Le Pr Tidiane Ndiaye ou le courage de la vérité (par Adama Ndiaye)
The writer and anthropologist Tidiane Ndiaye passed away in a silence that borders on injustice. Proof of this media blackout: had it not been for the intellectual Rokhaya Diallo, who announced the news on Twitter (X), the death of this major figure of African thought would have gone unnoticed.
This lack of public attention is the last tribute of vice to virtue, for a man who spent his life rowing against the current of dogmas and comfortable silences.
By breaking the veil of secrecy surrounding the Eastern slave trade, Professor Ndiaye has not only done the work of a historian; he has committed an act of courage. In his masterful work, *The Veiled Genocide*, he documents a tragedy concealed by thirteen centuries of silence. While the transatlantic slave trade lasted four centuries, the Arab-Muslim slave trade stretched over more than a millennium, claiming approximately 17 million victims.
But beyond the numbers, it is the nature of this slave trade that Professor Ndiaye describes as "genocide". Why? Because, unlike the slavery practiced in the Americas, that of the Arab-Muslim world aimed, through its methods, at the biological extinction of the deportees.
"Compared to the transatlantic slave trade, the Arab-Muslim slave trade was much more devastating [...] For the Arabs, black captives were primarily intended for castration." (Interview, 2008).
The author highlights a horrific reality, often omitted from textbooks: to prevent the formation of a Black diaspora that could eventually claim rights, men were systematically castrated. Professor Ndiaye estimated that 70% to 80% of captives died as a result of these barbaric operations.
As for women, they were reduced to the status of sexual objects, condemned to harems. It is this lack of descendants that explains why, today, there is virtually no significant Black minority in several countries of the Maghreb or the Middle East.
Tidiane Ndiaye noted with bitterness that while the West has begun a process of remembrance and recognized its crimes, a comparable process has never taken place in the Arab-Muslim world.
"The Arab-Muslim world has achieved the remarkable feat of making people forget its crimes for centuries by cloaking itself in religious solidarity." (The Veiled Genocide).
For undertaking this work of truth, Professor Ndiaye was often ostracized by the intelligentsia of a certain Third Worldist left, for whom all evil originates exclusively in the West. At the same time, he was co-opted by an opportunistic right wing only too happy to fuel its anti-Islam narrative. Professor Ndiaye, for his part, remained an honest researcher, faithful to the facts rather than to factions.
This refusal to confront the past fuels an unashamed racism that is poisoning the present. Reports from organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch regularly denounce the plight of sub-Saharan migrants in Libya (where slave markets have been documented), Mauritania, and Tunisia.
This contempt even permeates popular enthusiasm: during the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), North African fans sometimes engage in vile racist exchanges on social media. This racism stems from a historical inability to confront the legacy of Eastern slavery.
Professor Ndiaye knew that truth is a demanding discipline that flatters neither side. He perfectly illustrated this thought of Georges Bernanos: "Truth is not an ingredient to be measured according to the needs of political cooking. It will be whole or it will not be served."
Tidiane Ndiaye chose to serve it in its entirety. The Arab world would benefit today from undertaking this work of remembrance in order to confront head-on the issue of racism that pervades it.
Commentaires (6)
N’importe quoi
L’esprit critique n’y est absolument pas nié
Cela dit, par definition, toute religion est dogme mais le dogme n’empêche ni l’intelligence ni l’esprit critique. Des gens sont arrivés à la religion par l’exercice de leur raison critique.
En revanche, il existe dans certaines sociétés un conformisme intolérant consistant à dénigrer la religion
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