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Well, maybe it’s just me, but I keep saying it. This issue of slavery is going to be a big can of worms for us black people. Only two conclusions can be drawn from slavery - either our ancestors wanted to be slaves or they didn’t. There is no third way. Sadly for us black people; either way is saying, quite strongly, that we were not very bright sparks.
Lets look at the possibility that we wanted to be slaves. While it is the most favourite argument to claim that Europeans forced us into slavery, most of us don’t know (or don’t want to know) that many of us were sold into slavery by our own black brothers. Even before the Europeans came, slavery was a well-established institution in Africa. When the Portuguese wanted slaves from Africa, they were offered them by Benin in the form of a trade treaty that was freely negotiated by both sides in the 16th century.
The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo imported European arms and paid for those arms with black slaves in the 17th century. Even as late as the 20th century, Ethiopia, under the “benevolence” of Emperor Selassie was a slave exporter (to the East, however). Clearly, the claim then it was only the Europeans who were forcing blacks into slavery is false.
Now, what does this willing participation in slavery says about us as a people? Clearly, it is saying that we don’t have much when it comes to common sense and even less when it comes to foresight. We could not see what was coming - the removal of our best asset - our young people. We did not have the foresight to see that this depopulation would be disastrous for us in the future and of course, we didn’t give a damn about the suffering we were putting our black brothers through. Why - when we were being paid what seemed like a lot? Our lack of foresight then, to me, is clear evidence that intellectually, we were not the equals of the Europeans.
What about the possibility that we did not want to be slaves? Well, while most of us think that it was a more aggressive European culture or superior arms that caused us become slaves, I for one don’t buy that crap. While the Europeans were able to subdue Africa and much of the world on account of their superior technology, such superior technology could have only come about by superior intellect.
So we did not want to become slaves. According to some - we fought and resisted but in the end we were overpowered. What else but superior intellect could have caused the Europeans to achieve their “evil” ends? What else but an inferior intellect could have caused us black people to end up the losers? In any war, there will be winners and losers. Ultimately, the side that has the stronger intellectual capacity MUST win. Superior organization, command and control, communication and perhaps most importantly technology all stem from one thing - superior intellect. Inferior intellect will just not cut it.
Every time we bawl about our ancestors being forced by Europeans into slavery what we are really doing is admitting that we were intellectually inferior.
Also, let us not fool ourselves - today is not much different. Notice that while our political leaders continue to waste time with this reparations nonsense, they don’t even begin to have any appreciation of how to make our societies economically, scientifically and technologically strong and competitive? No debate there! Could it be that they have looked at us black Jamaicans and see nothing but athletes, entertainers and doomsday pastors?
Don’t you see that this debate in parliament is itself an admission by our leaders that Jamaica can never be a great country because we don’t have the intellectual capacity for it? How can we get $55 billion dollars? We don’t have the brains to earn it, so we have to beg for it under the guise of reparations! And we call this brilliance!
I really hope that, like a lot of other activities that are begun in Parliament, this debate on Slavery will soon come to a natural death and be forgotten by Jamaicans. We claim that we want the world to watch us play cricket - lets not give the world something to laugh at too.
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