YouTube – May 25, 2025
African contributions to civilization
What happened when Oxford Professor Edmund Harrington claimed "Africa contributed nothing to human civilization"? Watch as Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traore delivers a devastating 10-minute response that not only ended a 47-year academic career but exposed centuries of deliberate historical erasure.
In this shocking true story from Oxford University's Sheldonian Theatre, witness how: ✓ A racist statement sparked the most viral academic takedown in history ✓ Hidden African contributions to mathematics, medicine, and philosophy were revealed ✓ 500 academics gave a standing ovation to truth over prejudice ✓ One professor's ignorance led to a complete curriculum reform at Oxford
Oxford Professor Edmund Harrington said Asia gave us gunpowder and paper.
The Americas has sophisticated calendars.
But Africa, I challenge everybody in this room to name a single contribution to human civilization.
The continent has been a recipient of civilization not a contributor.
Troare raised his hand then he stood up. He said: Professor Harrington, I would like to respond to your assertion.
Traore walked to the podium with a leather folder.
Addressing Harrington, Traore said before responding to you questions, I may ask you a question.
In your extensive research have you ever visited the manuscript collections in Timbuktu?
Have you studied the mathematical treatises of the Dogon people?
Have you examined the metallurgical techniques of the Hya people of Tanzania?
Harrington waved his hand dismissively. Ancient mud building and primitive folklore hardly constitute civilization Mr. Traore. We are talking about contributions to human advancement not anthropological curiosities.
Traora opened his file and took out a document, then let us begin you might recognize, he said holding copy of a text. This is a page from the Lebombo bone discovered in Swaziland. It’s 44,000 year old professor. It contains the earliest known mathematical calculations in human history. 29 distinct notches marking lunar cycles. Mathematics didn’t begin in Greece Professor it began in Africa. Counting notches is hardly Pythagoras, he scoffed.
Traore pulled out another document. Then perhaps we should discuss the Ishango bone from the Democratic Republic of Congo. 20,000 years old, containing evidence of prime numbers, multiplication and division. This predates Greek mathematics by nearly 19,000 years.
But you want recent examples, very well. Let us discuss the University of Sankore in Timbuktu which housed 700,000 manuscripts and educated 25,000 students in 12th century when Oxford was still a collection of drinking halls.
You mentioned law coming from Rome. Shall we discuss the constitution of the Ashanti confederacy which included checks and balances three centuries before the American constitution or the Uganda parliament which has a complex system of democratic governance while Europe was still ruled by absolute monarchs.
You speak of philosophy from Germany. Have you read the philosophical texts of ZeraYakob, the 17th century Ethiopian philosopher who developed ideas about rational inquiry and human rights that preceded the European enlightenment. His student Walda Hayward wrote treatises on ethics that rival anything produced in Europe at the time. But of course they wrote in Geez not in Latin, so perhaps they don’t count in your estimation.
Harrington said these are isolated examples.
Isolated, Professor let me tell you about isolation. It was hen the library of Alexandria founded by an African dynasty housed the world’s knowledge while the ancestors of Oxford’s founders were still living in mud huts.
It’s when African mathematicians were calculating the circumference of the earth while the Europeans believed it was flat.
You want contributions to civilization.
Let us talk about medicine. The first successful cataract surgery was performed in Mali in the 14th century.
The first cesarean section where both mother and child survived, was performed in Uganda in 1879 using techniques that wouldn’t appear in European medicine for another 50 yers.
The first vaccination not Edward Jenner’s cowpox but variolation against smallpox was practices in West Africa and brought to America by enslaved Africans.
He pulled out another paper.
Architecture. The Great Zimbabwe’s acoustic properties surpass modern engineering. The Nubian pyramids predated their Egyptian counterparts. The rock churches of Lalibela were carved from single pieces of volcanic rockwith a precision that modern engineers struggle to explain. But perhaps you never heard of these because they don’t fit your narrative of African primitiveness.
Let us discuss metallurgy. The higher people Tanzania were producing carbon steel and blast furnaces 2,000 years ago. A technique that wouldn’t appear in Europe until the industrial revolution. The Bronzes of Benin are so sophisticated that when Europeans first saw them they refused to believe that Africans could have made them. So they invented theories about lost Portuguese craftsmen.
Agriculture. African domesticated pearl millet, sorghum, African rice, yam, black eyed peas, watermelon and okra. The developed complex irrigation systems in the Sahel that sustained cities of hundreds of thousands while Europe still experiencing the dark ages.
The terraced agriculture of the Dogon people has sustained communities for over a 1,000 years in conditions where European farming methods failed within a season.
Le us talk about Ubuntu, the philosophical concept that I am because we are. While European philosophy was obsessing over individual rights and conquest, African philosophy was developing concepts of restorative justice and collective responsibility and human dignity that the so-called civilized world is only now beginning to understand.
The tragedy Professor is not that Africa contributed nothing to civilization. The tragedy is that scholars like you have spent centuries actively erasing, ignoring and denigrating those contributions.
When the library of Tumbuktu was at its heights, housing more books, that any European university your ancestors called us illiterate. When our astronomers were tracking the movement of the stars you called us superstitious. When our healers were performing complex surgeries you called us witch doctors.
Traore picked up his folder and picked up final document.
This professor is a letter from Cecil Rhodes, founder of the scholarship that perhaps funded your education. It it he explicitly states that African history must be suppressed to justify colonization. Your ignorance isn’t accidental professor, it is the result of a deliberate systematic effort to erase African contributions to human civilization and you have been perpetuating it for 47 years.
I could continue for hours professor, I could tell you about astronomical calculations of the Dogon people, who knew about Sirius B, centuries before western telescope could detect it. I could describe complex fractal geometry in African art that predates Mandelbrot by centuries. I could explain the call and response tradition of African music became the foundation for Jazz, Blues, Rock and virtually every form of popular music. But I think I have made my point, Traore concluded
The question is whether Africa contributed to civilization, the question is why you, a professor at the world’s most prestigious universities don’t know any of this.
Professore Mary Whitfield, Head of the African Studies, said Mr. President as a member of this institution I apologize. Your words today exposed a shameful blind spot in our curriculum. I moved that Oxford immediately review and revise our history programs to include that African contributions you have outlined.
Oxford University issued a formal apology and announced a comprehensive review of its history curriculum.
Next day Prof Harrington announced his early retirement.
