12 Years of a Slave was acted by Chiwetel Ejiofor, born in London to Nigerian parents. I watched the movie with my wife last week. The movie was set in the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup (the actor), a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty at the hands of a nasty slave owner, he struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, he met Canadian abolitionist by chance who started a chain of events that subsequently led to his freedom.

Most people, both white and black wept for the most part of the film. It became clear to me, on reflection after watching the movie that slavery was a taboo subject. In thirty years of work and travel outside the continent of African, I have not come across any white European or American who wants to talk openly about the fact that between 1500 and 1870, more than 11 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic by European traders to work as slaves in the Americas under conditions of cruelty and to lead lives of hardship, unremitting labour, rape, degradation and violence.

The products of slave labour, which were in the form of cotton, sugar, coffee and tobacco were sent back to Europe and the profits derived from slavery trade helped fuel European economic development in the 18th and 19th centuries. The cost in terms of lives and human suffering of the slaves was enormous yet suppressed by those who profited from the trade.

Although slavery was abolished officially in Europe and America in 19th century, slavery still exists today. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) 20.9 million men, women and children around the world are in slavery. In the 21st century people are still sold like objects, forced to work for little or no pay and at the complete mercy of their employers, mistreatment and human right abuses of the voiceless and powerless in many developing countries. These forms of contemporary slavery may be different relative to trans-Atlantic slavery; it affects people of all ages, gender and races. It also comes in its trail with death and enormous suffering for those at the receiving end.

Slavery survived into the 21^st century because we talk about it metaphorically. I believe we should come to terms with our past by freely discussing the size and profitability of the slave trade, the people who engage in, and benefit from it, and its social and economic consequences. I also believe that there should be a closure to this darkest part of human history. To have a sensible closure, we must gain knowledge and understanding of what actually happened, make sense and learn the lesson of it and by so doing, prevent the mistakes of the past.