Tuesday, September 20, 2011

REBUTAL: "I am not an African, you people sold...





-----Original Message-----
From: M'Bwebe Ishangi <mbwebe@daghettotymz.com>
To: kwsi708 <kwsi708@aol.com>
Sent: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 11:16 am
Subject: Re: REBUTAL: "I am not an African, you people sold...

Agreed and Asante Sana Brother Kwasi! I often tell hedz if they want to overstand how/why Afrikanz reduced themselves to participate in this atrocity is the read Chancellor Williams, 'The Destruction of Black Civilization'. 

With that said, I also overstand there's a significant percentage who just won't get his book, or will get it, but won't read it, hence the reason for my writing my piece, 'When Knowledge Became Kryptonite' -- http://daghettotymz.com/current/kryptonite/kryptonite.html

I salute your efforts in keeping this topic at the forefront!

Bless...

--
M'Bwebe Ishangi

On Sep 19, 2011, at 7:24 AM, kwsi708@aol.com wrote:

 
 
 
 

It's a damn shame that more people of Afrikan descent were not present at
Ancestral Path's recent "History Forum" held at the House of Consciousness in Norfolk where we addressed the issue of Ancient Afrikan enslavement of people, domestic and foreign, among other relevant topics.
 
I'm not going to go into the exhaustive coverage that we gave this subject, because we are finding that our people are getting lazy and won't support local efforts to bring truth to us in scholarly forums such as the one mentioned above.  Instead, we seem to want accurate information without expending the effort to come out to hear it.
 
So I'm just going to leave you with 3 thoughts;
 
1.  The "African-American" who made the statement below that "I am not an African, you people sold us!", may just as well also say, "I am not an American, you people sold us too."  But knowing how easy our people are to forgive the euro for their atrocities against us, that person likely will never claim not to be american.
2.  Slavery is not just a "Black thing".Many, many cultures around the world have either been enslaved or enslaved others, including european, asians, and arabs.
3.  If our people want to learn the truth about these issues, then they have got to support efforts like ours to bring it to them.  We will repeat the History Forum, if y'al are really serious about participating.
 
Kwasi
 
 
In a message dated 9/18/2011 9:59:44 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, imanifoundation@yahoo.com writes:
 
Morning,

A key issue in this documentary is the role that Africans played in the selling of other Africans. When I arrived in the US my first encounter with an African American whom I "mistook" for being an African led to the statement "I am not an African, you people sold us!" My first reaction was shock, then hurt, anger then reflection. This is a sentiment shared by some African Americans and it is crucial that it be addressed. Now, not ALL African peoples were involved in the trade....but what of those that were?

****** ******* ********* *******
In the early 18th century, Kings of Dahomey (known today as Benin) became big players in the slave trade, waging a bitter war on their neighbours, resulting in the capture of 10,000, including another important slave trader, the King of Whydah. King Tegbesu made £250,000 a year selling people into slavery in 1750. King Gezo said in the 1840's he would do anything the British wanted him to do apart from giving up slave trade: "The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…"

But is that the entire story? What of the "extenuating circumstances" claimed by the Mende when Isaiah Washington confronted them? Here is what a descendant of a trader has to say.

LIVING WITNESS
Some of the descendants of African traders are alive today. Mohammed Ibrahim Babatu is the great great grandson of Baba-ato (also known as Babatu), the famous Muslim slave trader, who was born in Niger and conducted his slave raids in Northern Ghana in the 1880's. Mohammed Ibrahim Babatu, the deputy head teacher of a Junior secondary school in Yendi, lives in Ghana.

"Babatu, and others, didn't see anything wrong with slavery. They didn't have any knowledge of what the people were used for. They were only aware that some of the slaves would serve others of the royal families within the sub-region. He has done a great deal of harm to the people of Africa. I have studied history and I know the effect of slavery.

I have seen that the slave raids did harm to Africa, but some members of our family feel he was ignorant…we feel that what he did was fine, because it has given the family a great fame within the Dagomba society. He gave some of the slaves to the Dagombas and then he sent the rest of the slaves to the Salaga market. He didn't know they were going to plantations…he was ignorant…"

Can't help but notice the obvious contradiction -- "it was a bad thing for Africa but it was a good thing for our family.."

Can I also be a little contraversial and point out that the greatest traders in African slaves were the Omani Arabs or Muslims? At one point, the very capital of Omani was Zanzibar! The slave trade on the Eastern coast of African was the longest, running for over 1000 years.

Interestingly enough, bringing an END to the trade in Africa was another "justification" for colonialism.

In East Africa, the British believed that the only way to stop the Omani Arabs at the coast from trading in human lives was to take over control of Kenya and Tanzania.

In Ghana the British attitudes changed when the King of the Asanti (the Asantehene) resisted British colonial authority. The suppression of the slave trade became a justification for the extension of European power. With the humiliation and exile of King Prempeh I in 1896, the Asanti were placed under the authority of the Governor of the Gold Coast and forced therefore to conform to British law and abolish the slave trade.

The history of Africans as it relates to the Arabs and Europeans is such a bait and switch. It was truly a clash of cultures and Africans paid the
ultimate price.

Thanks

Peres Owino



--
Posted By The Imani Foundation to The Conscious Community at 9/19/2011 04:16:00 AM

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