Counter-Currents
Africans selling other Africans into slavery, which was an integral component of the transatlantic slave trade.
831 words
The recently completed royal tour of the Caribbean has provoked debates about Britain’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade. Animated by propaganda, such discussions obscure the slave trade’s complexity. Political hustlers are characterizing the slave trade in racial terms to justify divisive ideologies, when in fact the issue is more nuanced. The transatlantic slave trade must be situated within the broader discourse of exploitation.
Throughout history, powerful states have devised strategies to subjugate weaker territories, and the transatlantic slave trade was never different. Racial similarities between conquerors and victims are not a deterrent to exploitation. Although underexamined, European slave trades that entailed the trafficking of whites are equally important in the moral reckoning over historical atrocities. The failure to discuss the Eastern European slave trades and the Swedish slave trade that lasted from the sixth century until the Middle Ages suggests that current discussions are motivated by anti-white animus rather than a desire to correct historical wrongs.
Moreover, the narrative paints an unfortunate picture of African slave traders by depicting them as innocent bystanders who were coopted into the occupation. In their quest to present whites as villains, activists have succeeded in infantilizing blacks by belittling their proclivity for agency. African traders were astute businessmen who compelled Europeans to comply with local trading terms. To maintain trading posts, Europeans had to follow rules stipulated by local leaders.
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For many Africans, the slave trade was such a lucrative endeavor that its collapse was greatly resented. For example, places like Dahomey and Galinhas became major powers as a result of the slave trade, hence downplaying the involvement of blacks in the slave trade by caricaturizing Africans as instruments of Western oppression to reinforce the rhetoric of black victimhood is a disservice to black history.
The decision to abstain from discussing atrocities meted out to whites by their fellow whites perpetuates the harmful stereotype that blacks are less resilient and incapable of overcoming trauma. Indeed, when activists posit that the British should confront the past, they are implicitly admitting the perpetual victimhood of blacks, whose dignity must be restored by white conscience. But falsehoods mature to become a national creed because serious thinkers are afraid to state the obvious: Whites do not owe blacks anything.
The truth is that, except for North Africa in the common era and the ancient empire of Aksum, Africa was always behind most of the world. Clearly, we are not advocating the resurgence of colonialism, but the fact is that Europeans introduced modern medicine, technology, and other institutions to Africa. Niall Ferguson, in his bestselling book Civilization: The West and the Rest, captures colonialism’s revolutionary impact in Africa:
In Senegal . . . colonial rule was associated with a sustained improvement in life expectancy of around ten years, from thirty to forty. Algeria and Tunisia also saw comparable improvements. Better medical care — in particular reduced infant mortality and premature infertility — was the reason why populations in French Africa began to grow so rapidly after 1945. In Indo-China it was the French who constructed 20,000 miles of road and 2,000 of railways, opened coal, tin and zinc mines and established rubber plantations.
Absolutely, nothing is wrong with an impartial assessment of Western colonialism. The distinguished scholar Murray Last can say that the Sokoto Caliphate was beneficial for Nigeria without inviting reproach, yet one cannot highlight colonialism’s obvious benefits and not be smeared with invectives.
In fact, British colonialism tamed the aggression of African powers like the Sokoto Caliphate, Asante, and Benin. If Britain and other European powers had failed at pacifying African empires, then today many in Africa would still be living in slavery or genuflecting to their imperial overlords. Africa prior to colonialism was never a paradise. Furthermore, since living standards in the West are higher than in Africa, the descendants of enslaved Africans are obviously better off than their African peers. This observation is not contending that slavery is beneficial, however, but rather that a brutal system has produced indirect benefits.
Similarly, some may concede that no financial case for reparations can be mounted, yet it isn’t evident that a compelling justification for cultural reparation exists. Western blacks are culturally divorced from Africans, and most would not exchange their comfort in the West for life in Africa. Practices like trial by ordeal, inheritance traditions disfavoring women, and the killing of disabled children seem outrageous to blacks in the West, so we can’t really say that blacks are suffering cultural losses simply because they live in the West. There is no guarantee that they would have appreciated African culture if they had been born there instead.
The crux of the matter is that we cannot undo history, and as such the only sensible alternative is for all the parties involved to move on and desist from projecting current sensibilities onto historical characters. Enabling blacks to perceive themselves as victims will be detrimental to all interests in the long term.
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10 comments
It is strange for me, that many people do not know about AFRICAN traders of AFRICAN slaves. That fact was so good described in Jules Verne´s Un capitaine de quinze ans, where black Angolian king sells the slaves to Portuguese slave-traders.
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I keep pushing the book, They were White and They were Slaves.
Russians were slaves untill 1861.
If you’re White and you feel guilty about anything involving non-Whites, your emotions have been colonized by Jewish propaganda.
Yes. We’re stepping over that.
I look forward to the day we stop the “but look at the good things we did” regarding colonialism, its automatically defensive for something we should have no shame or guilt about. Also fact is they weren’t good, in the long run they have been detrimental to our race, black and yellow people being able to breed multiple nations thanks to our technology is not a positive thing, nor is the descendant of a negro slave becoming rich and famous poisoning white youths mind with their moronic garbage.
As for the anti-White nature of the attacks on colonialism and slavery, its a mixture of ignorance (intentional lack of knowledge), inverted white supremacy thought (White Mans Burden of civilizing force becomes White Mans Curse of destructive force, in both the white race is central to world history) and ressentiment (all peoples engaged in slavery, colonialism, exploitation, yet we were the ones to be worldly supreme and to use those conquests to enrich ourselves, our nations, our cultures best i.e. we never wasted all the profit on meaningless jewellery like a black rapper and african prince).
“… all peoples engaged in slavery, colonialism, exploitation, yet we were the ones to be worldly supreme and to use those conquests to enrich ourselves, our nations, our cultures best i.e. we never wasted all the profit on meaningless jewellery like a black rapper and african prince.”
Great point!
And, we got a conscience about it which has, of course, been taken for weakness and exploited ever since.
Hey, Whitey! we can learn a lot from the Mongolians.
Great statue, I like it very much. True, the Khalkha learned that they were Mongols, and that Çingiz Kagan was their ancestor, only from Russian scientists at the end of the nineteenth century. And the fact that Çingiz Kagan and all his associates bear Türkic names and Türkic titles does not interfere with the Mongols either. They are proud of the great ancestor, although he is not quite “theirs”. Interesting, that Kalmuks have errected a statue of Çingiz too, much smaller, of course, in Kalmykia. The Russians were not particularly pleased, and tried to force the Kalmuks to remove the statue, but they said that the statue was installed privately and on private land, and it was not up to the Russians to decide who the Kalmuks should honor and who not. I am not sure, that Kalmuks/Oyrats/Jungars could correctly claim, that Çingiz was “their”, but this does not matter either.
Well, nothing special, the Russians are also proud of the princes “Rurikovichi” as supposedly their ancestors, and this despite the fact that these pirates simply traded the ancestors of Russians, selling them into slavery throughout Europe and the entire Mediterranean.
Here’s the proper answer to the demand for reparations for slavery:
“NO!”
“No, you do not get reparations. No, you do not get affirmative action. No, you do not get two national holidays. No, you can not pillage a city because one of your thugs was offed by a cop. What part of ‘NO!’ do you not understand?”
It is a basic principle of psychological warfare (aka info ops or whatever they call agitprop these days) that you have to maintain the initiative. The moment you stop to answer the enemy’s attacks, you are finis.
Consider a standard normie responses to the demand for reparations:
“My family never owned slaves, so why should I have to pay?”
But what if your neighbor’s family did own slaves? Should they be thrown to the wolves?
Of course, the race hustlers have a party line on this sort of thing: “You as a White person are still benefiting from the terrible legacy of slavery by having more wealth, better schools and a cozy relationship with law enforcement. So pay up, YT!”
Guess what? If reparations for slavery are enacted, then the following year it will be reparations for segregation, then for redlining, then for micro-aggressions. The shakedowns will not stop until this country is either bankrupted or the reaction sets in … and then it’s a new civil war. Let us not forget that White people still outnumber and out-IQ Africans-in-America.
A better response is, “There is no case for reparations in the first place. Slavery was legal in the USA until the Thirteenth Amendment (1865). By demanding reparations, you are violating the Ex Post Facto provision of the US Constitution (ArtI.S9.C3.2). Reparations are just another racket in a long history of race hustles. So ‘NO!’ to reparations.”
But being legalistic is not enough, not in a contest of political wills.
Ultimately, White advocates will have to take the psychological offensive. This means demanding reparations from Africans for all the mayhem they have caused since 1865: the mass criminal violence, the summer rioting festivals, the sinkholes of the welfare state, the destruction of cities like Detroit, the trashing of American history.
And yes, this can get unpleasant. But White people did not start this fracas. They can, however, finish it. And they can start by saying “NO!”
Something to think about in the continuing chaos…
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