HUMOUR:“The Modern Slave Trade”

Believe you me, “Slave trade” was one of the worst social evils of its days. This was a process in which people took it upon themselves to purchase and sell people as if they were their personal chattels. Surely, people (the slaves) were bought and sold for as little as a bottle of whisky or a handful of beads. Just imagine buying the whole Diaspoman for just a bottle or two of J&B or even Johnnie Walker Scotch whisky (God forbid, I would not wish or even think of my dear brother, the Diaspoman being sold off into slavery)! At its inception, slave trade had two elements, the markets as Europe, the Americas and Arabia to an extent and on the other hand, Africa being the source of all theslaves. As the “learned friends” (lawyers or liars) may say, “Volenti non fit injuria (Latin: “to a willing person, no injury is done” or “no injury is done to a person who consents”) is a common law doctrine which means that if someone willingly places themselves in a position where harm might result, knowing that some degree of harm might result, they cannot then sue if harm actually results. Like, if the Villager chooses to drink himself silly, he cannot turn around and sue BRALIRWA for having brewed the AMSTELs, eh! We can say that, this is a voluntary acceptance of a risk. Don’t worry, I am not trying to be anything nearer to either a lawyer or a liar, I am just a humble villager, merely expressing the thought of a Villager. Though the “original” slave trade involved the “Africans” as the commodity and the rest as the merchants and customers (no malice intended), in the modern slave trade (can we call it the “Neo-Slave Trade or NST in short), the subject has changed as have the rules. Whereas our kin and kith were sold at merely “ornamental” prices, not anymore in the NST! The likes of Kunte (in the Roots Film) was captured and sold off most likely for a bottle of Whisky or something similar to that. The “modern” slaves, the likes of Christian Ronaldo, Et’oo Fils, Campbell, etc. Sir Ferguson (like his ancestors, the seller), Christian Ronaldo, the “sellee” or modern slave, was sold for a cool USA Dollars one hundred or so. His colleagues were sold for “peanuts” when compared to his price. By the way, had Ronaldo been a sort of Rwandan property, and he is sold in public interest, that would mean close to ten United States dollars per Rwandan would have been realised. I suppose, had he had the chance or misfortune of being born two hundred years ago on the West African coast, he would have earned his sellers nearly a whole Ship load ofScotch whisky, wow! This is the real modern slave trade at its best. When or where is this madness leading us? They are busy selling humans in the name of football talent; sometimes some people play a mockery of situations. The so bought slaves will go ahead to earn close to a quarter of a million dollars per month, a salary of all The New Times staff put together for over ten years! We can only take courage that the members of the NST are slaves by consent; they are carrying the loots from their enslavement not on spades and wheelbarrows but on fork lifts! Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm