The question of slavery in Africa

Recent news reports in the western media and throughout the world have focused on the ongoing problem of so-called slavery in Africa. The latest news reported was about a slave ship leaving the country of Benin and sailing up and down the west coast of Africa. In the final analysis, it was discovered that it was not 250 children on the ship, but a shipload of 40 children. Time magazine did a double-fold spread on this drama. Quite naturally, as news like this is read and seen on the news, it brings great pain to Africans in the Diaspora. For descendants of the barbaric trans-Atlantic slave trade, it is doubly painful.

There are the ongoing news reports of slavery in the Sudan circulating, alleging that Muslim militants, backed by the government of Sudan, are enslaving Black Christians and animists in the southern region of Sudan.

In the last few years, the Animists have been added to the equation. When the stories first broke, they said Muslims were enslaving Christians. However, when the realization surfaced that there were more Animists than Christians in the southern Sudan, they were added to the news stories. The Animists, being of the African traditionalist faith, are also pitted against the Christians, as are the Muslims.

The recent trips to the Sudan to engage in publicly redeeming or buying Black slaves from so-called Arab slave traders is something that we must look at carefully and not be swayed in our rush to judgment.

Before Rev. Al Sharpton left for his trip to the Sudan, Minister Louis Farrakhan asked me to say two things in consulting with Reverend Sharpton. Min. Farrakhan gave me the verse from the Holy Qur�an that says: "When an unrighteous man brings you news, look carefully into it�lest you harm a people in error and be sorry for what you have done." In addition, he said, "When you go into a man�s house, try to go into the front door and not the back door."

Unfortunately, circumstances did not permit me to give these words to Rev. Sharpton. However, I must give credit to Rev. Sharpton on his trip to the Sudan. Although he did go in through the back door, crossing the border from Kenya into the SPLA (Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army) controlled area, he would not allow himself to be engaged in the so-called public act of buying slaves back. This is a big fraud perpetrated by entities that seek to pit Christians against Muslims. By exploiting a war and its prisoners, they are attempting to hurt the relationship that Muslims and Christians have developed throughout the world.

All one has to do is consider this point: If the slave traders are holding 100 slaves and are in the SPLA region asking for money to free them, why don�t the armed SPLA fighters just shoot the so-called slave traders and liberate their people.

The history of the Sudan is a complex and long history of British rule, whose style has consistently been one of divide and conquer. The northern Sudan was cut off from southern Sudan and functioned much like apartheid. When the British freed the Sudan from their rule, instead of annexing the Sudan onto Uganda, they made the southern Sudan a part of the Sudan.

The Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is a bridge country. The Sudan touches eight other African countries. With its newly-found, tremendous oilfields, as well as its large gold reserves, it has become the prize of the western world for economic reasons. This is why certain entities in Europe and America want to exercise control over The Sudan.

I have written on this issue many times. And I have stated again and again, that the 15-year-old civil war and the suffering in The Sudan would cease overnight if America, Europe and Israel would stop giving weapons and material to John Garang. This would force him to the peace table. The countries that they have used as surrogate countries to pass war supplies and weapons to the SPLA are countries that are suffering right now because of this. One can ascertain why God has not blessed these countries in recent years, especially since they have allowed themselves to be used in a war that has taken over 2 million lives and has caused untold suffering. These countries are Eritrea, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia.

We should not and cannot allow people with different agendas to use the Black community in America in order to fuel their agenda, namely the American Anti-Slavery Group and Christian Solidarity International. The American Anti-Slavery Group, headed by Dr. Charles Jacobs, has an agenda with his continuous attack on the Sudan. Doesn�t it seem logical that if he is running an anti-slavery group that he should be concerned with slavery all over the world, not just in the Sudan? In addition, Christian Solidarity International has an agenda. Their agenda is to attack Islam on the African continent because they feel that Islam is in competition with Christianity.

Michael Jackson has recently announced that he will travel to the Sudan to free some slave children. This will become a celebrity media show where well known celebrities will come to give money for a picture to showing him or her freeing a slave. If they feel that they want to help in The Sudan, they should go in the front door and get both sides of the story before they make statements referring to the government of Sudan as backing and sanctioning the enslavement of Black Christians and Animists.

There is a war going on in the Sudan. And in wartime, prisoners are captured as in the war of Vietnam. Prisoners are traded for the goods that are needed by one side or the other. I have not heard or read in one western newspaper that the Lords Resistance Army (a fundamentalist Christians fighting force in Uganda) is enslaving child soldiers or individuals from villages in their struggle to make Uganda a fundamentalist Christian state. They use the term "kidnapping" young men and forcing them to fight, but they don�t call them slaves. I do not believe that a parent in west Africa or anywhere in Africa who turns their child over to someone who says they will find their child work and education in another country is knowingly selling their children into slavery for $15.

There is a new book written by a Jewish South African titled, "Islam�s Black Slaves," which adds more fuel to this fire about Islam condoning slavery. We should know the difference between commercial human bondage and servitude slavery, which has existed in the world. Commercial human bondage was started with the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It was the most barbaric and inhumane method of handling human beings that the world has ever seen. If one wants to read of the history of slavery in the world, there is a book, titled "Slavery: A World History," by Milton Meltzer. This book takes the history of slavery into ancient times beginning with the Greeks and Romans. Most of their slavery came about through wars, but there is no comparison anywhere in the history of slavery as in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

I recently spoke to a Black female producer for a major news program. This young lady said she disagreed about one of the things she heard from members of the Nation of Islam and that is about a conspiracy in the newsroom. She said it doesn�t have to be a conspiracy. She said those behind the news stories are mainly white men with the same mindset. They project images that would make you think they communicated or talked to each other, but the fact is that they all think alike.