Monday, January 4, 2016

"African obscurantism and European enlightenment"

I don't know where I got this from, because it's been on my hard drive for years. And for years I've known that what most people are told about slavery is not true at all.

I think it is at least ten years old, but it doesn't matter.

The article starts here.


The highest concerns of the South African government are the Three Rs: race, race, race. Our appalling levels of violent crime, our calamitous unemployment, the Aids epidemic decimating our population ;all of these are very low on the African National Congress priorities. Indeed, on the rare occasions when a local journalist dares to ask President Mbeki about them, he brushes them aside with a look of irritation. His highest priority is always the question of skin colour. Like the apartheid regime before it, the ANC government is completely obsessed with race.

The UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, in Durban next week therefore takes precedence over everything else for the South African government. For months our newspapers have been promoting it with solemn excitement. We shall see whether it achieves anything. Meanwhile, a problem has arisen about whether or not the conference should discuss reparations for slavery. This is a fascinating moral question. Europe has indeed played a unique role in the history of slavery. Slavery has been a universal feature of all societies throughout most of history. Blacks and whites; Africans, Asians and Europeans; Christians, Muslims and pagans all of them kept slaves. Every person alive today has ancestors who were slaves or slave owners. What makes Europe unique is that it ended slavery. Western civilisation alone; the white man alone decided that slavery was wrong.

For thousands of years black Africans had been enslaving other black Africans. Then black Africans began selling black Africans to Arab slave dealers. The black slaves were force-marched across the Sahara desert to North Africa and the Middle East. Black male slaves were castrated to work in Arab harems. Much later the white man arrived, wanting slaves for the American colonies. The black slave traders in West Africa were delighted to oblige. It meant a lucrative expansion of their traditional business. An African chief explained the deal as follows: "We want three things: powder, ball and brandy; and we have three things to sell: men, women and children." West African nations prospered mightily under the slave trade.

Then something most strange happened. Prompted by Christian conscience, beginning towards the end of the 17th century, white men in Europe began to campaign against the notion of slavery. Nothing like this had ever happened before. In Africa blacks who were enslaved did not like it, but blacks who were not enslaved had no objection to it. Both accepted it as part of African culture. In the United States many of the blacks were free men and some of them owned black slaves; they, too, had no objection to the concept of slavery. Asians and Africans alike continued to think that slavery was perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable. It was only among white Europeans that opposition to slavery grew.

In 1772 slavery was abolished on English soil, and in 1833 it was outlawed throughout the British empire. France followed suit. The West Africans were horrified. Their centuries-old enterprise was threatened. Countries such as the Gambia, the Congo and Dahomey sent delegations to London and Paris to protest strongly against the abolition of slavery.

Now here is a moral dilemma. If you believe in the new ethics of multiculturalism or moral relativism, you will say that all morality is relative to culture. People of one culture should not criticise people of another. Therefore, if slave dealing was part of West African culture, the white man had no right to oppose it. In doing so he was guilty of cultural imperialism. Indeed the use of main force by the Royal Navy to stop Africans exporting other Africans to America might well be considered the most arrogant act of cultural imperialism ever performed.

On the other hand, if you believe in absolute morality, you will believe that slavery is simply wrong and must never be allowed regardless of culture. Then you will congratulate the Royal Navy.

I am of the latter persuasion. I believe there is an absolute morality on all important matters. I believe the white imperialists were sometimes absolutely right in their moral prescriptions to black Africa (such as the ending of slavery and the censure of female circumcision) and sometimes absolutely wrong (such as in promoting legal abortion over a wide range of circumstances).

Among the descendants of the parties concerned, the big winners are the descendants of the slaves in the United States. They are far better off than black Africans, which is why black Americans do not want to live in Africa but black Africans would love to live in America. The losers are more difficult to identify, but it is to them we must look for answers to the question of reparation for slavery.

If you believe in moral relativism, you will hold that the great damage done was to the West African slave owners, whose business was ruined by the white imperialists. In this case, you should urge the Durban Conference to pay compensation to the descendants of the slave owners.

If you believe in moral absolutism, you will say that the great damage done was to the African villages from whom the slaves were drawn. In this case, you should want the Durban Conference to demand compensation to the descendants of these villagers from the descendants of the two parties responsible for the Atlantic slave trade: the white men from Europe and the black men from West Africa.

In other words, moral relativism says that the descendants of West African slave dealers should receive compensation; moral absolutism says that they should pay it.

It will be interesting to see whether the delegates to the Durban Conference are relativists or absolutists.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

i've never read your blog before but a friend posted it in our chatroom. i'm nigerian-american it was a very thought provoking piece. definitely makes me rethink a lot of things. well done!!!

kurt9 said...

Heinlein said that slavery was an abomination of the human spirit.

Cheech And Chong Found God said...

“i've never read your blog before but a friend posted it in our chatroom. i'm nigerian-american it was a very thought provoking piece. definitely makes me rethink a lot of things. well done!!!”

What a shameless act of cowardice by the white person who made this post.


The article fails to consider that in African societies where slavery was prevalent, the enslaved people were NOT treated as chattel slaves and were given certain rights in a system similar to indentured servitude. European slavery took on a more nefarious form—life-long servitude based on race, with violence as its cudgel.

Slavery in historical Africa was practiced in many different forms—debt slavery, enslavement of war captives, military slavery, and criminal slaver. Only when the Arab slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began did the local slave systems change and begun supplying captives for slave markets outside of Africa, in many cases to remove tribal enemies.

“What makes Europe unique is that it ended slavery. Western civilisation alone; the white man alone decided that slavery was wrong.”


Corrected for accuracy—> Real Christian men and women, black and white, worked to remove the scourge of slavery. Unfortunately, the anti-slavery movement in Europe became an excuse casus belli for the European conquest and colonization of much of the African continent. It was the central theme of the Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889-90. In the late 19th century, the Scramble for Africa saw the continent rapidly divided between Imperialistic European powers, and an early but secondary focus of all colonial regimes was the suppression of slavery and the slave trade.

“I believe the white imperialists were sometimes absolutely right in their moral prescriptions to black Africa (such as the ending of slavery and the censure of female circumcision) and sometimes absolutely wrong (such as in promoting legal abortion over a wide range of circumstances).”

Note the deception taking place here. There is observably no such thing as “sometimes absolutely” anything.

“They are far better off than black Africans, which is why black Americans do not want to live in Africa but black Africans would love to live in America.”


Had the darkies been completely left alone, they would have been better off continuing to live in the civilizations they created.

“If you believe in moral absolutism, you will say that the great damage done was to the African villages from whom the slaves were drawn [added]”

[by the Europeans, who allegedly were of a higher moral order, but chose to act upon their natural inclination for greed and violence].

LosAngelesKing said...

I used to say (rightfully as it is) that our resident sock puppet troll was a mangina, but it appears that thought will have to be amended "for accuracy" to include that she/he/it is also a mewling, white hating SJW.

"What a shameless act of cowardice by the white person who made this post."

This is rich coming from a hysterical, period bleeding cuckservative (distinction without a difference from an SJW) who can't even post under 1 identity.

"Had the darkies been completely left alone, they would have been better off continuing to live in the civilizations they created."

Yes, while they're busy slaughtering each other by the hundreds of thousands due to the racism that you claim only the "whities" are capable of, hmm?

Rhodesia was once a reasonably functioning country that was considered the bread basket of Africa that has since descended into a basket case after the British left. I suppose you blame that on Whitey too? And if all the whites left South Africa, they're all fucked...and you know it. And since Africans would be so much better if the "crackas" (which you clearly think of whites), then we should leave and let them destroy themselves. I'm sure you'll find some fault with too, no doubt.

Cheech And Chong Found God said...

As expected, our resident rodent comes out of the woodwork.

"This is rich coming from a hysterical, period bleeding cuckservative (distinction without a difference from an SJW) who can't even post under 1 identity."

Cuckservative is so passe. Didn't you get the secret decoder ring in your Trump Serial Box?

"Yes, while they're busy slaughtering each other by the hundreds of thousands due to the racism that you claim only the "whities" are capable of, hmm?"

No more slaughtering each other than whites, or Asians, or Latin Americans. Racism and violence is a human thing, something you can't even comprehend.

"Rhodesia was once a reasonably functioning country..."

Africa was once a reasonably functioning continent until it was invaded.

Mindstorm said...

"On the other hand, if you believe in absolute morality, you will believe that slavery is simply wrong and must never be allowed regardless of culture."

Depends on the flavor of absolute morality one subscribes to. If you take it from the Old Testament, for example, then you are for a surprise:
http://biblehub.com/exodus/21-20.htm

If you ask Artisanal Toad, Bob, then expect a lecture about slavery done right. :)

Glen Filthie said...

Well...about that, fellas. The slavery.

Recent events in Ferguson and Baltimore mirror pretty much 5 decades of African independence. Riots over nothing. Massive welfare dependency. Sky-rocketing illegitimacy, illiteracy, crime, illegal drug dependency, and STD/HIV cases. The ghettos are filled with 5th generation black welfare slobs. In Africa we see endless charities and social programs aimed at feeding and housing starving blacks. All that ever comes of that are larger numbers of blacks that need to be fed. 'Black' cities like Baltimore, Detroit, and New Orleans are degenerating into gutted expanses fit only as movie sets for films like 'Planet Of The Apes'. If we are going to dispense with the social justice idiots - let us dispense with political correctness as well and call a spade...a spade: Blacks cannot effectively govern themselves in a civil manner.

Perhaps we SHOULD reconsider slavery. At least they would be made to be productive, and they would all have enough to eat.

Anonymous said...

"Africa was once a reasonably functioning continent until it was invaded."

Nobody really knows how well Sub-Saharan Africa functioned before European colonization, because the whole region was almost completely illiterate. There's no particular archaeological evidence, however, indicating that life there was ever too terribly different from the way it was when Europeans first arrived.

Eddie-in-Mexico said...

The UN conference in Durban, mentioned in the article, took place in Summer 2001 - according to Wikipedia.