By Ali Mazrui

Prof. Ali Mazrui
In January 1808, the US Congress abolished the slave trade. The British had abolished it the previous year. What neither legislature has done 200 years later is pass legislation to compensate Blacks for hundreds of years of enslavement and degradation.

Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court ruled that apartheid victims could sue multinational corporations that facilitated violation of their human rights.

Is this a new chapter in Black emancipation process?

While the abolitionist movement in the 18th and 19th centuries was mainly inspired by benevolent changes in the Western world, the new reparationist movement in the 20th and 21st centuries has been inspired by malevolent continuities in the Black world.

The benevolent changes that favoured the abolitionist movement were partly technological and partly socio-normative. Innovations like the cotton gin made slave labour superfluous to capitalism. The abolitionist movement found a more responsive political establishment as slave-labour became technologically more anachronistic.

Additionally, Western values were getting more liberalised in other areas such as the extension of the franchise to the working classes in the 19th Century, and the beginnings of agitations for women’s rights. More efficient technology and more liberal ideology converged to boost the abolitionist movement in Europe and the Americas.

These were the benevolent changes in the West whose cumulative impact favoured the abolition of slave trade and subsequently slavery itself. Even the political emancipation of Roman Catholics in Britain was a cause that William Wilberforce championed a decade prior to conversion to the more drastic cause of seeking abolition of slave trade and slavery.

But the consequences of enslavement and colonisation are not merely research topics for scholars. They are also the genesis of horrendous civil wars and normative collapse in contemporary places like Liberia, Angola, and even Somalia. Such are the malevolent continuities of colonialism.

The consequences of enslavement and colonisation are not merely themes for plenary sessions at African Studies conventions; they are subjects of malfunctioning post-colonial economies in Africa, and the distorted socio-economic relations in the African Diaspora. These are the malevolent continuities of both colonialism and racism.

The inspiration behind the on-going reparations movement was not from change but continuity. It was from the persistent deprivation and anguish in the Black world arising out of the legacies of slavery and colonialism. The consequences of enslavement and colonisation are not chapters in history books; they are pangs of pain in the poorer parts of Harlem, Washington, DC, and the anti-Black police batons in the streets of Detroit, Rio de Janeiro, London, and Paris. These are some of the malevolent continuities of racism.

The consequences of enslavement and colonisation are not dusty documents in historical archives, but the figures of Black infant mortality in Haiti, Washington DC, and Uganda. Here once more are the malevolent continuities of racism.

While the most historically visible heroes of the abolitionist movement were disproportionately White, the emerging visible heroes of the reparationist movement are overwhelmingly Black.

White historically visible abolitionists in Great Britain included William Wilberforce (1759-1833). The historically visible abolitionists in the US included the martyred John Brown (1800-1859) and, in a special sense of abolitionism, martyred Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). William Lloyd Garrison (1833-1870) founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, was for a while among the best known American abolitionists.

This is quite apart from Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851), arguably the most important female abolitionist influence in the early history of the movement in the United States, alongside Lydia Maria Child.

There were of course also Black abolitionists including such towering and brilliant activists as Frederick Douglass (1817-1895). But by the very nature of the power-structure of the period, Black abolitionists had less influence on their own than did either slave rebellions, on one side, or white abolitionists, on the other.

Wing of Black global opinion

Black slave rebellions sought to challenge the power of the slave system; white abolitionists sought to challenge the legitimacy of the slave system. Black abolitionists attempted to be allies of both, but they were weaker than either. Yet, even in their lonely isolation, Black abolitionists displayed remarkable courage and heroism.

While the older abolitionist movement was disproportionately led by liberal members of the Western Establishment, contemporary reparationist movement has been disproportionately advanced and steered by the nationalist wing of Black global opinion.

While 2004 marked the 200th anniversary of the Haitian revolution, 2004 also marked the 100th anniversary of the Maji Maji war against the Germans in Tanganyika. The Maji Maji war was inspired by an East African version of voodoo.

The warrior’s immersion into water was supposed to provide a magical shield against German bullets. Those beliefs were successful in mobilising the masses with next to no training or organization. In reality the African warriors’ baptism was no match for German bullets.

The Maji Maji war lasted from 1904 to 1906, a much shorter period than the Haitian wars. The Maji Maji war was brutally suppressed by the Germans. In the short run, the Haitian revolution had a happier outcome.

In addition to marking both 200th anniversary of the Haitian revolution and the 100th anniversary of the Maji Maji war, the year 2004 also marked approximately the 50th anniversary of the Mau Mau war against the British in Kenya.

The Mau Mau, like Maji Maji, also invoked a version of East African voodoo. But Mau Mau, unlike Maji Maji, did not emphasise the protective qualities of baptism by water. It invoked ritual use of menstrual blood and worked out elaborate oaths of allegiance for warriors stripped naked for the ceremonies. The warriors fought bravely in spite of the military odds.

Unlike Maji Maji, the Mau Mau did defeat the British politically though not militarily. The Mau Mau warriors fought from 1952 to about 1960. They convinced the British that it was time to pull out of Kenya as an imperial power. The British colonial exit occurred in 1963.

Some Blacks reformers believe that those companies that benefited from Apartheid should pay a price for it. They are on course.

About The Author(s): Prof. Ali Mazrui is Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture, Kenya. | More Articles By Ali Mazrui |

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