RECLAIMING OUR AFRICAN LEGACY: WHY ALKEBULAN IS NOT THE ANSWER AND KEMET MUST REPLACE COLONIAL TEMPLATES
BY: OMOLAJA MAKINEE
“The tragedy of Africa’s modernity is deeper. It lies in the fact that many of our intellectuals and leaders, products of colonial education, no longer see Africa through African eyes.”
These words are not just critique — they are a mirror, forcing us to confront a deeper issue: Africa’s mental colonisation. We inherited more than borders from our colonisers. We inherited their frameworks, their ideologies, and perhaps most dangerously — their definitions of who we indoctrinate ourselves we are.
In recent years, a surge in Pan-African consciousness has inspired movements for continental unity, cultural renaissance, and historical reclamation. Among these efforts, well-meaning Pan-Africanists have called for renaming Africa Alkebulan, claiming it was the continent’s original name meaning “Mother of Mankind” or “Garden of Eden.” While the spirit of renaming stems from a powerful desire to reclaim identity, it is based on historical inaccuracy. In fact, Alkebulan is not an indigenous African name, and using it risks replacing one colonial legacy with another.
This article unpacks the myth of Alkebulan, critiques the blind mimicry of Western models like the “United States of Africa”, and makes the case for a grounded alternative: KEMET — a name that honours Africa’s indigenous governmental systems and unbroken traditions of inter-ethno governed territorial cooperation.
1. The Problem with “Alkebulan”: A Myth Built on Misinformation
Let us begin by addressing the name Alkebulan. Despite its rising popularity in Pan-African circles and online discussions, historical evidence shows that:
- The term Alkebulan is not found in any pre-Islamic African records — not in Nubia, Kemet, Axum, Mali, Great Zimbabwe, or among the oral traditions of the over 3,000 ethnic groups across the continent.
- The prefix “Al-” is a definite article in Arabic, not found in native African language families like Bantu, Nilo-Saharan, or Niger-Congo. This alone suggests a non-African linguistic origin.
- The term gained popularity through Leo Africanus (al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi), a 16th-century Arabised Berber scholar. His writings, while valuable, were heavily influenced by Islamic culture and the Arabic language, and he did not present Alkebulan as the continent’s universal name.
In short, Alkebulan is not an indigenous African name — it is a post-Islamic, Arabic-influenced term.
To rename Africa using Alkebulan in the name of decolonisation is ironically to replace European colonial terminology with Arab-Islamic colonial terminology. Is that true liberation? Is that truly who we are?
2. Africa Before Colonisation: A Model of Indigenous Unity
We must reject the narrative that Africa was a fractured, primitive landscape before European conquest. The opposite is true:
“Before colonisers carved arbitrary borders through the Berlin Conference, before the missionaries came with their gospel of inferiority and Western superiority, Africa stood tall as a sophisticated tapestry of over 10,000 ethno-governed communities.”
These weren’t isolated entities. The Mali, Songhai, and Oyo empires governed vast territories with complex governance structures. The ethno-governed territory of Kongo and Benin practiced diplomacy and long-distance trade. The Swahili coast was connected to Asia centuries before Europe’s industrial revolution. Spiritual systems like Ubuntu, Ma’at, and ancestral law informed ethical governance.
We must stop pretending that Africa was awaiting Western systems to become “civilised.” We had our own systems — rooted in kinship, ethics, harmony with Nature, cooperative economic system and communal prosperity. We had “States” before the idea of a “nation-state” even reached Europe.
3. Colonial Education and the Crisis of Imitation
The tragedy, however, is that colonial education taught us to despise these achievements.
We were conditioned to memorise the names of European philosophers while forgetting our own sages — quoting Rousseau and Locke instead of Imhotep, Nana Asma’u, or Ptahhotep.
Even our liberation efforts have not been spared. Today, many Africans speak with pride about the “United States of Africa.” But this phrase is problematic — not because unity is bad — but because the model it draws from is foreign, ahistorical, and incompatible with Africa’s indigenous governing systems.
“We speak of ‘United States of Africa’ with admiration, mimicking the model of America. But Africa was never a copy. It was the original.”
4. Africa Must Become Kemet Again
“Africa needs not to become the next America. Africa needs to become Kemet — fully, unapologetically, and powerfully.”
Let us not betray our ancestors by replacing one colonial name (Africa) with another (Alkebulan)—or by imagining unity through the lens of Washington D.C.
Let us build a United States that honours the memory of Sankara, the vision of Lumumba, the dreams of Nkrumah, the roots of Shaka, and the ancient legacy of Imhotep and Queen Nzinga.
For, to truly steer away from colonial or external linguistic roots in renaming the term Africa, the task before us is not to search nostalgically for a name that supposedly existed in ancient times. The reality is that our ancestors did not conceive of the continent as a single, unified entity requiring a collective name; they identified with their ethno-governed communities, regions, and ethnic communities. Therefore, it falls to this generation — not to resurrect myths, but to create, consciously and deliberately, a new name rooted in verifiable present-day African languages, linguistic integrity, and pan-continental consensus. It must be a name forged by Africans, on African terms, to represent a united identity that honours the past but is not imprisoned by it.
And yet, in that same spirit — of creating, not mimicking — we must also not abandon the tangible legacies our ancestors did leave us. One such legacy, towering above all others in global memory and African historical consciousness, is Kemet — the ancient name for the land of the Nile Valley, known today as “Egypt.”
To rename the African continent Kemet is not to romanticise myth — it is to recognise historical, cultural, and linguistic fact. It is to claim, boldly and unapologetically, the most enduring symbol of African civilisational greatness — one whose architectural, scientific, philosophical, and spiritual contributions shaped humanity itself.
5. From “Africa” to “Kemet”: A Return to Ourselves
The name Africa has no indigenous origin within the continent. It was a term imposed from outside — most likely derived from the Roman name Africa terra, used to describe their province after the conquest of Carthage. Some argue it derives from Latin “aprica” (sunny), or from Greek “a-phrike” (without cold). Others speculate it was borrowed from the Afri people of North Africa, but again — this naming was done by outsiders, not by the people of the continent as a whole.
Similarly, the name Egypt is not indigenous. It comes from the Greek Aigyptos, a misinterpretation of Hwt-ka-Ptah — “House of the Soul of Ptah,” one of the sacred names for modern Memphis, a major city in ancient Kemet; Ineb-hedj meaning “White Walls”. It was also known by the later name Men-nefer (“Enduring Beauty”), which became the basis for its Greek name, Memphis, and subsequently, the name for the entire ethno-governed territory, Egypt.
But before all of this — before Arab conquests, Greek philosophies, or Roman military campaigns — the land was called Kemet (kmt), literally meaning “Black Land“ — in reference to the rich, dark soil of the Nile valley, and arguably, the people themselves.
This name was not given by outsiders. It was not imposed through conquest. It was spoken by Pharaohs. Carved into temple walls. Inscribed in sacred scripts. It was how the people of that land — our ancestors — named themselves.
6. Why “Kemet” Is the Better Vision
Rather than building our unity on Western templates, we must return to our own. This is where KEMET becomes a superior alternative.
It recognises:
- That the unity of black people will not come from artificially imposed uniformity, but from a federated framework of sovereign nations inhabiting the black land and ethno-governed territories, cooperating based on shared values.
- That our unity is not just geographical or governmental, but spiritual and historical — rooted in the interwoven destinies of peoples who once traded, married, governed, and worshipped together under the same religious faith before borders divided them.
- That our governmental future must honour her indigenous diversity, not flatten it into a replica of America’s 50-state federal system.
To speak of “Kemet” is to affirm the agency of black land’s own governmental heritage, rather than echoing foreign systems.
7. Why Kemet Belongs to All of Us
Some may argue that Kemet refers only to the Nile Valley region and should not be applied to the entire continent. But we must reject this small vision of African identity. Kemet was not an isolated civilisation — it was a beacon that influenced and was influenced by the ethno-governed territories of Nubia, Kush, Punt, Axum, Ife and later, Great Zimbabwe, Mali, Kongo, and Benin.
Pilgrimage, exchange, warfare, and diplomacy linked Kemet with the rest of Africa. The Sahara was not a barrier but a corridor. The people of Kemet shared bloodlines, trade routes, and spiritual systems with the entire continent. Their temples and teachings became the cradle of Pan-African pride, studied and referenced by revolutionaries from Marcus Garvey and Cheikh Anta Diop to contemporary Pan-Africanists like Prof. P.L.O. Lumumba and Dr. Molefi Kete Asante.
To rename the continent Kemet is to acknowledge the symbolic center of our civilisational memory — a memory not of colonisation, but of creation.
8. A Name of Resistance, Continuity, and Power
The Arab conquest of North Africa in the 7th century AD led to the systematic Arabisation of indigenous African identities. The name Kemet was buried, replaced with Misr (Egypt in Arabic) and incorporated into a cultural framework that did not originate from the continent.
But the Pharaohs never called their land Egypt, and they certainly did not call it Misr. They called it Kemet — a name that remains untainted by colonisation, unaltered by Western translation, and unclaimed by empire.
It is, arguably, the only ancient name for a major African territory that:
- Was spoken by the African people themselves;
- Represents a globally recognised civilisation of the origin of Black people;
- Has been consistently used as evidence of African genius in global intellectual resistance;
- Can symbolically encompass the unity, greatness, and continuity of the entire continent.
9. Kemet as a Pan-African Identity
By renaming the continent Kemet, we do not erase the diversity of African identities — we anchor them in a shared civilisational root. Kemet becomes not a replacement for Mali, Oyo, Axum, or Mapungubwe, but a unifying banner under which they all stand — just as the stars on a flag do not erase the uniqueness of each nation.
There is no need to call it the United Kemet States or Union of Kemet, for the very name Kemet — meaning Black Land — already implies both unity and sovereignty. All indigenous African lands are Black lands. All indigenous African peoples are heirs of this soil. The term is complete in itself, just as China defines both a place and a people.
Thus, we speak simply of Kemet, and of ourselves as Kemetians. In this, we proclaim not just geographic identity but a cultural and historical alignment with the greatness that once was — and shall be again.
Whether from Senegal or Kenya, Angola or Ethiopia, to be Kemetian is not to surrender local heritage — it is to transcend colonial borders and affirm a continental identity rooted in dignity, continuity, and Black sovereignty.
Kemet, as a name, affirms the civilisational worth of African people — from the Nile to the Niger, from the Congo to the Cape.
10. The Real Work: Educating for African Consciousness
For this shift to occur, we must transform our education.
“The time has come. Our young must learn real African history — not just the trauma of slavery or the textbook glory of independence, but the deep structures of governance, economy, and unity that our ancestors built and sustained for millennia.”
This means developing:
- Curricula that teach about precolonial governance models in Oyo, Buganda, Kemet, and Axum.
- Language revitalisation programs that return power to indigenous tongues.
- Cultural diplomacy that recognises traditional authorities and wisdom keepers.
Until we do this, our unity efforts will be dressed in foreign cloth, singing liberation songs with colonised tongues.
11. The Time is Now: Name Yourself or Be Named Again
We are not the first generation to face the question of identity, but we may be the last to answer it on our own terms. If we do not name ourselves, the world will continue to name us — in languages we do not speak, using terms we did not choose, for purposes we do not control.
Renaming the continent Kemet is a bold proposition — but so was standing against colonialism. So was reclaiming our languages, our hairstyles, our history, our dress attires and fashion. And yet we did those things.
This is not an act of nostalgia. It is an act of strategic memory and intentional identity.
Conclusion: Let Kemet Live Again
Africa — as a name — has served its time. It helped us unify in struggle. But it came from Rome, not Rwanda. It was written by conquerors, not creators.
The time has come to retire borrowed names and revive ancestral pride.
Let the world say Kemet — and know it means the land where humanity began, where knowledge was sacred, where divine rulers were black, and where unity is not a dream, but a destiny.
We are not Africans by Roman accident. We are Kemetans by ancestral design.
Let us rise not as imitators, but as originators. We were never meant to become copies. We were, and still are, the blueprint.
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