Why reparations?

CARICOM (the Caribbean Community) recently wrote a second set of letters to European governments seeking reparations from them for the part they played in the African Slave Trade and the enslavement of the African captives on the European-owned plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas.

The aftermath of the horrors of plantation slavery has continued over the last three centuries on the descendants of those who had been enslaved. Though none of the European governments has turned down the reparations claim, they have all been equivocal. Though the horrors of the Slave Trade and slavery on the plantations are well-known, it is always necessary to remind ourselves of them, since there are so many forces working to weaken or even remove our memories of them. Being fully aware of the Slave Trade and the slave system on the plantations would disclose to African descendants the reasons for some of their struggles in today’s society and would help in freeing them of the aftermath of those conditions and bring about the total rebirth and reconstruction for which the Caribbean has been yearning over the years.

It is apposite, therefore, to remind ourselves of those conditions. Firstly, it must be realised that the continuous removal for over three centuries of the healthiest and most able-bodied people from any country stultifies development and Africa’s underdevelopment was largely due to this continuous removal of its people.

In the slave ships, the African captives were placed at the bottom of the boat, were shackled, had little fresh air, were poorly fed, were often beaten and had to remain in the most unhygienic of conditions. It is not surprising that the death rate among them was extraordinarily high. On the plantations themselves, there were unceasing work, little food, cruel beatings and torturous punishments. Families and communities, wherever they existed, were destroyed. Children were separated from their mothers and coralled to be brought up as new slaves. But the worst punishments were psychological. The slaves were made to feel inferior, unwanted, inadequate and not fit to be in human society. Their cultures and religions were ruthlessly destroyed. It is this psychological destructiveness even more than the continuous barbarous physical harassments which has caused the plight of the African descendants.

The major European economies were built from the profits of African slavery and African slavery provided much of the capital which fuelled the European Industrial Revolutions. European nations became the wealthiest and most powerful in the world on the profits of three centuries of African enslavement. When the demand for reparations for slavery is being made by Caribbean governments, European politicians, governments and even their intellectuals tend to say that slavery happened a very long time ago and that we should not be mired in the past, but should move on. Sometimes numbers of red herrings are thrown up such as that it was African chiefs who sold the slaves to European slave traders. That red herring and others do not in the least exculpate Europeans from the horrors and tortures of the slave trade and plantation slavery and in no way negates the claim for reparations.

Europeans should always be reminded that the effects of slavery have not been dissipated into the past, since they continue to reverberate in Caribbean life and society. It must also be pointed out that it was only in the latter half of the 20th century that Caribbean people have had the possibility of making the claim for reparations since before that, they were entrapped in a colonial world where it was impossible to make such a demand. The points, in very curtailed summary, of the Reparations Claim are the following:-That there must be a full and formal apology by the culpable European nations for slavery and its aftermath. That there must be Reparations which would include the financing of a Development Plan for the Indigenous Peoples; the building and strengthening of cultural institutions; confronting the public health crisis; helping to eradicate illiteracy; an African knowledge programme where in-depth knowledge of the Afro-Caribbean could be researched, including the content and meaning of African religions; transfer to the Caribbean of modern cutting-edge technologies; cancellation of the foreign debt owed by Caribbean states; and lastly and most importantly, Psychological rehabilitation. Psychological rehabilitation would be expected to consider such matters as exorcising inferiority complexes, dealing with the negative stereotyping of Africans and helping to rediscover the entrepreneurial ethos.
The Reparations programme is modest and not unreasonable and is quite achievable and well within the capabilities of European nations. Reparations would go some way in bringing justice to an unjust situation, would be healing a festering wound and would be bringing closure to one of the most horrible episodes in human history.

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