EUROCENTRISM
AND THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY*
Gloria
Emeagw ali
Professor of History
History Department
CCSU
New Britain
CT06050
Several strategies have
been used to reinforce the myth that regions outside Europe contributed
nothing to the development of science and technology either in terms of
hardware or software- the view that historically the majority of the world
have been passive recipients of a so-called Western science and technology.
Here are some of the strategies used by a long line of deceptive scholars.
Selective Omission of Information
Silence reigns with respect to non-European
predecessors of significant inventions.Thales is declared the Father
of Science but the partial Asian parentage of Thales whose mother
was Phoenician ( Lebanese), or Pythagoras, possibly of similar parentage,
is hardly ever mentioned. The constant interaction of the Ancient
Greeks with their African counterparts is ignored, even when the Greeeks
themselves gratefully acknowledge this interaction.
Euphemisms and Circumlocutions
Neckam's
magnetic compass is represented as being" similar to the Chinese one,"
in a well-known text. There is no attempt to acknowledge the fact of
prior invention by the Chinese.
The Conferment of Honorary Western Nationality
Westernization
of the names of outstanding scientists and their devices; and the Europeanization
of scientific documents and processes are frequently done.
These ploys are used to undermine equal and fair assessment of the global
multiregional history of science and technology.The Egyptian Claudius
Ptolemeaus and the Algerian/Tunisian Constantine assume European identity
in some of the texts, whilst West Asian (Middle Eastern )scholars such
as Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Kindi (Alkindius), Ibn Rush'd (Averroes)
and al-Ghazali (Algazel) become indistinguishable from their European
counterparts.The ancient Egyptian arithmetical and medicinal documents
become known as the Rhind, Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri, and the comet
identified by the Chinese as early as 2,500 years ago is attributed
to Haley.
Blind Citation of Greco-Roman References
European progenitors
are created where they do not really exist. That the Greek alphabet
is largely of Syrian/Lebanese origin and that there is a proliferation
of loan words in both languages is hardly ever explained. The African
and Asian origin of many linguistic terms and concepts associated with
the Greco-Roman cultural zone, is concealed from the unsuspecting layman.
In a brief article titled "Africa, Cradle of
Writing" and published in the Africana Bulletin, African Studies Center,
No.42. December 1998/January 1999 Boston University, Konrad Tuchsherer
points out that "over 5,000 years ago in Egypt, Africans developed
their system of hieroglyphic writing, the world's earliest known script.
Scholars have traditionally asserted that the earliest writing systems
emerged at the end of the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia and
that the idea of writing was borrowed in Egypt around 3100BC at the
onset of the First Egyptian Dynasty. New evidence uncovered by archeologists
in Egypt, however,has revealed that Africans employed their hieroglyphic
system at least 150 years earlier than the Sumerian in Mesopotamia,
around 3250BC." Not only was the Egyptian system the source for the
development of Tifinagh and Ethiopic but it also inspired the Hebrew
and Arabic scripts and indirectly the Greek, Roman and Cyrillic scripts,
according to Tuchsherer.
Double Standards of Assessment
Most of the technological creations of Africa are assigned to artistic
designations. Africans find some of their scientific and technological
achievements confined to fine art museums. The scientific and technical
processes underlying the creation of various inventions are deliberately
trivialized.
Rumors and Innuendo
Africa is assailed for not inventing the wheel
as if (to imply that) it were a European invention. The fact remains,
though, that Greek and Roman wheeled vehicles and chariots are the
directs heirs of Mesopotamian ingenuity. Moreover, African Saharan
rock paintings reveal chariots and wheeled vehicles of great antiquity.
Manipulation of Dates
The birth of modern science is often associated
with the 17th century, admittedly a period of intensified intellectual
activity on the part of European scholars. But it may be that Modern
Science predates such eurocentric boundaries.It is as difficult to
conceive of mathematics without the Hindu-Arabic numerals, the concept
zero and algebraic notations as it is to think of optics without al-Haitham
and al-Kindi. It is difficult to conceive of Galileo without the pendulum.The
Hindu-Arabic numeral system revolutionized mathematical thought by
facilitating the use of decimals and the solution of complex equations.
See
Islamic Science
Of Chinese origin are numerous inventions, including
the following:
printing
gunpowder
the compass
paper money
the mechanical clock
helicoptor tops
the parachute
deep drilling
For more on China visit these sites.
Sivin's
Bibliography on Ancient Chinese Technology
China
The Beautiful
Chinese
Museums and Historic Sites
The stirrup, the sternpost rudder, the lateen
sail, the abacus, the pendulum, the game of chess the axle, the bow
drill, the chisel, and the wedge are all of non-European origin. The
latter did for building technology what the Mesopotamian and African
sailboat, barge, freight and wheeled vehicle did for navigation and
communication.Add to these the Persian (Iranian) windmill, and watermill,
the predecessors of the modern water turbine, and we have an array of
devices which constitute important landmarks in the history of power
generation. Glass, cement, enamel and porcelain; the nail and saw; the
printed book and the compass, all join this list.The check (cheque)
is not of European origin. Arab traders pioneered this important commercial
device.
Inventors such as Ibn Yunus the Egyptian and Pi
Cheng, identified with printing from movable type, are very seldom acknowledged.
It is interesting to note that the first printed text on record dates
back to 868AD. It was found in the Gobi Desert in Northern China . It
was vertically printed and was apparently one of numerous mass-printed
texts sent to various Buddhist temples.
In the orthodox eurocentric accounts the proverbial
engineers are the Romans but what of Persian, Mesopotamian and African
expertise in that field? The first underwater tunnel was constructed in
ancient Iraq, a feat as noteworthy as the Egyptian embankment across the
Garawi valley 850 years earlier. The stone wall terraces of Gwoza in Northeast
Nigeria are significant evidence of engineering skill and so, too, are
the fortifications of Benin, which cover over 2,500 square miles and consist
of more than 500 interconnected enclosures. These remain major engineering
feats not only of West Africa but of the world. The enclosures of Zimbabwe,
the Lalibela churches of Ethiopia, Axumite obelisks and sphinxes, as well
as Sudanese (Nubian) and Egyptian pyramids, of Ancient Southern and Northeast
Africa, are no less impressive. For more on Africa view some of these.
Scholars such as Gerbert of Aurillac formed part
of a long line of European pioneers of technology transfer, including
such distinguished seekers of knowledge as Adelard of Bath, John of Seville,
Leonardo of Pisa and Albert the Great. Leonardo of Pisa's exposure to
mathematical scholarship in Algiers, North Africa, facilitated the introduction
into Europe of one of the most significant innovations in the history
of mathematics, namely, the Hindu-Arabic numeral system cited earlier.
These scholars added to the diffusion of skills and techniques by pilgrims,
trading columns, migrant craftsmen, professional spies and diplomatic
missions, and indirectly injected greater precision and accuracy in the
works of engineers, technologists, and artisans.
Northeast African battleships, Mesopotamian armor
and Chinese gunpowder became integrated in much of the conventional
warfare of early Europe.It is seldom mentioned that the industrial revolution
developed largely on the basis of Asian- derived techniques and a complex
system of import substitution and protectionism on the part of British
producers. South Asian cotton fabrics were imitated and copied by the
British who tried to reverse the historical manufacturing capabilities
of that region to turn India into a mass exporter of raw cotton.
For more on India go to South
Asian History.
Halsall's Sourcebook on India
Native Americans gave the world a major
portion of the crops now in cultivation including:
a.potatoes
b. the cacao bean
c. varieties of beans
d. strawberries
e. corn
f. sunflowers
g. tomatoes
h. cassava
Their agricultural expertise is often neglected
and seldom acknowledged.
In more recent times African countries have been
overwhelmed by various problems.Having been handicapped in various ways
in the period of colonial rule, they find themselves affected by various
tendencies including some of the following:
1.The high rate of obsolescence of contemporary
technology
2.The loss of skilled manpower and expertise
to Euro-American regions
3.The existing structure of secrecy and competition
4.The high cost of patents, trademarks and licenses
5. The imposition of IMF- derived structural
adjustment policies which directly and indirectly affect economic and
technological growth
See the IMF and Africa
*This is a modified updated version of an earlier
paper first published by Gloria T. Emeagwali, in Science and Public
Policy, Journal of the International Science Policy Foundation, Surrey,
UK
volume 16. no.3.1989
See
Christos Evangeliou, The Hellenic Philosophy: Between Europe, Asia and
Africa, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, University of Binghamton,
1997 p. 118-9. ISBN 1-883058-42-2
See also some classic texts on Eurocentrism:
Samir Amin, Eurocentrism, Monthly Review, 1988
J.M Blaut, 1492: The Debate on Eurocentrism and History, AWP, 1992
J.M Blaut,The Colonizer's Model of the World, Guilford, 1993
A.G Frank, Re-Orient,Univ. of California Press, 1998
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing The Past- Power and the Production
of History, Beacon, 1995
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage, 1994
See
also James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American
History Textbook Got Wrong, Touchstone, 1996
Martin Bernal, Black Athena, The Afro-Asiatic
Roots of Classical Civilization, Rutgers University Press, 1991
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