The geographic label “Middle East” is a colonial construct.

In the pre-colonial era and ancient past there was no difference between Northern Africa and this region.

Ancient Akkadian (above)

From a decolonial perspective, these images are important.

Colonial philosophers, artists and theologians depicted the ancient Canaanites and other Semitic speaking people as being white/Caucasian.

This was a deliberate social miss-construct applied by colonialists to argue that Africans and people of colour were different from people who lived during the Biblical era and associated geographical regions.

As “seen”, people in the ancient Near East to Africa looked just like us, Ethiopians, Africans…are Us.