Brotherly Rejoinder

[Biko Agozino]

Egyptology of Marx’s Evolution as a Revolutionary Intellectual and the Question of African Origin of Modern Civilization | Pambazuka News

Egyptology of Marx’s Evolution as a Revolutionary Intellectual and the Q...

Biko

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Great debate but my concern is that Greek settler

colonists  in Egypt,  and Indigenous Egyptians are 

merged seamlessly in this discussion with little 

regard to time and even space. 

Dr. Gloria Emeagwali
Professor of History/African Studies, CCSU
Chief Editor- "Africa Update"
https://sites.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries
www.vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali
www.africahistory.net
Founding Coordinator, African Studies, CCSU

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From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2025 8:33 PM
To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Brotherly Rejoinder

 

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Egyptology of Marx’s Evolution as a Revolutionary Intellectual and the Question of African Origin of Modern Civilization | Pambazuka News

Egyptology of Marx’s Evolution as a Revolutionary Intellectual and the Q...

Biko

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[Biko Agozino]

Time and space contract when we travel as far back as we can to the genesis of human life in Africa, from where life spread to the other continents without visa requirements, immigration criminalization, nor armed national guard to break a few bones nor the navy to blow up fishing boats. 

All human beings are African, according to Diop, Marx called us the human race, Acholonu concluded that we lived before Adam and Eve, and Freud agreed that monotheism was invented by Moses, the Egyptian. We are all brothers and sisters, according to Ubuntu a la Tutu, Achebe identified this with Mbari sculptures, and Martin Luther King Jr said that we are all the children of a great author who left us a Great World House to share in a Beloved Community rather than fight and burn it down in chaos. 

Abdul Bangura, Horace Campbell, and Ron Eglash have since corrected MLK by pointing out that chaos is frequently a creative force and not always destructive. Sometimes, we take a look at grandpa's old house and we conclude that it is no longer fit for human habitation, Architects call it deconstruction. But the point is well made, there is enough space on earth for all opur needs but not for the greed of some..

Africans know this already, that is why we are open to learning from any source that is relevant to our needs. Eurocentrists continue trippingh because they fantasize that they are the only ones who have a written culture while the rest of us who invented writing supposedly make do with oral traditions. Marx was more Afrocentric than most lumpen bourgeois scholars.

Biko

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Brother you missed my point.

If you are studying ancient Egypt 

you have to recognize the timeline,

and in the interest of intellectual 

understanding, make a distinction

between the Old Kingdom, 

The New Kingdom, the periods of 

Internal chaos, and the periods of Greek,

Roman and Arab invasions and

colonization - among other

 important historical phases.

As scholars we must  recognize 

the timeline and the various forces 

associated with the writings

emanating from the region.

It is unfair to the Greeks to

appropriate their contributions 

and the same can be said of 

the Indigenous Egyptians and

the Romans and Arabs - so clarity is

important as to who wrote 

what and when.

To fully comprehend the relevance 

 of Marx’ doctoral thesis, to this 

issue, I would have to read it. 

Believe it or not,  I  had the great

pleasure of reading fifty three

Volumes of Marx in the 1980s

courtesy Progress Publishers,

but it never occurred to me that

I should read his doctoral thesis.

I have now added that to the

to-do list! I thank you for nudging

me in that direction.

Iweriebor in yesterday’s panel,

capitulated and renounced 

Marxist method and Marx.

Not me. I am yet to come across 

a more illuminating and 

insightful system of ideas about

our complicated world.

Dr. Gloria Emeagwali
Professor of History/African Studies, CCSU
Chief Editor- "Africa Update"
https://sites.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries
www.vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali
www.africahistory.net
Founding Coordinator, African Studies, CCSU

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From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Sunday, November 2, 2025 11:16 AM
To: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Brotherly Rejoinder

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/788483440.2610857.1762100198362%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Biko Agozino]

Sista Glo,

Timelines are fine for chronology but when it was the Greek philosophers themselves who testified that they were educated in ancient Egypt, who are we to disagree? It is not appropriation when Diop pointed out that a lot of the claims made by Greek philosophers were already known in the writings of Kemet philosophers for thousands of years before there was anybody known as Greek or Roman. Just setting the records straight.

You are not alone in recognizing the genius of Marx. BBC listeners voted him the most influential; philosopher. But Iweriebor is welcome to develop his own methods and theories without feeling that he is a rival to Marx as a thinker-activist. It is also welcome to critique Marx who would welcome even internal criticism as part of his methodology. That was the point that Cabral made in The Weapon of Theory, Rodney made similar points in the critique of the stages approach to history given that great leaps also hap[pen in history., and Stuart Hall critiqued the crude economism of the base-superstructure analogy - economy almighty determines everything in the final analysis - whereas there is no guarantee that a cultural trait, such as language, may not be the determinant factor in some conjunctures; no economy has been able to industrialize by relying on the language imposed by colonizers, for instance.

You are not alone in devouring those tomes from Progress Publishers but you did more than most of us by reading the complete collected works. The dissertation was not included perhaps because Stalinism saw it as pre-Marxist. Thanks to the AI technology of PDF, I find it easier to digest the work by attempting a discourse analysis of frequently occurring concepts. You can read the dissertation online in PDF. I was surprised that no previous commentator noticed that the research question was indeed Afrocentric until my modest strategic revisionism. Feel free to disagree with me.

Biko

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/MW6PR01MB8272BE8CC48751268ADF6329DEC7A%40MW6PR01MB8272.prod.exchangelabs.com.