Beckles: Stay the course on reparations
By George Alleyne
Caribbean and other African
Diaspora people losing confidence
in reparatory justice for
over three centuries of slavery
should take heart from the
endurance of enslaved ancestors
who persisted through the centuries
without a sign that emancipation
will come.
University of the West Indies
Vice-Chancellor, Hilary Beckles,
recently used examples of a likely
hopeless state of mind of the
enslaved, a little more than a
decade before abolition of British
slavery in 1833 and emancipation
in 1838, who got liberation
from an era that reached back to
the early 16th Century.
“After 300 years of slavery,
do you believe that your ancestors
in 1820 thought they would
ever see freedom… If you have
been a slave for 300-400 years do
you believe that anyone in that
world could imagine freedom?”
he asked rhetorically.
The professor then surmised,
“if you had done a survey in 1820
among all the enslaved people of
the Caribbean asking: ‘do you
think freedom will come in your
lifetime?’”
“I would venture to say that
90 percent of them would say
‘no, we will not see freedom in
our lifetime.’
“But they did.”
This was the summary of Beckles’
plea for the African Diaspora
to hold the faith and stay the
course in pressing American
and European governments that
legalised slavery to repay — not
necessarily in cash but through
tangible developmental assistance
for the centuries of forced
labor that produced much of the
wealth the modern world now
enjoys, but for which the laborers
were never compensated.
The renowned historian who
has authored more than 21
books, including 17 on slavery
and its effects on Third World
societies and economies, likened
the press for reparations to the
manner in which Africans built
pyramids block by block over the
centuries, passing the task on to
the next generation.
He said the current push for
reparations is the third iteration
with the first being the collective
instances over the hundreds of
years whenever a slave was freed
for whatever reason, that person
sought payment for enslavement.
This request was of course
refused, similarly was the request
of slaves during discussions on
emancipation, the second iteration.
The third iteration, he said,
began with demands of Jamaican
visionary Marcus Garvey and
continues to this day.
“Something is going to happen
in our lifetime that will trigger
this conversation, because it
is now taking place all over the
world.
“The world is coming around
to the realisation that a small
Caribbean L 22 ife, April 5–11, 2019 BQ
NEW YORK FAMILY
number of people on the planet,
the Europeans, used their
military superiority to march
into the continents of the world,
destroy the societies and economies.”
“Emancipation without compensation,
to them, was an injustice,”
Beckles asserted
Zeroing-in on but one example
of unpaid forced labour for
which the descendants of those
who survived that era are now
demanding compensation, Beckles
cited the Emancipation Act,
“the most racist Act ever passed
in the British Parliament … It
was the most vile and vicious
legislation ever passed.”
He pointed out that in justifying
slavery, the enslaved were
considered property and not
Saturday, April 6th, 2019, 12 – 3pm
UPPER EAST SIDE
The Spence School, 22 East 91st Street
Last Manhattan
Camp Fair
this season
Register Today at
NewYorkFamily.com/Camps
humans.
“So, the Emancipation Act is
predicated on the assumption
that the 600,000 black folks in
the Caribbean were not human
beings.
“They were property, therefore
we British government
were going to pay property compensation
to the owners of the
property.
“This is why the Act is racist
because it never affirmed the
humanity of the African people.
It confirmed their property status
as a precondition for emancipation.”
In the British parliamentary
deliberations on the Emancipation
Act the value of the labour
of the slaves to be emancipated
was calculated at 47 million
British pounds.
The British government was
however unable to pay that
amount of money because it represented
more than 50 percent
of that country’s gross national
income, Beckles pointed out.
In the face of slave owners’
demands for their full payment,
a compromise was reached that
saw them getting 20 million
pounds 15 billion pounds in
today’s value cash.
Incidentally, the British government
took out a loan to
make this payment and finished
repaying that loan only in 2015.
“It merely tells you how enormous
this thing was,” Beckles
said.
There was still the matter
of the other 27 million pounds
owed to the slave owners in
1833.
Through the Emancipation
Act, the British Parliament
decided that despite slavery was
being abolished, the slaves were
to be made to work for an addition
six years giving the owners
additional free labour under a
scheme called ‘Apprenticeship.’
“If you’re giving 20 million
pounds in cash and our ancestors
had to work off the 27
million pounds, clearly by the
irrefutable laws of mathematics
the enslaved paid more for
their freedom than the British
government.
“We paid reparations after we
were free for our own freedom,”
Beckles observed.
University of the West Indies Vice-Chancellor, Hilary Beckles.
Photo by George Alleyne
DONATE YOUR CAR
Wheels For Wishes
benefiting
Make-A-Wish®
Metro New York
* 100% Tax Deductible
* Free Vehicle Pickup ANYWHERE
* We Accept Most Vehicles Running or Not
* We Also Accept Boats, Motorcycles & RVs
WheelsForWishes.org
* Car Donation Foundation d/b/a Wheels For Wishes. To learn more about our programs or
Call:(917) 336-1254
FREE
Information Kit
/Camps
/WheelsForWishes.org