Will Jones – The Daily Sceptic Nov 14, 2026

Malawi has hailed the British Empire as “liberators” who saved Africans from the brutal Arab slave trade as the country’s Government moves forward with plans to commemorate this “forgotten” chapter in history. The Telegraph has the story.

Across Africa, Britain has been called an oppressor and confronted with demands for slavery reparations.

But one nation is celebrating the British Empire as a liberator.

Malawi suffered from the brutality of Arab slavery, with its people captured by rival tribes and shipped to the Middle East, part of a 1,200-year-long traffic in human commodities that is often overshadowed by Europe’s transatlantic trade.

The country wants to tell the world about this forgotten slave trade – and how Britain ran a determined campaign to end it.

Malawi’s Government is overseeing plans to build a museum dedicated to slavery, preserve mosques and markets linked to the trade, and have them inscribed as World Heritage sites to “send a message” internationally about this neglected chapter of history.

Through its department of museums, Malawi will also celebrate the British Empire by conserving ruined forts built by colonial forces to protect Africans from marauding slavers.

“Britain was not a coloniser; it was a liberator,” said Moses Mkumpha, who is working on the Government-backed project to preserve colonial buildings.

“The monuments that we have, that we conserve, they are linked with the British. If you look at how the slave trade was ended in Malawi, we owe that to the British.”

Speaking in the capital of Lilongwe, Dr Oris Malijani, the project leader, told the Telegraph that Malawi’s plans would help to correct misperceptions about history, saying: “Slavery in East and Central Africa, it is almost forgotten; it is not discussed.”

“We need to tell the world about it,” he said.

Worth reading in full.