Why Arabs Should Consider Paying Reparations for African Slave Trade

By David Maillu

A while ago I published the following statement on Facebook:
“How many men were castrated by Arabs during the African Slave trade that started in the 7th Century? Do you know what they did to women? Do you know over 10 million Africans were killed in the process? Should Arab countries not do a sympathetic compensation? We have started the campaign for launching the first Commemoration of African Slave Trade & Colonialism. What’s your advice on this?”

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Whereas many people evaded commending on the commemoration issue for imaginary reasons, one particular intellectual, Sam Katila, (who has publicly published that he is a Briton – something earned from his long stay in Britain) replied to my request with a disturbing statement that is a good illustration of how much impact colonial brainwashing has impaired the intellectual community. He did not see the value of the commemoration whatsoever as valuable institution of learning and inspiring people to take the responsibility of shaping their destiny. It is the story of forget the past and move on blind of your history without thinking about the consequences.

Katila wrote:
David, commemoration as an idea is not a bad thing, it is possible, and can be small or grand, depending on interested and who wants to be involved. The slave trade spawned the Diaspora, and as I write – and we discuss – Africans are all over the world as free people, and immigrants, they have established their new countries, and don’t want to come back, and will never come back. If they are independent countries, then slavery is actually history that is being studied in their universities, whether it invokes (contemporary) pathos, with such emotion as to necessitate action is a different thing. Because modernity has changed perception – what do I actually want to say – it has mellowed the sense of cruelty, making it seem as distant even though important as a subject.

We have wealthy ex-slave descendants in the Diaspora – billionaires – why are they not interested to provoke the issue, or initiate commemoration? Why should you be the fugleman, @Maillu, and you are not a slave, and neither were your parents or any of your relatives that you know of despite your historical knowledge? Why should you bother about something that the actual descendants of the affected are not bothered? What am I saying, @David? It’s a noble idea – even on a small scale, but it its gravity cannot make it small, it automatically invites grandeur, now, that involves interested!! There is nothing wrong with you floating it as an idea @David, but it could be the equivalent of Mr Everest to climb. Is the subject important? It depends on the protagonists – the affected people; it is possible – with the passage of time – that interest might have waned, possible. It also possible that it could – and will meet challenges – in this case opposition for multifarious reasons, chiefly from diabolical forces.