Removal of Confederate Monuments

[Eva Elisabeth]

(09-11-2017 08:02 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(09-11-2017 06:45 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  It's a great informative article, Laurie - thank you.
As for "Colonialism may have been an abrupt and rude awakening to the industrialized world, but it did bring several benefits."
This is from out point of view, and was our decision. Why do benefits (or what we think they are/were - ignoring the flip sides) legitimate or justify to force someone therero that way? Likewise I'd think the gentleman above would possibly have been "glader" if his ancestor had come as an immigrant by his own. (And overall I think we too often forget in the end we all originate out of Africa. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_A...ern_humans )

Here's another interesting article on slave trade (just lately a Dutch gentleman and acquaintance in a conversation mentioned the Dutch, like all peoples some(or more)times in history, had quite the skeleton in the closet due to their big scale slave trade), and I appreciate that it distinguishes between (not) putting the blame on someone and (not) justifying, the one doesn't mean the other.
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/slavetra.html

On the eve of the transatlantic slave trade

"In most parts of Africa before 1500, societies had become highly developed in terms of their own histories. They often had complex systems of participatory government, or were established powerful states that covered large territories and had extensive regional and international links.

"Many of these societies had solved difficult agricultural problems and had come up with advanced techniques of production of food and other crops and were engaged in local, regional or even international trading networks. Some peoples were skilled miners and metallurgists, others great artists in wood, stone and other materials. Many of the societies had also amassed a great stock of scientific and other knowledge, some of it stored in libraries such as those of Timbuktu, but some passed down orally from generation to generation.

"There was great diversity across the continent and therefore societies at different stages and levels of development. Most importantly, Africans had established their own economic and political systems, their own cultures, technologies and philosophies that had enabled them to make spectacular advances and important contributions to human knowledge.

"The significance of the transatlantic slave trade is not just that it led to the loss of millions of lives and the departure of millions of those who could have contributed to Africa's future, although depopulation did have a great impact. But just as devastating was the fact that African societies were disrupted by the trade and increasingly unable to follow an independent path of development. Colonial rule and its modern legacy have been a continuation of this disruption.

"The devastation of Africa through transatlantic slavery was accompanied by the ignorance of some historians and philosophers to negate its entire history. These ideas and philosophies suggested, that among other things, Africans had never developed any institutions or cultures, nor anything else of any worth and that future advances could only take place under the direction of Europeans or European institutions." Source: http://www.understandingslavery.com/inde...d=151.html

I just have one question: Why do we continually place the onus of slavery on just Americans, and specifically on those in southern regions of the U.S? It was traders from Europe who first brought them to our shores and after they had also exploited the Africans in varying European and Asian countries.

You will also notice as you read more and more African history that the Muslim religion played a big role in enslavement also. It was not just Christians who contributed to the institution.

Also, don't forget that the great civilization of the Egyptians was also a part of African history. Is it safe to say that the American institution of slavery was based on those who had been conquered on their home turf - by both Europeans and Africans themselves? Therefore, American society developed the belief that those held in slavery were too weak to make it on their own?

Laurie - did you read the site on slave trade I linked to? It is exactly about this and concludes:

"Today it is politically correct to blame some European empires and the USA for slavery (forgetting that it was practiced by everybody since prehistoric times). But I rarely read the other side of the story: that the nations who were the first to develop a repulsion for slavery and eventually abolish slavery were precisely those countries (especially Britain and the USA). In 1787 the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded in England: it was the first society anywhere in the world opposed to slavery. In 1792 English prime minister William Pitt called publicly for the end of the slave trade: it was the first time in history (anywhere in the world) that the ruler of a country had called for the abolition of slavery. No African king and emperor had ever done so. As Dinesh D'Souza wrote, "What is uniquely Western is not slavery but the movement to abolish slavery".

Of course, what was also (horribly) unique about the Western slave trade is the scale (the millions shipped to another continent in a relatively short period of time), and, of course, that it eventually became a racist affair, discriminating blacks, whereas previous slave trades had not discriminated based on the color of the skin. What is unique about the USA, in particular, is the unfair treatment that blacks received AFTER emancipation (which is, after all, the real source of the whole controversy, because, otherwise, just about everybody on this planet can claim to be the descendant of an ancient slave).

That does not mean that western slave traders were justified in what they did, but placing all the blame on them is a way to absolve all the others.

Also, it is worth noting that the death rate among the white crews of the slave ships (20-25%) was higher than the rate among black slaves (15%) because slaves were more valuable than sailors; but nobody has written books and filmed epics about those sailors (often unwillingly enrolled or even kidnapped in ports around Europe when they were drunk).

To this day, too many Africans, Arabs and Europeans believe that the African slave trade was an aberration of the USA, not their own invention.

By the time the slave trade was abolished in the West, there were many more slaves in Africa (black slaves of black owners) than in the Americas."