Here is part two of the article. The article comes from www.guerrillafunk.com and was originally done by Morpheus of www.playahata.com.
"Bling, Bling" - The Murder Of Our People, Part 2
By Morpheus, www.playahata.com
"Bling!Bling!" Baby says, his "medallion iced up" and his "Rolex bezelled up!" Jay-Z says she's his baby, drives him crazy and is a girl's best friend. We talkin' diamonds ya'll. Helen, a 20-year-old mother raped and held captive by armed men knows about diamonds. Adamsay, 15, who uses her severed limbs to manipulate a cup knows about them too. They live in Sierra Leone, where real thugs keep the block locked down -- all in the name of ICE.
Sierra Leone went from slave port to a haven for Britain's newly emancipated. A colony until 1961, it looked forward to prosperity in those early years of independence. But as with too much of post-colonial Africa, those dreams were short lived.
Government mismanagement led to rebellion in 1991 by a group calling themselves the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by a former official named Foday Sankoh. Attempts to quell the rebellion caused numerous coups and shifts in government. With the war still raging in 1996, the people finally called for democratic elections. Lawyer Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was declared victor and a peace accord with the rebels was signed.
But the peace deal unraveled. And when disgruntled government soldiers staged a coup, the RUF eagerly supported them to topple Kabbah and form a rogue government the international community refused to recognize.
Visiting Nigeria, RUF leader Foday Sankoh was placed under arrest. And Nigeria, backed by the UN and ECOMOG, fought a punishing war to return Kabbah to power in 1998. Sankoh was given the death penalty, but the RUF carried on nevertheless.
If the RUF were fighting on behalf of the people of Sierra Leone, they certainly neglected to demonstrate it. As if mimicking Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge or the brutally oppressive Belgian Congo, the RUF waged a bloody campaign of terror. They raped, maimed and killed civilians, including children and the elderly, in the tens of thousands.
When the RUF attacked the capitol of Freetown in January of 1999, they initiated "Operation No Living Thing" - raping young girls and women, burning homes and villages, and viciously hacking off the hands of children. At least 10,000 people died in this rebel terror campaign. As one UN official put it, "The RUF have turned Sierra Leone into the worst country in the world to live in?.
So who are these RUF? An extremist faction like the Peruvian Shining Path, with some profound political agenda? Something akin to the fratricidal, Hutu Interahamwe of Rwanda bent on revenge upon ethnic rivals? Or like the Hezballah, do they wage a struggle based on fanatic religious ideologies? No.
The 45,000 member RUF are simply disillusioned young men, some no older than 10, spurred on by older leaders and drug-induced acts of bravado. They come from diverse ethnic groups, practice no particular religion, and espouse no set political agenda or platform.
All that can be said is that their goals are rooted in greed. For it is diamonds that have caused and fed this war of atrocity. The eastern part of Sierra Leone, a RUF stronghold, produces some of the finest gems in the world. Reports say the RUF sells the diamonds through Liberia, who's president Charles Taylor supports them for his own corrupt ends, and receives arms in return. The evidence of this illegal trade is in the numbers: Liberia's own average annual mining capacity is 150,000 carats. But between 1994 and 1998, Liberia exported more than 31 million carats, an average of six million per year.
The RUF was eventually routed by Nigerian troops into the countryside. But pressure from the US and other governments forced President Kabbah to sign a treaty with the RUF. Jesse Jackson himself helped broker the much applauded peace deal which not only gave the RUF blanket amnesty, but ensured their leaders high-ranking government posts. Foday Sankoh went from death row, to the Vice-Presidency.
However, it soon became apparent that this deal was a sham. Only about 4,000 of the RUF disarmed while at least 13,000 government troops did so. UN observers noted that the RUF continued murder, rape and mutilation in Sierra Leone as if the peace deal never happened. In fact only days following Nigeria's withdrawal, the RUF ambushed and took 500 UN peacekeepers hostage. Terrified of the rebels, who's infamous reputation preceded them, the UN force surrendered their weapons, armored personnel carriers and even their uniforms without so much as a fight.
Sierra Leone citizens in Freetown, finally taking matters into their own hands, marched on the home of Sankoh to demand he end hostilities. They were greeted with bodyguards who fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades into the crowd, killing scores. Weeks of humiliation later, the UN hostages were finally released. So what went wrong?
Jesse, the US and foreign nations underestimated the RUF and miserably failed to understand the conflict in Sierra Leone. The RUF may be experts in tactics of guerrilla warfare and terrorism, but they amount in the end to little more than mafia-like thugs. Giving Sankoh and his rebels places in the new government would be akin to the NAACP giving gang members a place on their board. The people of Sierra Leone were betrayed by an international community looking to make deals with the devil. As one Sierra Leonean dryly observed, "they didn't make deals with Milosovic in Bosnia---why here?"
But perhaps there is hope in Sierra Leone's future. The UN, following Nigeria's lead, has taken a tough stance on the RUF. And the peacekeeping mission sent there has restored some semblance of order to the nation. Foday Sankoh was captured and marched through the streets of Freetown to the jubilant cheers of its citizens. A tribunal has been set up to prosecute both Sankoh and the RUF for their reign of terror. And a government diamond certificate is now being put into to place to keep rebel gems from financing this brutal war. And word is the RUF rebels have begun to disarm en masse.
As Nigerian author Chinua Achebe might say, in Sierra Leone things "fell" apart. It will take untold generations to heal the wounds the civil war has caused. The very existence of the RUF illustrates some of Africa's most pressing post-colonial problems: corrupt leaders, the powerful exploiting the powerless, the break-down of traditional African societal values and mores, and a lack of basic order on many fronts. What should be a diamond-rich and prosperous country, is today on the verge of chaos. Modern Sierra Leone is part of the African legacy of colonialism and the seeming inability of western styles of government and post-independence leaders to speak to the needs of their respective countries. The implosion of Sierra Leone is what happens when all of these factors go untreated for too long. It will take a world community and, most of all, the commitment of the people of Sierra Leone to fix it once again.
As I listened to yet another ghetto lyrical fantasy of ICE play out on my radio, I could not help wonder if some artists are dumber than a box of rocks? When a recent high profile rapper was asked about what he thought of Sierra Leone as he bragged about his shiny wrist pieces, he answered dumbfounded -- "Sierra who?" It seems while the rest of the REAL world was concerned with world affairs, these thugz, ballaz and ThOw'd YuNg PlAyAz could have cared less. Yet now I watch em' tripping over each other to get some American patriotic media glory after September 11th. These simps (yeah, I called em' simps) should all be loaded up in a plane and dropped ground zero into Sierra Leone, with all their flashy ICE wrapped around them. Let's see how long they make it.
Courtesy of Morpheus at www.playahata.com.
Dig the video "The Diamond Life" here.
Showing posts with label Black Suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black Suffering. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
"Bling, Bling" - The Murder Of Our People Part 1
I've read this on www.guerrillafunk.com and it's a great article. We need to know more about the bling many of us love to flash in other people's faces at the expense of the poor and suffering that these diamonds are mined from. This is part one of the article. I'll be posting part two soon.
"Bling, Bling" - The Murder Of Our People, Part 1
By Eyecalone, www.playahata.com
I've seen some pretty ignorant and bizarre things in music over the last few years, but of all the things I've witnessed today's "Bling-Bling" syndrome has to be the worst. Sometimes I wonder where the hell this absurd obsession with diamond jewelry came from. I mean flossin' and frontin' have always played a part in rap but this shit is ridiculous! You can't even blame a region because the obsession is everywhere, East, West, South, Midwest, and everywhere between. You've all heard it; the jewelry praises roll off forked tongues from Roc-A-Fella to the Hot-Boyz. Nowadays rappers make songs in tribute to Diamonds ("Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend" - Jay-Z), spend better than 50 thousand dollars on a single piece of jewelry, and then insult their fans (the people who paid for that jewelry) about being broke. Ain't that about a bitch!? The more I think about the more I think that these rappers just must not know any better.
"You know the wrist frost bit, minus two degrees/about as blue as the sea"
I can't help but wonder, what if Jay-Z knew that for more than a century the men controlling the diamond industry have been hardcore racists, some of whom were the founding fathers of Apartheid, and ruthlessly exploited black Africans as well as others. The Dutch, Germans, British, as well as other tribes of Europeans had come to Africa to pull, what today we would call a jack move. Many Europeans had convinced themselves that Africans and other non-whites were inferior people and many of the rest would do so later to justify their immoral actions. From this situation the racial segregation system of Apartheid was born, in South Africa, as well as similar social orders in other parts of Africa.
Cecil Rhodes, for whom Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe) was named essentially started the diamond industry back in the 1880's diamond rush when he "purchased" the farm of Dutch Boer farmers Deiderick Arnoldus & Johannes DeBeers. This farm would eventually turn into one of the largest mines in Africa at the time (DeBeers currently has a mine 3 times the size of New Jersey called the "Forbidden Zone"). Rhodes then went on to "buy" several other mines until he controlled 90% of the world's gemstones. Shortly after that Ernest Oppenheimer made a large discovery of diamonds in "German Southwest Africa", that rivaled the Rhodes mines. Oppenheimer threatened to flood the market with diamonds and drive the price down if Rhodes did not make him chairman of DeBeers (which was Rhodes' Company at the time). Oppenheimer's company had financial investment from British investors and J.P. Morgan so it was called Anglo-American. Today, diamonds are a multi-billion dollar industry and most of them come from Southern African countries, yet black Africans from these countries remain some of the poorest people in the world.
"Every time I come around your city "Bling Bling" - Pinky ring worth about 50 "Bling Bling"
What if the Hot Boyz knew that from those early days up until now, the profits from the diamond industry were and continue to be one of the most important factors in upholding the region's racist policies and white minority rule? The best example is in South Africa. Once diamonds were discovered, the South African government instituted policies designed to force black Africans off their land and into the diamond mines to work in conditions similar to slavery. This was accomplished by the government creating new taxes on virtually everything from land to pets. In order to get money to pay the taxes black Africans had no choice but to work in the mines. For all their moral talk foreign investors, mainly in America and Europe, played a key role in upholding the South African government and economy, and similar ones throughout southern Africa.
During the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, where South African police murdered 67 black anti-apartheid demonstrators in the township of Sharpeville, many foreign companies and investors pulled out their investments (not for moral reasons but out of fear of South African instability) and sold their shares of stock. Anglo-American bought up these shares to uphold the apartheid economy. Another example of foreign support occured in the Congo (formerly Zaire) in the 1950s. In 1959 Patrice Lumumba was elected as Prime Minister of the newly "independent" Congo, a country extremely rich in diamonds as well as other natural resources. Lumumba was very critical of the racist and unequal power and social relations in the Congo as well as the diamond industry's theft of African resources. The Belgian mining company, the American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), and the Belgian government conspired to have him overthrown and murdered. He was then replaced by Mobutu Sese Seko, a figurehead dictator that these foreign powers found more acceptable. Dictator Mobutu was finally overthrown in 1997 and he died of natural causes later that year. Mobutu ruled the Congo for 32 years and it is estimated that through his theft he amassed a personal fortune estimated at 5 to 8 billion dollars (yes that is a supposed to be a 'B' and yes that is 5-8,000,000,000) in addition to the countless billions he misdirected or gave to his cronies.
"I don't like it if it don't gleam-gleam/ and the hell with the price tag cause money ain't a thing"
What if Jermaine Dupri knew about the conditions that miners past and present endured? Even today most people believe that since apartheid technically ended that somehow it's "all good". Nothing could be further from the truth. Black Africans continue to work and live in conditions, that make Chicago's Cabrini Green Projects look like Disney World. For example, in DeBeers' Kimberly mines division in South Africa there are between 1,200 and 1,400 workers. About 1,100 of them are black and live in squatter's camps - tin shacks with no electricity or proper plumbing. Many of these black workers are paid as little as 28 American dollars a month. But white miners and managers live in comfortable homes - oftentimes with black servants! In addition, only white and part white employees with families are provided with family housing. Married black miners are forced to stay in separate facilities from their spouses. If a black, female worker gets pregnant she is required to leave her job for 3 months and return without her child if she wishes to keep her job. White workers are never subject to these policies. If a white miner has a family, they are immediately given family housing.
Just slightly higher up the food chain, in West India (not the West Indies), hundreds of thousands of diamond cutters, many of them children under 13, cut low quality diamonds for inexpensive catalogue jewelry. At times they are required to place more than 50 cuts, the size of pencil tip, on a diamond. They are paid 4 cents per stone and work 12 hour days, 6 days a week. I doubt that comes with any health benefits.
"I Rock Ice (lil daddy) every time I step/ I rock Ice (lil mamma) cause I love to rep"
What if Baby knew that diamonds are not naturally rare? Diamonds are made from carbon under high pressure, and on Earth we live in a carbon based environment. Most of the major diamond producing countries are in Southern Africa, but diamonds are also produced in Sierra Leone, Russia, Australia, and Canada. The diamond industry is more about controlling and restricting what comes out of the ground than the actual mining of diamonds. DeBeers controls approximately 75% of the world's rough (uncut) diamonds through its marketing arm, the Central Selling Organization (CSO). It mines 50% of the world's diamonds in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. The rest are vacuumed up through contracts made with other diamond producers, and by sending their buyers to clean up diamonds that leak onto the market from places like Congo and Angola. Since DeBeers is a foreign based company they are not subject to American monopoly laws, so they artificially keep the price of diamonds high by monopolizing supply. Trying to keep control of the diamond supply has forced DeBeers into business dealings with borderline terrorist organizations and other shady characters, though they deny having dealings with most of these groups.
The lie that diamonds are extremely rare and valuable has been built up since the 1930s. During the 1930s and 1940s DeBeers paid to have diamonds placed favorably in movies. In 1947 DeBeers invented their famous slogan "A Diamond is Forever" which sells 2 dreams: (1) that diamonds bring eternal love and romance, and (2) that diamonds never lose their value. DeBeers spends no less than 200 million a year on marketing diamonds in 34 countries. Today the United States accounts for more than 33% of the worlds diamond jewelry sales. It sells the dream to every new generation of gullible young men and women. They sponsor women's magazines, host celebrity auctions and design competitions, and work to have diamonds placed on TV shows and in movies. As if the 1st gaffle wasn't enough they reinvent the dream for those who have already bought it once. Now they have the "Eternity Ring" - a band of diamonds bought to celebrate the tenth wedding anniversary - being sold using the slogan "Show her you would marry her all over again".
These fantasies are aggressively sold oversees as well. In the 1960's, before DeBeers muscled in, barely 1 in 20 Japanese brides wore a diamond engagement ring. Today, diamond engagement rings are sported by 70% of Japanese brides.
The fact that America's love affair with diamonds is the result of a marketing campaign is pretty bizarre, but even more amazing is that diamonds can be made synthetically. Their manufacture requires some expensive equipment, but if a company has the resources, it can manufacture flawless diamonds in most sizes and colors, even the more expensive pink or yellow shades. In the 1980's General Electric was making these synthetic flawless diamonds though they weren't selling them commercially. When former, GE executive Edward Russell suggested that GE begin selling these diamonds to the public he was promptly fired. Apparently GE's higher ups and the DeBeers thugs had an understanding at the time, although GE claims Mr. Russell was fired due to job performance. I try not to wonder these things when I'm watching music videos or listening to songs on the radio, but I just can't thinking about it. WHAT IF THEY KNEW?! Sadly enough though, I don't think they would even care. And that is the truly scary part!
Courtesy of Eyecalone at www.playahata.com.
Dig the video "The Diamond Life" here.
"Bling, Bling" - The Murder Of Our People, Part 1
By Eyecalone, www.playahata.com
I've seen some pretty ignorant and bizarre things in music over the last few years, but of all the things I've witnessed today's "Bling-Bling" syndrome has to be the worst. Sometimes I wonder where the hell this absurd obsession with diamond jewelry came from. I mean flossin' and frontin' have always played a part in rap but this shit is ridiculous! You can't even blame a region because the obsession is everywhere, East, West, South, Midwest, and everywhere between. You've all heard it; the jewelry praises roll off forked tongues from Roc-A-Fella to the Hot-Boyz. Nowadays rappers make songs in tribute to Diamonds ("Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend" - Jay-Z), spend better than 50 thousand dollars on a single piece of jewelry, and then insult their fans (the people who paid for that jewelry) about being broke. Ain't that about a bitch!? The more I think about the more I think that these rappers just must not know any better.
"You know the wrist frost bit, minus two degrees/about as blue as the sea"
I can't help but wonder, what if Jay-Z knew that for more than a century the men controlling the diamond industry have been hardcore racists, some of whom were the founding fathers of Apartheid, and ruthlessly exploited black Africans as well as others. The Dutch, Germans, British, as well as other tribes of Europeans had come to Africa to pull, what today we would call a jack move. Many Europeans had convinced themselves that Africans and other non-whites were inferior people and many of the rest would do so later to justify their immoral actions. From this situation the racial segregation system of Apartheid was born, in South Africa, as well as similar social orders in other parts of Africa.
Cecil Rhodes, for whom Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe) was named essentially started the diamond industry back in the 1880's diamond rush when he "purchased" the farm of Dutch Boer farmers Deiderick Arnoldus & Johannes DeBeers. This farm would eventually turn into one of the largest mines in Africa at the time (DeBeers currently has a mine 3 times the size of New Jersey called the "Forbidden Zone"). Rhodes then went on to "buy" several other mines until he controlled 90% of the world's gemstones. Shortly after that Ernest Oppenheimer made a large discovery of diamonds in "German Southwest Africa", that rivaled the Rhodes mines. Oppenheimer threatened to flood the market with diamonds and drive the price down if Rhodes did not make him chairman of DeBeers (which was Rhodes' Company at the time). Oppenheimer's company had financial investment from British investors and J.P. Morgan so it was called Anglo-American. Today, diamonds are a multi-billion dollar industry and most of them come from Southern African countries, yet black Africans from these countries remain some of the poorest people in the world.
"Every time I come around your city "Bling Bling" - Pinky ring worth about 50 "Bling Bling"
What if the Hot Boyz knew that from those early days up until now, the profits from the diamond industry were and continue to be one of the most important factors in upholding the region's racist policies and white minority rule? The best example is in South Africa. Once diamonds were discovered, the South African government instituted policies designed to force black Africans off their land and into the diamond mines to work in conditions similar to slavery. This was accomplished by the government creating new taxes on virtually everything from land to pets. In order to get money to pay the taxes black Africans had no choice but to work in the mines. For all their moral talk foreign investors, mainly in America and Europe, played a key role in upholding the South African government and economy, and similar ones throughout southern Africa.
During the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, where South African police murdered 67 black anti-apartheid demonstrators in the township of Sharpeville, many foreign companies and investors pulled out their investments (not for moral reasons but out of fear of South African instability) and sold their shares of stock. Anglo-American bought up these shares to uphold the apartheid economy. Another example of foreign support occured in the Congo (formerly Zaire) in the 1950s. In 1959 Patrice Lumumba was elected as Prime Minister of the newly "independent" Congo, a country extremely rich in diamonds as well as other natural resources. Lumumba was very critical of the racist and unequal power and social relations in the Congo as well as the diamond industry's theft of African resources. The Belgian mining company, the American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), and the Belgian government conspired to have him overthrown and murdered. He was then replaced by Mobutu Sese Seko, a figurehead dictator that these foreign powers found more acceptable. Dictator Mobutu was finally overthrown in 1997 and he died of natural causes later that year. Mobutu ruled the Congo for 32 years and it is estimated that through his theft he amassed a personal fortune estimated at 5 to 8 billion dollars (yes that is a supposed to be a 'B' and yes that is 5-8,000,000,000) in addition to the countless billions he misdirected or gave to his cronies.
"I don't like it if it don't gleam-gleam/ and the hell with the price tag cause money ain't a thing"
What if Jermaine Dupri knew about the conditions that miners past and present endured? Even today most people believe that since apartheid technically ended that somehow it's "all good". Nothing could be further from the truth. Black Africans continue to work and live in conditions, that make Chicago's Cabrini Green Projects look like Disney World. For example, in DeBeers' Kimberly mines division in South Africa there are between 1,200 and 1,400 workers. About 1,100 of them are black and live in squatter's camps - tin shacks with no electricity or proper plumbing. Many of these black workers are paid as little as 28 American dollars a month. But white miners and managers live in comfortable homes - oftentimes with black servants! In addition, only white and part white employees with families are provided with family housing. Married black miners are forced to stay in separate facilities from their spouses. If a black, female worker gets pregnant she is required to leave her job for 3 months and return without her child if she wishes to keep her job. White workers are never subject to these policies. If a white miner has a family, they are immediately given family housing.
Just slightly higher up the food chain, in West India (not the West Indies), hundreds of thousands of diamond cutters, many of them children under 13, cut low quality diamonds for inexpensive catalogue jewelry. At times they are required to place more than 50 cuts, the size of pencil tip, on a diamond. They are paid 4 cents per stone and work 12 hour days, 6 days a week. I doubt that comes with any health benefits.
"I Rock Ice (lil daddy) every time I step/ I rock Ice (lil mamma) cause I love to rep"
What if Baby knew that diamonds are not naturally rare? Diamonds are made from carbon under high pressure, and on Earth we live in a carbon based environment. Most of the major diamond producing countries are in Southern Africa, but diamonds are also produced in Sierra Leone, Russia, Australia, and Canada. The diamond industry is more about controlling and restricting what comes out of the ground than the actual mining of diamonds. DeBeers controls approximately 75% of the world's rough (uncut) diamonds through its marketing arm, the Central Selling Organization (CSO). It mines 50% of the world's diamonds in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. The rest are vacuumed up through contracts made with other diamond producers, and by sending their buyers to clean up diamonds that leak onto the market from places like Congo and Angola. Since DeBeers is a foreign based company they are not subject to American monopoly laws, so they artificially keep the price of diamonds high by monopolizing supply. Trying to keep control of the diamond supply has forced DeBeers into business dealings with borderline terrorist organizations and other shady characters, though they deny having dealings with most of these groups.
The lie that diamonds are extremely rare and valuable has been built up since the 1930s. During the 1930s and 1940s DeBeers paid to have diamonds placed favorably in movies. In 1947 DeBeers invented their famous slogan "A Diamond is Forever" which sells 2 dreams: (1) that diamonds bring eternal love and romance, and (2) that diamonds never lose their value. DeBeers spends no less than 200 million a year on marketing diamonds in 34 countries. Today the United States accounts for more than 33% of the worlds diamond jewelry sales. It sells the dream to every new generation of gullible young men and women. They sponsor women's magazines, host celebrity auctions and design competitions, and work to have diamonds placed on TV shows and in movies. As if the 1st gaffle wasn't enough they reinvent the dream for those who have already bought it once. Now they have the "Eternity Ring" - a band of diamonds bought to celebrate the tenth wedding anniversary - being sold using the slogan "Show her you would marry her all over again".
These fantasies are aggressively sold oversees as well. In the 1960's, before DeBeers muscled in, barely 1 in 20 Japanese brides wore a diamond engagement ring. Today, diamond engagement rings are sported by 70% of Japanese brides.
The fact that America's love affair with diamonds is the result of a marketing campaign is pretty bizarre, but even more amazing is that diamonds can be made synthetically. Their manufacture requires some expensive equipment, but if a company has the resources, it can manufacture flawless diamonds in most sizes and colors, even the more expensive pink or yellow shades. In the 1980's General Electric was making these synthetic flawless diamonds though they weren't selling them commercially. When former, GE executive Edward Russell suggested that GE begin selling these diamonds to the public he was promptly fired. Apparently GE's higher ups and the DeBeers thugs had an understanding at the time, although GE claims Mr. Russell was fired due to job performance. I try not to wonder these things when I'm watching music videos or listening to songs on the radio, but I just can't thinking about it. WHAT IF THEY KNEW?! Sadly enough though, I don't think they would even care. And that is the truly scary part!
Courtesy of Eyecalone at www.playahata.com.
Dig the video "The Diamond Life" here.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Slavery in the 21st Century
Abolished but Not Destroyed: Slavery in the 21st Century
A statement from the delegates of the ecumenical conference "Abolished, but Not Destroyed: Remembering the Slave Trade in the 21st Century" in Runaway Bay, Jamaica; December 2007
The 200th anniversary of the formal abolition of the British Transatlantic Trade in Africans in 2007 is a significant historical marker. We - the delegates from the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Church, and the Council for World Mission - gathered in Jamaica in December 2007 around the commemoration of this anniversary as representatives of the global ecumenical community. Gathered from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, we are people representing churches and grassroots initiatives, and we assembled to analyze, and make recommendations around modern forms of slavery and the continued legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans in the 21st century.
Between the 16th and 19th century, an estimated 15 million enslaved African peoples were forcibly taken from Africa, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean and landed in the Caribbean and the Americas. This horrific voyage was named the Middle Passage; and over these hundreds of years, an additional 40% of enslaved people who left Africa died en route. This Transatlantic Trade in Africans particularly profited England, Portugal, France, Spain, and Holland. An integral component of the European-American world's economy, the Transatlantic Trade in Africans powerfully linked together Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas.
Many churches were actively involved in the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism; hence, the church's mission has been seriously compromised and betrayed by its historic complicity with two of the most blatant forms of oppression that occurred within the 16th to 19th century. Further, the church's pastoral and prophetic roles in the contemporary period are obstructed by its voluntary amnesia about its past corporate sin and silence regarding the past - as well as regarding the present - responsibility to bring justice to those still suffering from the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and cultural imperialism. While there have been some acts of repentance and confessional statements made by some churches, for the most part, those statements have not been effective enough in eradicating White supremacy, systemic racism and the ongoing legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.
We recognize that there were faithful members among churches and in society who worked alongside those who were enslaved, to ameliorate the conditions of enslaved peoples, and who continued the struggle to abolish the slave trade and gain freedom for enslaved peoples. Their witness should inspire us today for renewed action and faithful resistance against exploitative powers.
We also realize, however, that people of White European ancestry, whether they were anti- or pro-slavery, benefited from the entitlements accruing to them by virtue of being White-skinned peoples. For example, in late 1800s, in Brazil and many other colonies, although Black peoples were being emancipated from legal slavery, they were not given land, and had to pay high rent for tools and other resources; at the same time, White European immigrants were given incentives such as land and other resources. Thus, people of White European ancestry who had no direct involvement in the slavery or the slave trade became never-the-less beneficiaries of the enslavement system. Much has been written today about White privilege; this privilege is one of the legacies of the ideology of racial superiority that infused the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.
However, we, the descendants of this legacy of racism, are not without memory, voice, cultural resources, religious resources, and spiritual gifts prerequisite for helping the church address its current predicament. What our memories, voices, cultural expressions, and spiritual groans signify and articulate are the cries of the oppressed. If these cries are heeded by the church, both in its universal and local expressions, it will be better able to participate in the saving of the "oikumene" [1]. If our voices are heard, then, the church might be better able to realize true community in identifying with the oppressed through the cross of Jesus Christ, and the church might be better able to live out an action-reflection model by verily assuming the form of the enslaved.
With this in mind, we name several dimensions of the current struggle, and make recommendations for the future.
Theological Dimensions:
The Bible, as sacred text, is a key source for people of faith. But there are also several sources of theological reflection are embedded in the cultures, communities and individual lives of oppressed people. We believe that as people of faith, we need to recognize that God's creation, God's care, and God's presence encompass all of creation, and that this reality calls people of faith to a theology and engagement that cooperates with people of all religions and spiritualities who work for justice in the world.
We also believe that as people of faith, we need to engage heart, soul, mind, and strength in critically analyzing the historical context of the Bible as well as the text of our cultures, communities, and individual lives. As people of faith, we need to create support systems of teaching and learning for those with hardened hearts who reject the church's culpability and complicity in the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. We believe that churches that were complicit in the slave trade need to name that the Transatlantic Trade in Africans - and other modern forms of slavery - are sin. And, as people of faith, we need to speak a new language which reflects the insights of God with all, and that fosters relationships which express the values of the reign of God, in which the lion and lamb live together.
Prophetic Issues and Action-Reflection Models:
We believe that reparations are essential for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved. Reparations go far beyond a financial figure; rather, reparations are about recognizing the wrong that has been done. It is a process that compels confession, contrition, restoration and reconciliation; it also involves a process or truth-telling that sets rights, makes amends and restores breached relationships. Reparations from both the church and society are needed, and these reparations are both praxis and prophetic - naming the wrongs that have been done is praxis or an action-reflection model; righting the wrongs, is a prophetic action.
The process of reparations requires the restoration of relationships that affirm the dignity and humanity of all parties in order to repair what has been broken. Reparations also challenge the perpetrator to confession and repentance and ministers restoration and healing to those who have been exploited.
The Transatlantic Trade in Africans destroyed the roots of nation building and enriched the oppressors to build its nations and states. Thus, we believe that mere financial aid is no replacement; rather, full nationhood and community restoration of peoples impacted should be the condition of reparations. In today's global context, a lingering effect of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism has been the displacement of millions of people. Thus, reparations and immigration in a global context means dismantling communities of refugees, claiming and reclaiming the rights to movement of people regionally and inter-regionally without insults and suspicions. This includes the millions who are forced off their homelands to those who are internally displaced within their homeland in many places in the world.
We also recognize that oppression continues to operate in India through the caste system, a system whose origin precedes European colonization. The caste system may serve as a model for understanding the effects of slavery and colonialism in Europe and America. The fight, therefore, against racism can be linked to the Dalit struggle against the caste system. This parallel allows people of the African Diaspora and Dalit communities to be in solidarity with one another.
The reality of human trafficking, child labour, child soldiers, enslaved labour in the Amazon, and others, are modern forms of slavery that too need to be addressed. A strong solidarity system needs to be put into place so that concerted social pressure continues to be exerted against those structures which sustain the injustices.
We believe that in considering communities that have been marginalized, it is essential to avoid embracing a hierarchy of oppression, but instead to consider ways in which people's forms of oppression are interrelated; we cannot privilege one form of oppression over another. We need to stop reinventing the wheel of imitating the oppressors, or that of oppressive models. We must create alternative models of deconstructing oppression in relation to caste, race, gender, ethnicity, and other identifiers of marginalization. Enslaved peoples need to break into the entire hegemonic [2] power system, and disrupt it. In order to do this, we need a critical critique of the logic and assumptions, spoken and unspoken, that under gird this entire hegemonic power system. Enslaved peoples will no doubt continue to participate in this work.
We also recognize that all peoples have been impacted by the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. Collectively, therefore, we need to destroy the power and institutional relationships of contemporary beneficiaries[3] of the historic and corporate sin and crimes against humanity. Thus, the descendants of the buyers of the enslaved also need to be actively engaged in this process of deconstruction and reconciliation, and in the process of reparation and the restoration of relationships. We believe that there needs to be a process of mutual education; the need to research more, to write, speak, share and tell our stories.
We maintain that it is essential to kill the root of what is sustaining the power structure. A triangular approach is needed, which includes people from Africa, people in the Diaspora, and the descendants of those who benefited from the institutional relationships of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. Among those who have benefited, includes the structures and assets of many churches. Many churches could not offer a prophetic voice at the time of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans because they were eating at the table of the hegemonic power. Many churches instituted, participated in, sanctioned and sustained the system, the enslavers and the buyers. Today, therefore, the church needs to offer a prophetic voice, and rather than be reactive, needs to be proactive.
We also believe that we need an organic, holistic approach to contend with the legacies of colonialism and of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans. The concept of ubuntu[4] may offer theological and sociological principles around which to move forward.
Cultural Sites of Memories:
Balm Yaad[5] sessions, and other cultural rituals, are important parts of religio-cultural expressions and strategies for healing in community settings. In addition, we believe that we must continue to write and creatively express our own stories and say who we are to start the process of healing and extend it to others, individuals, churches, and communities. Storytelling, iconic and creative expressions are critically important in the process of healing; therefore, the production of knowledge created through our lived stories must be part and parcel of sites of memories.
The church must also involve itself in the struggle of people who live new forms of enslavement, including human trafficking. We believe that open spaces must be set up and existing events such as and World Social Forums, the Zanzibar International Festival of Dhow (ZIFF), and many others should be used to create awareness and compel changes. These types of strategies would assist in healing stigmatized identities of marginalized peoples.
Theories of the Social Construction of Knowledge:
We have been asking the question where does knowledge come from, and how do we know what we know? We believe that if we are not questioning what we know, and how we know it, then we remain captives of dominant frameworks of knowing.
We believe that the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, and colonialism, call into question all systems and institutions, their structures, their constructions of knowledge, and the ways these constructions of knowledge function to endorse notions of hierarchies of rights and unjust practices. Some of these practices are grounded in understandings that are contrary to human dignity and the integrity of God's creation. The legacies of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism also call into question all norms and conventions that implicitly and explicitly put in dispute the understanding of the centrality of the image of God in all human beings.
Two areas of human relations that exemplify these inequitable realities are race and gender. The basis of the social construction of race and gender must be challenged with regards to the interests they serve and for the purpose of discovering and disrupting the logic that govern the ways in which they were constructed by human beings. We must recognize how specific identities, including race and gender, function in overlapping ways to prevent human beings from experiencing life in its fullness. We must engage in gender and race analyses that approach oppression from the perspective of its interlocking, intersecting, and interrelated nature, so that we may recognize the ongoing multi-level construction and reconstruction processes that are involved, and the implications that they bear for economic justice. This process is absolutely necessary to provide appropriate frameworks from which we strategize for justice.
Oppression operates not only through physical force and coercion, but also at the discursive level of language where the ways in which knowledge is constructed, and the ways in which we use language to describe reality and human relations show elements of oppression. Since the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism were such essential components in the emergence of modernity, it, in turn, produced many categories related to notions of being human, the creation, and God that are often taken for granted. There is power in naming - and re-naming - our ourselves, our situations, and our relationships. It is essential, therefore, that we examine and critique the categories we use to define ourselves in relationship to other human beings and God. When we do not examine and critique our human-created categories, we remain enslaved to the old framework, and fail to fully appreciate how the system of oppression functions in its totality.
Pastoral Dimensions:
The church is being urged to re-assess its pastoral role. This role is derived from Matthew 22:36-39, in which Jesus explained that humanity's greatest duty is to love God and love thy neighbour as thyself. In a historical and current context of patriarchy, which entrenches hierarchies of caste, class, gender, ethnicity, and age, the local church is urged to make use of relevant rituals, including those inspired by indigenous religions and spiritualities towards the process of healing, restoration and reconciliation.
We believe that the process of healing, restoration and reconciliation must be built on a naming of sin and the claiming of salvation. Salvation encompasses the wholeness of life and the wholeness of humanity in all of its dimensions, and in the context of community. The issues of shame and fear, resistance and compliance, on the part of descendants of the enslaved and the enslavers must be central to the process of healing. Pastorally speaking, therefore, the church cannot make assumptions around the knowledge and conscientiousness of people based on age. Many young people who are descendants of the enslaved, for example, are already actively engaged in learning about their histories, resisting oppression, and striving to create alternatives to hegemonic powers. The church must create welcoming environments for the youth and young adults, and at the same time must seek to remove barriers of caste, class, ethnicity and insularity, which effectively exclude others.
Recommendations and Affirmations:
As representatives of the global ecumenical community, we, therefore, offer the following recommendations and affirmations as those who are numbered within the church and also among the descendants of the enslaved.
We the delegates of the ecumenical conference "Abolished, but Not Destroyed" commit ourselves to: start a list of resources and recommended readings about the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, and its ongoing legacy. This recommended list is one step towards sharing stories and knowledge, and this list of information could be made available on ecumenical websites, including the World Council of Churches, the Council on World Mission, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, create a variety of media (including CDs of papers from the conference) to give to congregations for reflection, discussion, and action, publish and share religio-cultural rituals, create and have rites of passages, link to women's international sites of memory, and also publish those rituals and sites for others to access, continue to question our sources of knowledge (including bibliographies) , and strive to address our knowledge gaps through continual learning and analysis, share our collective resources within the global ecumenical community, including but not limited to sharing a statement and offering input into 2010 mission conference in Edinburgh; this input might include bringing discourses and analysis on racism, slavery, and patriarchy to this meeting, rewrite history at the grassroots level and from the perspective of those who were enslaved and marginalized, and continue to do intergenerational storytelling, maintain a system of communication among ourselves, and others who strive to become engaged in this work.
We recommend to the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Council for World Mission that:a comprehensive and exhaustive history of the role of the oppressive theological ideations and actual church systems towards the implementation, sustainability, and expansion of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans be developed and institutionalized. Special effort should be made to ensure that such an undertaking is pursued from an African worldview, to hear today's cries of oppression, and to respond to these cries, the global ecumenical church community should encourage and support the local churches and clusters of churches in collecting stories of oppression and resistance, and publish those stories,
an ecumenical youth initiative focused on the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans takes place, and that young people's authentic participation be affirmed. Further, that a comprehensive media strategy must be part of the ecumenical youth project so that the initiative not only affects those who go, but also those at home, opportunities are created and enabled for interfaith and inter-religious dialogue, and work in solidarity with African indigenous religious, a process is created to examine the tools of empire, and how these tools are used, resources are created for churches on how to identify and challenge institutional racism, and that intentional racial justice analysis is built into church and ecumenical processes (such as AGAPE, Accra confession, millennium development goals, etc).
We recommend to governments that: financial and human resources be identified and made available, in trust and otherwise, with appropriate church, community, and academic entities to effect institutional development and remedies from the transatlantic slave trade system and colonialism at the local, national and global levels, support is offered to masters levels and doctoral levels research centers of excellence related to the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, reparations are offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.
We recommend to congregations and people of faith that:
new educational programs are created that build upon the best of the past, that produces pastors for communities whose folks are crying, and that intentionally address community problems,
churches to take on creative projects, for example, young people interviewing elders in communities to learn and write down stories. Resources are actively used in churches on that identify and challenge systemic and institutional racism, that a race analysis is built into church and ecumenical processes, and that churches teach those of privilege on how to divert privilege in the realm of Jesus and justice, the church take seriously the social construction of knowledge and identities, and social location in its reading and understanding of scriptures, churches be engaged in identifying historical sites of memory, and creating new sites of memory, in recognition of the power of naming, and re-naming, that the church divest of language which can be disempowering, churches that operate camps for children to develop creative curriculum to teach the history of the people, teach traditional songs, meet leaders from the community. This inclusive curriculum should be both interdisciplinary and intergenerational. Further, any curriculum that is used should embrace the fullness of the imago dei, churches continue to be in solidarity with Dalit peoples, and other marginalized and oppressed peoples around the world, reparations are offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.
As the church has stated that it's mission was and is to spread the Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ, the people of the church now request that the church speak truth to power by informing and supporting educational initiatives, at many levels, on the systemic impact of enslavement upon the lives of African descendant peoples and communities throughout the world.
[1] Oikumene is a term that refers to the whole, inhabited earth.
[2] Hegemony is all encompassing; it is focuses with overarching issues of dominance and control. It also names the totality of interconnected systems of power and oppression.
[3]Today's unequal flow of the world's goods and resources is due, in part to, the legacies of colonialism and slavery. Some economies were built through slave labour, and colonial exploitation of human and national resources. These legacies have benefited some and disadvantaged others over the centuries. The long-lasting impact of these legacies is made to appear natural through unspoken entitlements based race, class, gender, and other inequities, but in reality is unnatural and based on socially constructed ideologies of superiority.
[4] Ubuntu is an expression of human relations lived in community and in harmony with the whole of creation ('African anthropology and cosmo-vision lived in community'). Ubuntu a possibility of reflecting, analyzing and protecting life based on the Ubuntu principle “I am because you are, you are because I am.” Both these principles are about the eradication of hate, anger, private wealth without sharing, oppression, exploitation as well as harmony and peace with the cosmos.
[5] Balm Yaad is a place for healing, reading and 'science', where persons who consider themselves ill, hurt, or in need of spiritual aid would seek the services of a 'Madda' or a 'science' man; a revivalist, who discerns the ailment and prescribes cures. A Balm Yaad can apply Christian principles, with distinctive blends of the folk tradition.
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© World Council of Churches (page 5388)
A statement from the delegates of the ecumenical conference "Abolished, but Not Destroyed: Remembering the Slave Trade in the 21st Century" in Runaway Bay, Jamaica; December 2007
The 200th anniversary of the formal abolition of the British Transatlantic Trade in Africans in 2007 is a significant historical marker. We - the delegates from the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Church, and the Council for World Mission - gathered in Jamaica in December 2007 around the commemoration of this anniversary as representatives of the global ecumenical community. Gathered from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, we are people representing churches and grassroots initiatives, and we assembled to analyze, and make recommendations around modern forms of slavery and the continued legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans in the 21st century.
Between the 16th and 19th century, an estimated 15 million enslaved African peoples were forcibly taken from Africa, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean and landed in the Caribbean and the Americas. This horrific voyage was named the Middle Passage; and over these hundreds of years, an additional 40% of enslaved people who left Africa died en route. This Transatlantic Trade in Africans particularly profited England, Portugal, France, Spain, and Holland. An integral component of the European-American world's economy, the Transatlantic Trade in Africans powerfully linked together Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas.
Many churches were actively involved in the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism; hence, the church's mission has been seriously compromised and betrayed by its historic complicity with two of the most blatant forms of oppression that occurred within the 16th to 19th century. Further, the church's pastoral and prophetic roles in the contemporary period are obstructed by its voluntary amnesia about its past corporate sin and silence regarding the past - as well as regarding the present - responsibility to bring justice to those still suffering from the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and cultural imperialism. While there have been some acts of repentance and confessional statements made by some churches, for the most part, those statements have not been effective enough in eradicating White supremacy, systemic racism and the ongoing legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.
We recognize that there were faithful members among churches and in society who worked alongside those who were enslaved, to ameliorate the conditions of enslaved peoples, and who continued the struggle to abolish the slave trade and gain freedom for enslaved peoples. Their witness should inspire us today for renewed action and faithful resistance against exploitative powers.
We also realize, however, that people of White European ancestry, whether they were anti- or pro-slavery, benefited from the entitlements accruing to them by virtue of being White-skinned peoples. For example, in late 1800s, in Brazil and many other colonies, although Black peoples were being emancipated from legal slavery, they were not given land, and had to pay high rent for tools and other resources; at the same time, White European immigrants were given incentives such as land and other resources. Thus, people of White European ancestry who had no direct involvement in the slavery or the slave trade became never-the-less beneficiaries of the enslavement system. Much has been written today about White privilege; this privilege is one of the legacies of the ideology of racial superiority that infused the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.
However, we, the descendants of this legacy of racism, are not without memory, voice, cultural resources, religious resources, and spiritual gifts prerequisite for helping the church address its current predicament. What our memories, voices, cultural expressions, and spiritual groans signify and articulate are the cries of the oppressed. If these cries are heeded by the church, both in its universal and local expressions, it will be better able to participate in the saving of the "oikumene" [1]. If our voices are heard, then, the church might be better able to realize true community in identifying with the oppressed through the cross of Jesus Christ, and the church might be better able to live out an action-reflection model by verily assuming the form of the enslaved.
With this in mind, we name several dimensions of the current struggle, and make recommendations for the future.
Theological Dimensions:
The Bible, as sacred text, is a key source for people of faith. But there are also several sources of theological reflection are embedded in the cultures, communities and individual lives of oppressed people. We believe that as people of faith, we need to recognize that God's creation, God's care, and God's presence encompass all of creation, and that this reality calls people of faith to a theology and engagement that cooperates with people of all religions and spiritualities who work for justice in the world.
We also believe that as people of faith, we need to engage heart, soul, mind, and strength in critically analyzing the historical context of the Bible as well as the text of our cultures, communities, and individual lives. As people of faith, we need to create support systems of teaching and learning for those with hardened hearts who reject the church's culpability and complicity in the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. We believe that churches that were complicit in the slave trade need to name that the Transatlantic Trade in Africans - and other modern forms of slavery - are sin. And, as people of faith, we need to speak a new language which reflects the insights of God with all, and that fosters relationships which express the values of the reign of God, in which the lion and lamb live together.
Prophetic Issues and Action-Reflection Models:
We believe that reparations are essential for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved. Reparations go far beyond a financial figure; rather, reparations are about recognizing the wrong that has been done. It is a process that compels confession, contrition, restoration and reconciliation; it also involves a process or truth-telling that sets rights, makes amends and restores breached relationships. Reparations from both the church and society are needed, and these reparations are both praxis and prophetic - naming the wrongs that have been done is praxis or an action-reflection model; righting the wrongs, is a prophetic action.
The process of reparations requires the restoration of relationships that affirm the dignity and humanity of all parties in order to repair what has been broken. Reparations also challenge the perpetrator to confession and repentance and ministers restoration and healing to those who have been exploited.
The Transatlantic Trade in Africans destroyed the roots of nation building and enriched the oppressors to build its nations and states. Thus, we believe that mere financial aid is no replacement; rather, full nationhood and community restoration of peoples impacted should be the condition of reparations. In today's global context, a lingering effect of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism has been the displacement of millions of people. Thus, reparations and immigration in a global context means dismantling communities of refugees, claiming and reclaiming the rights to movement of people regionally and inter-regionally without insults and suspicions. This includes the millions who are forced off their homelands to those who are internally displaced within their homeland in many places in the world.
We also recognize that oppression continues to operate in India through the caste system, a system whose origin precedes European colonization. The caste system may serve as a model for understanding the effects of slavery and colonialism in Europe and America. The fight, therefore, against racism can be linked to the Dalit struggle against the caste system. This parallel allows people of the African Diaspora and Dalit communities to be in solidarity with one another.
The reality of human trafficking, child labour, child soldiers, enslaved labour in the Amazon, and others, are modern forms of slavery that too need to be addressed. A strong solidarity system needs to be put into place so that concerted social pressure continues to be exerted against those structures which sustain the injustices.
We believe that in considering communities that have been marginalized, it is essential to avoid embracing a hierarchy of oppression, but instead to consider ways in which people's forms of oppression are interrelated; we cannot privilege one form of oppression over another. We need to stop reinventing the wheel of imitating the oppressors, or that of oppressive models. We must create alternative models of deconstructing oppression in relation to caste, race, gender, ethnicity, and other identifiers of marginalization. Enslaved peoples need to break into the entire hegemonic [2] power system, and disrupt it. In order to do this, we need a critical critique of the logic and assumptions, spoken and unspoken, that under gird this entire hegemonic power system. Enslaved peoples will no doubt continue to participate in this work.
We also recognize that all peoples have been impacted by the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. Collectively, therefore, we need to destroy the power and institutional relationships of contemporary beneficiaries[3] of the historic and corporate sin and crimes against humanity. Thus, the descendants of the buyers of the enslaved also need to be actively engaged in this process of deconstruction and reconciliation, and in the process of reparation and the restoration of relationships. We believe that there needs to be a process of mutual education; the need to research more, to write, speak, share and tell our stories.
We maintain that it is essential to kill the root of what is sustaining the power structure. A triangular approach is needed, which includes people from Africa, people in the Diaspora, and the descendants of those who benefited from the institutional relationships of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. Among those who have benefited, includes the structures and assets of many churches. Many churches could not offer a prophetic voice at the time of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans because they were eating at the table of the hegemonic power. Many churches instituted, participated in, sanctioned and sustained the system, the enslavers and the buyers. Today, therefore, the church needs to offer a prophetic voice, and rather than be reactive, needs to be proactive.
We also believe that we need an organic, holistic approach to contend with the legacies of colonialism and of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans. The concept of ubuntu[4] may offer theological and sociological principles around which to move forward.
Cultural Sites of Memories:
Balm Yaad[5] sessions, and other cultural rituals, are important parts of religio-cultural expressions and strategies for healing in community settings. In addition, we believe that we must continue to write and creatively express our own stories and say who we are to start the process of healing and extend it to others, individuals, churches, and communities. Storytelling, iconic and creative expressions are critically important in the process of healing; therefore, the production of knowledge created through our lived stories must be part and parcel of sites of memories.
The church must also involve itself in the struggle of people who live new forms of enslavement, including human trafficking. We believe that open spaces must be set up and existing events such as and World Social Forums, the Zanzibar International Festival of Dhow (ZIFF), and many others should be used to create awareness and compel changes. These types of strategies would assist in healing stigmatized identities of marginalized peoples.
Theories of the Social Construction of Knowledge:
We have been asking the question where does knowledge come from, and how do we know what we know? We believe that if we are not questioning what we know, and how we know it, then we remain captives of dominant frameworks of knowing.
We believe that the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, and colonialism, call into question all systems and institutions, their structures, their constructions of knowledge, and the ways these constructions of knowledge function to endorse notions of hierarchies of rights and unjust practices. Some of these practices are grounded in understandings that are contrary to human dignity and the integrity of God's creation. The legacies of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism also call into question all norms and conventions that implicitly and explicitly put in dispute the understanding of the centrality of the image of God in all human beings.
Two areas of human relations that exemplify these inequitable realities are race and gender. The basis of the social construction of race and gender must be challenged with regards to the interests they serve and for the purpose of discovering and disrupting the logic that govern the ways in which they were constructed by human beings. We must recognize how specific identities, including race and gender, function in overlapping ways to prevent human beings from experiencing life in its fullness. We must engage in gender and race analyses that approach oppression from the perspective of its interlocking, intersecting, and interrelated nature, so that we may recognize the ongoing multi-level construction and reconstruction processes that are involved, and the implications that they bear for economic justice. This process is absolutely necessary to provide appropriate frameworks from which we strategize for justice.
Oppression operates not only through physical force and coercion, but also at the discursive level of language where the ways in which knowledge is constructed, and the ways in which we use language to describe reality and human relations show elements of oppression. Since the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism were such essential components in the emergence of modernity, it, in turn, produced many categories related to notions of being human, the creation, and God that are often taken for granted. There is power in naming - and re-naming - our ourselves, our situations, and our relationships. It is essential, therefore, that we examine and critique the categories we use to define ourselves in relationship to other human beings and God. When we do not examine and critique our human-created categories, we remain enslaved to the old framework, and fail to fully appreciate how the system of oppression functions in its totality.
Pastoral Dimensions:
The church is being urged to re-assess its pastoral role. This role is derived from Matthew 22:36-39, in which Jesus explained that humanity's greatest duty is to love God and love thy neighbour as thyself. In a historical and current context of patriarchy, which entrenches hierarchies of caste, class, gender, ethnicity, and age, the local church is urged to make use of relevant rituals, including those inspired by indigenous religions and spiritualities towards the process of healing, restoration and reconciliation.
We believe that the process of healing, restoration and reconciliation must be built on a naming of sin and the claiming of salvation. Salvation encompasses the wholeness of life and the wholeness of humanity in all of its dimensions, and in the context of community. The issues of shame and fear, resistance and compliance, on the part of descendants of the enslaved and the enslavers must be central to the process of healing. Pastorally speaking, therefore, the church cannot make assumptions around the knowledge and conscientiousness of people based on age. Many young people who are descendants of the enslaved, for example, are already actively engaged in learning about their histories, resisting oppression, and striving to create alternatives to hegemonic powers. The church must create welcoming environments for the youth and young adults, and at the same time must seek to remove barriers of caste, class, ethnicity and insularity, which effectively exclude others.
Recommendations and Affirmations:
As representatives of the global ecumenical community, we, therefore, offer the following recommendations and affirmations as those who are numbered within the church and also among the descendants of the enslaved.
We the delegates of the ecumenical conference "Abolished, but Not Destroyed" commit ourselves to: start a list of resources and recommended readings about the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, and its ongoing legacy. This recommended list is one step towards sharing stories and knowledge, and this list of information could be made available on ecumenical websites, including the World Council of Churches, the Council on World Mission, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, create a variety of media (including CDs of papers from the conference) to give to congregations for reflection, discussion, and action, publish and share religio-cultural rituals, create and have rites of passages, link to women's international sites of memory, and also publish those rituals and sites for others to access, continue to question our sources of knowledge (including bibliographies) , and strive to address our knowledge gaps through continual learning and analysis, share our collective resources within the global ecumenical community, including but not limited to sharing a statement and offering input into 2010 mission conference in Edinburgh; this input might include bringing discourses and analysis on racism, slavery, and patriarchy to this meeting, rewrite history at the grassroots level and from the perspective of those who were enslaved and marginalized, and continue to do intergenerational storytelling, maintain a system of communication among ourselves, and others who strive to become engaged in this work.
We recommend to the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Council for World Mission that:a comprehensive and exhaustive history of the role of the oppressive theological ideations and actual church systems towards the implementation, sustainability, and expansion of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans be developed and institutionalized. Special effort should be made to ensure that such an undertaking is pursued from an African worldview, to hear today's cries of oppression, and to respond to these cries, the global ecumenical church community should encourage and support the local churches and clusters of churches in collecting stories of oppression and resistance, and publish those stories,
an ecumenical youth initiative focused on the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans takes place, and that young people's authentic participation be affirmed. Further, that a comprehensive media strategy must be part of the ecumenical youth project so that the initiative not only affects those who go, but also those at home, opportunities are created and enabled for interfaith and inter-religious dialogue, and work in solidarity with African indigenous religious, a process is created to examine the tools of empire, and how these tools are used, resources are created for churches on how to identify and challenge institutional racism, and that intentional racial justice analysis is built into church and ecumenical processes (such as AGAPE, Accra confession, millennium development goals, etc).
We recommend to governments that: financial and human resources be identified and made available, in trust and otherwise, with appropriate church, community, and academic entities to effect institutional development and remedies from the transatlantic slave trade system and colonialism at the local, national and global levels, support is offered to masters levels and doctoral levels research centers of excellence related to the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, reparations are offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.
We recommend to congregations and people of faith that:
new educational programs are created that build upon the best of the past, that produces pastors for communities whose folks are crying, and that intentionally address community problems,
churches to take on creative projects, for example, young people interviewing elders in communities to learn and write down stories. Resources are actively used in churches on that identify and challenge systemic and institutional racism, that a race analysis is built into church and ecumenical processes, and that churches teach those of privilege on how to divert privilege in the realm of Jesus and justice, the church take seriously the social construction of knowledge and identities, and social location in its reading and understanding of scriptures, churches be engaged in identifying historical sites of memory, and creating new sites of memory, in recognition of the power of naming, and re-naming, that the church divest of language which can be disempowering, churches that operate camps for children to develop creative curriculum to teach the history of the people, teach traditional songs, meet leaders from the community. This inclusive curriculum should be both interdisciplinary and intergenerational. Further, any curriculum that is used should embrace the fullness of the imago dei, churches continue to be in solidarity with Dalit peoples, and other marginalized and oppressed peoples around the world, reparations are offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.
As the church has stated that it's mission was and is to spread the Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ, the people of the church now request that the church speak truth to power by informing and supporting educational initiatives, at many levels, on the systemic impact of enslavement upon the lives of African descendant peoples and communities throughout the world.
[1] Oikumene is a term that refers to the whole, inhabited earth.
[2] Hegemony is all encompassing; it is focuses with overarching issues of dominance and control. It also names the totality of interconnected systems of power and oppression.
[3]Today's unequal flow of the world's goods and resources is due, in part to, the legacies of colonialism and slavery. Some economies were built through slave labour, and colonial exploitation of human and national resources. These legacies have benefited some and disadvantaged others over the centuries. The long-lasting impact of these legacies is made to appear natural through unspoken entitlements based race, class, gender, and other inequities, but in reality is unnatural and based on socially constructed ideologies of superiority.
[4] Ubuntu is an expression of human relations lived in community and in harmony with the whole of creation ('African anthropology and cosmo-vision lived in community'). Ubuntu a possibility of reflecting, analyzing and protecting life based on the Ubuntu principle “I am because you are, you are because I am.” Both these principles are about the eradication of hate, anger, private wealth without sharing, oppression, exploitation as well as harmony and peace with the cosmos.
[5] Balm Yaad is a place for healing, reading and 'science', where persons who consider themselves ill, hurt, or in need of spiritual aid would seek the services of a 'Madda' or a 'science' man; a revivalist, who discerns the ailment and prescribes cures. A Balm Yaad can apply Christian principles, with distinctive blends of the folk tradition.
Contact us
Site map
© World Council of Churches (page 5388)
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