Who should pay?
An unpopular truth
[Reprinted from Issues & Views August 20, 2001]
President Abdoulaye Wade of the African nation of Senegal did it again. Once before he spoke out against black demands for reparations, even ridiculing the idea that whites owed more to blacks than Africans themselves.
This time, President Wade got more specific. In a Reuters report, he again cites Africans who owned slaves, and then asks, "Should they also pay up? Some of us have forbears who may not have sold slaves, but had slaves in their armies. I am talking about my own ancestors, who had 10,000 soldiers at that time, of which two thirds were slaves."
In fact, one might add, in Africa, as in other parts of the world, it was common for rulers to go on hunts to capture boys and men, in order to provide soldiers for their armies. This was a major purpose of slave-hunting.
-- EW
Copyright © 2008 Issues & Views
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