English Al Jazeera are running a season of reports on slavery 'A 21st century Evil'. The reporting is by Rageh Omaar, I wonder if he will find the time and space to put the slave trade into context by mentioning the Arab traders that ran much of the African end of the slave trade from the 16th to the 19th centuries. I wonder if he will also find the space to mention the white slave trade as practiced by Arab slave traders from before the 8th century.
Will Rageh Omaar also explain for context that whilst slavery was outlawed in the western world from the start of the 19th century and across much of the rest of the world over the next century, the Muslim world only officially abolished slavery much later, for example Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 1962 and the United Arab Emirates in 1963. This inconvenient truth seems to be something that western self-hating liberals often ignore as they castigate the west for its part in the slave trade and cal for reparations to be paid to the victims of the slave trade.
Will Rageh Omaar also explain for context that whilst slavery was outlawed in the western world from the start of the 19th century and across much of the rest of the world over the next century, the Muslim world only officially abolished slavery much later, for example Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 1962 and the United Arab Emirates in 1963. This inconvenient truth seems to be something that western self-hating liberals often ignore as they castigate the west for its part in the slave trade and cal for reparations to be paid to the victims of the slave trade.
West Africa still had slaves, to which the white overseers turned a blind eye, as late as 1895. And these were African tribe-to-tribe slaves, not ones for export to the Americas.
ReplyDeleteSee, "Travels in West Africa", by Mary Kingley for many instances.
Mauritania only legally abolished slavery in the 1970s, but, of course, it is still common there.
ReplyDeleteThe problem now is "black on black" slavery in Africa.
Maybe Obama can tackle that one.