UN Marks 200 Years of Abolition of Slave Trade

Hello and welcome to this edition of Africa Express here on China Radio International. I'm your host, Wei Tong.
Today we'll come to the second edition of the UN celebration of 200 years of abolition of slave trade. For Africans, who suffered the most from the heinous crime, they did not simply accept oppression and subjugation. Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Asha-Rose Migiro, said that if slavery epitomized inhumanity at its most callous, many rejected and fought it.

"Slaves rose up against their subjugation. Abolitionist movements sprung up. The emancipation of slaves was a triumph for all mankind, for it spoke of the inherent equal worth of human beings everywhere."

The Caribbean Community, which campaigned for the United Nations to recognize the transatlantic slave trade, feels strongly that the descendents of African slaves who were brought to the Caribbean and the Americas should be offered a complete and unequivocal apology. The Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Denzil Douglas told the General Assembly’s commemorative meeting that leaders from some of the former colonial powers had expressed deep sorrow for the practice.

"It is my fervent hope that leaders of other nations that supported and profited from this inhumane activity will come forward in like manner. It undisputed that such nations were developed on blood, on the sweat and the tears of our enslaved forefathers, and it is only right and a descent thing to do to make amends and extend the apologies into the realm of atonement for the legal and economic support and for the atrocities that were a norm of the slave trade and slavery. It has been argued that no country that was engaged in the slave trade and slavery could justifiably claim support for human rights without first offering an official apology and atonement in the form of reparations."

Professor Ali Mazrui, a renowned scholar from Kenya cautioned against giving excessive credit to the abolitionists of the enslaving powers and not enough credit to the role of slave revolts in ending this trade. Professor Mazrui compared the celebration of the end of slavery to that of the demise of apartheid in South Africa.

"When today we celebrate the heroes of the struggle against apartheid, for example, we no longer put more emphasis on liberal whites who fought their own government than on black liberation fighters like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki. But when we discuss the end of the slave trade and the emancipation of the enslaved African people, there is a strong tendency to downplay slave rebellions and eulogize white abolitionists, from William Wilberforce in Britain to John Brown in the United States."

Professor Mazrui recalled that fifteen years ago, he and other eminent personalities from Africa and the Caribbean were asked by the then Organization of African Unity to look into the issue of reparations for hundreds of years of enslavement and degradation of African peoples. He said their Committee concluded that reparations for the enslavement of Africans should be calculated by using two criteria.

"One criterion is the short and long-term damage done to Africa and to the African peoples. The other criterion and measurement for reparations should be based on the benefits gained by those countries which had traded in slaves or utilized extensive slave labor. Our group was convinced that the struggle for reparations would take at least as long as the abolition of slavery."

The General Assembly commemoration of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended with two melodious songs. One is Redemption Song by Bob Marley from Jamaica, known as the King of Reggae.

Now here comes the song Lift Every voice and Sing composed by American James Weldon Johnson and his brother James Rosamond Johnson. This song was written in memory of Abraham Lincoln, emancipator of black slaves in the United States.