Slavery out of Africa to the New World was the exploitation of primitive communal societies in an emerging crude form of capitalism, according to many historians and social scientists.

It can be concluded that Europe's trade relations with the east in the 17th century was the spur of Columbus's exploration of the high seas. His subsequent settling in the `New World' and establishment of feudo-capitalistic productive relations saw the utilisation of African labour in the inhumane material relations of production called slavery.

Why did so many people of Sub-Saharan African succumb to the domination of such a system, in one of the darkest aspects of human history?

A variety of reasons, all related, have been put forward by learned scholars. Reasons ranging from economic sufficiency under existing systems of primitive communalism, the vastness and resourcefulness of the African continent in supplying the needs of its people, to the admission that such a system existed in Africa before the Atlantic slave trade, have been theorised.

This brings us to the descendants of these subject peoples in the Diaspora, today. They find themselves in non-homogenous societies, having to forge common goals of nationalism and all the variables it entails, such as shared economic development.

This is true of multi-cultural societies as obvious as Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Fiji, to the not so obvious as the USA.

The establishment of checks and balances in the capitalist system to preserve humanitarianism through the universal acceptance of the United Nations Bill on Human Rights has virtually expulsed racist conception from established formal thinking.

Slavery, too, has been an outlawed practice of civilised material relations of production. The lesson we learn through history is that progress out of underdevelopment has always come about through innovations for such in the social relations of production.

In the Diaspora, it is common for black leaders to use Afro-centric ideals to further their goals, namely that of achieving the seat of governance. This is irrespective of the heterogeneity of the nation state they are attempting to rule.

It is proven that such instinctive ethnic mass mobilisation for support is very easy where ethnic idealism prevails over qualitative judgements and choices. It may be argued that Burnhamism in Guyana, Idi Amin's rule in Uganda, George Speight's attempts for equality of indigenous Fijians, and Asian `bashing' in the metropolitan centres of the world, are examples of this phenomenon.

It is obvious that this instinctive reaction of black antagonisms against white is a harnessing of ethnic mass support for self-entrusted intra-group monarchs, not dissimilar to the tribal chieftains in Sub-Saharan Africa that practised slavery with exogenous tribes and clans.

Here white would include East Indians, Portuguese, Syrian and any other differing racial grouping in the Diaspora. Experience has taught us that. It is this `mental slavery' we must emancipate ourselves from.

In Guyana, a troubling twist to this politically instigated ethnic antagonism has exposed itself in the early half of this year. Violent armed robberies were being perpetrated against non-Afro-Guyanese.

The architects and executioners of these heinous acts exercised no restraint in their modus operandi as to indicate their intentions and their centre of operations. In fact the shock they inflicted on society caused a conservative response from its enforcement arms, through the envisioned effect of mass ethnic action and reaction.

How can the methods of high seas pirates, properly condemned in the annals of history and civilised thinking, be utilised in any cause for governance?

As stressed before, it is constructive innovation within systems, of social relations that would bring about progress for any ethnic group in these civilised times. A willingness to accept the demographic realities of heterogeneity, and pursue constructive methods for ethnic group progress, is virtue and wisdom.