Misunderstanding history

During a recent trip, President Obama took his family (and reporters) to Ghana to “learn” about the history of slavery.

From the 6th to 10th centuries, Baghdad had been a center for using slave labor to help establish the Baghdad Caliphate.  Slavery spread across North Africa and the Berber coast, and slavery arrived in Ghana in 1076 AD, when Islamic conquerors took control of the area.     The history of slavery and the religion of Barack Obama’s father are inseparable.   His ancestors were much more probably the slave masters than the slaves, especially in Eastern Africa.

European involvement in slavery (other than Slavs and other Eastern Europeans being enslaved by the Islamic Ottoman empire) began in the late 1400s, as the Portuguese developed the ability to build and navigate large ships that could go down the coast of Africa (and later to cross the Atlantic ocean) and return safely.

Two thirds of slavery in the Western Hemisphere occurred in the islands of the Caribbean, not the United States.   Sugar plantation owners initially brought along European slaves (“indentured servants”), but they were found to be unsuitable because of their lack of resistance to malaria  (the sickle cell disease in Africans is now believed to be a genetic mutation which offers protection against malaria).    So they began buying slaves from the dominant tribes in Africa – typically criminals or members of competing tribes who had been captured and were already in slavery in Africa for generations.

Slavery in South America was mostly due to cultivation of coffee, which was imported from Arabia and Indonesia.    By 1800, half of the population of Brazil was slaves from Africa, with some areas reaching 2/3 of the population.

In the United States, the English relied on indentured servants to do “Slave” work.  Some slaves were imported from the Caribbean – but using African slaves only became common when prosperity in England raised wages to the point that it was hard to get “slaves” from England.

Following the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became a more profitable crop.   Importation of slaves was outlawed in the United States in 1808.   The growth in the slave population from that point on was mostly due to the slave families having children.    By the beginning of the civil war in the 1860s, the population of the South was about 40% black slaves and 20% of the country as a whole, a larger percentage than today’s black population.   Later waves of European immigrants reduced the percentage of Americans with African lineage to about 12% (and that includes African immigrants with no connection to slavery in the United States, like Mr Obama).

So, now that the slave trade has been wiped out in most of Africa, how are things going in places like Ghana?  I thought I would peek in Google Earth and see what there was to see.   I was a little surprised to see a railway system on the map, although Google Earth’s often shows places a rail line has ever been – even if it was torn up 40 years ago…  but there is some evidence that the lines are still in use.

They were built in 1923 as narrow gauge railways to carry materials from the inland areas to the coast for exportation.    Ghana won its independence from English colonial rule in 1957, and that’s the point at which history stops, similar to the 1950s cars common in Cuba.   In the 50 years since, the railways have fallen into disrepair, and what rolling stock there is has rusted and deteriorated.   The railway now carries only 4% of the freight and 1% of passenger traffic in the country.

In the past 2 years, the government of Ghana has entered in a deal to allow China to fund rebuilding their railway to standard gauge, and build a new railroad line, using the “best railway engineers in the world” from Korea.

Ghana has productive gold mines, and one of the partners in the project is an oil company.

To get a sense of daily life in Ghana, here is a little news story from 2007 about problems at the railway station in Kantamanto, Ghana

http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=4930&section=1

Last year, following a story in this paper which revealed the high level of criminality at the station, the police carried out a sweep which netted a number of persons on the police wanted list. However, a visit to the station a few weeks later revealed that the gang members were back in full force.

The unemployed youth, who have erected tents along the railways lines, wander about aimlessly and engage in mobile phone snatching, attack innocent passengers, rape and deal in all kinds of drugs at the station.

They also use the station as a hide out to perpetrate their heinous activities.

Investigations carried out by this paper indicate that the railway station area is a ‘no go area’ especially during the night; this was confirmed by the Area Manager who said, “you dare not pass the station in the night.”

According to Mr Ativor, the railway authorities rely on the Police Station meant for the area but a lack of personnel and equipment have rendered their efforts ineffective.

In a related development, traders who were banned from selling on the rail lines sometime ago have ignored the order and carrying out their activities with impunity.

All kind of wares ranging from second hand clothing, shoes, table top mobile phone unit transfer points, foodstuffs such as tomatoes, cassava, yam, etc are displayed on the rail lines. They withdraw the items temporarily whenever the train passes.

This is one possible version of the future of what America could become.  If you’ve spent any time in Detroit, since the early 1970s you know that it can happen here.