Were Ancient Egyptians the First Socialists?
Tags: Politics, Socialism, Revolution, World, History

Ayi Kwei Armah’s Take on Socialism

The informing motif of this article is the understanding that revolution and communism are phenomena and concepts of universal occurrence. They have been known and experienced in different parts of the world during different periods of history.-Ayi Kwei Armah.

In the above paragraph, he asserts that humankind always resorts to redefining their society through revolution. Armah also goes on to state that the beauty of the languages of old is the prevalence of unambiguous language to state the problems that are clouding the land.

He gives the example of a poem found in what a piece of work called the Prophesy of Neferti. In concise and straightforward language, Neferti shows the turmoil of the land that is reminiscent of the revolutions that took hold of the entire world during the last century.

« I show you the land in turmoil, What should not be has come to pass, Men will seize weapons of warfare, The land will live in uproar. Men will make arrows of copper, Will crave blood for bread, Will laugh aloud at distress. None will weep over death.

All these are words that may be characteristic of any bloody revolution. They are not direct pointers of any specific movement. What tells us that it is a socioeconomic struggle that the public is trying to come to terms with?

The next verse speaks of the psychological effects of this struggle and how the public adapts to it. Among these features are characteristics that resonate with socialist revolutions on many levels.

« I show you the land in turmoil. The weak-armed is strong-armed, One salutes him who saluted. I show you the undermost uppermost, What was turned on the back turns the belly.

The weak-armed being strong-armed is an indication of the shift in power dynamics. Peasants could quickly turn into armies and go against the ruling class that is oppressing them. It happened all over the world during the age of socialist revolutions worldwide. The development of this reality led to revolutionaries and guerillas fighting with the support of the masses.

Men will live in the graveyard,

After this, Neferti asserts that the number of people that will die could quite possibly mean a significant population. That is a feature very characteristic of socialist revolutions that led to the death of the many. One way people died was due to the flawed policies that came about. This alone reminds us of famines that killed tens of millions in China, The Soviet Union, and many more nations.

The beggar will gain riches, The great will rob to live. The poor will eat bread, The slaves will be exalted.

The next four lines dictate the basic precepts of Marxist ideology. Those who have wealth will get pressured to give their wealth and live in relative poverty. Those who are poor will experience the goodness of their newly acquired wealth for a while. And finally, those who were tied down to plebian servitude get a voice in society.

Gone from the earth is the name of On, The birthplace of every god

What gives us the most information is the last two lines of the verse. Here we are able to interpret who the real class of oppressors represents. The Priests and Egyptian clergymen were notorious for the claims that they brought upon the people. It also reminds us of the chaos brought about by false prophets and fake pastors that are in contemporary society.

We can infer this from the economic decline in many points of Egyptian history. Some of them led to the conquest by greater powers that the public willingly accepted, for they could no longer endure suffering.

Another Instance

Armah is also confident in his stance as he provides another situation that pointed to Egyptian socioeconomic change. In the writings called Admonitions of Ipuwer, Armah highlights a verse with results that came about from these socialist revolutions.

See now, the transformations of people, He who did not build a hut is an owner of coffers. See, the judges of the land are driven from the land, The lobes are expelled from the royal mansions

From this section, we clearly see that society has flipped, and those who represented the previous rulers are banished. The Romanovs went through this in Russia when the Bolsheviks got power. They were slaughtered brutally, and those who survived settled in other European nations where certain royal families were relatives.

See, noble ladies are on boards, Princes in the workinghouse, He who did not sleep on a box owns a bed. See, the man of wealth lies thirsting. He who begged dregs has overflowing bowls. See, those who owned robes are in rags,

Another paradigm shift is how those who were formerly rich end up poor once their wealth gets distributed all over society.