Written on 25 July 2020.

Im Januar 2021 wird der neue Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten – egal wer es ist – voraussichtlich seinen Landsleuten den totalen Lockdown wegen der ausufernden COVID 19-Seuche verkünden.

Am 24. Juli 2020 schrieben 246 amerikanische Fachärzte und Allgemeinmediziner einen Brandbrief an die Entscheidungsträger, in dem sie einen neuen Lockdown fordern:

Dear decision makers,

Hit the reset button.Of all the nations in the world, we’ve had the most deaths from COVID-19. At the same time, we’re in the midst of “reopening our economy,” exposing more and more people tocoronavirus and watching numbers of cases -- and deaths -- skyrocket. In March, people went home and stayed there for weeks, to keep themselves and their neighbors safe. You didn’t use the time to set us up to defeat the virus. And then you started to reopen anyway, and too quickly. Right now we are on a path to lose more than 200,000 American lives by November 1st. Yet, in many states people can drink in bars, get a haircut, eat inside a restaurant, get atattoo, get a massage, and do myriad other normal, pleasant, but non-essential activities.

Obwohl klar ist, dass es so nicht weitergehen kann, hat der Wahlkampf derzeit Priorität vor der Volksgesundheit, denn Präsident Donald Trump hofft, dass er im Oktober einen Impfstoff wie das Kaninchen aus dem Hut zaubern kann und damit den Kampf gegen die Seuche und die Wahlen gewinnen wird.

Wenn die US-Regierung bis November keinen überzeugenden Impfstoff zu akzeptablem Preis und in ausreichender Menge anbieten kann, muss sich das Land am Tag nach der Wahl endlich der bitteren Frage stellen, wie die Seuche ohne Impfung eingedämmt werden kann. Wenn die Wahl entschieden ist, braucht der neue Präsident keine Rücksicht auf Wählergefühle mehr zu nehmen und wird daher tun, was ihm bereits im Juli die Wissenschaftler empfohlen haben: er wird den neuen, rigorosen Lockdown verkünden. Der Kongress wird ihm folgen müssen. Health first!

Der neue, zweite Lockdown wird rigoroser gestaltet werden müssen als der erste, und dürfte voraussichtlich länger dauern, denn die US-Bevölkerung ist

– des Covids bereits müde, daher ungefreut und wahrscheinlich wenig willig

– wie die Erfahrung zeigt, ist vor allem die Jugend nicht sonderlich diszipliniert

– durch die Vielzahl der Staaten und die Eigenbrötelei ihrer Politiker gehemmt.

In jedem Fall wird ein neuer, rigoroser Lockdown erhebliche wirtschaftliche und soziale Folgen haben. Die öffentlichen Kassen und die privaten Ersparnisse der Amerikaner sind in den vergangenen Monaten bereits stark strapaziert worden. In einen neuen Lockdown gehen die USA daher mit wenig Spielraum zur Abfederung sozialer und wirtschaftlicher Notlagen, auch weil die staatlichen Ausgaben wegen des Wahlkampfs stark gestiegen sind.

Kritisch dürfte die Lage der Wirtschaft insgesamt werden. Bereits jetzt mehren sich Pleiten in den am meisten betroffenen Branchen, etwa beim Einzelhandel, in der Gastronomie und in der Reisewirtschaft. Ein neuer Lockdown dürfte zu einem tiefen Einbruch der gesamten Wirtschaft führen. Als Ergebnis könnten die USA sogar ihre Position als stärkste Volkswirtschaft der Welt vorübergehend verlieren. Gegenwärtig ist Chinas Wirtschaft mit etwa zwei Dritteln des Volumens der amerikanischen die zweitgrösste Volkswirtschaft der Welt.

Sollte Chinas Wirtschaft das jetzige kräftige Wachstum mit etwa 8 Prozent im Jahr fortsetzen und die amerikanische Wirtschaft im Lockdown um 30 Prozent schrumpfen, dann könnte China als grösste Volkswirtschaft der Welt, am Brutto-Inlandsprodukt gemessen, triumphieren. Sehr unerfreulich, sich auszumalen, wie China dann auftreten würde, selbst wenn der Vorsprung nur knapp und vorübergehend wäre, bis Amerika wieder auf die Beine kommt.

Heinrich von Loesch

Update

Dr. Ross McKinney Jr., the chief scientific officer of the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges), which issued its warning of "multiple hundreds of thousands" of US deaths, called for a national change of course. "We're 150,000 now, we have a lot of states where the epidemic is currently out of control," McKinney told CNN.

"And we're starting to see some of the states that were in between ... where there is a drastic, rapid upswing in infections, places like Nebraska and Iowa," he continued.

"So it's really important for us to organize as a country, to try and control this infection before the number of cases goes up higher, before the number of deaths goes higher, because we're not on a good path at present," McKinney said.

Update 2

The U.S. economy suffered its worst period ever in the second quarter, with GDP falling a historic 32.9%.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones were looking for a decline of 34.7%.

Neither the Great Depression nor the Great Recession nor any other slump over the past two centuries have ever caused such a sharp drain on the economy.

Update 3

Manche Beobachter meinen, die Wirtschaft Chinas sei entgegen der offiziellen Statistik bereits jetzt viel grösser als die amerikanische, nicht nur in Kaufkraft sondern in $$.

Absolutely false numbers since actual Chinese economy is much larger than American one. With or w/o PPP adjustments. I would go out on a limb here and state that at this stage in 2020 real size of Chinese economy is about 2.5-3 times larger than that of the US. In other words--it already dwarfs US economy. Posted by: Andrei Martyanov | Jul 27 2020

Written on 20 July 2020.

Rinder erzeugen bekanntlich gewaltige Mengen Methan, ein Gas, das das Klima 34-mal so stark schädigt wie das allseits geächtete CO2. Daher ist klar, dass Rindfleisch, auch vereinfacht Methanfleisch genannt, verboten werden muss, wenn die EU ihre Klimaziele erreichen will.

Ein anderes Rinderprodukt, Milch, lässt sich durch teurere Schaf-, Ziegen- oder Sojamilch ersetzen. Als Anreiz zur Umstellung empfiehlt sich Besteuerung des Liters Kuhmilch ähnlich wie ein Liter Benzin. Fiskalisch ist das kein Problem, denn Milch wird nicht mehr wie früher beim Händler per Kelle in die Millipitschen abgefüllt, sondern kommt samt Steuerstempel im genormten Karton.

Um diese Reform voranzutreiben, ist eine politische pressure group vonnöten. Progressive Leute sollten eine Partei gründen, die sich dieser Anliegen annimmt. Man könnte eine solche Gruppierung “Die Grünen” nennen. Es gibt zwar schon ein Gebilde dieses Namens, aber das befasst sich mit Fragen wie dem Kostenersatz evidenzbasierter Homöopathie durch Krankenkassen. Vermutlich handelt es sich um eine Kreatur russischer Trollfabriken, die sich bemühen, den europäischen Westen zu verwirrren und von den eigentlichen Problemen abzulenken.

Dass Mitglieder der neuzugründenden Partei beim Hl. Amazonas schwören sollten, kein Methanfleisch mehr zu essen, ist ein Gerücht. Tatsache ist jedoch, dass grosse Agrarforschungsanstalten wie Hohenheim, Wageningen und CIRAD intensiv nach neuen, methanfreien Rinderarten suchen, die steuerfreie Milch liefern könnten und deren Fleisch für den menschlichen Verzehr zugelassen würde.

John Wantock

Written on 13 July 2020.

The Uyghur problem is a festering wound which President Trump is stoking because he thinks his anti-Chinese drive will help him win re-election. Beijing, as usual, is stonewalling all Western attempts to force the Chinese to improve the lot of the Uyghurs. Repressing minorities is an old Chinese habit which the communists inherited from the Kuomintang. Strangely, while Muslim countries are reluctant to defend the islamic Uyghurs, non-Muslim countries are engaging themselves in the battle against oppression despite the fact that Uyghur fighters constitute an important element of global jihadism, especially in Afghanistan and Syria, a fact ignored by most media. Although Uyghurs are not as soft and peaceful as Western media like to portray them, the world should never tolerate oppression and genocide. First, a few words from Wikipedia as introduction to the article by Dilnur Reyhan.

By 1920, Pan-Turkic Jadidists had become a challenge to Chinese warlord Yang Zengxin who controlled Xinjiang. Uyghurs staged several uprisings against Chinese rule. The Uyghurs are recognized by the Chinese government only as a regional minority within a multicultural nation. The Chinese government rejects the notion of the Uyghurs being an indigenous group. Since 2015, it has been estimated that over a million Uyghurs have been detained in Xinjiang re-education camps. The camps were established under General Secretary Xi Jinping's administration with the main goal of ensuring adherence to national ideology. Critics of China's treatment of Uyghurs have accused the Chinese government of propagating a policy of sinicization in Xinjiang in the 21st century, calling this policy an ethnocide or a cultural genocide of Uyghurs. Despite the ongoing repression of the Uyghurs as portrayed by Western media, there have been very few protests from Islamic countries against the internment and re-education of the ethnicity by the Chinese Communist Party. In February 2019, Turkish President Erdogan later said “It is a fact that the people of all ethnicities in Xinjiang are leading a happy life amid China's development and prosperity” while visiting China. Erdogan also said that some people were seeking to "abuse" the Xinjiang crisis to jeopardize Turkey and China's economic relationship. In June 2020, German anthropologist and Sinology scholar Adrian Zenz released a report, "Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uyghur Birthrates in Xinjiang. Zenz asserted that these efforts by the Chinese government to repress the Uyghur birth rate met the criteria of genocide under Article II, Section D of the United Nations Genocide Convention by "imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group."

History repeats itself: Chinese state terror and the dismantling of Uyghur neo-Jadidism

Entrepreneurs Ablimit Halis Hajim (left), Abduweli Muqiyit (center) and Nurtay Hajim İskender (right) were pillars of Uyghur national education and central figures in the development of Uyghur civil society. All three have been the targets of the Chinese state's assault on Uyghur society. Photos by Dilnur Reyhan and Medine Ablimit, used with permission.

The city of Ghulja is reputed as a center of Uyghur rebellion, and has, in fact, often been a locus of resistance to Chinese power. Capital of the second independent Republic of East Turkestan from 1944 to 1949, Ghulja boasts many legendary heroes, such as Nuzugum, Sadir the Brave and Ghéni the Brave. That is just part of its identity: the city also claims renowned artists and literary figures such as Lutpulla Mutellip, Zunun Qadiri, Tiyipjan Eliov and Zordon Sabir.

Ghulja is located in Ili, an autonomous district bordering Kazakhstan. Ili was colonized for 10 years at the end of the 19th century by Tsarist Russia and has acted as a gateway for Western influences coming through Russian-speaking Central Asia. It is also the cradle of Uyghur Jadidism, a late 19th-century-early 20th-century renaissance movement led by intellectuals and entrepreneurs who aimed to reform Islam and Turkic Muslim societies as part of a broader modernization drive inspired by Western and Ottoman models. This movement of societal and religious reform played a role in the awakening of Uyhgur society and its struggle against Chinese colonialism and religious obscurantism. This gave rise to the first rebellion in the south of the Uyghur lands, which gave birth to the first Turkic Islamic Republic of East Turkestan which lasted from 1933 to 1934.

During the period between 1930-40 known as the “white terror”, these religious and cultural reformers—called Jadidists across Central Asia—were driven out, imprisoned and massacred by the various representatives of Chinese colonial power. Intellectuals such as Lutpulla Mutellip, Abduhaliq Uyghur, Enver Nasiri, and Memtéli Tewpiq (the author of the national anthem of East Turkestan) were burned alive. China's then-ruling party, the Kuomintang, victimized anyone they considered a political or ethnic opponent.

During the period of the Second Republic of East Turkestan, which lasted from 1944 to 1949, Ili became the most advanced, in terms of culture and education, of the 10 districts that form the Uyghur Region, and to this day retains an independent spirit and offers a window on all that is new and modern emanating from outside. From the 1990s, when Uyghur businesspeople gained the opportunity to trade externally with Central Asia, South Asia and Turkey, many of them, including some from Ghulja, invested in supporting the education of young Uyghurs at renowned universities in other countries.

One such entrepreneur was Ablimit Hoshur Halis Hajim, who made his money in real estate and was already known for his philanthropic support for the development of Uyghur cultural identity. In October 1994, Halis Halim, together with fellow entrepreneurs Sadiqjan, Abdurishit Hajim, and Memtimin Tewekkül, gathered together around 200 Ili notables in Ghulja and raised 1.5 million yuan (the equivalent of US$200,000) to create the Ili Halis Fund, the region’s first private higher education fund. The task of managing the fund was assigned to pedagogue and public figure Abduweli Muqiyit, as Halis Hajim encouraged other Uyghur entrepreneurs to participate and offer opportunities to Uyghur students from the region. The fund’s first cohort of grantees were 800 students who had to drop out of school due to lack of money, and who were now able to return to their studies.

A year after the Ili Halis Fund was founded, another young Ghulja entrepreneur, Nurtay Hajim Iskender, founded the first school for orphans. Abduweli Muqiyit was yet again recruited to take on the huge responsibility of setting up the school’s day-to-day operations, coordination with the state, media promotion, recruiting teachers, budgeting, student selection, and even choosing a location for the school building.

Nurtay Hajim Iskender with children from his school. Photo by Dilnur Reyhan, used with permission.

A peaceful, leafy district on a wide avenue by the Ili River, a short distance from the noisy, bustling city center, was chosen as the site for an attractive modern school building that incorporated traditional Uyghur architectural features. The school initially took in 60 orphan students, but that number quickly rose to several hundred from throughout the region in the years that followed, All the students’ needs, from primary school to the end of their university studies, were taken care of by Nurtay Hajim, supported by other Uyghur philanthropists.

Nurtay Hajim Iskender School in the city of Ghulja. Photo by Dilnur Reyhan, used with permission.

Nurtay Hajim's fame spread beyond Ili and throughout the Uyghur Region. He and Ablimit Halis Hajim became symbols of the progressive entrepreneurship for which the Jadid era had been known, and increasing numbers of Uyghur entrepreneurs started investing in similar projects.

In 2017, the Chinese state renewed its campaign of state terror by targeting intellectuals, religious leaders and entrepreneurs. Sadly—and unsurprisingly—Nurtay Hajim Iskender was one of those arrested, and his school was closed and turned into a concentration camp. Almost all of the teachers at this school were reportedly arrested as well, though it is unclear what happened to the students.

Abduweli Muqiyit was another unsurprising target of Chinese state terror. His grandfather had served in the government of the Republic of East Turkestan, and Muqiyit, who had served as head of the education directorate of the city of Ghulja, in 2002 organized the 100th anniversary of Ghulja School No. 2, a combination middle and high school that was the oldest in the Uyghur region. In 2014, he also founded the Bilal Nazimi bookstore, which quickly came to occupy an important place in the intellectual life of the community, with Uyghurs from different social strata gathering there for lectures and conversations.

Abduweli Muqiyit in the Bilal Nazimi Library in Ghulja. Photo by Dilnur Reyhan, used with permission.

Information on what is really going on in the Uyghur region, one of the most surveilled locations in the world, is extremely difficult to obtain. This situation gives rise to many rumors, some of which prove to be false, but which in many cases are true.

Rumors that Nurtay Hajim had died in detention circulated for a time in the Uyghur diaspora, similar to the one about the renowned musician and singer Abduréhim Héyit that was eventually debunked. Relatives of Nurtay Hajim also denied the rumour, in early 2020, they learned through unofficial channels that Nurtay Hajim had received a life sentence. Abduweli Muqiyit reportedly received the same, though as China does not provide any official information, it is impossible to verify this information.

As for Ablimit Halis Hajim, his children, who live abroad, have had no news about whether he might have been released, or sentenced.

These three men were pillars of Uyghur national education outside official frameworks, central figures in the development of Uyghur civil society, and—in their drive to modernize education, identity, and Uyghur society—pioneering proponents of neo-Jadidism. Like many other Uyghur artists and entrepreneurs, they sought a new basis for creating a society that was both proudly traditional and undeniably modern, and are recognized for their commitment to modernization and openness. The arrest and subsequent disappearance of these three men from Ghulja has exerted a chilling effect on the Uyghur community.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the policy of “white terror” pursued by Chinese governor of the Uyghur Region, Sheng Shicai, sought to eradicate the Uyghur intellectual and bourgeois class in order to subjugate the Uyghur nation. The dismantling of Uyghur society undertaken in recent times by Xinjiang province Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, has felt for many like a return to this brutal period.

*The author wishes to thank the Uyghur-Australian intellectual Selime Kamal and Medine Ablimit, the daughter of Albimit Halis Hajim, for providing information on the lives of Abduweli Muqiyit and Ablimit Halis Hajim.

For more stories on the persecution of minorities in China’s Xinjiang region, go here.

Dilnur Reyhan , The Bridge, Global Voices

Written on 16 July 2020.

In the charged atmosphere of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently made the mistake of stating there was no slavery in Australia. Morrison later apologised for causing offence. He clarified that his comments related specifically to the colony of New South Wales.

The relevance of slavery to the experience of First Nations and other communities was quickly and forcefully addressed. Robust evidence demonstrated that, of course, slavery did exist in Australia.

Research at UWA is exploring Australian links to historical slavery through the Legacies of British Slave-ownership (LBS) database.

Academic Clinton Fernandes has revealed the British Parliament granted compensation in the 1830s to former slave owners for the loss of their slaves (but not to those who had been enslaved). Some former slave owners used this compensation to settle in Australia.

It is hardly surprising, then, that First Nations peoples in Australia were forced into indentured servitude and had their wages stolen.

Another example of slavery was the practice of “blackbirding” Pacific Islander people for work on Australian sugar plantations. Today’s South Sea Islander community in Queensland have asked the prime minister to familiarise himself with their experience and its legacies

Slavery subsists

Global efforts to confront “modern slavery” challenge understandings of slavery as a purely historical experience. Modern slavery is an umbrella term used to describe human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices. It includes bonded labour, forced marriage and forced labour.

Just like historical slavery, modern slavery is a multi-billion-dollar industry. An estimated 40.3 million men, women and children are subjected to modern slavery around the world.

In Australia, we can look to contemporary labour mobility schemes to see the continued vulnerability of Pacific Islanders to modern slavery. Stories continue to emerge of worker exploitation in Australia.

About 15,000 people are subject to modern slavery in Australia, including sex trafficking, forced marriage and forced labour. Cases of forced labour predominantly occur in industries such as agriculture, construction, domestic work, meat processing, cleaning, hospitality and food services. Even more people are enslaved through the supply chains of Australian companies operating overseas.

The Modern Slavery Act 2018 marks an important development. It requires large businesses and Commonwealth entities to report on risks of modern slavery in their operations and supply chains, and actions to address those risks.

The first reports under the act are expected to be published this year and will be available for public scrutiny. Unfortunately, there are no penalties for non-compliance. An advisory group established to support implementation of the act lacks civil society and survivor representation.

Domination and exploitation.

Racist ideologies reflected in current events find their roots in colonisation and slavery. The broader issue of the over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples in Australia is gaining renewed attention through the current protests. Indigenous Australians make up 28% of the Australian prison population, meaning they are the most incarcerated people on Earth. The high rate of Indigenous deaths in custody has also gained renewed attention.

Experiences of over-incarceration and slavery are distinct and important in their own right. Yet such experiences are linked in how they reflect ongoing limitations and violations of civil and citizenship rights for First Nations and other communities in Australia.

For example, the over-incarceration of First Nations peoples contributes to their political disenfranchisement, as Australian electoral law politically silences those in prison.

Similarly, Pacific Islanders and others subject to modern slavery in Australia are often kept silent for fear of losing work and residency rights. The marginalisation of their experiences implicitly authorises their continued exploitation.

The capacity of our democracy to function equitably for disadvantaged communities is compromised by their lack of equal representation or involvement in law and policy-making.

Where to from here?

It is evident the scourge of racism and slavery is not confined to the past. Nor is it an issue that only affects other countries. It is here, it is now, and it must be tackled.

Political and legislative responses to modern slavery are encouraging. But significant gaps remain in the promotion and protection of Indigenous rights.

This is why the Uluru Statement From The Heart and its constitutional reform proposals are so important. The Uluru Statement calls for the constitutional protection and entrenchment of a Voice to Parliament and a Makarrata Commission to supervise treaty-making processes and truth-telling initiatives.

The Voice to Parliament is in its design phase with Australian government and elected First Nation representatives. Now, more than ever, First Nations require a Voice to Parliament and for that voice to be heard, respected and protected. Its constitutional entrenchment would signal a momentous shift in Australia’s engagement with the justice demands of First Nations people.

Meaningful reconciliation is impossible while Indigenous rights and perspectives are oppressed. True progress calls for learning from the world’s oldest living cultures. Healing requires learning from the past and present.

Fiona McGaughey -- The Conversation

Written on 05 July 2020.

My skin is a Confederate monument, said Caroline Randall Williams in a widely read New York Times op-ed. Although being preponderantly white (i.e. European-American) she says:

I am a black, Southern woman, and of my immediate white male ancestors, all of them were rapists. My very existence is a relic of slavery and Jim Crow.

Slavery started in what is today the U.S. with white slaves. The word kidnapping literally means snatching children and taking them for sale overseas. In those days children were abundant and considered of limited value.

Perhaps half of the early European-American population consisted of slaves kidnapped (shanghaied) in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere. When African-American slaves started to be imported from the Caribbean and directly from Africa, they proved more robust and were considered more valuable than the Europeans.

Not only sex led slave owners to rape women. In order to increase their wealth, some systematically impregnated the women in order to obtain numerous offspring. They did not hesitate to treat and sell their own children as slaves.

Consequently, the African-American population became lighter-colored. While the descendants of European slaves managed to shed their origins and gained the status of scions of free immigrants, the children of the African-American slaves did not succeed because their skin color betrayed their origins.

It is often irritating – for a foreigner – to hear Americans being considered or considering themselves as “black” whose skin color is as light as that of a southern European. Both Meghan Markle and Caroline Randall Williams seem to belong into that category.

The descendants of the European slaves became hyperdescent (Hyperdescent is the practice of classifying a child of mixed race ancestry in the more socially dominant of the parents' races) whereas African Americans are subjected of the opposite hypodescent (the practice of classifying a child of mixed race ancestry in the more socially subordinate parental race).

So much for a somewhat weird science. Brazilian vernacular is said to know two dozen different terms for shades of skin color.

Meghan Markle’s mother is Doria Ragland, bearer of a famous surname. All American Raglands are said to be descendants of Evan Ragland, a son of Welsh aristocracy residing in Raglan Castle in Somerset. He was kidnapped as a child in about 1670, carried across the ocean to Virginia, and sold as a slave (polite term: indentured servitude) to Stephen Pettus of New Kent County for a period of five to seven years. With his high level of education he was able to buy his freedom early. About 1680 he married his former master's daughter, Susanna Pettus and inherited the plantation and acquired wealth.

Incidentally, another Pettus, Edmund, was a Confederate General and Grand Dragon of the Ku-Klux-Klan and, according to Randall Williams, her grand-grand-grandfather.

The descendants of Evan Ragland established themselves as planters in Virginia and developed a penchant for slaves imported from the island of Madagascar.

The Ragland Plantation in Petersburg is now a Bed & Breakfast. The website is geared towards promoting the aesthetics of the place. However, there is a history of the Ragland Plantation on the site that mentions both Reuben and John Davis Raglands’ active involvement in the domestic slave trade out of Richmond as slave traders, bankers, and as part of the insurance industry that oiled the engines of slavery. It also appears that John Davis dropped his Ragland surname when he was a slave trader which was a great way to disguise his hideous complicity in the slave trade for future generations.

"Black" Raglands migrated from Virginia to Ohio where they established themselves as a quite sizable clan. Doria Ragland, born in Cleveland, Ohio, is stepdaughter of Alvin Azell Ragland, an antiques dealer.

By a curious twist of history, the Ragland Mansion in Petersburg, VA, built in the 1850s with Reuben Ragland’s wealth partly based on dealing in Malagasy slaves, was in the 1990s bought by a Malagasy, Marie Yolande Bezaka, a former diplomat and daughter of Alexis Bezaka, then mayor of Tamatave, the large port city from which most slave traders had sailed to America. Yolande Bezaka knew that Reuben Ragland had been a slave trader but ignored the Malagasy background of her property.

Madagascar has s long and sad history of slavery not only of exports but also of massive imports from Mozambique. Although officially abolished in the 19th century, discrimination of the Mainty, the descendants of freed slaves, still persists among highland tribes.