The Fall of Commicracy: When Kemet Forgot the Law of Collective Breath
The Voice of Aye, Last Priest-Pharaoh of the Black Lands
BY: OMOLAJA MAKINEE
I. The Vision of Commicracy
I remember what the ancestors revealed to me in my priesthood education: that Ifá had foreseen this peril long before the first Arab camel knelt at the edge of the desert. Ifá spoke of a time when strangers would seek to enslave the spirit through deception, not chains alone. And so, the Yoruba people—the keepers of that wisdom—were led by divine counsel toward the Nile, to raise a metaphysical border, a wall of divination, to preserve the purity of the Black Lands’ soul.
For Ifá does not fight men of flesh; it wars against forgetfulness, against the spirit of confusion that blinds nations from their original light. Kemet was to be that wall—a civilisation that fused divine law and communal governance into a single rhythm of existence. That rhythm, I named Commicracy—a system not of rule but of relationship; where pharaohs governed by the counsel of priests, and priests guided by the consensus of the people.
In Commicracy, governance was not a pyramid of authority, but a circle of balance. The Great House (Per-aa) was sacred not because it dominated, but because it harmonised. Power was not the right to command—it was the duty to coordinate the divine order of Ma’at through consultation, wisdom, and restraint.
II. The Division of Kemet — When Ma’at Was Broken
But the circle broke under the reign of Akhenaten. His devotion to Aten, though born of revelation, severed the priesthood from the throne. In the name of monotheism, he abolished communion. The temples of Amun fell silent, and the divine intermediaries of the land were dismissed as relics of a forgotten age.
In that silence, the military crept in—not as defenders of the faith, but as claimants to power. The balance between priesthood and royalty was shattered, and the Great House became a battlefield between the sword and the scepter.
When Akhenaten’s vision collapsed, the priests and generals both sought to rebuild order, but not in unity. I, Aye, stood for divine continuity through priestly wisdom; Horemheb, for conquest and restoration through arms. What began as a partnership became a rivalry that divided the very soul of Kemet.
Our visions could not coexist. Mine was to restore balance; his, to secure power. Where I saw governance as spiritual alignment, he saw it as military precision. And though both of us sought the salvation of Kemet, our methods carved separate destinies for the Black world.
III. The Rise of the Sword — When Pharaohs Became Kings
Horemheb’s rise marked the death of Commicracy. When the priests were silenced, the generals found their voice. The sacred law of Ma’at, once inscribed in the heart, became a decree enforced by blade. Pharaohs ceased to be divine mediators—they became kings of men.
The royal bloodline, purified by the priesthood through centuries of spiritual selection, fizzled out in the tumult. The Great House no longer carried divine inheritance; it carried military ambition. From that moment, the Nile ceased to flow as a river of divine consciousness—it became a channel of commerce and control.
The descendants of Horemheb’s order continued his path: wars upon wars, treaties upon betrayals, alliances upon conquests. The soldiers who once defended Kemet became mercenaries of foreign empires. And when the Arabs came with the sword of faith, Kemet no longer had the priests to interpret or resist.
IV. The Unfinished Wall of Spirit
When Commicracy fell unfinished, the wall of spirit cracked. The flood of foreign thought seeped through—not in torrents, but in whispers. Ethno-governed communities that once lived as cooperatives became competitors. Chiefs who once ruled in consensus now sought the prestige of imported wealth. The balance was lost, and in its absence, survival bred betrayal.
The invaders learned our weaknesses. They needed not to conquer us by force; they conquered us through our disunity. Gold for loyalty, guns for silence, faith for obedience. A whole community could be captured by vanity alone. The rhythm of servitude began—not as a sudden collapse but as slow habit. Betrayal became custom; colonisation became culture.
Had Kemet still stood as the fountainhead of divine coordination, none of these would have prevailed. For in our time, the Nile’s banks were guarded not by armies but by alignment—with the gods, with the land, with the truth that all were kin beneath Ma’at.
V. When Foreigners Learned to Divide the gods
By exploiting these fractures, the foreigners never needed to raise vast armies. Diplomacy, faith, and trade became their weapons. They offered us mirrors polished to reflect our pride but hide our wounds.
The sword was not needed; the pen and the pulpit sufficed. In the name of God, they divided the gods. In the name of civilisation, they dismantled our own.
Even those African ethno-governed communities that briefly prospered—Dahomey, Oyo, Asante—did so by devouring their own. The blood that stained their altars was not foreign; it was fraternal. And so, the hunters of the desert and the sea gathered slaves not by conquest, but by invitation—each ethno-governed community hoping to delay its doom by sacrificing another.
VI. The Lost Federation of Spirits
Had the project of Commicracy matured beyond my reign, the Black Lands would have stood as an eternal federation of spirits. For Kemet, as I designed it, was not meant to be an empire of dominion, but a federal covenant of Ma’at—a network of nations ruled by priestly ethics and communal wisdom.
Every village a temple, every ruler a servant of balance, every citizen a custodian of truth. This was the spiritual architecture that would have safeguarded Africa’s unity against deceitful ideologies. But when the Great House fell to the generals, the dream dissolved into a multitude of govities—each autonomous, each proud, each vulnerable.
The tragedy of enslavement and colonisation did not begin on the ships of Europe or the caravans of Arabia—it began in the temples of Kemet, when the priests were replaced by soldiers, and the sacred covenant of Commicracy was abandoned for hierarchy of bureaucracy and command.
VII. Remembering the Law of Collective Breath
Thus I say, as one who has crossed the veil of time: our defeat was not the triumph of their strength, but the failure of our memory.
We forgot the law of collective breath. We forsook the covenant of equal communion between ruler, priest, and citizen. In forgetting, we became prey to our own divided reflections.
To restore the Black Lands, we must seek remembrance. Commicracy must be revived not as nostalgia, but as necessity: a new balance of governance where the spiritual, intellectual, and governance coexist without subjugating one another.
For the Nile does not belong to the soldiers who occupy it, nor the tourists who photograph it. It belongs to those who remember its soul.
And so I speak once more to those who listen beyond time:
“Write no more of wars. Write of beginnings.”
For in that beginning lies the rebirth of Ma’at, and the return of the Great House as a circle, not a throne.
Back to 👇