Slavery and Africa

My post on Prescott's proposals for an annual (for want of a better phrase) slavery day struck a nerve with a friend of mine and I thought I would stick (edited) highlights of our e-mail exchange here, because it goes much further than the narrow, Prescott bashing of my original ramblings. Her text are italicised, mine are in normal font.

I had a conversation with a Nigerian about how fucked up Africa is today and how the West must take responsibility for that, which I recalled when reading your blog entry, entitled People, Move On...

Prescott has a point, although he made an error linking a commemoration of the slave trade to modern-day human trafficking. Far more important is for British (and other European) schoolchildren to understand what the colonies did to Africa and their lasting legacy on African countries' politics and economies, which is just as damaging as memories of slavery and far more relevant today.

It's dangerous to talk of moving on, when African nations still suffer and the West was and in some fundamental respects, still is the cause. To generalise, Africa, although it has valuable natural resources, is a continent undermined by disorganised leadership, which has come about a direct reaction to the legacy of colonial rule and its badly planned withdrawal/handover. At the same time, one could say that the Western oil majors and mining companies have taken advantage of this and still do.

Certainly, it is not until recently that African countries' national oil and gas companies got a look in on lucrative production projects; before this, any cash generated either left the country or disappeared to corrupt governments. And their inclusion now is more a measure of control than any exercise in social responsibility.

The West fucked Africa over. South Africa, which is trying to get over what Europe did to it with legislation forcing black empowerment after the toll of deliberately under-educating black children under Apartheid, will take a few generations to get back on track. Goodness only knows what will happen in places like Zimbabwe, where Mugabe's backlash against colonial rule has sent the country into chaos.

This isn't something that is taught in UK schools. There may be initiatives, such as Black History Week, but these tend to focus on celebrating the achievements of a minority of successful individuals who have stood up to or who have overcome this. Little attention is paid to how things remain and what the lasting impact of the West's activities in this area is and how that feeds into the consciousness of any cosmopolitan city or town.

My fundamental problem with what Prezza said (aside from the fact that he said it, and I do have a real problem with supposed intellectual pronouncements from a barely coherent thug who probably only discovered there was an African subcontinent when someone offered him a freebie trip there) is the current focus on slavery. Slavery was a terrible part of our history, but as former imperialists and would be players on the international stage, there is no shortage of terrible parts to our history. Concentration camps in the Boer War, the fire bombing of Dresden, various atrocities in Ireland etc. It could also be very effectively argued that Prescott himself is part of a government that has further darkened British history by tearing the Iraqi state apart in an ill-thought out US led foreign adventure.

But slavery in the UK is over - human trafficking continues, and this is a major problem, but it is a very different problem to slavery 200 years ago and requires very different solutions. And this narrow minded focus on commemorating it - and of us having an annual sackcloth and ashes day where we all feel sorry for what our ancestors may or may not have done over 200 years ago (I am not denying that slavery existed, just pointing out that our ancestors may or may not have been involved in the slave trade) is just so much navel gazing. It is the ruthless pragmatist in me, I know, but I would rather we did something proactive for the future rather than worrying about the past and apologising for stuff we did not do.

Africa does not need an apology or the Western World feeling sorry for slavery, it needs practical, tangible help. I've just finished reading a book about economics and, whilst being a little bit left wing and banging on about environmental economics a little bit too much, did make an interesting point about Africa. Africa needs the political institutions to enable it to develop, to encourage people to develop economically and away from a subsistence existence. We cannot graft our institutions on them - as you point out, the post colonial governments have often created major problems for their countries (Mugabe, Amin etc). We also risk being accused of cultural imperialism, and we cannot assume that every other nation responds well to Western Liberal Democracy (Russia's attempts at democracy, and the fact that it has ended with an ex-KGB man who looks, too all intents and purposes, like an [albeit more capable] Soviet leader, shows this) but we do need to find practical ways in which we can assist.

Part of that might be restricting the more mercenary and brutal instincts of Western natural resources companies in Africa. We see Shell, for example, as an excellent example of capitalist success. But their record in Africa, and other less developed parts of the world, is reprehensible and shocking. Whether this is done through encouragement or through direct legislation is a whole new can of worms that I don't want to open here, but trying to get them to have some sort of ethical connection or social responsibility to the countries they operate it could be a tangible way to help Africa.

And then there is the question of aid. Aid can obviously help, but then again we need to consider whether the aid we give actually does help. There are a lot of nepotistic and downright corrupt governments in Africa and a lot of aid meant for the people does end up going to the government. Then there is the question of what restrictions we place on the aid - if there is something the West should apologise for, it is for things like the US giving money to the African nations but saying the money cannot be used on contraception or abortion programmes. Brilliant work there, Dubya, you total cretin! Let's give money to Africa, but not allow them to spend it in areas where it could be a massive help.

Anyway, my point (as incoherent as the above may be) is that we need to take tangible, pragmatic action to help Africa. The focus on slavery, and the proposition that we should have an annual day, runs the real risk of simply sooothing the guilt of the Western World about Africa. "Oh, Africa may be a mess, but at least we have acknowledged the part we played in making it a mess." Also the example of Ireland, and, to some extent, the Middle East, shows that progress is made when people move on from the past and do not focus on past wrongs, but rather what can be done to make the future right.

The point in the article about education is more interesting. I maintain that Prescott is not best placed to talk about reforming the national curriculum, but there should be some debate about how history is taught in this country. I think that there is no real focus on the history of Africa, but the problem with UK schools teaching history is broader than just that. The focus is on the UK and, to some extent, the West. I can remember, whilst doing my history A-level, that the focus of our course was on World War One and World War Two. The focus on those two wars shapes the way we view war as a whole. If people studied the Vietnam War, then they might have had different perceptions of how the Iraq War would go. So let's have a debate on how to teach history in our schools, but let's not just shoe-horn slavery into the curriculum because Prescott is feeling a little bit of white, liberal guilt about Africa.

"I agree that a commemoration day is a naff idea - it is an inadequate, obvious and rather patronising knee-jerk response to an issue that deserves more thought. And the focus on slavery seems superficial - at the risk of sounding far too flippant, slavery is the trendy tip ofthe iceberg. I will iterate, though, that I think it is dangerous to talk of moving on (and will add) while the nation is largely ignorant of the root causes of many of the imbalances and injustices we see today on both a global and local level. Of course practical help is desirable and necessary too, but as long as people don't understand the context in which it is given, there is the risk that it will not be administered in an effective way."

I would pretty much agree with all that. I think that the likes of Live Aid and Live 8, as hounourable as the intentions of the organisers might have been, were counterproductive and failed to take into account the simple fact that you do not help Africa by chucking money at it. The problems are more deep-rooted and complex than that simplistic response would suggest. The nation is ignorant of far too much, partly owing to the soundbite, 60 second news mindset of the Main Stream Media. My only concern is that we lose ourselves in the soul-searching and the attempts to understand the causes of the problems in Africa, when we also need to be finding effective solutions. The Blair years - and, indeed, the current performance of David Cameron - shows that as a nation we are very good about talking about problems, and wringing our hands about past problems. But when we are required to find tangible, useful solutions to those problems, we are, more often than not, found wanting.