>Thought this may interest some of you.

Abdoulaye Saine



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>France and Legacy of Slavery
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>By Nick TattersallTue May 9, 11:22 AM ET, Reuters
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>More than 150 years after the last shackled 
>slave passed through the "door of no return" on 
>Senegal's island of Goree, some Africans wonder 
>how much the colonial balance of power has really changed.
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>France, its overseas territories and former 
>colonies commemorate the abolition of slavery on 
>Wednesday, a new date chosen by French President 
>Jacques Chirac to mark the adoption of a 2001 
>law recognising the trade as a crime against humanity.
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>But for the thousands of young Africans who risk 
>death each year in rickety boats for a life of 
>hard labor on foreign shores, the wrongs of the 
>colonial period have simply given way to a modern-day form of enslavement.
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>"We have the impression that France needs the 
>poverty and ignorance of Africa," said Eloi 
>Coly, curator at the Slave House on Senegal's 
>Goree Island, from where an unknown number of 
>slaves were shipped largely to French colonies 
>in the Caribbean between the mid-16th and 19th centuries.
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>"When France needed to develop after the Second 
>World War it had access to African labor. Now 
>they think African immigrants are the root cause 
>of unemployment and their housing problems," he 
>said, sat in front of the pink stucco building 
>where slaves passed through the "door of no 
>return" as they boarded slave ships.
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>France ruled over more than a third of Africa at 
>the height of its empire and is still deeply 
>engaged in several former colonies, with 
>military bases dotted around West and Central 
>Africa where French businesses are the major investors.
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>Critics at home and abroad have blasted France's 
>failure to shake off colonial attitudes, 
>particularly after a law last year urged 
>teachers to stress the "positive role of the French presence overseas."
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>"We have to be pleased France has recognized 
>slavery as a crime against humanity ... but 
>there are still a lot of paradoxes and an 
>insufficient knowledge of history," said Alioune 
>Tine, secretary-general of African rights group RADDHO.
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>"The law on the positive side of colonization 
>profoundly shocked francophone countries in Africa," he told Reuters.
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>"It seems to be the extreme right influencing 
>immigration policy ... and modern forms of 
>slavery are alive and well with underpaid workers on the black market."
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>French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has 
>drafted a tough law that would make it harder 
>for immigrants to bring relatives to France, 
>force newcomers to take civics lessons and end 
>their automatic right to residence after 10 years.
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>WHO SHOULD APOLOGIZE?
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>With unemployment topping 50 percent in parts of 
>West Africa, young men with no hope of finding 
>work at home are often galled that their former 
>colonial power refuses them visas having reaped 
>the benefit of immigrant labor in the past.
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>Driven to enter Europe illegally, many end up in 
>the 'banlieues' of Paris and other French 
>cities, soulless suburbs ironically built mainly 
>for immigrant workers welcomed to France after 
>its African colonies gained independence in the 1960s.
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>Racial segregation in the crime-ridden districts 
>contributed to weeks of rioting last November, 
>with many French-born citizens of African and 
>Arab origin blaming the unrest on what they see 
>as the racist nature of French society.
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>"There is a form of amnesia and injustice when 
>it comes to all the profit that France has drawn 
>from slavery and from colonization," RADDHO's Tine said.
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>"If May 10 is to be a meaningful date it has to 
>be a day when these elements are studied and considered," he said.
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>Estimates suggest between 11 and 12 million 
>slaves were shipped from Africa by European 
>slavers but the question of who should apologize 
>for the trade has proved a thorny one.
>
>France first abolished slavery in 1794 but it 
>was reinstated by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, 
>before it was definitively abolished in 1848. 
>Britain will commemorate the 200th anniversary 
>of the abolition of its slave trade next year.
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>Slavery had long existed in Africa before 
>Europeans turned it into an industry, with 
>slaves captured in battle often sold across the Sahara desert to Arab traders.
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>"African chiefs were the ones waging war on each 
>other and capturing their own people and selling 
>them," Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in 
>an interview when then-U.S. President Bill Clinton toured Africa in 1998.
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>"If anyone should apologize it should be the 
>African chiefs. We still have those traitors here even today."
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>--
>---------------------------
>Toyin Falola
>Department of History
>The University of Texas at Austin
>1 University Station
>Austin, TX 78712-0220
>USA
>512 475 7224
>512 475 7222  (fax)
>www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa
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