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GORÉE ISLAND, SENEGAL—Michaëlle Jean doesn’t know exactly where her Haitian ancestors hailed from in Africa. But her body and soul remember, she says.
For the second time as governor general, Jean made a pilgrimage to a West African slavery outpost and gazed out on the eastern edge of the Atlantic from a bleak Door of No Return, a human porthole to hell.
This time, though, she turned quickly away from the sloshing waves below with a “profound malaise.”
“It’s painful. I don’t know what it is. I love the sea, but every time I’m on this coast of the Atlantic and I face the ocean there’s something in my memory that makes it difficult,” she said, speaking to Senegalese and Canadian journalists.
Tears welled in her eyes, but unlike a 2006 trip to Elmina Castle in Ghana—a searing, wretched site she said still feels “like a concentration camp”—Jean remained composed, and delivered a strong message.
Places like Gorée Island’s Slave House, where up to 200 men, women and children at a time were crammed into stone cells atop a rocky beach outcrop, can heal historic wounds and prompt action.
She had heard how healthy men were sold for a barrel of rum or a gun, and virgins raped by traders or sold at four times the price of a small man. Yet Jean said:
“This place is not about the history of black peoples.”
“Whether we are of European descent, and probably related to those who committed that crime of slavery and slave trade, or whether we are of African descent, we all belong to that history.
“It’s about us all. And it’s about how life can triumph over barbarism.”
For the second time in two days on this state visit, Jean issued a call to fight “slavery”—and “every situation that denies rights, dignity and humanity to people in the world.”
“Slavery is still a fact today, in so many different ways: human-trafficking, injustices, are still a reality today. But we are together—and we can say, ‘No,’ to it. It’s a responsibility.”
Jean had surprised her host – and Senegalese journalists—the day before with a forceful condemnation of “slavery” imposed on children, on the very day of a damning Human Rights Watch report.
The group released a report exposing widespread abuse at religious Quranic schools in Senegal of boys as young as 4, driven out into the streets to beg money and food for their teachers. It documented beatings, and several cases in which children had been chained, bound, and forced into stress positions as they were beaten.
Standing next to the Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade on Thursday, Jean was blunt.
“That so many children would be subjected to such hardship, that we would exploit so much of their labour —the statistics are staggering, with children aged between five and 17 who exploited for so many hours, sometimes 35 hours (a week), all day long, often without pay — there’s a sad word for it. It’s called, ‘slavery,”’ Jean said. “Can we remain indifferent? No. These boys and girls are exposed to the worst danger, and we need to act.”
Despite the tough words, Jean’s arrival here delighted about 150 women and children Friday. She danced and shimmied on the dock to constant drumming and singing, and said “I recognize myself in West Africa. It’s how we carry ourselves, our gestures. My body moves like theirs.”
Jean also couched her message Friday with praise, speaking of “reconciliation” and progress in Senegal.
She addressed university students in Dakar about the importance of media in the emergence of “a new Africa” at a journalism school Canada once funded and provided teachers for. That money is now diverted to other priorities, said Canadian officials, who said it had succeeded in producing “some of the most educated journalists in Africa.”
After touring the Slave House, Jean walked a few short steps away to a small museum dedicated to women—a small cultural gem funded and designed by Canadians.
At a roundtable with about two dozen women, many resident or working on Gorée Island, Jean heard stories of their needs and their small successes.
Kenebouggul Habbysall, 37, has a business degree, but said she chases tourists “morning to night” to sell jewelry to tourists from a rickety market stall to make ends meet for her husband and two children. “We are ready to work, but we don’t have means. We are poor.”
The governor-general urged them to look at microcredit programs, but had little else concrete to offer.
Still, she had them charmed. Habbysall said “at least she came, and she answered us.”
“You have created a link between Africa and Canada,” Marie Ndiaye Andre told her.
Deputy mayor Annie Jaoga, said: “I don’t welcome you—because you are home. This morning you went to the Door of No Return. We are opening the door of return to you.”
Governor General condemns modern-day ‘slavery’ - thestar.com
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