From Liverpool-UK, 31 Jan 2013<\/i><\/p>\n
The uncontested center of the world slave trade, 40%, well documented in the International Slavery Museum in the port where slave ships docked.\u00a0 The trade was triangular: from Liverpool (Bristol, London) with Manchester textiles, metals, beads, alcohol and guns for slave traders in the Bay of Guinea; with slaves from there to the Caribbean, the Middle Passage;<\/i> and from there with sugar, coffee and cotton grown by slaves back to England.\u00a0 To stealing people, 2\/3 young men ages 15-25, killing their societies, they added stealing raw materials in return for cheap manufactures.\u00a0 Hand in hand they went; from the beginning by the Portuguese in 1502 till the slave trade was forbidden in England in 1807–continued in other ways, also today.<\/p>\n
We talk about millions of slaves landed in the arch from Rio to Washington with the point of gravity in the Caribbean, and some south of Rio, north of Washington and around the coast to the Pacific side of Latin America.\u00a0 An unspeakable crime against humanity.<\/p>\n
Another unspeakable crime to remember, the shoa<\/i>, has its Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January; but somebody else’s, Germany’s, enemy of England, comes easier.\u00a0 No Slavery Memorial Day, no Colonialism Memorial Day.\u00a0 Nor any memorial to the 10 million killed in King Leopold’s Congo, in Antwerp, the port for shipping guns to Africa in return for rubber.\u00a0 More easily understood than manufactured goods converted into slaves converted into commodities.\u00a0 Maybe one day all three memorial days will come.\u00a0 And for the Firs Nations, slavery and imperialism in the USA, with museums, next to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC.\u00a0 In no way diminishing the enormity of the shoa<\/i>, but for perspective, for better understanding, for learning how to avoid genocide.<\/p>\n
All entirely intended, justified by seeing the victims as subhuman or worse.\u00a0 Like Stalin’s murder of kulaks.\u00a0 Mass famines in China under Mao in 1958-62, or in North Korea, were hardly intended, however.<\/p>\n
Back to slavery.\u00a0 Points worth remembering, from the catalogue:<\/p>\n
And this torture lasted throughout their lives, passed on to the offspring, for centuries.\u00a0 Carefully, cleverly planed, based on cost-benefit analysis of resources, African humans, and commodities.<\/p>\n
Liverpool, however, has more to offer, like the remarkable Catholic Cathedral, modern, circular, no ship; the priests officiate in the center not at the end.\u00a0 With a circular tower.\u00a0 Very beautiful.<\/p>\n
Stained glass windows with the occasional sun enhancing the Christian message.\u00a0 What message?\u00a0 How beautiful had it been Jesus living with the poor, Jesus with other women than his mother-as baby, Jesus comforting and nursing the ill, feeding the hungry, cleansing the temple for the cult of Mammon, now adding to dictatorship with guns and democracy with words corruptocracy with money.\u00a0 Mammon rule.<\/p>\n
Jesus turning the other cheek, not resisting evil; Jesus giving the cloak to whoever steals the coat–.<\/p>\n
Nothing of the kind.\u00a0 Birth and death only, nothing in-between. The Cross indeed, the suffering, the sadomasochism of the Father sacrificing His Son, giving us human sinners new hope.\u00a0 And the Son resurrected on the third day joining Father; the Christ of the Church.<\/p>\n
Deep down we sense a connection.\u00a0 Merchants of Liverpool, with their relatives and friends as rich planters “over there”, are the stern Fathers, sacrificing the sons, the Negroes from Negroland in Africa, for the benefit of us all, ultimately also for the slaves: If or when they turn to Christ they will be resurrected and end up in Paradise, by all the criteria of the Sermon on the Mount.<\/p>\n
Living among the poor?\u00a0 Only with a whip and a gun.\u00a0 Nursing the sick? Just to restore them to more suffering on their cross, the torture of slavery. Feeding the hungry?\u00a0 For more suffering.\u00a0 Women?\u00a0 Split families, sell them separately, even “down the river” (Mississippi).\u00a0 Turning the other cheek? No, but most brutal revenge.\u00a0 Abraham Lincoln:<\/p>\n
“My paramount object is to save the Union–not either to save or destroy slavery.\u00a0 If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it”<\/i> (letter to the editor New York Tribune<\/i>, 22 August 1862).<\/p>\n
Ultimately, on January 1 1863 he went for both.\u00a0 Better than union with slavery (1850 “compromise”).\u00a0 Still better: neither slavery, nor union.<\/p>\n
_______________________<\/p>\n
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including \u2018<\/i>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,\u2019 published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgment and link to the source, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, is included. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From Liverpool-UK, 31 Jan 2013 – We talk about millions of slaves landed in the arch from Rio to Washington with the point of gravity in the Caribbean, and some south of Rio, north of Washington and around the coast to the Pacific side of Latin America. An unspeakable crime against humanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}