M. Simon's The Slave Trade Continues links to an excellent historical retrospective entitled The Scourge of Slavery, done by a South African Christian organization. I recommend it very highly - and the figures involved will probably shock you;
"It is estimated that possibly as many as 11 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic (95% of which went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions. Only 5% of the slaves went to the United States).
However, at least 28 million Africans were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. As at least 80% of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave markets, it is believed that the death toll from the 14 centuries of Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been over 112 million. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the Trans Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 million people."
Broad numbers, indeed, but not beyond the realm of probability. Which leads to the next, even more troubling set of questions...
Question #1: If a much smaller proportion of slaves over a much shorter period leads to the current black population of the United States, where is the black population of the Arab states today?
Question #2: What if Sudan isn't just a modern-day genocide (which includes organized slavery), but simply the latest epiode in a long-running genocidal campaign that stretches back centuries?
The eyewitness descriptions in the South African article are even more shocking and impactful. They're good reminders of what the African slave trade really meant in human terms, something we should all remember. They're also good reminders of the incredible historical accomplishments of the 18th and 19th century Abolitionists, whose proud history is also noted in "The Scourge of Slavery." A few dedicated people crusading in a just cause really can change the world.
The Abolitionists have modern heirs, and I'll come to them later. But that "where are the blacks of Araby?" question continues to haunt me with its implications.
Which brings me to the "now" portion of my post.
Christianity continues to grow very quickly in Africa and increasingly finds its members persecuted, murdered, and even enslaved by Islamists. Which means that this question and the issues it points to will begin to assume more relevance to our modern day as well.
I do not believe friendship caravans will arrest these trends - and they certainly will not make the historical issues go away.
As my piece on Islam, the Vatican and the Next Christianity notes, these trends will be important policy issues within the reign of this Pope - and they may be a central issue in the reign of his successor. But there is also a larger, entwined ethnic grievance whose accounting must eventually come due. As the South African article shows, these truths will be brought forward by African Christians under attack, thus entwining the two issues together.
With the Arab League backing Sudan even today in its practices of black genocide and slavery, the long-term potential for widespread friction and resentment along racial as well as religious lines is obvious.
Robin Burk noted in Religion, Terror & Our Future that "terrorism may be the least of the ways in which religious beliefs shape events around the world in this new century," and that may be true. In the realm of religious conflicts entwined with a sense of historical grievance, the Islamists may be surprised to discover that they will be one of the biggest targets as well as one of the biggest instigators. How Islam as a whole handles this moral and historical accounting will say a great deal about the maturity, ethics, and future of their religion.
For more on modern day slavery - which stretches way beyond the issues related to Islam in Africa - have a look at my September 2003 piece entitled Slavery in the 21st Century. It describes many of the modern forms of slavery around the world, and also includes resources and links to organizations that are making a difference.
Some things are simply wrong. Period. Slavery is one of them, and we too will be held to account for our performance here, in our day.
Join a very proud tradition - and help make a difference.
UPDATE: See secular Muslim Zack Ajmal's Islam, Women & Slavery for a look into some of the present-day debates on the subject within the Islamic ummah. A quick discussion of labels like "modernists, neo-revivalists and traditionalists" can be found via The Head Heeb's Islamic Citizenship Revisited.