Africa Can Forgive But Will Never Forget SlaveryAfrica Can Forgive But Will Never Forget Slavery
August 24, 1999 

Ruth Nabakwe, PANA Correspondent 

PARIS, France (PANA) - The realisation that the enslavement of Africans and Africa itself, during the colonial period, was the basis of the continent's current underdevelopment has started to generate a heated debate among scholars, both in Africa and beyond. 

The debate took a dramatic turn last week at an Accra gathering of some of these scholars who at the end of the meeting declared that Europe and the Americas, for starters, owed Africa 777 trillion US dollars for slave-trading and colonising Africans. 

Though talk of reparations for the slave trade and colonialism has been debated among African intellectuals for sometime now, observers noted this is the first time that a figure has been placed on what they call ''a crime against humanity.'' 

UNESCO has even created a special department to look into this aspect of how millions of people from the whole continent could have been subjected to such inhumane and cruel treatment and yet given virtually nothing in return in the form of reparations. 

A gathering of young people in Dakar, Senegal, Monday under a ''Youth Forum On World Heritage And Slave Trade'', sponsored by the local UNESCO office, had a chance to enhance the debate as part of the International Day for Remembrance of Slave Trade and its Abolition. 

The removal from Africa of its best minds and strongest young people has continued to haunt the continent, by bringing negative consequences which were worsened by colonialism, when pressure to stop slavery gathered momentum, at the turn of the last century. 

UNESCO's assistant director general in Priority Africa Department, Noureini Tidjani Serpos, said Africa continued to suffer and being marginalised today as if it made no contribution to the world. 

He cited the untold African blood which was spilt during the second world war that liberated Europe from Germany tyranny. 

The double standard is that ''when the war ended, the Americans put up a Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe - including Germany itself - that was economically devastated but when slavery was abolished no Marshall Plan was in the offing for Africa,'' Serpos told PANA. 

''You cannot for instance take away some 100 million people, the cream of that society, from a continent and expect that that region will not be under-developed,'' he added. 

As Africa commemorated the International Day for the Remembrance of Slave Trade and its Abolition Monday, he noted, it reflected on the price for peace and freedom that it paid through the blood of its people during the second world war for Europe to be free. 

He said the day should serve to remind the African people of their past history to ensure the memory is preserved, not from hate or animosity, but just like Jews commemorate the holocaust, to symbolise that never again will humanity fail to acknowledge the dignity of all men and women, including their mutual acceptance and understanding. 

According to Serpos, UNESCO's ''Slave Routes'' project aims at retrieving from Western countries, that benefited from the slave trade, archives covering the trade to enable documentation centres to be set up in each African country on the effects of the trade and its past history. 

Noting that recognition by France of ''slavery as a crime against humanity'' was a big step forward, Serpos stated that UNESCO was exploring possibilities for the OAU to call on its member states to declare the ''slave trade as a crime against humanity'' as well. 

He urged African governments, civil society and the population to mobilise every year on the remembrance day to give prominence to the day. 

The day should also serve to instil tolerance and solidarity among African peoples as well as acknowledging that Africa can pardon but can never forget the slave trade and its consequences. It should put emphasis on teaching human rights, implementing the rights of the child as well as reinforce action towards women's full participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of African nations. 

In remembering the day, Africa too must draw lessons from that history by ensuring a culture of peace prevailed on the continent with deliberate efforts made to forge strong links with its people in the diaspora. 

Continued conflicts on the continent, however, could prevent the emergence of a strong, united Africa that could together with those in the diaspora develop the necessary strength to face challenges, like claiming its long overdue reparations. 

Another such challenge included harnessing education to ensure it effectively contributed towards breaking the prevalent culture of war to a culture of peace and unity. 

''Our differences should not lead to conflicts but enrich us to live in unity,'' Serpos said. 

This was ever more pertinent, according to him, given that if Africa was not careful today, it risked generating the same conditions, such as disunity, that created slavery. 

That would be a double tragedy. 




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 1999 Panafrican News Agency. All Rights Reserved.