Why Africa Was Called The Dark Continent.

Ignorance about the world's most prosperous continent led its adversaries to call it dark. Africa was already thriving with multiple complex civilisations existing and trading with far-flung parts of the world long before Europeans figured out how to gain access to a continent that represented the edge of their own ignorance.

The Empires of Mali, Kilwa (in modern day Tanzania), and Zimbabwe already had established trade links as far afield as China and Australia. Driven by poverty, war, overpopulation and lack of resources at home, European colonial conquistadors who voyaged around the coasts of Africa in search of wealth - eventually conquering it after centuries of war - did not understand that the world did not revolve around them and their unique state of ignorance.

Thus was born one of history’s most pernicious untruths - that Africa was ever a “dark” continent. Today, many decades after a limited “independence” from these European empires, Africa’s history and modern image continue to be maliciously distorted in what has become one of the world’s longest-running propaganda efforts.

It is imperative that the African continent recognises the inherent danger in leaving this massive slander campaign unchallenged and mount a strong physical and narrative pushback.