MIM Notes No. 199	 December 1, 1999

BOOK REVIEW

Silent Terror: A Journey Into Contemporary African Slavery
by Samuel Cotton 
NY: Harlem River Press, 1998), 170 pp.

We recommend this book for waking up the world to the continued 
existence of slavery. Samuel Cotton has entered a politically unpopular 
field.

Mauritania has a population of two million. It is near an important 
island where slave traders gathered for the journey to North America. 
The people of Mauritania bear torture and slavery. Read this book for 
the horrifying details.

We have two comments from a Marxist perspective. As most North Amerikan 
grade-schoolers know, the United $tates went through a long period of 
using African slaves. While committing genocide against the Indians, 
whites were also getting rich through enslavement of Africa. That 
enslavement killed millions of Africans and left Africa poor.

To this day, the imperialists subject Africa to super-exploitation. 
Africa has never had a chance to "stand up" and build its economy for 
its own benefit. The low level of economic development makes it easier 
for slavery to take hold. One slave said the following about why he does 
not fight for freedom: "I don't think I can make it without my master. 
My master gives me food, the clothes I am wearing. What else can I do? 
I've never been to school. I don't own any property. Where am I going to 
live if I run away?"(p. 35) This slave needs a revolution throughout the 
whole society. Being freed as a single slave does not work or help.

The African level of poverty is not a normal product of labor. Such a 
level of poverty only comes about because of the history of slavery, 
colonialism and imperialism. To say that Africans enslave Africans is an 
important ideological point, but the causation in this modern day is 
imperialism.

Our second point is that Islam has often been a vehicle of non-communist 
nationalism by the oppressed nations. However, just like other religions 
used to justify slavery, Islam has proved to be useful to masters who 
promise their slaves a way to salvation. The Muslim peoples are our 
friends but Islam is our enemy, as is any ideology offering otherworldly 
rewards for suffering here and now.

In the situation of slavery, nothing less than Marxism will do. Many 
false Black leaders have not known what to do. Islam does not do 
anything about it. Various charity-style organizations help one slave at 
a time, when what slaves and ex-slaves need is a whole society arranged 
for them, organized for their own economic cooperation, self-reliance 
and mutual support. The fight against slavery needs teeth at the 
society-wide level. When slave-owners are forcibly repressed, slavery 
ends. When people issue proclamations and negotiate in court over their 
property as in Mauritania today, slavery persists.

The capitalist system should be able to suppress slavery entirely. The 
fact that it does not is further evidence of how little the highest 
stage of capitalism known as imperialism can be relied upon to bring 
justice. A system allowing slavery to persist for the minority certainly 
cannot be trusted with world peace either. 

Visit MIM's on-line bookstore for a more extensive review of this book 
and to purchase this book. http://www.etext.org/ Politics/MIM/bookstore/