Reparations and the enduring legacy of slavery

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/04/reparations-and-the-enduring-legacy-of-slavery

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Whatever the merits or otherwise of calls for reparations for slavery (Time to move on from slavery’s painful legacy, says Cameron, 1 October), the idea that any party that has indisputably wronged another can imagine it is appropriate or legitimate to require the injured party to “move on” shows a woeful lack of understanding at best and, at worst, a callous indifference. The fact that Atlantic slavery ended a long time ago, and the fact that David Cameron has expressed abhorrence at its existence, does not diminish his monumental insensitivity.

Not least among the many ironies in this is that the kind of magnanimous forgiveness and forgetting that nations such as Britain require of those who were once their “subject races” is something that said nations have never demonstrated themselves. British history is replete with examples of reprisals, punitive expeditions and wars occasioned by our own sense of having been wronged; many of which have since been shown to have been utterly vindictive, unnecessary and illegitimate. When even a petty criminal is expected to offer an apology through the principle of restorative justice, there is no good reason why a British PM should not do the same for the undeniable wrongs from which his nation has so handsomely profited.Paul McGilchristLondon Metropolitan University

• While I have no objection to anyone giving Mr Cameron a hard time, the question which comes to mind whenever slavery and compensation is mentioned is “where do you start, and where do you stop?”. Slavery was so ubiquitous that I doubt there is anyone on Earth – high or low – who does not have slave ancestors. Until the middle of the 19th century my coalmining ancestors lived in virtual slavery (a 10-year-old forebear is noted in the 1841 census as “collier”– just before the practice of employing children underground was banned). It is almost certain that some ancestor of mine was enslaved by the Vikings or Romans or others. Should I demand recompense and apology from the descendants of mine-owners (who lived in some state on the back of miners), or should I sue the Norwegian or Italian state?

Society developed thought processes which finally saw that slavery was disgusting and demeaned both slave and owner. At the same time a powerful state, in this case Great Britain, was there to impose abolition and was prepared to use its naval and diplomatic power to end the trade. Many thousands of navy personnel died during the decades of anti-slavery operations in west African waters.

Compensation to slave owners was a pragmatic way of settling one of the issues. It was not pretty, but it was relatively quick. Alternative solutions may well have meant that slavery could have continued for decades more. How would this have affected the American civil war? A distant nod of thanks to European Enlightenment thinking and its expression in the actions of Great Britain and others would be useful. We have the guilt.Ian HaleCarnforth, Lancashire

• I am disturbed by the perception that this call for reparations is representative of the majority of Jamaicans. I wish to put on record that this is not true. I am a Jamaican, living in Jamaica, and I can assure your readers that the majority of Jamaicans are not in support of this reparations demand. The politician you mentioned who wants his fellow colleagues to “turn their backs on the British prime minister” stands alone. Indeed, the government of Jamaica has confirmed that the issue of reparations isn’t even on the agenda.

As for this reparations commission and other pro-reparationists calling for an apology, most Jamaicans are not even satisfactorily familiar with this issue of reparations, despite all of their attempts to get us Jamaicans to support their cause. More of those who are familiar are definitely against the idea than in support of it, as evidenced by the many articles and commentaries in the Jamaican press against reparations. Most of the support for reparations in Jamaica comes from hardened anti-white racists, pan-Africanists, Rastafarians, some historians and fringe groups. A visit to any reparations event will confirm this fact. Most Jamaicans see reparations as something of the distant past; most of us have long understood that this business is just an attempt by some to get Britain to give us some handout. While Jamaica appreciates British assistance, we do not want handouts.Michael A DingwallKingston, Jamaica

• There is something very special we could try to do. Sickle cell disease is an inherited condition, predominantly affecting black Africans and characterised by recurrent attacks of severe bone pain and early death. One in every 300 babies born in Jamaica has sickle cell disease and there are some 8,000 individuals living on the island with the condition today. Sickle cell was characterised by Linus Pauling in 1949 and the time is now ripe for the development of a molecular cure. Why not create and endow a research group at the new Francis Crick Institute for biomedical research to work specifically on the development and roll-out of such a treatment. What a gift that would be to the world and what a way for us to say sorry.Roger AmosLondon

• In Jamaica, David Cameron “spoke of his pride that Britain had played a part in abolishing the ‘abhorrent’ trade” and therefore ruled out reparations. However, taking pride in outlawing something that shouldn’t have started in the first place is hardly sufficient. No one for instance would try to get away with taking pride in having outlawed murder and therefore suggesting that no compensation for this crime need take place. It’s not like the money from slavery isn’t still sloshing round our economy. As the historian Andrea Stuart demonstrated in her recent book, Sugar in the Blood, the original Tate galleries funded their collections from the slave labour that generated the wealth of the Tate & Lyle sugar empire. Another example is All Souls College in Oxford, “paid for by the profits generated by the slaves who toiled and died at the Codrington estate in Barbados”. The brutal consequences of slavery are still with us, with almost all its descendants no longer having access to their original languages, culture, religion and extended social structures. If Jeremy Corbyn were to take a lead on the reparations issue, it would also help re-establish the precedent of wealth re-distribution for working class people.Dr Gavin LewisManchester

• Granted, the slave trade was perhaps the most inhuman exercise in which millions of African men, women and children were taken out through the Gate of No return along southern and west African coast. Almost 180 years after the end of the slave trade, its scars are still visible in the US, Brazil, in the Caribbean and here in the UK in the form of black unemployment, drug addiction and poverty and black-on-black violence. But the call by the Jamaicans for reparations would trigger a cascade of demands by some 50 former British colonies in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In my native Uganda alone, lawyers representing the small Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom have served the British government with a statutory notice of intention to sue for invasion, massacres, atrocious human-rights abuses and grabbing of their land in the colonial era. They are asking for £24bn. The total cash amount of reparations to be paid to the former British colonies, now the Commonwealth member state, would almost certainly bankrupt the UK. But any reparations should be weighed against the social investments in education and health service which the British government made throughout the colonial period and since independence. For example, as Uganda celebrates its 53rd independence anniversary on 9 October, the Owen Falls dam, built during the British administration and opened in 1954, is still the sole power project supplying the country’s electricity needs. Makerere University as well the main hospitals at Mulago, Nsambya, Mengo and others, still serving Uganda today, were built by the British.

Terrible as colonial excesses were in terms of resource exploitation and brutality, it should be recognised that Britain also fulfilled its “social responsibility”. If Britain is to pay for colonial reparations, then it should also demand for the refund of the money it used to build schools and hospitals, as well as the amount it has been giving in foreign aid since independence. The only workable alternative is for Britain and its former colonies to forget the past and work to build a better future together. In any case, the damages done by the post-colonial leaders to their own countries and peoples, turning national resources to their private use and killing with impunity, are just as terrible as, if not worse than, what British colonialism did.Sam AkakiDirector, Democratic Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa (Dipra)

• Why do you continue to namecheck Bristol and Liverpool only as the main ports to profit from the slave trade (Editorial, 1 October)? London’s gains far exceed those of Bristol. Readers may be interested in the number of voyages relevant to this trade originating variously from Bristol, London and Liverpool. They are, respectively : 2,105, 3,351, 5,199. The sheer frequency of this misleading omission, which is a deep part of national folklore, does make one wonder. Are the likes of Boris Johnson behind it?John BlodwellNewcastle upon Tyne

• Although it would be difficult to argue with the case for reparation presented by Verene Shepherd (Opinion, 30 September), I have misgivings about where the payments would come from, and with the area of history in Britain that is never addressed by those making the case for the colonies. Any reparations made would of necessity be paid for mainly by the British tax payer, with very little, if any, coming from the families that made their fortunes from slavery.

Then there is the true historical perspective. The reparation seekers ignore the plight of ordinary workers in the cotton mills of the north and the iron foundries and mines of the south Wales valleys at that time. Very many young children were employed and died in these areas and these are the parts of Britain that today are among the poorer regions. The time of the “ emancipation” of the slaves coincided with some of the most repressive governments in our history, particularly that of Lord Liverpool. Will there be reparation for those parts of our own country that suffered from extreme exploitation?

Ah, the ex-colonialists will say, those children working in such dangerous conditions were free. Or were they?Harry GalbraithPeel, Isle of Man