The ''Maafa'', the African Holocaust, the Holocaust of Enslavement, or the Black Holocaust are political neologisms which have been popularized since 1988Barndt, Joseph. ''Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century''. 2007, page 269.Jones, Lee and West, Cornel. ''Making It on Broken Promises: Leading African American Male Scholars Confront the Culture of Higher Education''. 2002, p. 178. and they are used to describe the history and ongoing effects of atrocities which have been inflicted upon

African people The population of Africa has grown rapidly over the past century and consequently shows a large youth bulge, further reinforced by a low life expectancy of below 50 years in some African countries. Total population as of 2020 is estimated at ...

, particularly when they have been committed by non-Africans (

Europeans Europeans are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the states of Europe. Groups may be defined by common genetic ancestry, common language, or both. Pan and Pfeil (2004) ...

and Arabs to be exact, specifically in the context of the history of slavery, including the

Trans-Saharan slave trade During the Trans-Saharan slave trade, slaves were transported across the Sahara desert. Most were moved from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the other ...

, the Indian Ocean slave trade and the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

) which continues to the present day through

imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...

, colonialism and other forms of oppression. For example, Maulana Karenga (2001) puts slavery in the broader context of the ''Maafa'', suggesting that its effects exceed mere physical persecution and legal disenfranchisement: the "destruction of human possibility involved redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know us through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among peoples". The Canadian scholar Adam Jones characterized the mass death of millions of Africans in the

as a genocide due to it being " one of the worst holocausts in human history" because it resulted in 15 to 20 million deaths according to one estimate, and he claims that arguments to the contrary such as "it was in slave owners' interest to keep slaves alive, not exterminate them" are "mostly sophistry" by stating: "the killing and destruction were intentional, whatever the incentives to preserve survivors of the Atlantic passage for labor exploitation. To revisit the issue of intent already touched on: If an institution is deliberately maintained and expanded by discernible agents, though all are aware of the hecatombs of casualties it is inflicting on a definable human group, then why should this not qualify as genocide?"

History and terminology

The usage of the sw, Maafa, label=

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

term, lit=Great Disaster in English was introduced by Marimba Ani's 1988 book ''Let the Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

''.Gunn Morris, Vivian and Morris, Curtis L. ''The Price They Paid: Desegregation in an African American Community''. 2002, p. x. It is derived from a

term for " disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy".Harp, O.J. ''Across Time: Mystery of the Great Sphinx''. 2007, p. 247. The term was popularized in the 1990s. The Maafa represents a way to discuss the historic atrocities and impact of the African Slave Trade. The term ''African Holocaust'' is preferred by some academics, such as Maulana Karenga, because it implies intention. One problem noted by Karenga is that the word ''Maafa'' can also translate to "accident" and in the view of some scholars the holocaust of enslavement was not accidental. Ali Mazrui notes that the word "holocaust" is a "dual plagiarism" since the term is derived from Ancient Greek and thus despite being associated with the genocide of the Jews, no one can have a monopoly over the term. Mazrui states: "This borrowing from borrowers without attribution is what I call 'the dual plagiarism.' But this plagiarism is defensible because the vocabulary of horrors like genocide and enslavement should not be subject to copyright-restrictions". Some Afrocentric scholars prefer the term ''Maafa'' instead of ''African Holocaust'' because they believe that indigenous African terminology more truly conveys the events. The term ''Maafa'' may serve "much the same cultural psychological purpose for Africans as the idea of the ''Holocaust'' serves to name the culturally distinct Jewish experience of genocide under German Nazism".Aldridge, Delores P. and Young, Carlene. ''Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies''. 2000, p. 250. Other arguments in favor of ''Maafa'' rather than ''African Holocaust'' emphasize that the denial of the validity of the African people's humanity is an unparalleled centuries-long phenomenon: "The Maafa is a continual, constant, complete, and total system of human negation and nullification"- The historian Sylviane Diouf posits that, the terms "transatlantic slave trade", "

" and "slave trade" are deeply problematic because they serve as

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

s for intense violence and

mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

. Referred to as a "trade", this prolonged period of

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...

and suffering is rendered as a commercial dilemma, rather than a moral atrocity. Diouf, Sylviane Anna. ''Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies''. 2003, p. xi. With trade as the primary focus, the broader tragedy becomes consigned to a secondary point as mere " collateral damage" of a commercial venture. However, others feel that avoidance of the term "trade" is an apologetic act on behalf of capitalism, absolving capitalist structures of involvement in human catastrophe.

References

* Anderson, S. E., ''The Black Holocaust For Beginners'', Writers & Readers, 1995. * Ani, Marimba, ''Let The Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora''. New York: Nkonimfo Publications, 1988 (orig. 1980). {{Pan-Africanism Political neologisms African slave trade Pan-Africanism European colonisation in Africa Historical revisionism Swahili words and phrases Nazi analogies vi:Maafa

History and terminology

See also

References