2007-12-28

Thank God We Evolved In Africa

Could you imagine what the world would be like if humanity, in all its diversity, originated and spread from some geographic location that now happens to be a place like France or Germany? Could you imagine the insufferable gloating of White Men on how all others are merely inferior copies of Pure humanity? No, the world is a better place, now, because we are descendants of Africans. Through the vagaries of geography, and a large dollop of luck, Europeans won the technology race and steamrolled over the globe, crushing most every other culture they happened upon, no more so than in Africa. In contemporary history, no other place has been more hard done by. Harvested for slaves, partitioned, colonised, and raped of resources, Africa has seen the worst that humanity had to offer over the last few centuries. How fortuitous that Science and Technology, so often wielded as weapons of suppression, have shown us that our origins are, in fact, right where people have been suppressed the most. Really, the place of origin has no special meaning in any scientific sense, at least not to its current inhabitants. Yet, an origin of most any other place would have been seized upon, with gloating and unearned pride, by its current inhabitants, be it Europe, China, Japan, or even First-Nations people in the Americas or Australia. Africa is just Africa; thank God it happened to be there.