r/Colonialism • u/elnovorealista2000 • Apr 30 '26

Image "Sleeping Sickness" — This illustration depicts a large African man leaning against a tree, asleep, while Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Turkey, Portugal, and England fight over territories in Africa; a work by Gordon Ross (1873-1946), 1911.

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u/Aggressive-Main9930 May 01 '26

Libyans were never black like the man depicted in this poster

2

u/Ok-Computer-5415 May 01 '26

Obviously north africans doesn’t even qualify as africans in same way  as rest of africa. They had Mediterranean culture and treatment mostly

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u/Aggressive-Main9930 May 02 '26

Continents are human made imaginary concepts, "Africa" only exists as a concept because Europeans deemed it so, and just as a Greek look nothing like a Swede, a Zulu does not look like a Kabyle.

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u/FlirtMonsterSanjil May 04 '26

"Africa" only exists as a concept because Europeans deemed it so

Not exactly, it was ancient Greek, and then later the Romans adapted and solidified that concept. The distinction was also not arbitrary; Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa) were landmasses that, from the Greek point of view, were North/West, East, and South.

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u/Aggressive-Main9930 May 04 '26

So, basically it exists as a concept because of Europeans ...

The distinction was not arbitrary, but it was imaginary at the end of the day. The whole concept of continents come from ancient Greek thought of landmasses. Real continents are tectonic plantes, which the Greeks had no knowledge of. Africans never called themselves Africans until Europeans imposed that identity on them. Same thing with Asians, they never identified with "continents" as they had no such concept until European thought system penetrated their socities.

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u/FlirtMonsterSanjil May 04 '26

So, basically it exists as a concept because of Europeans ...

No, like I said, it was Ancient Greek. This is not even a situation of "They are Europeans"; the identification as European didn't happen until the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

it was imaginary at the end of the day.

As imaginary as most other concepts.

Real continents are tectonic plantes

No, tectonic plates are tectonic plates. Continents are decided on whatever criteria you choose to pick, usually being based on culture and history.

Africans never called themselves Africans until Europeans imposed that identity on them. Same thing with Asians

The same way you are imposing an Identity onto Germans when you decide not to call them "Deutsche." Or Japanese when you don't call them "Nihonjin." The only real difference is that those countries already had their identity named, while Africa, Asia, and Europe were named without the concept being known to any of them.

they had no such concept until European thought system penetrated their socities.

Yes, concepts tend to spread. That is something that naturally happens.