Wanawa: Afrika prekolonial, un introdukshon

Wanawa Precolonial Africa: An Introduction focuses on the history and culture of the African continent before it was colonized by Europe. Many people still associate Africa only with the history of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery and neglect the fact that this continent has a rich and diverse history. As this book explains, the history of Africa did not start with the transatlantic slave trade, and Africa is not merely a victim of colonialism but an agent of its own history and rich culture. The intention of this book is to highlight and thereby broaden the knowledge of Africa’s historical, economic, cultural and social diversity. This book is a brief introduction in Papiamentu to the history and culture of precolonial Africa, with the aim of stimulating people to dig deeper into this subject themselves. Its purpose is to provide a general view of the continent’s flora and fauna, to illustrate how large and small states rose, developed and sometimes fell over the course of time, and to shed light on historically significant persons, while also mentioning these states in some cases were connected to the transatlantic slave trade. In addition, the book provides insight into the diverse and heterogeneous cultures of the continent. Rose Mary Allen (Curaçao, 1950) is an anthropologist and Extraordinary Professor of the Chair of Culture, Community and History at the University of Curaçao Dr. Moises da Costa Gomez. She has published many books and articles on migration, slavery, music, oral history, the dynamics of identity formation, modern nationalism, and gender issues. She is a recipient of the Boeli van Leeuwen Award and of the 2015 Cola Debrot Award for her contribution to the sciences.

Dispersion of the Yorùbá to the Americas: A Fatalist Hermeneutics of Orí in the Yorùbá Cosmos – Reading from Tutuoba: Salem’s Black Shango Slave Queen

Studies in African Diaspora ofen privilege the transatlantic slavery, Columbus’ discovery of the New World, and African cultural codes in the Americas. To expand the scope of the studies, this article examines the metaphysical and ontological questions on the enslavement of the Yorùbá – an African ethno-nation whose members were condemned to slavery and servitude in the Americas during the inglorious transatlantic slave trade. I used metaphysical fatalism as a theoretical model to interrogate prognostications about dispersion of the Yorùbá from their matrix as expressed in their mythology. Being a predestining agent, I examined the role of orí (destiny) within the context of rigid fatalism and its textualisation in Prince Justice’s Tutuoba: Salem’s Black Shango Slave Queen. The article argues that the transatlantic enslavement of the Yorùbá is a fait accompli willed by their Supreme Deity. Tough traumatic, transatlantic slavery reworlded Yorùbá cultural codes, birthed the Atlantic sub-group of the ethno-nation, and aided the emergence of Yorùbá-centric religions in the New World.

‘Mama I Can’t Breathe!’: Black/African Women of Faith Groaning for Social Justice and Gender Equality

This article explores some residual entanglements of colonialism, Christianity, and Afro-western engagement in Africa by using the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police and his cries for “breath” and “mama” as a framework for examining the following. First, we argue that one way in which the repercussions of the transatlantic slave trade remain evident in Africa is the continued police brutality and dehumanization of African citizens. Secondly, with the invocation of “mama,” we consider the plight of African women and colonial/postcolonial Christianity, challenging the African church’s silence on social justice issues, and complicity in the exclusion/oppression of women. We call the church to reckon with its silence, and we offer a corrective towards constructing a theological and missiological response to our cries for breath. While this article is based on African feminist reflections, it invites global participation and indicates wider implications for social and gendered justice.

Experiential Learning in Ghana: Decentering the White Voice

White supremacy served as the foundation of the transatlantic slave trade and the subsequent practice of chattel slavery in the United States.[i] As such, it is not an exaggeration to say that US history is rooted in the oppression of non-white populations who have experienced and continue to experience various forms of physical and emotional harm. It is in this context that we examine how undergraduate students from XXX University, a predominantly white liberal arts institution, experienced the summer 2019 study abroad ‘Maymester’ excursion to Ghana where the transatlantic slave trade was the main focus of one of the courses, Precolonial African history.[ii] We argue that an interracial dialogue on the terror of whiteness on Black bodies and in Black spaces, which is steeped in historical context, develops when white student voices do not predominate classroom discussions. By centering the co-author’s account of the program, we show that when decentering the white voice, which is generally that of the dominant student population, white students can achieve a reconsideration of their understanding of self, others, and of African and global histories. This article also stresses the importance prioritizing cultural competence as a student goal in light of some of the preconceived notions they held about Ghana and Africa, and finally, we argue that universities have a moral responsibility to introduce Anti-racist pedagogy into the classrooms as a measure to fight white supremacist ideology. [i] Gary Dorrien, “Achieving the Black Social Gospel, “ Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospe (New Haven, CY: Yale University Press, 2018), 1. [ii] Split into two courses, the four-week study program spanned two weeks each.

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The relationship between the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Transatlantic Slave Trade (TAST) is examined using the Slave Voyages dataset and a reconstructed ENSO index. The ENSO index is used as a proxy for West African rainfall and temperature. In the Sahel, the El Niño (warm) phase of ENSO is associated with less rainfall and warmer temperatures, whereas the La Niña (cold) phase of ENSO is associated with more rainfall and cooler temperatures. The association between ENSO and the TAST is weak but statistically significant at a two-year lag. In this case, El Niño (drier and warmer) years are associated with a decrease in the export of enslaved Africans. The response of the TAST to El Niño is explained in terms of the societal response to agricultural stresses brought on by less rainfall and warmer temperatures. ENSO-induced changes to the TAST are briefly discussed in light of climate-induced movements of peoples in centuries past, and in the drought-induced movement of peoples in the Middle East today.

Ahmed Bâba at-Timbuktî

Ahmed Bâba (1556–1627) was among the most prolific and the most celebrated of Timbuktu scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries. During his childhood he was educated and trained in Arabic law and Islamic sciences by his father, Ahmad, and other relatives. His principal teacher, the man he named the regenerator (al-mujaddid), was the Juula scholar Mohammed Baghayogho al-Wangarî, whose teaching he followed for more than ten years. Following the Moroccan occupation of Timbuktu in 1591, he was exiled to Marrakesh in 1594 and jailed for two years before he was released but obliged to remain in the city for many years. He was widely known both for his teaching and for the fatwas (legal opinions) he issued. He was offered administrative positions but declined them all in favor of teaching. In 1608, he was permitted to return to his hometown, Timbuktu, where he continued to write and teach until his death in 1627, but he held no public office there. His special field of competence was jurisprudence. He was also recognized for his abilities in hadith and wrote several works on Arabic grammar. He is probably best known for his biographical compendium of Mâlikî (founded by Malik ibn Anas died A.D. 795 is orthodox school of Muslim jurisprudence predominating in Sudanic Africa and the Maghreb) scholars, Nayl al-Ibtihâj bi tadrîs ad-dibâdj, a valuable supplement for the Western Islamic world to Ibn Farhûn’s ad-Dibâj al-Mudhahhab. His work specifically addresses issues relating to the significance of racial and ethnic categories as factors in the justification of enslavement. In the Bilâd as-Sûdân, Ahmed Bâba influenced the debate over slavery by relying on interpretations of Islamic precedent, which was invoked to protect freeborn individuals from enslavement. By extension, he impacted the transatlantic slave trade on the basis of religious identification with Islam and the desire to avoid the sale of slaves to non-Muslims, especially Christian Europeans on the coast of West Africa.