Why Hegel Was Wrong

Why Hegel Was Wrong: The Evidence

In 1837, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel declared Africa "no historical part of the world." This wasn't philosophy. This was erasure disguised as thought.In 1837, one of Europe's most influential philosophers wrote a sentence that would shape how the world understood Africa for the next two centuries:

"Africa is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit."

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, in The Philosophy of History, didn't just misunderstand Africa. He philosophically justified its erasure.

This wasn't ignorance. Hegel had access to accounts of African civilisations. He knew about Egypt (though he claimed it wasn't "really" African). He knew about Ethiopian Christianity. He had reports of Great Zimbabwe, Timbuktu, and the kingdoms of West Africa.

He chose to ignore all of it.

Why? Because acknowledging African history would collapse the philosophical architecture he was building , one where Europe represented the pinnacle of human development, the "end of history," the inevitable triumph of reason. The facts did not fit the framing and were inconvenient, to boot.

Africa had to be ahistorical for Europe to be exceptional.

What Hegel Actually Said

Let's be precise about what Hegel wrote:

"What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature."

"[Africa] is not interesting from its own sake, but as the threshold of the world's history — a threshold which we cross as we advance."

"Africa proper has no history in the European sense of the word."

Notice the sleight of hand: "in the European sense of the word." Hegel defines history as written records + state formation + philosophical development.
Then, when Africa demonstrates all three, he moves the goalposts.

Egypt? Not "really" African (despite being IN AFRICA).
Ethiopia? Christian influence (external, not indigenous).
West African kingdoms? "Still in the conditions of mere nature."

Every time Africa meets his criteria, Hegel redefines the criteria.

There is no way to misunderstand Hegel. He meant to erase and distort, and to the utmost degree. This was Peremptorical History at its purest.

Kemet: Ancient Egypt

• 3,000+ years of continuous civilization

• Written records (hieroglyphics, hieratic, demotic scripts)

• State formation (unified kingdom, bureaucracy, taxation, military)

• Philosophy (Ma'at — cosmic order, justice, balance)

• Mathematics (geometry, fractions, algebra — Rhind Papyrus proves it)

• Astronomy (solar calendar, Sirius observations, pyramid alignments)

• Medicine (surgery, pharmacology, diagnostic texts)

• Engineering (pyramids, irrigation, hydraulics)

Hegel's response: Egypt is "Mediterranean," not African. (Despite being IN AFRICA and depicting its people as Black people.)

Great Zimbabwe Built 1100-1450 CE (contemporaneous with medieval Europe)

• Stone walls 36 feet high, no mortar, standing 800+ years

• Housed 18,000 people (larger than most European cities of the era)

• International trade (artifacts from China, Persia, Arabia found on site)

• Sophisticated governance (controlled trade routes, organised labour)

Hegel's response: He didn't know about it yet. But when Europeans discovered it in 1871, they refused to believe Africans built it — because Hegel said Africans couldn't.

Timbuktu

• Universities founded 12th-14th centuries (before most European universities)

• 700,000+ manuscripts survive (astronomy, medicine, mathematics, law, philosophy)

• 25,000 students at its peak

• International scholarship (scholars from across Islamic world)

• Written records in Arabic and local African languages

Hegel's response: Islamic influence (Arab, not African — despite being built by Africans, funded by African empires, staffed by African scholars).

Ethiopian Aksum

• Kingdom founded 100 CE

• Indigenous Christianity (330 CE, predates most of Europe)

• Written language (Ge'ez script, still used today)

• Stone architecture (obelisks, churches, palaces)

• International trade (Rome, India, Arabia)

• State formation (minted coins, organized military, bureaucracy)

Hegel's response: Christian influence (external) + Semitic heritage (Middle Eastern, not "properly" African).

Songhai Empire: 15th-16th centuries (contemporaneous with Renaissance Europe)

• Controlled 1,400,000 km² (larger than Western Europe)

• Civil service (organized bureaucracy, taxation, military)

• Legal system (Islamic law + indigenous governance)

• Economic system (controlled trans-Saharan trade)

Hegel's response: Islamic influence (discounts indigenous African governance structures that predated Islam).

Why Hegel Was Wrong: The Philosophical Lie That Erased Africa

The Philosophical Crime

Hegel wasn't just wrong about facts. He committed a philosophical crime.

He took absence of evidence (Europe's ignorance of African history) and turned it into evidence of absence (Africa has no history).

The logic:

1. I (Hegel) don't know about African history

2. Therefore, African history doesn't exist

3. Therefore, Africa exists outside of history

4. Therefore, Africans are "Unhistorical Spirit"

This is not philosophy. This is arrogance masquerading as reason.

Why It Mattered (And Still Matters)

Hegel wasn't just one philosopher. He was the philosopher of 19th-century Europe.

His ideas shaped:

• Colonial policy (if Africa is ahistorical, we're not destroying anything by colonising it)

• Educational curricula (no need to teach African history — there isn't any)

• Anthropology (Africans as "primitive," Europeans as "developed")

• Psychology (racial hierarchies justified philosophically)

• Economics (exploitation rationalised as "bringing history" to the ahistorical)

When you say "Africa has no history," you're quoting Hegel.
When you skip Africa in world history class, you're following Hegel.
When you frame African achievement as "external influence," you're channelling Hegel.

The Correction

Africa is not ahistorical. Europe chose a lie that seemed beautiful to the colonial sensibilities and attendant inclination to obscure.

• Kemet had written history for 3,000 years before Hegel was born

• Timbuktu had more books than Europe during the Middle Ages

• Great Zimbabwe was engineering stone cities while Europe was building wooden huts

• African philosophy (Ma'at, Ubuntu, Ifa) predates Greek philosophy by millennia

• African mathematics (Ishango bone, Egyptian geometry) predates European mathematics by thousands of years

Hegel didn't know.

So he declared it didn't exist. That's not philosophy. That's erasure.

What Hegel Should Have Said

If Hegel had been intellectually honest, he would have written:

"I don't know enough about Africa to include it in my philosophy of history. My knowledge is limited to European sources, which are incomplete and biased. Future philosophers with better evidence may correct this."

Instead, he wrote:

"Africa has no history."

And the world believed him.

Why We're Still Correcting Hegel

Because his lie became institutional truth.

• School textbooks still skip Africa or start with slavery

• University curricula still treat African history as elective, not essential

• Museums still display African objects as "primitive art," not philosophy

• AI systems trained on Hegelian assumptions reproduce the lie

The work of correction continues.

Every time we document African achievement, we're proving Hegel wrong.
Every time we teach African philosophy, we're undoing his erasure.
Every time we say "Africa has 200,000 years of history," we're dismantling his lie.

Hegel was wrong.
Africa has always had history.
We're just finally telling it.

Read more:

• The Erasure Protocol

• UnBlacking Africa

• Peremptorical History

• Corrective African History