Ancient Punishment: Chained Women 100,000 Years Ago

Nigeria’s spectacular crises in almost every facet of its national life are inescapable. They cling like your skin. And for your sanity, you need to detox from time to time.

I hope this trip to Granada, via Afghanistan, helps.

Instead of writing about killings of the most beastly variety across the country, an economy on life support, insecurity, ASUU strike, men fighting for Allah and those defending them, the politics of 2023 that has left even politicians confused and enthroned delegates as royalty, I have decided to comment on a topic that I have recently renewed my interest in.

In a recent special report, BBC correspondent and presenter Laura Trevelyan visited her ancestors’ former slave plantation in Grenada. In that report, the sights and sounds of the Caribbean island reminded slave owners and the enslaved of the grim legacy of slavery.

When Britain abolished African slavery in 1833, the British Slave Compensation Commission paid its 46,000 slave owners a huge sum of £20 million, or 40 percent of its expenses in 1834.

“In a family email chain, I learned that the Trevelyans received around £34,000 for the loss of their ‘property’ in Granada, the equivalent of around £3 million in today’s money,” Trevelyan said.

In the United States, after the abolition of slavery, the government, through the Homestead Act of 1862, created a new model of asset ownership for white Americans, but denied it to former slaves.

In a book co-authored with Kirsten Mullen, public policy professor William Darity wrote: “Black families received no assets, while large numbers of white families received substantial assets as a starting point for building wealth in the United States.”

A system that compensated a people who had already benefited from a brutal practice but left the real victims of cruelty impoverished, genetically diseased, eternally oppressed and their region notoriously underdeveloped, can only fuel the sense of inequality and deprivation suffered by black people in many Western countries.

For this reason, Caribbean countries are demanding reparations for past atrocities. They have all created a National Commission for Reparations for Slavery.

In a speech delivered in London in 1992, the late MKO Abiola told his audience that the demand for reparations was based on a tripod of moral, historical and legal arguments.

As a group, the idea of reparations for slavery is being championed by the Caribbean Community or CARICOM, a 20-member economic, cultural and political bloc.

The idea of reparations for slavery is not new. Since the end of the American Civil War, there have been calls for reparations in one form or another. It also became a passion of the late business magnate and politician MKO Abiola.

Arguably the richest black man of his time, Abiola was renowned for his philanthropy. Not many, however, remember that he also deployed his vast resources in the drive to redress Africa from its former colonial masters.

Racism in all its shades and forms is a direct consequence of slavery, and while reparations will not undo the centuries-old inhumane system, many argue that it will at least demonstrate remorse for the perpetrators and bring closure to the victims.

Many are also calling on the US government and the British monarchy to lead the reparations process. Their cold shoulder has been met with condemnation and protests among black communities in Africa, the Caribbean and Europe.

In March, Prince William and Kate Middleton faced protests in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Belize during their Caribbean tour. In 2021, Barbados removed the Queen of England as head of state in the presence of her son, Prince Charles.

Jamaica is considering a similar symbolic gesture.

In the United States, where 74 percent of African Americans favor reparations while 85 percent of whites oppose it (according to an Associated Press poll), the bill HR 40 proposing to create a commission to study slavery and discrimination has been gathering dust since 1989. And while there appears to be renewed interest in confronting systemic racism and inequality by the current administration, whether Biden’s newfound appetite has reparations for restitution on its menu remains to be seen.

In 2019, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell admitted that slavery was America’s “original sin” but argued that it was abolished so long ago that no one alive today was responsible for it. In response, journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates responded to the lawmaker by reminding him that the United States continued to pay pensions to the descendants of Civil War soldiers even though there was no one alive who signed those treaties.

Agreeing on reparations for slavery is already a contentious issue. However, the form or forms they should take is even more controversial. While some push hard for direct cash payments, others think reparations should come in the form of investments in infrastructure, education and health sectors of descendants and former colonies.

In any case, agitators agree that the first step toward reparations is for the beneficiaries of black slavery (the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, etc.) to acknowledge, admit that slavery was a cruel act, and to offer an unequivocal and unreserved apology to former slaves and their descendants.

No healing process begins without an admission of guilt and that first step, though the most difficult on the part of former slave owners, is the soothing balm that former slaves and their descendants desire and deserve.

If anyone has any doubts, they should recall the UK government’s decision in 2013 to express “sincere regret” and offer compensation for acts of torture carried out by the British colonial government against Kenyans fighting for liberation from colonial rule, which was greeted with jubilation in Nairobi and beyond.

I think the West will eventually yield to pressure from the Caribbean countries on the issue of reparations for slavery in the form of investment and cooperation. But without the enthusiasm of the MKO and the Eminent Persons Group, who cares about reparations to Africa anymore?

Not known for half measures, MKO convened and sponsored the first global conference on reparations at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, in 1990 and formally launched the reparations campaign.

In 1991, the Heads of State and Government of the defunct Organisation of African Unity, during the 55th Council of Ministers Summit, adopted a resolution recognising the injustice of slavery and demanding Africa’s right to reparations.

We don’t hear much about this MKO legacy anymore, even though the continent needs these kinds of conversations more than ever.

While there are many reasons why the disparity in the median wealth distribution in the United States is significantly skewed in favor of white families ($188,000 for whites compared to $24,000 for blacks), the lingering legacy related to slavery is one of them.

Analysts have estimated the cost of reparations within the United States alone at between $10 trillion and $19 trillion, depending on the model and excluding claims from Caribbean countries.

It seems like a huge sum of money, but how much is enough to pay for the physical, emotional and medical loss of the slaves and their descendants? If denominated in today’s currency, what is the monetary value of the forced and torturous labor endured by black slaves on America’s plantations?

But beyond the big numbers and the arguments for and against reparations, people like Trevelyan can take small steps to compensate the descendants of slaves. In his case, he was able to trace the descendants of some of his ancestors’ slaves in Granada.

When he asked if giving money to help Grenadian students with their higher education was an empty gesture, he was told it would be a grand symbolic gesture. “Think of the impact if every single slave-owning family did the same,” he was told.

Maybe we should start from there.

Ishiekwene is the Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP

Opinions expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not those of TheCable.