent years in the Nobatian capital Faras duly institutionalizing the local Christian kingdom against the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates and guaranteeing the pro-Monophysitic stance of the Nobatians. One cannot truly understand the historical developments that took place in Eastern Africa during the 5th and the 6th c. CE, without properly and fully contextualizing them within the Christological disputes that caused great and very passionate divisions, persecution and bloodshed among the Christians of those days. Makuria, the Cushitic kingdom that was located south of Nobatia and north of Alodia, had sided with the Eastern Roman capital Constantinople and the Orthodox Patriarchates, against the Coptic (Monophysitic/Miaphysitic) Patriarchate of Alexandria and Nobatia. Consequently, Makuria ferociously opposed Longinus’ travel to Alodia and effort to evangelize the local Cushitic people. However, the tenacious missionary managed to reach Alodia and convert the local Meroites to Coptic Monophysitic/Miaphysitic Christianity.
The major source of information about Longinus’ activities in Alodia, Nobatia and Egypt is John of Ephesus (507-588), an Aramaean born in Amida (today’s Diyarbakir in Turkey), who was bishop of Ephesus (in today’s Western Turkey) and remained until now as one of the major Fathers of the Christian Church.
John of Ephesus wrote a monumental Ecclesiastical History in Syriac Aramaic in which he covered a period of 600 years from Julius Caesar to the end of the 6th c. CE; this superb opus consisted of three parts, and each part contained six books. The first part seems to have probably been lost; the second part was reproduced in most of its contents in the Syriac Chronicle attributed to Dionysius of Tell Mahre; the third part, saved in a 7th c. manuscript, covers the narration of events that took place in the period 571-588. One of the few translations of the third part of the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus (published by R. Payne Smith) is available online in the site Christian Classics Ethereal Library (https://www.ccel.org/ / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Classics_Ethereal_Library / https://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/index.htm /
The description of Longinus’ mission to Alodia covers several paragraphs of the fourth book (of the third part), notably paragraphs 48-53; John of Ephesus adds to his own narrative a Letter of the King of Alodia to the King of the Nubians (Nobadae), in which the former thanks the latter for having dispatched bishop Longinus, and a Letter of the king of the Nobadae to Theodore of Alexandria. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/ephesus_4_book4.htm
The narrative about the Christianization of Alodia includes a critical point for the reconstruction of the Cushitic History by modern historians. John of Ephesus makes repeatedly clarifications about the ethnic identity of the Alodians, and by so doing, he overwhelmingly demonstrates that today’s highly politicized and ideologized scholars’ assumptions and pretensions that Makuria and Alodia were ‘Nubian’ kingdoms and ‘Nilo-Saharan’ nations (like Nobatia) are misplaced, inconsistent and erroneous. There is nothing ‘Nubian’ in either the Makurians or the Alodians; both nations and kingdoms were Cushitic/Meroitic, i.e. ‘Ethiopian’. The sole Nubian kingdom was Nobatia, as I already stated.
These are the crucial excerpts and the clarifications that John of Ephesus, a 6th c. CE Aramaean who wrote in Syriac, made twice:
– “whom the Greeks call Alodaei, and who are supposed to be Aethiopians”
– “the conversion of the people whom the Greeks call Alodaei, but whom we believe to be Aethiopians, to the Christian faith”
This means that John of Ephesus was fully aware of the Cushitic/Meroitic Ethiopian identity of the Alodians and he kept using the name by which Aramaeans were describing the Meroites and the Cushites in the past.
The description of Longinus’ mission to Alodia contains several other important excerpts which highlight critical historical points; I herewith select three excerpts, which respectively underscore the following issues.
A) The deep hatred of the Chalcedonian, pro-Constantinopolitan Makurians against the Aramaean, Coptic and Nobatian Monophysitic/Miaphysitic Christianity; this excerpt is particularly impressive:
“the Makoritae; and when their king heard that Longinus had started on his journey, Satan in his envy stirred him up to set watchers in all the passes of his kingdom on all the roads, both in the mountains and in the plains, as far as the sea of weeds 28, in hopes of arresting Longinus, and so hindering the salvation of the powerful people of the Alodaei”.
B) The existence of a Blemmyan kingdom in the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea coastlands, with which Christian Nobatia was in good relations indeed; the following excerpt makes everything clear in this regard.
“But because of the wicked devices of him who dwells between us, I mean the king of the Makoritae, I sent my saintly father to the king of the Blemyes, that he might conduct him thither by routes farther inland; but the Makorite heard also of this, and set people on the look out in all the passes of his kingdom, both in the mountains and in the plains, and as far as the sea of weeds, wishing to lay hands on my father, and put a stop to the good work of God, as my father has written hither to tell me. And great was the wearisomeness and the bitter trials of soul and body which he endured in the land of the Blemyes, together with extreme privation and want. And yet even so the wicked devices of his enemy could not hinder the readiness of my saintly father in doing the work of God; and the Lord our God directed his ways and ordered his paths so that he travelled safely over long tracks of country, and escaped the strong garrisons set in his way, although he lost his retinue of camels and the other beasts of burden with him.”
C) The diffusion of the heresy of Julian of Halicarnassus among the Axumite Abyssinians, who seem to have established some sort of commercial contacts with the Alodians. Longinus is therefore mentioned (by John of Ephesus) as narrating his opposition to another Christian heretical theory (Aphthartodocetae), which had been diffused to some extent in Abyssinia. It is also interesting to notice how the author describes clearly the Nubians and the Alodians (‘Ethiopians’) as distinct from the Abyssinians.
“But inasmuch as there are certain Abyssinians, who have fallen into the malady of the fancy of Julianus, and say, that Christ suffered in a body not capable of pain, or of death, we have told them what is the correct belief, and have required them to anathematize this heresy in writing, and have received these persons upon their presenting their recantation”
XXX. Jebel Moya, the First and the Second Migratory Waves, and the Transformation of the Migrant Meroites and Alodians into Oromos
When Alodia accepted Christianity (580-585 CE), the early migratory wave of Meroites had already been completed. A great number of descendants of the subjects of the various Qore (kings) and Kandake (queens) of the 1st and the 2nd centuries CE lived, 400 years later, in numerous, autonomous, self-ruled communities, which were located in an area 200-600 km south of today’s Khartoum. Among them, there was no ‘Qore’ anymore. That is why it is not strange in Af Somali this word was preserved (as ‘boqor’: king) until now, whereas in Afaan Oromo it was not. The two Cushitic groups separated quite early, both retained the same word for millennia, but when one of these two groups experienced circumstances whereby the word turned out to be useless, it simply fell in desuetude and it became obsolete.
The early migratory wave can be reconstituted very well, after the advance of archaeological research in the region between the White Nile and the Blue Nile; several sites have been excavated thus far in the Gezirah province, but the immensity of some of them necessitates time until we can get an accurate idea about the existing archaeological strata and the findings. In these cases, stratigraphy matters greatly.
Archaeological research must be undertaken further in the South, beyond the region between the Sudanse cities of Sennar and Kosti, throughout the Sennar, Blue Nile, South Kordofan, and Upper Nile administrative regions of Sudan and South Sudan. The region around Ed Damazin and up to Malakal must be explored systematically; this is what the Roseires Dam heightening archaeological salvage project and the excavations at Azaza site ROSE 5 suggest. See the Preliminary Report (by Mahmoud Suliman Bashir, Murtada Bushara Mohamed and Mohammed Saad Abdalah — Sudan & Nubia, No 16, pp. 132-139; published by The Sudan Archaeological Research Society, 2012) here:
Greatly interesting findings have also been unearthed in Gheresli, Abu Geili and Saqadi, three sites in the vicinity of Sennar. In Saqadi, the church seems to have been constructed through use/adjustment of an earlier building, which is indication of a settlement that belonged to the early migratory wave, before it became part of Alodia. From several sites in the Gezirah and Blue Nile regions, we get a clear idea about sheer continuity in textile activities from Meroitic to post-Meroitic times. This means that, when it comes to basics of communal daily life, the migrant Meroites continued the same habits and used the same techniques that they had inherited from their forefathers. About:
‘Gheresli: a post-Meroitic activity center in the Blue Nile region’ (by Mohamed Faroug Abd el-Rahman — Sudan & Nubia, No 10, p. 104-109; published by The Sudan Archaeological Research Society, 2006)
Elsa Yvanez, ‘Clothing the elite? Patterns of textile production and consumption in Ancient Sudan and Nubia’, Fasciculi Archaeologiae Historicae, fasc. XXXI (2018), p. 81-92
A major site in the wider Gezirah region is Jebel Moya; it was early excavated by the pioneering entrepreneur, Adventist, Freemason, collector and amateur archaeologist Sir Henry Wellcome in the period 1911–1914. The monumental size of the unusual site required thousands of workers, and only a determined adventurer like the American-born English businessman-turned-excavator could manage to do it, by hiring thousands of laborers. Despite the massive scale of the excavations, only one fifth of the entire site was dealt with until the archaeological activities stopped because of WWI. Around 3000 tombs were reported and almost all were excavated.
Jebel Moya
Various artifacts, statuettes and scarabs, imitating the Meroitic style, as well as ornaments and amulets have been unearthed, although not in big numbers as it regularly happens in sites close to the center of the Cushitic/Napatan and the Meroitic kingdoms. However, due to the nature of the attempt, and following several obstacles (including Sir Henry Wellcome’s death in 1936), the official report of the excavations was first published in the late 1940s (in three volumes). As a quarter century had passed after the excavation, numerous notes and detailed observations were lost, and the troublesome excavation ended up with a problematic publication and an erroneous dating. The series is available online:
The Wellcome excavations in the Sudan (authors: Addison, Frank; Crawford, Osbert Guy Stanhope; and Lacaille, A. D.) 1949-1951
v.1. Jebel Moya (Text) by F. Addison, with a chapter by A.D. Lacaille
v.2. Jebel Moya (Plates)
v.3. Abu Geili, by O.G.S.Crawford and Saquadi & Dar el Mek, by F. Addison.
Wellcome’s excavations at Jebel MoyaJebel Moya: view showing stone incinerator in foreground and tents in background Credit: Wellcome Library, London Jebel Moya site: general excavations Wellcome’s headquarters at Jebel Moya
Jebel Moya was not only a cemetery, but also an inhabited site with very complex stratigraphy; due to the bothersome story of the site (an early, partly and improper excavation followed by a late and confusing publication of the report), several other researchers attempted to date the apparently three main periods of site occupation, but failed to come up with plausible interpretative scenarios and comprehensive understanding of the archaeological phenomenon of Jebel Moya. In some extreme cases, archaeologists (particularly Rudolf Gerharz) attempted to solve the ‘problem’ in the easiest manner; when they cannot duly assess the complex details, they give a remote date.
However, most of the site specialists nowadays reasonably date the third (last/more recent) period of occupation in the first millennium CE, including Late Meroitic and post-Meroitic times. It is only to be hoped that the Jebel Moya Project will come up with further, extensive excavations, a more systematic approach, and a pragmatist interpretation of the material record. It is very promising that the earlier, radical and misplaced hypothesis of Jebel Moya being inhabited only by various ‘pastoralists’ is by now abandoned and that leading field scholars state clearly that Jebel Moyans were “pastoralists and farmers” alike.
As a matter of fact, the dimensions of this crucially important archaeological site are such that one can be sure that, irrespective of earlier occupations (which are now logically dated back to the 3rd, 2nd and 1st millennia BCE), Jebel Moya Phase III represents a site of migrant Meroites, who had already spread in the wider region for two centuries and made of this location a holy site for ancestral commemoration. The otherwise inexplicable abandonment of Jebel Moya Phase III at ca. 500-550 CE will be fully elucidated with the identification and excavation of other sites further in the South in the direction of Malakal and beyond.
A major drawback that prevents many archaeologists from shaping an accurate idea about the sites that they excavate is the model of archaeology that they have in mind. The academic formation of an archaeologist involves his indoctrination with one of the several existing theoretical models or paradigms of archaeology to which he/she subsequently tries to adjust his/her practical field work. Models of archaeology play a determinant role in the way excavators interpret findings and reconstitute life as they think it took place in the past; this is so because, in reality, these models are ways of perceiving life phenomena. The topic is vast and an enormous literature exists in this regard. This situation affects greatly the topic of the Meroitic-Alodian migration from the Nile Valley through various parts of Eastern Africa to the highlands of today’s Oromia.
The reason for the impact that the academic indoctrination and formation has on the Meroitic-Oromo migration is the fact that until recently all the earlier models of archaeology ostracized the concept of ‘migration’ and rejected the eventuality of ‘foreign impact’ or ‘influence’, preferring (in a most mistaken manner) to study the local findings independently from the wider context and to extremely minimize any external influence exercised within a certain land. Why this happened is easy to assess; anyone, studying external influences exerted on a culture/civilization, will soon reach conclusions, which will give a lethal blow to the still prevailing false Euro-centric (Romano-centric and Greco-centric) dogma of History. By theorizing about an ‘independent historical evolution in every land of civilization’, today’s fake academics and ideologized archaeologists thought that they will gain some time to further diffuse their racist fallacy as ‘true History’.
Consequently, what was missing was a model of archaeology based on a Migration Theory; only recently a real debate on migration in archaeology started taking place. This will bring forth new viewpoints on the already existing material record; more importantly, it will affect many Africanists’ and Sudan archaeologists’ approach to the future archaeological research in the wider Eastern African region and to their task priorities. I give an example of the new, rising concept and archaeological model with the excerpt below; it is taken from the abstract of an article co-authored by three scholars and published only last year.
Traditionally, patterns of population movements were denoted from material culture and interpreted within the context of ethnicity and the diffusion of ideas without considering underlying processes and incentives, despite active consideration of these issues by geographers and sociologists. It was not until the 1990s that a more integrated archaeological discussion on the various stimuli, influences, and mechanisms of why people choose to migrate was beginning to evolve. Since then, the debate on migration in archaeology has not only reflected on patterns of cultural and technological change but also increasingly on aspects of identity and self-realization; both in terms of how migrants themselves adapt and adjust to their new home environment, and how the host-communities themselves respond and interact with newcomers.
McSparron, C., Donnelly, C., Murphy, E. et al. Migration, Group Agency, and Archaeology: A New Theoretical Model, Int J Histor Archaeol 24, 219–232 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-019-00519-6
In my aforementioned (see above unit XXVII: Blemmyes, Nubians, Axumites and the End of Meroe) communication in the Oromo Studies Conference in 2005 (Meroitic / Oromo Ethiopian Continuity), I spoke about two migratory waves and identified their direction as following the flow of the Blue Nile (Ed Damazin and Asosa). Over the past 15 years, following my research, I slightly modified my early ideas about the direction taken by the two migratory movements. Both movements consisted of Nile river Cushitic farmers and pastoralists, but they took different direction in their migration, although at the end, they encountered one another in the highlands of Oromia.
The first migratory wave (340-580 CE) advanced to the South and, after abandoning sites -already known to us or not- in the Gezirah, the migrant Meroites proceeded further to South, moving alongside rivers like the White Nile (of course, east of the vast, swampy Sudd region), Sobat, Baro, Gebba, Birbir and Omo, down to the region of the northern shores of Lake Turkana. From there, in later periods and for different reasons, they moved northwards. This movement was triggered by the chaotic situation, which prevailed throughout the Meroitic kingdom during the 4th c. CE, because of
a) the long lasted fights between Blemmyes and Nubians,
b) the Nubian attacks against Meroitic territories, which led to the collapse of Meroe, and
c) the Axumite Abyssinian incursion in Meroe.
As migratory movement, it consisted of many partly moves. To better visualize the movement, see maps published here:
The second migratory wave (550-650 CE) was quite smaller; the migrant Cushites of the Alodian periphery advanced to the southeast-east, moving alongside rivers like Dinder, Rahad, Dubaba and Gelegu, and later they proceeded further to the east-southeast. This movement was generated because of the rise of the Alodian royal rule, which could not be easily accepted by numerous post-Meroitic communities that were already accustomed to decentralized and autonomous self-administration. The Christianization of Alodia (ca. 580-585 CE) may have not been a major issue for the migrant Cushites, except for the strengthening of the royal authority that it may have caused. These migrant Cushitic Alodians may have been part of the early migratory wave, but they had settled in lands, which later became the epicenter of the Alodian kingdom.
Recent archaeological surveys and excavations in the upper flow of Gelegu river in the Amhara Region (Qwara woreda) shed light into the Gelegu culture, which is by all means identified as closely related to Meroitic, post-Meroitic and Alodian settlements in the adjacent lands of Butana and Gezirah. About:
Alfredo González-Ruibal and Álvaro Falquina, ‘In Sudan’s Eastern Borderland: Frontier Societies of the Qwara Region (ca. AD 600-1850)’, Journal of African Archaeology, Volume 15, Issue 2
Alfredo González-Ruibal, ‘The cosmopolitan borderland: western Ethiopia c. AD 600–1800’ (published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2021)
Closing this overview of topics pertaining to the Cushitic migrations across Eastern Africa, I have once more to stress (as I already did before 15-16 years for the first time) the need for today’s Oromos to systematize their research on the following four main axes, in order to better document, duly elucidate, plainly assess, and accurately comprehend the Meroitic-Alodian migrations, which drove the Cushites from the Nile Valley to the highlands of Oromia:
A- Culture, religion, spirituality, philosophical-behavioral system
B- Archaeology
C- Linguistic-epigraphic approach
D- Comparative anthropology (Culturology or cross-cultural studies)
The recently increased scientific focus on cultures and sites of the Meroitic periphery will only facilitate the task. However, it is imperative for today’s conscious and patriotic Oromos to systematically finance the preparation of a small group of young Oromo Egyptologists, epigraphists, Coptologists, Sudan archaeologists, Cushitic linguists, and historians of religion, who -having studied in non-colonial countries like Germany, Poland and Russia- will be able to undertake this research project of national dimensions, which will reconfirm what I already said before 15 years:
The common origins, ethnic identity, cultural heritage, and ancestral lands of the Oromos and the Arabic-speaking Sudanese must make of these two peoples feel that they are the two faces of the same coin.
– The Oromos preserved the ancestral language.
– The Arabic-speaking Sudanese preserved the ancestral land and monuments.
It is high time that the two peoples unite in one nation, one land, and one state and rise in force as the ultimate resuscitation of the eternal Cush – Sudan – Oromia –Ethiopia, while also liberating the other Cushitic nations of Eastern Africa from the Abyssinian Amhara-Tigray barbarism, cruelty and tyranny.
With the present article, I complete the publication of my extensive response to a US-based Oromo scholar, intellectual and activist, who asked my opinion about the possibility of the Oromo liberation movements to cooperate systematically with the government of Egypt on the basis of a plan providing for the liberation of Biyya Oromo and for the cancellation of the disastrous dam built on the Blue Nile in Benishangul province (Abyssinia, Fake Ethiopia). The first four articles are here:
Oromos, Egypt, the Nile, Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia), and the True Essence of Colonialism – Part I
The Enemies of Oromos & their Deeds: First & Second Colonization, Jesuit Reductions, Renaissance, and the Historical Revisionism of Racist Colonials – Part II
Intellectual Colonialism in Egypt: How Egyptian Fake Universities & Obsolete Education destroy Cairo’s Chances to ally with Oromos & Sudan’s Arabic-speaking Cushites – Part III
In this -fifth and last- part, I give historical examples of the degradation and the transformation of Masr (Egypt) from a fully-fledged Ottoman province to a shameful, disgusting and miserable colony of France, England and America during the 19th, 20th and 21st c. What happened in the Nile Valley ever since Napoleon disembarked in Abuqir/Alexandria predetermined to the slightest details all the developments that took place and all the disastrous, colonial, socio-economic, academic-educational-intellectual-cultural conditions that prevailed in that unfortunate land.
In other words, in this part of my response, I will explain historically what inevitably led Egypt to the current ignorance and obscurantism that prevail across the country’s universities and educational system in general only to prevent the Egyptians (average people, elites and governments) from even knowing about real threats against their own existence.
I. The Long and Heavy Shadow of the Mamluks: ‘Misir’ (Egypt) as ‘Land of the Turks’
Before Napoleon arrived in Masr (Egypt) the local population identified themselves as Ottomans, pretty much like the then ‘Tunisians’, ‘Yemenites’, ‘Syrians’, ‘Iraqis’, ‘Greeks’ and many others. Misir (Mısır) was known as Mısır Eyaleti or Mısır Beylerbeyliği, which are terms of the Ottoman administrative organization. Here you have all the names of the Ottoman administrators of Misir and of Arabistan:
The Ottoman province of Misir (‘Egypt’) had particular problems that originated from situations generated long before the Ottoman occupation of Misir (1517, by Sultan Selim I, who became the first Ottoman to the Caliph of Islamic Caliphate). As one can easily find in books, articles and entries to encyclopedias, before the Ottoman arrival, Misir (‘Egypt’) was ruled successively by two Mamluk dynasties.
When today’s idiotic pro-Western Egyptian journalists, politicians and pseudo-academics distort the historical truth, saying that ‘Egypt’ was a colony of the Ottoman Empire, they are talking nonsense, being evidently bribed by criminal French, English and American diplomats in order to precisely diffuse the lies that their colonial masters want to impose in order to promote their historical falsification and revisionism. The easier answer to today’s Egyptian monkeys of anti-Ottoman and anti-Turkish propaganda is that, before the arrival of Misir’s liberator Sultan Selim I, Misir (Egypt) had already been ruled for hundreds of years by Turanian (Turkic) foreigners, who tyrannized the local population and were extremely loathed by them, namely the Mamluks.
The two Mamluk dynasties ruled Misir for more than 250 years (1250-1517); but before these two dynasties were established, Mamluks had existed in Misir (Egypt) for hundreds of years and ruled the country repeatedly. Mamluk soldiers were numerous in the camps of the Ayubid dynasty (1171-1260) and in the army of the Fatimid Caliphate (909-1171) that were both headquartered at Cairo for most of their duration. Basic bibliography can be found here:
Earlier and quite similarly, the Ikhshidid dynasty (935–969) and the Tulunid dynasty (868–905) were launched by Mamluks, again with capital located at the area of Cairo. Search bibliography here:
FROM IBN TULUN TO NAPOLEON (869-1798), MAMLUKS CONTROLLED EGYPT ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
Ibn Tulun Mosque, Cairo
Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid
The fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate
Fatimid Cairo
Mamluk of the Fatimid times
Fatimid Art
The Walls of the Ayyubid rulers of Cairo
DRAMCJ Cairo, Egypt – The Tombs of the Mamluks
Western colonial historians erroneously call ‘Mamluks’ only the Bahri (1250-1382) and the Burji (1382-1517) dynasties.
Mamluk embroidery
Diagram of a Mamluk parade ground
Mamluk calligraphy
Mamluk horsemen depicted in a miniature
Mamluk essay on cavalry
Mamluks with lance-heads between each other’s shoulder-blades
Sultan al-Ghuri’s mausoleum – After Selim I invaded Cairo (1517), the Mamluk military class remained in power as these experienced soldiers and officers guaranteed social security and imperial integrity. There was no Mamluk dynasty anymore, but Mamluk military force.
Venitian embassy in Mamluk Damascus – 1511
The Ottoman Mamluk Ibrahim Bey: 18th-19th c.
Ibrahim Bey’s mansion on Al-Rudah Island
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The Mamluks did not appear first in Misir; they constituted a significant part of the army of the Abbasid Caliphate since the early establishment of the second Islamic Caliphate in 750. The need for well-experienced soldiers and officers across the vast Caliphate allowed the Turanian (Turkc) Mamluks to spread throughout its almost infinite territories: from Central Asia and the Indus River Valley to Misir (Egypt) and the African Atlas. The Turanian (Turkc) Mamluks came to the Abbasid Caliphate form today’s NE Iran, Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan (Xinkiang, NW China), Siberia, and the plains of today’s Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe where various Turanian (Turkc) nations had already migrated to.
Unlike the Seljuks, the Timurids and many others, the Mamluks were not one family or nation that migrated to a new location and obtained local power in the area of their final settlement. The Mamluks were a rather unorganized class of Muslim soldiers of mainly Turanian (Turkic) origin. Turkic languages were their means of military communication and organization; Farsi was their cultural language; and Arabic was their religious language. Initially, they were a means of Abbasid military strength, as soldiers-slaves.
But when Baghdad became the capital of an unprecedentedly large empire, compared to which the Iranian Achaemenid Empire of Darius I the Great or the Roman Empire of the time of Trajan appeared as minor kingdoms, the structure at the elite of the Caliphate changed dramatically. With the rise of the Turanian-Iranian family of the Barmakian in power, the imperial control went out of the hands of the Caliph; the administration, the trade, the military affairs, the internal security, the foreign affairs, and above all, the progress in sciences, exploration, knowledge, wisdom, spirituality, arts and architecture were impossible to be supervised by one human being.
It was then that experienced Turanian military officers, sent by the Baghdad administration, arrived in various provinces of the Caliphate for some military reasons and, after settling troubles for local security, they became the de facto local rulers; they were paying tribute to, and recognizing the supreme authority of. the Caliph whose power was however only nominal. The phenomenon occurred in many provinces of the Abbasid Caliphate and after the second half of the 9th c., the Caliph was merely a decorative figurehead.
The Mamluks were formed following the progressive, independent arrival of various soldiers or small groups of soldiers, who intended to capitalize on their military skills and were therefore wholeheartedly accepted by a Mamluk ruler. Consequently, they functioned as an independent military class, which gradually acquired self-consciousness in defending common interests, looting common targets, and increasing their common wealth. Their initially small number increased over time, because more soldiers and officers were arriving from other countries to places where there was an important demand.
This development happened for various reasons, as no one had borders to cross when traveling from today’s Northern India, Eastern Europe, Siberia and China to Iraq, Yemen, Misir or the African Atlas. Some moved across great distances to spend a soldier’s life before establishing a wealthy family in faraway lands, because they were just looking for a prosperous job; others left their countries because of attacks and invasions undertaken by other Turanians with whom they did not have good relations; furthermore, local youth enrolled in their military organization, and actually in Misir many Copts accepted Islam in order to have an outstanding future as member of the Mamluk class. There were certainly intermarriages with the local populations in the Valley of the Nile, in the Indus River Valley, and in many other provinces of the Caliphate, but this did not affect the local population ethnically. The Copts, Muslim or Christian, remained the outright majority of Misir.
One must not confuse the military class of the Mamluks with the names of the Islamic times’ local dynasties of Misir. Some of the Mamluks did indeed found dynasties to rule the country as hereditary rulers recognizing the Caliph’s authority (as I already said), but in fact these sultans or emirs or khans were merely the most influential officers among the local group of Mamluks in every place/province of the Caliphate. Western colonial historians, Islamologists and Orientalists confuse the average reader with their erroneous and exclusive appellation of the Bahri dynasty (1250-1382) and the Burji dynasty (1382-1517) as “Mamluk dynasties”.
In fact, the Ikhshidid dynasty and the Tulunid dynasty were also “Mamluk dynasties”. And more importantly, after the fall of a Mamluk dynasty, the Mamluks -as a military class- were not dissolved, because they were absolutely necessary for the defense or the expansion of the local territory by the following dynasty. That’s why, when Selim I invaded Misir and eliminated the Burji dynasty (1517), he kept the main force of the Mamluks as an organized military unit for the local – regional defense and imperial expansion.
So, in fact, when it comes to Misir (‘Egypt’), from ca. 850 until 1798 (when Napoleon arrived there), for no less than 950 years, the Mamluks constituted the main local force of military and administrative rule. If one puts aside the colonial propaganda, forgery and fallacious historiography and if one examines the historical sources and the terminology that they use, one gets greatly astonished with the unprecedented, and enormous colonial distortions. All Arabic historical sources called the state of the Bahri dynasty “Dawlat al Atrak” (the state of the Turks / دولة الاتراك) and the Burji dynasty “Dawlat al Djarakisa” (the state of the Çerkeş or Circassians / دولة الجراكسة). Egypt was a ‘Turkic’ (Turanian) state.
II. The Death of Kemet (Ancient Egypt) at the Hands of the Christian Copts
In fact, there was no ‘Egyptian’ nation in the historical sense as the term was used during the Christian and Islamic times by the Iranians, the Turanians, the Eastern Romans, the Georgians, the Cushitic Makurians (of Christian Sudan/Ethiopia), and many others at the time. However, for this fact neither the Turanians nor Islam can be held responsible. During the Islamic times (642-1798) all the local populations identified themselves as Christians or Muslims of Masr (Kemet / ‘Egypt’). However, the loss of the Ancient ‘Egyptian’, i.e. Kemetian, Heritage and Identity was of absolutely Coptic Christian responsibility.
This topic goes out of the scope of my present response, but I have to stress here the point that you must forget once for all the fake presentation of the History of Egypt by Western colonial Orientalists, who depict the Ancient Egyptians as a ‘peaceful’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘moderate’ nation. Kemet (Masr / ‘Egypt’) was always a land of extreme violence, overwhelming polarization, civil strives, religious wars, and much bloodshed; and it was very good like that, because this is Human History and this happened everywhere. Today’s soft power is an execrable and evil monstrosity that irreversibly destroys and corrupts all the nations, thus turning humans to useless inhuman beasts.
The same concerns also Christianity, which shed much more blood -in order to be diffused and imposed as official religion throughout the Roman Empire- than Islam. Vicious English, French and American historians and bribed, pathetic, Zionist journalists, acting like the world’s worst gangsters, persistently propagate their fallacy about Islam, as the religion that was spread by the sword; but they commit a Crime against the Mankind, hiding the historical truth about the extreme persecution to which were subjected a) followers of all ancient religions (Aramaean, Anatolian, Phoenician, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Jewish and other), who were dealt with extreme prejudice as deniers of the divine salvation, b) Arians, Marcionists, Docetists, Christian Gnostics, Monophysists, Nestorians and many others, who were considered as ‘heretics’ by the official Christian Churches, and c) Gnostics, Manichaeans, Iconoclasts, Paulicians, and all those, who were viewed as magicians, astrologers, alchemists and experts in spirituality and prohibited sciences.
One of the Roman Empire’s worst cases of bloodshed took place in Kemet (Egypt), when the Christians, after having been terribly persecuted (during the 2nd and the 3rd c.), started oppressing their opponents ferociously, killing the followers of Ancient Egyptian religions indiscriminately, and burning or demolishing temples (during the 4th, 5th, and 6th c.). Bibliography can be found here:
The diffusion of Christianity in Kemet (Egypt) was one of World History’s worst cases of extreme and paranoid fanaticism and it caused a detrimental local disaster in terms of national identity preservation, cultural heritage appreciation, moral value veneration, and historical grandeur commemoration. The Copts hated their country’s past that they erroneously and self-catastrophically assessed as entirely polytheistic; they rejected three and half millennia of Kemet’s (Egypt’s) unequalled civilizational mastership and unmatched spiritual supremacy. Among all ancient nations, only the Sumerians and the Akkadians (: Assyrians and Babylonians) can be compared to the Ancient Egyptians in terms of determinant historical impact on all the other -spiritually, culturally and intellectual inferior- nations, like the Greeks, the Hebrews and the Romans.
Coptic Christianity obliterated Kemet (Ancient Egypt) more resolutely than the Aramaeans and the Phoenicians destroyed their pre-Christian past, more decisively that the Greeks erased their idolatrous barbarism, and more overwhelmingly than the Romans annihilated their polytheistic heritage. This is very easy to assess by means of an astounding comparison: Aramaeans and Aramaized Babylonians, Phoenicians and Palestinians retained their Aramaic writing after they accepted Christianity; Greeks preserved their Greek writing after becoming Christian; and Romans maintained their Latin alphabet after adopting the official Roman Christianity.
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FOLLOWING THE OVERWHELMING REJECTION OF THE ANCIENT KEMETIAN / EGYPTIAN HERITAGE AND IDENTITY BY THE COPTS (CHRISTENED KEMETIANS / EGYPTIANS), KEMET / EGYPT COULD NEVER BECOME A NATION
Coptic manuscript: already the Coptic writing consists in a resolute and irrevocable rejection of 3400 years of Ancient Kemetian / Egyptian Civilization and Cultural Heritage
Coptic Art
In Kemet (Egypt), Christianization meant the absolute rejection of Ancient Pharaonic Heritage
Coptic wall painting
The Temple of Isis at Philae (5 km south of Aswan) became a Coptic church after 537 CE
Coptic wall painting from Wadi Natrun monasteries
Robert Trewick, Hypatia: a typically Western European delusion about the period of clashes between the Christened Copts and the Ancient Kemetians / Egyptians and Greeks of Alexandria
Typical 19th c. colonial misrepresentation of the historical truth about the assassination of Hypatia by Christian Copts who rejected the evil pansexualism and the execrable immorality of the degraded and demented followers of ancient cults
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However, Copts rejected all forms of Ancient Egyptian writing (hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic) and adopted the Coptic alphabet, which was incepted in the beginning of the 2nd c. BCE. The Coptic alphabet was composed mainly on the basis of the Greek alphabet, with the addition of extra characters derived from Demotic writing for phonemes that did not exist in Greek. Following the 4th c. extensive massacres perpetrated by Christian Copts against their compatriots, who firmly preserved their faiths, i.e. the different religions of Ancient Kemet (Egypt) and the various other spiritual systems (notably Manichaeism, Hermetism, and various Gnostic systems, Christian or not), and after the interdiction of all ancient cults and temples across the Roman Empire by the Roman Emperor Theodosius (391), the hieroglyphic and demotic writings were limited among the remaining believers of the various forms of religion of Ancient Kemet (Egypt). The last hieroglyphic text seems to have been written in 394; this is the famous graffito of Esmet-Akhom from the Temple of Isis at Philae Island, 5 km south of Aswan. The inscription and bibliography can be found here:
The last hieroglyphic and demotic inscriptions (end of 4th and middle of 5th c. CE) are saved on the walls of the Isis Temple at the Island of Philae, 5km south of Aswan
All the same, when Justinian I, emperor of the Roman Empire, issued a decree (537) to close down the last non-Christian temple that was still functioning in the empire, namely the Temple of Isis at Philae Island, the prohibition of sacrifices was viewed as the final termination of all forms of spirituality and religion of Ancient Kemet (Egypt) and at the same time, as the irrevocable end of the Ancient Kemetians (Egyptians) as a historical nation (at the spiritual, academic, cultural, intellectual and socio-behavioral levels). Ethnically and linguistically, the Kemetians remained absolutely the same nation – as Christian Copts. Texts and bibliography can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae#Christianization
In fact, the ethnic composition did not change and the language was preserved (Coptic being the latest phase of the language of Ancient Kemet / ‘Egypt’), although written in a different writing, but the cultural identity of pre-Christian Kemet had totally disappeared before the arrival of Islam few decades later. There was no major achievement, among Ancient Kemet’s majestic contributions to World Civilization, of which a Christian Copt would feel proud in the year 600. When the Islamic armies arrived in Alexandria, the Copts were a Christian nation with no pre-Christian past. This determined most of the developments that followed until the arrival of Napoleon in Misir (Egypt).
III. Kemet – Misir (‘Egypt’): a Permanent, Secret Destination for Western Europeans after the End of the Crusades
The previous two units help explain quite well why modern Masriyin (‘Egyptians’) did not constitute a nation like others; this situation was not a secret for Western Europeans. During the period 1400-1800, many dozens of Western European explorers, travelers, agents, pilgrims, researchers, merchants, antiquaries, and diplomats (or persons cumulating two or more of the aforementioned functions) traveled in the Orient, because of the tolerance and the naivety of the Ottoman Sultans, the Iranian Shahs, and the Great Mughal Emperors.
The independent Western European travelers were fewer during the 14th c. and scarce during the Crusades (1095-1291), but at that time many theologians, authors, priests, monks, and chronicle-writers moved to the Orient along with the Crusaders. Contrarily, during the period 632-1095, the travelers, pilgrims and writers, who moved from Western Europe to the Orient and wrote about it, were extremely rare.
When it comes to Western European travelers in Misir (Voyageurs occidentaux en Égypte) during the period 1400-1800, only the Cairo-based IFAO (Institut français d’archéologie orientale) has published about 25 works written by some of them.
The aforementioned points and plenty of other indicators demonstrate that different Western European circles and centers of power never forgot the Crusades and, after being kicked out of the Orient, they always wanted to return in a form; certainly there were diverse perceptions of the Orient and of its value and use by -the often opposite to one another- Western European elites. The illustrious, 17th – 18th c. German sage Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz is historically the first to be credited with the idea of a French invasion of ‘Egypt’ and of a re-opening of the Old Suez Canal; this was merely an attempt to divert the then French king Louis XIV from an impending attack against the small German states. The idea was submitted to the Elector of Mainz, who was one of the seven Princes of the Holy Roman Empire; however, the end result is that the French king was not convinced. In this regard, it is mere historical irony that Napoleon came to learn about this suggestion, which is recorded in the German states’ archives, only after his return from Egypt to Western Europe.
Leibniz’s design in his legendary “Dissertatio De Arte Combinatoria”
The situation in 18th c. Misir was almost out of the hands of the sultans whose constant wars against Iran, Russia and the Holy Roman Empire (later known as Austria-Hungary) prevented them from focusing on other provinces of their vast empire. The Mamluks as the military force, the appointed Vali {as local governor and supreme administrator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wali_(administrative_title)} and the local Mufti (reporting to the Grand Mufti at Constantinople) along with the theological administration of Al Azhar Mosque constituted the provincial elite. But in reality, the omnipotence of the Mamluk officers was almost uncontrollable and uncontainable.
Many of the Western European travelers, who acted as colonial agents, reported the insightful details, described the prevailing situation, determined the feasibility of an invasion, and suggested the various transformations and the possible changes that the French could trigger in order to both, destabilize and progressively demolish the Ottoman Empire and also continue competing with the English in their ferocious colonial antagonism. Particularly after the Treaty of Paris (1763), which marked the end of the Seven Years’ War, the antagonism became fierce, and the French wanted to stop the English colonial advance in ‘India’ (after the three Carnatic wars). It was common for various French officers to presumably offer their services to the stupid sultans, hypocritically convert to Islam, and subsequently send key info back to France. A typical case was Claude Alexandre de Bonneval who died as Humbaracı Ahmet Paşa, after helping the Ottomans to win over the Austrians (something that was also desirable for the French) and flooding the French kings with nauseating details and military assessments of the Ottoman army. This was indeed only a minor episode within the very wide context of the so-called Franco-Ottoman alliance (started in 1536), which was a vicious colonial trickery to infiltrate and erode the Ottoman enemy from within.
Humbaraci Ahmed Pasha’s tomb
In the year Napoleon was born (1769), Choiseul (Étienne François, Marquis de Stainville, Duc de Choiseul), chief minister of Louis XV, considered the possibility of a colonial invasion of Egypt as the correct alternative to an eventual loss of France’s colonial possessions in America. Talleyrand (Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord), Foreign Minister of Directoire’s France and adherent to Choiseul’s diplomatic practices and methods, described the details of the plan to Napoleon several months before the preparations for the campaign started in 1797.
Louis Michel Van Loo’s portrait of Choiseul
Only 21 years before Napoleon’s expedition to Misir (Egypt; 1798), an obscure figure of Hungarian origin, French birth, evil duplicity, and utmost hypocrisy, François Baron de Tott, after having mendaciously helped the Ottoman Empire against Russia, undertook a 2-year travel across many provinces of the Caliphate, under various pretexts, only to spy and report the conditions of daily life, social organization, military defense, and many other detailed observations that were carefully used later, during the preparation of Napoleon’s expedition. His voluminous memoirs (Sur les Turcs et les Tartares / On the Turks and the Tatars) were published already before the French revolution. Here you can read them:
François Baron de Tott underscored what was already obvious long ago: Misir was the weak ring of the Ottoman chain. Any French attack or military expedition against the N-NW African provinces of the Caliphate would be a relatively easy success, but of minor importance. Any attack against Phoenicia-Syria or Palestine would be very difficult and eventually a failure. In the Balkans and in the East (Caucasus and Mesopotamia), the Ottomans concentrated the bulk of their most experienced and best trained forces against the Austrians, the Russians and the Iranians.
However, in Misir (Egypt), the prevailing local discontent with the Mamluks, the minimal imperial control, and the absence of special forces made of the area a relatively easy military target. Even more importantly, every army that would disembark in Alexandria would automatically be at only 300 km distance from the Red Sea, thus having the ability to further sail free and unhindered to the vast lands of South and Southeast Asia. The concept of what we now call the Suez Canal appears in François Baron de Tott’s texts, but this was not new; one can find it even in his readings!
And this characterized always the case of Western colonials: before traveling, they had already read all the Ancient Greek and Latin texts, descriptions and references pertaining to the Orient. Then, when they were moving across parts of the Orient, they were trying -with their sick minds- to find what they had read, which is sheer paranoia, if one takes into consideration the millennia that had meanwhile passed. More specifically, in his case, the reading was about the Old Suez Canal that was linking the Eastern Delta with the Red Sea, which was initially built by Senusret III and successively re-opened by Nechao II (of the 26th so-called ‘Libyan’, i.e. Berber, dynasty) and the Achaemenid Iranian Darius I the Great.
Darius the Great’s Suez Inscriptions: Birth Certificate of the Silk Roads
IV. The True Target of Napoleon’s Campaign in Misir (‘Egypt’) – 1798
The identification of the French campaign’s main target has long been a matter of debate; historical sources do not always reveal and at times conceal the truth. Based on most of the existing documentation, one gets the idea that the main reason for the campaign were the antagonism with England and the then rising presence of English colons in the ‘East Indies’; furthermore, many accept that a certain concern for the promotion of the French commercial interests triggered the expedition to Misir (Egypt). It is clear that any ‘commercial interest’ of a Western European country in Egypt was tantamount to the idea of a double port in the Mediterranean and in the Red Sea. Less than one year before the campaign begun (in 1797), Napoleon wrote to the Directoire: “to destroy England truly, we shall have to capture Egypt”.
However, all these elements were interwoven with intensive readings about Alexander’s expedition (2100 years earlier!) and the (totally misinterpreted by the French and, in general, the Western European colonial academics) invasion of the Achaemenid Iranian Empire; in this regard, one has to take into consideration the fact that the French colonials erroneously and preposterously pretended to be the descendants of the Romans and the heirs of the Ancient Macedonians. Consequently, as per their evil and distorted minds, they had the ‘right’ to ‘return’ and occupy the Orient. This was an overwhelming self-indoctrination of absolutely racist, colonial character.
Important military efforts undertaken by Napoleon in parts of the Ottoman Empire, as well as well-documented diplomatic contacts and dispatches testify to a vivid interest and eventual plan to attack the English colonial possessions in India by advancing on land through the Ottoman and the Qajar Iranian territories, after getting permission from the sultan and the shah. The advance from Misir (Egypt) to Sinai and Palestine (el Arish, Gaza, Jaffa, Acre) and up to Mount Tabor, which ca. 150 km north of Kudüs (القدس الشريف/al Quds ash Sharif/Jerusalem) shows clearly a French interest to establish a solid base in the Orient in order to further advance toward an area where the English were then fast expanding, namely the ‘East Indies’.
However, risky military campaigns and overseas adventures can eventually be inefficient or fail. Napoleon underwent several defeats in Egypt and Palestine; despite the fact that he survived and returned to Europe and later the French army was repatriated to France in English ships, after the Capitulation of Alexandria (August 1801), the campaign was undoubtedly undertaken with due consideration of all possible developments. With this in mind and taking into account the historically known involvement of other empires, notably the Ottoman Empire, which reacted to Napoleon’s campaign and fought to keep its territorial integrity, and England, which helped and stood by the Sultan in order to prevent a meteoric rise of the French colonial power in the Orient, we can conclude that, if the campaign comprised only its military component, the result of this majestic enterprise would almost be nil.
As it can already be assessed from the aforementioned, beyond its military dimension, Napoleon’s campaign had another well-programmed, scrupulously prepared, and superbly manned section: the scientific expedition. The military part was numerically superior: no less than 40000 soldiers and 10000 sailors moved from Toulon to the SE Mediterranean confines; the fleet was composed of 400 transport ships, 13 ships of the line, and 14 frigates. The great number of the combatants cannot however duly counterbalance academically and intellectually the illustrious scholars who participated in the scientific expedition: ca. 170 leading academics and a larger group of assistants and supporting staff members formed the greatest expeditionary team of scholars that Western European countries had ever established until that date or managed to set up during the entire 19th c.
Some of France’s most important academics, scientists and intellectuals were present: Vivant Denon, Gaspard Monge (founding member of the École polytechnique and mathematician), Henri-Joseph Redouté, Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu (the country’s leading geologist), Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (naturalist and deist philosopher, known for his theory “unity of composition”), Alire Raffeneau-Delile (then young botanist), Nicolas-Jacques Conté (a distinguished and award-winning engineer, inventor the modern pencil lead, pioneer in aeronautics, and balloonist, whose deeds were also planned to greatly impress the local population), Étienne-Louis Malus (physicist), Claude Louis Berthollet (chemist), Jean-Joseph Fourier (mathematician) and many others, engineers and artists, members of the Commission des Sciences et des Arts, and their assistants.
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THE LEADING FRENCH SAVANTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION
Vivant Denon
Gaspard Monge
Henri-Joseph Redouté
Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Alire Raffeneau-Delile
Nicolas Conte (1755-1805) was a mechanical genius who designed an engraving machine that allowed the Description de l’Egypt to be printed.
Nicolas-Jacques Conté
Étienne-Louis Malus
Claude Louis Berthollet
Jean-Joseph Fourier
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Despite the multiple efforts undertaken by colonial historians, diplomats and journalists to conceal or undermine the importance of the scientific expedition, it is now -223 years later- very clear that the main impact made on Misir (Egypt) and worldwide by Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt was that left by the works of the scientists. When colonial forgers fail to hide facts, they distort and misinterpret them.
Fallaciously enough, the scientific expedition is then attributed to Napoleon’s dedication to the French Lumières (Enlightenment), which was an 18th c. intellectual – academic – political Western European movement that followed Classicism (17th c.) and Renaissance (15th – 16th c.). For general bibliography:
There is no doubt that Napoleon ascribed to the values of the Enlightenment, but the attempt to impose one nation’s or state’s values on others, after even denigrating the others for not knowing or acknowledging or accepting those values, is the epitome of colonial gangsterism, the embodiment of cultural racism, and the quintessence of Western European barbarism. Consequently, the reason for the scientific expedition was not mere embracement of the Lumières, but a dictatorial decision to impose this Western European movement and its concepts and ‘values’ on others.
Mistakenly enough, other scholars present the scientific expedition as a tool of Napoleon’s propaganda machine and hypothetical intention to posture as an ‘enlightened monarch’; but that’s preposterous. France’s leading scholars, although promoting, defending and propagating the same ideas as Napoleon, would never accept to become the tool of his political ambitions. Furthermore, Napoleon’s ascension to power was never explained or justified as a consequence of his, otherwise nonexistent, success in ‘Egypt’. After all, the totality of the results of the deeds of the scientific expedition started appearing in printed form only after Napoleon was proclaimed ’emperor’ in 1804; actually, their publication lasted 20 years (1809-1829) as it was one of 19th century’s most monumental printed editions.
The Battle of the Pyramids
The ‘Battle of the Nile’
Henri Levy, Bonaparte at the Great Mosque in Cairo
Others ‘explain’ the presence of the scientific expedition in Napoleon’s campaign as proof of an existing secret plan to re-open the Old Suez canal or to open a new one; this may have been possible, although after the naval defeat at Abuqir, it would have appeared as meaningless and finally it was never done during the said campaign. However, the unprecedented magnitude of the scope that the works of the scientific expedition have had is such that exceedingly eclipses the eventually programmed but obviously not executed works of a canal construction between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
V. Historical Antecedents of Napoleon’s Scientific Expedition (1798) in Ancient Assyria and Kemet (Egypt)
Nowadays, even authors of leftist and presumably anti-colonial background are victims of the Western propaganda and sick Euro-centrism. Read: “For the first time in military history, an army set forth with martial as well as academic intentions”.
The ignorant author of this paper, which is published on the site of Louisiana State University, seems to be unaware of the great academic opus Hortus Malabaricus, which was composed by the Dutch and Dravidian scientists Hendrik Van Rheede and Itty Achuthan Vaidyar (and an entire team under their command) at the end of the 17th c. (1678-1693), involving 12 voluminous tomes (500 p. each) and 794 copper plate engravings. Online editions and bibliography can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortus_Malabaricus. As a matter of fact, Hendrik van Rheede was a naturalist, a Dutch officer, and the chief administrator of the Dutch East India Company; the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) had “martial as well as academic intentions” indeed. About: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company
As a matter of fact, many military expeditions were undertaken in History with parallel targets, intentions, activities and outcomes: academic and military. A typical example of a campaign with overwhelmingly academic and explorative, as well as military and invasive character was the Eighth Campaign of Sarrukin (Sargon II), Emperor of Assyria and Emperor of the Universe, one of the World History’s greatest monarchs of all times, at 714 BCE. The Assyrian ruler was accompanied by a great number of scribes and scholars, who gathered and wrote numerous details about the nations conquered by the Assyrian army and their cultures and royal families. About:
The Eighth Campaign of Sarrukin (Sargon II) – 714 BCE: the narrative of a military, explorative and academic expedition of the Ancient Assyrians
Sargon II of Assyria (722-705 BCE)
The sack of Musasir by Sargon II during his eighth campaign (714 BCE) across territories of today’s NW Iran
More than 750 years before Sargon II of Assyria, the sole ruler of Kemet (Egypt), Queen Hatshepsut (explicitly described as product of Theogamy), sent (around 1475 BCE) her admiral Nehesy to Punt (today’s NE Somalia, also known as Ta Netsher, Land of God) with five ships of the pharaonic fleet to collect frankincense, myrrh trees (scrupulously transported in baskets), earth of the holy land of Punt, metals and various other products. The hieroglyphic inscriptions of the second colonnade (southern part) of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at today’s Deir el Bahari (Thebes West, Luxor) bear witness to the advanced level of horticulture and natural sciences among the Ancient Kemetians (Egyptians) of the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE.
Hatshepsut established the trade networks that had been disrupted during the Hyksos occupation of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, thereby building the wealth of the eighteenth dynasty.
She oversaw the preparations and funding for a mission to the Land of Punt. The expedition set out in her name with five ships, each measuring 70 feet (21 m) long bearing several sails and accommodating 210 men that included sailors and 30 rowers. Many trade goods were bought in Punt, notably myrrh.
Most notably, however, the Egyptians returned from the voyage bearing thirty-one live myrrh trees, the roots of which were carefully kept in baskets for the duration of the voyage. This was the first recorded attempt to transplant foreign trees. It is reported that Hatshepsut had these trees planted in the courts of her Deir el Bahri mortuary temple complex.
She had the expedition commemorated in relief at Deir el-Bahri, which is also famous for its realistic depiction of the Queen of the Land of Punt, Queen Iti, who appears to have had a genetic trait called steatopygia (a large amount of fat accumulating around the buttocks). Hatshepsut also sent raiding expeditions to Byblos and Sinai shortly after the Punt expedition.
Military and Scientific Expedition of Hatshepsut to Punt (Somalia)
VI. French Academic Forgers, Stupid Ottomans, Ignorant Masriyin, Idiotic Sheikhs, and the Non-Egyptian ‘Institut d’Égypte’
The scientific expedition that followed Napoleon’s fleet deployed immediately a totally independent array of activities that fully demonstrate that from the very beginning of the preparations, the scientific, explorative, academic, and intellectual aspects of the campaign were viewed by all the members of the French elite involved in the enormous project as of the same importance and value as the military aspect.
The ‘savants’ (term traced on the Anti-Christian Ancient Greek word ‘Gnostics’) founded the Institut d’Égypte almost as a copy of the Institut de France, i.e. the French Academy (https://www.institutdefrance.fr/), which was established few years earlier (1795) thus merging three separate French Academies (Académie française; Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres; Académie des sciences) that were initiated earlier (respectively in 1635, 1663, and 1666) with a newly incepted one (Académie des sciences morales et politiques) on the same year (1795) under one roof.
J C Protain, Salle dans l’Institut d’Egypte
André Dutertre, Les jardins de l’ Institut d’Égypte
The ominous and calamitous Institut d’Égypte (renamed as ‘The Egyptian Society’ in 1836, transferred to Alexandria in 1859, re-baptized later as ‘Institut Égyptien’, relocated to Cairo in 1880, and currently known as ‘Egyptian Scientific Institute’) was geared to become the scientific-academic-educational-intellectual epicenter of French propaganda, world view, scientific orthodoxy, political philosophy, socio-economic corruption, educational guidance, and imposition of socio-behavioral change on the local, unsuspecting population, which was detrimentally exposed to unprecedented cultural-intellectual contamination without even knowing it.
The notorious Institut d’Égypte
The disastrous Institut d’Égypte was a venue for Western European scholars, who had no idea about, but much hatred for, the Islamic civilization and sciences, which they did not want to rediscover through objective search and benevolent representation of the material record and of the historical sources. On the contrary, the biased French scholars intended to viciously denigrate the Islamic sciences as lower than the modern Western European ‘sciences’, and also to venomously insult them by describing the the Islamic scientific discoveries, achievements and conclusions as ‘indebted’ to Ancient Greek and Roman sciences.
The Anti-Ottoman, anti-Islamic, anti-Christian, anti-Coptic, anti-Oriental, and anti-Kemetian (anti-Egyptian) Institut d’Égypte would therefore become and actually became the headquarters for the diffusion of ideas and theories that came out of three centuries of Western European distortion, dementia, criminality, colonialism and inhumanity. Involving vast inter-disciplinary work, pioneering research, publications, diffusion, and tyrannical imposition of its curriculum across the invaded and occupied country, the ill-fated Institut d’Égypte functioned therefore as the focal instrument for the distortion of Kemet (Egypt) and generally the entire Orient worldwide. It is noteworthy that at any possible moment of ‘Modern Egyptian History’ more than 99.99% of the Egyptians did not even know about its existence.
It is quite logical to conclude that the hub for the enslavement of the Egyptians should not be known to them. Execrably enslaved to their Western masters, the Egyptian governments took good care of the issue. That’s why the Egyptians burnt the Institut d’Égypte during the 2011-2013 period of upheaval (more specifically, in December 2011) without even knowing what they were burning! Of ca. 200000 volumes of enormous antiquarian value, less than 30000 books were lucky enough to avoid the all-consuming incineration caused by the inevitable conflagration of the God-damned edifice. More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_d%27%C3%89gypte
Institut d’Égypte, 2011: Someone should have set a match to this place long ago!
The fact that Napoleon disembarked in Alexandria on 1st July 1798 and, although significant military events took place as early as 21st July (the Battle of the Pyramids where the French won over the Mamluks) at a distance of 220 km from Alexandria and 3rd August (the naval Battle of the Nile at the Abuqir Bay where the French fleet was defeated and destroyed by the English), the Institut d’Égypte was founded by Napoleon in Cairo on 22nd of August and the first academic meeting of the ‘Savants’ was held two days later, means automatically that the academic-intellectual-cultural targets of Napoleon’s campaign were at least as high and as groundbreaking as the purely military ones.
The scientific expedition was incredibly well prepared thanks to a comprehensive team of technical experts in many fields; a printing press was setup and the Courrier de l’Égypte was the first publication that appeared in Egypt – as early as the 29th August 1798. More: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courrier_de_l%27%C3%89gypte
A scholarly publication, the Décade égyptienne, was also launched (see copies here: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k106598h?rk=21459;2). In addition, many independent publications were printed initially in French, Arabic and Greek. A number of scientific laboratories were also established by the members of the Institut for their respective fields of research. Last, many libraries were formed following the expansive activities of the French scholars.
The entire situation was unprecedented worldwide because of the enormous scope of the Savants’ activities, explorations, researches and publications: to describe it in brief, it was as if the French considered the land as inhabited only in the past and as if they wanted to turn Cairo and Alexandria into a small Paris. It was a typically colonial attitude and mentality as per which the local inhabitants were not viewed as humans except only if they were susceptible to bribery and docile enough to become servants of the French. Beyond that level of consideration, the indigenous people were thought to be simply nonexistent. Even worse, in the eyes of the French, who believed utterly in the delusion that they were the offspring of the Romans and the heirs of the Roman Empire, the Masriyin (modern Egyptians) were totally deprived of any past and, because of this ‘fact’, they were almost unreal. In fact, what the Palestinians were for the Zionist aliens, who arrived in Palestine during the numerous aliyah movements from 1881 until 1948 (and even later) and demanded the land of the rightful occupants, were the Masriyin (modern Egyptians) for the criminal and illegal French colonials. The two events (1798 and 1948) are actually interconnected; in fact, ‘1798’ heralded ‘1948’. Simply, the stupid sultan and the silly muftis and qadis did not understand anything.
It would be a terrible mistake to imagine that the French presence was accepted positively and with due consideration by the totality of the population. The Masriyin did not know what the French believed about them, but they judged them on the basis of their hypocritical words, spectacular deeds, and totally unsubstantiated pretensions. An early example is what happened on the 1st December 1798 (initially arranged for the 22nd September 1798, which was the pathetic and short-lived New Year Day of the French atheists, Freemasons, and revolutionaries). Nicolas-Jacques Conté was called to demonstrate his skills and ‘convince’ the local people about the value of the Western science; he tried to launch an aerostat, but the balloon burned and this attempt failed. However, a last effort with a larger balloon was successful and the spectacle at the Cairo suburb of Uzbekiyah (أزبكية) was attended by 100000 people. General info about the suburb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azbakeya
A military hot air balloon under his protective tent, 1794-1795, illustration by Nicolas-Jacques Conte, France, 18th century.
Nicolas Jacques Conte’s military aerostat
However, the 18th–19th c. Masri (Egyptian) scholar Al Jabarti, who wrote two treatises about the French occupation of the Ottoman province of Misir and about the depravity of the colonials, commented with contempt about Nicolas-Jacques Conté’s aerostat the following: “Their claim that this apparatus is like a vessel in which people sit and travel to other countries in order to discover news and other falsifications did not appear to be true”. Actually, Al Jabarti was later so vociferous in his denigration of the French puppet Muhammad Ali and in his denunciation of the French-inspired Muhammad Ali’s reforms that his books were totally banned in Egypt for several decades and were circulating only in well-hidden manuscripts:
A military hot air balloon under his protective tent, 1794-1795, illustration by Nicolas-Jacques Conte, France, 18th century.
Abd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī’s world
VII. “Description de l’Égypte”: the Monumental Publication that delegitimized the Presence of the Masriyin in the Nile Valley
The major professional activity of the Institut d’Égypte was an absolutely incredible undertaking of disproportionate dimensions, which until now remains academically unmatched. They moved across Egypt, despite the highly dangerous conditions that they encountered, and they collected, observed and drew all specimens of the local flora and fauna; furthermore, they designed all the historical monuments that they encountered irrespective of their size (without however unearthing them: most of them were sunk in the sand), and they copied meticulously all the numerous bas-reliefs’ hieroglyphic inscriptions, despite the fact that the sacred writing of the Ancient Kemetians (‘Egyptians’) was totally incomprehensible to them. In addition, they copied inscriptions written in several other writings as well.
Based on their monumental work, designs of monuments, and collection-publication of texts, Jean-François Champollion was able at last to decipher the hieroglyphics, surpassing the efforts of other Orientalists; however, he was also solidified in his demarche by his perfect knowledge of Coptic, which was indispensable at the level of Vocabulary, Grammar, Syntax and Linguistics (because it is, practically speaking, the latest stage of the same language as the Ancient Kemetian/Egyptian), and his command of Ancient Greek, which was necessary for parallelisms in bilingual or trilingual inscriptions.
The prodigious work was first presented in an abridged form (4 volumes published in the period 1798–1801) under the title “Mémoires sur l’Égypte”; it was printed in Cairo, reprinted in Paris (1799-1803) and translated to English (vol. 1 only) in 1800. The full title in French reads: “Mémoires sur l’Égypte, publiés pendant les campagnes du Général Bonaparte dans les années 1798 and 1799”.
As the works were progressing, the Savants took the decision already in 1799 to go ahead with the complete publication. This demanded an extra work of no less than 400 engravers and 2000 artists and technicians in order to publish the existing vast documentation. The uniquely monumental publication by far eclipsed the Hortus Malabaricus of Hendrik Van Rheede’s and Itty Achuthan Vaidyar’s team; until now, it remains the most majestic publication of all the branches of Orientalism, and of Humanities in general. The in-situ exploration and the first drafting of notes were completed before the repatriation of the French soldiers and scholars in France. Then, the colossal effort to finalize the texts, drawings, designs, and maps, and finally print the enormous documentation started in Paris. The complete title was: “Description de l’Égypte, ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expédition de l’armée française” (Description of Egypt, or the collection of observations and researches made in Egypt during the French Army’s expedition).
The first edition of monumental series of huge folio volumes comprises 9 volumes of text, 1 volume for the description of the plates, and 10 volumes of plates; two extra volumes of plates and one volume of maps (in Mammutfolio size: 1m x 81cm) were also added to thus complete the opus that totals 23 volumes. The full list of the volumes (and each volume’s contents) is available here:
In real terms, the magnificent publication consists in the complete expropriation of historical heritage and natural environment from the indigenous population of the Nile Valley. Whereas the French military occupation deprived the local inhabitants only of their freedom and their association with their country, i.e. the Ottoman Empire, the French scientific-academic-intellectual occupation deprived them of their heritage, past and identity.
It then appeared clearly and incomparably that the French ‘cared’ for, protected, explored and managed to interpret the past of the Masriyin, who had disregarded and abandoned their Kemetian (Egyptian) ancestry. In a way, by so doing, the French ‘justified’ their pretension to be the heirs of the Roman Empire. When the Description de l’Égypte was published, the real Kemet (Egypt) was in fact taken away from the Masriyin (Egyptians), who had failed to revere, respect, study, understand, interpret and incorporate the monuments of their ancestors in their lives. At this point, I have to guide every reader to the correct understanding of my text: the meaning of this paragraph hinges on the verb ”appeared” on the first line.
Although nothing justifies the stance of the Masriyin (Egyptians) toward the monuments of their ancestors, the French stance only ‘appeared’ to be as I describe. In fact, it was not, because they were not honest. The intention of the French to preserve, publish and thus help decipher and understand the material record of Kemet (Egypt) was not benevolent, but exactly the opposite. There were many back thoughts in the minds of the French savants, who wanted to usurp the monuments of Kemet only to justify their preconceived ideas and historical distortions via a systematic alteration and misinterpretation of the Kemetian (Egyptian) Antiquity.
With the Description de l’Égypte finally published, the historical monuments were primarily located within the volumes of the monumental series; since the material remnants of Kemet were saved for the posterity, the Masriyin were delegitimized as occupants of their own land. This was the profound meaning of the French scientific expedition that plunged the Masriyin into 223 years of nonexistence. More:
With the present article, I continue the publication of my long response to a US-based Oromo scholar, intellectual and activist, who asked my opinion about the possibility of the Oromo liberation movements to cooperate systematically with the government of Egypt on the basis of a plan providing for the liberation of Biyya Oromo and for the cancellation of the disastrous dam built on the Blue Nile in Benishangul province (Abyssinia, Fake Ethiopia). The first three articles are here:
Oromos, Egypt, the Nile, Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia), and the True Essence of Colonialism – Part I
The Enemies of Oromos & their Deeds: First & Second Colonization, Jesuit Reductions, Renaissance, and the Historical Revisionism of Racist Colonials – Part II
Intellectual Colonialism in Egypt: How Egyptian Fake Universities & Obsolete Education destroy Cairo’s Chances to ally with Oromos & Sudan’s Arabic-speaking Cushites – Part III
In this -fourth- part, I give examples of what can be expected from Egypt’s corrupt journalistic, academic and political establishments, even in the case a comprehensive and enormous preparatory work is undertaken by Cairo-based Oromos and their Egyptian friends in order to popularize topics that would make the average Egyptians and their academic, intellectual, journalistic, political and military elites conscious of
a) Abyssinia’s colonial, tribal and dangerous nature,
b) the invasions of numerous, Muslim or not, African kingdoms that the Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians carried out over a period of 100 years (1850-1950) with the ostensible help of the English, the French and the Americans,
c) the genocides perpetrated for more than 170 years by the Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians against the subjugated nations of the aforementioned destroyed African kingdoms,
d) the ongoing, terrible oppression and persecution of these subjugated nations in Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia),
e) Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians’ hereditary anti-Egyptian hatred and anti-Islamic odium, and
f) the existing apocalyptic prophecies pertaining to the destruction of the present states of Egypt and Sudan and to the establishment of common borders between a state based in Jerusalem (at the time these Abyssinian prophecies were formulated there was no state of Israel in Palestine) and another headquartered in Abyssinia.
The ignorance and the obscurantism prevailing across Egypt’s universities and educational system in general prevents the Egyptians (average people, elites and governments) from even knowing about real threats against their own existence. This is the disastrous level of colonial dependence and utilization that the colonial powers implemented in Egypt over the past two centuries.
I- Oromos and other African Persecuted Nations must know the Dire Reality of Egyptian Politics
The text below is the continuation and the completion of my third response about the chances of cooperation between the Oromos and Egypt; the earlier part of that response can be found in the last of the aforementioned three already published articles.
My Conclusions about the Egyptian Government’s Stance toward the Oromos
When the scientific-academic-educational basics of info, knowledge and in-depth understanding (that are described in the last of the aforementioned three already published articles) are missing from the administration of a country, that country is nonexistent, the state is failed, the indigenous people is a mass of ignorant, idiotic, and pathetic beings, and the local government is entirely enslaved to the few, influential ambassadors of the colonial powers and obedient to their dictates.
Even if one influential Egyptian academic or journalist (earlier and repeatedly contacted by a group of well informed and perfectly prepared Oromos and Egyptians) spoke to Mubarak in 2010 about the Oromos and about the chance of an Egyptian-Oromo synergy, then Mubarak’s Foreign Minister, Chief of Intelligence, top army generals, and his own national security advisor would be asked by him about it, and they would respond to him, saying that they never heard that name (namely the Oromos). In the best case scenario of an ‘informed’ Egyptian magistrate, he would say that “these people are one of the local tribes”. Nothing more!
Then, Mubarak would speak on a convenient circumstance with some of the world’s most powerful countries’ ambassadors. Of course, you can be sure that the German, French, Italian, Russian, American, Chinese, Japanese and English ambassadors in Cairo are very well informed about the Oromos and all the other subjugated nations of Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia). But what would all these ambassadors (who represent national interests that are evidently opposed to one another) say to Mubarak?
Most probably they would all advise him to stay far from the area and to abstain from any involvement. And they would be quite right; and I say this with respect to Egypt’s interests. Do you know why? Because they all would know – in nauseating details – the aforementioned description (in the last of the aforementioned three articles) of Egypt’s total ignorance on the matter! All the ambassadors of the world’s major countries in Egypt have an accurate understanding of the country’s total deprivation of substantive knowledge and scholarly background on the related topics. Plus, all of them know that the above mentioned description of Egypt’s total incapacitation as state had been the result of policies pursued for long by countries represented by some of those ambassadors. I mean that Germany, Russia, and Italy know very well how England and France (and at a later stage America) made of Egypt a dysfunctional pseudo-state that exists only to be used as a tool by France and England.
These realities are not of course at the general public level; there prevails the hypocrisy of the gangsters who run the mainstream media and the criminal CEOs of the notorious social media of tyranny, darkness and slavery, e.g. the likes of Twitter and Facebook. So, you must question yourself! Do you really understand the reality of today’s politics or are you an idiot who thinks that the truth is what one person hears from the Satanic BBC, what someone watches on demoniacal Al-Jazeera, and what any gullible victim reads on Al Ahram, WP, NYT, WSJ, LAT or any other trashy newspaper?
The only truth in 19th–20th–21st c. Egyptian politics is this:
1- The opinions of an influential Egyptian academic or journalist for Mubarak (or any other president, king or khedawi/viceory) count at the level of decimals;
2- The opinions of a minister, a top military or intelligence, and a national security advisor count at the level of units;
3- The opinions of small or average regional countries’ ambassadors, ministers, prime ministers and heads of state count at the level of tens;
4- The opinions of regionally and worldwide influential countries’ ambassadors, ministers, prime ministers and heads of state count at the level of hundreds; and
5- The opinion of ambassadors, ministers, prime ministers and heads of state of the world’s 10 most powerful countries counts at the level of thousands or millions.
So my conclusion can be summarized in the following question:
– What do you think that you can achieve after an enormous, 6-to-12-months lasting, effort to prepare, educate, inform and awake one or ten or twenty among Egypt’s most influential Egyptian academics or journalists?
Assume that, following a great effort in publication, diffusion, debate, meetings, and data sharing, 20 important Egyptian academics and 20 influential Egyptian journalists, being well-informed about everything pertaining to the Oromos and the other subjugated nations of Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia), try to reach out to their government. One of the possible persons to whom they may wish to speak will be the Egyptian president’s national security advisor? Haha!
Do you know the level and the mentality of those guys? You will be shocked.
Right now, President Abdel Fattah el Sisi’s national security advisor is a highly revered (only in Egypt, of course) figure! A woman! Ms. Faiza Abou el Naga:
To whom or to what do you think she owes her current position? Do you believe that she was selected because of her studies, researches, experience, and excellence on the matter? No! No way!
This woman owes her political career to the fact that she belongs to one of the few influential families, which directly or indirectly rule Egypt, weighing on the archaic decision-making process. Many called Mubarak a tyrant and many call now el Sisi a dictator, but that’s rubbish. The people who diffuse these ideas either do not have a clue or make the propaganda that others ordered them to carry out. Egypt’s presidents and prime ministers take their decisions after consulting and getting the approval of the most important and the most representative members of the country’s elites. The country’s population is not involved in the process; that’s true. But were the Americans asked for major US decisions like the War on Islamic Terrorism? In reality, Egypt is an oligarchy plunged in ignorance, obscurantism and darkness, and that’s the problem, because other oligarchies are based on accurate info and solid data.
However, that woman, Faiza Abou el Naga, had a notorious past as Minister of Planning and International Cooperation in Dr. Nazif’s government that was swept away by the Tahrir 2011 events. This was a pseudo-ministry invented only to make the ministers rich; her job was to strike various deals with different governments worldwide, to bring foreign direct investment in Egypt, and in the process to become significantly richer by accumulating high percentages of commission. To keep being a dangerous rodent for Egypt’s national wealth, this villainous and ugly figure kept working for the Islamists for a while, since the only condition she demanded was not to be forced to wear a niqab (to which the Egyptian Islamists agreed). She abandoned them early however to make sure that she would be in the next government that her family and some others were preparing (by ordering an idiotic general to overthrow the equally idiotic and absolutely disastrous, pseudo-politician and bogus-statesman Morsi). That’s why el Sisi rewarded her with this position! What an achievement!
For some time, the cretinous, pathetic and toxic Ms. Faiza Abou el Naga was asked to appease the Abyssinian governments with respect to their great desire to build the almost completed dam in Benishangul!!!
Not only she (and all the other governmental authorities) did not know anything the colonial and criminal nature of Abyssinia, but (even worse) she also thought that she could convince the Tigray and Amhara gangsters to abandon their ambition and target in order to get better financial perspectives by collaborating with Egypt. Read this: https://www.arabstoday.net/en/83/ethiopian-pm-to-take-part-in-egypts-economic-conference
II- Cairo has no Idea about the Abyssinians’ Deep-seated Hatred of Egyptians and Desire to exterminate Egypt
That’s absolutely moronic! This approach is not only nonsensical (and you, as an Oromo, can perfectly well understand this), but also absolutely revelatory of the total Egyptian ignorance about the real and hidden intentions of the Amhara and the Tigray Abyssinians toward Egypt. I guess you know the topic; I have mentioned it in several articles of mine, although I never exhausted the topic. Read here:
So, the idiotic and ignorant Ms. Faiza Abou el Naga has no idea about the Abyssinian prophecy widely propagated widely among Abyssinians at the time of Tewodros II
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tewodros_II). This propagandistic Abyssinian prophecy has its roots in hateful, anti-Islamic traditions related to the historical forgery of Kebra Negast and to other related distortions of eschatological character. According to them, in the period immediately preceding the End Times, a greatly expanded ‘kingdom’, located in NE Africa and identified with Abyssinia by the historical forgers and interpreters of the ‘prophecy’, would share borders with a kingdom that would then have capital at Jerusalem.
This means, as you can understand, that if someone places the prophecy contents within today’s international context, the so-called Abyssinian ‘prophecy’ heralds the disappearance of Egypt and the Sudan.
In fact, this (: the obliteration of Egypt’s and Sudan’s population and the disappearance of these two pseudo-states) is the only reason for which the Abyssinians wanted to build the Blue Nile dam; it is not built in order to bring prosperity to the subjugated nations of Abyssinia, because the Abyssinians hate all these nations and keep tyrannizing them under all types of regimes: pseudo-monarchical, Third World communist, and bogus-republican. Even more importantly, the hidden intensions of the evil Amhara and Tigray gangsters, who rule Abyssinia, are not even to threaten and blackmail Cairo with famine due to the reduced volume of waters.
The real target is that, following the erection of enormous dams in the region between the borders between Sudan and Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia) and Egypt’s southern part of territory (which causes a dangerous situation for the entire geomorphology of those lands), an enormous earthquake will occur with devastating impact and catastrophic results also involving the total collapse of one of those dams and the formation of an unprecedented Nile tsunami. This is expected to erase the total population of the Valley of the Nile, rendering Egypt and the North of the Sudan an uninhabited land for 40 years.
Of course, I do not mean that this Abyssinian prophecy is a «true», a «real» prophecy! Not at all! But this is not important; the true reality is meaningless to the evil gangsters, who try to change it. This so-called prophecy is an old part of the evil Abyssinian propaganda that was geared in order to prepare generations of criminals able to perpetrate any possible crime in the name of their pseudo-Christian faith. But as such, it created an enormous dynamics; the colonial expansion of Abyssinia in the 19th and the 20th centuries was not an independent development due to the fake reasons («colonial», «political» or «economic») that the different Western universities perniciously assume and fallaciously conclude in order to spread pseudo-academic ignorance and confuse the average people as regards the real nature of colonialism.
The colonial expansion of Abyssinia occurred, when representatives of the gangsters hidden behind the colonial regimes of France and England contacted (in the middle 19th c.) the leading authorities of the Abyssinians (and by this I mean several debteras revered among the filthy, bastard and inhuman Amhara and Tigray) and told them that the time for the first stage of expansion was «then». Important contacts in this regard were already established at the very end of the 18th c. (notably by James Bruce of Kinnaird). However, the common action and the coordination of these groups (or secret organizations) goes back to the second half of the 13th c.; in fact, they are not «two» groups but one that has been scattered across very vast territories. These are the authors of the fake propagandist text ‘Kebra Negast’; they produced the rise of the fake Solomonic pseudo-dynasty; and they defended the bastard pseudo-kings of the Amhara, when the Somalis demolished and scattered them, totally destroying the center of Satanism in Africa, at Gondar (early 16th c.).
As a matter of fact, the aforementioned, fake Abyssinian prophecy is a post-Kebra Negast re-formulation (and distortion) of a real Biblical prophecy about the end of Egypt. This is true; but the Abyssinians (and their Freemasonic and Zionist masters) read only the parts of the Bible that please their imagination and satisfy their evil desires. But they do not read it all! There is also a Biblical prophecy about the cursed land of the Amhara and the Tigray; and it is very clearly described.
This being said, do not think that this type of plotted stories and triggered developments were planned to occur and occurred only in Abyssinia! Similar developments were planned and executed in many other lands, and everywhere as per the correct timing. You surely have noticed that the fallaciously called period of Zemene Mesafint ended ca. 100 years before the modern state of Fake Israel came to exist. This is not a coincidence; this is called ‘synchronization’. In the fake world, in which you live, there are not only Fake Ethiopia and Fake Israel; there are also Fake Greece, Fake Russia, Fake Armenia, Fake Georgia, Fake Persia, and Fake India, to name a few. And they have all been parts of the same evil planning and vicious plot. And the aforementioned evil pseudo-prophecy of the Abyssinians is only a tiny paragraph in the global pseudo-prophetical apocalypse that Freemasons, Zionists and Jesuits have been working out (every group acting as per their direction and interests) for hundreds of years.
However, with the aforementioned brief reference to serious issues of national security of Egypt, I simply describe Ms. Faiza Abou el Naga’s total incapacity and evident inability to hold her current position without causing serious damage to Egypt’s chances to survive in the few years ahead.
For a position where a dinosaur is needed, she has the size of a mosquito; this is the true comparison.
III- The Appalling Practices of the Corrupt Egyptian Politicians do not allow them Time to think about the Oromos
If I discuss the point to that extent, it is because I want to terminate with another academic question:
– If we manage to arrange that few influential Egyptian academics and journalists (earlier and repeatedly contacted by a group of well informed and perfectly prepared Oromos and Egyptians) and an Oromo delegation visits the office of this worthless woman and discusses, do you know what she will do?
I can easily help you effectuate a correct landing in Egypt now!
At the end of the discussion (held in the meeting room), she would take to her inner office separately two or three persons (one after the other) among the Oromo delegation — those whom she would consider as more influential and more powerful among the entire Oromo group; there, she would ask brief details about their lives and activities. At the end, she would ask each of these private interlocutors whether they know a wealthy and well-established Oromo businessman settled somewhere in Europe, America, Australia or the Gulf region. Then, she would ask whether that Oromo businessman (or those Oromo businessmen) would be ready to pay ca. 20000 US$ or 30000 US$ as an investment in the Oromo liberation struggle, so that she persistently and ceaselessly speaks to the president and also to selected army generals in view of another, forthcoming meeting.
This is her level, and this is the level of every Egyptian, who has a similar position. Otherwise, the person would be considered as «dangerous» and «unfit for the position». Why this happens? Because this is the structure of the Western World and of the pseudo-states that still function fully as typical colonies of their masters.
Useless to add that, if an Oromo delegate happened to know one or more Oromo businessmen, who could cash this amount, and these guys were stupid enough to arrange a second visit to this execrable woman’s office, they would only lose their monies that she would comfortably pocket to have it available next time she visits Paris, and more specifically Place Vendôme, which is one of the world’s top centers for diamonds and jewelry. There, she would calmly buy her next set of cheap jewels (because the amount discussed does not allow ambitions for something really valuable). Do you find it strange? They are all like that. She is the guru of Egyptian pickpocketing. What? Do you think that she would use her little gray cells about the Oromos? Ha! Not a care in the world!
Oh! I don’t mean that she would not say anything to the president! No, she would! Surely! She would ask one of her secretaries to elaborate a confidential report to the president about the «Oromo tribe in Ethiopia» (let’s say a 10-page memo filled with Wikipedia-level data); in the cover letter, she would advise the president to take that «tribe» into consideration, when it comes to Egyptian interests in the region. She would even show, theatrically and deceitfully, a copy to the unfortunate Oromo loser, who would waste his money for nothing. Only degenerate idiots do not believe that ‘politics’ is the evil art of lie and deception worldwide.
However, there would be no plan, no roadmap, no serious interest, and above all, no perspective. All would be happy and much promising at the beginning, but at the end, the Oromos would get nothing instead. Contrarily, this woman would have some more jewels in her drawers. In the next soirée de gala, held in one of Cairo’s most lavish venues, she would show her new pearls or diamonds to her envious and jealous friends, who would compete in flattery, while Faiza Abou el Naga, before drinking the next glass of champagne, would make a silent toast to the Oromo idiot, murmuring in Arabic “be sahtak, ya ghabi” (بصحتك يا غبي /cheers, stupid)! How nice! Shall we still call it «win-win» cooperation? Frankly, that’s all you can expect from Egypt.
Closing this response to your question, I must add that I know very well that there have been representatives of other nations subjugated and persecuted by Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia) and leaders of their liberation fronts, who tried to contact the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking cooperation against the erection of the Blue Nile dam. I can tell you that their leaders were Muslim and fluent in Arabic. Do not think of Afar or Ogadeni representatives! They were actually the most concerned ones, because the dam destroyed part of their own territory. I had written also about them; they have noticed my articles (in the late 2000s), they contacted me and we had a long exchange of emails. Later on, in 2013 their leaders came to Cairo and I met them twice. I speak about the Berta of the Benishangul region; as you know they are Nilo-Saharan origin and Muslim of religion. In general about them:
Through my discussion with them, who of course were struggling for the secession of their land, the independence of their nation, and the cancellation of the dam project, I had an absolutely convincing reconfirmation of my earlier conclusions about the topic of our present discussion. I thus strengthened my conviction that Egypt cannot function as a normal state; this is so, simply because it has never been a state after the arrival of Napoleon (1798) and the secession of that Ottoman province from the Caliphate.
IV- Colonially-attempted Nubianization of Sudan: Common Threat for Oromos, Khartoum and Cairo
Why and how (or through which methods) Egypt was prevented from becoming a proper state will be the last (fourth) part of my response. But here, closing my response to your above question, I must ask you the following two questions:
– How do you expect a population, which never ruled its own land for ca. 2500 years, to feel that they are a nation?
– How do you want them to organize their own proper and functional state, since this effort demands as prerequisite an accurate perception of self-interest)?
As a matter of fact, after Egypt was invaded in 525 BCE by the Iranian Achaemenid Shah Cambyses, the land was ruled either by foreign rulers based in some local city or by foreign kings and emperors located at thousands of kilometers far from Egypt.
Responses to your last questions
I prefer to answer now your last questions and in the forthcoming, fourth and last, response, I will present you a diagram of Egypt’s 223-long function as a colonial tool and not as a state. You asked me the following:
i- What shall we do to shift power balance towards ourselves in that empire?
This question pertains to the liberation of the Oromos. In fact, it is totally irrelevant to the topic of an eventual Oromo – Egyptian cooperation; it does not concern the possible but unnecessary Oromos’ contacts and relations with the Egyptian state; it is another issue. Therefore, I will rather be brief.
But still, something critical can be said in this regard: you could also suggest a cooperation of the Oromos with the Sudan, because the central part of Sudan’s population is entirely Cushitic. These people are the real ethnic brothers of the Oromos:
A- the Oromos are the descendants of the Cushites who migrated after the destruction of Meroe (ca. 365-370 CE), whereas
B- the Arabic-speaking Sudanese of the central provinces of Sudan are the offspring of the Cushites, who stayed in their ancestral land after the destruction of Meroe. They were first Christianized and much later Islamized.
There were never Arabs in either Sudan or Egypt.
Consequently, it is essential for all Oromos (either they are Waaqeffatta, Muslim or Christian) to study the History of the three Christian kingdoms of Cush / Ethiopia / Sudan (from North to the South: Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia), because these kingdoms constitute «Christian Ethiopia». Whereas Nobatia comprised mainly Nubian and Egyptian populations, Makuria and Alodia were exclusively Cushitic.
Contrarily to them, Axum and, later, the Agaw kingdom, and after 1270, the Amhara and Tigray states are «Christian Abyssinia», not Ethiopia. The Axumite Abyssinians were a Semitic Yemenite populace that crossed the Red Sea and settled in the East African coast around Adulis (not far from today’s Massawa); they later expanded in the inland, up to Yeha and Axum, which finally became their capital. But they are not Africans; they are of Semitic Yemenite origin and their language -Ge’ez- is similar to Ancient Yemenite languages that are documented in so many inscriptions (notably Sabaean, Qatabani, Himyarite, Awsani, and Hadhrami).
The Agaw accepted the Axumite Christian dogma and set up a Christian kingdom around Lalibela, but they are a Cushitic nation, totally unrelated to the Amhara and Tigray Semitic tribes, which descend from the Axumite Abyssinians; that’s why the rise of the barbarian pseudo-Solomonic dynasty bears witness to extreme anti-Agaw hatred and racial enmity.
Similarly with the Egyptians, the Sudanese have been the target of enormous and multifaceted colonial deception; the last efforts of colonial distortion of Sudanese (: Ethiopian) History focus on a monstrous project: the Nubianization of Sudan. This is an entire fallacy, because the Cushites and all the other Hamitic nations differ from the Nubians and the Nilo-Saharans, as much as the Germans differ from the Berbers!
It is vital for the Oromos to fight against this colonial academic fallacy.
I already published about this topic, and a series of articles about the topic have been uploaded and re-uploaded in this regard (here presented in the correct order):
However, this topic is an entirely different issue.
So, my answer to your question is rather simple: one subjugated nation either gets liberated because of their efforts or never gets truly liberated.
This is so because, if a subjugated nation accepts the help of another, already independent, nation (and -in an even worse case- the help of a major regional or great power), this constitutes already a situation of de facto colonial dependence; these developments always backfire.
In fact, and to be frank, only the colonial powers (or any state acting as a colonial power) would truly care to help a subjugated nation.
The rest is silly literature about ‘human rights’, i.e. an enormous amount of evil falsehood diffused with unmatched hypocrisy and with well-concealed back thoughts as regards the use of the new state that the foreign protector intends to make. This is the only truth about the topic and the only way to see face to face the reality. National Liberation means fights, struggle and blood.
Now, I will respond to your next point.
ii- we are not free yet, after the relative end of colonialism in many countries.
This is a very erroneous consideration. There was never an end of colonialism; this is just your own personal delusion. You have to get rid of it as promptly and as completely as you can, if you want Biyya Oromo to truly become an independent and self-determined nation. Otherwise, the recompense of your delusion will be the mere continuation of your slavery at the hands of the criminal Abyssinian gangsters, as per the Anglo-French colonial plan.
I must also add something else to terminate your daydreaming mentality. How important is it for you to see your nation independent, if this means total subordination to foreign powers’ dictates and adjustment to the orders of the American, German, English and French ambassadors?
Did you notice Egypt’s alliance with Israel, Greece and South Cyprus against Turkey, Iran and Russia? Do you think that this catastrophic position brings benefits to Egypt? In reality, it does not! It only makes of that country a mere tool of the great powers that clash through proxies in the Eastern Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Egypt loses terrain in Africa and becomes irrelevant in the wider region.
Subsequently, I will comment on another point that you make.
iii- I know Egypt has many internal issues and problems.
This, my friend, is an understatement! After what I said, you can realize that Egypt is simply neither a state nor a nation. It has never been over the past 2500 years. Even worse, for the period 1100-525 BCE, Egypt was continuously divided into two or three states and also partly occupied by foreigners. In brief, Egypt lived for 3000 years without having a true concept of national identity as nation-state. This concludes the case.
V- The Foolishness of the Egyptian Generals and Cairo’s Inability to carry out a Long-Planned Policy
Now, I move on to your next point.
iv- Still, we have mutual interests.
This statement appears to have some truth in it, if one’s opinion is based on an objective, technical observation. But two separate lands or countries are not constituted of robots duly programmed by some superior force. Two different ethnic groups or nations consist of humans. Then, everything changes, because as per the situation in which the two groups live, it is quite possible that Group A realizes well that both groups have mutual interests and that this understanding is perfectly correct and valid, but Group B fails to perceive (let alone exploit and act accordingly) this reality. It is quite possible that, due to internal malfunction, foreign intervention and persistent involvement, misguidance and deceitful schemes, Group B is totally incapacitated and absolutely unable to correctly perceive its own interests first, its own possibilities second, and the two groups’ mutual interests third. If that is the case, simply you cannot do much.
I further advance to your next statement.
v- Ethiopia threatens their Blue Nile river water resource.
That’s absolutely true and they know it; they feel it. Simple, average Egyptians, academics, journalists, sheikhs, military, businessmen, and politicians: all! But, to your greatest chagrin, their potential reactions will be childish and ineffective. Why? Again, because of what I already told you many times: they never became a proper state. They even do not know what it takes to become one!
Don’t tell me nonsensical stories about Nasser’s «success» in 1956 or Sadat’s «achievement» in 1973! Similar approaches are idiotic. These developments were entirely arranged by the US, the power that replaced France and England as colonial master in Egypt. Egyptian generals were receiving direct orders as to what to do and where to hit. Everything was pre-arranged. These developments were entire successes and great achievements for the US, but not for Egypt. Egyptians did not advance even one centimeter beyond the point that was given to them. As such, these fake victories only reconfirm Egypt’s nature as just a colonized territory with no initiative or even self-consciousness. From their president to the last rubbish collector, unemployed or homeless, the Egyptians have all been purely puppets of Western colonial powers; and they have acted as such from their first to their last. That is all.
Did you notice what happened earlier in 2020? Egypt was «protected» by Trump, but there is an ongoing bras-de-fer (arm wrestling) between factions of the US and UK establishments across East Africa (: Egypt, Sudan and Abyssinia), the Mediterranean (: Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece, North Cyprus, South Cyprus, Libyan government, Libyan rebels, etc.), the Balkan Peninsula, Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, etc.
Now, you may want to ask me what I exactly imply by saying that, if the Egyptian state authorities feel endangered by the Benishangul dam and by reduced Nile water resources left for them, they will react in an ineffective and childish manner, I can answer to you. You will laugh and think that I eventually make a joke, but I don’t.
Well, if this happens, they will try to bombard the dam (sic !) with their useless aircraft; I say «useless», because it is so for this purpose. Of course, you know that no one can destroy a dam by throwing some rockets or sending some planes to stupidly drop some bombs on it. For such a major purpose, one needs modern, advanced weapons, nano-nukes and the like. And for Egypt’s obsolete army and headquarters that are good only for internal oppression, state money embezzlement, and useless threats, the above mentioned weaponry looks like a Ph.D. in Astrophysics for an unfortunate primary education schoolboy!
They will surely attack the dam like that in their despair. But this will surely worsen their international position. And Sudan will not allow Egyptian soldiers to cross its territory in order to attack the Abyssinian border; you can be sure for that – and more particularly when it comes to the new administration in Khartoum, which is the world’s meanest and powerless puppet.
Now, prepare to laugh! If Sudan allows the Egyptian army to cross its territory, it will be an unprecedented and charlatanesque affair! In fact, there is no railway connection between the two countries; there is no direct road in the Nile valley; there is a very bad road connection alongside the Red Sea coast. All this means that the Egyptian soldiers will arrive exhausted at the borders with Abyssinia and without having regular ammunition flow. It will be a joke of military expedition. The most farcical military movement in the History of the Mankind! Not even in the cinema one can see something so ludicrous. If Sisi undertook something like that (and I am sure that he will not), he would be included in the Guinness Book of Records as the World History’s most clownish president! No further comment for that joke!
And now, I will respond to your last comment.
vi- If this does not make us friends, I don’t know what could.
Oh! Here the answer will be very brief! Nothing can make you friends with the Egyptians, because you are luckier: although without a state of your own, you have preserved your identity and integrity. In other words: you are alive, whereas the Egyptians are dead – or if you prefer, they are mere zombies. And as you know, there is no communication between humans and zombies. Period!
In few days, I will come up with the last part of my response.
Best regards,
Shamsaddin
Note:
To better understand and adequately contextualize the topic, you must read this article of mine:
The Fabrication of the Fake Greek History, the Nonexistent Fallacy of Hellenism, the 19th c. ailing Ottoman Empire, and today’s Turkey
This article does not concern Kemet/Masr/Egypt, Sudan/Ethiopia/Cush, Yemen, Abyssinia or Punt-Somalia. The article concerns a 19th c. colonial book written to diffuse historical falsification about Greece but, while reading my article, you can draw parallels and compare
A) the colonial falsehood diffused in the case of Northeastern Africa, and
B) the colonial distortion of History in the case of Greece.
Furthermore, my analysis about
a) the nature of the book (published by an anonymous author and an obscure publisher evidently connected with secret societies),
b) the needs that the author wanted to address through this book, and
c) the production, systematization, diffusion and imposition of the colonial forgery (and of the falsification of the World History) on all the nations of the world,
will show to you how the colonial elites and establishments functioned and through which techniques they achieved to
1- confuse the entire mankind,
2- impose their delusion and fallacy worldwide (I mean per country different aspects and versions of the deception ), and thus
3- make
– the Oromos believe the colonial lies about (fake) Egypt
– the ‘Egyptians’ believe the colonial lies about (fake) Greece,
– the ‘Greeks’ believe the colonial lies about (fake) Tunisia,
– the ‘Tunisians’ believe the colonial lies about (fake) Persia (Iran), and so on.
Because of the nature of the colonial fallacy and forgery, and because of the manner by which it was diffused and imposed, the first nation that will realize and reject the colonial fallacy and forgery in its totality, thus achieving true national independence and self-determination, will also liberate many other nations.
The only way for this to be done is against the rest of the world: the colonial gangsters and their puppets. In fact, except these two basic categories, there is nothing else in the so-called human societies — except for the very few remaining marginal and original communities that have hitherto preserved their traditions, integrity and identity; these communities, living in remote locations, being unrelated to the evil modern technology, and remaining far from the colonial fallacy, forgery, deception and delusion, are today’s world’s greatest reason for hope.
With this article, I continue the publication of my long response to a US-based Oromo scholar, intellectual and activist, who asked my opinion about the possibility of the Oromo liberation movements to cooperate systematically with the government of Egypt on the basis of a plan providing for the liberation of Biyya Oromo and for the cancellation of the disastrous dam built on the Blue Nile in Benishangul province (Abyssinia, Fake Ethiopia). The first two articles are here:
Oromos, Egypt, the Nile, Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia), and the True Essence of Colonialism – Part I
The Enemies of Oromos & their Deeds: First & Second Colonization, Jesuit Reductions, Renaissance, and the Historical Revisionism of Racist Colonials – Part II
In this -third- part, I offer an insight into the catastrophic, impermissible and obscurantist universities of Egypt where the quasi-totality of African civilizations is ignored whereas every historical presentation, course, manual, lecture and seminar reproduces the racist, Orientalist Western European and North American dogma, its Anti-African biases, and the associated bibliography. The ignorance is then spread from the educational-academic level to that of the state and the administration with calamitous results.
This is very important for the Oromos to understand because if a country’s universities do not properly study its own past and its closest neighbor’s history, it is normal that the said country will be totally unaware of other historical nations with they could set up an alliance. Mutual knowledge comes first; bilateral cooperation in terms of infrastructure and interdependence follows; and political alliance comes at last as a coronation of the bilateral relationship. This is the correct and ‘logical’ order of the stages of relationship between two normal states.
If one compares in detail the bilateral relationship between Turkey and Iran, and then attempts to evaluate the Egyptian-Sudanese relationship, one will be astonished with the unsubstantiated, frivolous, superficial and inconsistent nature of the latter. Then, if Egypt is not normally connected with Sudan, if Egyptian universities have no clue of the History, Archaeology, Linguistics, Ethnography, History of Religions, Literature, History of Art, and Architecture of Sudan (all historical period included), how can Egypt know first and then cooperate with the Oromos?
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Kemet (Egypt), Cush (Ethiopia: Sudan), Napata, Meroe written in Hieroglyphics
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The paradoxical situation that I will describe (and which every Oromo, particularly those based in Egypt, can crosscheck) must sound as an alarming warning to all Oromos. This is how “independent” states can be if they are “liberated” with the help of other states, and more particularly that of the colonial Western European and North American administrations.
Third response to your questions about the chances of cooperation between the Oromos and Egypt (dispatched on 4th November 2020)
Dear D.,
Hope you are doing well!
I believe that in the first part, I gave you an introductory approach and specific details about facts and related efforts for contact and cooperation; and in the second part, I presented the true background, nature, essence and reality of the colonization process worldwide and (to a limited extent) in Egypt.
The present, third, part will be a very simple response to your questions and points. But it will be sufficiently documented with many descriptions of things missing, of troublesome situations existing, and of social, educational, academic, intellectual, and military-political inadequacies that prevail in Egypt.
And in the last, fourth, part, I will present historically (1798-2020) and in detail the impossibility of the fabricated, failed state, technical entity «Egypt» to function as a normal state.
In fact, what you suggest and ask about simply cannot happen. It is technically impossible. One could easily provide you with a negative response and explain everything in very few words; you ask “Why wouldn’t Egypt support our struggle?”. How about an answer like this: «because Egypt does not have scholars, research fellows, academics, intellectuals, public sector employees, military, diplomats, politicians and statesmen having the level of their German, Italian or Russian counterparts»? Just 28 words are enough; however, these few, truthful words do not fully explain the situation, although they describe it very accurately, in-depth and comprehensively.
It is now time for me to recall some of your already aforementioned questions and statements! You ask the following:
1- Why wouldn’t Egypt support our struggle?
The answer is this: because Egypt does not know you, and because there is not one Egyptian specialist in Somali, Oromo, Afar, Sidama, Amhara, Tigray, let alone Axum and Ge’ez.
If you ask an academic (specializing in History, Political Science, and International Relations), a politician, a military (lieutenant-general level) and a statesman in Egypt «have you heard about the Oromo?», I am sorry but the most probable answer that you would get would be: «what is this? A new Hungarian specialty, after Goulash?»
But why should one ask today’s uneducated Egyptian elite about Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia)?
Already there are no Egyptian historians and archaeologists specializing in Ancient Sudan, which is -as you know- the true «Ethiopia», i.e. Ancient Cush.
I. Egypt & Sudan: a Superficial Relationship based in Mutual Ignorance, Lack of Reciprocal Academic Studies, and Absence of Shared Infrastructure
Despite the enormous, millennia long interconnection of the two civilizations that shared many common elements of spirituality, religion, mysticism, intellectual-academic life, worldview and world perception-conceptualization, writing, literature, art, architecture, socio-economic organization, and divine governance (there is no such thing as «politics»; it is a modern fallacy projected onto historical periods by colonial Orientalists and Africanists), the Ancient, Christian and Islamic History of Sudan is not taught in any Egyptian university. This is not normal. It bears witness to absolute ignorance; but these are the colonial orders that serve as basis of governmental policies in both pseudo-countries that are in fact remotely-ruled colonies of France, England, USA, Israel, Holland, Canada and Australia.
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics was the only language and writing system used in Ancient Sudan for more than 2000 years (before the introduction of the Ancient Meroitic writing); there are many Ancient Egyptian monuments in Ancient Sudan (which was many times integral part of Pharaonic Egypt); there are many Ancient Cushitic / Sudanese monuments with inscriptions in Egyptian hieroglyphics in Sudan; and there are several Egyptian Egyptologists, but none of them specialize in Ancient Sudan, let alone undertook research or conducted a seminar about Ancient Sudan in an Egyptian university. Ancient Cush (Sudan) remains thus totally unknown to Egyptians, be they students of the faculties of Humanities or average people.
Despite the fact that nowadays the two countries have the same official language (the so-called Modern Arabic), there is not one Egyptian archaeologist to have excavated in Sudan or to have taught anything related to Sudanese Antiquities in an Egyptian university; you certainly understand that, if one of the otherwise worthless and useless Egyptian universities happened once to invite for semester a Western Egyptologist as visiting professor (in which case the unfortunate Egyptian students will not have to study his seminar and pass the related exams), and if this scholar gave a seminar about Kerma, Napata, Meroe, Mussawarat as-Sufra or Naqa and the local antiquities, we cannot take this event as a «proof» about teaching in Egypt topics related to the Ancient History and Archaeology of Sudan. This is a shame; it is as if Ancient Roman History and Archaeology are not taught in Austrian or Croatian or French universities. It is unthinkable, but this misery is the reality of today’s Egypt the idiotic upper middle class of which is mentally incapacitated to possibly assess.
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Archaeological sites and monuments that constitute the Cultural and National Heritage of all African Cushites of Eastern Africa, notably the Oromos, the Sidamas, the Kaffas, etc., and the Arabic-speaking Cushites of today’s central provinces of Sudan
Kerma (Kerma Deffufa)
In der Mitte die Deffufa, links darüber die runde überdachte Versammlungsstätte
Napata – today’s Karima and Jebel Barkal, the Holy Mountain of Amun
Meroe (Bagrawiyah)
Mussawarat as Sufra
75-4-5s
Naqa
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There are indeed several foreign archeological missions in Sudan: Swiss, German, Polish, French, etc. But there is no Egyptian archeological mission in Sudan. The filthy pseudo-scholars and bogus-professors of the trashy Egyptian universities cannot understand how the world functions, and -even worse- they do not want to learn how to cope with the civilized countries. In fact, 90% of the academic staff members of the Egyptian universities’ faculties of Humanities are uneducated and besotted cretins, who repeat the same useless falsehood that they had been taught few decades earlier. They would never be hired in other countries’ universities except in case of a political arrangement or deal.
I must now be sarcastic with what I already wrote, and for a good reason! How can one expect two neighboring countries, which share so long borders (ca. 1275 km!) and have had an apparently close political relationship for so long, ………..
……… to know one another at the historical-scholarly, academic-educational, and intellectual-cultural levels,
…….. to develop research cooperation and academic inter-exchanges, and
——– to attain a high level of mutual knowledge,
when these two countries do not even have at least two railway lines linking their two capitals, one through the Red Sea coast to Kessala and Khartoum and another through the Nile valley to Darfur, Kordofan and Khartoum?
Already, there is no proper highway linking Cairo to Khartoum.Even low quality asphalt roads in Sudan are a novelty. Highways in Egypt are a luxurious concept reserved for the northern part of the country; the Egyptian ‘South’ (As-Sa’id) is socio-economically distinct from the northern part of the country and markedly under-developed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%27idi_people). As a matter of fact, there is no proper highway in Egypt south of Assiut (Asyut), which is located 350 km south of Cairo. But Aswan is at 860 km south of Cairo, Abu Simbel is at 1130 south of Cairo, and the Egyptian-Sudanese border is at 1180 km south of Cairo.
Despite its many tourist resorts, Egypt does not have a highway alongside the very long Red Sea coast. The road linking Suez to Hurghada, Safaga, Qoseir, Mersa Alam, Ras Banas and Berenice, Shalateen and Halaib is of a type that I would call «typical provincial road in 1960s’ Greece and Turkey». For ca. 1025 km (Suez-Hurghada: 327 km; Hurghada-Shalateen: 533 km; Shalateen-Halaib: 165 km), one needs more than 15 hours of trip under normal and safe travel conditions. Of course, you may wish to ask me how come they developed Tourism there under such circumstances; well, the answer is simple! There are airports in several of these resorts and charter flights land there from Europe and elsewhere.
Everything is perversely-conceived, clumsily implemented, and ill-fated in Egypt; in my article (written in the days of so-called ‘Arab Spring’ upheaval, when the ailing Mubarak administration blocked the Internet: 28/1/2011-2/2/2011) about the forthcoming end of the Mubarak regime, I gave Tourism as the example-economic sector of absolute failure of the regime; this is shocking, if you take into consideration that both, the fake news published in all major (but worthless) Egyptian newspapers and the viciously mendacious reports available in pro-Egyptian newspapers of the Western countries, always presented Tourism as the Egyptian economy’s most successful sector. You can find how pathetic was the silly, demented and ignorant Egyptian dictatorial regime’s approach to Tourism in the link below; what is even worse is the fact the brainless Egyptian elites are incorrigible. They simply cannot understand how mistaken their approach was and how they can improve:
If the local elite’s and ruling class’ failure to think, plan and act properly as regards their National Tourism Development was so immense and colossal in Egypt, how do you want the local government and academic-educational establishment to possibly approach normally and correctly, pertinently and effectively sectors like education, research, academic collaboration — either for the country itself or for the neighboring countries?
Then, any discussion at the level of foreign policy is ridiculous, because no country can have a well-structured info & data background, and a knowledgeable group of interacting scholars, specialized journalists, advisers, military, analysts, pundits, and diplomats without having first the necessary academic background.
It is as simple as that: you don’t study Sudan; you don’t know Sudan. Then, you have no foreign policy for Sudan. Or if you want it more exactly, your foreign policy for Sudan is merely a superficial attempt and a potential failure. Change now the name of Sudan with that of another country, and then try to do the same for all the countries of the world! In this manner, you will get a clear idea about the uselessness of the so-called «Egyptian state». In reality, it is a colonially setup farcical caricature.
But even the discussion about Egypt’s obscurantist and content-empty universities and the lack of any knowledge on Sudan sounds like a joke in the light of an even more tragic reality that prevails in Egypt.
This fact is best expressed in the following question:
How can Egyptians study, learn about, and know Sudan sufficiently {so that they first conceptualize the Egyptian-Sudanese relationship within a context amply beneficial for Egypt, second deepen and widen the bilateral relationship across the board, i.e. in all sectors of relations, and third (last) form an effective Egyptian foreign policy for Sudan}, since the Egyptians already do not know themselves and their country in its true historical, ethno-linguistic, and religious dimensions?
Since you are an Oromo, do you know Prof. Asafa Dibaba? Have you read his texts, articles and books? Have you an idea about the research work that he guides young Oromo students to undertake in order to preserve and analyze oral literature, cultural life and traditions, the wealth of the Oromo folklore, and the linguistic treasure of Afaan Oromo? I guess yes! And there are other Oromo scholars in that field too, despite the undeniable fact that, although you are a 40+ million people nation, you don’t have an independent state to govern as per your standards. But….
Do you think that there is one Egyptian able to comprehend, assess, represent and describe the Egyptian culture (or rather the distortion and the lack thereof) as deeply, highly and widely as Prof. Dibaba does with respect to the Oromo culture? Quite unfortunately, there is none.
There has never been in Egypt a proper study (let alone university department) on the Ancient Egyptian and Coptic linguistic impact on the modern dialect that the Egyptians speak.
There has never been in Egypt a proper study (let alone university department) on the Ancient Egyptian and Coptic cultural and religious impact on the modern Egyptians’ traditions, customs, folklore, beliefs and faith.
Egypt’s tragically irreversible and abominably miserable situation hinges on the following two points:
A) Already Egyptian universities’ faculties of Humanities and departments of History ignore the 5+ millennia long Egyptian History for about half of its duration.
B) Furthermore, Egyptian universities’ faculties of Humanities and departments of History, Literature, Ethnography, Culturology, History of Religions, and Linguistics (if they exist) ignore Egypt itself and the majority of the country’s ethno-linguistic and religious components.
What do I mean? I will first discuss point A.
II. Almost half the History of Egypt is absent from today’s Egyptian universities
Answer if you can the following academic question:
Which is the Egyptian university that ever offered courses or the Egyptian scholar who ever conducted seminars about …?
a- the 25th (called «Ethiopian», i.e. Cushitic, Sudanese) dynasty?
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25th Cushitic (Ethiopian, so Non-Abyssinian) Dynasty of Egypt: Shabaka, Shabataka (Shebitko), Taharqa
Taharqa and Thebes gods at Kawa temple
Taharqa column Karnak
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Taharqa shrine Ashmolean Museum
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b- the 26th (called «Libyan», i.e. Berber, Hamitic) dynasty?
Psamtek (Psammetichus) I, major pharaoh of the 26th Berber ‘Libyan’ dynasty
Psamtek II, the pharaoh who undertook a military expedition (with Carian and Greek missionaries) down to Napata and destroyed the Cushitic capital.
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Psamtek II’s military expedition to Napata left traces (graffiti) in Abu Simbel
Potasimto, the Carian head of foreign mercenaries at the service of Psamtek II
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c- the Assyrian occupation of Egypt (670-630 BCE), based on Assyrian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic texts?
d- the Iranian occupations of Egypt (525-404 BCE and 343-332 BCE), based on Iranian (Old Achaemenid), Egyptian hieroglyphic, and Ancient Greek texts?
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Following the invasion of Egypt by the Iranian Achaemenid Emperor Cambyses (525 BCE), Darius I the Great ruled the country as a pharaoh and re-opened the Old Suez Canal, leaving a stela with a quadrilingual inscription (in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Cuneiform Babylonian, Elamite and Old Achaemenid) on this occasion.
e- the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt (305-30 BCE), based on Ancient Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphic and demotic texts?
f- the Roman occupation of Egypt (30 BCE — 642 CE), based on Latin, Ancient Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphic and demotic, and Coptic texts?
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Egypt, Dendara, relief on temple wall depicting Cleopatra and Caesarion
Cleopatra and Caesarion depicted on the wall of the Hathor Temple at Denderah
Octavian Augustus depicted on the wall of the Mandulis Temple at Kalabsha (Talmis)
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g- the diffusion of Ancient Egyptian spirituality, mysticism, religions, mythologies, worldview, messianic soteriology, apocalyptic eschatology, art and architecture in Greece, Rome, the Roman Empire, and the entire European continent?
The last topic (g) is vast and, more importantly, it concerns -not only Egypt but- the entire Black Continent. It bears witness to unique, overwhelming and cataclysmic African and Oriental impact on the formation of the Western civilization. As such, it does matter equally for Egyptians, Oromos, Somalis, Luo, Berbers, Hausa, Igbo, Sudanese, Yoruba, Bantu and Khoisan Africans.
Only for this topic, Egypt should have established 15 research centers and university departments across the country, financed the courses, the publications, the academic travels, explorations and excavations of at least 1000 specialists, who –in addition to their academic tasks- should have popularized the topic in open lectures from China to Argentina to South Africa and from Indonesia to Russia to Morocco.
Egyptian archaeologists and Egyptologists should explore Europe and excavate Ancient Egyptian temples in England, Spain, Hungary, Ukraine, Greece and other lands where the Ancient Egyptian spirituality, wisdom, world conceptualization, religion, mysteries, cults, philosophy, writing and language radiated and impacted the local barbarians, who became civilized only thanks to Isis, Osiris, Horus, Anubis and a multitude of Ancient Egyptian concepts that later gave form and contents to Catholic Christianity, i.e. another Oriental religion that was diffused in Europe.
As a matter of fact, during the period 1st c. BCE — 4th c. CE, hundreds of Egyptian temples were built across Europe, Italy, Greece (from Ukraine to Portugal and from Britain to the Balkans) and in Rome itself, the capital of the Roman Empire; all the people became fascinated with and attracted by the Egyptian priests, who traveled there, because at those days the territories of today’s Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Holland, England, Portugal, Morocco and many other countries belonged to the same state, i.e. the Roman Empire.
The incomparable Egyptian sacerdotal and spiritual superiority over the Greek, Roman and European traditions reduced the Ancient Greek, Roman and European priests to impotency, marginality and worthlessness at the eyes of the Greeks, the Romans and the Europeans. So overwhelming the diffusion of Egyptian cults and beliefs in Greece, Rome and Europe was that the profane, impious and blasphemous concepts of “politics”, “theater”, “philosophy”, and “democracy” were completely disregarded and abandoned as barbaric concepts compared to the holiness of the Egyptian mysteries, messianic eschatology, and apocalyptic soteriology. That’s why Roman laws were issued to prevent the diffusion and the practice of Egyptian cults (of Isis, Osiris, Horus, Ra, Anubis, Sarapis and other Egyptian representations of the Divine).
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The diffusion of Isis’ cults, mysteries, theology, cosmogony and messianic eschatology across the Mediterranean and the Roman Empire turned the Isis Temple at the Island of Philae (5 km south of Aswan) into a unique and unprecedented holy shrine across the then known world, because pilgrims from Europe, Asia and Africa were traveling to worship Isis there.
Temple of Isis at Delos, Aegean Sea
Temple of Isis at Pompeii
Temple of Isis and Serapis at Rome
Temple of Isis in Hungary (reconstruction)
Fresco depicting Osiris’ sarcophagus from the Iseum (Temple of Isis) at Pompeii
Roman statue of Isis
The location of Isis Temple in Roman Lutetia (today’s Paris)
The Temple of Isis at the Island of Philae, 5 km south of Aswan
Graffiti of Greek and Roman pilgrims and adorers of Isis on the walls of the Temple at Philae
Isis Temple at Philae, visited in 1839 by the Scottish painter David Roberts
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The most important Ancient Greek intellectuals, namely Plutarch (the high priest of Delphi, Ancient Greece’s most venerated temple) wrote extensively about the cults and the practices of the Greek believers of Isis. Ancient Greeks and Romans traveled from their homes to the holiest temple of Isis at the island of Philae (5 km south of Aswan in Upper Egypt, i.e. no less than 1080 km south of Alexandria) for their lives’ foremost pilgrimage in the region of the First Cataract of the Nile and they wrote brief inscriptions on the walls of the holy temple to immortalize their faith and document their dedication.
Yet, of all this monumental documentation not one Egyptian pseudo-scholar and bogus-intellectual, fake professor, uneducated sheikh or ignorant imam knows anything today. Not one specialist, not one Egyptian Egyptologist has the slightest idea about all these vast and determinant pages of Egyptian and World History; and subsequently not one among them teaches or can teach this subject to the so-called students of the Egyptian ‘universities’. Not one book is written in Arabic about all this, nothing is presented in an Egyptian magazine, nothing is discussed in radio and TV stations across Egypt, and of course, not one manual of History writes anything about the aforementioned.
This is how today’s fake Egyptians are disconnected from their true past, being totally unaware of their ancestors’ impact on Greeks, Romans and Europeans. And this is the shameful way today’s fake Egyptians have been adapted to the bogus-historical dogma and the distortions diffused by the villainous Post-Renaissance European colonial academics, thus compromising their national identity, cultural continuity, and moral integrity.
Since today’s pathetic Egyptians do not know anything about all this, they are unable to diffuse this knowledge to all the rest of the Africans, who would then start to learn about the long and great period of African influence and Hamitic/Cushitic cultural-religious-spiritual impact on the entire European continent. That’s why Modern Egyptians’ educational-academic-intellectual-cultural submission to their colonizers, i.e. the barbarians of France, England and America has caused a double harm, first to Egypt itself as a nation, and second to Africa in its totality.
This situation is of course entirely due to colonial interference in, impact on, and guidance of, the pathetic Egyptian regime (first pseudo-royal: 1798-1952; and then dictatorial, pseudo-republican: 1952-2021). There has never been one Modern Egyptian able to reject the Western colonial fallacy and pseudo-historical dogma of Greco-Romano-centrism.
By controlling Egypt (for 223 years), the three main colonial powers (France, England and America) have at the same time controlled the entire Africa. This means that there are many layers of colonial control over Africa and that they are not easily detectable, let alone visible.
Now, I continue the brief list of critical examples, i.e. points that have never been taught in Egypt’s fake universities, popularized by the Egyptian publishing houses, and diffused by the country’s mass media. So, I will repeat the original question, but I will advance with the enumeration of points.
Answer if you can the following academic question:
Which is the Egyptian university that ever offered courses or the Egyptian scholar who ever conducted seminars about …?
h- the Periplus of the Red Sea (also known as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea), which is the World History’s most informative text (dating back to ca. 70 CE) about the History of the Silk-, Spice- and Perfume-Routes and in general about the trade among the Roman Empire, Meroe, Axum, Iran, Yemen, different states of South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and China?
This Ancient Greek text was written by an Egyptian Alexandrian captain and merchant, who traveled across the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean extensively during the 1st CE. The text highlights the position of Egypt (although the land was then a mere Roman province) worldwide, but today’s Egyptians must know nothing about this.
i- the Gnostic religious, spiritual, mystical, cosmological and theological systems, and more particularly Hermetism (or Hermeticism), that were elaborated in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman times and then spread across the Mediterranean and the entire Roman Empire? Hermetism, 700 years before Prophet Muhammad, declared the concept of prisca theologia, i.e. that irrespective of the existence of different religions, the truth faith, spirituality and divine studies are only one, and all the rest constitute either deformations or mistakes. Hermetism is the religion of Hermes Trismegistus to whom the Hermetic texts have been attributed; in the first tractate (Poimandres), the revelation of God is offered in dialogical form. Hermes Trismegistus’ impact on Islam was cataclysmic, because the Corpus Hermeticum was translated to Arabic and thence to other languages, thus becoming the epicenter of Islamic Spirituality. Hermes Trismegistus’ Emerald Tablet was translated – for the study of none else than the Abbasid Emperor Harun al-Rashid, the greatest caliph of all times – by none other than Jabir ibn Hayyan, one of the greatest scholars of the Islamic World. The entire works of Hermes Trismegistus were viewed as sacred texts and many Muslims identified him with the Prophet Idris, who is mentioned in the Quran. The fact is the Hermetism was born in Egypt and it constitutes one of the most illustrious pages of the Egyptian History; however, the pathetic Egyptian universities prevent the study and the popularization of the subject only to defend the theological forgery of the pseudo-Sunni Al Azhar university.
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Gnostic amulet with the initials I, A, O
Hermetic books in Latin translation
Hermetic texts translated in Arabic before more than 1200 years – totally unknown to today’s useless Egyptian universities
Djawty – Thot: the Ancient Egyptian concept of Wisdom of God, at the origin of the Gnostic perception of the Only God Poimandres of Hermes Trismegistus.
Hermes Trismegistus represented in the Christian Catholic Cathedral of Sienna
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This topic is also vast and the country would certainly need 100 Egyptian specialists to describe, analyze and highlight the Gnosticisms of the Late Antiquity. Even more importantly, the famous Manuscripts of Nag Hammadi should be duly and properly described in the manuals of the Egyptian Secondary Education because for Egypt’s national interests, they are more important than the Quran.
Truly, why are the Dead Sea Scrolls featured in Israel’s Secondary Education historical manuals, whereas the Manuscripts of Nag Hammadi are not even mentioned in Egypt’s Secondary Education historical manuals? Most probably, because Israel is not a failed state like Egypt, and many Israeli academics are worldwide acknowledged and acclaimed, but Egypt’s pseudo-academics and bogus-professors are hiding in order not to let others realize their ignorance, servility toward the Western colonials, and Islamist obscurantism!
j- the scholars who lived and worked in the Library of Alexandria, whose texts or fragments of works have been saved until our days?
As a matter of fact, Eratosthenes belongs to Ancient Egyptian, Libyan and African History more than to Ancient Greek or Roman History; he was a Hamitic Berber originating from Cyrene (near Shahhat, ca. 25 km east of Bayda in today’s NE Libya’s coast) and became the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. He wrote in Ancient Greek to diffuse his texts and studies among the ignorant Greek colons across the Orient; but the academic-scientific foundations and the sources of his studies were exclusively Ancient Egyptian and his focus of interest was Egypt. In fact, historical works written on Egyptian soil, even if they are written in other languages (Aramaic, Achaemenid Iranian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin or Arabic) are still part of the historical-cultural Egyptian Heritage. There cannot be Egyptian historical manuals of the Secondary Education that do not mention the most famous chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria.
Map of the world as per Eratosthenes’s texts (made by Christian monks and copyists during the Christian times)
k- Ptolemy the Geographer, the Antiquity’s most famous geographer, who was an Egyptian and wrote (in Ancient Greek) the greatest topographical-geographical treatise of pre-Islamic times (which was later translated into Arabic as Almagest and was referred to by all the Islamic times’ scholars, geographers, astronomers-astrologers and other erudite polymaths). Not only there was never a seminar in an Egyptian university about Ptolemy the Geographer (whose Geography is a lengthy text that states names and coordinates of all the locations of the then known world), but, as it was already attested in many other cases, the ignorant Egyptian pseudo-professors do not react to the colonial fallacy as per which Ptolemy the Geographer was a Greek, whereas he was evidently an Alexandrian Egyptian.
Map of the world as Ptolemy’s Geography (made by Eastern Roman monks and copyists, possibly Maximus Planudes, during the Christian times)
l- Manichaeism (Mani may have been a 3rd c. CE Iranian who wrote in Aramaic and in Pahlavi Iranian) but at the end of the 3rd c. CE the majority of Alexandria’s population was Manichaean and followed the religion of Mani. Manichaeism was the World History’s first religion to spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific; Mani’s dogma influenced Christianity, Islam and all the secret societies of the modern Western world. Fathers of the Catholic Church and major Islamic tariqas (schools of spirituality) were impact by cosmological, eschatological and moral concepts, as well as spiritual practices of Manichaeism.
I could add several other topics, but the above is quite indicative. For a country with History starting around 3000 BCE, if the period from 1200 BCE to 642 CE is not mentioned in the historical manuals of the Secondary Education at all, not studied in any university department, not popularized by the publishing houses, and not discussed in the mass media constantly, an enormous gap is produced only at the detriment of the entire nation. Even worse problems arise if the universities of a country do not study systematically the country’s religious minorities and ethno-linguistic groups that are –all- objects of study in other countries’ universities. I will now discuss point B.
III. Most of Egypt’s ethno-linguistic and religious components are absent from today’s Egyptian universities
Egypt today consists of
1- Sinai Bedouins,
2- Berbers of the country’s NW confines (Siwa, Mersa Matrouh, Salloum),
4- Beja of the SE confines (Wadi Allaqi, Ras Banas, Shalateen, Halaib),
5- Copts (Christians),
6- Shia Muslims and
7- Sunni Muslims.
This makes seven different ethno-religious entities. I don’t mention minor groups like the Bahai and others.
I will not speak about oppression and persecution, which exist widely and profoundly, but are not the direct result of governmental decision-making. But I will ask you a simple question:
– Tell me! How many ministers in Egypt were Nubians, and how many three stars generals were Copts?
The answer is simple:
– None!
In fact, Egypt is a pseudo-Islamic, ‘Sunni’ obscurantist country where people hate to learn, let alone study, the ‘other’. But do not get me wrong! Saying the above, I am not referring to the level of social authorities, state organizations, and the Egyptian government. Why? Because — although it sounds bizarre to say it — this is less important than what truly happens in Egypt. And the problem is deeply social; it starts from the average people; there is a suicidal ignorance of the ‘other’, a mutually self-inflicted darkness, and a reciprocally self-imposed hatred of knowledge about one another. Before accusing the government, in Egypt one must accuse the people for what happens. It is not a situation imposed by the government.
The paranoid situation is as simple as that: the ignorant, demented Sunni pseudo-Muslims turned their abject poverty and miserable life into an unprecedentedly enormous, toxic odium, which sustains them not in real life, but in a non-life that they want to prolong from generation to generation. I speak for outright majority of the population, so -you understand- the exceptions only reconfirm the rule.
The average Sunni Egyptians do not want to even know details about the Shia Egyptians, (at least 25% of the Egyptian Muslims), the Copts, the Nubians, and the other minorities of Egypt. As characters, they may be kind, friendly, sociable and helpful, but when the topic of mutual knowledge and understanding among the country’s ethno-linguistic and religious groups/minorities comes, then all these average, common, kind and friendly people become venomous enemies who try to repel any contact with the ‘other’, let alone to suggestion of attempt to learn about the other’s faith, language, traditions and practices.
There is no governmental oppression in Egypt; the country does not consist in a political dictatorship. It is a social tyranny, which is even imposed on the government, which is intimated to turn against it. The uneducated Sunni mob that follows the brainless and clueless, pseudo-Muslim sheikhs and imams constitutes a particular case of not centrally controlled, popular self-tyranny of monstrously and inhumanly imposed ignorance.
As I already said, there is also a Bahai religious minority in Egypt. So, ask if you please a Muslim, a Nubian or a Copt in Egypt about what the Bahais believe and what the Bahai dogma is all about!
Nice joke! They know nothing! Of course, I don’t demand from average people the analysis of an expert in History of Religions; but since they live next to one another, they must know what their differences are – at least in brief. But first, they don’t know, and second -which is evil and deeply anti-Islamic-, they don’t want to learn.
And this is the full proof of their total dissociation from Islam, because Islam imposes knowledge at the beginning of everything.
Do you think that any of these ethno-religious groups are given due respect, study, research and educational presentation in Egypt? Not at all!
At the university level, the Shekacho Nation may eventually be a topic of study in Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia), but the Copts, the Nubians, the Bejas, the Berbers or the illustrious ‘Shia’ Islamic past (the Fatimid dynasty) are never studied in Egypt. For the country’s fake universities, the absence of a Department of Coptic Language, Literature, History, Archaeology, Art History, and Theology is tantamount to the absence of a Department of Italian Language, Literature, History, Archaeology, and Art History from the universities of Switzerland. This is unthinkable.
In Egypt’s fake universities, there is not a single Department of Beja Studies and there is not one Egyptian specialist, linguist, ethnographer, historian, philologist, archaeologist or culturologist, who ever studied the Beja, a Cushitic nation that lives in territories of three countries, namely Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea, alongside the Red Sea Coast. Not one Egyptian bothered to learn their language and dialects, their culture and traditions, their folklore and oral literature. Even worse, the average Egyptians are so uneducated, ignorant and dark that in their outright majority they never heard the name of that minority.
And, to add insult to injury, when someone speaks to average Egyptians about the existence of the Beja on Egyptian soil, the most common attitude of the average Egyptians is that they do not want to even learn few basic points about the Beja. This is due to the darkness of their fake Islam and to their uneducated, evil and cursed sheikhs, who diffuse among the average people a fallacious doctrine, presenting it as the ‘truth’. And as per the prescriptions of that doctrine, ‘Muslims’ (i.e. what these fake sheikhs idiotically believe that a Muslim is!) have to ignore and isolate the ‘other’ and focus on themselves and their ‘tradition’.
It will depict Egypt as a farcical caricature, but I must say it! Do not imagine that the Beja people in Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea preserve their traditional African religion, which had many affinities with the Ancient Egyptian and Cushitic religions and spirituality! The Beja are Muslims! However, I am sure that you heard something about Darfur. All the people who live in Darfur and the Furi Nation are Muslims; but they were massacred by the criminal Janjaweed pseudo-Muslims of Khartoum, namely all those evil gangsters who believe the Fake Islam of the pseudo-universities of Al Azhar (Cairo), Medina and Mecca.
Similarly, there is no Department of Nubian Studies in an Egyptian ‘university’ and there is not one Egyptian specialist, linguist, ethnographer, historian, philologist, archaeologist, culturologist, who studied the Nubians, their language and dialects, their culture and traditions, their folklore and oral literature. Nubians live in large parts of Egypt and the Sudan. From Edfu (Egypt) to Ad Dabbah (Sudan), Nubians live alongside the Nile for no less than 1000 km. Despite the significant use of Nubians that the Egyptian state makes within the context of Tourism, no further interest is shown to them. They have no schools in Nubian language and they are thus exposed to the Arabization policies pursued by the Cairo governments; this is the epitome of colonial servility toward the colonial masters and at the same time, it demonstrates the true nature of Modern Egypt: an Anglo-French-US colony that exists only to implement locally the policies ordered by the evil colonial metropolises.
It is there time to ask a logical question:
– Since the Egyptian universities and all the other state authorities and educational / research organizations never developed study programs or research projects and never organized academic courses or seminars about the Nubians, who constitute an important component of their own country, how can one possibly expect the disreputable pseudo-universities of that colonized territory, which is named ‘Egypt’ and is given a fanciful but truly meaningless seat at the UN General Assembly, to possibly develop an interest in studying other African nations that are located in neighboring countries like Sudan, Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia), Kenya, Uganda, etc.?
There was never a university department in Egypt to promote the study of, and the research about, the Sudanese Nuba, Berta, Anyuak, Nuer, and Dinka, the Kenyan-Ugandan Luo, and any other Nilo-Saharan nation in any sense (and I am referring particularly to Nilo-Saharan nations here, because the Nubians are one of them).
After all the aforementioned points, no one can possibly expect to find in Egypt people who are able to realize that
a- the fake theological doctrine that their ignorant sheikhs and imams ‘study’ has nothing to do with the true, historical Islam as documented on the basis of innumerable written sources,
b- the Berbers of NW Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania have far greater value than any worthless indoctrination either with political ideologies (like Pan-Arabism/Arab Nationalism) or via theological doctrines (such as Political Islam and Salafism), and
c- the Berbers must therefore become the great topic of due exploration, research, university study, publications, academic-educational concern, and average public interest (promoted through publications of books, references in the mass media, and movies).
For many people worldwide it will look unbelievable, but it is true! Although more than 10% of today’s Egyptians are Copts, there is not a single Department of Coptic History, Language, Literature, Linguistics, Art History, Culturology or History of Religion in an Egyptian University whereby all topics pertaining to Copts, their faith, culture and civilization to be properly studied and explored.
On the contrary, a counterfeit pseudo-university named Al Azhar (that you should call «one of the world’s most dangerous bogus-academic venues») diffuses obsolete and childish methods of study, academic forgery, intellectual pestilence, and unlimited theological disrespect for the ‘other’; the real purpose of ‘studying’ the major religions of today’s world in that bogus-university is to ‘prove’ that the other religions are ‘wrong’ and that the various mythologies are ‘material for children’s books’. In fact, today’s Al Azhar -which has absolutely nothing in common with the historical Al Azhar university before 700 years (no continuity and no comparison)- promotes incomprehensibility to the supreme stage of ‘science’, knowledge and wisdom.
Do you know how the pseudo-professors of Egypt’s Al Azhar «teach» Hindu religion? By reading modern English bibliography for the general public and by stupidly «evaluating» Hindu Mythology through their already rotten and inane pseudo-Islamic viewpoint! They are so fake and ridiculous that they don’t learn first the languages (ancient or modern) in which the basic sacred texts and historical theological dissertations have been written. This ‘darkness’ is taught as ‘science’ in Egypt where not one university offers graduate and postgraduate curriculum in Sanskrit and Prakrit Literature.
These useless pseudo-professors, who are paid with the taxes of the average Egyptians in order to perpetuate the ignorance and the darkness nationwide, thus continuing the vicious circle of pseudo-science and bogus-education, cannot understand symbols, myths, epics, transcendental wisdom, mysticism, spirituality, esotericism, codified terminology, semiotics, and a plethora of other key notions. Consequently, they think that the ancient mythologies, cosmogonies and messianic apocalypses (from Sumer, Elam, Akkad, Assyria and Babylon to the Hittites, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Iranians, the Turanian Tengrists, the Dravidians, and others), which constitute the Mankind’s greatest and closest (but also the most difficult to interpret) approach to the Divine World, are merely fairy tales for children.
In fact, Al Azhar represents the epicenter of intellectual contamination and covered Islamic terrorism, because the vitriolic paranoia that they teach constitutes the very foundation of anti-Islamic Islamism. Since 1801, they have therefore usurped the fair name of the historical Al Azhar medresa, which before 1000 or 500 years was a splendid center of wisdom, science, spirituality, knowledge, exploration and research.
At this point, you may want to ask what made the difference between Al Azhar’s illustrious academic past and execrable educational present. The response is relatively simple: two significant historical developments produced disastrous results, namely
a) the decadence of the Islamic World, which is due to the gradual prevalence of pseudo-Islamic, ignorant theologians like Ahmed ibn Hanbal and Ahmed ibn Taimiyyah, and
b) the colonization of the Ottoman province of Misir (Egypt), starting with Napoleon and his idiotic puppet, Muhammad Ali, who was a treacherous soldier gullible enough to believe the lies of the French and the English, who promised him for several decades that they would help him become the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
The tragi-comical situation in Egypt’s fake universities is still far worse than what someone can imagine as the world’s most degenerate conceptualization and most desperate materialization of ‘learning center’. The demented Egyptian ‘academics’ have set up departments of English Literature in their clownish universities, but there is not a single Department of Coptic Language, Literature, Theology, Art History and History.
The problem is essentially double: first, such departments must be organized and made available; second, and more importantly, once made available, these departments must attended by Egyptian students under following proportions: 10% Copts and 90% Muslims (i.e. corresponding to the nationwide percentage of both religions’ followers in Egypt). Otherwise, they would be nationally useless and academically-educationally mediocre.
What today’s average Egyptians cannot understand (and this is the reason of every governmental failure) is that the following is a perfect example of normal academic life (in two sides):
– an Egyptian Muslim professor of Coptic Grammar, correcting a Copt student and teaching him the details of the Copts’ holy language (Copts believe that Coptic, which is the continuation of Ancient Egyptian language written in Greek characters, is the very Angelic Language, the Only Holy among all human languages), and
– an Egyptian Copt professor of Islamic Hadith, correcting a Muslim student and teaching him the details of the chain of preservation (isnad) of a specific hadith.
To become educationally and academically normal, an Egyptian Muslim must accept the aforementioned example as a reality (for the Copts), learn it, explore it, pass a Ph.D. in this field, and then teach related topics at the academic level, pretty much like many Christian Orthodox Russian professors became top specialists in Tatar, Kazakh, Circassian, Chechen and other languages, and in the literature, the culture, the archaeology, and the History of Russia’s Muslim nations. And the same is also valid for the Egyptian Copt (the other side of the example).
IV. Victims of Academic-Educational-Intellectual-Cultural Colonialism, today’s Egyptians do not learn their own History, while also ignoring Islamic History and Civilization
Critical periods of Egyptian History, notably the Christian and Islamic times, are extensively documented within major historical works on national importance for today’s Egypt, namely the Coptic Chronicle of Nikiu and the Chronicle of Severus ibn al Muqaffa, which is also known as History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, but not one Egyptian knows a word about them — except of course the Copts.
But the Copts are forced to learn about their past, which is Egypt’s past (whereas the lives of Prophet Muhammad’s companions are not), in church seminars that are conducted under terrible worry and real fear, and with the repressive feeling that clandestine activities are being conducted in this manner! About:
Still, these Coptic Chronicles testify to many critical historical points of Egypt’s History during the Christian and Islamic times, and if the texts were duly mentioned in the Egyptian Secondary Education and adequately revealed in public, they would generate great sensation, thus fully impacting the country’s pathetic foreign policy, ludicrous stance in international relations, ill-fated approach toward African countries, and overall orientation. Today’s ignorant and idiotic Egyptians’ ‘common sense’ would appear to them in its exact dimensions and nature: nonsensical.
There are even translations of these Coptic Chronicles in Western languages, but none in Modern Arabic; even worse, there are no modern Egyptian authors to have published about, commented on, and referred to these texts. On the contrary, there is an effort to keep the texts concealed and the Egyptians unaware of these historical sources and plunged in the fallacies that the gangsters of the Western embassies and consulates in Egypt diffuse. This shows how correct I am in my analysis.
If these texts were made publicly known, they would trigger several socio-political surprises (that the Western diplomats want to permanently avert):
– the anti-Western Muslims would be tremendously satisfied and they would start respecting and revering the true, historical Christianity, due to the Christian Coptic rejection of the West’s pseudo-Christian dogma and Fake Jesus; and
– the pro-Western Copts and the pro-Western Muslims would be dissatisfied because their immoral, debased and paranoid admiration of the West would prove to be a suicidal act that deforms Kemet’s/Masr’s true historical identity and religious integrity and consists in a shame for today’s Egyptian society.
Of course, even more displeased would be the colonial elites of France, England, Vatican, USA, etc., because many of their lies would be exposed to historical truth. It is therefore high time to ask the following question:
– who wants to keep this historical documentation unknown to today’s Egyptians?
The answer is simple: the colonial gangsters and their local puppets, e.g. the pro-Western (or westernized) Egyptians and the Islamists; despite their apparent opposition, these two groups are emphatically identical (like the two sides of the same coin), because they form the two parts of the fake debate that the colonial gangsters installed in Egypt (similarly with what they did in all of their other colonies) in order to
a) remove the local interest from whatever helps Egyptians achieve self-awareness, national identity formulation, proper nation-building, and cultural integrity retention, and
b) divert the local interest toward nonexistent or fake issues that pull Egypt down to the swamp of ignorance and self-destruction.
Another very simple example: every average Egyptian knows about the famous Coptic family of businessmen named Sawiris; but nobody among them knows that Sawiris is merely the Arabic deformation of the Coptic name Severus, which is Latin of origin.
Why do this darkness and this deep ignorance exist?
Because the Egyptians never became a nation; they never achieved self-awareness, self-knowledge and self-identification. These developments were due to the fact that they were the target of the French, English and American colonial gangsters of whom I spoke in previous parts of my correspondence, and the Egyptians did not realize the subtle forms of academic-educational-intellectual-cultural colonialism and they did not timely and properly react against them. This monstrous disfigurement of the local population’s identity was in reality the epicenter of the colonization process in Egypt.
Since extreme ignorance, barbarism, idiocy and misery prevail in today’s Egypt, how can one expect them to set up a Department of Linguistics in which to explore the cataclysmic influence of the Coptic language on the modern language and dialects that the Egyptians speak, calling them Modern or Common Arabic? In fact, their dialects constitute a mixed form of language, not ‘Arabic’. If one wishes to know why today’s Egyptians do not study, do not want to study, and even are not allowed (by their colonial masters) to study the tremendous impact of Coptic on their modern dialects, the answer will be very simple.
Because in this case the colonially fabricated, diffused and imposed myth of Pan-Arabism would collapse automatically! And this falsehood of Pan-Arabism is not the Egyptians’ or others’ invention or fabrication; it is the vicious distortion of History undertaken by the French academia since the time of Napoleon.
This is the colonial felony by which the local population remained always a mentally, behaviorally, educationally, intellectually, academically and culturally handicapped populace, an invalid mass of totally incapacitated pseudo-Egyptians, who cannot understand what happened to them, let alone how and by what evildoing they were reduced to such extreme misery and abysmal debilitation.
So, what is today’s ‘Egypt’ after all?
Merely a failed technical entity, a non-nation, and a nonexistent state that propagates the self-destructive falsehood (that was created by that populace’s worst enemies, i.e. their colonial masters) as per which the Egyptians are «Arab»; that’s why their otherwise shameful state is called Jumhuriyah Masr al-Arabiyah, which literally means «Republic of the Arab Masr».
But in reality, not a drop of Arab blood flows in the veins of the Egyptians. Unless they overthrow this fallacy and they find their true identity, they will never function normally as a nation, as a state, and as a people.
So, you understand that all this generates an explosive social situation. It is so dramatic and calamitous that an Oromo can understand it quite well through the next two sentences:
– An Amhara or Tigray knows an Oromo (and vice versa) better than a Muslim Egyptian knows a Copt (and vice versa).
– A Waaqeffatta Oromo knows about Tewahedo Christianity and a Tigray, an Amhara and a Gurage know about Waaqeffanna more than a Muslim Egyptian knows about Coptic Monophysitic Christianity and a Copt knows about Islam.
If such is the execrable ignorance and the prevailing darkness that prevail among Egypt’s fake educational, academic, intellectual, journalistic and scientific circles, how do you expect Egyptians to possible know or study Sudan, Libya and then become acquainted with what happened in the past and what currently happens in other lands like Abyssinia, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, etc.?
The same ignorance and the same darkness are also attested in Egypt’s fake educational, academic, intellectual, journalistic and scientific circles, when it comes to Islam and the Islamic civilization. Do not be surprised!
By the way, many times, all my Egyptian friends have heard vividly angry words of denunciation and rejection from me, because I repeatedly had animated discussions with them, during which I totally dismissed their idea and imagination that «they are Muslims». They truly know nothing of Islam.
All they know about Islam is an array of unnecessary narratives about the life of Prophet Muhammad, his wives, his relatives and all the details that are totally irrelevant to the Spirituality that Prophet Muhammad embodied, to the Moral Principles that he preached, and the Life Paradigm that he taught throughout his life. They fail to perceive Islam as an array of spiritual and moral principles to which they must adjust all of their acts; then the end result of this nonsense is that there are too many words in their unwise mouths, too little knowledge in their empty minds, and too much evilness in their deeds, which are in total contradiction with their hypocritical words.
I must admit that this situation does not concern only the Egyptian Muslims, but many other nations from Morocco to Indonesia; however, since we examine now what the Oromos can expect from Egypt, it is worthy discussing the phenomenon to some extent with focus on Egypt.
Even worse, Egyptian Muslims are engulfed in an extremely false delusion of Islam, which derives from their focus on useless narratives, and they have difficulty to accurately discern the reality and to understand me and what I say and mean. I will therefore give you some details:
Not only has no Egyptian known about the following topics -which are critical for a proper, pertinent knowledge of Islam-, not only there is no mention of the topics below in the Secondary Education manuals in Egypt, but also there is no department or faculty in an Egyptian ‘university’ that offers curricula on these topics:
b- the great Islamic monuments (palaces, caravanserais, castles, defensive walls, imperial tombs, etc.) in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Bosnia, Albania, Indonesia, Malaysia, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Senegal, Nigeria and elsewhere;
c- the great Islamic observatories of Maragheh (Iran, 13th c.) and Samarqand (Uzbekistan, 15th c.) that were those times’ most advanced learned centers in Astronomy and Astrology worldwide;
d- the art of the Iranian, Turkic-Central Asiatic, and Mughal book, miniatures and painting;
e- anything substantive as regards the Islamic sciences from their establishment (mainly in late 7th c.-early 8th c.) until the 16th c.; this fact has a calamitous result because over the past two centuries colonial academics and experts totally altered the contents of the Islamic sciences fully misinterpreting them;
{Even worse, dozens of thousands of Islamic times’ scientific manuscripts are kept hidden and deliberately unstudied in Western libraries and museums, because the systems and the methods of the Islamic sciences (which were the continuation, the extension and the amelioration of the Ancient Oriental, Sumerian, Assyrian-Babylonian, Egyptian, Aramaean, Turanian and Iranian, sciences) stand in total opposition to the Modern Western sciences, therefore rejecting the fallacious results, conclusions, assumptions, and distortions of the modern Western academic-scientific establishment.}
f- all the Islamic times’ spiritual masters, mystics, sages, erudite scholars, alchemists, polymaths, explorers, thinkers, philosophers, epic poets, historians, linguists, natural scientists, astronomers, and authors; the very few Islamic times’ scholars and intellectuals who are familiar to today’s Egyptians are known only as names; their works are not read, their contents are not mentioned in high school courses, and there are no university seminars about them; great Islamic spiritual movements that determined the historical developments in large parts of the Islamic world are totally unknown in Egypt;
g- the Islamic History of almost all the Islamic realms is totally unknown to the Egyptians and scrupulously kept out of both, the Secondary Education historical manuals and the university course paperbacks; absolutely nothing is known to the Egyptians about the History of Islamic Times from Andalusia to the Khanate of Siberia, from Abbasid Baghdad to the great Islamic empires of the 16th-18th c. (Ottoman Caliphate, Safavid Iran, Mughal Empire of South Asia), and from the East African Somali and Bantu sultanates to the Hausa Kingdom of Zaria where the warrior Queen Amina — only before 400 hundred years — was leading her troops at the battlefield, drawing her sword while engaging in frontal battles with the armies of the enemies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amina; you understand of course that, when ignorant pseudo-Muslim sheikhs and imams ‘teach’ the stupidity that a Muslim woman must wear ‘hejab’, they cannot possibly want people to know about the illustrious Muslim queen of West Africa. Knowledge of true History destroys their evil, pseudo-Islamic doctrines.).
V. Ignorance-based Pseudo-religion of today’s Egyptians and their Political Manipulation by the Colonial Powers
Actually, this ignorance about the true, historical Islam, which characterizes today’s Muslims, is the main reason for the appearance of Islamic terrorism, extremism, and radicalism, which is condemned by all hypocritical pseudo-authorities of today’s fake Islam, but as phenomenon it survives and expands. The fallacious pseudo-Islamic teachings of all fake Islamic universities worldwide teach tyrannically a fake Islam that never existed and they systematically do not teach and try to erase the true, historical Islam, as it is documented in all the historical sources. They want to impose their debased theological doctrine as ‘Islam’, deleting the true, well-documented History of Islamic World.
The ensuing result is today’s very tragic reality; in fact there is no theoretical, theological, ideological, and – more importantly – behavioral difference between
a) all the average (and fake) Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere across the Muslim world, and
b) the Islamic terrorist groups.
Simply, the former denounce, and are ordered by their hypocritical pseudo-sheikhs and bogus-imams to denounce the terrorists’ acts. But the beliefs of the former are identical – for at least ca. 95%-99% – with the ideas of the latter. I can tell you what! Prepare an entire team ready to undertake a major research project as per the steps below:
I- First, visit 500 Islamic terrorists and extremists in the jails where they are imprisoned and write down their responses to 100 questions about key points pertaining to Islam and to the correct behavior of a Muslim in daily life!
II- Then, keep their responses (500 in total) aside (500 persons’ responses to 100 questions)!
III- Second, undertake an even longer and wider investigation! Go to 50 different Muslim countries and in each of them interrogate 1000 average people that you will pay for their time to respond to the same 100 questions about key points pertaining to Islam and to the correct behavior of a Muslim in daily life.
IV- You will thus collect 50000 responses (50000 persons’ responses to 100 questions).
V- then, spend time to compare the 50000 responses of the «average Muslims» with the 500 responses of the imprisoned Islamic terrorists and extremists!
Your conclusion will be that the two groups of interviewees offer absolutely identical responses as regards the Questionnaire (the 100 key points pertaining to Islam); I can guarantee this to you, so that you save time and money! However, if a research center does truly undertake a research project like that, the analytical publication of the results will terminate once for all the calamitous delusion imposed by evil politicians, military, pseudo-academics, bogus-intellectuals and the world’s vicious mainstream media on this critical topic. To describe the situation in a most accurate and very brief manner, I will only point out the following:
The average (and fake) Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere across the Muslim world, and the Islamic terrorist groups, if truly examined as regards their beliefs, ideas, convictions, attitudes and behaviors, will prove to be communicating vessels.
However, if all the Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere knew the true History of Islam, i.e. the true historical Islam, they would know that in Islamic Andalusia (Iberian Peninsula) — that the Islamic terrorists, extremists, and fundamentalists, as well as an enormous number of average Muslims want to convert to Islam by force in the near future — there were male prostitutes for women wishing to satisfy their needs.
This is the true Islam, as lived and practiced across the centuries, when Muslims excelled in sciences, arts, letters, spirituality and intellectual explorations; I don’t say that this situation is correct or wrong. I say that every true civilization has its heights and its depths, but no civilization comes out of the execrable theology, the pseudo-doctrine of today’s imams, and the political ideology of their followers, which are only some of the byproducts of the phenomenon of intellectual-academic-cultural colonialism. These degenerate imams and the besotted political leaders of today’s Muslim world do not represent any continuity of the pre-colonial Islamic societies; they do not originate from Timur, Babur, Ismail Safavi, or Selim I (to name some outstanding Muslim emperors). Today’s Muslim world’s theological, ideological and political heads originate – without even understanding it – from their French, English and American colonial masters, who through sophisticated machinations drove them to the barbarism and the ignorance in which they find themselves.
Again, I must beg you not to misunderstand me! I don’t mean that prostitution and free sex are the guarantee of spiritual, intellectual, scientific, artistic and academic progress and advance! No! Not all! But the underlying factors of the empires in which Islamic spirituality, art, literature, sciences and intellectual life excelled were
a) freedom of imagination, spirituality, learning, knowledge, creativity, action and exploration («there is no compulsion in religion»; Quran, Al-Baqara, 256);
b) focus on the important and indifference for the unimportant — which is an indispensable precondition for every genius, creativity, and success in the spiritual, intellectual and material life;
c) perception of spirituality and religion as principles and as divine ideas, as fundamental concepts and as a divine invitation to each individual, calling for human perfection — which have nothing to do with silly and ignorant theologians’ interference in the lives of others;
d) passion for, and dedication to, the virtue, the truth, and the search for truth in parallel with full abnegation of convenient «language» that takes into account filthy, material, personal, social or royal interests;
e) absolute disrespect for material interests, disregard for pathetic compromises, lack of conventional attitude, absence of conformism, rejection of every type of sectarian mentality, and refusal of trivial bargaining meant to accommodate interests by finding justifications and pretexts; and
f) total readiness to die for values, virtue and faith, which is tantamount to overwhelming condemnation of the fallacy that «material life» consists in a value (at this point, it has to be reminded that the aforementioned condemnation is attested in every historical society, civilization, culture and religion).
Amongst others, Ibn Hazm, one of the Islamic Golden Era’s greatest moralists, erudite scholars, polymaths and philosophers, lived too in Islamic Andalusia. Contrarily to today’s racist, misogynist, pseudo-Muslim theologians, trashy muftis, and bogus-imams, Ibn Hazm specified that there could be, there may have been or there were female prophets.
In Andalusia, there was even discussion about another, forthcoming revelation (another holy book after the Quran) after the End of Time.
The tragic ignorance of Islamic History by the Egyptian Muslims (and by most of the Muslims worldwide) is the reason for which they believe all the pathetic lies that are diffused by the worthless and illiterate pseudo-sheikhs and theologians. The idiotic rejection of the idea that women can be hereditary or non-hereditary heads of state is contradicted by the historical truth of many Islamic queens. By this, I don’t mean royal consorts, but the sole rulers of their realms, i.e. they exercised full governance. Queen Arwa as Sulayhi of Yemen is an example that goes back to the 11th-12th c. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arwa_al-Sulayhi)
Even worse, this extreme ignorance of the real, historical Islam condemns the Egyptians and other Muslims to completely accept and believe deceitful schemes of political nature that the colonial powers are able to mount every now and then.
Ignorant Egyptians (of all levels form the lowest to the top, universities included) do not know that the entire territory of Russia and Siberia was for many long centuries an Islamic land and that many Muslims of different nations live in Russia today; nothing related to their history, language, literature and culture is known in Egypt. Consequently, Egyptians are unable to enter into contact with them or to shape a foreign policy that takes into account this reality.
Similarly, ignorant Egyptians know nothing about the early 16th. c. great Somali Emperor Ahmed ibn Ibrahim Gurey, who is viciously reduced to merely an «imam» by colonial gangsters and forgers whose distortive presentations are mentioned in the fallacious Wikipedia. Ahmed ibn Ibrahim invaded the entire Abyssinia and dispersed the Amhara pseudo-kingdom’s barbarian soldiers, only to be prevented by the colonial Portuguese from permanently consolidating his victory forever. Yet, the main historical source for the events that took place in the early 16th c. Horn of Africa region is written in Arabic by the great Yemenite historian Shehab al din Ahmad (Futuh al Habasha / the Conquest of Abyssinia). This book is de facto more important than any Islamic theological literature for any African Muslim and for any African in general, because it constitutes the first page of the 5-century long anti-colonial struggle of the Black Continent. Egypt’s idiotic and useless sheikhs and muftis want the average Egyptians to be unaware of one of Africa’s and Islam’s most glorious moments and to know only the nonsensical theological doctrine that they present to them as «Islam», so that the Egyptians are thus permanently held captives as colonial slaves of the Satanic West.
And how could the Egyptians know about this historical text (the Conquest of Abyssinia), since not one Egyptian high school pupil has ever had a historical manual that included excerpts from Tabari’s History of the Prophets and the Kings – which would be indispensable for them so that they are taken seriously as Muslims?
Tabari is the Islamic World’s greatest historian and one of the leading theologians and jurisprudential authorities; his Tarikh al Rusul wa al Muluk covers the pre-Islamic History of the Orient and the Islamic History until the early 10th c. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Tabari and
To be sincere and truthful, things are simple at the level of Secondary Education. In Italian high schools, Italian pupils read (in Modern Italian translation), within the context of their courses about the History of Ancient Rome and the Roman Empire
excerpts from Caesar, Seneca, Tacitus and other historical texts written in Latin. In Greek high schools, Greek pupils read, within the context of their courses about the History of Ancient Greece, excerpts from Herodotus, Thucydides and other Ancient Greek historians (in Modern Greek translation).
But in Egyptian high schools, Egyptian pupils do not read, within the context of their courses about the History of Ancient Egypt, the History of Roman & Coptic Egypt, and the History of Egypt during Islamic times, any excerpts from Ancient Egyptian, Coptic and Arabic historical texts (in Modern Arabic translations). This is what makes the chaotic difference between Italy and Egypt at the educational, academic, intellectual and subsequently political levels.
This ignorance results in total disconnection of the Egyptians (of all social levels) from other Muslim countries, from the Christian world, and from the rest of Africa, Asia and Europe. This happens only to the great benefit of the colonial powers that deployed a great part of effort over the past 223 years in order to achieve this –so catastrophic for Egypt- situation. This is the true, deep and lethal colonialism.
* Dedicated to the outstanding paradigm, the enlightening path, the indomitable bravery, and the paramount valor of Hachalu Hundessa, the World’s Greatest 20th-century Hero
For a major, African, subjugated nation, like the Oromos of East Africa, who are comprised within the tyrannical colonial state of Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia) and the neo-colonial construction named ‘Kenya’, any perspective of alliance with a regionally important state would make sense in view of their struggle for national independence and cultural self-determination. Particularly, if there are serious fields of cooperation against a common enemy! Undoubtedly, the criminal state of Abyssinia, which is the world’s most disreputable cenotaph, has produced several enemies over the past 170 years, as it expanded at the detriment of many African kingdoms and it attempted to interfere in the affairs of other nations or deprive neighboring states from natural resources.
If one takes into consideration Egypt’s dependence on the Nile, Abyssinia’s (Fake Ethiopia’s) paranoid effort to erect an unnecessary, enormous dam in the Blue Nile (https://www.dw.com/en/five-ways-mega-dams-harm-the-environment/a-53916579 / https://archive.internationalrivers.org/earthquakes-triggered-by-dams), the ensuing colossal dangers (either environmental or geomorphological), the vicious, historical hatred of Egypt (under all regimes, namely Mamluk, Ottoman, Khedivial, royal and republican) that the Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians have harbored for no less than seven (7) centuries, and the history of the relationship between the two states over the past 200 years, one concludes that the alliance with the Oromos must appear as a great opportunity to the present rulers of Egypt (by ‘present’ I mean all the administrations starting by the year 2010 when the Blue Nile dam definitely became an urgent matter for Cairo).
Unfortunately, this is not the case; the Cairo despots do not see this eventuality as an opportunity. Worse, they have no idea about the Oromos. Even worse, they don’t even know themselves in the first place. It appears truly bizarre, but in fact, it is not.
Historical identity, moral-cultural integrity, educational-social self-awareness, identity-based governance, comprehensive understanding of international relations, and accurate perception of all the factors involved in the bilateral relationships (Egypt-Abyssinia/Egypt-Oromos) do not exist among the governors of Egypt. Even worse, the entire Egyptian elite (academic, religious, economic, administrative, military, political) is totally ignorant and therefore absolutely unable to see clearly things, developments, factors, plans and perspectives at least at an acceptable level.
In fact, the previous paragraph functions as a negative conclusion as regards the evaluation of a potential Oromo – Egyptian systematized alliance and methodical cooperation. However, it is worthy for all Oromos to duly assess the depth of the problem, because by describing Egypt’s inability to act according to its own obvious, national interests, one reveals the essence of Western colonialism and the evil deeds that the colonial powers of France and England and their successor, namely the US, performed across the territories that they colonized.
That’s why I will publish now, in a series of articles, my correspondence with a US-based Oromo scholar, intellectual and activist, who wrote to me few months ago to ask my opinion about the topic. What follows here is the first part of the correspondence.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Thabo Jaiyesimi/SOPA Images/Shutterstock (10701160c)
A justice for Haacaaluu placard during the demonstration.
Ethiopian Oromo community in London protest demanding justice for Slain singer, Haacaaluu Hundeessaa. Haacaaluu sang in the Oromo language, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and his music became the melody of a protest movement that helped bring down Ethiopia’s government in 2018.
Ethiopian Oromo community protest in London, UK – 03 Jul 2020ST PAUL, MN – JULY 08: Members of the Oromo community march in protest after the death of musician and revolutionary Hachalu Hundessa on July 8, 2020 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The protesters called for Internet service to be restored in Ethiopia that was shut down on June 30. Community leaders also urged the U.S. to aid in the release of Oromian and American prisoners. This latest protest follows the death of Hundessa, who was murdered in Ethiopia on June 29. His death has sparked ongoing protests around the world. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
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First response to your questions about the chances of a cooperation of Egypt with Oromos (dispatched on 16th October)
Dear D.,
Hope you are doing well and you have got a basic idea about everyday life in Egypt thanks to my earlier email! All those points were merely an introduction. Now comes more! I will now respond to the following points that you made in your emails of 5.10.2020 and 11.10.2020.
Excerpt from your email of 5.10.2020:
Why wouldn’t Egypt support our struggle? What shall we do to shift power balance towards ourselves in that empire?
Excerpt from your email of 11.10.2020:
You are right. Several books could be written on why Egypt is not supporting the Oromo struggle and why the Oromo and other oppressed nations in the Ethiopian empire are not free yet after the relative end of colonialism in many countries.
I know Egypt has many internal issues and problems. Still, we have mutual interests: we need support in our struggle, and Ethiopia threatens their Blue Nile river water resource. If this does not make us friends, I don’t know what could. I look forward to reading your further explanations.
I know J. D., who resides in Belgium. He is a dedicated Oromo advocate and lives to serve our nation. Thank you for sharing his biography. It makes sense that he has also been asking the same questions.
So, dear D., you may wonder why of all Oromos, Oromo academics, Oromo politicians, Oromo liberation fronts’ activists and leading advocates and Oromo parliamentarians I chose J. D. to mention in my previous email.
I. An Early but Failed Oromo Effort to establish Political Contacts with the Mubarak administration
The reason is that what you ask me about the chances of cooperation between Egypt and the Oromos is a topic that I extensively discussed with him already back in 2010. It is an entire story and it is quite revelatory; that is why I will discuss it with you now.
No! Contrarily to your assumption, I never met him physically. We exchanged emails and telephone calls. As my articles about the Oromos and many other oppressed nations in Africa and Asia were extensively discussed, J. contacted me first and, of course, I replied enthusiastically. This started a cooperation that lasted several years but lost momentum after I had to concentrate on other issues for quite long, starting by the year 2012.
In 2010, beyond many other topics I was expanding on, I published numerous many articles and series of articles about the Nile dispute issue, several interviews with Oromo politicians, liberation front leaders, and activists. I also wrote much, defining what Egypt’s and Sudan’s correct stance toward Abyssinia should be. I made known several serious dangers lingering for Egypt and Sudan because of very old, existing Abyssinian and Zionist plans against these two lands. Last, I extensively featured the Russian Czarist envoy Bulatovich’s expedition in Abyssinia (which took place back in the 1990s) and his books, re-publishing sizeable excerpts. In only 2010, I published 465 articles online. Quite unfortunately, all three portals where I used to publish my articles (American Chronicle, Buzzle, and AfroArticles) have closed down for various reasons in the period 2013-2015. Some of my articles are still available online — mainly republished at the time or slightly later in several blogs, sites, and fora.
As a matter of fact, in the period 2004-2013, I published in total more than 1800 online articles. When the portals were gradually closed, I decided to open an account in academia.edu in order to mainly republish all these articles. You probably know my account: https://independent.academia.edu/ShamsaddinMegalommatis
Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to publish more than 320-350 articles (out of ca. 1800 articles) until now. In total, you will find 493 articles in my account, but there are also many other articles (published before 2004), speeches, books, comments on my articles, mentions, quotations, new articles, etc.
I hope that soon I will start republishing again more articles from that period and that one day I will be able to complete the republication process, which means that I still have another 1400 articles to republish! Recently, when in Aswan, I managed to republish the 29-article series about Bulatovich’s expedition (as per the above mentioned description of my 2010 articles’ contents). Here you have the links to the 29 republished articles:
However, before discussing the topic about the possibility of an Oromo – Egyptian alliance, I find it necessary to make a distinction between two points. As a matter of fact, there is an enormous difference between
a. writing about the need of Egypt to support the liberation of the Oromos, the formation of an independent Oromia, and the total dismemberment and annihilation of the rancorous, tyrannical and inhuman state of Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia) — which would automatically cancel the evil project of the dam in Benishangul,
and
b. anticipating that Egyptians (as state, government, diplomats, academics, military, journalists, etc.) understand this need as real for Egypt.
A chaos separates these two points. Yes, it is worthy writing about it. By so doing, you certainly tell the truth. The possibility and the potential benefits of this alliance must be pointed out; this is good for all. But no! You must not anticipate that this truth will be understood by the Egyptian elites. Actually, to properly comprehend the need for this alliance, the Egyptian elites must cease to be who they have been ever since Napoleon invaded the Valley of the Nile (1798) and the French colonized and deformed the local people.
But unfortunately, J. did not read my articles correctly and accurately. He took them very enthusiastically. That was very wrong. He did not ask me even once «how will this alliance be achieved?» or «do the Egyptians realize that this alliance is a real need for their survival?» or «how can we make the Egyptians understand that an alliance with us, the Oromos, constitutes a real need for their own survival?».
So, J. took these articles of mine at face value, thinking that the only thing that was left to be done was only the initiation of some contacts and the preparation of an agenda of common activities. That was thoughtless, counter-productive, and therefore useless.
Even worse, my discussion of the topic with J. occurred in the second half of 2010, when I already knew that numerous regional regimes in Asia and Africa were under imminent threat of prompt destruction, due to advanced subversion activities that had been carried out for long without the idiotic local dictators ever understanding anything. What was silly and inane? Example: it was cretinous for Mubarak to think that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were his friends and trusted allies. It was the disreputable, criminal prostitute Hillary Clinton who was calling Mubarak on Friday 28th January 2011 to urge him to resign because there were “some dead in Tahrir Square”! If your allies are like this, how will your enemies be?
What was later called (in a most fallacious and ludicrous manner) «Arab Spring» (it was not Arab, because there are no Arabs except for Saudi Arabia, and it was not a spring but inimical foreign involvement) had already been known to me perfectly well as the preparatory work for the long-planned project «Greater Israel» (which basically failed – at least until now) as early as 2006-2007. Erdogan’s rise was already part of the entire project, and this is one of the reasons, I have totally rejected this ignorant and idiotic person, publishing extensively and systematically against him and clashing with many of my Turkish compatriots. Examples:
In October 2010, I was expecting the impending end of Mubarak, because I had vast information about the preparatory work carried out across the country; actually, a great number of local and international sources were then updating me on daily basis. The rhythm of the preparations was so frenzied that one could even give dates of the planned events that took place few months later. Furthermore, I also knew at the time that the government and the Mubarak family knew absolutely nothing of what was underway. It was clear that they would be swept away like a tree’s fallen leaf gone with the wind.
It was then that J. asked me to prepare for him some contacts with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because he intended to come to Cairo. Of course, I tried to dissuade him. I told him that it was premature; I explained that an enormous preparatory work should first take place, involving contacts with journalists, the formation of a group of Cairo-based Oromos (with whom I had already dense contacts and who were fluent in Arabic and could therefore translate from Afaan Oromo to Arabic), and the detailed elaboration of an agenda as per which well informed, through my numerous past articles and many more forthcoming ones, following meetings with me and the Cairo-based Oromos, and thanks to the enumeration of all points of the entire spectrum of issues pertaining to Egypt-Sudan and Abyssinia, several famous Egyptian journalists and academics would be at last motivated to expand on all these topics in Arabic, publish much about them and on regular, systematic basis, and ultimately to contact diplomats and ministers in view of the subsequent formation of a real tsunami for a much needed, new East African policy of Egypt.
Do not think that this process would be easy or short-term!
And do not imagine that it would not meet resistance or opposition in Egypt itself already!
The tendency to «do nothing while in government» has deep roots in the French colonization of Egypt back in 1798.
But all this was incomprehensible for J., who viewed Egypt as a real country and a regional power, which is very false. Any portion of regional influence that Egypt may be exercising every now and then is exclusively due to foreign, colonial authorization and nothing more. However, despite his troublesome hastiness and complete unpreparedness, I still consider J. as far better and more realistic than any other Oromo politician, activist, scholar, advocate and liberation movement leader, when it comes to efforts in view of Biyya Oromo’s liberation. But one must have some idea about the technical know-how in the local political making.
I told him that he had to spare the journey, but I was not listened to. I told him that I would be dishonest with myself, if I met him personally during his stay in Cairo for few days. I gave him the telephone numbers of some Cairo-based Oromo friends of mine and he contacted and met them, but I did not meet him. It was November 2010; his trip brought of course no results, and writing to me from Belgium, J. finally accepted that I was right to advise him not to come, because it was «too early». Long preparations had to be undertaken, before he came. He realized that the people whom he met in the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs were ignorant and knew nothing of East Africa. Truly nothing!
Well, in less than 3 months after his visit to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government and the president of Egypt were already overthrown. This concludes the case about the uselessness of that trip. I wanted to narrate this story to you as a preamble to my complete response about your «otherwise logical» suggestion! After the above you can guess what will come as next, I mean as proper part of response.
Words do not exist to describe the Egyptian inaptitude, ignorance, and idiocy at all levels (and mainly the governmental one); however, do not think that Egypt is an isolated case! Not at all! All colonized or semi-colonized countries have been fooled, deceived, and misled by the colonial powers. It is a vast topic; so immense it is that you cannot grasp even a small portion of it. But you will understand what I will describe to you in my response’s main part, because you, as an Oromo, are better off than an average Egyptian or Syrian or Algerian or Pakistani or Turkish Islamist or Nigerian or Malay or Indonesian (although this may seem to you difficult to believe now).
Look at this extreme Egyptian idiocy: early January 2011, Gaddafi traveled to Cairo and thence he continued with Mubarak on Egypt’s presidential airplane further to Khartoum to say to Sudan’s Al-Bashir not to accept South Sudan’s secession and independence. The idiots! Few months later they were overthrown! Little idiot of Mubarak and what a pity for his useless country! They woke up in December 2010! Hahahaha! The idiots!
Do you know how late they were? My articles will show this to you! The following titles and dates are taken from the following link that I already added earlier.
II. No Liberation without True Understanding of the Nature of Colonialism
Your main problem in this regard is not that you, all the Oromos, don’t know Egypt, but the fact that you don’t understand truly and in depth what colonialism is. You are not alone in this. Many nations and state administrations believe that they have formed independent countries, but they are wrong in their assumptions. As a matter of fact, a great effort has been deployed by the colonial powers themselves in this regard; one can truly find an abundant literature against colonialism worldwide. To no avail!
It is all useless and wrong. And it is all written by fake enemies of the colonial powers and false opponents of colonialism; I mean that they think they oppose the colonial powers whereas in reality they help them greatly. Worse, this enormous but erroneous literature is supported, paid and diffused by the colonial powers because it greatly serves them as smokescreen. What do you read in all these useless books and articles? Condemnation of the economic exploitation and of the political interference carried out by the colonial powers against the colonized nations.
That’s silly, pathetic and evil, because it hides the most tragic truth that opened the way for the entire annihilation of the Mankind, which is very close.
Economic exploitation, social intrusion, political interference and military utilization of another nation’s resources are totally unimportant. These conditions matter for less than 0.1% of the colonization process.
The real essence of colonialism, the abysmal destruction that it causes, the irrevocable extermination that it brings about, the most disastrous effect of this criminal and evil act are to be found at totally different, and far more important, levels.
The aforementioned levels (economic, social, political and military) are all various dimensions of material life. Unquestionably, material life is totally unimportant for humans, for faithful humans, for Waaqeffatas, for Muslims, for Christians, for Buddhists and others.
The only dimension that matters in a human’s life is the spiritual existence. We are primarily souls. We come -only for a brief passage of 100 years or even less- from the spiritual universe that is infinite to the tiny material universe, which has nothing in common with the fallacy of the so-called ‘space’ and the absurd and nonsensical narratives of today’s pseudo-scholars about galaxies. Our spiritual identity and integrity is all that matters to every human, who has not yet been turned into an atheist and materialistic, consumerist and sexist animal ready for due annihilation and merciless extermination.
The spiritual identity of a human involves all important activities of the Civilized Man: cult, meditation, prayer, moral behavior, values and virtues, religion and theology, traditions and literature, arts and wisdom, knowledge and education, culture and civilization. The initial point has always been only spirituality.
Only as a Spiritual Being, i.e. as a Soul, the human being has an identity. In the impossible but theoretical assumption of a material being without soul, the human being has no identity and no value at all.
The same is also valid for all nations: nations of millions or thousands of people. The numbers do not make any difference. Quality matters, not quantity.
Without their cultural identity, without their spiritual integrity, without their traditional values, without their moral principles, without their conception of the universe and without their perception of their position and role in it, nations simply do not exist — and even worse, they do not need to exist, because without the above-mentioned qualifications, nations are useless.
This is what the colonial powers (and the materialistic circles that control them from the backstage, i.e. the powers that be) attacked and tried to destroy in all colonized nations.
Their method was simple, but it went unnoticed. It has not been detected by anyone until now: the colonial powers created fake identities for each subjugated, colonized nation, and they projected these fake identities onto these subjugated, colonized nations. Their local stooges carried out exactly this work. And the result was the complete deformation of the subjugated, colonized nations’ identities and their substitution by fake identities that only destroy those who accept them.
Who were the lucky ones in this calamitous process?
III. Are the Oromos less colonized than the ‘Egyptians’ and the ‘Greeks’? Yes! And that’s why!
The nations that have been so marginalized by the colonial agenda and because of the associated developments! These nations were not targeted directly by the colonial powers. I can give you some examples; nations like the Greeks, the Turks, the Turkmens, the Azeris, the Persians of Iran, the Aramaeans of Lebanon, Syria and Mesopotamia, the Copts (: the ‘Egyptians’, of Christian or Muslim faith), the Berbers of NW Africa, the Uzbeks, the Punjabis, the Bengalis, the Dravidians of the Deccan (so-called South India), the Somalis, the Chechens and the Tatars were directly targeted by the colonial powers.
Contrarily to the aforementioned nations, smaller or remoter nations like the Nubians, the Furis (Darfur), the Bejas, the Bertas, the Kaffas, the Sidamas, the Oromos, the Agaw, the Nuer, the Mahris of Eastern Hadhramaut, the Yazidis, and many others were not directly targeted by the colonial powers. These nations suffered only because of developments triggered by the colonial powers. That’s why they retained their culture, faith, identity and moral integrity.
Undoubtedly, these nations lived the process of extreme marginalization as a nightmare. But they cannot understand that they are indeed luckier than the non-marginalized nations, i.e. all those that became «sovereign» nations but with an altered and distorted identity. More specifically, the Oromos today are really luckier than the ‘Egyptians’ and the ‘Greeks’. Simply, the Oromos don’t know the reality, because they never studied the impact of Western colonization on the Eastern Romans (Romioi or Rumlar) or the Copts. If an Oromo studied in depth the colonization process in 19th and 20th c. ‘Egypt’ and ‘Greece’, he would understand this point easily.
Before 250 years, there was no such thing as a ‘Greek nation’; those who are called now ‘Greeks’ were then named Eastern Romans (Romioi or Rumlar), and this reflected their true, historical identity. In their Christian faith and traditions, the Eastern Romans detested the Ancient Greeks and considered them idolatrous, filthy and corrupt. At the time of Emperor Heraclius (7th c. CE), it was an insult to call an Eastern Roman … ‘Greek’! But due to the impact of Anglo-French colonization on the Eastern Romans, most of them now think that they are the descendants of the ancient Greeks. That’s a lie; ethnically they are Eastern Romans of Slavic, Albanian, and Vlach origin who were greatly amalgamated with Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans, Illyrians, Ancient Macedonians, Lydians, Phrygians, Thracians, Lycians, Carians and Cappadocians.
In the early 19th c., the French and the English colonial diplomats bribed few selected Eastern Romans, who lived in Southern Balkans, promised them to help them become an independent state, and incited them against their own state (i.e. the Ottoman Empire); the event has been coined ‘Greek Revolution’ in the evil, colonial jargon, but in reality it was an infiltration / sedition operation like the ‘Arab Spring’. At the same time, the colonial powers imposed a pseudo-historical dogma on the Eastern Romans, who were convinced to rebel because they supposedly had glorious ancestors, namely the … Ancient Greeks! By means of colonial flattery and bribery, the 19th c. Eastern Romans accepted the colonial pseudo-historical dogma and diffused it nationwide in a most tyrannical manner.
Furthermore, the Eastern Romans were also mixed with Aramaeans from Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, with Turks, Turkmens, and Copts, with Berbers from Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, and also with Italians (Crusaders, Venetians, and Genoese). But following the monstrous colonial deformation that was imposed on the Eastern Romans, they disregarded their historical identity and imperial past (the Eastern Romans, headquartered at Constantinople, controlled all lands from Sicily to Armenia to Mesopotamia and from Ukraine to Tunisia to Sudan), they dishonored their Christian moral values, they abnegated their folklore and culture (their traditional attire included), and they became defaced monkeys of the West. Nowadays, as fake descendants of the Ancient Greeks, the Eastern Romans are called ‘Greeks’ and, as low-level slaves within the European Union, exist only to be the waiters of the Germans and the shoeshine boys of the Dutch. Isn’t it better to be an Oromo than a ‘Greek’ in 2021?
Similarly, the Copts were falsely baptized ‘Egyptians’ (which is an alien name) and they were totally disfigured, because of the French and English colonial practices that targeted their identity. Although the Ancient ‘Egyptian’ name for ‘Egypt’ is ‘Kemet’ (and therefore the ‘Egyptians’ must be called ‘Kemetians’) and the modern Christian Copts still use derivative forms of this name, while the modern Arabic-speaking Muslim Copts use the Arabic name Masr or Misir (which originates from the Ancient Assyrian-Babylonian name of Kemet/’Egypt’), the servile elites of the colonized country, totally subordinated to the disastrous orders of Paris, London, and Washington D.C., accept to dishonor their own History, tradition and languages, by using the fake, worthless and shameful name ‘Egypt’ at the international level. Isn’t it better to be an Oromo than an ‘Egyptian’ in 2021? Details:
Consequently, we can conclude that today both the ‘Egyptians’ and the ‘Greeks’ ended up functioning as non-nations, but as perfect tools of the colonial powers.
The Oromos are not like that; all of them still overwhelmingly reject the pejorative term ‘Galla’ that the 19th and 20th c. English and French colonials wanted to use this Abyssinian term, after the Abyssinian invasion of Biyya Oromo. The colonial establishments of US, England and France only recently started deploying efforts to diffuse their fallacies and pseudo-historical dogmas among the Oromos, in order to turn them into tools, but it is late.
IV. The Colonial Powers’ most Crucial Deeds still Unknown to most Colonized Nations – Independent or not
Still, most of the Oromos (and other nations worldwide) have no idea about either the real essence of colonialism or the true, deep damages that it caused to the colonized peoples; either we speak at the very general level, covering different continents and various nations, or we focus on the specific level, namely Egypt, very few people worldwide realize the extent of the calamity and the number of the ramifications caused by the colonial powers’ plans. More specifically, people don’t know and have not identified the various acts, deeds, practices and methods of the colonial powers that caused the aforementioned disaster worldwide. And I will expand on this in the forthcoming parts of my response.
One of the very few nations, which avoided the colonial experience, is Turkey; this is exclusively due to Kemal Ataturk, who early identified what really had happened to the Ottoman Empire and to other major Islamic empires, notably Safavid/Afshar /Qajar Iran and the Mughal state of Southern Asia. He also understood very well what a real nation is, what a fake nation is, and what factors determine a nation’s interests across lands, regions and continents. I expanded on this topic, stating that nations prosper and expand on lines determined by true History, and not as per the pseudo-historical dogmas and the nonsensical and absurd distortions undertaken by the colonial West.
A brief example of catastrophic colonial deeds that still remain unknown to most people worldwide, I offered in the Part IV (‘The Decline of the Islamic Empires and of China over the past four centuries’) of the following article of mine:
Read the three last pages, starting from the paragraph that begins with «The Dutch were present in Gujarat»! This part of text describes a critical colonial deed that the great emperors of the Oriental Empires failed to identify at the time (and for this reason they failed). Presently this deed is fully misinterpreted by the colonial academia; these scholars try to make it appear as an «innocent act of science and exploration», but in reality it was not. It is a monstrous theft.
There were similar deeds carried out by other colonial nations elsewhere; in the aforementioned article, I referred to the Dutch colonials in territories of the Mughal Empire, which now belong to ‘India’, namely the coast of Malabar. What was done by the French in Egypt at the time of Napoleon was far worse. I will discuss it in the last part of my present response.
At a certain point, you say something extremely important without realizing the tragic dimension of your words; speaking about Egypt and the Oromos you state: «we have mutual interests».
This is all about the issue that we discuss. Who told you that someone without identity can possibly assess his (their) own interests? You assume a lot! Someone without identity, without a historically true identity, is nothing. In reality, he does not exist. This is obviously valid at both, the personal and the societal-national, levels. Irrespective of its nature, an entity with no identity has no value. It is nonexistent. This is what currently happens to the pseudo-state named «Arab Republic of Egypt»! What a pathetic pseudo-name!
First, the Copts of today’s ‘Egypt’, Christian or Muslim, are not Arabs. The so-called Egyptian elites pretend that they are ‘Arabs’, because this was the primary colonial order given by the colonial masters for no less than 223 years to their local stooges and puppets, who ruled Egypt according to the directives of the colonial powers.
Second and as I already said, the Ancient ‘Egyptians’ called their country «Kemet».
And since the early Islamic times, the Muslim Copts have called their country «Masr». It is up to the indigenous people and their elites and rulers to defend their names. But the local elites and rulers failed the people of the Nile Valley.
What is then the useless pseudo-name «Egypt»? An alien name given to the country by foreigners! A true, original native from the Valley of the Nile, either Christian or Muslim, who –in contrast with the rest- would not have been drastically affected by a pathetic pro-Westernism (subtly diffused by colonial stooges and instructors among the Christian Copts as an anti-Islamic antidote) or a miserable Islamism (elaborated by colonial academia and projected onto the local, decayed and ignorant Muslims as an anti-colonial remedy), would denounce the deplorable name of ‘Egypt’ and demand from the United Nations to reject the disreputable use of the colonial, pseudo-historical name and to replace it by either Kemet or Masr.
The military governments of Myanmar respected their identity, integrity, tradition and faith and that’s why their diplomats were able to impose on the UN the final cancellation of the pseudo-name ‘Burma’ that the evil English colonials used to denote this great Buddhist country. But either the puppet khedives and kings or the silly colonels and generals, who have governed ‘Egypt’ since 1952, failed to reflect the slightest aspect of the local identity at the international level. All these worthless dictators from Mohamed Ali to Al Sissi failed to defend the country’s national identity and interests, as they implemented the colonial orders.
V. Biyya Oromo vs. ‘Galla Republic’ & Kemet vs. ‘Egypt’
Not one truly independent nation with dignity and self-respect would ever accept to be given by the international community an irrelevant, alien name that does not fit the local History, traditions, faiths and language(s). And consequently, no one respects a government that does not perceive correctly the national interests of the country and the nation that it rules.
Would you accept an Independent Biyya Oromo to be named ‘Galla Republic’?
Would the Iranians accept their country to be named ‘Persia’?
Would the Germans accept their country to be named ‘German-land’?
I add at the end some excerpts from an email recently sent to an Egyptian friend, which -I think- will offer you an insight into what you can and what you cannot, as Oromos, expect from Egypt.
However, I will soon come up with a truthful representation of the colonialism, as Crime against the Mankind, in its real dimensions that I think you never understood.
———— Parts of an email sent to an Egyptian friend (25/10/2020) —————
……………
Many times, I wrote to friends abroad about how the daily life in Egypt is — already in 2003 when I was working as Technical Writer and Editor for Giza Systems. After I started publishing online articles in 2004, many people from different continents asked me why I never wrote about these everyday realities of Egypt that no tourist has ever seen. I thought for some time about that (I mean for just some minutes).
My conclusion (which I announced to all those who suggested to me the aforementioned) was that
…… whereas Sudan’s regime tyrannized the Furis (in Darfur), the Beja, the Berta and others,
…….. whereas Abyssinia’s regime tyrannized the Oromos, the Ogadenis, the Sidamas and many others,
…….. whereas Iran’s regime oppressed the South Azeris, the South Turkmens, the Loris, the Qashqais, and others,
and many other governments did the same to their country’s minorities,
in the unfortunate, colonized country of ‘Egypt’, the government did not literally oppress the people or the existing minorities (i.e. the Bejas of the southern parts of the Eastern Desert, the Nubians, the Christian Copts, the Berbers of the northeastern confines, the Bedouins of Sinai, the Shia Muslims, and the Bahais).
I always said that the problem in Egypt is not political but social. And this is the truth. It is a social tyranny that the people imposed on themselves. The elite and the government simply bring this tyranny (already applied by them on themselves) to the level of the local government.
There is no -properly speaking- oppression against the Beja of Halaib, the Nubians of Kalabsha, the Christian Copts of Luxor and other cities, the Berbers of Siwa and Salloum, and the rest. Don’t tell me about the ongoing persecution of the Christian Copts across the country! There is a vast difference between ‘inter-ethnic conflict’ (which exists in Egypt) and ‘governmental oppression’. To be frank, there was never governmental oppression against a minority in Egypt, at least since the time I first visited the country in the late 1980s.
Still, there is monumental oppression in Egypt – truly! But this is something very particular and, I must tell you, quite unusual for all the lands and countries that I know. As I already said, it is a social oppression with strange typology. In fact, it is a terrible form of massive popular self-oppression. Sunni Muslims in Egypt oppress themselves before oppressing the Christian Copts, the Shias, and the rest; so, what is there to discuss? A totally dysfunctional country, entrapped in all the colonial schemes, certainly oppresses all its inhabitants, the local elites included. This is the truth about your non-nation ‘Egypt’.
So, what you, as Egyptians, do not understand is that you do indeed oppress yourselves, and until one among you wakes up one morning, realizes that you all are plunged in a fake reality imposed on all of you by the colonial powers, and then tries to wake all the other Egyptians up, there is no point for anyone else to get involved or to describe in public your nauseating story of self-destruction. This has in fact been your country since the days of Napoleon: the corpse of a dead nation inside a terrible coffin. And if you want the correct description of your disastrous self-oppression’s main nature, here’s to you:
– You oppress indeed yourselves to be non-Kemetians (which is your true, not ‘Egyptians’), to disregard and dishonor your land, Kemet (this is your true name, not Egypt), to profane the Earth and the Nile that God gave you as blessings, which are incomparably superior to the unholy lands of Greece, Rome and Europe, and to subordinate your unfortunate land to repugnant, sacrilegious barbarians, namely the Americans, the English, the French, and all their stooges.
Then, why do you ask me to publish much and expand on Egypt? Do you want me to accuse the colonial powers for their lies and the falsehood that they imposed on Egypt and elsewhere? I did it on many occasions and in many articles; but to no avail! Not one Egyptian can understand these articles.
The descriptions and the presentations of my articles are totally out of the Fake History and the fake world view that you have in your minds, because the colonial powers inserted them therein, and this process occurred in a dictatorial and very sophisticated manner (as they did it in many other countries) over a long period of time. This is nothing new however. The first Egyptian, who learned Egyptian hieroglyphics, managed to read your ancient texts no less than one century (: 100 years) after the French Champollion deciphered the writing. Like monstrous thieves and gangsters, the colonial academics and explorers have first stolen your past and then misinterpreted it as per their own vicious and evil needs, whereas you failed to identify even the process, let alone the myriad of detailed points involved therein.
Once, when we lived together back in 2002, you told me straightforwardly but thoughtlessly «you must hate Egypt very much» and I answered immediately «you, Egyptians, hate Egypt and that’s why you turned God’s blessed land to this filth that you are now». This summarizes it all. You even don’t know the history of your ancestors; you only know the distorted presentation that the Western colonials made of your Antiquity, because they wanted to falsify the Ancient Egyptian History, minimize the unequaled radiation of Kemet (which is your only true name of country), and present their own execrable barbarism as ‘independently grown civilization’ whereas Ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians and Phoenicians civilized the barbarian Greeks, the Romans (who originated from Anatolia, today’s Turkey, so they are not truly Europeans), and the other White troglodytes of schizoid Europe.
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ISIS TEMPLES IN DELOS (GREECE) AND POMPEI (ITALY)
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Don’t you know that Theater was first performed in Egyptian and not among the uncivilized Ancient Greeks?
Don’t you know that in Egypt, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, and Iran the Ancient Greeks learned the wisdom, the knowledge, the truth, and all the sciences of which they had no idea before?
Don’t you know that there is no such thing as “philosophy”?
This is an idiotic and worthless word coined by the Ancient Greeks who were low-level students of the Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Iranian and Phoenician high priests, hierophants, mystics, and wise elders. Egypt, Phoenicia-Syria, Mesopotamia and Iran were the depository of the Mankind’s original Wisdom. Their epics are unequaled, their spiritual exercises and endeavors unmatched, their sciences unsurpassed, their medicine unparalleled, their writing systems incredibly more sophisticated, and their achievements simply impossible for the corrupt Ancient Greeks.
Mentally incapacitated, the profane Ancient Greek students of the Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Phoenician and Iranian temples, when they returned back to their marginal and useless land, knew that they could never reproduce the mysteries and the divine deeds of their Oriental masters, because they did not have the Oriental Wisdom. That’s why they coined the pathetically low term ‘philo+sophia’, which denotes, not the Wisdom itself but, the search for it, namely a friendly predisposition toward the Oriental Wisdom. In other words, by being a ‘philosopher’, you confess your incapacity to become wise. This shows that the Ancient Greeks recognized and admitted their detrimental inferiority as regards the Ancient Oriental civilizations.
Don’t you know that the republican and democratic system of governance did not start in Ancient Greece but in Carthage (so, on African -not European- soil)? Also, don’t you know that Ancient Greek publicists like Aristotle, who wrote about the non-royal systems of governance, featured the Carthaginian system of politics and democracy and not the worthless corruption of the corrupt and racist Ancient Athenian?
So, as you see, although the Ancient Greeks wrote down the truth, Modern European criminals, either academics and intellectuals or military colonials and diplomats, monstrously distorted and partly concealed the historical sources and, starting with the inhuman Colonialism and Renaissance (15th and 16th c.), they carried out for no less than 500 years a worldwide unique campaign of historical censorship that is tantamount to unprecedented revisionism. This is the true face of colonialism; by learning the revisionist version of History that the English and the French imposed on their colonies, you fell victims and lost your true identity, as you started employing the fallacious and misleading terms of your colonial instructors and masters.
In few days, I will terminate my new book «Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey»; this is at the same time a total rejection of the useless, fake Sunni establishment of Erdogan and of the worthless, fake Shia regime of the ayatullahs; both are the idiotic and pathetic puppets of the colonial powers. I will send you the draft.
When you will read it, and after making some comparisons with post-1798 Egypt, you will start imagining how I would describe Modern ‘Egypt’, namely a country stolen from its people and a people stolen from their land and taken into the total deception and the dystopia of national nonexistence.
As regards today’s ‘Egyptians’, I can make only one comment: you will never find the true Egypt (i.e. Kemet), before studying and in-depth understanding La Description de l’Égypte. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_de_l%27%C3%89gypte
This image may not be used to state or imply the endorsement by the Science History Institute of any product, service or activity, or to concur with an opinion or confirm the accuracy of any text appearing alongside or in logical association with the image.
Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. 1799 satirical artwork by William Baillie entitled ‘Seige de la Colonne de Pompee-Science in the Pillory’, showing Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. Napoleon is depicted with a group of scientists on top of the Column of Pompey being attacked by Bedouins and Turks. A fire is burning at the base of the column, and men are hurtling to the ground when their balloon explodes.Lejeune Louis FranÁois (1775-1848). Versailles, ch‚teaux de Versailles et de Trianon. MV6854.
When the French scholars, who traveled with Napoleon (1798), took their notes (which became later the monumental series of volumes published in Paris from 1809 until 1829), everything essential that existed in the Valley of the Nile was taken away for study, understanding and exploitation. The essence of your country was taken away. What you failed to study in order to empower yourself was already stolen by your enemies and invaders. The leftover (i.e. ‘you’) was insignificant; this is so because you did not possess the power to objectively study your environment, past and heritage to extract that the colonials did by exploring it. And this situation remained irreversible until now. You wanted it so — all of you.
By taking the entire country away, the French did not improvise; they imitated the pioneering work of the Dutch scholars, who had published almost 150 earlier the equally important, groundbreaking, and local power-erasing Hortus Malabaricus.
What Hortus Malabaricus (published in 1678) was for the Mughal Empire of South Asia (which was bigger than the Ottoman Empire), was La Description de l’Égypte for the Ottoman Empire: the announcement of their irrevocable End.
And La Description de l’Égypte was far more critical, because it did not only cover the flora, but also the fauna, the people, and, above all, all the monuments and the inscriptions, the reliefs and the statues.
What happened to the Dravidians of the Deccan (today’s southern half of India’s territory) with Hortus Malabaricus, occurred to the Egyptians with La Description de l’Égypte: they were left without country, without past, and without identity.
The Dravidians would never control their land, namely the Deccan (the southern half of today’s pseudo-state «India») and the ‘Egyptians’ would never control Kemet, i.e. the Valley of the Nile. Both nations would never know their past, identity and origin, except someone, advancing through extremely thorny territory, would wake up and then attempt to wake up the rest.
And yet, the Dravidians originate from Ancient Mesopotamia where their ancestors, known as the Elamites, were the major opponent of the Sumerians, the Assyrians and the Babylonians for several millennia. Named as ‘Haltamti’ or as ‘Anshan and Sushan’ in their language and headquartered at Susa (the later Achaemenid Iranian capital, today in SW Iran), the Elamites developed their own, independent, writing system at the same time when the Sumerians invented their writing system (ca. 3300 BCE), namely some centuries before the Ancient Egyptians came up with the Medu Netcher, i.e. ‘the words of God’ (which is the Ancient Egyptian name of the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing). Of course, none of these nations is ‘Indo-European’!
But the Indo-European colonial French, Dutch and English forgers and gangsters did not say to their colonial subjects, namely the Dravidians and the ‘Egyptians’, that when the colonized nations’ ancestors had already developed great civilizations, the ancestors of the Ancient Greeks and the other White Europeans were eating lichens somewhere in the plains of today’s Ukraine.
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