Edited by Eshe Asale
Slavery or forms of servitude of one form or the other are features of human history, however the ultimate degradation and dehumanization characterized by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is in the reduction of human beings to mere commodities; labor units, made void of language, religion, culture, and history. And chained to the chattlelization of Africans was the most horrific feature of Chattel Slavery--mental Slavery.
And it is this mental Slavery that would be the most enduring legacy of the brutality visited upon African people, for after 500 years these mental shackles would prove the hardest to break.
Approximately 40 million people were harvested from Africa --stolen into 500 years of night. Mother Africa would populate the Americas with her sons and daughters in the millions. Nations and civilization would be built on their backs, their bodies now lie in the unmarked annals of history.
There are no words to describe the plight of entire civilizations of people forced out of their home into an alien New World . There are no words to describe the dehumanization experienced at the hands of European and Arab enslavers. There are no words to describe the anger and frustration as these same people continually rewrite and re-interpret African history to suit their interest in a sour attempt to alleviate their guilt. Worst still is the evil ingenuity, which reverses accountability and makes the victims responsible for their own Holocaust. And ironically, it is Africans who are made to bear embarrassment for telling their own story. If justice is an inalienable right for all humanity then those millions upon millions who died deserve to be remembered and those who murdered, brutalized and betrayed them must be called into historical account. It is not to make others feel bad, but part of the process of telling the truth; a truth washed away in stolen history and cultural domination. If the ancestors of some Arabs, Turks, Europeans, and some Africans were participants in the destruction of African civilizations then it is not sensible for fear of offending to avoid these topics. In addition, it is equally not fair for the victims' descendants, to apply the same "racism in reverse." It is about a dialogue to heal the wounds and the bitterness.
| The deep-seated anger resides in the inability to grieve and remember those who suffered in the greatest Holocaust in history: we don't even own our own tears. |
We don't even own our own tears |
This process must be allowed to take place, and those who hinder, obstruct, and avoid this grieving are carrying on the social Holocaust against African people. rid legacy of their forebears whose bloody hands turned humans into chattel, kings in to beast-of-burden and chaste African queens into sex-objects. The brutality visited on African people should make humanity look in the mirror, and be so disgusted that that the roots of racist oppression be realized.
History through an oppressors eyes will always be twisted and distorted. Historically in European media Africa is represented as a totally negative entity which has played no part in human advancement. The image of Africa is hence either of lions or of starving children. The legacy of “take-away” was institutionalized to devalue African people to serve as slaves and colonial subjects. Today African people are labeled as “black” and terms like sub-Saharan Africa, black African, tribe are widely used; racist terms that were fostered by Europeans. When we look at the legacy of this Dark Voyage in African history, it is still starkly apparent; we see African people subservient to every other group, even in countries where Africans are the majority. Even the Asian (Indo-Pakistani)-African relationship within Islam, is washed with this racism and manifest itself in African people in Asian dominated communities being excluded from marriage, business opportunity, and religious representation in the clergy, etc. In South Africa and parts of East Africa , we see the colonially installed Indian communities acting as a buffer group between Africans and the Europeans, and like the Europeans actively dominating and controlling the majority African population, through economic exploitation without any form of return.
The involvement of religion in the enslavement of African people is very hard for the devout to come-to-terms with, because they are often lead to believe in a fairytale euphoric nostalgic past. In addition, religion is a Human-God relationship of morality and divine worship; if any institution should be firmly against the brutality of enslavement, it should be the religious bodies. Nonetheless, the truth is the truth and there is no escaping the reality of the brutality visited on others by proponents of Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and other mono-ethnic faiths. We must stop being naive and idealistic, as the fruits of this mentality is to turn a blind eye to this ungodly oppression. In addition, when we do this we become guilty, because it is our inability to deal with these situations that allowed them to occur in the first place.
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
- Haile Selassie
Truth is not always pretty, but truth is the ultimate destination of every religion, and every noble principle of human endeavors. How can we stand before God and tell half-truths or outright cover the history of a people? Worst of all this oppression is far from over. In Sudan and Mauritania , Africans still find themselves the enslaved by of Arabs and some Africans. In Dubai , Pakistanis fall prey to the child slave trade, Ethiopian women in Saudi Arabia , Eastern European women in sex-slavery in Israel . Over 27 million people are hidden in plain view of the world, trapped in slavery. From Bangladesh to Beijing from Texas to Berlin . Most of them are trapped by debt; all of them are exploited and manipulated via poverty. It is estimated that this industry generates 13 billion dollars annually.
The model of racism in the modern era is characterized by the European-African interaction. The legacy of this oppression extends into our present day and manifests itself as the social-economical phenomenon where African culture is devalued. This manifestation is so infectious that many people of African descent embrace this presumed historical worthlessness. This precipitates into self-hatred, which is expressed in community violence, genocide, underachievement, imprisonment, broken homes, and all forms of social ills that disproportionately plague people of African decent. At the root of some of these problems is mental Slavery. An infectious and destructive process inherited and sustained through the media, academia, religion, law and politics. Mental Slavery is immeasurable but no succeeding generations of Africans have escaped its deadly touch. How the world relates to Africans and how Africans relate back to the world is locked in the cultural nexus of this inferiority complex. Without question, Africans and African culture is viewed on the outskirts of civilization and the people that created these works viewed as primitive and incapable of unassisted greatness.
Europeans did not create racism but they have successfully explored and expanded it in their 500 years of expansion and conquest. They have made it into an industry for birthing civilizations. To believe race (but not necessarily the European racist classification models; i.e. Negroid, Mongoloid, etc) does not exist is both destructive and regressive; for it denies the clear diversity God has blessed humanity with. Racism is believed to be the first sin in the Islamic account of the Garden of Eden. And despite all the brotherhood brought through sharing religions we still see racism's ugly face; With Christian practice, with the modern and ancient Islamic world we see Arab nationalism. In Israel the African Jewry is again at the bottom of the social chain, harvested from Ethiopia to serve a "White" Israel. Closing our eyes to the existence of race is like pretending that knives do not cut.
The solution is to share in the commonalities of religion, but to also celebrate our differences racially and culturally as gifts from the heavens. If we can identify the root of racial hatred and address it by exchanging our experiences through education, travel, marriage and dialogue in order to solve this dilemma. Saying it should not matter does not mean it would not matter. We are different but we are also the same, this similarity can only be realized through interaction. When all languages, cultures, and people are valued equally maybe we can turn this thing around. Darfur is happening right now with inter-African conflict built from the vestiges European occupation. Africans hating other Africans because of inherited racism based on light skin and dark-skin. Rwanda , Palestine , Kashmir are signs that the past horrors if not addressed will occupy our future. Our greatest error is to discount the lessons of the past and walk head first into the same trap.
People must control their own history if justice is to be truly given. Enslavement does not mark the totality of the African Diaspora, but a brief period in recent history, none the less, enslavement is very important because it is part of that journey, it is the reason for our current location and condition. It will guide who and what we will become tomorrow. History is not solely for the assertion of racial pride for the sake of restoring racial pride, but the right of a people to tell their stories and to share their history with other peoples of the World. Only through a dialogue can we hope to unify under the banner of humanity. For those that forget the lessons of the past they are destined to repeat past mistakes. The legacy of suppression manifests itself in hatred under the banner of mono-cultural conformity, which equals assimilation, but assimilation is annihilation. The global European culture, which dominates the Earth, destroys human diversity and sets non-White people as cultural stepchildren of their conquerors. With every stroke of the pen, every cry we must bring a new world of plurality and tolerance.
There can be no advancement of a people who discard their past; no kingdoms are born without reverence of history. Each of us from our very different, yet similar backgrounds must seek to preserve and interact with our past as an aid to learning and growing in a constructive manner. Every nation venerates their past heroes and builds plaques to honor their dead; Museums and libraries are set-up for this purpose. In a free and equal society, we should be free to express our cultural and religious identity. We must embrace with open arms our collective journey, share, exchange, and discuss, if ever we are to navigate this life with humanity and success. God did not accidentally make us superficially different, it was intentional, it is time we realize the Gods greatest gift to humanity is diversity, and this diversity is expressed through our beautiful and distinctive cultures and histories.
Until Lions write their own history, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
