Chattel Slavery 2014

The Caribbean Is One Nation.


                                                                               Chattel Slavery in 2014

By Pachamama

As the newly minted President of Mauritania heads to Washington DC to kiss the ring of the titular head of global arrogance, chattel slavery remains as pernicious and unremitting as ever. Of course, there are several gradations of present day slavery as suborned by capitalism, but chattel slavery represented a deviation from any kind of inhumanity hitherto known to man. Maybe Obama will raise this issue with Abdul Aziz, not that it would make any difference though, for the chattel slaves of Mauritania, Mali and Niger are not known to have any relationships with the powerful 'gay rights lobby' in Obama's America. For their  interests are to misguide us from focusing on historical wrongs and elevate their fetish to a supreme status within a set of 'newly' defined global norms. Those kinds of personal relationships are largely incomprehensible to the vast majority of African peoples, at least within our ancestral homeland.  

Remember, this is the same Obama who was laughed out of the room when he had the audacity to suggest to African leaders that they should forget all of their problems and focus on his 'new' form of cultural imperialism – homosexuality. His attempts to deceive them  with issues of bedroom business were merely the glove wherein the hidden iron fist of a perpetual colonialism and the global expansionism of militarism in the form of AFRICOM on African soil. And the Arab elites are again acting as 'handmaidens' for this new wave of domination of North Africa, and all the rest. So when this so-called gay agenda is to be deployed in a cultural war against African peoples our real issues cannot see the light of day. Chattel slavery still benefits America's friends in the region and we, as African people remain deaf to the words of our Great ancestor, John Henry Clarke. Clarke argued that African peoples have no friends and never did, and he is right! 

Gerald Horne has thought us that everything about the American experience is a lie. Of course is he much more sophisticated in his characterizations. He argues persuasively that the 1776 'conflict' in the USA led to the consolidation of chattel slavery there. Of course we've had Jim Crow and Apartheid within the United States from then, to the present. So America is not in moral position to teach its Arab satrapies any different lessons. In fact, Professor Horne contends that American involvement in Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico and its 13 colonies as an actor and extender of the chattel slavery epoch represents a signal historical marker. A high water mark in the crimes against humanity which has been unequaled.  

The role of the Arabs in the institutionalization of chattel slavery is settled historical knowledge. African peoples should always consider that we have no friends as our Great and dearly departed teacher, John Henry Clarke, has warned us. So when we see that the people who introduced chattel slavery into the human family are having their problems currently, we should temper our zeal to come to their defense with an understanding of our own historical realities. Indeed, it was the Arabs who enslaved the Slavic peoples of Europe, White people. This was then extended to Africans.  

This cultural intervention gave slavery its name. Of course the Europeans, including the Jews (in the Arab world and in Europe) were then able to construct a globalization process based on this established business model and the underlying intellectual framework which emerged, along with European 'enlightenment', after the Dark Ages. Even before this period, as far back as 332 BC, the intellectual foundations for chattel slavery were being constructed. And the rest is history..... or not. For the vestiges of chattel slavery are still with us today. Indeed chattel slavery, as an institution, is still present in our world of 2014 even though chattel slavery is now prohibited by international law. 

The Iberian typology of chattel slavery and racism as practiced in Mauritania presents itself in two ways. First, there are families which were historically owned by others (slavers) whose descendants are destined to remain enslaved forever. This is the status quo in 2014. In Arabic the word for chattel 'slave' is 'abd'. Secondly there are former slaves who are found or had ran away and whose recapture is not dissimilar to our memories of what used to happen before the 1834/38 legislative intervention in the British colonies and much later 1865 in the United States. Legislative actions that were forced by certain demands for freedom. Our ancestors in their fight for justice poisoned increasing numbers of White slaveholders, burn down their barns and stages a number of military actions to destroy slave institutions. Maybe we need more of these actions today.     

But most of world is oblivious to the presence of chattel slavery in 2014. The Arab governments involved spend oodles in suppress this reality within urban and rural areas with false claims of freedom and emancipation. At the same time the Mauritanian government passed an Anti-Slavery Laws (2007) to 'control' the practice and response with repeated denials notwithstanding the observations of independent agents, United Nations reports and many accounts of current and former chattel slaves.  

This is the legacy of the Arabs to the world. Arabs who spit on Black people. Arabs who despite the so-called teachings of their prophet about there being no difference between Black and White in Islam still maintain deep hatred for Africans and even darker hue Arabs. But Clarke has also though us that there is no race of people called Arabs. Maybe their behaviors represents a schizophrenia that comes with miscegenation.  

We are talking about chattel slavery in the Arab domination, North African countries of Mauritania, Mali and Niger but that could not have been present unless there was a collusion by other Arab countries. We have other African countries and many African majority countries that remain silent about the presence of chattel slavery. These enablers are continuing all types of diplomatic relations with practitioners of chattel slavery. Barbados as the perfection of the slave colony will never have a foreign minister who can speak about this matter, she lack the language.  

Every time we are called upon by our ancestors to express this painful chapter there is a deafening cringe by White people and their Black apologists. But we will never stop. They shall be forever reminded of their crimes against humanity. Neither will we forgive anybody because no one has properly asked for forgiveness. Well, maybe the Pope and the late Arab leader, Muammar Gaddafi, nobody else! So they must be forever be reminded of their sins against life itself. We are well aware that within some circles of officialdom this 'race talk' is frowned upon. For it makes White people uncomfortable, they say, as though we are to care about their feeling. They may remove their money and investment. Ok! But our ancestors give not a damn about money, or the pretenses of White people, so we have to write when they tell us to, and we shall. Some have been trying for centuries to minimize their crimes by elevating White servitude to the same level of inhumanity as chattel slavery. That is a dishonesty that future pains our ancestors. A nonsense that was never properly rooted in evidence but merely a concoction to obfuscate, to deny the historic crimes of Arabs and Europeans against our African ancestors yesterday, and their descendant today. 

Pachamama is a social commentator