Seyni Diop Quotes

Only a loyal, determined struggle to destroy cultural aggression and bring out the truth, whatever it may be, is revolutionary and consonant with real progress; it is the only approach which opens on to the universal. Humanitarian declarations are not called for and add nothing to real progress. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

In my heart of hearts I knew I was wrong. The World Cup was about to begin in the United States. The planet was interested in nothing else. And in any case, whatever happened in Rwanda, it would always be the same old story of blacks beating up on each other. Even Africans would say, during half-time of every match, "They're embarrassing us, they should stop killing each other like that." Then they'll go on to something else. [9-10] ~ Boubacar Boris Diop

Until now (1960, date of the first edition), the history of Black Africa has always been written with dates as dry as laundry lists, and no one has almost ever tried to find the key that unlocks the door to the intelligence, the understanding of African society. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

there are no fruitful speculations outside of reality. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

Egypt's prestige abroad was so intact that the "King" of Tyre declared: "All industries came from Egypt and all sciences first shone forth there" (cf. Pirenne, II, 505). ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin colour and hence the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

European languages must not be considered diamonds displayed under a glass ball, dazzling us with their brilliance. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

Pharaoh Chephren (circa 2600 B.C., Fourth Dynasty), who built the second Giza pyramid. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

Thanks to superior organization, the Egyptian armed forces scored a dual victory, on land and sea, over that second alliance. The fleet of the "Peoples of the North" was entirely destroyed and the invasion route through the Delta was cut. At the same time a third coalition of the same white-skinned Indo-Aryans was being assembled, again in Libya, against the Black Egyptian nation. Yet, this was not a racial conflict in the modern sense. To be sure, the two hostile groups were fully conscious of their ethnic and racial differences, but it was much more a question of the great movement of disinherited peoples of the north toward richer and more advanced countries. Ramses III demolished that third coalition as he had destroyed the first two.... As a result of this third victory over the Indo-Aryans, he took an exceptional number of prisoners. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

Humanity's moral conscience progresses, slowly yet surely... ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

In the Nile Valley, civilization resulted from man's adaptation to that particular milieu. As declared by the Ancients and by the Egyptians themselves, it originated in Nubia. This is confirmed by our knowledge that the basic elements of Egyptian civilization are neither in Lower Egypt, nor in Asia, nor in Europe, but in Nubia and the heart of Africa; moreover, that is where we find the animals and plants represented in hieroglyphic writing.... ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

Anthropologists have invented the ingenious, convenient, fictional notion of the "true Negro," which allows them to consider, if need be, all the real Negroes on earth as fake Negroes, more or less approaching a kind of Platonic archetype, without ever attaining it. Thus, African history is full of "Negroids," Hamites, semi-Hamites, Nilo-Hamitics, Ethiopoids, Sabaeans, even Caucasoids! Yet, if one stuck strictly to scientific data and archeological facts, the prototype of the White race would be sought in vain throughout the earliest years of present-day humanity. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

Intellectuals ought to study the past not for the pleasure they find in so doing, but to derive lessons from it. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

....the line of ill-intentional Egyptologist, equipped with a ferocious erudition , have commited their well known crime against science, by becoming guilty of a deliberate falsification of the history of humanity.
Supported by the governing powers of all the Western countries , this ideology, based on a moral and intellectual swindle, easily won out over the true scientific current developed by a parallel group of Egyptologist of good will, whose intellectual uprightness and even courage cannot be stressed stronly enough.
The new Egyptological ideology , born at the opportune monment, reinforced the theorectical bases of imperialist ideology. That is why it easily drowned out the voice of science, by throwing the veil of fasificacation over historical truth. This ideology was spread with the help of considerable publicity and taught the world over, because it alone had the material and financial means for its own propagation.
Thus imperialism, like the prehistoric hunter, first killed the being spiritually and culturally, before trying to eliminate it physically. The negation of the history and intellectual accomplishments of Black Africans was cultural, mental murder,which preceded and paved the way for their genocide here and there in the world. ~ Cheikh Anta Diop

The word griot ... is the word for what I do and the role that the filmmaker has in society ... the griot is a messenger of one's time, a visionary and the creator of the future. ~ Djibril Diop Mambety