As the extremely inhumane traffick continued, an estimated 12 million Africans were forcibly sold and taken to America.

Although slavery was outlawed in 1865, it is an illusion to think that slavery is dead and gone to its grave.

Isn't it instructive that one of the fellows giving a scripted speech  and making a PR advantage of the event in front of TV cameras to mark this occasion is the US President who a few days ago taunted four intelligent, diligent and popularly elected female law makers in the US to "go back to where they came from"? One of them was of Somalian heritage, and their sin was merely that they criticised some government policies.

The caustic tirade continued as the president characterized a certain black community in the US as crime- and rodents-infested.

But the problem goes far beyond the recurring chauvinism and racism from the likes of the current tennant of the White House that the world has to simply put up with.

What about a look in the mirror? What's going on right inside our very own clans?

Everywhere you look, you are likely to see a local slave master: the parents who sell their daughters to the highest bidder in the name of marriage; the husband who treats his wife as a punch bag at the slightest provocation or, as a mere cow to be milked for sexual gratification or, as just a child-bearing vessel; the employers who see their employees as money-making machines who must not benefit from the produce or profit of their sweat; the teachers who drive self esteem out of their wards in the name of discipline or even for perverted expectations; the blood-sucking manpower agents who are sending desperate young women abroad where they end up as prostitutes or at best become glorified slaves; the office holders in low and high places whose acts of extreme self-centredness and unbridled corruption are not only stripping the common people of all dignity and hope, but also driving many of them into incredibly risky and often illegal means of survival; the religious charlatans or political overlords who deliberately brainwash and hold back their  followers from the vortex of reason and progress in order to perpetually exploit their ignorance and vulnerability!

Going by the thousands who perish in the Mediterranean almost everyday, for example, it is not hard to see why it has been repeatedly predicted that if the slave ships should return today to Africa, the queue of people jostling to board them will be simply endless! Yet, our elders say that a suicidal decision is not taken in just one day.

The list of realities feeding enslavement in our own communities is inexhaustible, for I am sure you can easily add your own examples.

But the reason for this brief reflection is for all to seize the opportunity of this 400th commemoration to not only spare a thought for the marginalised and less privileged, but also to do whatever it takes, even if unpopular or risky, to ensure that as soon as possible, just one person will rise above the slavish circumstances in which they live today. Apart from good health, I cannot think of anything as precious as  freedom!