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Title: Slavery was good for the black man
Source:
Jamaica Observer
URL Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colu ... WAS_GOOD_FOR_THE_BLACK_MAN.asp
Published: Aug 9, 2008
Author: Michael Dingwall
Post Date: 2008-10-16 16:11:12 by Tauzero
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Keywords: None
Views: 329
Comments: 30
Slavery was good for the black man Michael Dingwall As we celebrate emancipation and independence, we are being reminded of the horrors of slavery. According to our leaders, academics and others, slavery was the worst institution ever created. However, while it is popular for most to agree with this claim, I beg to disagree. Indeed, contrary to the belief that slavery was bad for us blacks, I believe that slavery was good for us. Have we ever stopped to consider where we black people, especially those of us in the West, would be right now if it weren't for the Atlantic Slave Trade? What state do you think black Africa would be in today? Do you think that we would have been better off without slavery? I don't think so! When the Europeans went to Africa to buy slaves, what did they find? They found a society and people vastly inferior to theirs. While the Europeans had emerged from their feudal practices, our ancestors in Africa, for the most part, had not developed for many centuries. We did not understand the concept of nation or government. Science and technology (and innovations in these areas) were non-existent in black Africa of the 15th and 16th centuries. Indeed, as a people, we had no sense of self-identity. In many respects, we were uncivilised. Slavery was our most important contact with modernity. It is through this "most heinous system ever created" that we blacks were able to understand some of the principles of global trade. Our ancestors were introduced to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade between Europe, Africa and the West Indies. Black Africa's part in the trade was the importation of European technology and the export of slaves. The importation of European technology was important - even though the Africans did not appreciate this importance at first. The export of slaves was also very important, especially for us in the West. As time went on, we blacks, both in Africa and especially in the Caribbean were, in many ways, being Europeanised and thus civilised. We adopted several aspects of their culture - their systems of government, their technologies, their sense of order and their languages. In doing this, we discarded those aspects of our culture that clearly placed us at a disadvantage - like our lack of sense of self, loyalty to the tribe and our non-participation in modern technology. Although not a believer in any god myself, the Christianity that came with slavery and European control would be of immense value to us black people. Back in Africa, we were preoccupied with the worship of animals, trees, spirits of the dead - even stones. These primitive religions that we were practising ensured that our ancestors in Africa were backward. The relatively superior Christianity, with its greater sense of order and responsibility would help, in many ways, to pull the black man out of the Stone Age. This could only have happened with slavery. Our relatively stable societies today, especially in the West, are testaments to the benefits of slavery. While it is true that black Africa has, for the most part, squandered the opportunities that slavery offered in the past, the positive influence of European civilisation cannot be denied. The black nation states of Africa and the Caribbean have given black people a sense of nation, a sense of identity, a sense of order and a sense of purpose - things we never had before. While we continue to demonstrate our inferiority in the areas of science and technology, through centuries of being exposed to Europe on account of slavery, we blacks are now aware of the need for us to start excelling in these areas. Those of us who continue to see the millions of blacks who died crossing the Atlantic and the displacement of what we had in Africa as proof that slavery was a bad institution don't understand the mechanics of human development and evolution. Similar processes had to be endured by countless peoples throughout history. The development of the human race has always involved the need for change. Slavery was one such means, and like it or not, we blacks are the beneficiaries. It is not for us today to judge the means through which societies have changed in the past. We blacks were changed, for the better, I might add, on account of slavery. We are a better race today because our ancestors went though slavery. The millions of lives lost were not lost in vain. The Europeans proclaimed the need for us to be civilised through slavery and though this may be hard to understand, they were right. Indeed, based on what is happening in black Africa today - slavery for us in the West was, in many respects, our salvation.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
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#1. To: Tauzero (#0)
There is no evil so great that an apologist for it cannot be found. Unexamined in the authors shallow mind is what would the face of Africa been like without the predatory behavior of "superior" European Culture? That is question for speculation as it is not reality, but what would the development of Africa been like had the Europeans come in looking to establish stable societies not merely use that which was there looting and enslaving. Technology alone does not make a barbaric culture civilized. Though Europe had superior technology and greater organization they were barbarians with guns and steel. Nothing more, nothing less.
That's unanswerable, but it probably wouldn't have "developed" at all. That aside, there are few truly unmixed blessings in life, and few truly unmitigated evils. Equally unanswerable -- as in ill-posed -- is the question of whether blacks alive today in the Western hemisphere benefited from the slavery of their ancestors, as they wouldn't even exist without there having been slavery. Regarding the black Africans of centuries ago, since blacks themselves practiced slavery, it was arguably not a question of slavery under Europeans and no slavery at all. Whether it was better to be a slave to Europeans or slave to African tribesmen is debatable. Though Europe had superior technology and greater organization they were barbarians with guns and steel. Nothing more, nothing less. I'll grant you Belgians and Jewish Bolsheviks.
That's not a supportable contention. You have to be interested in Archaeology to be able to pick it apart though. In prehistory there appear to have been several advanced cultures in Africa - likely swept away by war and climate change. Something that drives lamestream archaeologists crazy is to point out that the ancient Olmec Head Sculptures are clearly of Black Bantu-like people - mostly male. Take a look at the pictures of the The Great Zimbabwe that was constructed by an ancient African culture. As well there are occasional sightings a reports of vast ruined cities in different parts of Africa. One can infer, speculatively, that Africa was once a thriving civilized, as we lightly use the term, continent. In the "Dead Quarter" in the Saudi Arabian Desert are vast sheets of green glass - virtually identical to that found at Almogordo New Mexico. Some have inferred from the quantity and purity that it was the result of nuclear air burst as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is other evidence for ancient nuclear war in the Indian Vedas where there are passages describing the "Iron Thunderbolt" that could level an entire city. The Tuaregs of the Atlas mountains in NW Africa claim descent from Atlantis and the few European Explorers who have gone up there, and gotten back alive (the Tuaregs do not like outsiders) have told some interesting tales of what they have seen. Civilization and Culture rises and declines like a tide, and what we know today of "prehistory" is largely writ and colored by a 19th century lens to which electricity was "new technology"; powered flight and nuclear weapons were in the realm of fiction only. Any prior culture which had those, or had surpassed them, would have been beyond the technologic understanding of a 19th century archaeologist - and yet we still view ancient cultures through that very myopic lens. Cultures, and barbarism, are more rightly judged via social arrangements and behavior not technology. Technology is simply the means to do something and is only an indirect, and not one for one, indicator of social development. Barbarians with nuclear weapons are still barbarians.
Much like that American culture, debasement, corruption and greed can render a people to the level of spear chucker seemingly overnight.
Much like that American culture, debasement, corruption and greed can render a people to the level of spear chucker seemingly overnight. Cultures are frail things and their lifespan is not infinite. People of any age, without the panorama of history taught, labor under the false perception of permanence in the current culture. Yet history teaches us nothing could be further from the truth - just ask any good Roman Scribe or Greek Philosopher.
If earlier civilizations had airplanes, helicopters, electricity, and nuclear weapons, we would have known about them by now. All of these things have to be built of components that would preserve reasonably well in archeological sites. Only Afrocentric fringe "historians" take this crap about Zulus with nuclear weapons and flying Egyptians seriously. They have to invent a phony history for themselves because they have no legitimate achievements to their name.
#14. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#10)
Not at all, and there are evidences abounding of technologies beyond even our current skills and technologies. To reject without examination, to assume someone else's theorizing without inspection of the evidence is not thought it is reaction only. The ancient Indian Vedas talk extensively of aircraft called Vimanas and an apparent nuclear weapon referred to as the "Iron Thunderbolt". The Vedas are the oldest known surviving writings from antiquity. You mistake temporary technologic wonders as permanence. Concrete begins degrading in 100 years and is dust in a thousand. Steel corrodes and anything built of it will be a pile of rust in 100 years and dust in the wind come one thousand. A world ravaged by nuclear war would be reduced to stone age levels over night and bereft of writing and the interdependent web which creates our current technologic culture would vanish immediately. As well there are rumors, unsubstantiated directly, of caches of ancient technology that have been recovered and given the "Raiders of The Lost Ark" Treatment. There was a cave uncovered in the Grand Canyon, and was written of at the time in the local newspaper - "The Arizona Gazette" of the discovery of Egyptian Artefacts and Sarcophagi by and explorer travelling down the Grand Canyon. The Smithsonian Institution, in the late 1900's, mounted an expedition and shipped rail cars full of artifacts back to NY City and which then disappeared. The Smithsonian today denies that it ever happened - despite the newspaper account of it. Still the ancients built with greater permanence than we can achieve today. Massive stone walls set without mortar with such precision that one cannot slide a sheet of paper between them. The Trilithon at the temple of Baalbek in Lebanon consists of the three largest stone blocks ever quarried - the largest being some 1,000 TONS. There is today only one crane on the planet that could even lift it. No existing modern quarry has ever cut a block approaching the size of the two "smaller" blocks in the Trilithon which weigh in the vicinity of 750 TONS. The interior granite blocks of the Great Pyramid are about 50 TONS each. There is evidence of powered cutting tools in cuts made in stones used on the Giza Plateau. Take a look at the Photos Chris Dunn has on his website: Dunn I might add is a Master Machinist and has taken measurements of the tolerances to which some of the stones were cut - they were cut to aerospace tolerances of thousandths of an inch. The great wall at Ollyaytaytambo was set with mammoth stones - the largest at 250 TONS - again with such precision that they cannot accept a single sheet of paper between. All of these stone structures have existed for thousands of years and estimates as to their true age is just that estimates. The city and quay at Tiahuanaco is now over a mile above sea level and yet appears to have been built for ocean trade at a time before the Andes were upthrust. Nearby Lake Titicaca has the only species of fresh water sea horse. A civilization that collapsed 2000 or more years ago would be now unrecognizable as such and your argument is founded upon sand and the sands of time continue to drift. As well one can find other hints - the Rongo Rongo Writing of Easter Island is nearly identical to the script of the Indus Valley Civilization a half a planet away. As well an interesting anomaly was noted when the city of Moehnjo Daro was unearthed: Burned into the pavements and walls were the figures of men and women. The only other place a similar occurrence has been noted was that of men and women caught in the atomic glare at Hiroshima. You have much to learn Grasshopper.
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#2. To: Original_Intent (#1)
That is question for speculation as it is not reality, but what would the development of Africa been like had the Europeans come in looking to establish stable societies not merely use that which was there looting and enslaving.
#4. To: Tauzero (#2)
That's unanswerable, but it probably wouldn't have "developed" at all.
"Though Europe had superior technology and greater organization they were barbarians with guns and steel. Nothing more, nothing less."
"I'll grant you Belgians and Jewish Bolsheviks."
#5. To: Original_Intent (#4)
The Great Zimbabwe
#9. To: Jethro Tull, Rotara, Tauzero, Rupert_Pupkin, all (#5)
The Great Zimbabwe
#10. To: Original_Intent (#9)
Replies to Comment # 10. If earlier civilizations had airplanes, helicopters, electricity, and nuclear weapons, we would have known about them by now. All of these things have to be built of components that would preserve reasonably well in archeological sites.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 10.