THE EDITOR, Sir:
I WONDER if there are many BBC World Service listeners, like myself, in Jamaica? If so, recently they would have heard several documentaries with regard to slavery in Africa; not, as you might think, that which was perpetrated by white Europeans in the 19th century.
No indeed. In Niger, for example, slavery was abolished not in the 1800s but in 2004 I believe, according to the BBC.
However, although the practice has recently been outlawed in that country, the new legislation is rarely enforced.
SLAVERY ALIVE
Yes, slavery and slave ownership are very much alive in Niger; ditto Mauritania and other African countries. Entire families inherit their slave status and have been doing so for several generations.
Just this week, I heard a former slave in Niger being interviewed on the BBC and the brutality meted out is just as vile as ever.
The former slave had just been freed by Anti-Slavery International, an organisation that brings this evil to light and endeavours to free African slaves and, hopefully, bring the perpetrators to justice.
Anti-Slavery International seems to have been founded and is run by white Europeans. Such irony!
The Female Slaves of Ghana (shackles and all) was another interesting documentary from circa 2002 not to mention the daily atrocities being committed against black Muslims in the Darfur region of Sudan.
I write because I am waiting to hear our local firebrands comment or maybe even (dare I hope) rail against this outrage still so widespread in the 'Motherland' in the year 2005.
Where is the outrage from the likes of Barbara Blake-Hannah, Mutabaruka, Caroline Cooper, Cecil Gutzmore, Antoinnette Haughton, Rev. Ernle Gordon et al?
WHERE'S THE INDIGNATION?
Where is the righteous indignation from Gleaner journalist Mel Cooke? Where is the loud and angry protest from any of the above (or the erudite Prof. Nettleford perhaps?) against this evil, very much in the here and now and not 150+ years ago, being imposed on their black 'brothers' and 'sisters'?
I must and can only conclude that since the only whites involved here are those trying to end the horror, as opposed to prolonging it and what with the sinister perpetrators all being entirely black Africans, our local, and usually so very vocal, 'black rights'/Rastafarians-cum-Garveyites are keeping their silence and how.
Quiet as the proverbial mice. Well, certainly we wouldn't want that kind of thing being aired and/or discussed openly in the Jamaican media during Black History Month now would we?
No doubt their voices will be heard in March or April but not August. Emancipation Day might just ring a bit hollow if we think of the many thousands still in bondage to 'Africans in Africa' could be a bit tricky.
Let me end by quoting from that '70s 'chart-topper': "See di ippocrit, dem a galang" (repeat the chorus).
I am, etc.,
CLAIRE MOREN
claireMoren@hotmail.com
President, Anti-Hypocrisy
Movement Worldwide
Stony Hill P.O, Kingston 9
