Africans have been the economic and cultural backbone of the West – Mahama on slavery

Former President John Mahama has asserted that the development of almost all Western countries came on the back of the slave trade that shipped some 12.5 million persons of African descent to the West.

He stressed that the Africa lost a great deal of its human resources to the West, powering the development of the West to the detriment of Africa.

Speaking in Canada as the Keynote speaker on the opening of Universities studying slavery(USS), John Mahama pointed out how slavery has had a devastating effect on the African continent.

“Think of the loss that the African continent suffered as its warriors, farmers, hunters, carpenters, jewellery makers, tailors, griots, seamstresses, chiefs, doctors and other healers, architects, artists and philosophers were lined up, with shackles and chains at their ankles and wrists, then boarded onto slave ships and carried across the waters—where they were forced to use all of those skills that they possessed to build another nation. To build several other nations—none of them on the African continent.

"That’s the irony, isn’t it? When the Western world uses words like “poor” and “developing” to describe African nations; when they try to make Africans feel inferior—meanwhile… people of African descent have served as the economic and cultural backbone of nearly all Western nations; meanwhile… people who made some of the greatest inventions of the Western world are of African descent,” he noted.

He intimidated that the issue of reparations for Africa, no matter given how complicated it is to quantify, must be looked at since the effects of slavery lingers on.

“Within the Diaspora, how do we begin to calculate the financial costs of slavery to settle on a single number for reparations? How do we begin to do the same on the African continent?

"These are serious questions because the damages done by the institutions of slavery and colonialism still echo through the daily lives of most Black people across the globe. In North America, it can be seen in violent (sometimes deadly) policing and discriminatory housing and employment policies.

"In Africa, it can be seen in the infrastructural deficits, the need for more schools, hospitals, affordable housing, and better roads. It can be seen in the inability of most Africans to read and write in their native languages despite being able to read, write, and speak in a colonial tongue,” he said.