ABSTRACT
Slavery is a condition of human relations in which the one side has conquered the other, compelling the defeated to submit to the will of the conqueror in word and deed. The scientific view that Africa is the mother of humanity means that accidental geographic separation as well as language, cultural, skin and hair differences do not eliminate the basic point that all human beings are the children of one mother. History is an exercise in reconstruction according to the standard canons of the discipline without eliminating totally the subjective preferences of the historian. The ethical necessity for a philosophy of memory for Africa arises from the lived experience of the past and the living experience of today. The retention means in practice that the unjustly acquired wealth of the conqueror continues to be their possession, protected by the constitution of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996.
