A Perspective on Slavery: White is right

Original Post Date: 2001-09-02 Time: 20:38:01  Posted By: Jan

As the UN prepares to debate race and slavery, Andrew Kenny reflects on
African obscurantism and European enlightenment in Cape Town.

The highest concerns of the South African government are the Three Rs:
race, race, race. Our appalling levels of violent crime, our calamitous
unemployment, the Aids epidemic decimating our population all
of these are very low on the African National Congress priorities. Indeed,
on the rare occasions when a local journalist dares to ask President Mbeki
about them, he brushes them aside with a look of irritation. His highest
priority is always the question of skin colour. Like the apartheid regime
before it, the ANC government is completely obsessed with race.

The UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia
and Related Intolerance, in Durban next week therefore takes precedence
over everything else for the South African government. For months our
newspapers have been promoting it with solemn excitement. We shall see
whether it achieves anything.

Meanwhile, a problem has arisen about whether or not the conference
should discuss reparations for slavery. This is a fascinating moral
question. Europe has indeed played a unique role in the history of
slavery. Slavery has been a universal feature of all societies
throughout most of history. Blacks and whites; Africans, Asians and
Europeans; Christians, Muslims and pagans – all of them kept
slaves.

Every person alive today has ancestors who were slaves or slave
owners. What makes Europe unique is that it ended slavery. Western
civilisation alone – the white man alone – decided that slavery
was wrong.

For thousands of years black Africans had been enslaving other black
Africans. Then black Africans began selling black Africans to Arab slave
dealers. The black slaves were force-marched across the Sahara Desert to
North Africa and the Middle East. Black male slaves were castrated to
work in Arab harems. Much later the white man arrived, wanting slaves
for the American colonies. The black slave traders in West Africa were
delighted to oblige. It meant a lucrative expansion of their traditional
business. An African chief explained the deal as follows: We want three
things: powder, ball and brandy; and we have three things to sell: men, women
and children. West African nations prospered mightily under the
slave trade.

Then something most strange happened. Prompted by Christian conscience,
beginning towards the end of the 17th century, white men in Europe began
to campaign against the notion of slavery. Nothing like this had ever
happened before. In Africa blacks who were enslaved did not like it, but
blacks who were not enslaved had no objection to it. Both accepted it as
part of African culture. In the United States many of the blacks were free
men and some of them owned black slaves; they, too, had no objection to
the concept of slavery. Asians and Africans alike continued to think that
slavery was perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable. It was only among
white Europeans that opposition to slavery grew.

In 1772 slavery was abolished on English soil, and in 1833 it was
outlawed throughout the British empire. France followed suit. The West
Africans were horrified. Their centuries-old enterprise was threatened.
Countries such as the Gambia, the Congo and Dahomey sent delegations to
London and Paris to protest strongly against the abolition of slavery.

Now here is a moral dilemma. If you believe in the new ethics of
multiculturalism or moral relativism, you will say that all morality is
relative to culture. People of one culture should not criticise people of
another. Therefore, if slave dealing was part of West African culture, the
white man had no right to oppose it. In doing so he was guilty of cultural
imperialism. Indeed the use of main force by the Royal Navy to stop
Africans exporting other Africans to America might well be considered the
most arrogant act of cultural imperialism ever performed.

On the other hand, if you believe in absolute morality, you will
believe that slavery is simply wrong and must never be allowed
regardless of culture. Then you will congratulate the Royal Navy.

I am of the latter persuasion. I believe there is an absolute morality
on all important matters. I believe the white imperialists were
sometimes absolutely right in their moral prescriptions to black Africa
(such as the ending of slavery and the censure of female circumcision)
and sometimes absolutely wrong (such as in promoting legal abortion over
a wide range of circumstances).

Among the descendants of the parties concerned, the big winners are the
descendants of the slaves in the United States. They are far better off
than black Africans, which is why black Americans do not want to live in
Africa but black Africans would love to live in America. The losers are
more difficult to identify, but it is to them we must look for answers
to the question of reparation for slavery.

If you believe in moral relativism, you will hold that the great
damage done was to the West African slave owners, whose business was
ruined by the white imperialists. In this case, you should urge the
Durban Conference to pay compensation to the descendants of the slave
owners.

If you believe in moral absolutism, you will say that the great damage
done was to the African villages from whom the slaves were drawn. In
this case, you should want the Durban Conference to demand compensation
to the descendants of these villagers from the descendants of the two
parties responsible for the Atlantic slave trade: the white men from
Europe and the black men from West Africa. In other words, moral
relativism says that the descendants of West African slave dealers
should receive compensation; moral absolutism says that they should pay
it.

It will be interesting to see whether the delegates to the Durban
Conference are relativists or absolutists.

2001 The Spectator.co.uk

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