University of the West Indies Vice-Chancellor, Hilary Beckles.
Photo by George Alleyne
Caribbean L 34 ife, April 12–18, 2019 BQ
By George Alleyne
A glimmer of hope that reparations
for African descendants
whose ancestors suffered slavery
has flashed across the European
landscape with that continent’s
parliament voting to address
demands for compensation.
Members of the European
Parliament voted in late March
to recognise and make amends
for several injustices — including
slavery and the Atlantic Slave
Trade — that were meted out
and continue to be done to persons
of African descent.
That vote by the law-making
body for the whole of western
Europe came within two weeks
of University of the West Indies
Vice-Chancellor, Hilary Beckles,
imploring patience upon members
of the African diaspora
whose fore-parents were subjected
to slavery.
Pointing out in early March
that the call for reparations for
some 300 years of forced and
unpaid labour through slavery
had been made long before slavery
ended, he sought to convince
offspring of those labourers who
now live across the globe not
to lose hope and continue the
struggle.
Beckles had 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.”
Encouragingly he said, “some
thing 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
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.”
Unknown to Beckles at the
time of his speaking, a member
of the European Parliament
had already tabled a resolution
for reversal of injustices suffered
by Africans seeking to address,
‘fundamental rights of people of
African descent in Europe.’
On March 26 those parliamentarians
voted to encourage
“the EU institutions and
the Member States to officially
acknowledge and mark the
histories of people of African
descent in Europe, including of
past and ongoing injustices and
crimes against humanity, such
as slavery and the transatlantic
slave trade, or those committed
under European colonialism, as
well as the vast achievements
and positive contributions
of people of African descent,
through both the official recognition
at EU and national
level of the International Day of
Remembrance of the Victims of
Slavery and the Transatlantic
Slave Trade and through establishing
Black History Months.”
This is among 28 points of
call in the resolution, which
was non-binding.
But with 535 MEPs voting
in favour, 80 against and 44
abstentions passage of this
agreement points to an overwhelming
sentiment for corrective
action by the 28 countries
many who at some time
engaged in the practice of slavery
and the slave trade.
The press for reparations is
against American and European
governments that legalised
slavery.
Reparations breakthrough