Home » Extraordinary article by former Sudanese slave, plus video about violence and slavery in Africa today

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Extraordinary article by former Sudanese slave, plus video about violence and slavery in Africa today — 17 Comments

  1. “Why the world cares about Gaza and not about Africa”.
    Because they don’t.
    Cue Boko Haram…
    (The so-called “responsible” nations don’t even care about themselves.)

    In any event, shouldn’t an adjunct to this fairly ridiculous question be, “Why South Africa cares about Gaza and not about Africa”
    (OK, because Iran paid ’em to…but besides that?)

  2. Slavery is racist. African Arabs are an oppressed people, so they cannot be racists. Therefore, the fellow’s claim of being a slave must be false.

    See, I know liberal logic.

  3. No one cares about slavery and sex trafficking in Africa, because groups of people can only be categorized as “oppressed” or “oppressors”.

    Blacks and Muslims are “oppressed”, end of story. Any facts contradicting this Unassailable Truth must be ignored. Nothing can possibly be done about Muslims enslaving Black Africans, as this would point out that this contradiction (an “oppressed” group acting as an “oppressor”) actually exists.

  4. Only the US had Slaves, only the Repb want to enslave again.
    I bet you could ask any number of college idijts and they will agree with what I said.

  5. These stories are true, and anyone with some familiarity with Islamic history and with the current state of Africa, where jihadis commit atrocities with regularity, knows it. This is one of the reasons, besides the history of the area and the historic mistreatment of Jews worldwide, for my support of Israel in the current war. Militant Islamism is a serious threat to civilization everywhere. It must be defeated wherever it is.

  6. Simon Deng’s essay in Tablet is an outstanding piece of writing.

    Many thanks to Neo for bringing this to her readers attention.

  7. Arab slavery is racist Read what The Arabs said about the Zanj. Their word for n**”et. Start with inn Khaldun

  8. Communism’s death toll pales in comparison to Islam’s. Add in the millennia of millions enslaved and Islam is the greatest evil ever perpetrated upon the human race.
    Even Satan would be hard pressed to exceed it. In fact, arguably it is satanic.

  9. Kate: “Militant Islamism is a serious threat to civilization everywhere. It must be defeated wherever it is.”
    Having lived in a Muslim society, you undoubtedly know more about this than any of us who have only read a few books, but why do you qualify Islam as “Militant Islamism?”
    I could guess that:
    1) those Muslims whom you found to be friendly and supportive of Western values were not “real” Muslims (Islamic believers) but pretending to be for their own safety?
    2) those Muslims who seemed to be supportive were in fact devoted to advancing (even violent) Islamic jihad if and when the time was right?

    The folks at the Middle East Forum make a similar distinction between Islam vs. Islamism. In the past Newt Gingrich offered “the violet wing of Islam” or some such language.
    But as GB points out, if the Quran is the unalterable word of Allah and cannot be questioned, then prospects for moderation seem pretty poor. We now know from the last 50 or so years of Western critical scholarship that the heritage version of Islamic history is wrong on many counts, that the Quran and other documents were certainly man made, evolved over time, and the final versions aided political aims of rulers from 691 to 1200 AD or so [coupled with burning older extant copies when possible.]

    The implications from this “harder” (realistic?) view are also daunting, or terrifying.
    I respect and welcome your view/ experience.

  10. R2L, many Muslims, even educated ones, are not Qur’anic scholars. They are culturally Muslim, but as my landlord said when he shook my hand, “We are not fanatics.” A Turkish friend of ours used the same expression, “fanatics.” There are lots of people like this, perhaps a large majority. They fast during Ramadan, won’t eat pork, sometimes (the men, anyhow) drink wine or spirits in spite of the rules, but they aren’t hard-core adherents of strict Islam. They would dispute your idea that they’re not “real Muslims.” Indeed, from outside, I cannot say such a thing, any more than I could say that some cultural Jews are not “real Jews,” or that Christians who don’t belong to my kind of church aren’t “real Christians.” What I would say is that we are wise to distinguish between those Muslims who are moderate in their observance and don’t aspire to kill kaffirs, and the ones who do.

  11. The problem is, of course, that the violent passages are indeed in the Qur’an and the hadith, and when casual Muslims become “very religious” they sometimes are caught up in the violence. I knew Muslim women in Cairo who would cross the street to avoid walking by a woman in the full covering including body, head, and face, because they trusted such people no more than I did. It could be anyone under there, they said, perhaps a criminal.

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