The term African Holocaust is preferred by some academics, such as Maulana Karenga, because it implies intention. The Maafa represents a way to discuss the historic atrocities and impact of the African Slave Trade. It is derived from a Swahili term for ' disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy'. The usage of the Swahili term: Maafa, 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 Diaspora. 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?' History and terminology The Canadian scholar Adam Jones characterized the mass death of millions of Africans in the Atlantic slave trade as a genocide due to it being ' 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. For example, Maulana Karenga (2001) 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'. The Maafa, the African Holocaust, the Holocaust of Enslavement, or the Black Holocaust are political neologisms which have been popularized since 1988 and they are used to describe the history and ongoing effects of atrocities which have been inflicted upon African people, particularly when they have been committed by non-Africans ( Europeans and Arabs to be exact, specifically in the context of the history of slavery, including the Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade and the Atlantic slave trade) which continues to the present day through imperialism, colonialism and other forms of oppression. Massacres of Hutus during the First Congo War (1996–1997)Įthno-religious genocides in contemporary era.Genocide of Croats and Muslims by the Chetniks.

X word for holocaust