John G. Jackson and Runoko Rashidi, Introduction To African Civilizations (Citadel: 2001), ISBN 0-8065-2189-9, pp. College & University in Dakar, Senegal. …          Sexual Content Diop was subsequently arrested and thrown in jail where he nearly died. This black, even if on the level of his cells he is closer to a Swede than Peter Botha, when he is in South Africa he will still live in Soweto. Excessive Violence Perhaps Diop's most notable idea is his insistence in placing Nile Valley peoples in their local and African context, drawing a picture of a stable, ancient population deriving much of its genetic inheritance from that context, as opposed to attempts to split, cluster, subdivide, define and regroup them into other contexts. Frank Yurco, "An Egyptological Review", 1996, in Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy MacLean Rogers. Closed Now. Diop disputed sweeping definitions of mixed races in relation to African populations, particularly when associated with the Nile Valley. He proposed that African culture should be rebuilt on the basis of ancient Egypt, in the same way that European culture was built upon the legacies of ancient Greece and Rome. Sanders, Edith R. (1969), The Hamitic Hypothesis; pp. 531–32. Ancient Egyptians such as the Badarians show greater statistical affinities to tropical African types and are not identical to Europeans. As regards Egyptian religion for example, there appear to be more solid connections with the cultures of the Sudan and northeast Africa than Mesopotamia, according to mainstream research:[58], Most anthropologists see commonalities in African culture but only in a very broad, generic sense, intimately linked with economic systems, etc. This same modern scholarship however in turn challenges aspects of Diop's work, particularly his notions of a worldwide black phenotype. Indeed, he eschewed racial chauvinism, arguing: "We apologise for returning to notions of race, cultural heritage, linguistic relationship, historical connections between peoples, and so on. For example, ancient Egyptian matches with Indians and Europeans are generic in nature (due to the broad categories used for matching purposes with these populations) and are not due to gene flow. [32], In 1974, Diop was one of about 20 participants in a UNESCO symposium in Cairo, where he presented his theories to specialists in Egyptology. 97–8. For instance, Diop suggested that the uses of terminology like "Mediterranean" or "Middle Eastern", or statistically classifying all who did not meet the "true" Black stereotype as some other race, were all attempts to use race to differentiate among African peoples. These researchers hold that they too often rely on a stereotypical conception of pure or distinct races that then go on to intermingle. Obenga, Théophile. or earlier. "Our Sacred Mission", speech at the Empire State Black Arts and Cultural Festival in Albany, New York, July 20, 1991. biological] mixture of the ancient Egyptian population, but nobody has yet defined what is meant by the term 'Negroid', nor has any explanation been proffered as to how this Negroid element, by mingling with a Mediterranean component often present in smaller proportions, could be assimilated into a purely Caucasoid race. or. [91] Since he struggled against how racial classifications were used by the European academy in relation to African peoples, much of his work has a strong 'race-flavored' tint. Indeed he eschewed racial chauvinism, arguing: "We apologise for returning to notions of race, cultural heritage, linguistic relationship, historical connections between peoples, and so on. [24] This critical work constitutes a rational study of not only Africa's cultural, historic and geographic unity, but of Africa's potential for energy development and industrialization. This has shown that most of human genetic variation (some 85–90%) occurs within localized population groups, and that race only can account for 6–10% of the variation. This critical work constitutes a rational study of not only Africa's cultural, historic and geographic unity, but of Africa's potential for energy development and industrialization. Diop, Cheik Anta, translated by Mercer Cook (1974). www.ucad.sn. He declined to seek the opinion of other scholars and answer their criticism, although this is the normal procedure in academic debate. [12][13], In 1948 Diop edited with Madeleine Rousseau, a professor of art history, a special edition of the journal Musée vivant, published by the Association populaire des amis des musées (APAM). S. Ademola Ajayi, "Cheikh Anta Diop" in Kevin Shillington (ed.). [98], Diop also appeared to express doubts about the concept of race. Mame Yassine Sarr. He alleged his critics were using the narrowest possible definition of "Blacks" (still a racist outlook) in order to differentiate various African groups such as Nubians into a European or Caucasoid racial zone. There are common patterns such as circumcision, matriarchy etc., but whether these are part of a unique, gentler, more positive "Southern cradle" of peoples, versus a more grasping, patriarchal-flavored "Northern cradle" are considered problematic by many scholars, as is grouping the complexity of human cultures into two camps. UNESCO, (1978). Greenberg, Joseph H. (1949), "Studies in African Linguistic Classification: I. All Greenberg’s African Language papers were republished The Languages of Africa (1966), Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Diop was subsequently arrested and thrown in jail where he nearly died. Oct 2017; Papa Demba Fall. Théophile Obenga used this method to distinguish Berber from other African members of Greenberg's Afroasiatic family, particularly Egyptian and Coptic. Craniometric Affinities Considered With Other Data", S. O. Y. Keita. He holds that the range of peoples and phenotypes under the designation "negre" included those with a wide range of physical variability, from light brown skin and aquiline noses to jet black skin and frizzy hair, well within the diversity of peoples of the Nilotic region. Though Diop is sometimes referred to as an Afrocentrist, he predates the concept and thus was not himself an Afrocentric scholar. 40 talking about this. "Origine et evolution de l'Homme dans la Pensée de Cheikh Anta Diop: une Analyse Critique". Finally, Schur argued that, if the human species originated in Africa and it created human language, then all human languages have an African origin and are therefore related. [84] Ngom[85] and Obenga[86] both eliminated the Asian Semitic and African Berber members of Greenberg's Afroasiatic family from the négro-africain family: Ngom added that the Bantu languages have more in common with Ancient Egyptian than do the Semitic ones. However, Diop thought, as it is called, is paradigmatic to Afrocentricity. [27], Some critics have argued that Diop's melanin dosage test technique lacks sufficient evidence. "[100] This outlook was unlike many of the contemporary white writers he questioned. 65–92. (1977), Parenté génétique de l’egyptien pharaonique et des langues négro-africaines. For example, when Herodotus wished to argue that the Colchian people were related to the Egyptians, he said that the Colchians were "black, with curly hair"[41] Diop used statements by these writers to illustrate his theory that the ancient Egyptians had the same physical traits as modern black Africans (skin colour, hair type). cit. Historian, anthropologist, physicist, politician. [38] This does not necessarily imply a genetic relationship, however. Quoted in Shomarka Keita, "Communications". [57], Zones of Confluence: Meeting or mingling area for the two cradles above. [57] Some modern studies use DNA to define racial classifications, while others condemn this practice as selective filling of pre-defined, stereotypical categories.[58]. [92] He concluded that Diop had assumed Egyptian and Wolof were related and then looked for ways to connect their features, disregarding evidence from other languages which might cast doubt on the resemblances claimed. Égyptien ancien et négro-africain, Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, No. 1 talking about this. cit. On a bigger scale, the debate reflects the growing movement to minimize race as a biological construct in analyzing the origins of human populations. "[26] (After his death the university was named in his honor: Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar.) Importantly it included not only francophone Africans, but English-speaking ones as well. Alan R. Templeton, "Human Races: A Genetic and Evolutionary Perspective". cit. Selectively lumping such peoples into arbitrary Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Caucasoid categories because they do not meet the narrow definition of a "true" type, or selectively defining certain traits like aquiline features as Eurasian or Caucasoid, ignores the complexity of the DNA data on the ground. Diop also acknowledged that the ancient Egyptians absorbed "foreign" genes at various times in their history (the Hyskos for example) but held that this admixture did not change their essential ethnicity.[88]. His cultural theory attempted to show that Egypt was part of the African environment as opposed to incorporating it into Mediterranean or Middle Eastern venues. [25] Diop also wrote a chapter entitled "Origin of the ancient Egyptians", in the UNESCO General History of Africa. Music. ; Hiernaux, J. [16] He said that the Egyptian language and culture had later been spread to West Africa. Mainstream Egyptologists such as F. Yurco note that among peoples outside Egypt, the Nubians were closest ethnically to the Egyptians, shared the same culture in the predynastic period, and used the same pharaonoic political structure. He declined to seek the opinion of other scholars and answer their criticism, although this is the normal procedure in academic debate. Diop focuses on Africa, not Greece. In 1949, Diop registered a proposed title for a Doctor of Letters thesis, "The Cultural Future of African thought," under the direction of Professor, Diop's work has been subjected to criticism from a number of scholars. He acknowledged the existence of "mixed" peoples over the course of Egyptian history but also argued for indigeous variants already in situ as opposed to massive insertions of Hamites, Mediterraneans, Semites or Cascasoids into ancient groupings. Diop would in the course of over 25 years found three political parties that formed the major opposition in Senegal. [29] This does not necessarily imply a genetic relationship, however. Diop said that he "acquired proficiency in such diverse disciplines as rationalism, dialectics, modern scientific techniques, prehistoric archeology and so on." [49], Diop's theory on variability is also supported by a number of scholars mapping human genes using modern DNA analysis. [30] He suggests that the peoples of the Nile Valley were one regionalized population, sharing a number of genetic and cultural traits.[31]. Instead he views the Greeks as forming part of a "northern cradle", distinctively growing out of certain climatic and cultural conditions. Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African peoples that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time. INTERVIEW WITH CHEIKH ANTA DIOP CSF: In Civilisation ou Barbarie you touched upon many areas that deal with the influence of Egypt on world. Cheikh Anta Diop University (French: Université Cheikh Anta Diop or UCAD), also known as the University of Dakar, is a university in Dakar, Senegal. He claimed this put African historical linguistics on a secure basis for the first time. Diop, Cheik Anta. [90] Tourneux's main criticisms are that many words in the lists used to make comparisons may have been loaned from unrelated languages (including modern Arabic), many of the claimed resemblances are far-fetched and that, when Diop transliterated Wolof words on the principles applied to Ancient Egyptian writings, he distorted them.[91]. These, he held, formed part of a tapestry that laid the basis for African cultural unity, which could assist in throwing off colonialism. I attach no more importance to these questions than they actually deserve in modern twentieth-century societies."[101]. John G. Jackson and Runoko Rashidi, Introduction To African Civilizations (Citadel: 2001). Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. No videos yet! [66], Analyses of other scholars (Hiernaux 1975, Keita, 1990 et al.) or earlier.[74]. Cheikh Anta Diop, "Evolution of the Negro world". ; Hiernaux, J. [101] Since he struggled against how racial classifications were used by the European academy in relation to African peoples, much of his work has a strong 'race-flavored' tint. [50] Under this approach, racial categories such as "Blacks" or "Caucasoids" are discarded in favor of localized populations showing a range of physical variation. [6], Cultural anthropology, Archaeology, Social anthropology, Sociology, History, Portugal, World War II, Tianjin, Spain, Goa, Sudan, Egypt, South Africa, Algeria, Morocco, Serer people, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Dakar, Serer religion, Egypt, Near East, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Roman Empire, Ancient Egyptian religion, Africa, Pan-Africanism, Politics, American Civil War, Discrimination, Senegal, World Bank, Benin, History, United States, African diaspora, Education, Afrocentrism, Sierra Leone, Arab, Republic of the Congo, Pan-Africanism, Languages of Africa, San Francisco State University, Brazzaville, Pan-Africanism, Literature, Wole Soyinka, Unesco, Pablo Picasso. Cheikh Anta Diop (ed.)          Political / Social. All Greenberg's African Language papers were republished The Languages of Africa (1966), Bloomington: Indiana University Press. DISCOURS DU JUGE KEBA MBAYE SUR L'ETHIQUE EN 2005 A L'UCAD - Duration: ... Elikia Mbokolo reconnait enfin les thèses de Cheikh Anta Diop - Duration: 19:31. [35] Critics of this study in turn hold that it achieves its results by manipulation of data clusters and analysis categories, casting a wide net to achieve generic, general statistical similarities with populations such as Europeans and Indians. In his "Evolution of the Negro World" in Présence Africaine (1964), Diop castigated European scholars who posited a separate evolution of various types of humankind and denied the African origin of homo sapiens. In protest at the refusal of the Senghor administration to release political prisoners, Diop remained largely absent from the political scene from 1966 to 1975. Obenga, Théophile. While acknowledging the common genetic inheritance of all humankind and common evolutionary threads, Diop identified a black phenotype, stretching from India, to Australia to Africa, with physical similarities in terms of dark skin and a number of other characteristics. More contemporary critics assert that notions of the Sahara as a dominant barrier in isolating sub-Saharan populations are both flawed and simplistic in broad historical context, given the constant movement of people over time, the fluctuations of climate over time (the Sahara was once very fertile), and the substantial representation of "sub Saharan" traits in the Nile Valley among people like the Badari.[103][104]. Diop focuses on Africa, not Greece. was dissolved, Diop and other former members reconstituted themselves under a new party, the Front National Sénégalais (FNS) in 1963. Before Diop, the general view, following Charles Seligman[60] on the influence of Egypt on Black Africa was that elements of Egyptian religious thought, customs and technology diffused along four trade routes: up the White Nile; along the North African coast past Tunis to West Africa; up the Blue Nile and along the foothills of Abyssinia to the Great Lakes and through Darfur and along the southern edge of the Sahara. Oliver, Roland, and Brian M. Fagan (1975). [106], As regards living peoples, the pattern of complexity repeats itself, calling into question the merging and splitting methods of Jensen, et al. "Apportionment of Racial Diversity"; Keita and Kittles, "The Persistence...", op. Brown and Armelagos, op. He gained his first degree (licence) in philosophy in 1948, then enrolled in the Faculty of Sciences, receiving two diplomas in chemistry in 1950. [11], In 1953, he first met Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Marie Curie's son-in-law, and in 1957 Diop began specializing in nuclear physics at the Laboratory of Nuclear Chemistry of the College de France which Frederic Joliot-Curie ran until his death in 1958, and the Institut Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. Schuh (1997), "The use and misuse of language in the study of African history", pp 24–25. Rousseau, Madeleine and Cheikh Anta Diop (1948), "1848 Abolition de l'esclavage – 1948 evidence de la culture nègre". Upcoming QS Events. Cheikh Anta Diop (ed.) Diop insisted on a broad interpretation similar to that used in classifying European populations as white. He initially enrolled to study higher mathematics, but then enrolled to study philosophy in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Paris. Tourneax (2010), "L'argument linguistique chez Cheikh Anta Diop et ses disciples", pp. [35] However, Diop's contribution was subject to the editorial comment that "The arguments put forward in this chapter have not been accepted by all the experts interested in the problem". He did not publish his work in subject-specific journals with an independent editorial board that practiced the system of peer review. Idea of peace, justice, goodness and optimism. As one scholar at the 1974 symposium put it:[56]. "[20] (After his death the university was named in his honor: Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar.) While Diop holds that the Greeks learned from a superior Egyptian civilization, he does not argue that Greek culture is simply a derivative of Egypt. In an interview in 1985, Diop argued that race was a relevant category and that phenotype or physical appearance is what matters in historic social relations. IÉSEG School of Management, Lille - Paris, France. The party was shortly thereafter banned for opposing Senghor's efforts to consolidate power in his own hands. [44] Based on Coon's work, the Hamitic Hypothesis held that most advanced progress or cultural development in Africa was due to the invasions of mysterious Caucasoid Hamites. Seligman’s Hamitic hypothesis stated that: “... the civilizations of Africa are the civilizations of the Hamites, its history the record of these peoples and of their interaction with the two other African stocks, the Negro and the Bushman, whether this influence was exerted by highly civilized Egyptians or…pastoralists ...The incoming Hamites were pastoral 'Europeans'-arriving wave after wave - better armed as well as quicker witted than the dark agricultural Negroes.”[60], Analyses of other scholars (Hiernaux 1975, Keita, 1990 et al.) He ultimately translated parts of Einstein's Theory of Relativity into his native Wolof. This approach is associated with scholars who question the validity of race as a biological concept. cit. These methods it is held, downplay normal geographic variation and genetic diversity found in many human populations and have distorted a true picture of African peoples.[111]. that when the data are looked at in toto, without the clustering manipulation and selective exclusions above, then a more accurate and realistic picture emerges of African diversity. Perhaps Diop's most notable idea is his insistence in placing Nile Valley peoples in their local and African context, drawing a picture of a stable, ancient population deriving much of its genetic inheritance from that context, as opposed to attempts to split, cluster, subdivide, define and regroup them into other contexts. Research in this area challenges the groupings used as (a) not reflecting today's genetic diversity in Africa, or (b) an inconsistent way to determine the racial characteristics of the Ancient Egyptians. [37] A 2004 review of DNA research in African Archaeological Review supports some of Diop's criticisms. One of the attractions of the capital of Senegal is the main campus of UCAD. They hold that such splitting is arbitrary insertion of data into pre-determined pigeonholes and the selective grouping of samples. Reproduction Date: Cheikh Anta Diop (29 December 1923 – 7 February 1986) was a Afrocentric[1] historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture.