In countries touched by European colonialism, the subjects of enslavement and reparations suddenly seem to be on the agenda. This week, the Guardian stepped forward to publish its thorough investigation into the publication’s beginnings in, and connections with, slavery. In February, the former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan travelled to Grenada to apologise for her family having owned 1,000 enslaved Africans there, and donate £100,000 to establish education projects on the island. The Dutch king recently welcomed his prime minister’s apology for the Netherlands’ role in 250 years of slavery – even if that carefully avoided a direct apology from his throne and the inevitable repercussions. At last, these conversations are being had.
Reactions around the world to these declarations have been varied. Any outrage that there might have been about the Dutch announcement was smoothed over by the royal family’s visit to their Caribbean islands. Queen Maxima dancing with locals was a celebrity show as effective in demonstrating an enlightened, non-racist attitude to their colonial family as Prince Harry’s two-step years ago with Rita Marley’s dancers in Trenchtown.
The Guardian’s move is as admirable as Trevelyan’s, but has much greater impact and potential for positive imitation by the large organisations, businesses and social institutions that are Britain’s foundations. These institutions underpin a country whose role in the enslavement of millions of Africans over three centuries, and the subsequent monopoly of their ruling systems and economies, is the basis of its global strength and leadership.
As the events in Europe, and especially Britain, begin to filter through to Jamaica – the home of the largest and most militant Caribbean reparations movement – there has so far been a mostly “wait and see” attitude. The conversation about reparations in Jamaica is continuous, and the strength of public opinion rises and falls as day-to-day news events colour what is often an angry discussion. Jamaicans remember when a British prime minister told us to “move on” from thinking about slavery and reparations, and accept a new British-financed prison instead.
Jamaicans broadly welcome the new reality of international discussions on the topic of slavery: who took part, who benefited and who should pay. Some look positively at moves such as the Trevelyans’ apology, the Dutch statements and the Guardian’s plans for restorative justice. But such public shows of contrition don’t solve everything. In many cases, the specific identification of individuals and institutions who profited from slavery heightens the debate.
Personally, I have supported the move by Trevelyan, a brave and righteous woman setting an example that many more – especially the British royal family – should follow. But, despite her generosity, the donation is very small. Of course, there are varying degrees of culpability and assumption of responsibility.
And the Trevelyans are only one of many rich British families whose wealth was based in the slave trade. Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, has named the family of the British MP Richard Drax as the island’s largest landowner and enslaver; Barbados would like to receive reparations from his family, too.
Dr Michael Barnett, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies and a Rastafari member of Jamaica’s National Council on Reparations, argues that it is right to scrutinise individuals such as Drax, digging into exactly what his ancestor’s holdings were in Jamaica, where they were sold and to whom, and how the family invested the money they obtained from the sale of their Jamaican holdings in the 1800s.
Of the apology from the Dutch prime minister on behalf of that nation, Barnett pronounces the reparations council “very inspired”, even momentously so. “This is a landmark development for the reparations movement,” he told me in an email. “For the first time we have one of the former colonizing European powers giving a full-fledged apology. This opens the floodgates for the prospect of reparation payouts from the governments of former colonizing European nations. That is why this is so significant.”
But there is no consensus. I asked a group of young Jamaican men about Trevelyan’s personal apology and donation. “That’s just some fake bullshit so people don’t think you’re racist,” said one. “It’s like putting on a Band-Aid after somebody chopped off your hand. For all the millions her family made from slavery, why all of a sudden this change of heart? It’s like the ‘in thing’ to do now, all this woke behaviour. Why did it take 100 years to realise her family was doing something wrong?”
Financial reparations are not the only way for the descendants of enslavers to make amends. A non-financial and even more optimistic idea is described by Jamaica’s minister of culture, Olivia Grange, whose portfolio deals with reparations. “Money isn’t all reparations can be,” she said in a speech last week commemorating the UN International Day for the Elimination of Racism. “The most useful form of reparations would be the restoration of the human dignity that was taken away from Black people by the atrocity of slavery. There is still a long way to go to eliminate the entrenchment of racism that comes from the brutal devaluation and vilification of Africans which occurred during the transatlantic slave trade, and affects us all in such bitter, painful ways today.”
I agree with her. In 2007 I stopped calling for cash reparations. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen that way, either from the British government or the monarchy. Politicians realise that citizens would protest against a payment of the enormous debt owed to all former slave colonies, as it would totally bankrupt the nation, and it would also impoverish the monarchy.
Instead, the reparations I want would be the total relief of all Jamaica’s debt to the UK, plus the lifting of UK visa restrictions for Jamaican descendants of enslaved people, with unlimited access to the “empire’s” educational and economic opportunities, which were built on the labour of my enslaved ancestors. That way King Charles won’t have to sell off the crown jewels, though he may have to convert some of the palaces into student dormitories.
I, and others like me, hope the British king gives more than a moment’s thought to the well-researched actions and example set by the Guardian in its search for its own links to slavery. All those waiting for reparations hope he will not only search, but find, and then copy Laura Trevelyan, on a much larger scale.
• Barbara Blake-Hannah is an antiracism activist and a former TV broadcaster in Britain
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