HUMANITY WRAP: Slavery is alive but a cheque will do fine

Sun, September 09, 2001
HUMANITY WRAP: Slavery is alive but a cheque will do fine

What a great week's viewing. Board purges and bomb hoaxes shook THAI faster than a rat chewing Semtex, while hot money and bad toxics went through a rinse-and-spin cycle before being washed down the sewer. There were high-level talks with a low-level neighbour in mid river, that went so well they were swapping all kinds of vows by the time the karaoke finished; mind you, it's only Sunday. Those two loveable young rogues were cleared as feared, with a quickly taken 'free' kick while the army was still arguing with the ref. On camera, the boys appeared grim and stoic one minute and as innocent as Duracell bunnies the next. Meanwhile, the Democrats can't even catch the eye of the maitre d'.

Somewhere in one of her novels, Elizabeth Bowen offers the shrewd observation that "The Irish always need someone to be Irish at." Their humour was certainly missing from the debacle in Durban last week. Although the US is picking up 25 per cent of the conference tab, they are also expected to pick up the bill for slavery along with Britain and Europe.

Every person alive today has ancestors who were slaves or slave-owners. For thousands of years black Africans enslaved other black Africans. Then black Africans sold other black Africans to Arab slave dealers, who force-marched them across the Sahara to North Africa and the Middle East. When the white man arrived on the scene much later, wanting slaves for the American colonies, the West African slave traders were only too happy to oblige. It was a lucrative expansion. An African chief explained: "We want three things: powder, ball and brandy; and we have three things to sell: men, women and children." West African nations prospered mightily.

Back here in the future, the Syrians denounced the Holocaust as "a Jewish lie"; Fidel Castro was hailed by South African's foreign minister as leader of "the most democratic country in the world". Then the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) demanded that reparations for the Hutu slaughter of the Tutsis should be paid, naturally, by the Americans for not intervening earlier even though Rwanda is a sovereign nation with which the US has no connection, past or present. Elsewhere, some African presidents were hoping that the West would just drop off one huge fat cheque at the presidential palace.

It's a divine hypocrisy that the UN and its conventioneers are not interested in what intolerance is happening right here and now, like the Taleban demanding that Hindus wear yellow identifying patches like some new fashion accessory from the Hindu Kush Jew label; or that slavery is alive and well, thank you very much, in Sudan, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast. No, what they're interested in is putting the white man on trial, convicting him, and fining him 80 trazillion dollars, thus enabling what the OAU calls a "massive injection of new capital into places from Harare to Harlem, from Trinidad to Tanzania, black Brazil to Burundi". It's open season on the whites and the way to reparation is back to the past. Harare? Sure, old Mugabe's pension plan needs topping up.

It's weird that no one has stood up and said that the West has nothing to apologise for, least of all Britain. London abolished slavery in the British Isles in 1772, and throughout the empire in 1833, to furious opposition from Arab and Western African slave traders. Life expectancy for American blacks is 69.9 years; for Ugandans it's 45, and falling. For all their troubles, the 30 odd million American blacks have a greater combined wealth than the 30 million Canadians.

I am wrong about the Irish. It would have been better if the late Sammy Davis Jr had been at the conference to deliver his well-known quote: "Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted."

Politicians and activists looking for a fresh spin on conference rhetoric might want to consider the words of Barney Barnato, the famous mining magnate of the South African Rand. "Gentlemen," he told a meeting of shareholders, "those are my principles. And if you don't like them, I have others."

"Happy Birthday" is copyrighted. Composed in 1849 and registered in 1935, Congress has given it a 20-year extension, much to the benefit of its proprietors, AOL Time Warner. As their corporate lawyers chant:

According to Ipsos-Reid's poll last month, while 79 per cent of Americans could sing the first line of "The Star Spangled Banner", only 37 per cent of Canadians could sing the first line of "O Canada", even though the first line of "O Canada" is "O Canada".

In the year 2525, if man is still alive,
If woman can survive, they may find-

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies.
Everything you think, do, and say
Is in the pill you took today.

In the year 4545
Ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes.
You won't find a thing to chew,
Nobody's gonna look at you.

In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your side,
You legs got nothing to do,
Some machine's doing that for you.

In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife.
You'll pick your sons, pick your daughters too
From the bottom of a long glass tube.
Whoa-oh-oh.

In the year 7510
If God's a-coming He ought to make it by then.
Maybe he'll look around himself and say,
"Guess it's time for the Judgement Day."

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty head.
He'll either say, "I'm pleased where man has been"
Or tear it down and start again. - Whoa-oh-oh

In the year 9595
I'm kinda wondering if man is gonna be alive;
He's taken everything this old Earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing.

Now it's been ten thousand years,
Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew.
Now man's reign is through.
But throught eternal night,
The twinkling of starlight,
So very far away,
Maybe it's only yesterday...

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.