April 03, 2020
Huge throwback to when Africans had the most sophisticated society on the entire planet. If I remember, these columns are at the temple in Luxor built about 3400 years ago while Europeans lived in holes and thought fire-hardened sticks were pretty rad technology. Not just Egypt, this sophisticated society was also shared by the Sudanese empire of Kush. There are dozens of little-known pyramids in Sudan. But unfortunately of the two dictatorships, Sudan is the harder one to visit - and also the one that’s taken stronger steps towards democracy (probably because, unlike in Egypt, the dictatorship wasn’t massively supported by millions of US dollars and tons of US military equipment). I wasn’t strongly aware when I was in Egypt in 2000 the role of the world’s democracies in propping up Hosni Mubarak as they now do el-Sisi after paying lip-service to the democratic movement he crushed.
