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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: 579
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.
#10. To: Original_Intent (#9)
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.
You only need a few good priests to make men stack stuff for the lord. And some nitrous.
I see it like this: God made Man of one blood but many cultures. It obviously went wrong somewhere. God damage the Queen!
Yet the contributions of the Greeks and Romans continue to this day, whereas Zimbabwe is a basket case, chuck full of kids on the back of Toyota's toting AKs.
Cultures are mainly epiphenomena of race, geography, and climate.
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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
Replies to Comment # 9.
#11. To: Original_Intent (#9)
#16. To: Original_Intent (#9)
#17. To: Original_Intent (#9)
Yet history teaches us nothing could be further from the truth - just ask any good Roman Scribe or Greek Philosopher.
#29. To: Original_Intent (#9)
Cultures are frail things and their lifespan is not infinite.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 9.