every Arab on the corner, ours doesnât close shop until very late, about one in the morning, thereâs no deceiving his lynxâs eye. His life is his shop, and vice versa. The kids who steal his bananas from the display stand outside have firsthand experience of this. He doesnât say a word, he just watches and then waits for their parents to show up at his grocery store. And thatâs when he gives them aremedial class in bringing up young people today. If the kids are stealing itâs because their parents have failed to educate them properly. So itâs not the children you should blame, but their mothers and fathers â¦
He eats behind his till, and he reads his old copy of the Koran there too. I sometimes wonder when he goes to the toilet. If heâs human like us, he must hear the call of nature at some stage in the day. But no, heâs there, unbudgeable, energetic, everywhere at once, never in the least bit tired.
The Arab on the corner is bald with a small paunch and a grey goatee. Heâs got these thick hairs that have taken root in his ears and he tugs on them from time to time when heâs talking to you. The local residents can buy goods on credit at his shop, he has a large exercise book just for them. The surnames of slow payers are marked in red. He calls everybody âcomradesâ, and Iâm treated to âmy African brotherâ because according to him Africa is the land of helping each other out, itâs the continent of solidarity. He maintains that the first man on earth was African, the other races came later. So all men are immigrants, except for the Africans who are at home here down below. And whatâs more, according to him, we Africans are Egyptians and we followed the Nile in order to spread ourselves across the continent. He whispers in my ear that the West will never be able to teach that fact because it would call too many things into question:
âFor too long the West has force-fed us lies and bloated us with pestilence, my African brother! Do you know which black poet spoke those courageous words, eh? Itâs not easy telling Europeans that in reality they are nothing but immigrants themselves and that their continent actually belongs to the Africans who were the first men on earth! Take that Senegalese man, for example, a great historian, a great scholar, Iâve forgotten his name ⦠What was he called again? Itâs on the tip of my tongue ⦠Well, it will come back to me, and anyway itâs easy enough with the Senegalese, thereâs no point in overcomplicating things, theyâre all called Diop, what matters is finding out their first name. The Senegalese man Iâm talking about was so strong, my African brother. When he demonstrated to the Whites, with scientific evidence to the ready, that there were plenty of Blacks in ancient Egypt, and that those Blacks were the masters, well, Europe categorically refused to recognise this. People claimed that the Blacks werenât capable of building the pyramids, that theyâd been cursed since the dawn of time when Ham, one of Noahâs sons, saw his father naked. The Blacks would therefore be condemned to the curse of Ham with a male organ so oversized that no underpants could ever conceal it. The Senegalese historian fought against these kinds of prejudices. At the Sorbonne, the Whites refused to let him defend his dissertation! Can you, in all good conscience, call that normal behaviour, eh? In your opinion, why does Europe behave in thisway towards Africans, eh? Well, let me tell you: if the Europeans conceded that there were Blacks in Egypt, intelligent Blacks, Black leaders, Blacks with regular sized male organs, they would also have to concede that the European philosophers whoâd been coming to Egypt since Antiquity did so in order to steal our ideas and go off to develop their own philosophy without so much as a by your leave. And that is why, my
He eats behind his till, and he reads his old copy of the Koran there too. I sometimes wonder when he goes to the toilet. If heâs human like us, he must hear the call of nature at some stage in the day. But no, heâs there, unbudgeable, energetic, everywhere at once, never in the least bit tired.
The Arab on the corner is bald with a small paunch and a grey goatee. Heâs got these thick hairs that have taken root in his ears and he tugs on them from time to time when heâs talking to you. The local residents can buy goods on credit at his shop, he has a large exercise book just for them. The surnames of slow payers are marked in red. He calls everybody âcomradesâ, and Iâm treated to âmy African brotherâ because according to him Africa is the land of helping each other out, itâs the continent of solidarity. He maintains that the first man on earth was African, the other races came later. So all men are immigrants, except for the Africans who are at home here down below. And whatâs more, according to him, we Africans are Egyptians and we followed the Nile in order to spread ourselves across the continent. He whispers in my ear that the West will never be able to teach that fact because it would call too many things into question:
âFor too long the West has force-fed us lies and bloated us with pestilence, my African brother! Do you know which black poet spoke those courageous words, eh? Itâs not easy telling Europeans that in reality they are nothing but immigrants themselves and that their continent actually belongs to the Africans who were the first men on earth! Take that Senegalese man, for example, a great historian, a great scholar, Iâve forgotten his name ⦠What was he called again? Itâs on the tip of my tongue ⦠Well, it will come back to me, and anyway itâs easy enough with the Senegalese, thereâs no point in overcomplicating things, theyâre all called Diop, what matters is finding out their first name. The Senegalese man Iâm talking about was so strong, my African brother. When he demonstrated to the Whites, with scientific evidence to the ready, that there were plenty of Blacks in ancient Egypt, and that those Blacks were the masters, well, Europe categorically refused to recognise this. People claimed that the Blacks werenât capable of building the pyramids, that theyâd been cursed since the dawn of time when Ham, one of Noahâs sons, saw his father naked. The Blacks would therefore be condemned to the curse of Ham with a male organ so oversized that no underpants could ever conceal it. The Senegalese historian fought against these kinds of prejudices. At the Sorbonne, the Whites refused to let him defend his dissertation! Can you, in all good conscience, call that normal behaviour, eh? In your opinion, why does Europe behave in thisway towards Africans, eh? Well, let me tell you: if the Europeans conceded that there were Blacks in Egypt, intelligent Blacks, Black leaders, Blacks with regular sized male organs, they would also have to concede that the European philosophers whoâd been coming to Egypt since Antiquity did so in order to steal our ideas and go off to develop their own philosophy without so much as a by your leave. And that is why, my
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