Barack Obama and Slavery

Slavery still stalks the American consciousness, its wounds yet festering in many hearts. If Barack Obama were to set his mind to it, he could heal much of the damage this peculiar institution wrought on our national soul. This great and tragic error that must be given justice. Obama is the best person in the world who can recognize, remember and honor the deaths of 125 million and the enslavement of tens of millions of people.

His unique qualifications can be found in his names. Until he was 20 years old, he went by the first name Barry. Then he decided to be called Barack Hussein Obama, his original birth name.

Many people seem to the names "Barack" and "Obama" are African names. They are not.

Baraq [Barack] was the name of the winged horse-like creature that took Mohammed to Paradise in the Night Journey. Baraq can also mean God's blessing. Obama is Swahili for Osama, who was one of Mohammed's chief warriors. Osama also means lion. Hussein reminds some Americans of Saddam Hussein, and Obama's supporters get upset if it is used. Hussein was the name of Mohammed's grandson. So Obama's entire name is based upon Islamic mythology and African conquest. Barack Hussein Obama means [Allah's blessing] [Mohammed's grandson] [One of Mohammed's finest warriors].

Obama's name reveals a part of history that is unknown or hidden about America, Africa and slavery. It also reveals a history of the destruction of native African civilization. His name came from his father, a so-called Arab African. The word Arab is the clue to the hidden history.

Kafirs (non-Muslims) rarely refer to Islam, but call it by an ethnic name whenever they can. When Islam conquered the Middle East, the conquerors were not called Muslims, but Arabs. In Eastern Europe the Muslim invaders were called Turks. In Spain conquering Muslims were referred to as Moors. Thus it is that the Islamic culture in Africa, Arab African, is referred to with an ethnic name, Arab Africans, like Obama's father, are Muslims who leave behind their African culture and adopt the Arab culture.

The Arab African Muslim has always been associated with slavery because Islam is the driving force in the history of world slavery.

Islam's connection with slavery starts with Mohammed. The exact details of how slaves are taken are described in detail in the Sira, Mohammed's biography. The Sira is a sacred text since it relates Mohammed's words and deeds, called the Sunna. Everything he did is the perfect pattern of behavior for all Muslims.

Mohammed was involved in every single aspect and detail of slavery. He bought and sold slaves both retail and wholesale. He gave them as gifts, used them for sex, received them as gifts, stood by as slaves were beaten, attacked. He enslaved tribes, and owned black slaves. Indeed, his rise to political success was financed, in part, by the profit of his slave trade.

So the sacred pattern of Mohammed and Islam is the enslavement of non-Muslims, kafirs. For 1400 years Islam has enslaved all races and cultures including Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Zoroastrians, animists, and atheists. Only Muslims are free of being enslaved.

Obama could tell us that there is only one way to understand Africa and slavery and that is to understand political Islam. For 1400 years Islam has steadily been at work in Africa. The easiest place for Americans to see Islam's annihilation of kafir civilization is in North Africa and Egypt. Egypt used to be a Christian and Coptic (the descendants of the Pharaohs) country. North Africa was a Greek and Christian culture, and at one time a part of the Roman Empire.

The first Islamic assault on African culture was the jihad that annihilated Coptic Egyptian culture and Greek culture in Northern Africa. Today these areas are Arabic and Islamic.

That was just the thin end of the jihad wedge. Over the next 1400 years, Islam took approximately 25 million slaves out of Africa. An Arabic word for African is abd, the same word that is used for black slave. Arabic has about 40 words for slaves. White slaves are mamluk. Islam took more than a million European slaves into slavery. The highest priced slave in the Meccan slave market was a white woman.

There is great deal of collateral damage when a slave is taken. A warring party attacks a tribe and when enough of the protectors are killed, the rest will surrender and become slaves. All of those who were strong enough to work were taken away in a forced march for days. But there are many who are left behind -- the young, the old, and the sick and injured.

Estimates vary, but from 5 to 10 people left behind died as the result of taking one slave. So for 25 million slaves, we have the deaths of 125 million Africans over a 1400-year period.

When the story of slavery is told in America, as in the movie Roots, the sailors get off the boats and capture the Africans and make them slaves. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

When the white slaver showed up in his wooden ship, he made a business deal with a Muslim wholesaler. Jihad was the machinery that Mohammed used, and his model worked well in Africa as slavers filled the slave pens for the same reason that Mohammed did it: profit. Whites only traded slaves with Islam for about 200 years. Islam was in the slave trade before and after selling to the West.

If you would like to learn about the Arab African slave traders that came from the same area of Africa that Obama's father came from, read Tippu Tip and the East African Slave Trade (Leda Farrant, Northumberland Press, 1975). Tippu Tip looked African, but he was 100% Arab and Muslim. By the way, Arab is not a racial term, but a cultural/language term.

But the slave trade had another effect. Africa slowly became Islamic. Jihad worked in many ways to bring about conversion. Sometimes trade introduced Islam and a hybrid Islam/native African religion evolved. Then jihad was used to purify and remove the African culture to result in a purer Islam. But in the end, half of Africa fell to Islam.

The oddest thing is that many people have the idea that an Arab African is the same as African. When the Arab culture replaces the native African culture the culture is not African. African culture is no more Arab than Hindu culture is Arab. Sharia law is just as foreign to native African culture as it is to ours.

The magnitude of this problem is seen in Darfur, where Arab Africans are destroying Africans who are not yet Arab enough. This is a centuries-long jihad to annihilate the native African culture. This process is no different than the process by which Coptic Egypt became Arab Egypt. Islam is not a religion but a complete civilization whose stated goal is to replace all other civilizations. There has never been a historical example of a country that kept its native culture after Islam entered. So Africa is an ordinary historical example.

The ignorance about the history behind Obama's names is the root of why he can achieve such an impact. Obama represents the chance to help heal the curse of slavery in America by revealing its complete history. He is a descendant of a white woman who had slave owners in her ancestry. His African father descended from those who enslaved the Africans. Obama is descended from slave owners and slave traders, but he does not have a single drop of slave blood in him.

Since race trumps all, everyone sees him as being representative of America's slave descendants. It becomes true simply because in a race/culture-obsessed society, some want it to be true. Obama's slave ancestry is a fiction and not reality.

So Obama is half enslaver, by ancestry, and half slave, by choice. He is the most uniquely positioned to tell the truth, the complete truth about Islam, Africa, America and slavery.

Now here is the last little twist to Obama's name. He called himself Barry, an Irish name, for many years in America. He changed what he wanted to be called after he went to Pakistan for a three-week stay. He left America as Barry and returned as Barack.

Some whites may have bought slaves from Islam for 200 years, but after that, their culture was first to outlaw slavery. So Obama changed his name from a culture that abolished slavery to a name from a culture that has enslaved others for 1400 years and has a highly detailed doctrine of slavery.

This is the world that Obama spans: from slavery abolition to the eternal enslaver. He represents hope to many American descendants of slaves, but his ancestors were never enslaved. No one else could tell the story that Obama knows. He could tell the story of how 125 million Africans died. He could tell the story of how 25 million Africans became slaves. There is an enormous irony that descendants of the slaves that his ancestors created now look to him for justice. And he could give them real justice by telling the complete truth of their enslavement. Only he has the power to make others listen.

Obama has shown himself to be a world citizen with his speech in Berlin, and his speaking the truth of the complete story of slavery would be historic, and could reverse centuries of ignorance and lies. He can stand up and tell the world the true complete story of slavery. It would change history far beyond the election cycle.

Slavery still stalks the American consciousness

And it still exists throughout Africa and the Middle East.

Slavery in modern Africa

Slavery in Africa continues today. Slavery existed in Africa before the arrival of Europeans - as did a slave trade that exported millions of sub-Saharan Africans to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf.[1] However, slavery and bondage are still African realities. Hundreds of thousands of Africans still suffer in silence in slave-like situations of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves.

Modern-day enslavers also exploit lack of political will at the highest levels of some African governments to effectively tackle trafficking and its root causes. Weak interagency co-ordination and low funding levels for ministries tasked with prosecuting traffickers, preventing trafficking and protecting victims also enable traffickers to continue their operations. The transnational criminal nature of trafficking also overwhelms many countries’ law enforcement agencies, which are not equipped to fight organised criminal gangs that operate across national boundaries with impunity.

Slavery by African country

Chad
IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports children being sold to Arab herdsmen in Chad. As part of a new identity imposed on them the herdsman "...change their name, forbid them to speak in their native dialect, ban them from conversing with people from their own ethnic group and make them adopt Islam as their religion."[2]

Mali
The Malian government denies that slavery exists, however, the slavery in Timbuktu is obvious. Slavery still continues with some Tuaregs holding Bella people.[3]

Mauritania
A system exists now by which Arab Muslims -- the bidanes -- own black slaves, the haratines.[4] An estimated 90,000 black Mauritanians remain essentially enslaved to Arab/Berber owners.[5] The ruling bidanes (the name means literally white-skinned people) are descendants of the Sanhaja Berbers and Beni Hassan Arab tribes who emigrated to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania during the Middle Ages.[6] According to some estimates, up to 600,000 black Mauritanians, or 20% of the population, are still enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour.[7] Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.[8] Malouma Messoud, a former Muslim slave has explained her enslavement to a religious leader:

"We didn't learn this history in school; we simply grew up within this social hierarchy and lived it. Slaves believe that if they do not obey their masters, they will not go to paradise. They are raised in a social and religious system that everyday reinforces this idea.[9]"

In Mauritania, despite slave ownership having been banned by law in 1981, hereditary slavery continues.[10] Moreover, according to Amnesty International:

"Not only has the government denied the existence of slavery and failed to respond to cases brought to its attention, it has hampered the activities of organisations which are working on the issue, including by refusing to grant them official recognition".[11]

Imam El Hassan Ould Benyamin of Tayarat in 1997 expressed his views about earlier proclamations ending slavery in his country as follows:

"[it] is contrary to the teachings of the fundamental text of Islamic law, the Quran ... [and] amounts to the expropriation from muslims of their goods; goods that were acquired legally. The state, if it is Islamic, does not have the right to seize my house, my wife or my slave."[12]

Niger
In Niger, where the practice of slavery was outlawed in 2003, a study found that almost 8% of the population are still slaves.[13] Slavery dates back for centuries in Niger and was finally criminalised in 2003, after five years of lobbying by Anti-Slavery International and Nigerian human-rights group, Timidria.[14] More than 870,000 people still live in conditions of forced labour, according to Timidria, a local human rights group.[15][16]

Descent-based slavery, where generations of the same family are born into bondage, is traditionally practised by at least four of Niger’s eight ethnic groups. The slave masters are mostly from the nomadic tribes — the Tuareg, Fulani, Toubou and Arabs.[17] It is especially rife among the warlike Tuareg, in the wild deserts of north and west Niger, who roam near the borders with Mali and Algeria.[18] In the region of Say on the right bank of the river Niger, it is estimated that three-quarters of the population around 1904-1905 was composed of slaves.[19]

Historically, the Tuareg swelled the ranks of their slaves during war raids into other peoples’ lands. War was then the main source of supply of slaves, although many were bought at slave markets, run mostly by indigenous peoples.[20][21]

Sudan
Francis Bok, former Sudanese slave. At the age of seven, he was captured during a raid in Southern Sudan, and enslaved for ten years.(Courtesy Unitarian Universalist Association/Jeanette Leardi)

There has been a recrudescence of jihad slavery since 1983 in the Sudan.[23][24]

Slavery in the Sudan predates Islam, but continued under Islamic rulers and has never completely died out in Sudan. In the Sudan, Christian and animist captives in the civil war are often enslaved, and female prisoners are often used sexually, with their Muslim captors claiming that Islamic law grants them permission.[25] According to CBS news, slaves have been sold for $50 apiece. [1] In 2001 CNN reported the Bush administration was under pressure from Congress, including conservative Christians concerned about religious oppression and slavery, to address issues involved in the Sudanese conflict.[26] CNN has also quoted the U.S. State Department's allegations: "The [Sudanese] government's support of slavery and its continued military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in part to the victims' religious beliefs." [2]

Jok Madut Jok, professor of History at Loyola Marymount University, states that the abduction of women and children of the south by north is slavery by any definition. The government of Sudan insists that the whole matter is no more than the traditional tribal feuding over resources.[27]

It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The slaves are mostly Dinka people.[28][29]

Child slave trade
The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin.[30] The children are kidnapped or purchased for $20 - $70 each by slavers in poorer states, such as Benin and Togo, and sold into slavery in sex dens or as unpaid domestic servants for $350.00 each in wealthier oil-rich states, such as Nigeria and Gabon.[31] [32]

Ghana, Togo, Benin
In parts of Ghana, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family.[33] In this instance, the woman does not gain the title of "wife". In parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin, shrine slavery persists, despite being illegal in Ghana since 1998. In this system of slavery, sometimes called trokosi (in Ghana) or voodoosi in Togo and Benin, or ritual servitude, young virgin girls are given as slaves in traditional shrines and are used sexually by the priests in addition to providing free labor for the shrine.[34]

Ethiopia
Mahider Bitew, Children's Rights and Protection expert at the Ministry of Women's Affairs, says that some isolated studies conducted in Dire Dawa, Shashemene, Awassa and three other towns of the country indicate that the problem of child trafficking is very serious. According to a 2003 study about one thousand children were trafficked via Dire Dawa to countries of the Middle East. The majority of those children were girls, most of whom were forced to be sex workers after leaving the country. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has identified prostitution as the Worst Form of Child Labor.[35]

In Ethiopia, children are trafficked into prostitution, to provide cheap or unpaid labor and to work as domestic servants or beggars. The ages of these children are usually between 10 and 18 and their trafficking is from the country to urban centers and from cities to the country. Boys are often expected to work in activities such as herding cattle in rural areas and in the weaving industry in Addis Ababa, and other major towns. Girls are expected to take responsibilities for domestic chores, childcare and looking after the sick and to work as prostitutes.[35]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_modern_Africa

Is Obama really African-American?

excerpt:

Here is the truth about Mr. Obama’s name, and his father’s ancestors:

True Negro tribal members of western Kenya where his father was born have Christian names, not Arabic. His father’s decision to name him with an Arabic name is a matter of his father establishing his ethnic identity in Africa - it is done deliberately to separate him from the African tribes. He may live among them, but he is not one of them. His father’s message is that he is Arabic, not Negro.

Many will find these truths unsettling. I’m often asked, “But I thought his father was Kenyan. How could Mr. Obama not be African-American, how could his ethnic composition be so Arabic?”

The definitive clue to that answer is to look at his name, his father’s name, and the names of all his ancestors on his father’s side. They are all Arabic.

Researching his roots reveal that on his father’s side, he is descended from Arab slave traders. They operated under an extended grant from Queen Victoria, who gave them the right to continue the slave trade in exchange for helping the British defeat the Madhi Army in southern Sudan and the Upper Nile region. Funny how circular is history; now the British again face the Madhi Army, albeit this time Shiite, not Sunni, as in nineteenth century Sudan.

But telling America’s black community that while their ancestors were breaking the shackles of slavery, Mr. Obama’s ancestors were placing those shackles upon their wrists would hardly play as an Oprah Winfrey best-seller.

Being the son of a poor Kenyan goat-herder plays much better than being the son of a highly placed Arab-African who operated at the top of the Kenyan government following his education at Columbia. You see, even the way he portrays his father is a lie.

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/02/barak-obama-questions-about-ethnic.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.