Why Did The Slave Trade Happen?

Answer is in Charles Taylor and Al-Bashir

Has the black man learned from the humiliation of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade? No, we haven’t! Are we perpetually locked in the act of dehumanizing each other for the betterment of other races? Yes, we are! These questions and answers kept ricocheting through my mind when Barack Obama visited Ghana and as part of that highlighted the shame and guilt that the perpetrators of slavery never felt. Having a church sitting right on top of the dungeons, these people worshipped right on top of people they were subjecting to inexplicable conditions.

But who will you blame for slavery? It feels to me like the black person will do anything to humiliate his own kind to satisfy people of other color. To think that African chiefs will hunt their own down and give them off to slavery, not knowing what will be their fate in a completely strange land still puzzles me! And mentioning this brings to mind the way the African Union (AU) is shelving and protecting the president of Sudan, Oumar Al-Bashir. He is being accused of crimes against humanity in Darfur by the international community, yet he is allowed to go free by the AU, in the name of African peace. What is peaceful about methodically supervising the killings of innocent people and the raping of defenseless women by the Janjaweed militia in Darfur? Over 200, 000 people have been killed or displaced under the watch of this devil called Oumar Al-Bashir.

Many times in nature things happen concurrently to draw attention to our own ills. But, as many times, we see them as mere coincidence and let them pass. Just when Barack Obama was in Ghana highlighting the ills of slavery and mentioning how such evils still abound in the world today, the International Criminal Court at THE HAGUE, Netherlands, had just resumed the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor on crimes against humanity. His victims? Sierra Leoneans! Taylor is being charged with 11 counts of murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, using child soldiers and spreading terror during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war. Is this any different from what Oumar Al-Bashir has done and is still doing in Darfur? Yet, black African leaders deceived and netted Charles Taylor in Nigeria through an organized plan, guised in the form of offering him asylum for peace in Liberia. Back then I hailed it as a good thing because I have always believed that wrong is wrong, no matter who is perpetrating it. Today, a lighter skinned African (Arab) is perpetrating the same crimes against black people in Darfur, and this time, while the whole world is crying that the man be arrested and tried, the AU has connived with our Arab brothers up north to protect this criminal “in the name of peace”, OMG!! How will you explain the fact that black people will plan and capture one of their own to be tried and jailed for crimes against humanity, but for the same crimes committed by an Arab looking man the same black people connive to let him off the hook?

The people of Rwanda did hand over the names of the perpetrators of genocide in their country back in 1994 and they are being tried and jailed (black-on-black- no problem!). Kofi Annan is keeping in his left breast pocket the list of Kenyans who fomented the riots about two years ago and he is warning that if the Kenyan authorities don’t arrest and try their own people he will hand over the list to the International Human Rights Commission (black-on-black- No problem!). In South Africa, for crimes against black people during Apartheid there had to be a truth commission and no trials (for white-on-black, let them go!).

For some time now I have been wondering if black people will ever be able to stand for ourselves or even be able to solve our own problems! One man will prefer to be called a knight but have the whole gold industry of his nation handed over to white people for no apparent gain to his people! If it were not for the resilience of Nelson Mandela, Chief Mangosuthu Butelezi would still be in bed with the National Party of South Africa to thwart the efforts of independence. If it weren’t for the resilience of Nkrumah……….!

I have at some point challenged the intelligence level of black people on ghanaweb and got scolded by many people. I still stand by it that due to the migration of Homo sapiens way back in time to escape draught in Africa, most of the intelligent ones moved out leaving the dumbest group of people living in black Africa. And of course genetic recombination enabled us to still have a few intelligent people. As a result we will often point to such people as reason to think that we are as intelligent as the rest. And again genetic recombination among say, white people, leave them with a few stupid people. And we again point to such stupid people as reason to think that white people are equally stupid. But on the whole, in terms of numbers, we are just a group of dumb people with isolated intelligent ones and mostly white people are a bunch of intelligent people with isolated stupid ones. I finally came to the conclusion that the few intelligent black people will have to work their butts out (!) in order to compensate for the stupidity of most (which includes many of the leaders we have had). Well, you may ask why I am turning against myself and the rest of black people. But, how else am I supposed to explain the fact that we are on the receiving end of everything, and mostly initiated by our own selves? How else can I explain why at this age we still can’t make a pin and are still depending on donor funds to survive! How else am I supposed to explain why we are still unable to treat simple diseases and prefer to blame witches! And how else am I supposed to explain that the races that all moved out of Africa are in great prosperity while we are still languishing in complete squalor.

If you are out there and know you are genuinely making progress as a black person (not through dubious means please!) or you know you are able to compete boot-for-boot with the white man in whatever you do, please you need to multiply your efforts by a factor of hundred and work harder! That’s the only way we can catch up. As the world’s resources get smaller and smaller, we black people aren’t getting any smatter! We face a daunting future of stiff competition for everything including our own resources and it is up to us to catch up or face total oblivion.

Barack Obama can come to Africa and talk every month. He can bring down all the resources of America and invest in Africa. He can even pick all the cities and skyscrapers from America and relocate them in Africa. But as long as we are unable to fight for ourselves and would rather be our own enemies by conniving with other races against our own, we’ll continue to retrogress while the whole world is advancing.