The Slave Trade

As Europe came out of the Dark Ages, having survived the Black Death plague, it was the sailors who led the enterprise of expansion. Lisbon became centre of this expansion and in the mid 15th century was the biggest city in the world.  

To facilitate this expansion, extra manpower was required, especially as the plague had decimated European population. The first slavers went East and it was Eastern Europe which supplied the original slaves. Hence probably the word Slave (out of the ethnicity of Slavs). There are official scribes who described the first slave auctions in the first half of the 15th century in Lisbon. 

 

A major historical event changed the history of the Slavs of Eastern Europe. Sultan Muhammad Fateh, conquered Constantinople in 1453 and the Byzantine Empire collapsed. The ensuing change, shut down the Mediterranean for these Portuguese sailors. They needed to go elsewhere. These sailors must have been tough, daring, hardened people. They went South and the need to open up the Atlantic became imperative.  

    

Along the coast of North Africa they encountered black people, who were generally Muslim. In search of trade and gold, they had discovered people. People meant slaves; and so the blacks of Northern Africa Atlantic coast, became the slaves. But the sailors needed legitimacy, and so Portugal applied to the Pope for approval. This was given. The authority allowed that in the battle of the Crusades, the sailors were allowed to ‘enslave the Muslim blacks of Africa for perpetuity’. Perpetuity. No hope, no freedom, a life spent serving at the wish of others. 

The rest is common knowledge. The Portuguese went South. They made friends of Kings along the coast, traded and at the same time bought or captured humans. Lisbon in the next 50 years became the hub of all trade. It became the gateway to Europe and very soon, as the Portuguese conquered Brazil, the slaves were also sent there, to expand the outpost of the Empire.

The Portuguese who entered as traders, soon set up plantations of sugarcane, coffee, dug gold mines and raided deeper and deeper lands to find more slaves. In just a few years, they found the blacks were actually not Muslims, as the reach of Islam was not that deep. So the actual authority of the Pope was itself irrelevant. Hence, a new ideology was coined, which has prevailed through the centuries till to-date. The mantra of the West! These people are backward savages, and we are bringing ‘civilisation’ to them. 

 

Armed with this ideology Portuguese adventurers and slavers could advance with impunity. They even turned on most of the agreements with local Kings. This of course sounds familiar. We saw the same with British in India. And yes, very soon, France, England, Dutch and Belgians would join in this trade. As early as 1595 in Sao Tome, the slaves revolted, burned and pillaged the plantation and factories. So, the Portuguese the ultimate masters of the seas of the 16th century, moved their industry and slaves to Brazil.  

This was the first century of slavery and of colonisation. They go hand in hand. The wealth of European nations (and later American) was thus built on illegal human slavery, who were in turn used pre industrialisation to be the work engine. An edifice built for centuries on the back of human bondage. It is also quite coincidental, that the slavery numbers declined (and disappeared) just as mechanical factories became cheaper than human bondage. Had that not happened would we have had an Abraham Lincoln and American Civil War?

* picture from monthlyreview.org

The Generational Divide; Age Diversity!

 

When we were growing up, the difficult teen years and maybe early stages at work were testing periods. In a generation where communicating with older people was generally cautious, sometimes stilted and distant, it was always put down to the generation gap. But the good thing was that everyone involved could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Times uncountable, one heard how this problem will be over post teens, or for young employees as soon they settle down.   

 

Push forward thirty years and something has changed. Today the generational gap has expanded dramatically and really come home to roost. It is no more about a few years. All of us are engulfed in it all the time. Its more like a generational war between old and new. We saw it in action in 2016. Both the Brexit and Trump votes showed the age divide in the segments vote.   

Older people generally are less concerned about the materiality of things. It's more about culture, nationality, independence, the feeling of isolation and being disenfranchised. "We do not belong; no one listens to us; we simply do not exist. It's as if we have fallen off the back of a truck and no one has noticed". The older generation is feeling left out, perhaps technology and social media making them less relevant. Hence their is a reaction, against economics, more about culture, more about race and nationalism.  
    

The younger ones are concerned about the future shape of things. They have grown up in a networked environment and are at home in this global village. They are less worried about migration and how society is being homogenised. It's about eco systems, environment, interlinkages and how to make a prosperous future. Make the global village work together. And at the backend, how best to deal with rampant technology, use it and drive it further. There is a further change in Millennials (early 80s to late 90s birth) thinking. Research is showing that ideas about prosperity are changing. Millennials are opting for valuable personal experiences than necessarily outright ownership of property. This is part of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. As Millennials have grown up in a more secure environment, they do not necessarily feel property ownership is a purpose in life and would much rather go on a holiday and value that experience more. 

Partially this generational gap is laid on the door of demographics. In many developing countries the youth bulge is giving the under 30s a very large and dynamic say in society. This leads to a face off, between the conservative and liberal agendas. Quite the opposite, in developed societies with birth rates dropping and population ageing, it is the older population which has a significant vote bank, and it is this population which is driving a nationalistic agenda. You see that with Brexit and Trump votes.

   

What is coming is a more scary generational scenario. As the world population growth declines and comes to a standstill somewhere around 2045, the older population will become bigger in numbers. However, technology and the operations of the world, will be more readily handled by the youth. Simultaneously, the older population will start retiring in big numbers. The responsibility to run the world and provide for a growing old age population will fall squarely on the youth. As the retired population increases, it will be fewer younger people providing for more and more older people. One can actually see an 'inverse responsibility pyramid', leading to a generational conflict developing and chaos prevailing. This is all the more likely, as the then youths will not attach much value to wealth accumulation. So looking after the workings of an aging world will become a huge bind for them.

Since this eventuality of generational conflict is so obviously apparent today, governments and world organisations need to come together to carve a plan which shall stop this terrible situation developing. Part of the solution may be to reverse declining birth rates, but also will include a big increase in the retirement age and further utilisation of retired people in society (perhaps volunteer work). Also legislation to enhance inter-generational mixing and teams. Age diversity! Without such reforms and actions to stop this generational divide, it can tear us apart and cause endless harm and destruction.

*picture is from Shutterstock