All Black Lives Matter

Ken Menon

Description

A comprehensive study shares fresh perspectives on the impacts of slavery, past and present, on the modern world.
Black lives matter wherever they may be, whether in the developed world or in the consciousness of those who see the evil of our times. Racism has no place in an apparently civilized world. Indeed, all lives matter.
In a comprehensive examination of worldwide slavery and its impact on modern society, Ken Menon delves into the further impacts of slavery, other than the transatlantic slave trade, that remain submerged in the Black Lives Matter movement and the iconoclasm of our times. While contemplating why these aspects of African slavery, which are arguably as important as transatlantic slavery, are not being analyzed to the same degree and whether reparations would produce enduring benefits, Menon also examines why blacks appear to perform less well than others in society as well as the role played by blacks in slavery and the resistance in Africa to the abolishment of slavery.
All Black Lives Matter shares fresh perspectives on the impacts of slavery, past and present, on the modern world.

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• África
• Slavery
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse UK
• Date de parution: 29 juin 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798823083270
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER
 
BONDAGE, VIOLENCE, SUBJUGATION
 
 
 
KEN MENON
 
 
 
 
This book is dedicated to the late Sunil Anthony Menon
 
 
AuthorHouse™ UK
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Bloomington, IN 47403 USA
www.authorhouse.co.uk
Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)             UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 ([phone] from outside the UK)
 
 
 
 
 
© 2023 Ken Menon. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 06/26/2023
 
ISBN: 979-8-8230-8325-6 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-8230-8326-3 (hc)
ISBN: 979-8-8230-8327-0 (e)
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
Slaves and Slavery
Of Africa, by Africa, for Africa
‘a moment of madness’
Stompei, Nkosi, ‘Dr.Beetroot’
‘We Are Not Your Boys’
Iconoclasm, Wokeism
Reparations
Rise of the Phoenix
White Crocodile, Black Crocodile, New Slavery for Old
SLAVES AND SLAVERY
 
T he word slave derives from ‘Slav’ where Slavs became slaves when the Holy Roman Empire was involved in battle in the German –Slav border in the 9 th century. The German King, Henry the Fowler (Heinrich der Vogler or Heinrich der Finkler (876 – 936) and his son Otto 1, defeated and conquered the Slav people who lived east of the Elbe river, between it and the Baltic coast. The Slav people were converted to Christianity by Otto 1 who became Holy Roman Emperor. However the Slav people have a better meaning for the word ‘Slav’. It means ‘famous’ or ‘renown’. Hence the name ‘Stanislav’ means a person who achieves glory or fame in resisting enemies or opponents. Similarly, the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, comes from the Czech word ‘brat’ meaning brother and ‘slav ‘ meaning glory or fame. The female version of the word is Bratislava.
The word slave first appeared in English usage around 1538.
Alexander Hamilton (1755 – 1804) an American politician and one of the  Founding Fathers of the United States , said ‘The only distinction between freedom and slavery is this: In the former state, a man is governed by the laws to which he has given his consent; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another.’
In his 1998 book, Slaves and Slavery , Duncan Clarke defines slavery as ‘as the reduction of fellow human beings to the legal status of chattels, allowing them to be bought and sold as goods’. This is a useful definition of human slavery as it happened then and in respect to what is witnessed now in acts of ‘modern slavery’.
A slave is a person owned by another and therefore in complete servitude to the latter. The word slave also has non –human meanings for e.g. being a slave to work or being under the control of and dependent on an object like the saying ‘he is a slave to alcohol’. The word may also be used to describe a component of machinery that is controlled and operated by another part of the machine cycle. Therefore a robot in a car manufacturing plant may be seen as a slave.
But in the use of the word related to human slavery, the word ‘slave’ is one who is not only owned by another, but is devoid of rights, and is used and controlled in virtually every aspect of life by the owner of the slave. It is an experience of total surrender and of dehumanisation. Slavery is extreme servitude with no ability to exercise any freedom of action or of opinion.
Duncan Clarke’s description of a slave encompasses what it is to be one. A near-inanimate ‘object’ devoid of feeling, emotions, a voice to articulate views and freedom of action and thought. Everything about the word ‘slave’ implies ownership by another, who decides what a slave may or may not do. It is the most degrading state to be reduced to and above all to subject another to. It exceeds by a great magnitude the suffering for e.g. of the black people in apartheid South Africa. Nelson Mandela, on release from incarceration in Robben Island off the coast of South Africa said ‘Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another’. But the oppression he was referring to was subjugation and was so different to the conditions of slavery that it would have been a welcome relief to a slave.
Slavery is probably as old as humanity. For example, the Book of Exodus in the Bible states that slaves were to manumitted after six years. In Islamic society too, slaves were to me manumitted after six years. This practice was no doubt a relief for most of the slaves, to be released from captivity. But this placed a burden on society, due to a need to find a continuous supply of slaves that were needed.
Peonage or debt slavery was the practice where a person offered his services in repayment of a debt. It was a form of servitude. There is no contract and therefore the person is under servitude to the master for an indefinite term in time and under ill-defined conditions, which in most cases never existed. In its first Global report, ‘Stopping Forced Labour -2001’ The international Labour Organisation (ILO) estimated that globally, there were at least 12.3 million people in forced labour. The 2020 UK Annual Report on Modern Slavery, calls it an abhorrent and despicable crime.
Eshnunna, which is modern Tell Asmar in Iraq, was one of the earliest states in Mesopotamia. In about 2000 BC the Laws of Eshnunna were set out inscribed in two tablets which were discovered in  Tell Abū Harmal ,  Baghdad ,  Iraq in 1945 and 1947. The Eshnunna Laws fell into five groups- theft, false seizure of a person’s property in lieu of money or other items owed, bodily injury, sexual offence and damages caused by ox and related causes. The Laws had a section on slavery for e.g. a slave woman and silver owed shall be of equal value. When a slave owner ‘brings the silver, he shall retrieve his slave woman’. And it stated that ‘If a man should deflower the slave woman of another man, he shall weigh and deliver 20 shekels of silver, but the slave woman remains the property of her master.’
In about 2250 BC was the Code of Hammurabi which set out rights of slaves and of slave owners. For e.g. Code 15 states ‘If a man should enable a palace slave, a palace slave woman, a commoner’s slave, or a commoner’s slave woman to leave through the main city-gate, he shall be killed.’ And Code 17 says that ‘If a man seizes a fugitive slave or slave woman in the open country and leads he back to his owner, the slave owner shall give him 2 shekels of silver.’
However the various ancient Codes that were inexistence did not always make life easier for those in slavery. For e.g. the Codes of Middle Assyrian of 1076 B.C. stated ‘ If either a slave or a slave woman should receive something from a man’s wife, they shall cut off the slave’s or slave woman’s nose and ears; they shall restore the stolen goods; the man shall cut off his own wife’s ears. But if he releases his wife and does not cut off her ears, they’ shall not cut off (the nose and ears) of the slave or slave woman, and they shall not restore the stolen goods’.
While affording some protection to slaves, Codes favoured owners of slaves. But slave owners were responsible for providing food and shelter for slaves in their ownership.
The Hebrew Bible had two sets of laws – one for Canaanite slaves and another for Hebrew slaves. The latter laws were lenient in comparison to those applied to Canaanite slaves. ‘Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers’.
The Canaanites were a group of people, who lived in Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan. They spoke the Semitic language. The Semitic language is a Syro-Arabic language that is spoken by over 300 million people living in the Middle East, North Africa, Malta. The word Semitic comes from Shem, who was one of the three sons of Noah. It has been shown and written that most Lebanese are descended from Canaanites.
The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and in the Old Testament of Christianity. The Book of Joshua states ‘ Joshua turned back at that time and took Hazor, and struck its king with the sword, for Hazor was formerly the head of all those kingdoms. And they struck all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them … Then he burnt Hazor with fire.’
This appears to tell the story of how the ancient Israelites reached the promised land of Canaan. However, archaeologists who have excavated relevant sites in Canaan find no evidence to support this description. Israelites followed the Canaanites in Canaan. In its time Hazor appears to have been a thriving Canaanite acrop olis.
It is currently accepted that around the 13th century BC a terrible catastrophe befell Caanan. Archaeologists describe a ‘violent conflagration’. The heat was so intense that for eg. bricks turned to glass. That there was a fire is generally accepted. It is therefore possible that the Israelites laid siege and destroyed Canaan in pursuit of their Promised Land. After the conquest of Hazor, it is written in the Book of Joshua that the Israelites took all of the land between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. However the Book of Judges, which is