East Africa (History) Research Papers (original) (raw)

Following an earlier article about the recent developments in the area of Sanaag, I came to recall a fascinating text that is not widely known among today´s Somalis. I would characterize it as a Classic of Orientalist literature, and it... more

However, it was not written for the purpose of educating the ancestors of modern Somalis. In fact, it was composed by a leading English adventurer and Orientalist who contributed greatly to the formation of a great number of ideas and preconceived schemes the English shared about the wider Red Sea area, involving the Eastern African coast, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa.

The book is a real goldmine in revealing precisely

1. how the colonial European powers, and more specifically, the English, projected their preconceived ideas about other nations, religions, faiths, histories and cultures, their misconceptions, delusions, misapprehensions, and their misunderstandings onto the sphere of academic knowledge, science, and truth,

2. how they fell victims of their own errors,

3. how their initial errors dragged them to further and more critical, political, errors,

4. how they projected their aforementioned inconsistencies onto the sphere of the foreign policy, and more particularly onto their relationship with the various local peoples, and

5. how this unfortunate chain of discrepancies and anomalies was projected onto the Somalis to plunge them in confusion and tie them with the colonial power.

The book, in and by itself, reveals in a splendid way what colonialism has always been: a misunderstanding and an aberration built thereon.

Somalia in its totality is not the main subject of the book; a marginal part of Somalia is. However, Harar´s historical magnificence and radiance was such that anything written about Harar normally concerns parts of the greater Somalia.

Not a single chapter of the main part of the book describes the illustrious province of Sanaag; the first Appendix does. As a matter of fact, it is about a diary written and the observations made by an English army lieutenant, who was the first to identify the Lake Victoria as source of the Nile, and he was the first European to reach there. The lieutenant is not the author of the book, who also was a famous explorer, and bitter rivalry characterized the two English explorers.

The diary concerns none else than Lieutenant Speke for whom an interesting, brief but informative, profile was composed by the BBC Historic Figures section (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/speke_john_hanning.shtml).

The book was written by Richard Burton, the famous explorer and treacherous traveler, who – due to his excellent linguistic skills in Arabic – managed to enter Mecca, although a Christian. He was the first European to enter Harar, Africa´s holiest Islamic shrine and the Islamic world´s fourth most venerated place. An introductory presentation can be found in wikipedia, but it is highly biased (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton). On the contrary, an interesting book review about his ´First footsteps in East Africa or, An Exploration of Harar´ and Burton´s adventures in Harar was published here: http://www.roadjunky.com/article/711/richard-burton-harar-travel-book.

I republish here integrally the Appendix I, Diary and Observations Made by Lieutenant Speke, When Attempting to Reach the Wadi Nogal. Richard Burton´s ´First footsteps in East Africa or, An Exploration of Harar´ was published in 1856.

I would be ready to publish various comments, and to comment on excerpts of Lieutenant Speke´s Diary, so I welcome your comments, corrections, rectifications, and criticism of this deeply anti-Somali text.

I re-publish the controversial text here because I am convinced that it reveals negative intentions against, and a wrong perception of, Somalia; the ensuing English colonization of the northern part of Somalia was carried out by people who were based …. precisely on this text!

It is therefore essential for today´s Somalis not to have illusions about the permanently anti-Somali policies of England. To liberate, pacify, re-unify, and rehabilitate Somalia, one has to bear this in mind.

Diary and Observations Made by Lieutenant Speke, When Attempting to Reach the Wadi Nogal - Appendix I
From: First footsteps in East Africa or, An Exploration of Harar
by Richard Burton
First published in AfroArticles, American Chonicle, and Buzzle on 17th July 2008
Republished on 23rd July 2008 here:
http://xaqsoor.blogspot.com/2008/07/richard-burton-on-sanaag-at-origins-of.html