Akhenaten полностью

Other Afrocentrist educational materials tend to present Akhenaten's reign as the pinnacle of Egyptian achievements which provide an exemplar to be fol­lowed. This is noticeable in the work of Maulana Karcnga, a leader of the 'Back to Black' movement of the 1960s which advocated traditional African clothing and hairstyles. Now chair of the Department of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach, he has become one of the most influential black edu­cators in America and his ideas widely adopted. Karenga's pedagogical writings developed the concept of the Mguzo Saba (Swahili for 'seven principles'), whose adoption can help African Americans to regain self-esteem and control of their lives. He aims for what he calls 'a creative restoration in the African spirit of cultural restoration and renewal in both the ancient Egyptian and African Amer­ican sense'. A re-evaluation of the ancient Egyptian idea of Ma'at, the personifi­cation of cosmic equilibrium, is central to Karenga's articulation of the Nguzo Saba. For him Ma'at encompasses righteousness, cosmic harmony and rcspect for ancestors, and is an African concept of great antiquity and reverence. 'Each pharaoh saw his or her reign, then, as one of restoration of Maat, i.e. the reaffirmation, re-establishment and renewal of the Good, the Beautiful and the Right.'²" Akhenaten's own special relationship with Ma'at gives him an import­ance in this updated adaptation of Maat, since official texts from his reign call Akenaten the 'beloved of Ma'at', 'the king who lives on Ma'at' or 'he in whom Ma'at has made her abode'; his city is likewise 'the place of Ma'at'.²¹ Akhenaten's self-presentation as the upholder of Ma'at can be enlisted here: according to Molefi Kete Asante, currently the principal theoriser of Afroccntrist education, it becomes 'the one cosmic generator that gave meaning to life'.²²

The black radical traditions I have surveyed here involve a variety of concerns and approaches which I have partly glossed over. Some black radicals are com­mitted to making demands on the establishment in the present, others more interested in cultural regeneration and pride; some have links to secular white or interracial traditions (particularly various forms of socialism), while others are more separatist and religious. Yet what strikes me as significant is the way that Akhenaten appears in these very different political traditions in much the same ways. He is of equal interest to a black Marxist like W. E. B. Du Bois and a black cultural nationalist like Asante, in spite of their very different ideas about promoting a glorious black past. Asante writes:

our poets, the great ancestral voices among us . . . sing of coconuts and palm trees, Martin Luther King avenues and soul blues, Chaka, Dini- zulu, Osei Tutu, Akhenaten, Piankhy, Tarhaka [j?V], Nzingha, Candace, Yaa Asantewa, Harriet and Sojourner.²³

Invoking Akhenaten alongside Nzingha, the Angolan queen who conquered Por­tuguese colonialists, and American abolitionists such as Harriet Tubman (c. 1821-1913) and Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), makes him into a transhistorieal image both of black achievement and of black struggle. The way Akhenaten repeatedly appears alongside the Pyramids is illustrative of the transcendent qualities of both to stand, almost as hieroglyphs, for 'Egypt'. Presiding over what is seen as a high point in Egyptian history and civilisation, Akhenaten can also be presented as the Egyptian founder of a monotheism independent of Judaeo- Christianity. Akhenaten's spirituality and mystic associations also make him ripe for appropriation by adherents of alternative religions; and the ways in which he has been used by them is the subject of the next section.

Akhenaten and alternative religions

While Materialists deny everything in the universe, save matter, Archaeologists are trying to dwarf antiquity, and seek to destroy every claim to ancient wisdom by tampering with chronology. Our present-day Orientalists and Historical writers are to ancient His­tory that which the white ants are to the buildings in India. More dangerous even than those termites, the modern Archaeologists - the 'authorities' of the future in the matter of Universal history - are preparing for the History of past nations the fate of certain edifices in tropical countries. . . . Historical facts will remain as con­cealed from view by the inextricable jungles of modern hypotheses, denials and skepticism.

Blavatsky 1888 I: 676