Afrocentricism Revisited

Okay, I had a picture of the new Phoenician Empire, but the blog ate it and I had to euthanize it. I’ll link to it. It is here.

I’ve decided that the Phoenician Empire fell at about the same time as our Roman Empire, 476 AD. However, time before and after the fall is measured as BF and AF, AF being the start of the common era. So whatever the time is in AF years, it’s 476 years ahead of our own time. Got that? I hope I do…

Anyway. The fall was caused by numerous reasons: the Celt-Iberians (Spanish) instigated a major seaborne assault at the same time as Moroccan and Cyrenaican tribesmen attacked on Carthage’s right flank. Now, by this point, the Phoenician Empire had already begun to splinter and something similar to the Eastern and Western Roman Empires had happened, albeit in a less official way. Tyre was the de facto apital of the eastern part of the empire, and they were attacked simultaneously to Carthage’s siege by a bunch of tribesmen from the Arabian Peninsula and the Huns from Central Asia.

So the Empire crumbled, but separate kingdoms owing their allegiance to old Carthage carried on for a long time. Specifically, Egypt, much of Spain and Algeria all considered themselves successor states to Carthage, and Turkey and Persia considered themselves the same for Tyre. Meanwhile, the provinces far to the north remained uneducated, ignorant of the goings-on to the south. Spanish clerics brought the Carthaginian culture to the Franks and Britons, but the Germanic tribes stayed very much in the dark, left to develop on their own. Soon, the wars in Africa became too much, and the kingdoms splintered into smaller ones, while the dynasties in Turkey and Persia flourished, more or less at peace. They had a Renaissance of sorts, although it was very localized. Spanish trading ships eventually found their way to the eastern Mediterranean and picked up much of the culture that was developing at the time, bringing it back to Spain and Morocco. It spread until finally the entire Mediterranean was awash in art and literature. Egypt and Numidia unified their respective territories, and soon a technological golden age began. Renaissance-era technology popped up everywhere.

And then the Mongols invaded.

Turkey and Persia slowly succumbed to the horsemen, over a period of a few years, and the Mongols entered mainland Europe. The Germanic tribes, who had been, for the most part, totally remote, were somewhat better prepared for the disorganized tactics of the Mongols, and managed to hold them off for some time. However, during this time the Mongols invaded Egypt. Unfortunately for the Mongols, Genghis Khan died at this point, and the Mongols are also not renowned as good seamen, so Egypt was able to throw them off. Turkey and Persia emerged from the Mongol yoke with a shattered pride, far weaker than they had been, and set about reclaiming lost territory.

However, the Egyptians and Numidians had noticed the Europeans and sent troops over to Germany and Italy. They fared badly until somebody discovered gunpowder, somewhat earlier than in our world (About AD 1300, our time, AF 1776 [whoah, that's weird] our time). The Europeans were quickly crushed and the African powers moved on to Scandinavia and Russia. Meanwhile, Spain (Iberia), not to be outdone, stormed France and Britain, and Turkey moved into Central Asia while Persia attacked India.

Yada yada yada. Colonial empires happened for a while, and then somebody from an Iberian settlement in Ireland noticed that there was land across the sea. Soon, Greenland had been discovered, and then Newfoundland, and finally the full-fledged America.

I’m not sure what they would call it, seeing as they would speak a different language, so I’ll just refer to it as America. This was a huge blow, and Numidia and Iberia made a race for the new world, grabbing as much land as they possibly could.

After this it gets a little hazy. Suffice it to say that northern north America ended up belonging to Numidia, while Iberia got southern north America.

Eventually, most of the world was Africanized according to Phoenician principles, and this is where it gets interesting. Here are some musings on Afrocentric civilization:

No graveyards. In Carthage, there was something called a Tophet, which literally means “place of burning,” where all the remains of burned people were stored. The goddess Tanit was said to watch over them. But the point is that when people died they weren’t just buried, they burned, stored and then buried. This might seem like a small thing, but I’ve been considering it a lot lately.

Polytheism. There was never a religious Dark Age, and the idea of one god never gained steam. Most people in the world believe in a Phoenician belief system or a rebellious Persian one (Zoroastrianism). Presumably Buddhism gained a large following as well.

Different music. I’m not sure what African music is structured like, but it certainly isn’t a  typical twelve-note scale. This would probably mean a fusion of North African music and Greek modal music, except for some places in the east.

No communism. This is kind of a stretch, but my logic is thus: No educated Germans -> No Marx -> Nobody to popularize communism -> No major communist movment. Therefore, China is no longer screwed up, probably actually becoming a major adversary to Persian and Turkish expansionism into East Asia. Also, communism has had an enormous influence on the way politics is viewed, and it also created the idea of a cold war.

Come to think of it, I’m not even sure if feudalism has been outgrown and replaced by capitalism. I can assume there’d be democracy, given the Athenian model, but I wonder whether all a person’s earnings would go towards themselves or their government. Here’s a thought: what if I still have X number of world wars, but they’re a conflict between feudalism and capitalism? They’d be fought between major empires, or the remnants of major empires, but in different theatres and between different ideologies.

Interesting. Well, this is a story for another time. I’ve reached the part of the post where there isn’t anything else I have planned and I just ramble.

See you guys later today.

~ by pieboy on December 29, 2006.