Pan-Africanism : Africa And Her People!

panafrica said:
The men in blue of the desert are the infamous Tuareg. These legendary fighters -- known for their skill with the sword -- live mostly in the Northern reaches of Mali near Timbuktu and Kidal. Tuaregs originally controlled the caravan routes that brought salt to the south from the desert salt mines, but air transport has made the business less profitable in recent years. Tuareg's are very proud people with an ancient written language and traditions of poetry. Their nomadic roots have made it difficult for them to accept Malian borders, and they fiercely resisted statehood of their desert home. Only recently have the Tuaregs and the Malian government reached an agreement, and now many Tuaregs are employed in government services. Traditional Tuareg men are 'veiled' to mark their transition from adolescence. The thick helmet of cloth around their heads is never removed in the presence of anyone, and is worn even while sleeping and eating. The indigo with which they dye their robes rubs off of their skin, giving them the title 'blue men of the desert'. The sword is a Tuareg's most valued possession. Many are passed from generation to generation and said to be protected by the victories of its past owners.

http://nvnv.essortment.com/ethnicgroupsof_rtji.htm

Pan, the Tuareg are the eternal enemy...why do you have them listed here?
 
I took this particular group from a listing of various African ethnic groups. While I know many of the peoples listed, I do not have in depth knowledge of them all, and I have be listing & editing as I am able (with the information I have at the time of my posting). Brother Chuk please provide the information you have on the Tuareg, and I will edit appropriately!
 
Since you guess have asked to provide some information which explains my objections to having the Tuareg listed here on this thread...I shall. My explanation is some what long, but I think you all will find it very informative and education, so here goes:


The people known to the world as the Tuareg in fact call themselves Kel Tamashek (speakers of Tamashek). The name Tuareg means "abandoned by God" which was giving to them by the invading Arab conquerors of North Africa. They are an ancient pastoral people of Berber (White) stock; who mainly inhabit the north western and central regions of the Sahara desert. However, unlike most Berbers (who by and large have assimilated into Arab society), they retain most of their culture, language and indigenous alphabetic system. They are ardent Muslims, although they practice a liberal form of Islam, which incorporates spirituality into their religion. They are known as the Blue men because of the indigo which is used to dye the clothes and which leaves a Bluish residue on the skin.

They are also called the men of the veil, because it is the men—and not the women (as is common in other Muslim societies)—who wear the veil. This is because the men who spend more time in the desert and thus must wear the veil as protection against the harsh winds of the Sahara. Also unlike the Arabs, theirs is a matrilineal society, where ancestry is traced from the mother and not from father. This of course means that the subsequent role of women in their community is a lot higher than that of the Arabs, were the men are the unchallenged masters.

Before the advent of the Europeans to Africa the Tuareg were the undisputed lords of the Sahara (the Arab immigration was never significant in the Sahara, except in places like Mauritania and parts of Chad); who were fearsome warriors, prone to make devastating raids on neighboring tribes and camel caravans crossing the Sahara. They are a people who relish banditry and extortion (they are the highway robbers of the desert). For them robbery is an honorable profession, which they take great pride in practicing. It was very common for Kings to pay the Tuareg tribes tribute in order to grant safe passage for their goods and caravans through the desert or to cease making raids on their towns. Often times, the Tuaregs would take the tribute and still continue their raids against their neighbors. Other times they would be hired as mercenaries by Kings for protection, but would then betray their employers at critical times as they saw fit. They are a people who are well known for their acts of treachery against other groups and thus are never to be trusted.

As stated earlier, the Tuareg are a people of White (Caucasian) Berber descent. They are fiercely proud of this fact and thus feel themselves to be superior to their Black neighbors. The “Whiteness” of the Tuareg/Berbers must however be qualified because they were once in fact originally Black people themselves, who are know predominantly Mulattoes, Quadroons and Octoroons (in Africa Mulattoes are considered White people)—and of course, pure Blacks. It is this fact which—I believe—has dictated their subsequent relations with pure Black Africans. Like all other “White” people, the Tuaregs have been engaged in the ancient war to eradicate or enslave all Black people they come in contact with. Thus, they have been very enthusiastic in participating in jihads or raids which promised the slaughtering or procuring of Black slaves. Their historical domination of the Saharan trade routes has meant that they were the most instrumental in the Trans-Saharan slave trade (even more so than the Arabs) of Black Africans. In fact their hatred for Blacks is legendary on the African continent. They have always played a crucial role in the down fall of all the Sahelian kingdoms.

Know is probably a good time to state that although the Arabs and Berbers declared themselves to be the Muslim “brothers” of Blacks and swore “eternal loyalty” with nations like Mali; they were in fact double dealing with their so called friends. They would infiltrate the community through this veil of friendship until they had attained large communities amongst the Blacks and had secured important avenues of government. Then they would cause internal division and dissension amongst the Black leadership. Soon class warfare would interrupt between different factions of the Black masses who would each turn to the (only to willing) Whites for aid against their enemies. Then the Whites would pick off each rival one-by-one, until they were the complete masters of the kingdom. If they were unable do this themselves, they would give their support to some willing Black King to do it for them.

They were the ones who sacked and looted the fabled city of Timbuktu (a town which was actually founded by the Tuaregs themselves), the city at the heart of the Wagadu empire—known to the world as ancient Ghana (in fact Ghana was the title of the King and not the name of the Kingdom itself)—around 1071, during the jihad of the fanatical Almoravid dynasty. Their brutal raids upon the Wagadu Empire of the Soninke people (who vehemently refused to convert to Islam) caused unimaginable havoc in the western Soudan (not to be confused with the country of Sudan, of similar name).

In 1430, the Tuareg Berbers from the north, seized much of Malian territory; and yet again Timbuktu (along with Djenne) was sacked and its inhabitants enslaved. The Tuareg also kidnapped the scholars of Timbuktu, along with their manuscripts and artifacts and took them back with them to North Africa, Spain and Arabia. The Mali Empire had been weakened after the death of Sundiata Keita in 1255, when there was a power struggle between his three surviving sons Uli, Wati and Khalifa (all three sons making hajj pilgrimages to Mecca and engaging in jihad to gain support from the Arabs/Berbers). Each rival was enthusiastically backed by the Tuaregs and the Arabs who were always willing to bring down any Black civilization through destabilization and division. Khalifa, the youngest son, was finally overthrown by Abu Bakr—who as the son of one Sundiata’s daughters was considered the rightful heir to the thrown (as is traditional amongst matrilineal communities)—in a bloody coup. Abu Bakr was himself overthrown by Sakura, a freed slave, in yet another bloody coup. It was not until the reign of Mansa Kankan Musa in1312, that the throne finally stabilized. However, with the death of Mansa Musa in 1337, the Mali Empire finally went into decline. Internal dissensions and squabble over the throne by rival factions of the Keita ruling dynasty, which led to open warfare and bloody coups.

The Tuaregs were also instrumental in the destruction of the third Sahelian empires, Songhai. The Berbers from Marrakesh (Morocco), sent an army of 4000 men, equipped with guns across the Sahara and defeated the over extended Songhai Empire in 1591. They seized the crucial salt and gold mines, which were instrumental for the survival of the empire. And like they had always done before, they looted the cities of Timbuktu, Djenne and Gao. As before the inhabitants were either massacred or enslaved. The slaves were unmercifully marched backed across the scorching Sahara—where many of them perished—along with the manuscripts and artifacts that had been the true greatness of the African empires. All of them were tragically lost to us and to history.

It is this and countless other cases—that would take to long a time to document—which we owe to the Tuareg! That is why most of the nations of the west African sahelian region (such as the Mossi, Wolof, Soninke, Malinke, Dogon, Bambara etc) intensely despise and fear the Tuareg. The Tuareg presence amongst these people has always been a source of tension and uneasiness; considering their historical treatment by the Tuareg, I don’t blame them.

Peace.
 

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