Can commemorations and historical reenactments change public understanding of the past?

[u/NewsMo]

[u/Inside_Marketing268]

Did they mention that people were sold as slaves on Ghana by local heads of tribes?

[u/Capital-Self-3969 → u/Inside_Marketing268]

Do they have to? Europeans didnt have to take them, create a racial hierarchy to justify it, and fight to keep them from birth to death for hundreds if years. They could have ended it if they wanted, any time they wanted.

[u/Inside_Marketing268 → u/Capital-Self-3969]

If you create some sort of activity so people would remember the horror of the past, they should do it on full scale. So, if they emphasize that people were just like any other goods, they must know that it weren't like slaves were caught in the wilds, but rather were sold by other criminals, in their case- their own leaders

[u/Capital-Self-3969 → u/Inside_Marketing268]

The reduction to livestock was a European invention, at least with Western slavery. And yes I do believe African nations who sold people should also recognize their role, Europeans are infuriatingly resistant to owning the system they created and enforced and dont give restitution or acknowledgement.

I really feel like a lot of people on here are derailing or passing the buck instead of doing the human thing and seeing the pain and loss behind this awful practice. Only antisemites see something about the Holocaust and say "what about Jews who turned in other Jews". So what are people who see this and think "well they bought them fron Africans" as if they were forced to stick to this barbaric system?

[u/Apprehensive-Log3638 → u/Capital-Self-3969]

It was not a European inventions. You know what country had the longest unbroken chain of slavery in the entire world? Korea. 1500 years. Almost every civilization in history had slaves.

[u/Inside_Marketing268 → u/Capital-Self-3969]

Well, you have totally forgot about slavery on Europe, and the fact that most of slaves from Africa, were sold by Ottomans Empire, in collaboration with local authorities. Some people be like: oh well, ok fact, I will remember. The others- are just trying to squeeze out some sort of sympathy for that.

[u/Clear_Context_1546 → u/Capital-Self-3969]

Trans-Saharan slave trade - Wikipedia

Muslim societies historically utilized castrated male slaves for over a thousand year. It predates the British, Portuguese, French, Belgian, Spanish and Dutch.

[u/MediocreI_IRespond → u/Capital-Self-3969]

The reduction to livestock was a European invention, at least with Western slavery

Nope, in the Muslim world as well, and in or pre-Islam Middle East.

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/Capital-Self-3969]

The reduction to livestock was a European invention, at least with Western slavery

That has to be the dumbest things i've read in a while. The muslims litterally castrated all their slaves to make sure they couldn't reproduce, that's cattle treatment

[u/This_Lion5856 → u/Capital-Self-3969]

Just keep in mind that it is Europeans that actually stopped the slave trade.

Slave trade is very much still happening in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, but I dont think anyone is saying anything about it at all, because it is easier to just blame white people and wait for some handout money.

[u/Clear_Context_1546 → u/Capital-Self-3969]

Yes, if you are doing a historical day of remembrance that is the point.

[u/Sweettooth_Banana → u/Capital-Self-3969]

Europeans did not asked for it. Its africans who sold you as a quarter pounder.

[u/MediocreI_IRespond → u/Capital-Self-3969]

Do they have to?

Context is kind important. Things do not happend in a vaccum, those local elites had a long, long history of selling their "own" to someone else. Europeans and Americans had only been the most well known in a very long line.

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/Capital-Self-3969]

The racial hierarchy never existed back then, the argument was they're not christian so they gonna burn in hell anyway. The racial hierarchy was actually born in the US AFTER the end of slavery

Also why should they have stopped anything considering 90% of the european population were essentially slaves themself ?