Review of African World History Project: The Preliminary Challenge - Chapter 9
Chapter 9 of ASCAC's African World History Project: The Preliminary Challenge is Dr. Mario Beatty's essay entitled "Maat: The Cultural and Intellectual Allegiance of a Concept." It is an in-depth discussion of Maat whose topics include: Maat's primary role in the process of restoring our culture; its overarching encapsulation of multitudes of aspects of the universe and consequently its encapsulation of the affairs of African people; translations of its symbolic representations; modern interpretations of the ancient concept; and its prescriptions for the everyday conduct of African people. The following is one of Beatty's numerous passages that seeks to convey the essence of Maat. "Maat is expressed at all levels and conveys the unitary nature and order of the universe. As universal order, Maat was intimately linked to, although not limited to, the creation of the world; the orderly movement of the sun, moon, celestial bodies, and the seasons; and divine role of the king, leadership, society, family, and the relationships between people."
This essay illustrates ASCAC's valuable role as an institution that stimulates the rich ongoing scholarship necessary for our continued growth. Within ASCAC, young scholar Mario Beatty felt free to analyze, sometimes differ and sometimes extend the works of senior scholars such as Maulana Karenga, Theophile Obenga, Jacob Carruthers and Molefi Asante. ASCAC acknowledges that growth inducing knowledge acquisition is a never-ending process; ASCAC operates from the principle of "truth pursued." Antithetical principles such as "truth possessed" and "truth revealed" typically lead to elitism, intolerance and stagnation.
In the section "Maat: A Symbolic Presentation and the Problematic of Translation" Beatty states "The necessity to translate Maat as cosmic order, truth, justice, righteousness, harmony, balance and reciprocity in the English language profoundly reflects the fragmentary mess we find ourselves in. All the categories that we must use to approximate this concept was for the Kemites one word." The Kemites were able to perceive and express multi-layered and diverse aspects without an urge for separation. So rather than try to describe Maat via the interpretations of a foreign culture, Beatty goes to the source and presents his own African centered interpretations of Kemetic symbolic expressions of Maat. His ability to read the Kemetic language allows him to do this.
Beatty elaborates on the meanings of symbols in the various expressions of Maat - symbols such as the sickle-shaped end of the sacred boat, the forearm, the loaf of bread, the egg, the feather and the tied papyrus. Of particular interest is the symbol that has been interpreted at times as a pedestal, as a platform and as a primeval mound. After presenting the thoughts of a number of scholars, Beatty present his own. His thoughts capture the unified nature of the spiritual and material realms. He says "Maat, then, could refer to the orderly process of creation and the primeval hill - a visible object that is at once its solid self and a manifestation of a preexisting cosmic and spiritual order."
In the section "Maat: The Problematic of Framework and Interpretation" Beatty surveys views from a number of scholars on the essence of Maat. The striking contrast between the tone of the Western scholars and African scholars illustrates the significance of intellectual allegiance. Western scholars such as Jan Assmann, Samual A. B. Mercer, John A. Wilson and John Baines characterize Maat as a social/state institution for maintaining order/control. Conversely, African scholars characterize Maat as a divine ubiquitous quality of the universe. In this section, Beatty analyzes the viewpoints of Karenga, Obenga, Carruthers and Asante.
Karenga draws a system of ethics from Maat. He defines virtues as "excellences of human character which sustain practices which enable persons to achieve various desirable goods, but who also sustains them in their quest for good."
"Obenga discusses Maat in the context of 'spheres of reality' (the sacred, the cosmos, the society, and man) with 'five dimensions of significance' (religious, cosmic, political, social, and anthropological)." "Maat includes the sum total of experience, knowledge and activity, including such areas as all of the sciences, theology (the Sacred), cosmology (the Cosmos), political science (the State), socialogy (the Society), and anthropology (human beings)."
Carruthers says that "Maat is the principle of balance in the universe, whether that balance refers to weights and measurements in the market, law in the courts, judgement of the heart of the dead, or the universal cosmological patterns."
Asante "takes five Kemetic terms and attempts to apply them metaphorically to African life and culture for the purpose of illuminating a 'Maatic response to injustice and disorder in the world.'" The five terms are tep (beginning), pet (extensions), heb (festival), sen (circle) amd meh (crowning glory).
Common to the theoretical discourses of the African scholars is the practical message that doing and speaking Maat is fundamental to the process of restoring our culture. Beatty's expression of this message is "Knowledge of African history and culture is essential in the process of reflecting upon the nature and purpose of our lives and how to conduct them in the best interests of African people." "Maat is a concept that is fundamental in understanding the Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) and hence African world view."