Black America Meets Northern Nigeria

[Baruti M. Kamau]

Over @ BmkDispatch.com AWARDS a black American posting under the username speedyjoe has been asking alot of questions about Africa and Nigeria in particular.  Muhsin has been responding promptly.  An interesting dialogue is developing between the two.  Now I think the dialogue is reaching a sensitive point because the black American ask Muhsin the following question:  "...i always wanted to ask an african how did slavery happen?  how did the white man come into africa and start takin people?"  This particular point Muhsin hasn't dealt with yet.  We think it would be a good idea if someone from Kano Online or some other Nigerian forum enter the conversation to help it continue in a very enlightening tone.  The discussion is taking place at url http://www.bmkdispatch.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=932

[HUSNAA]

Seems to me black Americans ought to be more conversant with that answer than africans seeing that it concerns them more than it concerns africans. What I mean is that I as an African have no personal experience of the consequences of slavery. I am sorry to say that I never read history at school so I am not fully aware of how slavery came to Africa. From the snatches of information or misinformation that I received during the course of my life I can point out that slavery was nothing novel or new in Africa before the advent of the white man bcos it was fully functional north of the sahara and  also it trickled down into subsaharan africa and is still extant in some countries. I believe that we still have the master- slave system functioning in the so called Emirs palaces.
As to how the white man happened on slavery? Well there are theories. I once read or was informed at a lecture  that before African slaves were shipped to America, the  native indians that is the incas and mayans etc were enslaved by the white conquistados (spelt correctly?). However becos America was the native land of the indians, they had the capabilities and facilities for evading capture or if captured could escape much more easily becos they knew the lay of the land better than the white europeans. This of course was not economically advantageous to the whites since the indians proved to be unmanageable. They realized that they needed workers or slaves who wont be able to run away. They can only achieve that if the slaves donot know the lay of the land. That meant importing non indigenes. It is possible that they therefore settled on Africa becos of the great distance  between America and Africa. It is also possible that they settled on Africa bcos slavery was active at the time even before the advent of the white man. Lets not forget that  the African continent was also the home of great civilizations of which the greeks and romans were aware of and actually went into alliances with some of the rulers of the time. So slavery was nothing new, since these civilizations partly flourished from the labor of slaves.

[HUSNAA]

Baruti Kamau, can u tell us what this historic health care reform bill that just passed into law will mean to you? I gather it was 100yrs in the making according to some hyperbolic assertions. However I have a feeling that it went thro bcos Obama is black??? Its going to benefit the majority of black ppl and other minorities I believe. Isnt it a bit co incidental that it was never successfully passed for nrly 100 yrs until the advent of a black president? Is it possible that the other white presidents didnt try too hard in making it into legislation?  Throu all the final debates before the votes were cast, there was this racial undercurrence which noone wanted to admit to, so the  republicans hid under the banner of raised taxes as a result of the bill,  a debt burden to unborn posterity... blah blah blah while the real reason is that millions of blacks stand to benefit from the bill and that is not what white america wants.

[lionger]

Africans and African-americans discussing the slave trade? Hehehe dis wan sounds like trouble oh  ;D ! Eniwe, mek I wait for Muhsin to respond b4 I chook mouth for that thread. In coming to terms with the painful past of trans atlantic slave trade (TAST), I have noticed that there is the temptation among Africans and African americans, some even in the academic commmunity , to find refuge in anodynic Afrocentric romanticism which largely seeks to blame the white man for the whole thing. Some also seek to link the TAST to the embarassing socio-economic backwardness that Africa and some of the African diaspora seem unable to escape from, as part of a grand conspiracy by the white man to keep us down. Unfortunately the truth is rather more complex and bitter to swallow.

Most African societies in antiquity were slave societies ( and in agreement with HUSNAA, all human societies at different points in history practiced slavery) . Beginning in the 15th century, the sub-Saharan slave markets exploded as European merchants came to the West African coast looking to trade for chattell deemed necesssary for tilling the land in the Americas, and so the slave trade across the Atlantic began. Now, the white man did not just 'take' people, he bought them, in exchange for manufactured European goods that the Africans had never seen before, were incapable of making themselves and thus eager to obtain. In fact, Europeans did not have the capacity to either kidnap large numbers of Africans, or to force Africans to trade in slaves with them. While the European was militarily superior on his own continent, he could not transfer that superiority to Africa until the late 19th century, and by then he abhored the slave trade and was now looking to end it in Africa.  Moreover, before the discovery of quinine, the European could not venture deep into the interior of Africa without risking certain death from 'mysterious' diseases and 'bad air'. As  such, he preferred to stay on his ship by the coast and have the African merchants bring slaves to him.  Even so, the attrition rates were high. As such, Africans could not have been forced into the slave trade by the Europeans; it was  a voluntary, 'legitimate' business. If Africans had refused to trade in slaves, there was really nothing the Europeans could have done.

How could Africans have traded their own people? Well as I said before, the slave trade has  been seen as a legitimate business wherever it existed in the world, as long as the enslaved peoples were criminals,  'enemies', 'foreigners' or in some form societal outcasts. So by the beginning of the modern era we find the Europeans trying to enslave the indigenous Americans and later Africans, and the Ottoman Arabs acquiring slaves from south-east Europe and north/east/west Africa. But in sub-saharan Africa, largely a hodgepodge of fractured peasant/semi-feudal polities, the 'enemy' and 'foreigner' was the village next door . So as far as the Africans were concerned, they weren't trading their own people!

The first people to question the institution of slavery were 18th century radical Christians in Britain, and when the West was convinced of the evil of slavery, they forced this idea down the throats of everyone else. Britain had to use force to stop the slave trade in its African colonies; and in Nigeria that took them well into the 20th century, even as late as 1950!  We still hear allegations of slave trading in the Sudan and Mauritania. If we feel a revulsion to slave trade today, then we have the West to thank for that, and tough questions to ask of ourselves. I know some people will not like the last remark, but it is the difficult truth.

[Baruti M. Kamau]

Wow.  I am thoroughly impressed by the rough frankness in the explanation of this topic by Husnaa and Lionger.  I'm going to link to this page as a reference for speedyjoe and other lurkers for their answer to their question of slavery.  Furthermore, I must say you guys are probably the first Black Africans I've seen touch this subject with the "difficult" but painful truth.  Personally speaking, I'm aware of the facts on how and why the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Saharan Slave Trade happened.  But the problem is my people won't accept that truth from me.  That's why I refrained from too much participation in the dialogue developing between speedyjoe and Muhsin on my website.  Thank you Husnaa and Lionger.  I have linked to this page.

[Baruti M. Kamau]

Husnaa, my dear respected sister in Islam, the passage of this historical Health Care Reform bill will pretty much define Obama's presidency and insure that he not only go down in history as the first non-white administrator in the Western world but also as a president for the people.  We give credit where credit is due.  Congratulations to Barack Obama and congratulations to the democrats.  Now we have to see what will really happen in reality.  Only time will tell if this passage of the Health Care Reform bill will benefit Black or White America.  I know one thing as things have been over the past 20 years I couldn't afford health insurance as a non-worker (entrepreneur).  It would cost me $550 per month to insure myself and my two sons alone.  The only way I could afford that before this bill passed if I worked for a company that offered free medical coverage as a fringe benefits.  That is unlikely because I am not a worker.  I am an entreprenuer.  Therefore, I have to pay for my medical expenditures out of pocket.