An Oct. 5-9, 1999, conference sponsored by
NYU's Institute for African-American Affairs.
Coverage by undergraduate journalism students.

In a week of workshops on the history and impact of the slave trade, what most distinguished the panel entitled "Modern Patterns of Slavery in Africa" was its focus: not on the ramifications of what happened in past centuries, but on what is happening in Africa now.

Indeed, the panelists weren't scholars but anti-slavery activists from Sudan and Mauritania, two African countries where slavery still thrives. Their political commitment to the subject matter influenced the overall tenor of the workshop, which, as panelist Bakary Tandia said afterwards, was part of their job.

Rashida Ismaili, a writer and performer from Dahomey, moderated the panel. She set the tone from her introduction, saying that issue of modern slavery is sensitive and complex, but that it must be addressed in public forums. Rarely, she said, is it mentioned "in newspapers that print all that's fit to print," and education, she said, is the key to eradicating it.

More on slavery around the world

Ismaili asked that everyone "listen and be critical" before forming an opinion. Then she introduced her fellow panelists to the mostly African-American, 60-person audience gathered Oct. 8 at Harlem's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: Akuei Malwal, a researcher from south Sudan; Bakary Tandia of Mauritania, and Kewulay Kamara, a journalist and performer from Sierra Leone.

Malwal and Tandia took turns describing the distinct realities of slavery in their home countries.

Malwal defined slavery as the uprooting of a group of people to farm someone else's land. He briefly traced the history of the phenomenon in his native Sudan, explaining that slavery resulted from the contentious resistance of southern Sudanese to Islamic influence from the north.

The Sudanese Arabs who settled in the north were wealthy merchants bent on dominating the country who used slavery as a means of asserting power, he said. Up until the downfall of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, it was lawful to trade black natives from the south as slaves.

Under British rule, between 1898 and 1956, the situation improved, Malwal said, but the northerners remained the more powerful force. This, he said, led to a civil war after independence in 1956. Peace reigned for 10 years starting in 1972, but broke down in 1983 when the government formally proclaimed Islamic law, much in the way of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979. The Chariah has been the official law in the country ever since.

The discovery of oil in the south added a new dimension to the conflict, tearing apart the fragile equilibrium that had been established. At that point, according to Malwal, the Christian southerners took up arms to fight for their freedom. The result, he said, is a situation in which the better-armed northern tribes slaughter and enslave their southern enemies. The slave trade has been allowed to fester, he added, because the Islamic government looks the other way, and the international community has never protested.

At least one of the members of the audience took issue with Malwal's presentation of the facts. At the end of the workshop, a Harlem resident who identified himself only as "Youssef, said that he had been to Karthoum, Sudan's capital, recently and hadn't noticed any opposition between blacks and northerners. Nor, he said, reacting to another comment of Malwal's, did he think it was necessary to embrace the Arabic culture when a person converts to Islam.

"Isn't the Koran translated into English?" he asked.

Malwal replied that Karthoum was a government-controlled area where protest had long been eradicated, but that the situation was more fraught in other parts of the country, where Islamic law is being violently imposed. "The good Muslim must question the bad one," he added, backed up by most of the audience. His co-panelist, Tandia, added, "The anti-slavery campaign isn't one against Islam."

The Mauritanian said his country has abolished slavery three times, "which reveals it still exists." For him, the term refers to a situation transmitted from one generation to another in which a master retains rights of life and death over another person. All Mauritanians are Muslim, he insisted, yet the population can be divided in three groups: 30 per cent Arab (the well-known Saharan Moors); 30 percent blacks and Africans from the southern part of the country and own their own land; and 40 per cent black slaves or former slaves.

The slave population lives in the north, Tandia said, and speak Arabic like their masters. They have lost their cultural identity to such an extent that most of the slaves freed over the last decade -- desertification made them a burden to their masters -- have been liberated against their will.

Kewulai Kamara showed pictures of his native Sierra Leone, evoking more of a sense of the African's everyday life than he did of the problem of slavery. He showed pictures of young soldiers and their rifles, the constant smiles of his fellow villagers, and the fire around which they gather in the evening. He also showed pictures of his village after its destruction by fire and then the survivors rebuilding their homes, smiling still.

When it came time for questions, audience members wanted to know what could be done to stop slavery: Put the guilty on trial?

"We can raise a protest," Tandia said. "The Mauritanian government recognizes slavery by denying it." Worse, he added, the government's policy is directed against the black southerners who, in the past decade, he said, have endured massive deportation, expropriation and even slaughter.

Tandia has been raising consciousness about the problem since 1995, when he became involved with the Africa Peace Tour, a series of conferences held in universities across the country and sponsored by the Americans Friends Service Committee.

He is also involved in lobbying efforts at the United Nations, in Congress and at the State Department. His goals are to promote concrete action against slavery and have it declared a crime against humanity.

The panel was as much an opportunity for slavery activists to network as it was to educate the public. Business cards exchanged hands in the lobby afterwards and participants were heard setting up appointments and making plans for exhibitions and events.

One participant, Fifidala Kouyate, even took advantage of the question-and-answer period to introduce herself and the committee she works for, a group called CLEM, the French acronym for the Committee Against Modern Slavery. Its purpose is to fight for the rights of the enslaved and act personally in favor of exploited illegal immigrant workers in Europe.

In concluding his remarks, Tandia summed up the panelists' common sentiment: "We need you," he said, "because there is no real challenge from the west." Only the force of public opinion, he said, can push western governments to take action.

LINKS

These sites are not part of J.Post, and the NYU Department of Journalism and Mass Communication has no control over their content or availability.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture - official homepage

Islamic law practiced in Sudan - from U.S. Department of State

Sudan's Civil War - written by Mary Edington Rand of International Coalition for Religious Freedom

The Koran (in English) - resources from University of Michigan

American Friends Service Committee - Africa Peace Tour - official homepage

Produced for the Web by Nancy Kuei