Ama Biney Quotes

My interest in history was sparked by introduction to the transatlantic slave trade as a 12-year-old child in an East London comprehensive secondary school in which the National Front were prevalent in the local area.

I am very selective in what I watch on TV as there is so much rubbish to act as a new societal opium.

I think it’s important for people to grasp that historical figures required systems and structures and specifically other people to be complicit in the operation of such policies and to buy into the societal vision they promoted. Such figures could not act alone.

...what lives did these African people have before they were packed like sardines aboard this ship? Did they survive? To say that such an image unsettled me is an understatement.

I think it’s difficult for mainstream media to take on this role because they are committed to making a profit. Often advertisers dictate the agenda. And there’s another constraint. The mainstream media have to entertain their audiences and run stories that will interest them. Sometimes they are influenced by whether a story will have a human interest angle. That is also a reason why there are so many stories of misery or famine: they will interest readers

I don’t think I’ve seen anything as impressive as the gigantic Cambodian Hindu/Budhist temple called Angor Wat that sprawls for 162.6 hectares. It’s beautiful, yet parts of it are deeply eery. I think it’s impressive due to the fact that it was constructed in the 12th century and took 28 years to build. In a part of the temple complex there is a mesmerizing tree that has some of its roots organically clinging onto parts of the temple. I found it unsettling and strange. The entire temple and that tree are certainly worth seeing. A one day’s visit does not do it justice.

It is very easy to point fingers at historical figures such as Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Siad Barre, Mobutu, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Margaret Thatcher, Sani Abacha and many other unsavoury figures that carried out anti-people policies, dictatorship, genocide and authoritarian rule across the globe.

I find deeply troubling the repeal of the Roe V Wade anti-abortion legislation in many conservative US states in a country that purports to be the “the land of the free”, alongside attempts in this country to curb the right to protest that has long been fought for.

The Brookes ship, built in 1780-81 in Liverpool and co-owned by Liverpudlian Joseph Brooks, is the famous illustrated ship of 454 enslaved Africans, that most British school children are likely to have seen in history books.

Another inspiring development around the globe is Afro-Columbian woman Francia Marquez, who was elected as Vice President in Columbia in August 2022. Similar to President Obama’s election to office in 2008, her election to office was a significant historical moment for people of African descent, known as Afro-Latinx in the region.

The Police Crime, Sentencing & Court Act 2022 is being pushed through and it seems the police will have powers to shut down protest in anticipation that such protests will inevitably be disruptive. Yet, the police no longer seems to have the confidence of many people on account of the recent alarming findings of Baroness Casey report into Metropolitan police.

I started with African Studies as my first degree and on account of my interest in the history of the African diaspora studied and taught both African and Caribbean history.

...if we are to understand historical leaders, we must also interrogate the values, the socio-economic and political processes they help to engender that required sections of society, state and government to concede to dictatorship, genocide and the implementation of anti-people policies.

Corruption wherever it is – in the West or in Africa – is contemptible and unethical. But when we look at corruption in Africa there are often Western multi-national companies involved. They are complicit in the corruption of African dictators, businessmen or leaders. But Westerners and reporters of the West very rarely ask themselves: “How comes that Western banks are accomplices of dictators in Africa?”

Perhaps it is with nostalgia that human beings look back in history as there is certainly a romanticisation of certain aspects of the past that erases the ugly deeds of human beings.