‘We satisfy our endless needs,
Justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny,
And in the name of God.
And you can see them there
on Sunday morning,
Stand up and sing about
What is like up there.
They call it paradise
I don’t know why
You call some place paradise
Kiss it goodbye”.
Don Henley and Glen Frey in the song ”The Last Resort’ in the 1977 Album ”Hotel California” by the Eagles.
The above lyrics are taken from a song written by two legendary American song writers who were members of the famous now defunct Rock group ”The Eagles”. The song parodies America’s claim to exceptionalism which most often had been used to justify all kinds of crimes committed against humanity over the years by successive American governments over the centuries.
Such crimes committed under the cover of the so-called America’s manifest destiny and invoking the name of God in the process had resulted in the killing and destruction of millions of lives and livelihood all over the world without any acknowledgement, remorse and reparations for the wrongs done to the victims from generations to date.
On March 6 this year, 250 years since the declaration of American independence from Britain in 1776, a motion for a vote to declare the transatlantic slavery of which the United States of America was the greatest beneficiary of this inhumanity by man to man was tabled at the United Nations by Ghana. One hundred and twenty-three countries, mainly from Africa, Caribbean, Asia and Latin America voted in favour of the motion. Fifty-two countries from Europe and joined by Canada and Australia abstained. The naysayers to the motion were the United States of America, Israel and Argentina.
It is instructive that slavery was the foundation for American economic development. From the moment the motley crew of adventurers, fortune hunters and convicts hit the American continent from Britain their first thought was on how procure people from Africa to do the back breaking work of tilling the land to grow agricultural products for export back to Europe. And this demand spawned the trade on forcibly getting African people to the Americas.
Thus, slavery functioned on two planks; trade in Africans as commodities and as chattel workers in the agricultural plantations. It was through this inhuman system that the United States of America built its economic foundation and this system was sustained from the seventeenth century up until the late nineteenth century.
Americans have sold to the world the notion that between 1863 to 1865 the two halves of the country fought a civil war on whether to keep the slavery system being practiced in the southern states or not. But even after the victory of the states that fought to abolish slavery, the system and its vestiges remained in American life in various forms to this day.
One would think that for a country that proclaims itself as vanguard of human rights, the United States of America would welcome and promote the efforts being made to acknowledge and right the wrongs of the horrendous historical experience that slavery was to its victims over the centuries, this had not been so. Yes, this is the same America that likes to lecture the world ad nauseum on the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust. We know also that the US took it upon itself to arrest and punish leading members of Nazi Germany who were found guilty of perpetrating these crimes against the Jewish people across Europe. America also had compelled Germany to pay reparations to the state of Israel ad continuum for the crime of the Holocaust.
Against this background many were surprised that included in this trio slavery denial countries is the state of Israel. This is the country that since its establishment in 1948, had existed and thrived on the victimhood of the Holocaust. Every Israeli government and leader since Ben Gurion down to Benjamin Netanyahu had waved the tragedy of the Holocaust conveniently to exact global sympathy and generous economic, military/strategic and diplomatic concessions. Indeed, many African countries despite having misgivings about Israeli policies and actions against Palestinians have however allowed Israel companies generous economic, military and commercial space to operate.
A glimpse into Israeli reveals a country stratified along racial divides. At the bottom of Israel’s racial structure are the Falasha Jews originally from Ethiopia, who are subjected to racial discrimination in many forms due to their colour. The bulk of the male Falasha are forcibly conscripted to serve in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and deployed to the most dangerous Northern Command where Israel constantly faces existential threats from the Lebanese Hizbollah.
Generally, the Falasha are not only restricted to the most menial jobs and tasks, they are routinely subjected to humiliating medical practices to limit their population growth.
It is ironic that a country that likes to constantly remind the world of the Holocaust and makes it mandatory on governments and global institutions to recognise this historical crime meted to its people would be the one to vote against recognition of a similar grievous historical wrong perpetrated against another race of humans.
As for Argentina, many know the country through its iconic football stars like the late Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi and the other prodigious talents of the game. We also know of the popular Argentinian dance the Tango which ironically is of African origin.
But when Argentine sports team line up we do not see blacks as we do see in other Latin American countries. For a long time, the Argentine government had promoted the narrative that blacks had never existed in the country. But historical record has it that blacks really existed in the country and they were deployed in the plantations in the country.
But in the war of independence against Spain and subsequent wars against its neighbours, the Argentine government pursued a relentless and ruthless campaign of obliterating its black population and replacing them with immigrants from Europe and the Middle East. Within a couple of generations and by the turn of the twentieth century the policy of ”whitening” adopted by the Argentine government had been completed and to this day no blacks are found in the country.
It comes as no surprise that Argentines take pride in their genocidal and racist policies which they flaunt against their Latin American neighbours especially Brazil which has a mixed racial population. A case in this regard occurred during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 when Nigeria was to meet Brazil in the semi-finals of the men football event for the privilege of meeting the Argentine team which had already qualified for the final. An Argentine newspaper put out a front-page headline thus; ‘The monkeys of Brazil against the monkeys of Nigeria”.
The bulk of the slaves that were taken to the Americas were from Nigeria and it is ironic that the US which perpetrated this greatest inhumanity is now lecturing us on morality. It is even more ironic that the political figures waxing about happenings in Nigeria, Congressman Riley Moore and Senator Ted Cruz are from the states of West Virginia and Texas respectively where slavery was practiced to the hilt. If we ever needed any proof of the US’s insincerity and hypocrisy on its policies on Nigeria this should be it. Let the US acknowledge and recompense its moral burden of slavery against Africa and its descendants as well as the genocide it committed against its indigenous Indian population before it can be counted as an honest and helpful factor in Nigerian affairs.