Who Knew? or, How to Tell Your Kids that White People Didn't Always Rule the World.

When I was a kid, my parents used the threat of being sent to the back of beyond to get us to behave. There were two preferred destinations that were presented to us as desert regions long-established as oubliettes for naughty children: Timbuktu and Outer Mongolia, with deepest Peru a distinct third, being softened by the knowledge that that's where Paddington Bear (and possibly marmalade) came from. What all of these gulags for the unruly had in common - although I didn't know it until round about now - is that they were all, once upon a time, great imperial centres that make the US look like the blip of arrogance it really is.

Peru was the one that I got a disconnect on first, while studying the Spanish and Portuguese invasion (or 'civilisation', as the textbooks called it) of the Americas when I was about thirteen. Despite receiving lots of disinformation from such august sources as thriller novels and the cartoon series Cities of Gold, with its theme tune apparently about condoms in flight, I remember working out that the textbook might not have it quite right, or rather, was putting forward the myth of Might as Right. Actually, the series was pretty radical, showing the Spanish as bloodthirsty yet bumbling opportunists, and the indigenous civilisations as vivid, wise and - to continue with the stereotype - extinct. 

That last liberal hand-wringer of a myth held true for me in my ignorance for a loooong time. Sting's attempt to save the Yanomami came and went, and the media perpetuated the myth that the only 'surviving' indigenous people lived deep in the Amazon, and could never survive contact. It was only really when I got into Frida Kahlo that I began to discover that deepest Peru (and Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, Cuba etc) still had, and have, indigenous populations. 

I have a strong memory as I type this of the scene in Julie Taymor's Frida in which Frida and Leon Trotsky climb an Aztec pyramid: on the surface it's a seduction scene, but in the background there's a hint of the political change that was sweeping Latin America in Kahlo's moment, and again when the film was made. Indigenous socialist politics are reduced in the Western media to Evo Morales playing soccer in his handknit sweater, or the "new indigenous fashions on the catwalk" (seriously, it was in a newspaper this week). But actually, from the Zapatistas in Mexico right down through Morales to the tip of Argentina, there's a new political wave that has the US shit-scared. 

So that's Peru, where bears don't generally wear raincoats. The Aztecs, Mixtecs and Mayans are at least vaguely familiar to most schoolkids, even through the equally nonsensical princess-sacrificing or noble yet extinct versions. Outer Mongolia, land of the nomads, may ring bells for some as the land from which Chingis Khan emerged, the great king whose horsemen ruled over (and brought great benefits to, settler society propaganda notwithstanding) most of Asia and a goodly chunk of Europe. Once a key territory of the Silk Route, and a prize much fought over between Russia and China, it's now conceived of as little more than an outback with a vowel-heavy capital city. 

Ulaan-Baator may not be a name on many lips, but Chingis (or Genghis) is, although for the damage he wrought rather than his brilliant strategies. How many schools even acknowledge that Timbuktu has a history? Not meaning to get all Black Panther in your face, but surely while we're talking about empires, the empire of Mali (preceded by the Ghana, Malinke and Songhai empires in the same area of west Africa) should come in for some consideration? Admittedly, it was only the vaguest of notions to me until I found myself teaching a Malian film and set about doing some research with a book on the Sahara, the UN World Facts handbook and the inestimable resources of the interweb. 

I was forcefully reminded of my astonished encounter with the Malian empire this last week (although, believe me, the students were more astonished - to the point of disbelief), at a concert by Malian singer Rokia Traoré. She imagined Mozart as a griot (praise singer) at the court of Soundiata Keita, the 13^th century Malian ruler who extended the wealthy empire as far as Timbuktu, site of one of the world's oldest universities, with over 25, 000 books. Timbuktu stood at the crossroads of the camel routes through the Sahara and the Niger River, and had been an important, cosmopolitan trade centre since the pharaohs held sway. Where else would Mozart rather be?

But the books of Timbuktu have been neglected, if not forgotten, handed down through the generations even as colonialism and its apocalyptic horsemates desertification, famine and poverty spread the sands of the Sahara over everything. The New York Times reports that, as part of the new race for power in Africa, Libya and South Africa are building a new library and international conference centre to showcase the university's heritage . 

Maybe a trip to this cultural centre will help me win an ongoing argument with my racist grandmother, who finds it impossible to believe that (given a Muslim culture of widespread literacy) Africans read books, let alone wrote them, long before most white Europeans could even sign their names. To say nothing of the immense treasury of orature to which Traoré generously admits the playful Wolfgang.

Along with the Baby Mozart and Baby Einstein, don't you think it would be great if there was Baby Traoré? If there were kids' books that told the history of Mali, or of Peru, or of Mongolia, long before they had their current names and borders enforced on them by newer, more rapacious empires? 

That the oldest story in the world, predating even the epic of Gilgamesh, has been published as a children's book is a start. It's called Lugulbanda, and it was first told, and written down, in Mesopotamia. The land between the rivers, centre of another ancient empire, also known as Iraq. Where could be better to begin a little (political) education?