Palestinian people and African/Black people share more than a common struggle. They share a history dating back thousands of years.
Much has been written about the historical comradely relations between Palestinian and African liberation movements, as well as the similarities between the colonial histories of the two.; I don’t intend to address these facts. What you will read below is the undisputed fact that Palestine is part of Africa. This may sound like a rhetorical statement, or one of international solidarity, but truly it is geographically factual that Palestine is in Africa.
Let us take a look at the African Continental Plate. It is clear that all of Palestine, Lebanon and the coast of Syria are part of Africa. Meaning Palestinians are Africans, so are Lebanese and Syrian people.
We can take it even further, and actually say all Arabic peoples, not only those who are from North Africa, are African. This is also geographically factual since the Arabian (sub)Plate is a break away part of the African Plate. The Dead Sea fault line extends to the Great Rift Valley fault line and they meet in Djibouti. Both the Somali (sub)Plate and the Arabian (sub)Plate are moving away from the African Plate, and would in a few million years completely detach from it. Since the Arabic speaking people, and in fact all Semitic people and languages, originate from Somalia, and since Somali people, and all those who live on the Somali (sub)Plate are considered African and part of Africa; it is logical then to say that all Arabic speaking peoples, and all those who live on the Arabian (sub)Plate are also African and part of Africa.
Arabic peoples are African
Much effort has been spent by the “White Man'' to defame the Arabic peoples and their ancestors, while simultaneously appropriating their heritage as his legacy. Notice I use the term Arabic peoples, denoting their belonging to a cultural-linguistic group and not a psedo-scence Race category of “Arab”. Although there are Arabian peoples, denoting their belonging to a geographic location, i.e. those who live in the Arabian Peninsula, like Yemenies, Omanis, etc.
Geography and topography are the greatest shapers of culture and the course of history. In that sense, Arabic people are a product of their lands and, more specifically, of their location at a crossroads between continents and the center of all geographically peripheral cultures, and of the fact that prior to the 1490s they and their lands were the primary conduits of culture, trade, travel, and transit between Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Arabic peoples are part of the Afro-Asian cultural-linguistic group, or what some would refer to as Semitic-Hamitic. Notice that I did not use the terms Race and Ethnicity; both blood quantum fabrications of Colonialism and White-Supremacy. Arabic peoples are neither a Race nor an Ethnicity; rather, they are defined by their relationship with their lands and language. In that sense, they belong to their Geography, a vast expanse of deserts and plains with no internal natural borders obstructing the movement of peoples, that is encompassed by hard-to-penetrate natural borders of mountains, seas, and forest. Arabic peoples are the largest branch of the Afro-Asian cultural-linguistic group, who all can trace their origins to Somalia’s northern plains, now in Ethiopia. If you follow evolutionary science, you would know that our ancestor Dinknesh "the wondrous one” (Lucy) was found there, and her descendants moved up the coast of the Red Sea and over the land bridge into Arabia, which existed before the end of the last ice age. And if you would like to map religious mythology onto history, one may say that when the land bridge between Somalia and Arabia collapsed, Adam and Eve were banished from Heaven, and then Cain killed Abel because he didn’t want to mate with a Neanderthal.
Thousands of years of cultural exchange and intermarriage exists between East African peoples, and Arabic peoples and their ancestors. For one, there is not one Somali family that is not intermarried to a Yemeni family; thousands of years of sailing back and forth between what is now Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Yemen and Hijaz. The cultural exchange, trade and intermarriage along the Nile basin from Egypt to Ethiopia was as significant as the movement across the Red Sea. Finally, we can not forget the failed invasion of Mecca by the King of Abyssinia on the day of the birth of Prophet Mohammad, and the complete opposite 40 years later, the granting of asylum by the Christian King of Abyssinia to the first Muslims who were escaping assassins.
Bringing up this issue of “race” at this point is crucial to understand who are Arabic peoples, and what is their relation to Africa and its peoples. Firstly, the regions of North and East Africa, and the Arabian peninsula, and their peoples have always been a transient space, with many old connections built through this human movement. The ease of movement of peoples within this space, meant that Yemenis could travel all the way to the Atlas mountains 3000 years ago, and settle with their archaic Arabic alphabet and become what we know as Amazegh today. How Canaanites from Syria could rule Pharaonic Egypt. Or how costal Cannanites, i.e. Phinicians and Philistines, could ride their boats to Tunis and Algeria, and found the Empire of Carthage.
Similarly, the ease of movement of culture and language within this geographic space, meant that singular accents of proto-semitic could dominate the whole of this space, with or without a forced political unification. The accent of the economic center within North Africa and the Arabian peninsula, defined the lingua-franca of the day. When Mesopotamia was the dominant cultural and economic center, the Assyrian accent was spoken and written in Yemen and in Tunis, but when the center shifted to Damascus, the Arameic accent was heard in Morocco and Oman. In fact, Arabic as an accent was alive at the time of Assyrian and Arameic, but it was written in their alphabets. Essentially Arabic is just the accent of the desert dwellers, and more precisely Mecca. I say all of this to make one final point, Arabic speaking people did not colonize and force their accent in North Africa, they did not genocide and forcefully displace, they just were the latest wave of movement within a natural geographic space and common peoplehood that had thousands of years of codevelopment. Finally, only because of the success of Islam in liberating the peoples of North Africa and the Arabian plate from foreign occupation and domination did Arabic become the lingua-franca.
Why is all of this important? Because “White Man” was able to extract Arabic peoples from history and geography. When one mentions African people, most will not imagine Arabic people as African; and similarly when Asian peoples are mentioned, Arabic people are left out of this imaginary peoplehood. Without question, Arabic people are not European, and would never be included in imaginary Whiteness. The largest Semittic-Hamitic group, 600 million strong, second only to the Han people in global size, are expelled from human geography by a White racial imaginary boundary that literally leaves them outside all categories. Made easier to dehumanize through this erasure, Arabic people are then never to belong to their own history or geography, which is now to be colonized and usurped by the White Man.
Since ancient times, Europeans usurped Semitic lands and bastardized Semitic traditions, starting from the Canaanite pantheon of Gods and their mythological stories, which were all usurped by the Greeks and Romans and cheaply transformed into their gods with new names; and the Aramaic alphabet became the Greek and Latin alphabet. Then came the usurpation of Judaism and Christianity. In fact, if we extract the divine from this relationship, we can understand the rise of Unitary religions in Semitic cultures as a response to occupation by external forces and usurpation of culture. When the Canaanite pantheon was usurped, Ibrahim was born. When that didn’t work, Moses was born. When the Jewish elite collaborated with the Roman occupation, Jesus was born. When Rome usurped Christianity and moved its religious center out of Palestine; Islam was born. You can either believe the material conditions were ripe at the rise of these religions, or you could believe that the Creator revealed the knowledge and Prophets when humanity was ready for it. Either way, the result is the same, liberation and unification was the driving force within the geographic space of North/East Africa and the Arabian peninsula for thousands of years.
Free Palestine! Free Africa!
Palestine is part of Africa, and Arabic peoples are African; and they have a common history with other African peoples. Starting from today, if you are Palestinian, Arabic and/or African, you have another reason to add to your support for the liberation of Palestine and all of Africa from European White Supremacy and Colonialism. If you are Palestinian and/or Arabic; you must loudly declare that you are African and proud. And all Africans, you must loudly declare that Palestinians and Arabic peoples are African. Our history teaches us only through our unity could African peoples be free of Colonialism and Imperialism.
Laith Marouf is an award-winning journalist and political commentator, working in media since 1999. He regularly appears on television and radio, including Radio Sputink, Press TV, Al Mayadeen. He has also published with independent media such as Electronic Intifada, Mint Press, and more.
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