Monday, March 26, 2007

Slave trade winds only go in one direction

Maybe it’s me, but in all the various newspaper reports I read last week and on the weekend which attempted to examine and celebrate the 200th year anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade there was one notable glaring omission. And quite frankly, no one ever wants to discuss it, which is the Arab role in facilitating the international slave trade.

It might not be as much fun as beating up on the Europeans, but if we gave it the weight it deserves, the events in Dafur might be given an entirely new perspective. Of course, it might cause also cause us to examine the not only the Arab role in the past but in the modern day slave trade.

But the sanest words I found on this subject were spoken by the Nevis Minister of Culture, who said, "We need to look at what happened and see the positive things that came out of the eventual abolition of slavery and what has transpired since that with our own development.''

The Last Amazon concurs wholeheartedly and is eternally grateful that she is not living in Ghana, West Africa.

4 comments:

Michael said...

...but if we gave it the weight it deserves, the events in Dafur might be given an entirely new perspective. Of course, it might cause also cause us to examine the not only the Arab role in the past but in the modern day slave trade.

A very good point. It's not often talked about, but the Royal Navy was stopping Arab slave-ships as recently as the late 1950's.

K. Shoshana said...

Exactly.

K. Shoshana said...

Actually, I do but then again I am a Thatcherite Conservative aka leftie talk for crazy right winger.

The Tiger said...

For what it's worth, I think that the PM and his parliamentary secretary had some worthwhile things to say about it...