Initiatives of Change - Greencoat Forums Reports

AFRICA has made a positive contribution to the West but its painful history of slavery and colonisation still affects our society today. Even with the best intentions the master/slave mentality between the West and Africa still persists and only by being honest about the past can a constructive and forward looking future be created.

This was the message from Baroness Howells of St David’s, OBE, when she spoke on ‘Africa’s Contribution to the West’ at a Greencoat Forum at the Initiatives of Change Centre in London on March 15th.

Her lecture was a contribution to the commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act.
The Baroness is a descendent of an enslaved African and campaigns for the rights of all but in particular ethnic minorities.

She was Director of Equal Opportunities at the Greenwich Racial Equality Council and is a Patron of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust.

She is an adviser to the Home Secretary on matters of race and community relations and has also served as Deputy High Commissioner of her native Grenada.

Her lecture looked back to the origins of slavery in Africa as well as forward to the threat from the East and in particular China.

The slave trade involved millions being transported to the west from Africa – the cradle of civilisation from where humankind originated - in exchange for goods.

“The history of the British Empire has slavery running through it like writing through a stick of Blackpool rock,” said the Baroness.

New industries were created in Britain through the transportation of humans and many Caucasians here and elsewhere had the blood of slaves in them without knowing it.

“We cannot comprehend the scale of the slave trade,” she said. “The exact numbers are disputed but what is not disputed is the savage cruelty.”

Slaves were selected for their genetic strengths and no consideration was given to tribal identities. Men and women were brutally separated from their families and that separation still affected the African population today.

According to the Baroness, health issues such as schizophrenia; family breakdowns and the growing drug culture within the black community, stemmed from the effects of being part of a huge enforced human trafficking business. Most men who were slaves were not allowed to get married and plantation owners raped the women. They had no chance or incentive to form family groups and the effects could still be seen in the 21st century.

Despite being transported out of their countries to other cultures the slaves showed tremendous resilience. They hung on to their traditions through songs and story telling which continue today via jazz and Hip Hop music.

And it was the slaves themselves and not the white westerners who started the anti slavery movement that led to a change in constitutions and attitudes in the British Empire and the US and the abolition of the slave trade.

Africa gave the west “a vehicle by which to be inhumane and then find its humanity,” said Baroness Howells.

But Africa continued to provide Britain with a sense of being a missionary and a crusader. While Britain’s modern music icons like Bob Geldof and Bono conducted huge campaigns such as Live Aid, Africa sat back passively and accepted aid.

The myth still existed that Aryan people were better than Africans. Today many descendants of slaves were no longer servants but professional people such as doctors but they still had to ask “Am I good enough?” and accepted that Caucasians were in the driving seat.

The Baroness warned that there was a new scramble today by the multi national companies to grab Africa’s natural resources and unless Africans, including those living in Britain, acted, there would be another colonisation – this time from the East.

She concluded: “While Western journalists have been wringing their hand impotently about the genocide being perpetrated in Darfur, the Chinese government has done a deal with the Sudanese government to exploit that country’s oilfields.

“That says it all. While Britons indulge our Victorian urge to give alms to the Africans, Beijing is pumping black gold.”

Pam Jenner