Thinkafrica.net, London (2025)

31/10/2025

If you want to know who first grew rice? West Africa and China.

31/10/2025

Letsile Tebogo ⚡ has rewritten both African and Olympic history with a stride that felt like destiny unfolding in real time. At just 21, he became the first African man ever to win Olympic gold in the 200m, storming to victory at the 2024 Paris Games in a jaw-dropping 19.46 seconds 🥇—outrunning American giants Noah Lyles and Kenneth Bednarek, and delivering Botswana’s first-ever Olympic gold medal 🇧🇼. This came after his earlier milestones: the 2023 World Championships silver in the 100m, a World Relays gold anchoring Botswana’s 4x400m team, and a world junior record of 9.91s in the 100m. Tebogo’s brilliance lies not only in his speed but in his serenity—smiling mid-race as if time itself bends for him ⏱️. From Gaborone’s tracks to the global stage, he’s more than an athlete; he’s Africa’s lightning manifesto—proof that the future of sprinting now runs in African colors 🌍🔥.

31/10/2025

The kingdom of Rozwi existed from the 17th century AD (c. 1684) to the late 19th century AD (c. 1866). The name of the Kingdom Rozvi comes from the Shona word meaning “to plunder” (kurozva) and was established by Changamire D***o I #. It was ruled by a monarchy and was bordered by various neighboring groups, including the Munhumutapa Empire (also known as the Mutapa kingdom) to the North, the Kalanga people to the South, and the Tonga people to the West. It had an estimated population of around 1 million[1]. It covered an area of approximately 624,000 square kilometers (equivalent to 240,000 square miles)[3]. Its main currency was primarily based on trade and barter.

While the government had a monopoly on gold mining, production and trading, the empire and its people also traded in cattle, ivory, copper, agricultural and animal products, guns, salt, beads, and sea shells. They protected their trade routes using spears, shields, bows and arrows.

A contemporary sovereign state was the Mutapa Empire, which had a population of approximately 2 million people and covered an area of 500,000 square kilometers. Modern descendants of the Rozwi Empire may now live in present-day Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique. The language of exchange of this kingdom was primarily Shona, with around 7 million people being modern native speakers and an additional 7 million people today speaking Shona as a second language[1]. The customary attire of the Rozwi people was characterized by intricate beadwork and animal hide garments.

A king's list was compiled from oral tradition prepared by historian John Stewart in his 1989 book African States and Rulers. At its decline, the Rozwi Kingdom was superseded by the Ndebele Kingdom.

The Rozwi people had notable achievements in architecture, art, and metallurgy. They constructed elaborate stone buildings and were skilled metalworkers. Their unique architectural designs can be seen in the ruins of Khami and other structures[2]. They had complex customs arrangements and taxation systems that facilitated trade and economic growth. In terms of knowledge advancement, they contributed to the field of astronomy, and their knowledge of celestial bodies informed their agricultural practices.

The Rozwi Empire engaged in various conflicts and wars, including clashes with neighboring groups like the Ndebele and Portuguese colonial forces. Their religious beliefs were deeply rooted in ancestral worship and spirits of the land, with traditional spiritual leaders playing a crucial role in their society.

Citations:
[1]: Pikirayi, I. (1993). The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline of Southern Zambezian States. Rowman & Littlefield.
[2]: Garlake, P. S. (1982). The Great Zimbabwe. New York: Thames and Hudson.
[3]: Cornell, James (1978). Lost Lands and Forgotten People. Sterling Publishing Company. p. 24.

# I cannot pronounce his real name D***olakonachimwango Chimuloyichamavengeni.

31/10/2025

The scientific wonder of dark skin and its significant role in early reproduction of all humans.

Life on earth is sustained by sunlight from the star at the centre of our solar system. That sunlight arrives in different wavelengths: x-rays, infra-red which gives us warmth, visible light and ultraviolet light. There are two types of ultraviolet: ultraviolet A and ultraviolet B. Ultraviolet A is the most damaging, and we reduce its effect by wearing appropriate clothing, whereas ultraviolet B can be damaging without melanin production in the human skin.

Melanin prevents UVB from damaging the skin to an extent whereby it could cause cancer. It also prevents DNA damage, which has a significant impact I will soon explain. Everyone with melanin should know these facts, whatever their colour since all humans have melanin.

Skin has many functions. As the body's largest organ, skin protects against germs, protects all other organs, regulates body temperature and enables touch (tactile) sensations. The skin's main layers include the epidermis, dermis and hypodermis and is prone to many problems, including skin cancer, acne, wrinkles and rashes. Melanin protects against cancer and damage. Our skin is not simple and static; it is actually dynamic and powerful.

Over 100-200 generations it can become lighter driven by multiple complex factors to maximise vitamins D production in lower UVB radiation environments. This is called depigmentation like what happened within Africa in Southern Africa around 100,000 years ago, with Europeans around 6,000 - 8,000 years ago, and Central Asians around 20,000 - 22,000 years ago.

The dark pigmentation protects from DNA damage and absorbs the right amounts of UV radiation needed by the body, as well as protects against foliate depletion. Foliate is water soluble vitamin B complex which naturally occurs in green, leafy vegetables, whole grains, and citrus fruits. Foliate is needed for normal s***m production in men. Furthermore, foliate is essential for fetal growth, organ development, and neural tube development. Foliate breaks down in high intense UVR. Dark-skinned women suffer the lowest level of neural tube defects.

Our skin pigmentation isn’t a race. It is a God given feature of the human body, that protected the very first ancestors of the human race from the negative effects of the suns rays. The bodies of humanity’s earliest ancestors had the ability to develop multiple shades, and light skin developed before the first emergence of humans with a “white skin”.

Different skin tones of skin pigmentation is a result of adaptation to different environments and levels of UV radiation.

While melanin provides protection against UV radiation, it doesn't make individuals immune to the harmful effects of the sun. All individuals, regardless of their skin tone, should take precautions when exposed to strong sunlight, such as using sunscreen, wearing protective clothing, and taking measures to avoid overexposure.

During the summer, Europeans and North Americans have to wear sun screen and hats more often than Africans would think to use them. Africans also benefit from using sunscreen and hats, but in the absence of these inventions, melanin did the job for hundreds of thousands of years of human existence.

31/10/2025

St. Perpetua ✊🏾 is the saint who shattered stereotypes before anyone dared name them. Born in 3rd-century Carthage (modern-day Tunisia), she was a young African woman, a mother, and a scholar who defied the Roman Empire’s demand to renounce her faith 🕊️. Imprisoned and martyred in 203 CE, she left behind one of the earliest surviving works ever written by a woman—her own prison diary—making her not only a saint, but one of history’s first documented African authors 📜. Perpetua’s courage dismantles the lazy myth that African women were passive, illiterate, or peripheral to theology and intellect. She was an African monotheist refusing to worship European polytheism. She debated with men, wrote with conviction, and faced death with a calm fierceness that terrified her captors. In her, we meet an African thinker fluent in Latin, philosophy, and faith long before Europe called itself “civilized.” Her story proves that intellect, authorship, and moral courage are African inheritances—not imports 🏛️🔥.

31/10/2025

Jon Jones 🥇 is the paradox of perfection inside the cage—a fighter whose brilliance blurs the line between strategy and sorcery. The youngest champion in UFC history, he dismantled legends with a style that mixed wrestling, reach, and ruthless creativity 🤯. Elbows like blades, timing like poetry, and a fight IQ that seemed downloaded from the future—Jones turned combat into calculus. His record is littered with icons—Cormier, Rua, Gustafsson—men who trained for war but found themselves outthought, not just outpunched. Fellow fighters say his success isn’t just athletic—it’s cerebral 🧠. He reads opponents like open books, adapts mid-fight, and strikes from angles the playbook forgot. Critics see controversy; fighters see genius. To them, Jon Jones isn’t merely a champion—he’s the unsolvable equation that keeps the rest of MMA studying 📖🔥.

31/10/2025

The 1976 Olympic boycott was Africa’s loudest whistle against hypocrisy on the global stage 🏅✊🏾. Twenty-nine African nations withdrew from the Montreal Games to protest the International Olympic Committee’s refusal to ban New Zealand, whose rugby team had just toured apartheid South Africa—defying a UN sporting embargo. To African countries, participation alongside a complicit nation was moral betrayal, especially when their own athletes were barred from South Africa for the color of their skin 🏋🏿‍♂️. The boycott wasn’t about medals—it was about meaning. Nations like Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Tanzania sacrificed years of training to make a point sharper than any javelin: you can’t celebrate unity while tolerating apartheid. Though the world called it a “boycott,” Africa called it integrity—an Olympic moment when silence lost, and solidarity won 🌍🔥.

The 1976 African boycott reminds us that Olympic medal tables tell only half the story 🏅—and often the wrong half. When nearly thirty African nations refused to compete in protest of apartheid, their absence erased potential champions from entire events, distorting the tally that history later reads as “performance.” How can one fairly “count” medals when politics, racism, and moral courage reshape who even steps onto the track? 🏃🏾‍♀️ The scoreboard may show fewer golds for Africa, but that summer, moral victory stood taller than the podium. Medal counts assume a level playing field; boycotts expose that the field was anything but level. In truth, every medal not won in 1976 was a medal traded for principle—and no stopwatch or spreadsheet can measure that 🕊️.

31/10/2025

When did the phrase Sub Saharan become a thing?

31/10/2025

Lagos in the 1920s

31/10/2025

Herbert Macaulay 🇳🇬 was the original architect of Nigerian nationalism—the man who turned colonial resistance into a science of strategy and satire ✊🏾. Born in 1864 to a family of educators and clergymen, he trained in civil engineering in London before returning home to expose the cracks in British “civilization.” As a surveyor, he measured land; as an activist, he measured hypocrisy 📏. Macaulay founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP)—West Africa’s first political party—and used newspapers, petitions, and wit to challenge injustice, from unfair taxation to racial segregation. He defended traditional rulers, championed Lagos workers, and gave Nigerians the radical vocabulary of self-determination long before independence had a flag. To many, he was the “Father of Nigerian Nationalism”; to the British, he was the inconvenient conscience they couldn’t colonize 🏛️.

31/10/2025

The Black Mummy of Southern Libya, also known as the Tashwinat or Uan Muhuggiag Child, is one of the oldest known mummies on Earth—predating the earliest Egyptian mummies by more than a thousand years 🏺. Discovered in the Uan Muhuggiag rock shelter deep in the Acacus Mountains of southern Libya, this remarkably preserved body belonged to a three-year-old child, carefully wrapped in goatskin and packed with wild herbs to slow decay 🌿. Radiocarbon dating places it between 5400 and 5600 years old, when the Sahara was still a green savannah teeming with lakes, herds, and human settlements. The community that prepared this child’s body were Black pastoralists and herders, ancestors of early North Africans whose burial customs show a sophisticated understanding of anatomy and preservation long before Egyptian embalming began. In truth, the Black Mummy is not an imitation of Egypt—it is its prototype, proof that the science of mummification was born in Africa’s heart, not borrowed from its borders ✍🏾.

31/10/2025

The “Scramble for Africa” 🗺️ is a polite European euphemism for what Africans remember plainly as an invasion—an unprovoked, multinational assault on a continent’s sovereignty. Between 1884 and 1914, nearly every European power—Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Italy, and Spain—divided and occupied African territories with military force, deceit, and famine-inducing exploitation ⚔️. Yet textbooks call it a “conference” (Berlin, 1884), not a coalition war, even though it killed more people than most 19th-century European conflicts combined. Historians estimate that over 20 million Africans perished through conquest, forced labor, starvation, and disease introduced by displacement—casualties on the scale of a world war, but without the dignity of the name 🌍.

Why the linguistic gymnastics? Because Europe cannot call something a world war if the world it conquered didn’t get to write the history. When Britain burned Benin, when Germany annihilated the Herero and Nama, when Leopold’s agents amputated Congolese limbs for rubber quotas, these weren’t “colonial campaigns”—they were mass killings masked as modernization. But maps painted in red ink gave the violence administrative flair: invasion became “expedition,” occupation became “protectorate,” and slavery reborn as “forced labour.” 🩸 The double standard runs deep—Europe’s wars are “great,” its empires “civilizing,” and its massacres “misunderstood.”

Africans remember differently. They remember the razing of cities older than London, the shattering of kingdoms, the theft of land, language, and lineage. To them, the Scramble wasn’t a dash for territory—it was a century-long siege. And its aftermath—famine, partition, underdevelopment—still shapes borders, economies, and trauma. The hypocrisy lies not only in the killing, but in the naming: when Europeans fought over Africa, it wasn’t called World War Zero 🌍, though it should have been. For the millions who died unseen, “scramble” is too small a word for so vast a wound ✍🏾.

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