‘Black’ history month?

On Saturday I went up to central London to take part in a rally. The first public, physical political act I’ve taken part in for the best part of two decades. The rally was a patriotic one in support of the Union and against the Northern Ireland Protocol which the EU is trying to punish the and generally cause trouble for the UK. It was very small but went well and there was no trouble. The presence of a uniformed flute band from Liverpool certainly delighted the tourists.

But that’s not what I’m writing about. I wanted to share a funny thing my friend and I noticed on our way there, something that I thought might raise a wry smile.

In the UK Black History Month is in October, unlike the States, where it’s February. Like in the US it is specifically about black African or Afro-Caribbean history, rather than simply non ethnically European history. There is black history in the UK of course, there have been small Afro-Caribbean communities in the port cities of London, Bristol and Cardiff since the 18^th century. There are also a number of remarkable black individuals whose stories deserve to be told, like Henry VIII’s black trumpeter, John Blanke, and the Jamaican Mary Seacole, who did a great deal to better conditions for British soldiers in the Crimean War (She was deeply patriotic and sound by the way). However, demand does rather outstrip supply.

The good folk at Charing Cross Station, which we passed through on our journey, clearly wanted to signal their virtue and so rummaged around in the proverbial haystack and came up with a needle, Cleopatra’s Needle, to be exact.

On the Victoria Embankment, just by the station, is the ancient Egyptian obelisk of that name (there is also one in New York and another in Paris). They put up an information panel about how it came to be in London as part their Black History Month offering.

Although named after the famous Egyptian queen it was in fact already over a thousand years old when she lived. It was first put up under the Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479 – 1425 BC). More hieroglyphic inscriptions were added by Ramasses II (1279–1213 BC). It is often said by London tour guides that ironically it has nothing to do with the famous Cleopatra (Cleopatra VII Philopator 51–30 BC). This isn’t quite correct (like much of what my colleagues say). In fact she had the obelisk re-erected in the Cæsareum, a temple she built in honour of Julius Cæsar (or possibly Mark Anthony) at Alexandria, and so is part of the story. 

Here are Thutmose, Ramesses and Cleopatra.

The columns were toppled later and lay buried for many centuries, which protected the inscriptions. In 1819 the Ottoman Governor of Egypt, Muhhamad Ali, presented the London column to the British as a thank you for their role in defeating and expelling Napoleon’s army from Egypt. He also wanted to modernise Egypt and free it from Ottoman rule, and so he courted western powers, hence the New York and Paris columns. Here is Muhhamad Ali, born in the town of Kavala, today in Greece, to an Albanian family.

Have you seen any black people in this story yet? No, me neither. There were black Egyptian dynasties, but none of the rulers associated with the obelisk were black. Thutmose III was of the 18^th Dynasty which conquered Nubia, where the folk were sub-saharan black Africans, and the wall paintings commemorating this show clearly the difference between the two peoples. Ramesses II was fair skinned and ginger (we have forensic evidence of this) and Cleopatra was of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, who descended from Ptolemy I Soter, the Macedonian general of Alexander the Great. Her ancestry was entirely white European (and horribly inbred, real “Uncle-Dad” territory).

Like many officials under the Ottoman Turks, Muhhamad Ali was European. Albanians are very much southern/Mediterranean European, not blond Swedes, but they’re certainly not black Africans, as Ali’s portrait clearly shows.

I guess the fact that Egypt is an African country might be used justify this inclusion, but hardly, it a pretty weak link. White South Africans are from Africa too, but I doubt a connection with P. W. Botha or Hendrik Vervoerd would be included in a Black History Month display. It did occur to us, as we giggled at the thought, that whoever had put the info panel together had not done their research very thoroughly, and got their Muhhamad Ali’s mixed up…

Maybe they really do think the legendary boxer from Louisville once held office under the Sultan and gifted the ancient obelisk to London. With the abysmal level of historical knowledge today it’s possible. Whatever the reason for this eccentric attempt at virtue signalling, it has signalled nothing but historical and cultural ignorance.