Lessons from Confederate History Month

By Ezrah Aharone:

Next year in April commemorates the 150th anniversary of America’s Civil War. So under the pretext to “encourage tourism” in Virginia, which has over 100 Confederate monuments, GOP Governor Bob McDonnell dusted-off an old proclamation that declares April as “Confederate History Month.” Not only did he revive it, he removed a clause stating “that slavery was one of the causes” of the war.

President Obama called this “an unacceptable omission,” while members of Virginia’s Legislative Black Caucus said the document was “offensive, one-sided, and a revision of history.” GOP Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who declared April as “Confederate Heritage Month” in a similar proclamation which also excluded slavery, said all the fuss “doesn’t amount to diddly.” But McDonnell apologized and amended Virginia’s proclamation to include and condemn slavery.

The real problem here however, supercedes the omissions and one-sidedness of any single proclamation, including Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. American history is largely promoted with slanted, bravado narratives of nationalism, whereby the means are always vindicated by glorifications of the end. And when it comes to the historiography of slavery, a taboo-blame of racism is transferred upon African Americans who veer from sugarcoated viewpoints.

As such, Americans are made to think that the Civil War was fought to end the Confederate immoralities of slavery. But based on unquestioned racism that lasted well into the 1960s, it’s illogical that millions of Whites would actually fight and slaughter 624,000 of themselves over the rights of Blacks way back in the 1860s. If the Emancipation Proclamation was really predicated upon America’s “goodness of democracy,” why would Democrats and Republicans turnaround and willfully legislate a full century of segregation after so much self-bloodshed?

On the surface, this outlook certainly qualifies for a transferred taboo-blame of racism. But to lend historical validation, consider a quote from President Obama himself. As then-senator, he commented to Time Magazine (June 25, 2005) that: “I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a Military Document than a clarion call for justice.”

Speaking of “omissions and one-sidedness” in proclamations . . . Instead of mandating a unilateral “Military Document” (signed only by him and his Secretary of State), Lincoln and representatives of our forbearers should have jointly agreed and formally signed a binding “Bilateral Accord” that satisfied the ideals and demands of the 4 million “Emancipated” people in question. That would have been the honorable, non-racist, democratic thing for any offending government to do after nearly 250 years of enslavement.

What’s lasting and telling about this affront and disingenuous nature of the Emancipation Proclamation, is the unspoken but undeniable lack of affinity and familiarity that African Americans hold towards it today. Although it presumably represents our long-awaited “triumph over slavery,” it’s hard to find a Black person who can recite a complete phrase from it. Simply ask around and you’ll find proof yourself.

The unedited truth is that Lincoln ended slavery in the Confederacy for the same reason it was instituted – to make capitalism more functional. By the 1860s the Industrial Revolution was in gear. Northern industrial businesses would outperform Southern agrarian businesses, making it necessary to restructure labor, commerce, and capital investments. Paying low wages to Black industrial laborers therefore made better economic sense and great social policy for a more civilized face of government.

But since Southern states stood to lose billions in property (enslaved) assets and wealth, the Confederates sought secession and war became an unavoidable consequence of this industrial shift. While a Confederate victory would have definitely prolonged slavery, this should not be politically misconstrued into the notion that Lincoln’s fight against secession was thereby a fight for the justice of abolition.

To believe that the principal of the Civil War was to “free” Africans from the Confederates is as inaccurate as thinking the current war in Afghanistan is being fought to free Afghans from the Taliban. Although Afghans may eventually be liberated from Taliban influences as a by-product of the war, the underlying purpose and politics of the conflict are immensely more far-reaching. And likewise were the driving circumstances between the Civil War and the by-product of Emancipation.

But since the facts of American history are slanted with narratives to glorify American democracy, the Civil War is framed to unduly credit and equate the Union with noble motives. So it’s acceptable to place taboo-blames of racism on supporters of Confederate History Month, since Confederates resided on the opposite side of the war. Yet, the prevailing mischaracterizations surrounding Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, now cause African Americans to reside on the opposite side of the truth.

Ezrah Aharone is the author of two political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@theCSA.org. 

Mauritania-case study in Borderlands relations

BF BANKIE:

Location: Northwest Africa, latitude 25⁰ & 15⁰, longitude 17⁰ & 7⁰. Bordered by Senegal to the south, Mali to the east, eastern Algeria to the north, West Sahara to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.

Main geographic features: The country occupies an area of 1,037,000 sq. km, of which 80 per cent is arid and 20 per cent semi-arid. It consists of a plateau, of which the highest point in 915m, and the Adrar Mountains in the north. Mauritania has 700km of Atlantic Coastline and 800 km of shoreline along the Senegal River.

Population: Estimated to be 2 million in 1988.

Ethnic division: Black Africans and Arab-Berbers.

National languages: Hassaniya (Arabic dialect). Pulaar (Fulani), Soninke, Wolof, Bambara and Imraguen.

Official language: Arabic, and as administrative language French.

Religion: 100 per cent Muslim of the Malekite Rite.

Date of Independence: November 28, 1960 from France.

Capital: Nouakchott.

Currency: Ouguia Mauritanie (UM)

Political System: At different times - one-party rule and military rule, plus contested multi-party system. Currently governed by a military junta.

Economy: Agriculture, livestock, fishing and iron-ore.

Literacy rate: 17 per cent.

Main problems: Racial division, slavery, political instability, serious environmental degradation caused by drought and desertification.

The geographical position of Mauritania makes the country a meeting point between Arab and African cultures. The interaction between these two cultures has bred tension within Mauritanian society and thereby generated a political tradition of intolerance and repression in the country.

Historically, Mauritania was inhabited by Black Africans (Diallo, G., 1989). Here was the setting for the most advanced West African civilizations: Ghana and Tekrur (Fulani) from around the 5^th to 12^th century A.D. Whereas the former evolved into the great empires of Mali and Songhay which survived up to the 17^th century, the latter developed into the theocratic Kingdom of Fouta Toro under the leadership of Oumar Tall who led the Fulani struggle against French colonial encroachment during the last decade of the 19^th century. The massive influx of Arabs from the north during the 13^th – 15^th centuries drove settled Black communities south toward the Senegal River, whilst the French colonial encroachment, beginning in the 1850s from the south, had the opposite effect (Gerteiny, 1981). The indigenous population was consequently hemmed in between the two invading forces from the south and north

Since its artificial creation by colonial France in 1960, Mauritania has been a playground for violent ethnic strife, the shameful practices of classical slavery, civilian/military authoritarian rule compounded by serious ecological degradation resulting from prolonged droughts and catastrophic desertification processes.

These four elements seem to have been mutually reinforcing to make Mauritania one of the least politically stable, most underdeveloped and heavily indebted countries among the least developed nations of the Third World. The arbitrary creation of Mauritania by the forcing together of two ethnically distinct and historically antagonistic communities makes any attempt to build a sense of nationhood and national identity a daunting task. This has been exacerbated by an obsessive determination on the part of the Arabs not to share political power with their Black co-citizens. The decolonization formula, as in Sudan, was that power was given to an Arabised minority to hold in check the Black majority. As in Sudan, such a prescription was a formula for tension and conflict. Mauritania and Sudan maintain close relations, based on mutual interests.

Mauritania is comparable with Sudan in that there have been bloody ethno-racial wars between the indigenous Black Africans on the one hand and the immigrating Arabs on the other. The Arabs began to arrive into both countries from the north following the emergence and triumph of Islam in the Middle East from the early 7^th century onward. The immigrants have been pressuring the original populations towards the south since that time. This has resulted in chronic north-south ethnic conflicts for political power and economic control within both nations. The Arabs have false assumptions of the superiority of their culture over that of the local, believing that there exists a culture vacuum, waiting to be filled by Islam/Arabization. This has been manifested by the forced Islamisation and Arabisation campaigns orchestrated by successive Arab regimes. As in the case of South Africa and Zimbabwe, the colonial powers left authority firmly in the hands of settlers in both Mauritania and Sudan.

Mauritania and South Africa/Namibia are similar in that:-

• The color divide between the Whites and Blacks is clear in both places.

The Arabs in Mauritania call themselves Beydane (Arabic for white) as

the Boers referred to themselves as Blanke.

• As the Boers claimed historical anteriority in South Africa/Namibia, so the

Arabs claim that they were the first inhabitants and the only true citizens

of Mauritania.

• In both places the settlers used ruthless methods to gain territorial control through the forced displacement of the natives. Native territories are welcome as integral parts of the nations but the inhabitants of these territories are labeled foreigners.

• The Bantu Education Act of 1953 in South Africa and Arabisation Acts Nos. 65-025 & 65-026 of 1966 were introduced in order to secure cultural hegemony through the education of docile Black servants.

• Land Act No. 27 of 1953 in South Africa and Land Act No. 83.127 of 1983 in Mauritania were adopted to give settlers access to and control over the most productive parts of the native lands.

• Banning and confining Blacks to remote villages is a method used by both regimes, and

• Divide and rule policies are central in the maintenance of settler hegemony. South Africa/Namibia formed and armed Black vigilante militia whereas Mauritania constituted a Haratin (slave) militia group in 1990 (Africa Confidential, 1989; Amnesty International, 1990, numbering 6,000-8,000; Diallo, 1991b).

Mauritania consists of about two million inhabitants; 32 per cent free Black Africans of

Fulani, Soninke and Wolof ethnic origins, 28 per cent white Moors of Arab-Berber origin and 40 percent Black slaves known as Abid or Haratan, which apporoximates some 800.000 persons. The power nexus in Sudan and Mauritania has many similarities, being held by an Arabised minority. The slaves belong to the White Moors, who have monopolized the government in the country since the French colonial regime transferred political power to them in 1960. The White Moors have no intention or interest in abolishing slavery, because this may incite the slaves into challenging Moorish supremacy. Because of the massive sexual exploitation of female slaves by White male masters, the slave population has increased to become the largest single ethnic group in the country. Even though slavery was officially abolished on paper in 1960, 1966 and in 1980, slavery and the slave trade are still a living reality in Mauritania.

In the cultural clashes between the Moorish regime and free Black Africans, slaves have been used by the regime as a buffer and as death squads against Africans. Slaves have been organized into militia groups, which the authorities in Mauritania have used to massacre and deport Blacks to Senegal and Mali. As in South Africa in the Apartheid days, Black on Black violence is orchestrated. Slaves were recruited as soldiers to fight in the West Sahara War from 1976 to 1979.

Enlightened slaves organized themselves and established an emancipation movement called

‘El Hor’, meaning freedom. El Hor’s aim is the total abolition of slavery and the adoption of effective and concrete measures to assist slaves to become economically independent. El Hor was able to sensitize international opinion as to the existence of slavery in the country. In order to prevent a slave rebellion in the country, on the 5^th July 1980 slavery was abolished and Islamic Sharia law imposed. By virtue of Sharia law masters have a right to compensation for setting their slaves free. However nothing was done to free the slaves in any meaningful sense of the word. The slave masters are the same white Moors who control the state machinery. Emancipation was aborted. In the Mauritanian slave system masters own slave families through generations, as chattels. The Master’s right comes from God and he has the right to sleep with any of the female members of the slave families he owns. The slave cannot go to the Mosque if the master needs him. If the slave tries to escape he will be tortured. If the master takes his slave to, say, Dakar, Senegal or Bamako, Mali, the slave relationship subsists in Dakar or in Bamako. The author recalls, in his youth, in Banjul, Gambia going to shops owned by Mauritanians, the equivalent of Portuguese shops in Namibia, and seeing Black Mauritanians doing the lifting and carrying, overseen by their White Moorish slave owning masters.

The question is asked, why is the international community largely silent about slavery in Mauritania ? According to the Mauritanian, Garba Diallo, this is due to :-

• ‘ There is little inter-African communication on cultural or political issues. Otherwise, Africans would have realized that the slaveholders consider all Blacks to be either tamed or potential slaves. African complicity/silence in the OAU/AU has been purchased by Arabs, at the expense of those Africans living in the Afro-Arab Borderlands.

• This problem is a part of the Afro-Arab cultural divide, which ranges from the Sudan on the Red Sea to Mauritania on the Atlantic Coast. This conflict zone has racial origins which have been evident for more than a thousand years. Both African and Arab leaders prefer not to talk about this humiliating and deadly north-south conflict within the south, because this would suggest a lack of solidarity within the Third World. The traditional ‘imperialist North versus exploited poor South’ attitude in international relations could not be sustained.

• The legacy of trans-Atlantic slavery has left a collective and eternal guilt in the European mind, which makes it difficult for European nations to take a moral stand on condemning Arab slavery in Mauritania.

• Most European writers who have been to Mauritania belong to the romantics who worship the magic of the desert and its rough and violent social order. This love for the desert and its feudal system helps to preserve the evil system in its racist form ’.

B.F.Bankie, former Researcher at the Kush Institution, Juba, South Sudan.

Spanish parliament admit to discus on apologize Black slavery

Federación Panafricanista

The Partido Popular (PP) is preparing a non-legislative proposal (PNL) with the intention that Spain "is solidarity and recognize the rights of blacks in history," the spokesman explained yesterday Foreign PP, Gustavo de Arístegui. With the proposal, seeking a formula to recognize the historical grievances of black communities in Africa and America for slavery. " Izquierda Unida (Comunist) in the mouth of the federal secretary of Solidarity and Human Rights, Fran Pérez, labeled the initiative "opportunist", after the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama. "The PP has a ality Bush and the new position of the party now wants to close because of the Democrats in power," he added. While sharing the general line of the proposal, believes that there should also be an international financial compensation. For its part, the socialist group in Congress refused to make assessments until the present popular NLP.

Fringes Outstanding

MP says people who have had "more than a dozen meetings with the black community to prepare the report. However, fringes are still pending before giving the nod to the text. There is no official estimate on the number of descendants of Africans in the country, The government rejected the compensation, but accepted a formal apology for slavery, which do not pose the PSOE (socilademocrat in government). The black community for the initiative is very courageous, but if anything will not include an apology for the years of slavery. Without this minimum, the proposal does not make sense, "claimed. Assure that political parties can not apologize" for what they did previous generations. " we are studying the precedents that exist, however, it is still early to define the main lines that have the text, whose wording is responsible member of the PP by Sevilla Luis González Adolfo Rodriguez Platform repair and non-violence, Pan-African federation, Foundation Group ecologico life .

DIVIDE AND RULE

The SEGIB are using some Negroes group and so called educated people to made a simulacro of Durban reweu conference .This conference stablist that Spain is not responsible of racist post World Conference Against Racism (CMCR) in Durban in 2001 in the same day Durban reweu take place in Geneva Suiza . But the reality is that Spain didn't implementad any Durban recommendation. Other way this group are using conceptual separation what they call afrodescendientes from Africans as two different categories (Jenny de la Torre and Gillermo Ponce).This is the reason that Black Spanish leaders who born in Africa was excluded from the official delegation in last Panama SEGIB Afro conference (even thous who wanted to pay they own hotel and tiket ) . If we are Pan-Africanist this is a very dangerous reactionary position. They say that the victory of Obama is the demonstration that we must stop fighting because our situation will change just with PHD and glamorous hypocrite manner and separate from tha masses of African people who suffer racist everyday of their life .This divide the struggle for reparation in "elite " and Field Negro. Epsy Campbell is member of SEGIB and official Spanish advice government on Black people and when she was here in Madrid we try to talk with her but she didn't has time to meet has. We invite her husband to press conference with the occasions of the Verene Shephard conference Colombus day .He spoke with the Spanish media and he said that he is not militant and even he is not envolved en this"kind of things", but he traveled to Spain in the official delegation with her wife because black people demand responds and we made symposium, rallies and other protest. Recently the Spanish government created the organ antidiscriminador against racism and deliberately excluded the Black Community with the silence of Epsy Campbell that advises the Spanish government on Durban and Ignacio Sola Blackman and deputy director of Ministry of equality of Spain.

On the next March 21th the spanish parliament will make declaration on apoligez us , perhaps they dont will use the term apology because mean money but they will say something that wil afect the 151 million of africans who speak spanish . As Scientific Chairman of The commission we want to thank for the great advice from Esther Ekwa, prof Verene Sephard, Yonas Endrias, Prof. Hourance Campbell, Akinyele Umoja, Runoko Rashidi, Jorge Medina, KWASI Akyeampong, Omali Yeshitela and NCOBRA, and remember brother Tcham Bissa a Field Nigger who came from Bissau and died fighting for this cause. After Obama the coronation spanish goverment is promoting some black faces (and that's very good) but the first thing they do is condemn reparation as a racist and activists who make it possible. So garveyist reparation movement in Spain we still need your advice and suport .

Abuy Nfubea
Spanish offical Committee for the drafting of the Draft no Law Project for condemnation African slavery and HISTORIC RECOGNITION OF BLACK COMMUNITY IN SPAIN