View source for Maafa

{{Short description|Swahili neologism for the Atlantic Slave Trade}}
{{italic title}}
{{about|the demographic history which is related to the enslavement of Black Africans|the characterisation of US policies|Black genocide in the United States}}
{{redirect|African Holocaust|the Steel Pulse album|African Holocaust (album)|the German genocide of African peoples in Southwest Africa|Herero and Nama genocide}}
{{Pan-African}}
{{Genocide}}

The '''''Maafa''''' ([[Swahili language|Swahili]] for "Great disaster"), the '''African Holocaust''', the '''Holocaust of Enslavement''', or the '''Black Holocaust'''<ref>William Wright points to the differences between ''black'' history, and ''African'' history, and argues that the African Holocaust is a major reason why these two histories are not synonymous: William D. Wright, Black History and Black Identity: A Call for a New Historiography, p. 117</ref><ref name="Temple News">{{cite web|url=http://www.temple-news.com/media/storage/paper143/news/2003/10/30/Opinion/What-African.Holocaust-543918.shtml?norewrite200612211320&sourcedomain=www.temple-news.|archive-url=https://archive.today/20071018171553/http://www.temple-news.com/media/storage/paper143/news/2003/10/30/Opinion/What-African.Holocaust-543918.shtml?norewrite200612211320&sourcedomain=www.temple-news.|url-status=dead|archive-date=2007-10-18|work=Glenn Reitz|title=What Holocaust}}</ref><ref>Ryan Michael Spitzer, "The African Holocaust: Should Europe pay reparations to Africa for Colonialism and Slavery?", Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 35, 2002, p. 1319.</ref> are political [[Neologism|neologisms]] popularized since 1988<ref name="Barndt, Joseph 2007, page 269">Barndt, Joseph. ''Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century''. 2007, page 269.</ref><ref>''The Global African: A Portrait of [[Ali A. Mazrui]]''. Omari H. Kokole.</ref><ref name="humanrights.uconn.edu">{{Cite web |url=http://humanrights.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/767/2014/06/Howard-Hassmann_Slavetrade.pdf |title=Reparations for the Slave Trade: Rhetoric, Law, History and Political Realities". |access-date=2015-10-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304211958/http://humanrights.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/767/2014/06/Howard-Hassmann_Slavetrade.pdf |archive-date=2016-03-04 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=joneswest>Jones, Lee and [[Cornel West|West, Cornel]]. ''Making It on Broken Promises: Leading African American Male Scholars Confront the Culture of Higher Education''. 2002, p. 178.</ref> to describe the history and ongoing effects of atrocities inflicted upon [[Black people]] worldwide. Of particular focus are those committed by non-Africans (specifically [[White people|Europeans]] and [[Arabs]] in the context of the [[Trans-Saharan slave trade]], the [[Indian Ocean slave trade]], the [[Red Sea slave trade]], and the [[Atlantic slave trade]]), which continue to the present day through [[imperialism]], [[colonialism]] and other forms of [[oppression]].<ref name="Barndt, Joseph 2007, page 269"/><ref name="humanrights.uconn.edu"/><ref name=joneswest /><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8KKeSy7AhpAC&dq=African+holocaust&pg=PA164|title=Black History and Black Identity: A Call for a New Historiography|last=Wright|first=William D.|date=2001|publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]]|isbn=9780275974428|language=en}}</ref><ref>''The Global African: A Portrait of Ali A. Mazrui''. Omari H. Kokole.</ref><ref>Ryan Michael Spitzer, "The African Holocaust: Should Europe pay reparations to Africa for Colonialism and Slavery?", ''[[Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law]]'', vol. 35, 2002, p. 1319.</ref> 

== Description ==
[[Maulana Karenga]] 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".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-africa&month=1004&week=e&msg=KSScXIfhte/1VQdw5EkI3Q&user=&pw= |title=Letter by Maulana Karenga, 2001 |publisher=H-net.msu.edu |date=2010-04-29 |access-date=2015-10-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305153712/http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-africa&month=1004&week=e&msg=KSScXIfhte%2F1VQdw5EkI3Q&user=&pw= |archive-date=2016-03-05 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The Canadian scholar [[Adam Jones (Canadian scholar)|Adam Jones]] characterized the mass death of millions of Africans in the Atlantic slave trade as a [[genocide]] due to it being "[[Genocides in history|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?"<ref>Jones, Adam (2006). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Publishers. pp. 23-24 ISBN 978-0-415-35385-4. </ref>

== History and terminology ==
The usage of the {{langx|sw|Maafa|label=[[Swahili language|Swahili]] 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 [[African diaspora|Diaspora]]''.<ref>[[Nah Dove|Dove, Nah]]. ''Afrikan Mothers: Bearers of Culture, Makers of Social Change''. 1998, p. 240.</ref><ref name=morris>Gunn Morris, Vivian and Morris, Curtis L. ''The Price They Paid: Desegregation in an African American Community''. 2002, p. x.</ref> It is derived  from a [[Swahili language|Swahili]] term for "[[disaster]], terrible occurrence or great [[Tragedy (event)|tragedy]]".<ref name=oj>Harp, O.J. ''Across Time: Mystery of the Great Sphinx''. 2007, p. 247.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Cheeves |first=Denise Nicole |title=Legacy |year=2004 |page=1}}</ref> The term was popularized in the 1990s.<ref>{{cite book |title=African American History Reconsidered |author=Pero Gaglo Dagbovie |publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |year=2010|page=191}}</ref>  The Maafa represents a way to discuss the historic atrocities and impact of the African Slave Trade.<ref>[https://www.naacp.org/latest/naacp-president-commemorate-african-maafa/ NAACP PRESIDENT TO COMMEMORATE AFRICAN MAAFA]</ref>

The term ''African Holocaust'' is preferred by some academics, such as [[Maulana Karenga]], because it implies intention.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/karenga.html|title=Interview With Dr. Maulana Karenga {{!}} The Two Nations Of Black America {{!}} FRONTLINE|website=www.pbs.org|access-date=2019-12-15}}</ref> 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 [[The Holocaust|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".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://igcs.binghamton.edu/igcs_site/mltrs/Newsletter17.pdf |title=Ancestry, Descent And Identity |publisher=Igcs.binghamton.edu |access-date=2015-10-14 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120313035549/http://igcs.binghamton.edu/igcs_site/mltrs/Newsletter17.pdf |archive-date=2012-03-13 }}</ref>

Some [[Afrocentrism|Afrocentric]] scholars prefer the term ''Maafa'' instead of ''African Holocaust''<ref>Tarpley, Natasha. ''Testimony: Young African-Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity. 1995, p. 252.</ref> because they believe that indigenous African terminology more truly conveys the events.<ref name=morris /> 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".<ref name=outof>Aldridge, Delores P. and Young, Carlene. ''Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies''. 2000, p. 250.</ref> 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"-<ref name=joneswest />

The historian [[Sylviane Diouf]] posits that terms like "[[Atlantic slave trade]]" are deeply problematic because they serve as [[euphemism]]s for intense [[violence]] and [[mass murder]]. Referred to as a "trade", this prolonged period of [[persecution]] and suffering is rendered as a commercial dilemma, rather than a moral atrocity.<ref name=diouf>[[Sylviane Diouf|Diouf, Sylviane Anna]]. ''Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies''. 2003, p. xi.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Epps|first1=Henry|title=A Concise Chronicle History of the African-American People Experience in America|date=4 September 2012 |publisher=Lulu.com|isbn=9781300161431|page=57|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qUTrAwAAQBAJ&dq=slave+trade+apologetic+act+capitalism&pg=PA57|access-date=24 February 2015}}</ref> [[Roger Garaudy]] accused America of genocide up to an estimated two hundred million Africans.<ref name="Weitz Fenner 2016 p. 256">{{cite book | last1=Weitz | first1=E. | last2=Fenner | first2=A. | title=Fascism and Neofascism: Critical Writings on the Radical Right in Europe | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US | series=Studies in European Culture and History | year=2016 | isbn=978-1-137-04122-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A0sBDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA256 | access-date=2023-07-26 | page=256}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[African Renaissance]]
* [[Anti-African sentiment]]
* [[Black genocide in the United States]]
* [[Holocaust (disambiguation)]]
* [[Herero and Nama genocide]]
* [[Atrocities in the Congo Free State]]
* ''[[How Europe Underdeveloped Africa]]'' (1974)
* [[Ivan van Sertima]]
* [[Pan-Africanism]]
* ''[[Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome]]'' (2005)
* [[Reparations for slavery]]

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}
* 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).
{{African American topics}}
{{Genocide topics}}
{{Pan-Africanism}}{{Historiography}}
[[Category:Political neologisms]]
[[Category:African slave trade]]
[[Category:Pan-Africanism]]
[[Category:European colonisation of Africa]]
[[Category:Genocides in Africa]]
[[Category:Historical revisionism]]
[[Category:Swahili words and phrases]]
[[Category:Nazi analogies]]
[[Category:Trans-Saharan slave trade]]
[[Category:Indian Ocean slave trade]]
[[Category:Atlantic slave trade]]
[[vi:Maafa]]