The African Community Life

Historians who tried to write some history of some parts of Africa before the last quarter of the 20th century had many handicaps. Many of them were foreigners who neither understood the language nor appreciated the life values of the African people about whom they tried to write. Some were Africans or African Diaspora who were products of foreign scholars and too tied to their teachers to be different at that time. There was another academic handicap confronting writers who attempted to write about African Civilization culture or history at that time. Mainly two schools of thought concerning the development or lack of it in the African race handicapped them. The first group of the theorists maintained that Africans made no development worthy of classification as historical achievement or history before the arrival of Europeans in Africa. This group agreed that every development in Africa started after the European contacts were made and because of the contacts. The second group of theorists on African development held the view that African people made some insignificant developments before Europeans arrived in Africa. They also maintained that the European contact brought about total devastation of the minor developments made leaving the people to start all over again. They also agreed that every development made thereafter were reactions to the European impacts and therefore direct results of European presence and contacts in Africa. In summary both schools of thought held that every notable development of Africa especially south of the Sahara desert was a result of the impact of the European contact with Africa. According to the first school of thought all developments were results of the European contacts making the Africans to start thinking and producing meaningfully thereafter. The second school of thought agreed that after the total devastation of African developments caused by the European contacts every African significant development was a result o