Wednesday, April 29, 2009

PUBLIC ART, MEMORIALS AND ATLANTIC SLAVERY [A Peppered Review]

Public Art, Memorials and Atlantic Slavery Edited by Cleste-Marie Bernier and Judie Newman. Published by Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York, 2009, viii, 178 pages, hardback. Available from Routledge,; recommended list retail price is $ 110.56 or £75.00; ISBN 10: 0415483158; ISBN 13: 9780415483155; Dimension: 9.7 x 6.9 x 0.8 inches and weighs 1.1 pounds.



A Review

By

Viban Viban Ngo PhD.

This treatise is a commemorative bicentennial compendium on transatlantic slave trade and slavery written by scholars, artists, curators and dramatists to coincide with 2007. This bicentennial is important as it marks the official abolition of slavery and slave trade in the British Empire in 1807. This must-read work covers invocative performances, exhibitions, films, photographs, fine art, sculptures, and literature that treat slavery themes relevant to the general readers, scholars, tourists who may be interested in visiting sites of slavery and slave trade in the past in Europe and the USA. Why is this work important? To start with let us remain ourselves of what slavery and slave trade are all about. Slave trade is trafficking in man, an act that is not tolerated in any decent society for whatever rationale for “Slavery is a crime against humanity. Slavery and the slaver trade were, and are, appalling tragedies in the history of humanity.” UK Home Office Minister Fiona Mac Taggart made this statement in October 2004.

A similar statement was made by the UNO Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon:
"We must acknowledge the great lapse in moral judgment that allowed [the Transatlantic Slave Trade] to happen. We must urge present and future generations to avoid repeating history. We must acknowledge the contributions that enslaved Africans made to civilization. And countries that prospered from the slave trade must examine the origins of present-day social inequality and work to unravel mistrust between communities. Above all, even as we mourn the atrocities committed against the countless victims, we take heart from the courage of slaves who rose up to overcome the system which oppressed them." http://www.un.org/en/slavery/

When we get strong statements as aforementioned by these authorities no one with a true frame of mind will not sympathize with them and the strong messages the ten contributors have made in favor of immortalizing or remembering slavery, slave trade and their vicious nature that essentially affected Africans and African Americans in this collection of essays cannot be looked at casually. Furthermore, the work looks at various ways in which that ugly phase in the history of man, particularly Africans and Africans Americans is museological and their raisons d’être. The apprehension is that expositions on these themes may have a negative effect. Contrariwise the reverse is true. The general inclination by the artists, photographers, dramatists is these media established to commemorate slavery and slave trade of Africans would inspire reconciliation and will not necessarily resurrect opprobrium of that past sin against humanity as often feared by some persons. The hypothesis is that those who fear it are mostly those whose fore parents took part in it. That is awry as most of the writers are not Africans or Africans Americans but Caucasians and that is indicative of the modern trends of thought of the modern man who has a more seeing eye, is just and does not sympathize with proponents of slave trade and slavery. It is because slavery is wrong and will ever be wrong in any decent society. We have to dismiss the claim of a bloody spinster as Queen Elizabeth I who when confronted with this inhumanity she fanned, stated that Europeans did not force Africans to sell their kinds. Whatever the view of any leader slavery is still appalling and should never be entertained in any society for whatever reasons.

Should this subject be addressed now and enforced in our inner eyes particularly at the bicentenary of the abolition of slave trade in 1807? We cannot be complaisant that it is already immortalized in our historiography. It does fade from our memories and educating the masses on this appalling episode in the life of man cannot be taken for granted even though there are tangible proofs of atrocities committed by man against another for spurious reasons. A book of this genre is not only timely but essential in fostering that history and to ascertain that man does not fall into such a trap in the future.

If offhandedly left without being articulated, the topic may have to be address after this generation. The fear is that it might be grossly falsify or exaggerate and that could lead to another global peril even before the tercentennial in 2207. In other words, if it is not done now when we are still reasoning some groups could come up to try to do it in a bizarre and uncivilized manner. For example, the reconciliation in post apartheid South Africa Republic was smooth, healthy and both the victims and the victimized agreed to disagree and be concluded. The perpetrators and the victimized sat facing each other and the former asked for forgiveness. Peace prevailed as a consequence and that was a good example on how discrimination that led to slavery and slave trade could be addressed. People have to acknowledge that slavery existed and not to deny claiming that it was a long time ago and there should not be any apologies or apologias by the descendants of those who perpetrated it. It is now history and that is why apologies or apologias are important in this healing process we hope will establish everlasting trust among races, Africans, Caucasians and Arabs. It should be emphasized that many African American writers still believe that their backwardness in America was attributed to slavery and slave trade. Some point to continental Africans as doing relatively well in the society unlike them and some go to state that there slavery syndrome was still stifling the general performance of African Americans (Harris, J. I: 2009).

I will digress here to illustrate what slaves went through in their north Atlantic Passage with the following: There are some communities in Africa where when a male child reaches a certain age of maturity, he is given a machete, a barbed-tip javelin and asked to open the door and go and is not expected to return to his parents’ homestead. He is given his independence. This liberty comes when his parents have assessed him to find out that he could stand on his feet after a good training. If after that age he is still left to be like a parasite he had been before, he may be considered retarded in development and he may not make the necessary contributions to his society and cater for himself. Initially, he finds this stoic but eventually he finds out that what apparently looked like a Spartan stance by his parents was for his good. The act of him opening that his parents’ door or shutter and going out are like taking a journey of no return like a captured bird extricated. It is not so to the parents. It is part and parcel of his indoctrination and transition to manhood and self-sufficiency (which is a grand celebration of manhood in some tribes in Western Africa). It prepares him to cater for his future family. His exit from his parents’ home does not mean that he is abandoned. No. His parents would keep an eye on him and sooner or later he is introduced to a wife. In some cases, he looks for a wife himself as he cannot stand loneliness. The key issue here is opening that door to set on a journey of no return. In reality, he will return home to show his parents his beloved wife and perhaps his sibling. He may invite his parents to see his sprawling homestead and economic progress. When his parents see his homestead and his family, they are complaisant for they know that he had learned the lesson they wanted him to learn. That is referred to as a good journey-of-no-return.

In our unique and sad case, we are examining a journey of no-return where the parents will never see their son. Is had a sad beginning where people were kidnapped by belligerent tribes, Afro Arabs, or Europeans and sold into slavery. In some cases, the raison d’être started from within the tribe or kingdom in Africa. People were either sold into slavery because they could not pay their debts (rustlers), had committed heinous crimes against the laws of the state, or were simply accused of witchcraft or sorcery and were bundled and sold to slave dealers by slave raiders. That was deemed profitable rather than killing them as was the case in some communities. Remember that in the 1600 AD there was still witch-hunting in England and the Tower of London was still there where men were sent into the gallows. It was later on found out by the very society that perpetrated slavery and slave trade could be beneficial if sent to work for their freedom or repentance in the colonies as the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Many went and became like King Joseph in the Holy Bible.

The treatise is not particularly concerned with causes and courses of slavery and slave trade and the journey of no-return but on the commemoration of the slavery particularly the moment those slaves reached their destinations provided they were resilient and fortunate to withstand the tribulations en route to the New World. Their departure was like saying adieu when one is transformed and is heading to the Elysium. In these exceptional cases, heaven was hell on earth as will be seen. We are referring to kidnapping and selling into slavery that blossomed in the 15th century with the opening of the new world and eventually coming of industrial revolution in Europe. Man demanded raw materials, and manpower as never before in the history of man except in isolated communities in the past as in the ancient Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, China and Mexico among many others centers of modern civilization.

Basically, there were two types of slavery. The first was internal slavery within Africa and one could safely call that servitude that did not bring about untold harm as the next. The second was one initiated by the Arabs and Europeans in the 15th century where slaves were raided and kidnapped, sometimes tortured and put is stockades, fences or castles to await exportation to America, the Middle, Far East and Europe. The moment they opened those doors of their provisional prison in Africa to join the slave caravans that were to take them across the Sahara, the Savannah, evergreen tropical forest or Atlantic or India Ocean they never returned. It was not for joy. It was a different sort of journey. Their parents or relatives were never given any hope or opportunity of ever seeing them again and they never ever saw them again. This was the painful journey that concerns us and themes about their memories through works of arts are vividly portrayed by these scholars, artists, curators and photographers.

We are fortunate in that in the bicentennial of transatlantic slave these scholars and have demonstrated how this spiteful trade in human beings and the way they were maltreated in America in particular and are commemorated in art forms. The contributors have written well researched essays covering a broad spectrum of themes and various art forms that were commemorated in Great Britain, Ireland and the USA. Some of the essays are bases for future researches and that is why they are a most-read for anyone thinking of writing on slavery and slaver trade or to have background knowledge of them.

This significant sky-blue hardcover compendium fundamentally immortalizes the tribulations of the slaves with focus on the Transatlantic Slave Trade. We learn that transatlantic slave trade was well documented as slave dealers kept log books of their human cargoes. Emphases are laid on the attrition and deaths that were met by the young, aged, men, women and children. As slaves were resisting their enslavement and sometimes vehemently by revolting on decks of slave ships, skippers devised ways of keep them under decks in shackles manufactured in Birmingham and Sheffield, England or by pushing overboard recalcitrant slaves. They remained under the deck of their ships for months as they sailed in turbulent seas, famished, haggard and sea sick. Many died and were buried in the deep blue seas. It is for that reason that I find the subtle sky-blue hard cover reminding me of death of the slaves, their loneliness, and their haplessness in the wide wild seas on their journey of no return. Although the bare and sky blue cover is aesthetically appealing, to me, it stands for the limitless span of the blue sea of no dimensions and destitution for the slaves.

Women were raped while still in slave entrepôts in Africa and the assaults continued on their ships. Before they ever reached America, they were already carrying the seeds of their rappers in their wombs. Others bore untimely children en route because they suffered from seasickness. The premature and the dead were buried in the deep blue seas. Only the very fittest reached their destinations where they continued with their struggle to be liberated for 500 years. There were counteracted with mayhem by their slave owners. That is where we hear of lynching, domestication of man as he was likened to a wild horse that had to be termed and merciless bullwhipping.

All narratives are sad but one is sadder and that is the story of the death of slaves on a slave ship called Zong. This is rendered by Anita Rupprecht (ibid. pp. 127-139). As succinct as it is written on the cargoes as shackled slaves were known. Many were said to have jumped into the sea as they believed that their death by water would carry them back to their original home (Marcus Wood: 2009, 29). The pictorial renditions of the painter cum artist Marcus Wood (ibid. 18-38) are shocking and one wonders the effect of such exhibition on children visiting the exhibition. I had sleepless nights after looking at the still pictures of the various forms of tortures of the slaves and reading his write up. I could see why John Stuaffer (ibid. 2009: 110-126) underlined the importance of pictures in activating memories. What I saw will remain with me till my last day on earth. On seeing the work by minors, we are reminded that effective revolutions start with the indoctrination of the youths. They are the ones who stand up and say that man should not go as low as the Europeans of the past put Africans and Africans Americans. Consequently if you get them to your side, your revolutionary tasks are executed with ease.

On board the ship Zong where some slaves were eliminated without remorse, one cannot avoid visualizing what skippers did with their commodities or cargo of slaves as they were not supposed to be referred to as human beings. As today, where buccaneers may hijack ships and got rid of its contents in the Horn of Africa, Gulf of Guinea, Seychelles Islands and the Malaysian seas and the insurance companies foot the bills, it was sometimes more lucrative to jettison the human cargo and declare losses so as to be compensated by the shipping insurance companies some of which still operate hitherto. On this occasion, the ship captain of Zong threw overboard as jetsam 132 African slaves so as to have compound interest from his shipping insurance company. Today, there are still some shipping-tycoons who would go in for the paying of pirates than to risk losing their cargoes. Do they not condone crimes in the high seas? What would have happened if those insurance companies objected to paying Africans dumped into the seas as jetsam and flotsam?

Other works portray the torture of slaves in wax works, painting, and installation. Andy Green went into reasons d’être of why Africans were chosen as slaves and why they were considered as inferior or subhuman. This is further elucidated by Cynthia S. Hamilton in her write up “Am I not a man and a Brother? Phrenology and Anti-Slavery’ (ibid. 39-53). Phrenology was a pseudo science that sprung up whereby a Caucasian was taken as the quintessential man. If there were other creatures whose features did not look like or were not like those of Caucasians, they were not human enough or where still in the process of evolution. Since the Caucasian was the prototype, no swarthy skinned Africans could pass such a test. That gave Caucasians the sanction to steal them and resell them to be used as uncouth animals to work in industries, mines, plantations, sex slaves and as domestics. With that shallow mentality, domesticating and lynching Africans was not a problem or did not invoke remorse on the Europeans and Arab slave owners’ minds. Cynthia S. Hamilton comes to an end and one expected her to tell us more as I read it open mouthed. Then there are still Caucasians who are neurotic and when they want to prove how better people they are in the world they still go back to the pseudo sciences. The case of the infamous Dr. James Watson a Nobel price winner that was an embarrassment to him and the scientific world in 2008 would still come up with theories that a Caucasian was more intelligent than an African America as indicated by the IQ test they the Caucasians set for their children living under their specific environment. You will laugh to scorn what was used by some Caucasians slave drivers in the past. Sally Hemmings (ibid. p.98) talks of the inability of aesthetic appreciations of slaves as going to prove their inferiority vis à vis Caucasians. Can a free thinking person buy this as scientific? True, if you bring a fish from the ocean to a desert would you expect it to appreciate the desert as a camel? Other writers immortalize this sad phrase of the history of man by theatres as in Ireland. This is covered by Fionnghuala Sweeney.

As stated, the work focuses on the exhibition of African and African Americans through pictures, films, sculptures, smell, and theatres as the case in Ireland; sounds of humans’ ordeals in dark cavernous carbines where dead slaves were often allowed to lie next to living ones before they were buried in the deep blue sea. The bullwhipping of recalcitrant slaves, the chaining, the shackles, and all sorts of torture imaginable are vividly documented and sometimes with sounds and smell to let the visitors to museums have just a gist of what the slave went through not only for one day but for months and death was sometimes preferred to living under those Spartan conditions.

The question the readers who want the past to be put behind us pose is why document all these above all in those areas where slavery and slave trading were practices. Memorialized exhibition in art forms were in the cities of Hull, London, Bristol, Southampton, Liverpool and in various parts of the Southern USA where slavery and slave trading were common. Then there are people who forget to ask why there are Jewish pogrom memorials, and lately why there are the Tustsi massacre memorials in Kigali, Cambodian massacre by the Khoumer Rouge or Pol Pot regime, the Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), Guatemala, East Timor, Yugoslavia and Biafran to mention just a few. The point is never to let such ever happen in the history of mankind. Then while writing this April 2009, there are subtle forms of slavery called servitude extant in those countries where Arabs and pure full-blooded Africans abut in Africa. If there are racial riots in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad and spectacularly in the Sudan, it is because full-blooded Africans are resisting this institutionalized subtle slavery in the guise of servitude in the 21 century. There are still naïve people who believe that the lighter the color of the skin of a person, the more of a person that person is. It affects us now. Look at the Miss World Contest in North America and tell me if an ebony lady will ever be voted with the Caucasian as the quintessential man. If he is, who set those criteria? Is it God? Was it the same God who made Africans then who are brothers of Caucasians? In that case a full-blooded African can never win. It is because the judges, both African Americans and Caucasians in their subconscious memories have their prototype winner as ever a Caucasian. If an East Indian wins, it is because his color and features mimic those of the Caucasian prototype and not even that she is a maverick. That is tragically wrong as some people are still naïve in spite of advances in natural sciences explaining reasons for differences in shapes, melanin and so on of the Homo sapiens. The collection of narratives is the attempt of the archivists and abolitionists to ensure that such gross injustice was never committed in the future.

It will be recalled that slavery started because one person was alleged to be inferior to another. The man who considered himself superior and a better animal had no compunction when he was subjugating the ‘inferior animal.’ Such a man was no better than Adolph Hitler and naively believed that as a human being he was biologically better than a rat. He was wrong for he did not even know himself or the man he claimed to be inferior to him and could be exploited as a slave. We learn of this in our Bible stories and other chronicles. We learn that it had been part of our human life to feel that he or she was a better person and more accepted than the animalistic person he was enslaving. The Talibans still believe that a woman was a subhuman and should not even be seen not to talk of being heard and should be available at any time for conjugal gratification of men. That is why the Westerners are there to rectify this injustice. In some primitive societies, women are still sold and bought as in the days of slave trade. Ideally, it should be the rest of the world’s prerogative to fight against the injustice against woman as in Afghanistan and in some Islamized states. We may have a lukewarm attitude towards this as not in our backyard and that is weakness of man by nature. You will be surprise that this could leapfrog to other regions of the world as is the case in the UK. Given opportunities, some fanatical Muslims would like the Western form of democracy to be substituted by Sharia laws. That is why any document of this nature should not only be digested by those who were humiliated in the past but by all and sundry. We read of slavery in the Bible and as practiced before and those who practiced it did not feel that there was anything wrong with what they were doing. Do we have to revert to the days of barbarism in the 21st century?

We suddenly came to the age of enlightenment. We (the British Government) saw that slavery as being gross injustice and we abolished it as far back as 1807. The year 2007 was the 200 anniversary of that abolition. We looked at the world and saw that there were still pockets of slavery dotted around us. Therefore, the work of abolitionists were never completed as subtle slavery, that is not overt is still with us. There were still the sale of women in some part of the world and children to work in plantations in Africa and India. There was still excessive exploitation of man by man in the name of trade. We had just done away with colonialism, and it was replaced by neocolonialism. Then there was dictatorship in some countries and we wondered if we did abolish slavery at all as one of the contributors is wondering if those who were trading in Africans should apologize. One author feels that this is contentious. The general feeling for considerate persons is that we should not bank it for our children to execute in 2207 AD triennial.

There are schools of thoughts springing up asking for reparations of slaves. This is discussed by Anthony Tibbles in his article treating the part Britain played in this trade. There are others who ask if the Germans could compensate the Jews for the pogrom during the Second World War, why was the case of slavery of Africans by Europeans and Americans not being addressed and compensated for where there are clear evidences that they gave Westerners some of the money that helped in the oiling of capitalism and most of the big banks and insurance companies today. Reparations of slaves and slavery are not being accepted. In England some 67 % of the sample population surveyed did not favor reparations. Then why is it that the Germans were still sending money each year to help Israel and atone for the massacre of the Jews during the Second World War (1939-1945). The Germans paying were not even born when dreaded Adolph Hitler was had his megalomaniac vision of conquering the world. The argument is that slavery took place a long time ago. Was slavery not a sin against humanity as the honorably British Minister we cited at the beginning of this treatise? Also, if people know that if they commit crimes and delayed being punished or exonerated because of their time lapse, would they not commit another heinous crime today since they would not be punished. Justice denied is emboldening imitators to repeat the same crime. Why would Africans and African Americans not feel that they are not compensated for that injustice because they are different (inferior) from Caucasians as phrenologists looked at it in the 1800s? If a nuclear bomb is drop on an innocent nation today, shall we fold our hands for it will be contentious if we want to debate or deplore it? A clear statement should be made that if you commit a sin no matter how long you will still have to confess and do your penance before you are forgiven by God. The argument for slavery reparations had never been strong as in this excerpt:

‘As we read the bible we come across phrases and passages, which indicate it is God’s will for man to make trespass offerings for sins committed against his fellow man; i.e. theft, deception, lying, cruelty, brutality, extortion and keeping lost or stolen property. These are characteristics of racism, slavery and segregation,’ Brotha Pruitt a proponent of reparations (2009). He continues that: ‘The Bible clearly illustrates reparations were used as a form of restitution of peace and redemption for both the victims and perpetrators of slavery’.

Therefore the attempts to get immortalize slavery, and slave trade through all sorts of art work is the right thing to do and a good gesture. Then, not many could afford it to visit Goree Island and slaves castles that litter Western and East Africa to see where Europeans and Americans’ slavers depots were and where slaves were crammed in ships and shipped to Europe and America. We cannot exhume the skeletons of slaves near watering holes or oases in the Sahara or get their bones from the Atlantic Ocean or from South American jungles. The exhibitions in various museums provide the best thing to be brought to our doorsteps. Personally, I was not aware of the exhibition until I read this well written book by passionate scholars. It made me to live the predicaments of the slaves who had long gone. It made me to see and feel slaves experiencing their hardship. It made me to be there when I am sitting at my escritoire. I felt the pains and that was psychologically soothing to me. I could not see of a better way to exhibit all these for the entire world to see what happened in the past than through this book.

We have seen films or read stories as written by scholars of slavery and slave historiography as Roots and soon my work entitled Robert Shilling but this book is one sure way of not forgetting what happened to our brothers and sisters in the past. It is one sure way of reminding us that we should never let this happen to our world again. We have done so in the recent past by allowing dictators like Adolph Hitler and his cohorts to carry on with his socialistic racist reforms and many of us are still suffering from the outcome. We did this when we supported Mobutu Sese Seko of then of Zaire to act as a buffer against the spread of communism in central Africa. We did this when we allowed President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda to clink to power when he did not win his election and the fight let to the massacre of 800,000 innocent Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. We do this when we are gagged before President Paul Biya of Cameroon Republic, send our Holy Father of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI to him and try to glamorize his rule by saying that his country was one where non-Christian believers, Moslems and Christians live together peacefully. We do it when we try to connect that peace with the autocratic hands of Paul Biya. People do not know that this is done through the barrel of a gun and that is still modern slavery. We do this when we shake hands with President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and remain apathetic with Fidel Castro’s regime. Then how do we ask for reconciliation or reparations when subtle slavery is still going on in the form of racial discrimination and dictatorship of some of our leaders? We know what happened when dictators fall. The ugly scum of politics are unveiled that were swept for years under the carpet and wars are our inept replies. We fail for we do not intervene when the spark that will trigger the bomb was just set near the detonator. We of the UNO fail woefully because we do not want responsibilities and we are governed by a few who put their interest before those of economic and human rights abuses of minorities and the impoverished. We should not even walk out even if mad or stupid people are ranting on racism and Israel at the UNO assembly. They are entitled to their statements. We inflame them and when we meet them next time because we failed to listen to them we are speaking to each other in lightning and thunder and that is when we become barbarians and plan to sell our brothers.

We prepare for slavery when we are apathetic. This book stressing on exhibition of slavery and slave trade is telling us not to be complaisant and to take the fight to the people and not to let the people ever bring it to our door steps. I will recommend this book to all and particularly scholars of Africana studies and all libraries in the world. It is not only a black story but the story of all of us as we all came from Mother Africa the original home of slaves taken to Europe, North and South America, Asia and in other parts of Africa. Finally, whatever our perception or reaction when we read the stories, slave trade is an erasable phase in the history of humanity and no one can say it better than Goulborne, ibid.: Atlantic slavery ‘will always be a scare, a blot on the record of Western or European civilization, with which Europeans as well as the African Diaspora will have to live.’

Addenda

Contents
1. Public Art, Artifacts and Atlantic Slavery: Introduction Celeste-Marie Bernier and Judie Newman
2. Am I Not a Man and a Brother? Phrenology and Anti-Slavery Cynthia Hamilton
3. Remembering Slavery in Birmingham: Sculpture, Paintings and Installations Andy Green
4. Speculation and the Imagination: History, Storytelling and the Body in Godfried Donkor’s Financial Times (2007) Celeste-Marie Bernier
5. "Doing Good While Doing Well": The Decision to Manufacture Products that Supported the Abolition of the Slave Trade & Slavery in Great Britain Martha Katz-Hyman
6. Sally Hemings in Visual Culture: A Radical Act of the Imagination? Sharon Monteith
7. Atlantic slavery and traumatic representation in museums: ‘The Great Blacks in Wax’ as a test case Marcus Wood
8. Interspatialism in the Nineteenth-Century South: The Natchez of Henry Norman John Stauffer
9. ‘A Limited Sort of Property’: History, Memory, and the Slave Ship, Zong Anita Rupprecht
10. Other Peoples’ History: Slavery, Refuge and Irish Citizenship in Dónal O Kelly’s The Cambria Fionnghuala Sweeney
11. Facing slavery’s past: the bicentenary of the abolition of the British slave trade Anthony Tibbles




Some References on slavery and slave trade

Araujo, Ana Lucia Political uses of memories of slavery in the Republic of Benin
Emmer. Pieter C. The Big Disappointment. The economic consequences of the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean, 1833-1888
Harris, H. J. 2008 Is America the Racist? New Paradigm Publishing, 172 p.
Lockley, Tim Runaway slave communities in South Carolin
Patom, Diana Enslaved women and slavery before and after 1807
Petley, Christer British links and the West Indian proslavery argument
Sherwood, Marika Britain, slavery and the trade in enslaved Africans
Ullathorne, Graham How could we do without sugar and rum
Walvin, James 1994, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery. Harvard University Press, 365 p.
Walvin, James 1999, The Slave Trade. Sutton Press Publishing, 110 p.
Zacek, Natalie Reading the rebels: currents of slave resistance in the eighteenth-century British West Indies. www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Slavery/articles/zacek.html

http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Slavery/articles/walvin.html

http://antislavery.eserver.org ]

_http://antislavery.eserver.org/legacies_______

http://antislavery.eserver.org/narratives/douglasstranslations]

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

HOW AFRICANS ARE UNDER DEVELOPING THEMSELVES

Africans cannot afford the luxury of emulating some Far and Middle Eastern nation states. Let us look at it that we all took part in the Second World War under various colonial masters. When it came to the Marshall Plan, Africans benefited nothing from it. It went to the rebuilding of Germany that was belligerent, France that had sat on Africans and exploiting them, to the Japanese that were ready to wipe out cities in the USA and had took part in the sinking of several US war ships. What evil did the Africans do to the Americans? Nothing. They could not get the Marshall plan assistance because they were still considered by Americans as properties of European nation states. Africans possessions continued to supply their Western masters with raw materials and had literally nothing in return till they achieved independence. Then some European colonial masters were so shrewd that they ensured that ex-colonial leaders elected were to put their ex-colonial masters interest above those of the countries they were ruling. This is sadly still the case in some 'backward' African states who had been brainwashed to believe that they are so low and cannot stand or rule themselves without the directions of Western European leaders. Is this true after some fifty years of independence of these African states?

Why is this my concern? It is because all of us are Africans and it is a shame that we deliberately led down Africa and Africans who had contributed so much to the development of the world. I will not exhume slavery and slave trade that Africans and African Americans bore the brunt of it all. That is a different story. It is true that Africans were bamboozled by Westerners and Arabs. That is history some of our siblings who sit side by side descendants of slave masters have never heard of. We have to look at the present and see what we could salvage from what we have to advance industrially and be self sufficient and stop blaming the Westerners for our political and industrial woes.

Prior to looking outside for help as is the tendency of the readers in Africa, they should explore what they have. Let me take one illustration, poultry. What is the reason for Africans importing poultry products from Brazil when they have been self-sufficient in their production of local birds? Let us look at vegetables. Some Africans states import cabbage and potatoes from Europe when in their hinterland these vegetables are used by children as soccer balls. What is the reason? They do not not have the managerial skills and there are no roads to take the products from the rural areas to the markets in the urban areas. The mere import of these products from Europe killed the once burgeoning local industries.

What is wrong with Africans exporting finished products instead of raw materials all the time. Make it mandatory for those firms importing hardwood from Africa to set their manufacturing plans in Africa and jobs will be created and the locals will learn the skill willy-nilly. It is not a shame that all hard wood that took thousands of years to grow are being exploited mercilessly without taking into consideration what would become of the next generations. Can African not export finished products? Why must their dictators sit and believe that they were made to consume and import from Europe, America, China and lately form India? Why not tell all those Japanese, American, Chinese, Indian and Europeans firms to extract those minerals, process and manufacture the products in Africa. How long has copper been exported from Zambia and Katanga District in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Is there a single manufacturing industry in any of these regions that use locally mined minerals? None. If it were mandatory for only finished products to be exported from Africa, would African not be developed?

What do Africans not have? See the potential for the tapping of hydro electricity from the River Congo alone is so huge that at the moment there are serious plans to tap it and export it all the way to Europe and the middle East. Africans should think big and concentrate on scientific training and stop thinking that with scams, 419 they could be rich. Are they trying to fool Europeans who had fooled them before? Europeans are instead more sophisticated and Africans better cooperate through join ventures and not thinking that they would siphon hard earned European or American money by scam. Africans should run away from, dictatorship, extortion, blackmailing, drugs and drug related activities are not the way forward. Therefore, lawlessness and the sad growth of buccaneers (pirates) as in the Horn of Africa, the Seychelles, Gulf of Guinea, etc. should be deplored. It is tarnishing the regions involved and their credibility. Let is be a wake up call to tottering states like Somalia you all know went that way because of dictatorship. You can name the rest.

Furthermore, the holding of Westerners who come to help in improving the standard of education of Africans hostage so as to extort money, as the case cited below should be deplored. Africans should not be bamboozled by the Islamic fundamentalists who had been with Africa for centuries and have brought literally nothing to help Africans advance industrially. I would like Islamic scholars to challenge me on this. Instead they have brought hatred of the brothers and sisters who once upon a time lived amicably. Look at the countries abutting the Arab states of Africa and full-blooded African states as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, Ethiopia, and Sudan and you will see that the man whose belief is Islam had ever been fighting with the dark-skinned African in order to force him to become Islam or enslave him as the recent case with Darfur and Southern Sudan. When those countries are hit hard by famine, the Arab sheiks maintain a law profile and it is the Westerners who with Life Aid and the others contribute money to help Africans. Why do Africans sadly and without using their heads adopt Western Diplomats and Students who had come to cement the friendship and help in the building of Africans? Some of these Europeans or Americans come because they know that Africans did not benefit from the Marshall Plan that spurred the economies of the vanquished and the winners after the Second World War (1939-1945)?

Look, there was a time in the 1960s when Western Economists compared the growth of new African states with those of some South Eastern countries. Today, those South Eastern countries have outdistanced Africans. Go to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and now India. Look at their infra structure and compare with those of Africans states that started with them. You will see that there is nothing that Westerners can manufacture that cannot be manufactured in those countries. They underground railway systems are perhaps the best and you cannot even compare them with the London Underground railway system. Their planning and development are meticulous. Ask what Nigeria had done to rectify the chaos and miasmic conditions in Lagos, Enugu, Douala, Dakar, Kinshasa, Mombassa, and Nairobi. The good parts are those that Europeans planned in the colonial days. What have Africans done for themselves? The European colonialists had long gone but Africans are complaisant and do not look at the future or do not love their countries enough to invest in their future. If I am wrong tell me why all Africans yearn to get out of the mess their dictators have created and come to live in Europe and North America. Who elect those dictators?

What do Europeans have that you Africans do not have? If it is strength, it had been proven that you Africans rank among the strongest men in the world. Why, it was the strength of Africans that they were recommended in the 1500s by a Mexican Catholic Bishop for Africans to be brought in to help the Indians and Europeans who were dying like flies when exposed to harsh tropical conditions, conditions too in mines, factories, plantations and even in domestic labor. That sympathy triggered the transatlantic slave trade. Africans worked like Spartans and excelled where others were falling in Europe and Americas. What can stop Nigeria from sending a man to the moon and back? Is it cash, intellectual capacity, or what when they have professors in Harvard, Oxford University, and having been running their own show since the 1960s? How long will it take for Africa to know that they can plan and manage properly and leave scams aside? How long will it take them to be patriotic and to think of Africa first? Are all roads still leading to Rome? Europeans were smart to know this and cut off from Rome. What happened when they did that? They were independent and developed as never before. Their dominance of the Romans was a handicap to their industrial growth and free thinking. Will Africans one day think similarly?

Finally, it should be borne in mind that when Africa does not advance economically and industrially, the rest of the world is dragged behind.  Emigration of Africans, Far and Middle Easterners to Europe, North America and other developed parts of the world is as a consequence of underdevelopment. Also Africa had to conform to the economic trends of the day or they be left out. The worse scenario is another wave of new comers who will colonize Africa and live in Africa and African will be turned into their new servants or modern slaves. Will you Africans continue to under-develop yourselves by not doing the right things, but adopting visitors and asking for ransoms. In the past the cry was how Europeans under-developed Africa. Today, the cry is how Africans are under developing themselves. What is the next step patriotic African elite and intelligentsia?

Viban Viban Ngo, PhD.

Canadian woman kidnapped in Nigeria
Posted By Star Staff



Star Staff
An Alberta woman is being held for ransom in Nigeria after being taken
while on a Rotary International study exchange - the same program the
Whitecourt Star's editor was part of.
Editor Brigette Jobin, along with three other members of the Group Study
Exchange (GSE), were brought back to Canada immediately following the
kidnapping of team leader Julie Mulligan.
Mulligan, who hails from Drayton Valley, was seized by gunmen Thursday
night in the northern city of Kaduna as she entered the home of her host
family.
The kidnappers are believed to be asking for a ransom of 20 million Naira,
the equivalent of $166,473 CAD.
The team of five Alberta women left Canada April 8.
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About the Author: Viban Viban NGO, a Canadian You may contact him for further information by writing to him on Email vibanngo@yahoo.com URL http://www.flagbookscanadainternationalinc.com