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Columbus' 'discovery' of America: the greatest hoax of all times?
By Franz J. T. Lee (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Franz J. T. Lee - Writer
Wise Caribbean saying.
Across America and elsewhere, on
Monday, October 12, 2009, we will again be celebrating "Columbus Day",
our "Día de la Raza". Except in Venezuela, Cuba and some of the
ALBA
countries, like Bolivia, as usual we will be honoring the day of our
'discovery' by Cristobal Colon, by European colonization, by the
Spanish Inquisition, Roman Catholicism, civilization, culture and the
emerging bourgeoisie. As we should know, Venezuela has declared October
12 officially as the Day of Indigenous Resistance. In Asia, Africa,
America, Oceania and the Caribbean, with reference to 'pre-Columbian
times', many racist European politicians, philosophers and historians
have considered us as things next to nothing, that is, as natives, slit
eyes, red skins, kaffirs, coolies, pagans and barbarians. Surely, such
things cannot discover America. Surely, 'evil dictators' in Venezuela
cannot reach out for the stars and 'Latinos' cannot discover
"Jayú," a
small planet revolving at the outskirts of our solar system, beyond
Pluto.
During the European Dark Ages, were we
really just vegetating like starving monkeys and baboons outside
history?
Before we comment on Columbus'
"rediscovery" of America, let us briefly highlight the historic
context, the function of such Big Lies!
In the past, could we, Africans and
Arabs, really not construct powerful ships? Not direct a fleet across
the oceans? Or had we to wait for Henry to teach us how to
navigate?
The Herrenvolk, the master race, the
chosen people and their ideologues were (and still are) convinced of
the following
at the end of the 15th century: that we saw the white
(rather pink) men coming, began to worship these pale-faced
gods, then we jumped down from the trees, fell on our fours, and with
their aid, at last, finally we began to walk in upward gait. This
is one of the biggest lies ever told by ruling class man.
As taught worldwide to the innocent
school children, for us, the 'discoveries' of Columbus (that the earth
was round and that a 'New World' existed outside Europe) are rated by
us as the greatest hoaxes of all times. The ancient Greek
scientists and the Middle Age Norsemen, who traded with Iceland, Nova
Scotia and Greenland, respectively, knew very much about 'America'
already. This Big Lie about Columbus, as a political and psychological
strategy, over the centuries, became a racist ideological dogma, a
formal logical 'absolute truth', to celebrate global European 'race'
superiority. This is the alienating essence of all the busts and
statues of Columbus across the globe and of the "Day of the Race"!
Obviously, in every epoch, not only
are the ruling ideas the ideas of the ruling classes, also the ruling
big lies are the lies of Big Brother, of the big lying classes. These
big ruling class lies, embedded in 'de-naturalization',
'dis-socialization', religion, education, culture and ideology pervade
all capitalist social fibers, strata and structures and permeate all
walks of class society. The hoaxes, myths, dogmas and absolute
'truths', disseminated by mass media, propaganda, sermons, songs,
music, prayers and advertisements, already across centuries are
beautifying the unscrupulous economic exploitation of labor forces,
nature and society, by capital, in a nut shell, by global master and
slave class relations.
Another religious Big Lie is very
simple: Only the poor will enter the 'kingdom' of heaven; hence: folks,
please, do not wash too many plates, like Rockefeller once, you could
end up as a billionaire and later would be roasting in eternal hell
fire!
Lies, lies, everywhere ... to veil
capitalist cardinal crimes!
Nowadays, as Shakespeare and Orwell
predicted: Truth becomes a Lie, Freedom becomes Slavery, War becomes
Peace, Ignorance becomes Bliss and it is folly to become wise. What
this all has to do with discovering America, we will see later.
Politically, domination of the working
classes has been glorified by all kinds of big promises. These range
from the Platonic apartheid rule of philosopher kings with golden
hearts, who nurture the 'Highest Good', to Augustine's 'City of God',
to States by the grace of God. The real historic truth about the
'Prince' (Maquiavelli), the 'Leviathan' (Hobbes), the 'Fuehrer'
(Hitler) and 'Big Brother' (Orwell) we will not find in the 'Breaking
News' of Fox News, CNN or in the news agencies of the Murdoch Empire.
Even if they would publish the truth now and unmask all the current big
political lies, ... they have done their job so perfectly ... nobody
would
believe in any wrongs of United States foreign policy.
Good shepherds, god-men and men-gods,
are incapable of telling big lies to their flock, only "terrorists" and
"commies" are capable of such diabolical crimes. Our State defends
Christianity, civilization, culture and world peace in the Near, Middle
and Far East.
Wherever our dollar and our army go,
they, like all of us, "In God We Trust!"
Across the ages, a galaxy of Big Lies
were fabricated: black Africans "have no souls" (Montesquieu); they
"neither serve for the use nor for the abuse of philosophy" (Voltaire).
According to Hegel, Africa does not even appear in world history. Of
course, according to European racist arrogance, such 'barbarians',
Arabs and Africans like Avicenna, Averroes and Ibn Khaldoun, the "white
man's burden", cannot develop natural and social sciences; historically
they cannot 'discover' anything, least of all America. In the ambit of
racism tons of Big Lies are being told about the 'children of Ham',
about the 'Kaffirs' and 'Coolies'. Millions, even innocently, out of
ignorance, believe in these racist, fascist diatribes. Among
other avenues, these big untruths infiltrated the Talmud of
Babylonia, the Holy Bible, Apartheid, Fascism, 'Democracy' and
'National Socialism'. Who would doubt such big 'truths' coming from the
Holy Scriptures, as revealed by Great Men?
In the military spheres, in capital
accumulation, big lies launch big business, big world wars, and the
workers, the millions of bamboozled lambs happily march towards the
slaughter house, to certain death. The 'Reichtagsbrand' caused by the
Nazis themselves, the big lies about 'Pearl Harbor' and '9/11' are just
among the most tragic, detestable machinations of recent ruling class
hoaxes.
During the 'Cold War', in the Stalin
epoch, even the Soviet Union used the Big Lie strategy, especially
during the capitalist 'arms race' campaigns to win world hegemony. The
world was told that Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. Till today
many still believe in this story. The truth of the matter is that
it was
Sergei Vladimir Ilyushin junior, who
flew around the earth a few days before Yuri Gagarin, and who crashed
in China and was lucky to be returned to the Soviet Union alive. In the
arms race to the moon, this mishap would not have been favorable
propaganda for the Soviet Union. Gagarin upgraded the then Soviet
inferiority complexes. Russian and even American astronauts have also
discovered the United States secret military base 'Area 51', near
Paradise Ranch in the Nevada Desert. Many began to doubt that Neil
Armstrong ever jumped around on the Moon like the cowboy hero Hopalong
Cassidy. The area in the desert looks like a moon landscape, a perfect
background for Hollywood to film honeymoon sagas.
However, in a short commentary it is
impossible to verify all these strange theories and events. To
celebrate 'Columbus Day' consciously, this is just urgent food for
thought, to take up arms against an avalanche of new hoaxes, a sea of
imperialist lies, that is, to learn to differentiate between virtuality
and reality.
Now let us look at the big
'transhistoric event: The Old World discovers the New World! Generally,
historians must wait about 50 years to study classified material about
big lies, like '9/11', that is, our historians have to guess, to use
'trial and error' methods to discover the truth about capital
crimes against humanity. The 'rediscovery' of America by Columbus still
will necessitate another 500 years to be verified scientifically.
As the African-Caribbean writer,
Richard B. Moore, in his book "The Significance of African History"
has explained, European "scholars", affirming the imperialist
lies, in many cases have simply falsified African history.
Guyanese historians like Walter Rodney and Ivan van Sertima have
supplied us with sufficient scientific materials, at least, to doubt
the Big Lie versions about the Columbus 'discovery' of America. At
best, the joint venture and adventure of Columbus brought about a third
grade 're-discovery', the colonization of America, the latter is not a
'discovery', it was creating the world market, acceleration of the
accumulation of capital, founding modern history.
There are many claims with reference
to who discovered America but none about indigenous America
discovering and colonizing Europe. According to North European sagas,
it seems that Norwegian pre-Columbian presence in Northern America was
a reality. Well, we could consider these possible discoveries, after
all, they originated in Northern Europe, and not in the ancient
Arab-African University of Timbuktu, in the Mali civilization, the
ancient El Dorado of Africa.
Because these facts are practically
unknown to us, allow me to quote some relevant passages from the
excellent work 'The Norse Discovery of America', by A.M Reeves,
et al:
"Here it is proper to add that the
Norsemen were the discoverers of pelagic navigation. Let me here state
with all the emphasis that I am able to compress into so many words,
that the navigation of the ocean was discovered by the old Norse
Vikings. Before them, the only navigation known was coast navigation.
The Norsemen were excellent ship-builders and knew how to calculate
time by the sun, moon and stars, and into every history of the world,
and into every encyclopedia I would have the fact conspicuously stated
that pelagic navigation was discovered by the Norsemen." 1)
Who doubts that in the 'Middle Ages'
or even earlier, that North and West Africans scientifically could not
have done likewise?
Nonetheless, according to this work,
the Norsemen visited North America already in 1347, '145 years before
the rediscovery by Columbus'.
Why were the Norwegian-American trade
relations terminated?
"The last expedition mentioned in the
sagas was in 1347, 145 years before the rediscovery by Columbus. In
that year it is stated that a vessel came from Markland (Nova Scotia)
to Iceland with a cargo of wood. ... But this, as the reader will see,
carries us down to a memorable period in European history. It brings us
to the breaking out of the terrible black plague, or black death." 2)
It seems to be exaggerated, however,
there are historic claims that the Egyptian "Nubian-Kemmiu peoples
arrived in the Americas around 1200 BC". 3)
Based on serious research materials of
world renowned historians, in an article "Pre-Columbian African
Presence in the Americas", published on May 16, 2006 by Mathaba.Net, we
stated:
"There exists definite historic
evidence that between 1307 and 1312 AD, West African Mandinga fleets
have sailed to America and later have also returned to Africa. In 1324
AD, the famous Mandinga emperor of Mali, Mansa Kankan Musa I on his way
to Mecca, stopped over at Cairo, and was interviewed by the eminent
14th century Islamic historian, Al-Umars, to whom the emperor had
related his rise to 'power" and that "his predecessors had launched two
expeditions from West Africa to discover the limits of the Atlantic
Ocean' ". 4)
Let us listen further to the reports
of the eminent 14th century Islamic historian, Al-Umars, who wrote:
"I asked the Sultan Musa how it was
that power came into his hands. ... 'We are from a house that transmits
power by heritage ... the ruler who preceded me would not believe that
it was impossible to discover the limits of the neighboring sea. He
wanted to find out and persisted in his plans. He had about 200 ships
equipped and filled them with men, and the same number of ships filled
with gold, water and supplies in sufficient quantities to last for
years." 5)
Many European and North American
'scholars' do not consider such evidence as being 'scientifically
correct'. They especially accused Ivan van Sertima as follows:
"Van Sertima's work has been
criticized by academics for making ill-founded Afrocentric claims. A
1997 Journal of Current Anthropology article criticized in detail many
elements of Van Sertima's 1976 book They Came Before Columbus.[3] The
book had not earlier received a thorough professional academic review.
They stated that in claiming African origins for prehistoric Olmec
culture (in present-day Mexico), Van Sertima had ignored the work of
Central American researchers. They stated no evidence of a prehistoric
African influence or presence had been found in controlled
archaeological excavations in the New World." 6)
However, let Al-Umars inform us about
the Big Truth:
"He told those who commanded them,
return only when you have reached the extremity of the ocean or when
you have exhausted your food and water. They went away ... Finally, a
sole ship reappeared, We asked the captain about their adventure.'"
Let us read on; this may be a tale,
but it is more interesting than big lies about Hussein's "arms of mass
destruction"!
"He told the Sultan about their long
voyage and how finally they entered something like a river with violent
currents. He was last in the row, and saw how the other ships
disappeared. He returned, to tell his story. However, "the emperor did
not want to believe him, He equipped about 2000 more vessels and
conferred power on me and left with his companion on the ocean. This
was the last time I saw him and the others. ..." 7)
The solution to this historic riddle
lies in the library of the museum of the Vatican; there we could find
the historic evidence, the charts and calculations which could verify
that Columbus knew with precision where he was going and how to return
to Europe, thanks to African and Arab Mandinga scientific and
philosophic knowledge.
The irony of history, the strange ways
of Truth: two hundred years after the visit of Musa I of Mecca,
Christopher Columbus in his "Journals" personally testified about the
presence of the Mandinga expeditions in the Americas.
According to the NEW AFRICAN, he said
"that West African merchant fleets periodically left the Guinea Coast
and sailed to Middle America with gold and other merchandise and
introduced the art of alloying gold. ... The Indians brought
handkerchiefs of cotton, very symmetrically woven and worked in colors
like those brought from Guinea, from the rivers of Sierra Leone and of
no difference ... The Mandinga traded gold and cloth called 'almaizar'
..."
For posterity fragments and quotations
of Columbus' "Journals" were saved by Fraile Bartolomé de las
Casas; if
the following should be genuine, then we have just illustrated one of
the greatest hoaxes launched against Africa and America, and that we
should urgently study and rectify our history; also we should tell the
true story and not fabricate new myths about socialism and emancipation.
Columbus himself informs us:
"The Indians brought handkerchiefs of
cotton, very symmetrically woven and worked in colors like those
brought from Guinea, from the rivers of Sierra Leone and of no
difference ... The Mandinga traded gold and cloth called 'almaizar' ...
"
Hence, in conclusion, even Christopher
Columbus himself testified that the Mandinga had arrived in America
long before him. 8)
Instead of winning Nobel Peace Prizes,
who in Washington D.C. will ever discover the flowing, over flowing
Mandinga truth about this world one day?
********
Footnotes:
1)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/nda/nda03.htm
2) ibid.
3) See: NEW AFRICAN (London), "They
Came Before Columbus", January, 2001, N 392, pages 16-20
4)
http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=537389
5) ibid.
6)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_van_Sertima
7) The following quotes are from the
NEW AFRICAN article.
8)
http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/a21932.html
http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=537389.
Also:
http://espanol-franzjtlee.blogspot.com/
*****
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