Arrest the Messenger

BIG MISTAKE

The caption says NigeriAN slave, instead of NigeriEN slave.  People from Niger are called NigeriENs; people from Nigeria are called NigeriANs.  The caption says the slave is nigerian, but there’s no slavery in Nigeria.  It’s a typo but a significant one.

Posted by Maximillian Al-Dakari on Jun 17, 2005 at 11:21 AM

Maximilian while being right on nationality name is utterly mistaking himself: slavery is alive and well in northern Nigeria in the state of Kaduna, Borno and most of the muslim majority state, even if traditional form of slavery are still alive even in the animist-christian south

Posted by Jean-Luc Ngarambe on Jun 20, 2005 at 8:48 AM

It’s in the States, too, with migrant workers, as someone on another forum, can’t remember the ITT article name just now, has informed me.

Posted by Liz on Jun 20, 2005 at 3:07 PM

Ngarambe, hardly.  The very idea of Christians being enslaved in the Muslim north would have led not only to riots as Nigerians have experienced in the past, but full out war.  There is absolutely no slavery in northern Nigeria - it is arguable that there was in both the north and south several decades ago, not now. Serfdom however exists, not only in Nigeria or Afrika, but in most of the [developing] world. It must be remembered that the slavery that existed in nigeria is not slavery as we understand it today, i.e the north atlantic slave trade sense, but rather in traditional slavery which amounted more to prolonged servitude, than actual southern USA type slavery.

Posted by Frantz Fanon on Jun 20, 2005 at 5:05 PM