PREPARE AN ARMY OF INTELLECTS, REPARATION IS A MUST

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On a recent visit to Jamaica, British Prime Minister David Cameron, left the former colony nation in a firestorm of sorts when he pledged a gift of 25 million pounds towards building a prison to house inmates with Jamaican ties who would be transferred from Britain. This agreement with the Jamaican government was in the midst of an increasing awareness and lobbying by politicians and academicians for reparation from the horrendous scars left by the atrocities of slavery.

Mr. Cameron rebuffed all calls for an apology and any form of reparation by suggesting that both countries should ‘move on’ and look forward to the future.

Yet, history reveals that when the United Kingdom emancipated slaves in 1833 the government raised 20 million pounds (70 billion pounds in 2013 value) to compensate slave trade owners far and wide for the loss of slaves as assets. Germany signed an agreement in 1952 and has paid some US$89 billion in compensation to the Jews and Israel (and still counting), for the devastation from the holocaust and its aftermath. Also, the US government has paid Japanese Americans over US 1 billion for the injustices done to them during WW 11. There is more archived documentation to indicate where other perpetrating countries have compensated victims of inhumanity as well.

So, we the people of Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean should not accept words like ‘move on’ in such a dismissive way because those words alone indicate a callous and unrepentant attitude and the perpetrators still do not see us as equals.

The slave trading of Africans lasted almost 400 years in the Western Hemisphere and has done irreparable damage to black people, from North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. Countries like Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and the United States, just to name a few, still suffer immensely from the aftermath of slavery.

In the United States for example, so many of the inner cities are swarmed with abject poverty and crime that permeate to the core. The penal system is a stark indication that blacks are grossly and unjustly over represented in prisons and the legal system is driven by double standards, prejudices and stereotypes projected by society.

Absolute poverty is synonymous with crime and will force any normal person to do abnormal things. Nothing profound and significant will change until change is compelled.

Jamaica and other Caribbean nations need to develop a plan since we, as Afro Caribbean people, have somewhat more control of our destiny.

If the victimizers dig their heels in deep to avoid adjudication, we should be prepared to have a long term agenda to start educating children from early childhood about our history, our roots and the goal of achieving reparation for future generations because it is obvious it will take an army of intellects to help right the wrongs of our past. This should be the teaching of tomorrow’s children ingrained with passion.

Reparation should be recognized as a reasonable but not complete measure to try and right horrific wrongs centuries of brutality entire nations heaped upon a people. Compensation and implementation should be embraced as recognition of the deep wounds; psychological and otherwise the practice of slavery and racism perpetrated. It behooves ex-colonized countries to put together a well thought out plan outlining what would most benefit their citizens. A good start would be proposals to create an infrastructure that would elevate the health/medical, education and welfare/training to first-world standards.

​(Image courtesy of The Independent - UK)