MODERN RESEARCH ON IS OFTEN PENETRATING AND USEFUL, BUT IT OFTEN REVEALS A SPIRIT MORE ATTUNED TO PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS THAN TO TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE PAST FOR ITSELF
That objective leads to seeing White's impact on the African savannah as worthy of an important article, but hardly as the driving force. Its main effect was to buttress monarchies that braked the rise of a new social class, engaged in intensive slave-based production for mainly local markets. When the European slave trade ended, so did that control.
The result was the infinitely more extensive and effective slave raids of the second half of the 19th century, and the appearance of huge slave-based estates as brutal, and as economically effective, as the plantations of the American South. They made it impossible for colonial conquerors to install their economies, except by freeing the slaves.
Giving those fervent, ruthless, dynamic predators their merited place overturns the view of Africans as victims, collaborators or opponents of whites, a supporting cast.
.jpg)
Zoom
Painting of al-hajj Umar Tall on a Dakar wall.
# # #
Showing a rational approach to the African past has more than a theoretical interest. Modern Africans depend at least indirectly on the outside, a dependence that historical accounts unwittingly reinforce.
Believing that Europe has exercised its hegemony for centuries implies that is virtually eternal. Showing that on the contrary, it has existed for only a few generations highlights its economic nature and reveals that it will pass.
No comments:
Post a Comment