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Breadfruit
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Posted: Friday July 28th, 2006 17:43 |
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@DM
Looking at the Hansard, the debate just kept rolling along, arguments left and right; Howells contribution being for me, one of the most progressive.
I'll try and get some feedback from people actually present.
Breadfruit
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The Watcher
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Posted: Friday July 28th, 2006 17:48 |
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| Thanks, because I've always wondered how "they" would respond to such blunt truth
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Bredder Tukoma
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Posted: Friday July 28th, 2006 18:12 |
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Never heard of the woman but what Ive heard her say greatly impresses me.
She has an OBE as well. As well as a Baroness she is obviously firmly entrenched in the system and probably is an intergrationalist.
But I havent heard a politician tell that kind of stark truth ..well ever..
Maybe I need to get out more?
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Friday July 28th, 2006 18:21 |
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Greetings Mansa
I believe the woman was a long time South London Activist who did a lot of good work amongst our people.
Her struggles, around Stephen Lawrence, helped push her in to the Establishment arena.
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Bredder Tukoma
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Posted: Friday July 28th, 2006 18:35 |
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Breadfruit wrote: Greetings Mansa
I believe the woman was a long time South London Activist who did a lot of good work amongst our people. The little I found on her seems like she was a long time Lewisham/Greenwich activist..
Her struggles, around Stephen Lawrence, helped push her in to the Establishment arena. Ok.. that makes sense now.. well she dont mince her words..she appears the most genuine out of the lot of them.
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Saturday July 29th, 2006 20:31 |
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Renaming row darkens Penny Lane's blue suburban skies
Lee Glendinning
Monday July 10, 2006
The Guardian
It is arguably Liverpool's most famous street, immortalised by Paul McCartney as being "there beneath the blue suburban skies". But under a controversial new plan to right old wrongs, Penny Lane could soon be no more.
Liverpool council is in the midst of a debate over whether Penny Lane and other suburban streets should undergo name changes to remove their links with the slave trade. Named after wealthy slave trader James Penny, it is one of seven streets which may be renamed after people who fought against slavery, rather than 18th century traders who profited from it.
The Beatles' take on postwar life in the street has led to great affection for Penny Lane over the years. Thousands are drawn to the stretch of road to see if there really is a "barber showing photographs of every head he's had the pleasure to have known".
The renaming proposal has caused much angst among those protective of the Beatles' legacy and anti-racism campaigners. Phil Coppell, Beatles expert and childhood friend of Paul McCartney, said renaming Penny Lane was ludicrous. "Penny Lane has become synonymous with the Beatles and is part of Liverpool's and the UK's proud music heritage," he said. "To rename it would be a travesty."
Liverpool councillor Barbara Mace said she expected the proposal would generate controversy, but the aim was to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain, which falls next year. "It has never been my suggestion that every street be renamed, but some streets are named after slave traders who were deeply involved in this awful activity," she said.
Tarleton Street, Manesty's Lane and Clarence Street would be replaced by names linked to the abolition of slavery such as William Roscoe and William Wilberforce.
The Merseyside Campaign Against Racist Terrorism group says the street names should be replaced with names that celebrate successful black people.
Critics see the move as an attempt to whitewash history. The director of the Beatles Story tour, Jerry Goldman, said: "It is a historical fact that Liverpool's fortunes were built on the slave trade. I am sure even the Beatles would have been unaware of its origins. To them it was just a place to hang out."
The proposal will be opened to further debate on Wednesday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1816669,00.html#article_continue
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The Watcher
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Posted: Saturday July 29th, 2006 20:45 |
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Residents are protesting these suggestion Breadfruit
http://www.tonight.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=348&fArticleId=3333487
Penny Lane - the Liverpool street immortalised by The Beatles - is to keep its name.
Councillors in the British city had considered changing it because of its links to the slave trade - the suburban road was named after James Penny, a wealthy 18th century slave ship owner - but have now decided against it.
Local politician Barbara Mace said: "My proposal is to rename several of the streets and to replace them with the names of people who have done something positive.
"It's not trying to rewrite history. You can't. Liverpool's whole history is based on the slave trade. That's in the history books."
However, 74-year-old resident and keen historian Eric Lynch thought the idea was ridiculous.
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He said: "Renaming any streets or squares would be a disgraceful attempt to change history.
"It's like somebody in Germany deciding to bulldoze Auschwitz, or like somebody deciding not to celebrate D-Day.
"If we don't know the past, how can we make sure we don't make the same mistakes? You cannot and should not change history, however disagreeable it is."
Penny Lane has become a popular tourist attraction for Beatles fans who want to visit the place immortalised in the song of the same name on the Fab Four's classic 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Last edited on Saturday July 29th, 2006 20:58 by The Watcher
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Monday July 31st, 2006 12:05 |
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"However, 74-year-old resident and keen historian Eric Lynch thought the idea was ridiculous.
He said: "Renaming any streets or squares would be a disgraceful attempt to change history."
So why are there no streets like Adolph Hitler Avenue or Rudolph Hess Road in Britain or the US, Yet Africans should have to debate whether the names of people deeply complicit in our holocaust should be celebrated in street names?
For me, the fact that so many well known enemies of Africa like Rudyard Kipling and Cecil Rhodes to name just two, have streets named after them and Africans live or work on these streets today, apparently oblivious to who these people were, and how they affected our ancestors;how they contributed,to our present condition.
Like Jews would allow their children to celebrate some Nazi everytime they utter their address.
That's deep!
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Tuesday August 1st, 2006 13:39 |
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Slavery: Legacy
Lord Gifford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make appropriate reparation to African nations and to the descendants of Africans for the damage caused by the slave trade and the practice of slavery.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Question raises an issue which is being debated with increasing vigour and intensity by African people around the world; and by African people I mean people of African descent, wherever they live, whether in Africa itself, in the United States, in Great Britain or in the Caribbean, where I now live and practise law.
The issue is this. The under-development and poverty which affect the majority of countries in Africa and in the Caribbean, as well as the ghetto conditions in which many black people live in the United States and elsewhere, are not, speaking in general terms, the result of laziness, incompetence or corruption of African people or their governments. They are in a very large measure the consequences--the legacy--of one of the most massive and terrible criminal enterprises in recorded human history; that is, the transatlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery.
The thesis that I advance tonight is that in accordance with international law and with basic human morality, measures of atonement and reparation are due from the successors of those who instigated and carried out the trade and who profited massively from it, to the descendants of the victims of the criminal enterprise who still suffer in many different ways from the effects of the crime.
The horrendous nature of the enterprise of African slavery is well known and documented. Around 20 million young people were kidnapped, taken in chains across the Atlantic and sold into slavery in the plantations of the New World. Millions more died in transit in the dungeons of the castles such as Goree, Elmina and Cape Coast, or in the hell holes under the decks of the slave ships. It was without doubt, in the fullest sense of the term, a crime against humanity.
A vast proportion of sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal right round to Angola and on the other side from Mozambique into Malawi and Tanzania was depopulated. Its young men and women were taken away. Population estimates show that Africa's population remained static at around 100 million between 1650 and 1850 while in the same period the populations of Europe and Asia increased between twofold and threefold. It is small wonder that the great kingdoms of Africa such as Mali, Songhai and Ghana fell into decline while the slave-trading nations prospered mightily. Whole cities such as Liverpool and Bristol grew wealthy on the triangular trade of manufactured goods going to Africa, slaves going from Africa to the colonies, and sugar coming back from the colonies to Britain. No calculations can measure the loss suffered by the African continent from that massive depopulation of its young people, for which no compensation was ever paid.
African governments today, who have tried to rectify the under-development which they have inherited from history, have borrowed from the financial institutions of the West and are now in a virtually uncontrollable spiral of debt. In reality--and in morality--I suggest that it is the West which is in debt to Africa, not Africa which is debt to the West.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the African captives were cut off from their families, their land and their language. They were forced to be owned as chattels and to work as beasts of burden. When, finally, emancipation day came--in the British colonies, in 1838--the ex-slaves received nothing. It was the ex-slave owners who were compensated for the loss of their property.
The slavery experience has left a bitter legacy which endures to this day in terms of family breakdown, landlessness, under-development and a longing among many to return to the motherland from which their ancestors were taken. Once again, in the Caribbean the need to finance development programmes has bound Caribbean governments and peoples in fresh shackles, the shackles of debt. In Jamaica, where I live, between 40 per cent. and 50 per cent. of the national budget has had to be paid out in debt servicing over the past 10 years. In many African countries, the proportion is much higher. The effects are crippling in that every public service, such as schools, health facilities, transport and roads, prisons and justice systems, is so squeezed that it is failing to deliver at even a minimum standard.
As well as the consequences in Africa and the Caribbean, there is a further element in the legacy of the slave trade, which is the damage done within Britain, within the United States and other Western societies. The inhuman philosophy of white supremacy and black inferiority was inculcated into European peoples to justify the atrocities which were being committed by a Christian people upon fellow human beings. That philosophy continues to poison our society today.
On one short visit back to Britain this month, I come across reports of racism in the Armed Forces and the police. Equal rights legislation has not been enough. It is necessary to look more deeply, to understand why the crimes of the past are poisoning the present for all people, white and black, and then to do something effective to repair the wrong. That will assist both African and European, black and white, to lance the poison and to heal the wounds.
The concept that reparations are payable where a crime against humanity has been committed by one people against another is well established in international law and practice. Germany paid reparations to Israel for the crimes of the Nazi Holocaust. Indeed, the very creation of the State of Israel can be seen as a massive act of reparation for centuries of dispossession and persecution directed against Jews.
Japan apologised only last year, 50 years on, for its wartime atrocities and is still being urged, rightly, to pay compensation to the victims. The USA made apology and restitution for the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. Going further back into history, Her Majesty the Queen, only last November in New Zealand, personally signed the Royal Assent to the Waikato-Raupatu Claims Settlement Bill through which the New Zealand Government paid substantial compensation in land and in money for the seizure of Maori lands by British settlers in 1863. She apologised for the crime and recognised a long-standing grievance of the Maori people. Other indigenous peoples have similar just claims for the dispossession which their ancestors suffered.
African people, too, have a massive and long-standing grievance. It is no use saying that it all happened a long time ago, and we should just forget about it.
The period of colonialism which succeeded the period of slavery, continued the exploitation of Africa and the Caribbean in new ways. Further acts of brutality were committed, and the peoples of those regions, until recently, were denied the status of sovereignty and independence with which alone they could themselves demand the redress of the wrongs which were done.
But the wrongs have not been forgotten. The peoples of Africa and the Caribbean live with their consequences still. A group of eminent Africans under the auspices of the Organisation of African Unity is beginning to articulate the claim for reparation.
What is meant by the claim for reparations? The details of a reparations settlement would have to be negotiated with an appropriate body of representatives of African people around the world. I would anticipate that some of the elements of an appropriate package would be, first, as with other precedents, an apology at the highest level for the criminal acts committed against millions of Africans over the centuries of the slave trade. His Holiness the Pope set the example when he visited the slave dungeons of Goree in Senegal in February 1992 when he said:
"From this African sanctuary of black pain, we implore forgiveness from Heaven".
Secondly, there would be the cancellation of the intolerable burden of debt, which has overloaded the economies of Africa and the Caribbean. There are powerful economic and social arguments for debt cancellation which were most recently deployed by former President Kaunda of Zambia during a visit to Scotland in February 1996. He said of the present state of Africa:
"It is a human tragedy. People are dying by their thousands every day, children are dying. These things bring social disorder to countries".
Thirdly, there would be the return of treasures and works of art which come from the African continent, many of which are to be found in Britain's museums as a result of acts of theft and robbery. I refer, for instance, to the Benin Bronzes in the Museum of Mankind. Fourthly, there would be measures to facilitate the repatriation and resettlement of those who wish to return to Africa. The word "repatriation" has an ugly ring in the mouth of racists who want to drive black people out of Britain. However, it expresses, too, a yearning among many descendants of Africans which is as powerful as was the yearning of the Jewish people for the Promised Land.
Fifthly, there would be a reparations settlement which would involve programmes of development, without strings attached, in Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil and elsewhere, including programmes to promote equal rights and justice within the countries of the West.
As we move to the next millennium, none of us can deny that there is a growing divide between north and south, between black and white, across frontiers and within frontiers. It is in the interests of all of us to recognise that the reasons for that divide lie in a shameful past. If we realise that, we will be on the way to doing something to repair the wrong which was done, even though it may cost heavily in terms of pride and revenue. The steps to be taken will bring a happier world for all our children.
In asking this Question on an issue which may be new and difficult for many of your Lordships, I ask the Government and the Opposition parties for a positive and open-minded response. I believe that this issue will remain with us and will gather momentum. Today's governments and parties are not guilty of fostering the slave trade but they would be responsible if they did nothing to remedy the injustice, the suffering, the poverty and the racism which the slave trade and the institution of slavery inevitably engendered into the present day.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, I am grateful, as no doubt are other noble Lords, for this opportunity to ascertain something of the Government's views on slavery, the slave trade and its consequences, even though I have difficulty with some of the tenor of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Gifford.
I declare at once an interest in this subject as a joint president of Anti-Slavery International. I agree with the noble Lord that, in principle, one cannot object to the idea of the concept of compensation to individuals for wrongs which they have suffered. There is certainly no wrong more grievous, after the wronged loss of life, than loss of liberty. There is no doubt that compensation has been paid in certain circumstances to individuals who suffered ascertained wrongs. The noble Lord referred rightly to the compensation to the Jews and the Jewish nation which was directed by Chancellor Adenauer and to the compensation paid by sections of German industry to individual Jewish persons and refugees.
There are other cases. The noble Lord mentioned some. One could mention the situation of the Sudeten Germans who have been individually thought to be entitled to compensation. On the Japanese side, it is true, I believe, that Japanese prostitutes in the course of the war have received compensation for the wrongs they endured.
However, in all those cases one finds unquestioned guilt and unquestionable responsibility of a particular person. In the case of the Jews, it was the German state. There are identifiable victims of the wrong and direct and assessable consequences. I do not find that those conditions are satisfied, or anywhere near satisfied, in the present case.
Of course, there is still slavery in Africa. One notices that the Question refers specifically to compensation to African nations and compensation to be paid by the British Government, but not international compensation to a whole mass of people all over the world.
We know that slavery still exists in Africa and that there is still slave trading in the area. But for neither of those things can the responsibility realistically, fairly or properly be laid on Her Majesty's Government. On the contrary, as the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke indicated, ever since 1833 when slavery was abolished in the British Empire (which covered a great many of the states of Africa), British governments have striven by law, by force, by use of their navy, by influence and by the expenditure of money, to have slavery abolished in African countries, to stop the trade in human beings, and to mitigate the consequences. The difficulty of assessing the consequences and reparation were adverted to by the previous speaker. I feel sure that the Minister will deal with that view of the matter supported by facts. I am quite happy to leave that aspect of the matter to him.
However, I believe that we should carry the case a little further. For that I believe we are indebted to the noble Lord who tabled the Question. We can perhaps look wider than the precise narrow point outlined by the noble Lord. I shall put my main point very shortly.
However good our historical record may be--and I believe it to be a very good one--however much direct responsibility for the existence of slavery and of the slave trade may rest now upon independent states in Africa and elsewhere, however difficult, indeed impossible, it is to assess compensation or reparation, we nevertheless--and this also applies to other western and first world countries--have a very strong moral responsibility now and always to do two things; first, to bring about as far as possible the abolition of slavery wherever it still exists, and, secondly, to do whatever we can both practically and realistically to alleviate the consequences.
On the first task, we know that slavery exists in Africa. There are the known examples of the Sudan, Mauritania and probably Mozambique. It is worth underlining again, with reference to the noble Lord's Question, that, in the case of Mozambique, responsibility there is entirely that of the Portuguese who ruled the country until 1974. We have no conceivable responsibility either directly or indirectly. On the other hand, our duty is a strictly humanitarian one, owed by man to man.
What we have to do and what we can do as regards abolishing slavery is, first, to establish beyond doubt where it exists and in what countries. That means supporting with money directly and indirectly those organisations, of which ASI is one, which are able to do so. We must support the United Nations with influence and money, particularly its working groups and reporters who are charged with ascertaining the facts. Again, we must support with influence and, if necessary, money, the higher organisations in the United Nations which are able to bring about change. For example, in Mauritania slavery still exists, although it was abolished by law in 1980. However, we know that that is not the end of the matter; indeed, it is only the beginning of the story. What is needed to make progress is land reform, education and a new labour system based on liberty, all of which need strong international support and someone to give a lead. I believe that we can fairly look to Her Majesty's Government in that respect.
Above all, we must press--this is something we can do and which we do do--all countries which have not done so to ratify the supplementary convention of 1956. There are many African countries among the non-signatories. So much, very briefly, for taking action to abolish slavery where it still exists. I have rather confined myself to Africa because that was the tenor of the noble Lord's Question.
We have a moral responsibility--I go along entirely with the noble Lord to that extent--to do what we can to mitigate the consequences of slavery, either of pre-existing slavery, as in 19th century economic slavery, or of existing slavery, as it has been in our time. The main consequences which we can identify and which we are in a position to do something about are well known. They are low prices for commodities and the burden of debt, which is itself a form of slavery. This has been referred to, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, made a persuasive point at Question Time yesterday. The proportion of income from exports that is now needed to pay for debts is impossibly large and is bringing about what is, in effect, a state of economic slavery in many areas. There is also the question of unfair trading, which can be attacked through application of the Uruguay Round. Civil wars which have existed in so many countries, and which still exist in Africa, bring about, inevitably, conditions of slavery, and the consequences of that. I need only mention the Sudan in that connection.
We all know that these consequences of slavery occur. We can see them. I believe that Her Majesty's Government use their influence internationally to mitigate those consequences. I hope that the Minister will comment on the possibility of action to combat those consequences. Often this matter is discussed in the context of self-interest. It is argued that if we attack forms of slavery, that will bring prosperity to us. I have no objection to the argument of self-interest being used; any argument which helps in this connection is welcome. However, I still believe that the case is basically a moral one based on the history of the western powers and their development--if I may use that colourless word--of Africa and its resources in the past. I believe that the case rests on the drawing of boundaries by the western powers which has led inevitably to stress, wars, poverty and under-development. That point was touched on by the noble Lord who tabled the Question.
I wish to reaffirm that I believe that the case for action and any sort of compensation should not be based on guilt, nor on an expedient expenditure of money. We should base the case for giving help on morality. That is entirely in line with the beliefs of the original great reformers. Just west of this House, in Westminster Abbey, there is a bust of Zachary Macaulay, one of the original strong abolitionists. As your Lordships' know, he was governor of Sierra Leone--a colony of freed slaves. The bust is dedicated to a man,
"who during 40 successive years rescued Africa from the woes, and the British Empire from the guilt of slavery and the slave trade".
The case now is not one of guilt but of morality. I commend it as such to your Lordships.
Lords Hansard
14 Mar 1996
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199596/ldhansrd/vo960314/text/60314-24.htm
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Wednesday August 2nd, 2006 11:41 |
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"Slaves became profitable after the discovery of the New World had established a seemingly insatiable demand for workers on the plantations. Slavery was not new to Africa, but it had existed primarily in its domestic form-involving rights as well as duties. In Bornu the kings sent slaves to govern their provinces and Hausa kings also often ruled through slaves. In Yorubaland, slaves of the ALAFIN often attain great power. It was the Europeans who turned slavery into an industry and introduced such well-documented barbarities as the rigors of the 'middle passage' (across the Atlantic)." Walter Schwarz, Nigeria, Pall Mall Press. p.69).
And whereas Africans who participated in slavery had been well-documented, those who fought tenaciously against it remain unsung. Let's contrast this with the interpretation given to Europeans slave-drivers. Every West African student knows the name of William Wilberforce - the 'Great Abolitionist,' the role of Queen Victoria and other European Royalties and 'Noblemen' who built their wealth on African slaves remain relatively unknown. How many Americans would like to know that the 'Great Libertarian,' Thomas Jefferson, was a slave-owner?
It is natural for the guilty to look for parallels, so as to diminished the enormity of his crime, so it is with the Europeans. They are busy collecting bogus anthropological findings and presenting same as historical fact to lessen their culpability in the greatest crime ever committed against a people, in the history of the world. Their assault on history should not be allow to go unanswered.
Femi Akomolafe
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/30/013.html
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History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
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Breadfruit
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Posted: Sunday August 13th, 2006 16:09 |
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Using the 'pain and shame of slavery' to reclaim our civilisation
Claude Robinson
Sunday, March 19, 2006
After a pounding Observer editorial and an incisive comment from Professor Rex Nettleford, the last thing I want to do is to pile on the St Elizabeth Parish Council for not supporting plans to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the ending of the monstrous trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans.
Claude Robinson
But we must reflect on the thinking and attitude betrayed by members of the council in rejecting a resolution forwarded to other parish councils from the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) for "meaningful" national observances of the anniversary in 2007.
On the face of it, the council seems to lack a full appreciation for what is being planned and, more importantly, how the observances can actually help us, especially the descendants of enslaved Africans, to use the 'pain and shame' to reclaim our civilisation, fractured by one of history's cruellest interruptions.
Last Sunday's Observer reported that at the regular monthly meeting of the St Elizabeth Parish Council on Thursday, March 10, Councillor Broderick Wright (JLP - Lacovia Division) led the opposition to the KSAC resolution.
Arguing that slavery and the trafficking of slaves were shameful aspects of Jamaica's past, Wright cited what he said was a position taken decades ago by National Hero Sir Alexander Bustamante, founding father of the Jamaica Labour Party, that 'we should celebrate our achievements (but) we should not look back at our shame', the newspaper reported.
Both JLP and People's National Party (PNP) councillors voiced support for Wright's stance and a decision was taken in short order without a vote, "not to support" the KSAC resolution.
This was clearly their considered position because they were repeated in subsequent interviews with the newspaper. "I do not wish to remember that kind of thing," said Winston Sinclair (PNP - Myersville Division). "Talking about the slave trade and slavery is just reminding ourselves that whites had domination over us. We need to leave slavery behind and forget it. All I want to know is how to develop this country."
On the contrary, I think we need to remember. We need to confront the legacies that still persist, including the lack of confidence in self, that make it so much harder to achieve the very development that Councillor Sinclair so rightly believes we must achieve.
Accordingly, we need to look at what is being planned, why it is important, how it can be used to overcome the very shame that so preoccupied the minds of the people's representatives and community leaders in St Elizabeth, the home of the Maroons of Accompong.
First, the observances are being planned by a 50-member national committee with members drawn from across Jamaica, representing people of all political and religious persuasion; from different organisations and institutions. It was launched by Prime Minister P J Patterson last December.
The committee will focus on the ways in which the enslaved struggled to end the trade and slavery, according to chairperson, Professor Verene Shepherd, professor of social history at the UWI, Mona. "We wish to honour and memorialise them." The slogan for the year is "Our Freedom Journey: Honouring Our Ancestors".
"The monuments that we wish to build and the ancestors we wish to honour" are not related to "white abolitionists" as the St Elizabeth councillors suggested in their statements, she commented.
Professor Shepherd told me that the intention was not to celebrate 'white domination'. "This has never been our objective. At the same time, we cannot distort the history and ignore the entire abolitionist movement. But we believe the contribution of Africans and the Caribbean to the abolition movement has not been told and publicised; and so we hope to help this process," she said.
"We should observe certain official dates in the history of the phased abolition of the trade, but ensure that the events planned for such dates do not celebrate British humanitarianism and the "Queen Victoria set us free" myth.
"While not ignoring the complex and multi-dimensional struggle for abolition, especially on the part of British humanitarians, the aim of the various educational institutions and cultural agencies in the country should be to reinforce the agency on the part of enslaved Africans and their descendants in the ending of the trans-Atlantic slave trade."
Scholars in the Caribbean and beyond have been examining the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans as a phenomenon in world history for over 100 years.
Walter Rodney, the late Guyanese historian who some readers will remember as the focal point in the 'Rodney Affair' in Jamaica in 1969, has written extensively on 'how Europe underdeveloped Africa'.
He makes the point that from the 15th century, and continuing for four-and-a-half centuries, the conduct of the trans-Atlantic slave trade contributed to the development of Western Europe to the same degree that it contributed to the underdevelopment of Africa.
Some 15 million Africans may have been uprooted and brought to the Caribbean and the Americas under the most inhumane conditions of the Middle Passage. Their contribution to economic development of Europe and America cannot be contested.
"The forced relocation of Africans to the Americas and the productive output of such Africans and their descendants, helped to transform the Atlantic into a complex trading area, turning it into the centre of the international economy," according to a background paper prepared by Prof Shepherd and Dr Sandra Gift.
Legacies of Slavery
We know that the enduring legacies of the slave trade, slavery and colonialism continue to have a negative impact upon human development.
The continued display of the legacies of African slavery in western modernity: issues of low self-esteem; perceptions of a weak Caribbean identity; African-Caribbean self-disparagement; the internalisation of the myth of Black inferiority and White superiority have been identified by several Caribbean scholars as being among the legacies of slavery to be confronted in the contemporary Caribbean, say Shepherd and Gift.
In other words, we see the legacy in the constant efforts to lighten the skin or change hair texture through chemical interventions or choice of sexual partner; the preference for foreign food, fashion and expertise.
I agree with the organisers of the commemoration that it will give Jamaicans and the Caribbean as a whole a great opportunity to
1) revisit the history of Africa;
2) study the details of the Middle Passage;
3)examine the impact of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the region; and
4)conduct research that will provide the evidence that the region needs to advance its case for reparation from Britain.
Reparation, of course, is not easy to calculate, nor is it easy to determine the particular beneficiaries. But I think it is important that we establish the principle as stated by Shepherd and Gift.
"Those who participated in slavery in the Caribbean and in the Americas generally long after the institution was declared illegal in their own countries (and long reminded of its inhumanity by philosophers), should adopt reparation, if only as an act of reconciliation."
The premise of the argument is both simple and compelling: The slave trade and slavery were crimes against humanity and, as we have seen with several other crimes against humanity - including the holocaust - such crimes should not go unpunished.
President Jacques Chirac of France and the Anglican Church in Britain have apologised for their countries' roles in slavery. That's a good step. They need to go much further and we should encourage them to take that other step and acknowledge the principle of reparation, even as an important symbol of reconciliation.
In Jamaica, we also need to do a lot more towards our own reconciliation between the descendants of the great house and plantation field. Only the myopic could argue that we have not made progress, but we have to take more steps towards healing the divisions of class and race.
Now that the St Elizabeth Parish Council has again put the issue on the public agenda, it may be an opportunity for the organising committee to mobilise broader national support, including the help of corporate Jamaica, that can contribute to financial and human resources to ensuring the success of the events.
It is also an opportunity for the media to publish features and documentaries on the contribution of our ancestors to ending the trans-Atlantic trade in Africans, to the abolition of slavery and our role in laying the foundations for the political independence that Councillor Wright called one of the "positives in our history".
If we in the media can join with the organisers of the commemoration to communicate messages that "empower, uplift and enlighten; messages that can give hope to those who despair and convey a sense of self-worth to those who may feel worthless", then we would have made a difference.
As Professor Shepherd said, "We owe it to our forebears, to our own children and to future generations. If we who are in positions of power and influence; if we who are privileged to know and understand this history and its continuing legacies fail to observe this period in history for the benefit our own, who then will do it? Failure to act will be to embrace the shame and silence still characteristic of the relationship with this history elsewhere."
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/20060318T160000-0500_100851_OBS_USING_THE__PAIN_AND_SHAME_OF_SLAVERY__TO_RECLAIM_OUR_CIVILISATION_.asp
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History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
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Posted: Monday August 14th, 2006 14:01 |
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"The time has now come when we must seek our place in the sun...No more fear. no more cringing, no more sycophantic begging and pleading: the Negro must strike straight from the shoulder for manhood rights and for full shoulder for manhood rights and for full liberty.
Destiny leads us to liberty, to freedom: that freedom that Victoria of England never gave: that freedom, that liberty, that Lincoln never meant: that freedom, that liberty, that will see us as men among men, that will make us a great and powerful people."
Marcus Garvey
Philosophy & Opinions
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History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)
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Posted: Monday August 14th, 2006 15:26 |
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Why Commemorate the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans to the Caribbean?
source: http://www.jnht.com/bl_conceptpaper.htm
Establishing a Planning Committee:
In December 2005, the then Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Most Hon. P.J. Patterson launched the Jamaica National Bicentenary Planning Committee with Professor Verene Shepherd (Professor of Social History at the UWI, Mona) as Chair.
The Mandate of the JNBPC:
The mandate given to the JNBPC was to find appropriate and meaningful ways to mark the end of the brutal Middle Passage to the former British-colonized Caribbean and to honour the ancestors who contributed to the struggle to end the trade in enslaved Africans in 1807-08.
Conscious of our mandate as articulated by the former Prime Minister and our own understanding of our role, the JNBPC adopted as its slogan: “Our Freedom Journey: Honouring Our Ancestors‿.
How Did Abolition Come About?:
Briefly and simply, the sequence was as follows: from the moment of capture and forced relocation to the Caribbean, enslaved Africans and other anti-slavery activists inside and outside of the Caribbean fought to end the trade in Africans. Heightened struggle by the 19th century, Haitian emancipation in 1804 and the adoption by Haitians of a regional emancipatory logic motivated an anti-slave trade and anti-slavery movement in the UK and the Caribbean. So successful was this movement that in 1804 the House of Commons passed the TST abolition Bill, but it was thrown out by the House of Lords. In 1805, the British Prime Minister, William Pitt, secured an Order-in-Council indicating that as of 1806, certain Crown Colonies in the BWI (Berbice, Demerara, Essequibo & Trinidad) would no longer be allowed to import Africans (especially to start new plantations). Thus Trinidad (and no doubt Guyana) plans to use 2006 to begin its commemorative activities, with others opting for 2007-08. In January 1806, Charles Fox, Pitt’s successor, moved a resolution for the immediate and total abolition of the TST but no Bill was passed in that year. The Slave Trade Abolition Bill was eventually passed in the British House of Lords by 41 votes to 20 on 25th March 1807. In the House of Commons it had been carried by 114 to 15; and it became law in May 1807 to be effected by 1st January 1808 except for particular cases.
But Why Bother?
The questions that have been posed by some in the Jamaican society are, why commemorate such a violent and brutal aspect of our history? Should we not forget the past and focus on the future? Perhaps forgetting that enslaved Africans were victims, not perpetrators of their “shameful‿ condition, some Councillors from the St. Elizabeth Parish Council asked recently: why revisit such a shameful past?
There are several reasons why the JNBPC would not support this perspective.
- First, Jamaicans cannot just ignore its slavery past. As a former colony first of Spain and later of Britain, Jamaica was affected by the sordid episode of the trans-Atlantic trade in Africans, the majority of whom were free people in their own country before capture and shipment. Indeed, whether we wish to focus on it or not, it is a fact that the Caribbean was a primordial site of slavery. The debate over the numbers forcefully extracted from Africa and shipped across the Middle Passage to the Caribbean still rages; but recent quantitative data estimate that the region accounted for 42%, of the estimated 15 million Africans forcefully removed from Africa from the 15th to the 19th century. Among the British colonized Caribbean territories, Jamaica accounted for the majority of the total imported. Estimates by David Eltis indicate that for the period 1519-1867, Jamaica and Barbados received 11.2% and 5.1% of the trade respectively, compared to 4.2% for the Guianas and 3.2% for the British Windward Islands and Trinidad combined.
- A second, if clichéd answer is that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.
- Third, all nations need an understanding of their past and a knowledge about the experiences of their ancestors in order to help them as they build a future. As Prof. Rex Nettleford always says, “We cannot drive without a rearview mirror.‿ Among those experiences is the demographic disaster suffered; for slavery took its toll on the enslaved population. The brutality combined with other factors led to a lack of growth by natural means. Jamaica imported close to 1 million enslaved Africans, yet at Emancipation had just around 300,000 enslaved people. This demographic trend, if Thomas Fowell Buxton is to be believed, went against the laws of nature.
- Another reason is that the abolition of the trade was a momentous one in the history of Jamaica. Admittedly, the year 1807 did not see the end of slavery, but it ushered in the phased abolition of a system that involved the forced capture and relocation to the island of over a million of the ancestors of the majority of the Jamaican people.
- Another justification is that the struggle to end the trade involved the enslaved themselves, not just British humanitarians. We need to showcase this aspect of our history and destabilize the view that “Queen Victoria Set Us Free‿.
- The years 2006-08 will provide a space for the Caribbean to reflect on and explore openly its historical relationship to the TST and slavery.
- If Jamaica does not get on board, the nation will be judged harshly by history as well as by others in the African diaspora who have already embarked on plans to mark the bicentennial.
- We also have to recall that our culture has been enriched by the African ancestors; and we can use 2007 as an opportunity to showcase this aspect of our history.
- Finally, we can celebrate the achievements of our ancestors and their contribution to world development. The productive output of Africans and their descendants, helped to transform the Atlantic into a complex trading area, turning it into the centre of the international economy. Franklin Knight has observed that “without [enslaved] Africans and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the potential economic value of the Americas could never have been achieved‿(1991, p. 72); and Eric Williams has long shown the impact that commodities from Africa and the Americas had on British industrial development (1944)
So, preparations for the commemoration of the bicentenary of the abolition of the TST will give Jamaicans and the Caribbean as a whole a great opportunity to 1) revisit the history of Africa, 2) study the details of the Middle Passage 3) examine the impact of slavery and the TST on the region and 4) conduct research that will provide the evidence that the region needs to advance its case for reparation from Britain.
The process leading up to a phased abolition, as well as those moments in history which deemed the Trade officially abolished by the British (its illegal continuation thereafter notwithstanding), deserve to be observed and commemorated by the descendants of its victims everywhere. We owe it to our forebears, to our own children and to future generations. If we who are in positions of power and influence; if we who are privileged to know and understand this history and its continuing legacies fail to observe this period in history for the benefit our own, who then will do it? Failure to act will be to embrace the shame and silence still characteristic of the relationship with this history elsewhere.
The enduring legacies of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans are such that they continue to have a negative impact upon human development. Human development is a consistently articulated priority of Caribbean governments and indeed of international agencies supportive of the development agenda. Education systems are designed to pursue human development in the context of national, regional and international development imperatives. In the Anglophone Caribbean there have been commendable efforts, through the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), to address the relevance of knowledge of the history of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans to the development of young Caribbean citizens. These efforts fall short however, if only because in many schools Social Studies has replaced history; not all students study history at the level of the CXC examinations and indeed increasingly fewer students are opting to study history at all. The consequence of these factors, therefore, is that many students may be completing their formal secondary education without an understanding of the ways in which the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans has shaped the Caribbean socio-economic and cultural landscape, and thus without a complete appreciation of some of the very fundamental issues surrounding some of the pressing questions confronting Caribbean educators and thinkers as they relate to the human development of Caribbean youths.
References
Curtin, P (1969) The slave trade: A census . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press
Eltis, D (2000), The rise of African slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Gift, Sandra (2005). PhD Dissertation on the pedagogical aspects of the TST. UWI, St. Augustine Campus.
Knight, F (1991) “Slavery and Lagging Capitalism in the Spanish and Portuguese American Empire‿, in B. Solow, ed., Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 72
Robinson, R. (2000). The Debt: What America owes to Blacks. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc.
Rodney, W. (2000). How Europe became the dominant section of a world-wide trade system. In V. Shepherd & H. M. Beckles (Eds.), Caribbean slavery in the Atlantic world: A student reader (pp.1-10). Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers .
Shepherd, V. A. & Beckles, H. (2005). UWI and the Bicentenary of the Passing of the “British Slave Trade Abolition Act‿ [1807-2007]
Shepherd, V. A. (2005). Plans to Commemorate the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans to the Caribbean
Williams, Eric (1944). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press
Van Sertima, I. (1976). They came before Columbus .New York: Random House
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Posted: Monday August 21st, 2006 16:22 |
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