Slavery, the Shoah and Restitution

Monday 4th of December 2006

As the UK prepared to mark 200 years since the abolition of slavery in 2007, Tony Blair expressed his ‘deep sorrow’ over Britain’s role in the slave trade. However, for many, simple regret does not go far enough, with some campaigners calling for reparations akin to those paid to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Esther Stanford, Secretary of Rendezvous of Victory - an African-led, cross-community heritage learning organisation – discusses the shared experience of persecution that demands restitution.
Rather than compare and contrast our experiences of genocide, we in Rendezvous of Victory believe in the need for an African-Jewish Dialogue on our parallel and shared experiences of holocaust and resistance to it, including reparations.

How do we, the descendants of the enslaved and victims of contemporary forms of enslavement shape the discussion on the Maangamizi?, (a Swahili term which speaks to the intentionality of the African holocaust of chattel, colonial and neo-colonial enslavement). This struggle, like all our struggles, begins with the need for a clear conception of what we need, how we define the issue and explain it to the world and what is to be done to achieve it.

First and foremost, there must be an understanding and acceptance that our demand for Pan-African reparations is a sacred and moral issue, and the Maangamizi is a crime against Africans, humanity and God. Our quest to effect Pan-African reparations is viewed as a duty, placed upon us by God, our ancestors, our children and posterity, to repair, heal and restore our people worldwide. The damage sustained by African peoples is not a thing of the past, but is painfully manifested in the damaged lives of contemporary Africans from Harlem to Harare’ in the damaged economies of the Black World from Guinea to Guyana from Somalia to Suriname. We are survivors of genocide who continue to experience the Maangamizi - the mere fact that my family is still branded with the surname (Stanford), of a white plantation owner from Barbados who enslaved my ancestors is a testament to this fact.

Just as yourselves as Jewish people have asserted your self- determining rights to define and describe the genocidal crimes against your forebears, we too exercise the right to shape the conversation in a way that is fit for purpose. It follows that the language and logic of the oppressor cannot be the language and logic of the oppressed therefore, the term ‘slave trade’ is not appropriate to define the morally monstrous destruction of life, culture and human possibility that African peoples have and continue to suffer as a result of the consequences of the evil crimes of chattel, colonial and neo-colonial enslavement.

The freedom fight for Pan-African reparations is addressing the various kinds of repairs that are required to restore, rebuild and sustain us as a global community. In fact, monetary compensation whilst important is not even one percent of what reparations for us is about. Reparation is mostly about making repairs, self-made repairs, on ourselves: mental repairs, psychological repairs, cultural repairs, organisational repairs, social repairs, economic repairs, political repairs, educational repairs, repairs of every type that we need in order to recreate and sustain viable Black societies. The reparations campaign offers us as Africans and African descendants the opportunity for the rehabilitation ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves….opportunities for the rehabilitation of our minds, our material condition, our collective reputation, our cultures, our memories, our self-respect, our religions, our political traditions and our family institutions.

Nevertheless, Western governments do owe a huge debt to African peoples worldwide for it was these governments and their corporations which carried out , aided and abetted, sanctioned were and still are complicit in the original and ongoing crimes against humanity. Just as it was the German government which initially paid compensation to the survivors of the Jewish Holocaust and supports the right to a homeland as a holistic reparations package for Jewish people.

In seeking to effect Pan-African Reparations, we as African people are working in accordance with our ancient principles of Serudj ta and Ubuntu not only to restore our own humanity, but to help other peoples’ to rediscover and strengthen their own. This is how our Pan-African Reparations will help the entire humanity to win Global Justice Ubuntu equates as “we are people, through other people”, so what affects one affects all and the repair of a part is the repair of the whole. Serudj ta means “to repair and heal the world making it more beautiful and beneficial than it was before”. If you like, these philosophies are similar in many respects to the Jewish Tikkun Olam, “repair of the world”.

http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/special_reports/?content_id=5034