ABSTRACT

This book is my contribution to that uphill struggle. But before we continue on the strenuous uphill climb, it would be good to be nourished by a cosmic humility.

A PLEA FOR COSMIC HUMILITY

Yash Tandon (1996) of the University of Zimbabwe reminds us that when Europeans came to Africa toward the turn of the fifteenth century, they found a prosperous civilization and enormous wealth. Agriculture and cattle rearing, iron-work, pottery, fishery, salt-mining, gold refining and ornament making, weaving, hunting, and long-distance trading were well advanced at a time when Europe was still relatively backward (Diop, 1974). From the fifteenth century on, however, the fate of the two continents reversed. Through the intermediation of the Muslims in northern Africa and Spain from the ancient civilizations, Europe learned among other things the use of the compass and of gunpowder (Davidson, 1992).