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"Than politics the American citizen knows
no higher profession - for it is the most lucrative."
If the American cinema is any reasonable reflection of the inner hopes and dreams rolling around in the National psyche, then the megahit Titanic’s record-smashing popularity, poised beside the relatively underwhelming gate of Amistad, speaks volumes in its insights into which history the majority opts to recall. In the former work, the pride of Jin de seicle technology crashes into an unforeseen natural obstacle, resulting in catastrophe, leavened by love on the high seas. In the latter work, a group of men and women, bound for a Caribbean slave port battle against overwhelming odds, shatter their shackles, and sail the seas in search of freedom. It is, of course, an enormous oversimplification to suggest that the race of the protagonists resulted in the wide gap in popularity, but it would be disingenuous to suggest that race was not an important factor in which film attracted the most patrons. Black slaves killing their slavers has not exactly been a staple of American film. But this is not a film review. It, through Amistad, brings us to the shores of Africa. Any true, historical telling of the slave trade must include the uncomfortable, yet undeniable fact that African royalty (elites) sold their people into a hellish bondage. It is also a fact that African slavery was far different from the perpetual, hereditary, racialized slavery of Europe and the Americans. In the African context slavery was usually reserved for captured prisoners of war. In America, slavery was initially an Indian imposition, until Bartolome de las Casas received papal permission to exploit Africans as slaves to replace the Indians who, reportedly, died like flies from working in the tropical West Indian sun. The unholy union of European greed and African elites brought untold hardship, suffering and death to uncounted millions, for centuries. It is in this context, then, that the coming of African American elites, businessmen and politicians, back to Africa, as part of the White House trade mission to West, Central and Southern Africa, raises concern. Here, again, we look to history for lessons, where black Americans returned to Africa, over a century ago, only to plunge indigenous, free African people into virtual bondage to US capital. The case is Liberia. Isn’t it interesting that the first US President to host multinational state visit to Africa virtually ignored the nation set up by black Americans? To those with a smattering of knowledge about African and American history, the presidential avoidance of its first de facto colony (the British did the same thing in Sierra Leone) was, to say the least, a bad omen. Why would US government, and US corporations, which seem to be daily waging a war against the black poor in America, now give a damn about the black poor in Africa? The short answer is, they don’t. Capital cares only for the largest and quickest return on investments. Politicians only care about making the work safe for capital. For over 400 years, blacks suffered in a searing American hell because African elites and white capital joined hands. Now, the sons and daughters of that carnage have returned to Africa; like Greeks bearing gifts. © 1998 Mumia Abu-Jamal
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The
Second Coming