UR TV CAST

The attempt to beg money by playing on guilt over slavery and imperialism argues that between the 15th and 19th centuries Europeans enslaved millions of Africans and carried them off to America That was a crime against humanity. Africa demands compensation for that and for colonial rule.Don’t fall for this argument. The image of white people running round West Africa capturing Africans and dragging them in chains to the coast is entirely false. The slave business, from capture to sale at the coast, was in the hands of Africans. Almost all African societies practised slavery long before Europeans came to their shores.

Slaves were either captured in raids and war or were forced into slavery through poverty. The slave trade began when surplus slaves were sold to European traders in return for textiles, iron bars, booze and beads and taken to the New World to work the sugar plantations and farms.The biggest exporters were the Portuguese, who carried away nearly 5 million, followed by the British, who took around 2.6 million. The number of people removed from Africa is estimated at 11 million to 12 million (not counting the millions transported to Arabia from central and East Africa to work as domestic slaves) The European trade hugely increased the demand for slaves. No longer a by-product of war or poverty, slaves became the cause of war and banditry.Yet it was always Africans who captured the slaves, took them to the coast and sold them to European traders.

The European forts dotted along the West African coast were built not for protection against Africans but other Europeans. There is no record of these slave forts or the trading stations being attacked by Africans, but they often changed hands in wars between the British, Dutch and Portuguese. The local Africans who ran the slave trade always welcomed them.African control of the trade is illustrated by the solidarity they showed when the European buyers offered too little. They simply refused to sell and the slave captains were forced to sit offshore with their food and water running short until they were prepared to raise their offers.If there is a case for compensation, the victims of enslavement must be the slaves themselves, those transported to America.

The perpetrators were the African kingdoms, such as the Ashante in Ghana, who captured and sold them. Any compensation, therefore, should be paid by West African states to African-Americans.Colonialism, too, is problematical. On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the battle of Omdurman in 1998, I asked the British ambassador to Sudan if he was going to apologise It was a particularly vile affair. Thanks to the Maxim gun, several thousand Sudanese died, but only a handful of British soldiers. “Of course,” said the ambassador cheerfully, “and then I will apologise for building the roads, the railway, the schools, hospitals and the university.”Africa’s problems (some, but not all created or made worse by colonialism) cannot be solved by more money and certainly not by huge dollops of money given to its governments. Their record of using aid money to bring progress to their peoples is not good They have stolen quite a lot of it. Yet many are demanding, as reparation for slavery and colonialism, a massive lump sum.