habari all,

some comments and info. on the slave dungeon bet concert!

Last week, well over 100 years after the last slaves had been transported to the Western

World, a terrible thing happened at the slave dungeon in Cape Coast, Ghana, West Afrika.

Black Entertainment Television, founded by billionaire Robert Johnson and now owned

by Viacom, organized a Jazz Concert. This concert took place in one of the largest slave

dungeons located on the west coast of Afrika (over 50 total with over 40 located in Ghana)

but not without protest from many Afrikans in Ghana and throughout the world.

The Abibiman presented an appeal letter to the concert organizers, the Ghana Media and

the Tourism Ministries. This letter accurately laid out why the slave dungeons were inappropriate

places to hold concerts (where people party and forget about the ills of the past). The

letter also proposed three alternative sites (all available) in Cape Coast, where a Jazz

Concert would have been appropriate. Members of the Abibiman discussed the issue on Choice

FM in Accra, with host Nii Lante Bruce. On hand during the discussion was Ghana Chair

of the Commission on Culture, Professor Hagen. The Abibiman asked professor Hagan to

come up with policy that would include rules and regulations on ‘what can and cannot’

plus ‘what is and is not’ an appropriate event in the slave dungeon. The professor promised

to act on the request, stating that he too, was not in favor of these types of activities

taking place in the slave dungeon and had he known about the event ahead of time he would

h

ave done whatever he could have to disallow it to take place in the dungeon.

On Thursday evening, the Abibiman representing the ancestors went to the dungeon in Cape

Coast in a silent protest of the concert. We noted people smiling and dancing, enjoying

the concert. One of the guest said that Angela Bofil did sing her classics, “This time

I’ll be Sweeter,” and “I Try” in the dungeon. This is just one example of what we mean

by an inappropriate location and an insult to our ancestors. Never again must we allow

this to take place.

Looking back at the network that put on this concert. BET. Though sell-out Robert Johnson

sold out long before Viacom purchased BET, Viacom is a European company. This European

company was allowed to put on a Jazz Concert produced by BET. Sound familiar doesn’t

it. Oh yeah, the slave traders were only able to take slaves because they were being

sold to them by other Afrikans. You see if you don’t learn from your past you are bound

to repeat it. This is a prime case. Europeans are once again using Afrikans to abuse and

disrespect each other. They don’t even have to be there. They don’t have to call us ni****

anymore, we will do it ourselves. They don’t have to chop off our limbs anymore in the

Congo for the rubber. We will do it for bling bling (jewels) to each other today. They

don’t have to bother with colonialism. They get the same benefits, privileges and less

trouble by installing puppet leaders and having French Summits to deal with Afrikan problems.

In ot

her words – Neocolonialism/Neoslavery.

The Abibiman are asking all Afrikans in the mamaland and throughout the Diaspora to demand

that concerts and other celebrations disrespecting our ancestors not be held in the slave

dungeons of Afrika. These are our sacred hollow ground and must be respected as that.

We send this plea out to: The Afrikan Union, Global Afrikan Congress, TransAfrika,

AWRRTC, United Afrikan Movement, Pan-Afrikan Congress, All Afrikan Peoples Revolutionary

Party and all other progressive Afrikan organizations, movements, etc. that are about

uplifting the conditions of Afrikans throughout the Globe.