Mali fell apart as an empire before Europeans even discovered the new world (due to attacks by the Berbers and the state of Mossi), and Songhay collapsed due to invasion by Morocco as well as internal revolts.
The states that suffered (and sometimes benefited) from the slave trade were the later “forest kingdoms” of West Africa, like Oyo, Dahomey, and Benin. In fact, Oyo and Dahomey became the preeminent West African states due to selling slaves. This helped lead to their downfall, though. Dahomey lost its power due to revolts by subject peoples upset that they were taken by slaves, and Oyo lost much of its power after a civil war in which the rebels were backed by slave-soldiers.
I am thinking and speaking of vice laws in general. Vice laws (including drugs and prostitution) do not secure peace, they prohibit peace and threaten the peace of all. Vice laws create crime where there is none; they are in themselves criminal. In countries and counties where vice is well-regulated, the strife associated with vice is by definition and fact minimal.
How many brothers and sisters are jailed for vice? Yet, prohibition of vice has not stopped their pursuit. I am of the opinion that (most) descendants of slaves have the ability to regulate their vices and still keep the peace. They are not given the chance because Jim Crow does not think this is so.
I am suggesting that in reparation for such egregious loss of liberty as slavery; descendents of slaves be given full measure of liberty; no matter the vice or “morality”.
Before another unjust loss of liberty, the state must prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was the pursuit itself that was not peaceful. The state must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the liberty of a slave descendant is not again being arbitrarily withheld by yet another unjust law.
Anyway, sure, legalize marijuana for starters and other drugs gradually (not meth, though; that shit’s good for nobody). The slavery angle in this is obscure, though.
Are you suggesting that vice laws be relaxed for everyone, or only for the descendents of slaves?
The former isn’t really a reparation, is it? This is tomndebb’s point. If it applies to everyone equally it doesn’t provide any sort of payback to the descendents of slaves. So why even include that part in the argument? Why not just argue that vice laws are too strict and should be relaxed?
The latter would be be a disaster. Black people get to take drugs but white people don’t? Black men get to visit whores but white men don’t? I can’t think of a better way to **increase ** racism in this country. It would foster tremendous amounts of resentment while playing into the worst bigoted stereotypes of black people as irresponsible animals.
aaaack! You’re right. (That’ll teach me to rely on ancient memory without double checking my sources.)
On the other hand, the general principle remains. Africa was home to societies that were capable of advancing along with those of Europe; it was not simply populated with clusters of hunter-gatherers or agrarian tribes with limited technology. European intervention fostered dissension and interfered with societal development.
Well, sure, although I’ll note the European intervension and disruption of African societies still probably would have occurred without the Atlantic slave trade, due to European colonialism and imperialism, and the African societies involved still probably wouldn’t have been able to stop colonization. You can see for example, that European colonization was pretty equally successful in West Africa (which had to deal with the effects of the Atlantic slave trade), Central and Southern Africa (which was largely free of any slave trading), and East Africa (which had to deal with the effects of the Arab/Indian Ocean slave trade.
While most African societies/states certainly weren’t stone age hunter gatherers, they were agrarian (as were European societies until the Industrial Revolution) with limited technology comparatively, in that the European nations could make their own firearms, and the African nations couldn’t. As Hilaire Belloc went on to put it,
“Whatever happens, we have got
the Maxim gun, and they have not”
although, if he had been writing at the time of early European colonization, he would have changed “Maxim gun” to “rifled gun”. And note, when I’m saying this, this is no way a criticism of the African states, and neither is it a promotion of innate European superiority, but (for a number of reasons, some of which are touched on in Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, the European nations had a military advantage compared to sub-Saharan Africa (and for that matter, Saharan Africa.)
So I guess what I’m disagreeing with is your contention that Europeans “actively undermined [advanced African countries] in an attempt to secure better slave trading rights” and that this left the continent open to colonialism in the 19th century.
In the 16th and 17th centuries at the height of the slave trade, the European slave trading nations were generally indifferent to the internal affairs of African states. The European nations didn’t have to actively undermine the states of the Slave Coast to secure slave trading rights. These states were falling all over themselves to participate in the slave trade for the vast profits it made them. This didn’t mean that the slave trade didn’t undermine the states of the Slave Coast. It certainly did, but that was an untended consequence. As to the assertion that that was what left the continent open to colonialism, I’ve addressed the point above, I believe.
I suppose that there might be a semantic point in that the Portuguese did not send assassins in to kill leaders or bribe councils to vote against the interests of their countries, but the slave trade was what brought the Europeans to that coast and it was what drove the African states to commit social cannibalism by feeding the slave trade instead of conquering their neighbors to strengthen their own empires.
The colonization was equally successful in the same ways throughout Africa because, by the nineteenth century, all of Africa was pretty much reduced to the same level of social organization. Given the relative strengths of Europe and Africa, even in the 16th century, I suspect that Europe was going to wind up colonizing Africa, regardless. The issue is what sort of colonization occurred vs what sort might have occurred.
It is possible that the siezure of the Southern tip of Africa by the Dutch would have happened anyway, but without a slave trade, it seems more likely that African colonization across the sahel would have happened more in the manner of Asian colonization, at least among the states that had begun to develop more advanced societies. Rather than taking Africa, piecemeal, based on the maps of their own explorers, Europe would have wound up conquering coherent societies according to their borders, leaving existing social structures in place.
Don’t ask me why I’m going to throw a bone to the OP on this, but…
I believe that one the things our esteemed Mr. Jefferson is trying to refer to is the claim made by some people that all of our laws against drugs were motivated by fear of and an attempt to punish minorities. With cocaine, it was sex-crazed, cocaine-adled Negroes that might rape our White women. I saw this view expressed on a History Channel show a few weeks ago that was an overview of how all the drug laws came into being. I have no idea how accepted that hypthesis is in legal circles, and I’m not even 100% certain that is what Mr. Jefferson is getting at in this thread. Take it for what it’s worth.
I believe that Mr. Jefferson’s thesis is that, to make up for slavery, we ought to let blacks have all the drugs and whores they want. Because, as we are all well aware, drugs and whores are what a black person loves best in life. As near as I can figure, rwjefferson saw the same documentary John Mace did, and figured, “Hey, if racism was so effective in creating drug laws, maybe it’ll work in repealing them, too!”
That’s largely what happened in the Sahel anyway, though. Britain and France signed agreements with various tribes, setting up protectorates and building forts.
If you clicked on the linkey, you should have been taken to the court decision giving our military the “right” to discriminate against gays. Contrary to popular belief, the pursuit of gay is a peaceful pursuit and a threat to none; not even the military.
Suppose we offer (as reparation for past injustice) all gay descendants of slaves, the equal right to serve in the military. Let them call themselves the Tuskegee Gaymen.
tomndebb: It is not your minimum standard that I am trying to match. Some feel that reparations are in order. I would like to see them find their peace. I am offering the spirit of liberty over the words of law as a way for them to pursue that peace. I am asking whether they would accept that (along with the blood of patriots and tyrants already shed) as just reparation for the tyranny of the past. I do not understand why this seems such a threat.
It goes well beyond my reasonable doubt to imagine that ben & thom et. al. did not fully understand the ramifications of their words; no matter how vague to others.
An officer says: “I will arrest you if you sit in the front of the bus because that is the law”. Who is really the criminal/tyrant? It is clear to me that it is the one that denies peaceful pursuit. This concept is not at all vague to me. Not even if such a law were written into the constitution would it fool me. Some can recognize tyranny even when it is disguised as “justice”. Some cannot.
However, since most seem to idolize words and constitutions and bibles over the spirit, please consider the following:
Liberty is on trial.
You are the prosecutor.
We, the judge and jury seek justice.
Liberty claims peaceful pursuit; no matter the specifics.
To justly deny liberty, you must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the right of peaceful pursuit is notretained by the people.
To do that, you must cite the article of the constitution that authorizes prohibition of peaceful pursuit.
You must prove beyond reasonable doubt not only that a law has been broken; you must also prove beyond reasonable doubt that the law is constitutional.
Yet, justice goes even beyond that, justice requires that even the constitution holds liberty and justice for all.
The spirit of justice transcends words of law.
The UCMJ is no more that basis of civil rights in America than the DoI, though I also have no problem with gays in the military, and I’m in the military myself.