Decolonized and Afrocentric Education: For Centering African Women in Remembering,Re-Membering,and the African Renaissance

Background and Introduction

The revolutionary Pan-Africanist scholar, academic, and activist, W. E. B. Du Bois (1989), declared in his book, The Souls of Black Folk, first published in 1903, that “THE PROBLEM of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line—the relation of the darker to lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” (p. 10). In his book, Dark Water: Voices From Within The Veil, published 17 years later, Du Bois (1999) pointed out that the “uplift of women is, next to the problem of the color line and the peace movement, our greatest modern cause” (p. 105). Du Bois (1999) further pointed out that when the “two of these movements—woman and color—combine in one, the combination has deep meaning.” What this reveals is an appreciation by Du Bois that while the antiracism struggle in the United States was for the liberation of all people of African descent, an extra, and more focused antisexism struggle had to be waged. Du Bois’s logic was not only informed by a recognition that the oppression and exploitation of African American was unnatural and wrong, but also that the struggle for the dignity of Black women in the United States was about the reclamation of an African culture that slavery dealt a blow. His studies on ancient African history had taught him that in Africa “none is more tenderly loved than the Negro mother” (Du Bois, 1999, p. 97). In his studies of African history, Du Bois (1999) had learnt that “[e]verwhere in Africa [. . .] no greater affront can be offered a Negro than insulting his mother” (p. 97). He learnt that the Krus, the Fantis, and the Mandingo could tolerate and bear being struck by an enemy, but would not take the reviling of their mothers (Du Bois, 1999). Among the Dyoor, Du Bois (1999) learnt that “[a] bond between mother and child which lasts for life is the measure of affection shown” (p. 98). Among the Zulu-speaking Africans and the Waganda, Du Bois (1999) found that “the mother is the most influential counsellor at the court of ferocious sovereigns, like Chaka or Mtesa; sometimes sisters take her place” (p. 98). In these African cultures, Du Bois (1999, p. 98) learnt, “the woman [. . . ] is [. . . ] held in no small esteem among the Negroes,” this being evidenced by the “numerous Negro queens, from the medicine women, from the participation in public meetings permitted to women by many Negro peoples.” On the basis of his studies on Africa, Du Bois (1999) concluded that the this picture appeared as if “the great black race in passing up the steps of human culture gave the world, not only the Iron Age, the cultivation of the soil, and the domestication of animals, but also, in peculiar emphasis, the mother-idea” (p. 97). The “mother-idea” refers to all that is mentioned above—the centering, the veneration, and love for womanhood. The “mother-idea” refers to the “sacredness and infallibility of mothers,” which finds expression in an Igbo woman song, “woman is principal, is principal, is principal” (Amadiume, 1989, p. xv). The African “mother-idea” also finds expression in the Ohaffia saying, “father’s penis scatters, mother’s womb gathers,” a saying that is both literal and metaphorical (Kamalu, 1990, p. 153). The African “mother-idea” was disrupted (among some)—but not destroyed—in the African American community because “the westward slave trade and American slavery struck like doom” (Du Bois, 1999, p. 98). Against the “doom” of American slavery, the “mother idea” remained resilient.

Many African Americans held on, tenaciously, to their ancestral cultural beliefs that defined their humanity. A conversation between Maya Angelou, a Pan-Africanist and world-renowned poetess, and Nana Nketsia, the University of Ghana’s first vice chancellor, reveals as much. Nana Nketsia addressed Angelou (2008, p. 124) thus,

You are a mother and we love our mothers [. . . ] Africa is herself a mother. The mother of mankind. We Africans take motherhood as the most sacred condition human beings can achieve. Camara Laye, our brother, has said, “The Mother is there to protect you. She is buried in Africa and Africa is buried in her. That is why she is supreme.”

In her typical character, Angelou (2008, p. 125), did not fail to rise to the occasion, to reciprocate, and to affirm the cultural bonds between Africans, in the continent, and Africans, in the diaspora, that defied the ravages of slavery:

Nana, I appreciate hearing that Africans cherish their mothers. It confirms my belief that in America we have retained more Africanisms than we know. For also among black Americans Motherhood is sacred. We have strong mothers and we love them dearly.

The oppression of women in the world was not an accident of history. It was deliberately conceived in Europe, and given a philosophical justification by European philosophers such as Aristotle (1992) who argued in favor of gender inequality by arguing that women were inferior. It is this philosophical orientation, historically privileged in Eurocentric education institutions, which provided a base for the oppression of women in the world. In the same vein, gender equality was not, in Africa, an accident of history, but a product philosophical orientation. Therefore, in line with Du Bois’s call for war against sexism, I argue that such should not be an event but a sustained process and effort through a decolonized and Afrocentric education. An Afrocentric “education system should be such that the children are taught that the natural line of descent is through the mother” (Kamalu, 1990, p. 57). This can be demonstrated as “beyond doubt once it is understood that all human beings are conceived by woman” (Kamalu, 1990). Through Afrocentric education, “children should be made aware that the traits of both sexes exist within each human being”:

Within every man there is a woman and within every woman, a man. Therefore any man who hates women is a man who hates an aspect of himself which he cannot come to terms with. His hatred for women is therefore an externalization of this self-hatred. (Kamalu, 1990)

I begin by defining, clarifying, and contextualizing the key working concepts in this exercise. In the conviction that without understanding the history of colonial education and how it assisted in accomplishing colonial objectives, I trace, briefly, how colonial education displaced African traditional education and the cultural implications thereof for Africans. I then discuss how Africans, in an effort to free themselves from colonial education saw the African Renaissance as central in not just opposing Eurocentric education, but also proposing Afrocentric education and what this entailed. I then trace the philosophical thrust that informed the “mother-idea” making reference to ancient Egypt’s narration of creation that celebrates womanhood. That is followed by concluding remarks. First, the definitions are presented.

Defining and Clarifying Key Concepts: Colonialism, Eurocentrism, Decolonization, and Afrocentricity

Colonialism is a conscious, calculated, and systematic destruction of one people’s cultural values by another and an arbitrary replacement of their cultural values by the conquering nation (wa Thiong’o, 1997). That colonialism is, as wa Thiong’o (1997) emphatically observes, “not (emphasis original) a case of wanton carelessness,” but a “calculated” exercise, is borne out by Fanon’s (1967) reflections:

Colonial domination, because it is total (emphasis added) and tends to oversimplify, very soon manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life of a conquered people. This cultural obliteration is made possible by the negation of national reality, by new legal relations introduced by the occupying power, by the banishment of natives and their customs to outlying districts by colonial society, by expropriation, and by the systematic enslaving of men and women. (p. 190)

In a relentless manner,

Every effort is made to bring the colonized person to admit the inferiority of his culture which has been transformed into instinctive patterns of behaviour, to recognize the unreality of his “nation,” and, in the last extreme, the confused and imperfect character of his own biological structure. (Fanon, 1967, p. 190)

In a determined effort to persuade the colonized to accept their inferiority, or use force if and when there is resistance, colonialism

is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures and destroys it. (Fanon, 1967, p. 169)

Colonialism and Eurocentrism were twin projects in that as Europe conquered, Europe became the “centre” and the “universe revolved around Europe, the fountain head of universal values and civilization” (wa Thiong’o, 1997, p. 117). On the basis of the foregoing, Eurocentrism is defined as the centering of European cultures, as a point of civilizational reference, and the simultaneous marginalization of others’ cultural values through Eurocentric education. Afrocentricity—our key concept in this exercise—among other definitions, refers to the intellectual work of African philosophers, historians, and sociologists, engaged in Africology, driven by the conviction that the “key crisis in the African world is the profoundly disturbing decentering [dismemberment] of African people from a subject position within their own narrative” (Asante, 2017, p. 231).

In 1998, one of the key objectives of the African Renaissance conference held in South Africa was to “formulate practical strategies and solutions for future action that would benefit the African masses” (Makgoba, Shope, & Mazwai, 1999, p. i). In pursuit of this objective, among the questions that confronted the conference, with particular reference to educational issues, were the following:

The linking of “culture,” “education,” and the “renaissance” was an indication of an appreciation of the “role of culture” as being indispensable in the construction of a people’s education (Ntuli, 1999, p. 190). Culture in this context is defined and understood as a “systematic set of ideas and a single coherent statement,” which “provides the basis of commitment, priority and choice, thereby imparting direction to group development and behavior” (Ntuli, 1999, p. 191). Ntuli’s observation is a recognition of wa Thiong’o’s (1997) argument that “[e]ducation is truly a mirror unto people’s social being and it is also the means by which that being is reproduced and passed onto the next generation” (p. 28). In line with wa Thiong’o’s observation, Mugo (1999) points out that “education is a key institution for inculcating and promoting cultural values and practices. It acts as a communicator, as well as reservoir of culture” (p. 218). Noting that “education is one of the most political institutions of the superstructure,” Mugo (1999) further points out that such being the case, education “cannot be regarded as neutral, in the sense of not having a social vision, mission or agenda” (pp. 218-219). That is so because education is “created by a political system and the latter ensures that its interests are served” (Mugo, 1999, p. 219). It is against this historical background that “education has been the main ideological battlefield between the economic, political, and cultural forces of oppression and the forces of national liberation and unity” (wa Thiong’o, 1997, p. 28). For the European conquerors to force their African subjects into a prostrate position, the indigenous “education system was the first fortress to be stormed by the spiritual army of colonialism, clearing and guarding the way for a permanent siege by the entire occupation forces of British imperialism” (wa Thiong’o, 1997, p. 28). In appreciation of the foregoing, Ntuli (1999) notes that the “role of higher education toward a more culture-specific or culturally relevant curriculum, is a critical one” (pp. 197-198).

The observations above, with reference to the centrality of African culture in African education, reflect Afrocentric positions. In advocating not just a decolonized, but more, specifically, an Afrocentric education, Afrocentric scholars go beyond just being anti-colonial education, but also pro-African education, beyond simply opposing, but also proposing. Recognizing that colonialism does not only colonize lands and bodies, but also the mind through Eurocentric scholarship, and that Eurocentric scholarship specifically targeted the colonized cultures, myths, history, and philosophy, in order that the colonized may dismember and forget who they were, and thus have no sense of direction, Afrocentric scholarship advocates the prerequisiteness of African cultures, myths, history, and philosophy in order that Africans may be re-membered and remember who they were so as to re-claim their space in the world as equal members of the human race. Central in that African Renaissance project is a recognition of African women as being equal to men in the human race membership.

Eurocentric Education as a Colonizing and De-Africanizing Tool

The entrance and entrenchment of Eurocentric education in African communities was not smooth, but involved confrontations and clashes between the indigenous African communities, on one hand, and the European colonial government and missionaries, on the other (Abdullahi, 2006; Duerden, 2006). In the case of the Christian missionaries, having convinced themselves of Africans’ depravity, the Christian church, historically, the Europeans’ church, did “not call the native to God’s ways but to the ways of the white man, of the master, of the oppressor” (Fanon, 1967, p. 32). Africans recognized that the church was not simply imparting Christian values, but also imposing European cultures. Thus, confrontation ensued. The clash between the Kikuyu communities in Kenya and the missionaries had to do with the missionaries’ objection to the circumcision of women among the Kikuyu (Abdullahi, 2006). Some missionary schools made it clear that they would accept Kikuyu children into their schools on condition that their parents renounced circumcision (Abdullahi, 2006). Confronted by these conditions and an interpretation of Christianity that would not accommodate their African cultural values, the majority of the Kikuyu established their own independent African churches and independent African schools run by the African independent churches (Abdullahi, 2006). It is against this background that wa Thiong’o (Marcuson, González, & Williams, 2006) identifies the historical role of Christian missionaries as being the “forerunners of colonialism” (p. 25).

The establishment of what was called “Gikuyu Independent Schools” was not only a political expression, but also an establishment of a decolonization movement because, as wa Thiong’o (Marcuson et al., 2006) observes, these schools “belonged to people who had rebelled against missionary influence [and] wanted the kind of education that belonged to the people” (p. 25). In the Gikuyu Independent Schools, a person was not required to renounce one’s customs and beliefs, whereas in the case of missionary schools, African children were not only expected to renounce their cultural beliefs, but also embrace Christianity (Sander & Munro, 2006). What this reveals is that already in the 1930s, Africans struggled for a decolonized and Afrocentric education. They realized then, already, that education was neither culturally nor politically neutral, but was rather both a cultural and political weapon, something that the colonialists were very conscious of as well (Sander & Munro, 2006). In Kenya, in the 1930s,

education was definitely a political weapon. It was seen as such by the colonial government. It was seen as such by the African peoples. Because with an education you conform with or deny your cultural roots. So the missionaries really started the fight by saying that denying one’s roots is necessary before you can get that Western education. But African people said “We’re going to get that Western education, but within our own cultural soil. We’re going to get that education without having to accept the religion, without having to accept the colonial government.” (wa Thiong’o in Sander & Munro, 2006, p. 48)

In response to the war declared by both the colonial government and Christian missionaries, Africans resolved that education would be a tool, a weapon which would be used to “wrench [. . . ] independence from the colonial regime” (wa Thiong’o in Sander & Munro, 2006, p. 48).

In the face of African resistance, though, colonialism, with its superior gunpowder against lesser effective African weapons, conquered Africans. In a state of defeat, Africans gave European education a second thought. In Kenya, as wa Thiong’o (Abdullahi, 2006) notes, the Kikuyu began to see education

as a means to greater prosperity, and when the white man came to Kenya and took away the land and ruled the people, they said to themselves: “The white man can do this because he has got education, now if we also can get education, then we can get the things which he has.” (p. 13)

The observation above reveals that in a state of defeat, Africans saw European education as a key to unlock the door of the dark room in which they found themselves. They were mesmerized and struck with awe. They began to see the European colonialist not only as militarily superior, but also as intellectually superior. Consequently,

Education in Africa has always been regarded as the tool with which you can attain the white man’s wisdom. The white man has conquered you and within a short space of forty years has brought buildings that scrape the sky, motor-cars, razor blades, needles, railways and other buildings that walk on water. “Fear the white man,” says the peasant. But at the same time he wonders: “How come the white man has achieved all this? Through education!” Therefore get education and you’ll get all the benefits of the white man’s world. The gospel of the peasant has always been: “Get ye first education and all other things will be added unto you.” (wa Thiong’o in Marcuson et al., 2006, p. 27)

Colonialism was aimed at turning the colonized into a “sort of quintessence of evil” (Fanon, 1967, p. 32). It was not sufficient to deny that the colonized had any values, but it was necessary, also, to represent the colonized as being “insensible to ethics,” as representing “not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values” (Fanon, 1967, p. 32). Thus,

the customs of the colonized people, their traditions, their myths—above all their myths—are the very sign of that poverty of spirit and their constitutional depravity. (Fanon, 1967, p. 32)

In targeting African myths, “above all their myths”—as Fanon, cited above, emphasizes—European colonialists were set on destroying the very foundations of African societies. That is so because myths have, historically, served as tools for traditional communities to make meaning of life and to instill particular values upon which communities could base their lives. To annihilate African communities mentally and spiritually, European colonialists had to attack African myths. As wa Thiong’o (2009) notes, European colonialists “dismembered the colonized from memory, turning their heads upside down and burying all the memories they carried” (p. 4). Africans’ loss of memory resulted in what Ntuli (1999) refers to as “de-Africanisation,” which should be remedied with “re-Africanisation,” a re-memberment, an African Renaissance act, which entails the “re-inculcation of the spirit of ubuntu [African philosophy]” (pp. 188-189).

In order to succeed in this dismembering exercise, it was not enough for European colonialists to colonize lands and bodies, but also to “colonise world scholarship, especially the writing of history” (Mzamane, 1999, p. 173). History was

written or rewritten to imply that Europeans were the only creators of what would be called “civilization” which also became synonymous with European culture in the minds of many, including colonial subjects. (Mzamane, 1999, pp. 173-174)

The colonization of scholarship, which associated civilization exclusively with Europe, is Eurocentrism (Mzamane, 1999). While Eurocentric scholarship inculcated a sense of superiority complex on the part of European colonialists, it inflicted a deep sense of inferiority complex on the part of the colonized, especially the educated ones. Citing Westermann, Fanon (2017) notes that the

the Negroes’ inferiority complex is particularly intensified among the most educated, who must struggle unceasingly with it. Their way of doing it, he adds, is frequently naïve: “The wearing of European clothes, whether rags of the most-up-to-date style; using European furniture and European forms of social intercourse; adorning the Native language with European expressions; using bombastic phrases in speaking or writing a European language; all these contribute to a feeling of equality with the European and his achievements.” (p. 15)

It is for this reason that wa Thiong’o (2016) refers to a section of educated Africans as a “mimic middle class that runs away from its base among the people” (p. x).

Not only did Eurocentric education inculcate in Africans a deep sense of admiration for things European, but also inculcated contempt for things African. wa Thiong’o (2016) observes that “[a]s for the African middle class, self-hatred from years of internalizing the colonial gaze makes some of them gleeful at the humiliation of another African” (p. 13). Mda (cited in Edgar & ka Msumza, 2018) observes that “mission schools trained an ‘elite’ whose interests fell in line with the rulers and who were susceptible to being manipulated against the ‘bulk of the backward and illiterate African toilers and peasants’” (pp. 66-67). Mda (cited in Edgar & ka Msumza, 2018) also notes that some African “educated people often believed that they were superior to the uneducated masses” (p. 37). While some educated Africans in general despised fellow Africans, and celebrated their humiliation, African women were targeted in a special way as a result of Eurocentric education, which celebrated the debasement of women.

Eurocentric Education and the Debasement of Women

That discrimination against women has European cultural origins is also pointed out by Adams (2016) who notes that by the “sixth century with the development of the culture of what is referred to as classical Greece there was a clearly defined Athenian assembly,” which was in charge of administration and justice that consisted of citizens (p. 17). Significant to note is that these “citizens” were

men over 18 years who were not slaves or foreigners. Women did not vote, speak at, or even attend meetings of the assembly in Athens, nor did any other Greek state enfranchise women. They could not even own property and they could not conduct legal business. (Adams, 2016, p. 17)

The denial of the vote, of a voice in the public sphere, to women, was not only a Greek, but a generally Western phenomenon until recently. New Zealand allowed women to vote for the first time in 1893, the United Kingdom in 1918, Germany in 1918, and the United States in 1920, to name but a few (Adams, 2016). On the other hand, in pre-colonial Africa “there was no great debate about women’s suffrage” (Adams, 2016, p. 375). In the indigenous African political systems, “the position of women [was] neither superior nor inferior to that of men, but simply different and complementary. Colonial rule was to alter and subvert this relationship [. . .]” (Adams, 2016, p. 375). Not only does Adams make reference to “examples of female chiefs” before colonialism in Africa, but also points out that women also had “political institutions (usually councils) to decide how to rule their own affairs or to influence the affairs of men” (Adams, 2016).

The picture above clearly indicates that “[i]n most ancient and modern cultures including, until relatively recently, the ‘advanced’ western world, women were not considered to be full members of society” (Tyldesley, 2006, p. 12). But, where ancient “Egypt did differ to a remarkable degree from other societies was in the rights allowed to her women, both married and single” (Tyldesley, 2006, p. 12). That is because while in Greece women were not allowed to vote, were denied a public voice, and could not even own property, “[i]n Egypt, men and women of equivalent social status were treated as equals in the eyes of the law” (Tyldesley, 2006, p. 12). What this means, in specific terms, was that “women could own, buy, sell, earn and inherit property” (Tyldesley, 2006, p. 12)—an opposite case of Greece. Further, women in ancient Egypt could

live unprotected by male guardians and, if widowed or divorced, could care for their children alone. They could bring cases before, and be punished by, the law courts. And they could deputize for their husbands in matters of business. (Tyldesley, 2006, p. 12)

These rights exercised, and freedoms experienced by women in ancient Egyptian society, Tyldesley (2006) informs us, “this contradiction of what many societies have seen as the natural order, fascinated the classical tourists who visited Egypt towards the end of the dynastic age” (p. 12). These freedoms for women in ancient Egypt provoked significant reflections by Tyldesley (2006):

We can only speculate why Egypt should have allowed her women such generous rights; indeed, the better question would surely be to ask why other societies felt it necessary to take the opposite approach—it may simply be that in Egypt the sheer abundance of food, the lack of pressure on land resources, and the strict social hierarchy that proclaimed the king ultimate owner of everything made any restriction unnecessary.

Space constraints do not allow for a full interrogation of Tyldesley’s conjectures on the factors that created an enabling environment for ancient Egyptian women. But an examination of ancient Egypt’s history reveals that the progressive ancient Egyptian approach to gender was informed by their philosophy, Maat, which can best be appreciated by the interrogation of the ancient Egyptian’s narrative and logic on the origins of creation.

Ancient Egyptians’ Narrative and Logic on the Origins of Creation: A Key to Understanding the Logic of Africans’ “Mother Idea”

The Egyptian narrative of creation is mythological and flows from four regions of Egypt: Memphis, Sais, Hermopolis, and Heliopolis (Fletcher, 2016). According to the Memphis myth, creation was the handiwork of “Ptah, who had combined masculine and feminine elements within the primeval waters” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 6). Ptah, the “Father of the gods,” and simultaneously the “Mother who gave birth to all the gods,” brought all things into being by simply speaking them into being. In other words, she or he created with the word. What is significant here is that the ancient Egyptians perceived the creator as both a she and he, a mother and father in one.

The Sais myth taught that the Supreme Being was Neith, the “creator goddess who alone gave birth to the sun” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 6). Just as the Memphis myth taught that Ptah was both female and male, the Sais myth taught that Neith could be both “the male who acts the female, the female who acts the male” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 6).

The Hermopolis myth taught that life had been “created by a cooperative of eight deities ‘the fathers and mothers who were before the original gods’” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 6). These deities were Nun and Nunet, the god and the goddess of the primeval ocean, Hek and Heket, the god and the goddess responsible for raising the sun, Kek and Keket, the god and goddess of darkness, and Amun and Amunet, the god and goddess of mystery, the hidden and nothingness who brought the air that breathed life into everything (Armour, 20166). The females were depicted as serpents while the males were depicted as frogs (Armor, 2016).

The Heliopolis myth taught that the Supreme Being was Ra—the Sun God, the “mother and the father of all” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 6). Just as the Memphis and Sais myth taught that the Creator was both female and male, the Heliopolis myth recognized the Supreme Being as the “great He-She.” The Sun God created or gave birth to twins, Tefnut, the goddess of moisture, and Shu, the god of air, who in turn gave birth to the twins of their own, Nut, the goddess of the sky, and Geb, the god of the earth (Fletcher, 2016). Nut and Geb gave birth to their own sets of twins, Isis (female) and Osiris (male), on the one hand, and Nephthys (female), and Seth (male), on the other. According to the ancient Egyptian myth, Isis and Osiris were the first joint rulers of ancient Egypt as wife and husband.

Driven by jealousy that his brother, Osiris, had become the king of Egypt, and desiring to take his place, Seth killed Osiris, sealed his body in a coffin and cast it in the Nile River (Tyldesley, 2006). Isis, however, sought out her husband’s body and brought it back for burial (Tyldesley, 2006). Determined to obliterate any trace of Osiris, Seth sought out Osiris’s corpse, and, in an act of dismemberment, hacked it into pieces, and scattered it (Tyldesley, 2006). One version of the myth says that Isis transformed herself into a giant bird to search for Osiris’s remains and brought it to a semblance of life (Tyldesley, 2006). Another version indicates that Isis’s tears became a river causing the Nile River to flood, and recovered Osiris’s body, which she re-membered (Fletcher, 2016). Having done that, using her magic powers, she resurrected both Osiris’s spirit and reproductive powers to conceive their son, Horus (Fletcher, 2016). Having conceived her son, “Isis raised her son in secret to avenge his father and take on his uncle Seth in a series of violent struggles” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 8).

It is worth noting that the Biblical narration of creation identifies woman (Eve), as the one who was seduced by the snake into eating the forbidden fruit, and in turn seducing her husband into doing the same, thus disobeying God’s injunction forbidding the consumption of the forbidden fruit. Thus, according to the Biblical narration, the woman was responsible for sin, which spoilt the relationship between the Supreme Being and humanity. But, basing their argument on the Egyptian narration of creation, Afrocentric scholars argue otherwise.

Afrocentric Perspectives of Woman as a Source of Good Instead of Evil, Stability Instead of Confusion

Considering that it was the jealous Seth who killed his brother, Osiris, Diop (1991) argues, therefore, that “evil is introduced by men, not by women” (emphasis added; p. 311). Ki-Zerbo (2005), drawing from ancient Egypt’s myth of creation, argues that Isis’s performance represents a “renaissance and resurrection” (p. 92). Thus, for Ki-Zerbo, Osiris, the dismembered, represents the African continent, which must be re-membered, and that “[i]ntellectuals [academics] can play the role of Isis” (Ki-Zerbo, 2005, p. 92).

Reflecting on Isis’s act of raising her son until he was able to reclaim his crown, Tyldesley (2006) observes that this “ancient story of Isis and Osiris is an important and informative myth” because “[n]ot only does it explain the crucial relationship between the living king of Egypt [the Horus King] and his dead father [the Osiris King]” but that it gives insight about the “blueprint for the perfect Egyptian queen” (p. 9):

Nowhere else do we get such a clear explanation of the queen’s role. By analysing Isis’ actions we can see that the ideal queen of Egypt is a wife capable of bearing the son who will one day take his father’s place. In good times the queen will remain very much in the background, supporting her husband and attending to her domestic duties in an unobtrusive way. But, should bad times arise, she must be capable of independent action, of using her wits to deputize for her husband and protect her child. (Tyldesley, 2006, p. 9)

Emphasizing the centrality of the role of queens in ancient Egypt, Tyldesley (2006) notes that

there is increasing evidence to confirm that the consort, as the feminine element of the semi-divine monarch, was vital to the survival of the king. No king ever ruled Egypt unmarried. Just as Egypt would always need a king, so that king would always need a wife by his side. And, like all of Egypt’s women, that queen had to be able to support her husband whenever and however necessary. (p. 6)

Choosing a queen, as the wife of the king, to rule Egypt on behalf of an infant son or absent husband was informed by a particular logic, that being that the

choice of the queen as regent, a choice which more modern societies have hesitated to make, was the logical extension of the tradition that allowed wives, rather than fathers or brothers, to deputize for absent husbands. This made good sense. The queen was the person who would naturally be most loyal to the infant king and as she was often a birth member of the royal family, was well trained for her responsibilities. (Tyldesley, 2006, p. 34)

The above observation is a clear indication that in ancient Egypt queens were neither their husbands’ appendages, nor their shadows, but a powerful force upon which their husbands depended. This is a relationship that was overlooked by the “first historians to study the queens of Egypt” because they

approached their subject with a host of preconceptions. The classical writers who visited Egypt at the very end of the dynastic age had been happy to classify all Egyptian women—queens included—as louche, seductive temptresses, very exciting, and very different from their own (theoretically) chaste wives and sisters. This attitude still lingers in the public perception. Leaping forward hundreds of years, the late 19^th-and early 20^th-century Egyptologists were more or less uninterested in queens, seeing them as insignificant appendages to their kings. (Tyldesley, 2006, p. 21)

The point above made by Tyldesley exposes that Egyptian historiography was, to a great extent, driven by scholars who were highly influenced by patriarchal values. The result was that their history was tainted by sexist values, whose consequence was a delivery of a skewed history. It is what Mzamane (1999, p. 173) calls the colonization of world scholarship. This colonized scholarship, anchored in patriarchal values, sought to erase the prominent role-played by African women in African history. The story of the female king (not queen), Merneith, illustrates the erasure and distortion of women’s historiography very well. Merneith’s tomb chambers were once equipped as those of her male predecessors and had “monumental stone stelae marking her burial place” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 49). When, in 1900, archeologists uncovered the stelae, they claimed that it “can hardly be doubted that Mer-neith (sic) was a king” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 49). This line was maintained “until it was later discovered that he was a she, and Merneith [was] subtly demoted to the position of ‘queen’—a familiar story for Egypt’s female rulers” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 49). The story is “familiar” because Merneith’s case of erasure and distortion was not an isolated one. There is also the story of Khentkawes I. In her images, Khentkawes I was projected “wearing the royal cobra at her brow and the tie-on false beard of kingship and accompanied by the inscription ‘King of Upper and Lower Egypt,’ as translated by the first archeologist” to work at her tomb (Fletcher, 2016, p. 81). Later, due to “an alternative translation which is philologically tenable,” Khentkawes I was “demoted” and reduced to only being the “Mother of Kings,” rather than a king herself (Fletcher, 2016, p. 81). But this demotion and reduction, this erasure and distortion is proving to be unsustainable because “many Egyptologists do now believe that Khentkawes I was ‘considered a true ruler’” (Fletcher, 2016, p. 81). A similar ambivalent attitude is found in scholarship with reference to another ancient female Egyptian king, Khentkawes II, who was also not only the “Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt” but also the “King of Upper and Lower Egypt” (Fletcher, 2016):

Although archaeologists were initially confused by this second Khentkawes, some now believe that Khentkawes II, mother of two successive kings, Raneferef and Niuserra, may also have ruled as pharaoh in her own right. Certainly the stone pillars of her own Abusir pyramid complex portray her with the uraeus cobra at her brow, when the uraeus in this period ‘was reserved solely for rulers and divinities. (p. 89)

Isis is not the only woman in Egyptian myth who metaphorises woman as the dispenser of justice—there are Hathor and Maat, the daughters of Ra. In the case of Hathor, the ancient Egyptian myth states that when Ra, in The Supreme Being’s old age was grieved by humankind’s disrespect for The One, The One decided to punish humankind (Armour, 2016). The agent sent to carry out this mission was Hathor, Ra’s daughter (Armour, 2016). Sent out in the form of a fierce lioness, Hathor attacked every human being she came across, reducing the earth into a bloodbath, until Ra, taking pity on humankind, intervened, and put a stop to the killing. The significance of the myth is that Ra, the Creator, entrusted a woman with the task of returning humankind to moral rectitude. Ancient Egyptian art recognized her as such. As Armour (2016) observes, Hathor was “shown wearing a menat necklace, a headed necklace that hung from the rear of the collar and was intended to symbolize regeneration and rebirth”—African Renaissance for us in our time (p. 91). Hathor, was not the only woman and daughter, given the task of dispensing justice in humankind’s world. The other daughter was Maat.

In ancient Egyptian mythology, Maat played a significant role in the world of the hereafter (Armour, 2016). In the trial of the deceased soul, meant to determine whether the deceased deserved immortality, her feather was put on one scale, while the deceased’s heart was put on the other (Armor, 2016). If the deceased’s heart balanced fairly with Maat’s feather, the latter, representing truth and justice, the deceased was found to have passed the first test and to be nearing immortality (Armour, 2016). Thereafter,

the deceased progressed to the Hall of Maat, or the Hall of Judgment, in which he or she had to give forty-two denials of sin and identify the magical names of the various parts of the door. Maat supervised these activities and, if the deceased completed these tasks correctly, she certified that the soul was ready for admittance into the presence of Osiris and final acceptance. (Armour, 2016, p. 136)

Informed by this historical background, “Maat (emphasis original) was the key to the Egyptian view of ethical behavior for humans while alive and of divine behavior in the judging of souls after death” (Armour, 2016, p. 133). In ancient Egyptian society, everyone, including, and especially the kings, had to live, and the latter rule by Maat because Maat represented “the highest conception of physical and moral law and order known to the Egyptians” (Armour, 2016, p. 134). This “highest conception of physical and moral law,” it must be noted, was modeled on the figure of a woman.

Concluding Remarks

The point of departure, the premise of this exercise was that for the historical and revolutionary African Renaissance project to succeed, a decolonized and Afrocentric education is a prerequisite. This thrust is informed by an appreciation that not only did the Europeans colonize African countries and human bodies, but scholarship as well, and through that colonized African minds. It is through Eurocentric disciplines such as History, Philosophy and Religion, that Africans were alienated from African teachings that elevated womanhood. Teaching Maat, the ancient Egyptians’ philosophy would help Africans see the centrality of woman, after whom the philosophy is named, and the African logic in venerating woman. Teaching the ancient Egyptians’ myth about creation, would help Africans appreciate why their ancestors perceived the Supreme Being as both female and male, thus not elevating males above females, but seeing them both as equal partners in creation as it is in reproduction. They would see that when a male, Seth, in particular, caused destruction on earth, followed by the rest of humanity, the responsibility to rebuild and punish in order to set things straight, was given to women—Isis and Hathor. Teaching Maat and ancient Egyptians’ myth of creation is a multi-inter-transdisciplinary approach in that it cuts across History, Philosophy and Spirituality (Religion). Decolonized and Afrocentric education is a prerequisite in helping Africans remember what they were forced to forget, re-member themselves to what they were cut from, and re-birth themselves after European colonialists acts of physical and spiritual murder and destruction—an act of a meaningful African Renaissance.