By AFP
October 31, 2024
The Commonwealth's 56 members agreed the 'time has come' for talks about the legacy of the 'abhorrent' transatlantic slave trade in a landmark summit declaration - Copyright POOL/AFP William WEST
Alexandra DEL PERAL
Commonwealth countries want talks on slavery reparations but the United Kingdom — engaged in soul-searching over its former empire for several years now — is not open to financial compensation, officials and analysts say.
“I think segments of British society might be ready to talk about reparation but you have other sectors, the majority really, that strongly oppose it,” Sascha Auerbach, director of the Institute for the Study of Slavery at Nottingham University, told AFP.
Meeting last week at a summit in Samoa, the Commonwealth’s 56 members said the “time has come” for talks about the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, in a landmark declaration that raised the prospect of future reparations.
African, Caribbean and Pacific nations want Britain — and other colonial powers — to apologise for slavery and other ills of colonisation, and to start talks about compensation.
Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has rejected both requests, arguing that he wants to “look forward” rather than have “very long endless discussions about reparations” involving the past.
“I think he is concerned that the country is not ready to have this conversation,” said Alan Lester, a historian at the University of Sussex, noting that any talk of restorative justice a few months after far-right riots rocked England is seen as politically risky.
The issue is divisive. Figures in centre-left Labour — which came to power in July — have long been open to the debate, but the Conservatives reject it outright.
Robert Jenrick, one of the candidates to be the new Tory leader, has said that criticising the British Empire is anti-patriotic.
He wrote recently that “the territories colonised by our empire were not advanced democracies”.
“Many had been cruel, slave-trading powers. Some had never been independent. The British empire broke the long chain of violent tyranny as we came to introduce — gradually and imperfectly — Christian values,” he added.
While Britain has expressed remorse for slavery in broad terms, London has baulked at the idea of paying financial reparations, which would likely come with a hefty price tag.
A 2023 report co-authored by a United Nations judge, Patrick Robinson, concluded that the UK likely owed more than £18 trillion (or 21 trillion euros) for its involvement in slavery in 14 countries.
This figure took into account the unpaid wages of slaves, trauma caused, and damages owed to their descendants.
So far, the Commonwealth countries have not put forward any figures of their own.
“It’s very unlikely that countries would ask for that figure,” Lester, the historian, told AFP.
Auerbach suspects that money is not the countries’ “main goal”.
“What they want is recognition and accountability,” he said.
Opponents in Britain point out that a public apology could open the doors to legal action against the country. Auerbach notes that the Netherlands’ government and king apologised last year for slavery and has not yet been sued.
For its part, the British royal family has so far stopped short of apologising.
King Charles III did, however, on a visit to Kenya last year, express his “greatest sorrow and deepest regret” over the “abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans” during colonial rule.
“It’s a delicate subject. I would say that the monarchy has navigated this debate very skillfully,” Professor Pauline Maclaran at Royal Holloway, University of London, told AFP.
Other British institutions have issued apologies or owned up to mistakes, including the Church of England which officially said sorry in 2020.
The National Trust, which protects heritage sites, published a report the same year detailing links between dozens of properties it runs and the slave trade.
Earlier this year, the esteemed Royal Academy of Arts held an exhibition about how British art was implicated by slavery — a first in its more than two centuries of existence.
“At least we’re having the conversation in the Anglo-Saxon world, which is not the case in Spain or France,” said Auerbach.
Tory Robert Jenrick condemned after claiming former British colonies owe ‘debt of gratitude’
“These comments are deeply offensive and an obnoxious distortion of history."
Robert Jenrick continues to show just how far-right he is during the Tory leadership contest, this time claiming that ‘former British colonies owe us a debt of gratitude’, comments which have resulted in condemnation.
Jenrick made the remarks in a column for the Daily Mail, in which he claimed that British colonies should be grateful for the legacy of empire.
He wrote: “Many of our former colonies — amid the complex realities of empire — owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them.”
Jenrick made his disgraceful comments after Commonwealth leaders agreed at the weekend that the “time has come” for a conversation about reparations for the slave trade.
The Tory leadership hopeful was condemned by Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan reparations. She told the Independent that Jenrick’s remarks were deeply offensive.
She said: “These comments are deeply offensive and an obnoxious distortion of history.
“Enslavement and colonialism were not ‘gifts’ but imposed systems that brutally exploited people, extracted wealth, and dismantled societies, all for the benefit of Britain.
“To suggest that former colonies should be ‘grateful’ for such unimaginable harm disregards the legacy of these injustices and the long-term impact they still have on many nations today.”
Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, lawyer and activist posted on X: “The ingratitude of this political illiterate @RobertJenrick. Britain would be nothing without colonised African & Asian nations. It’s Industrial Revolution & Capitalist Wealth were built on the blood, sweat, forced labour & lives of our forebears.
“The ‘inheritance’ it left were the resources it stole, lands it pillaged, genocides committed, division of nations, systemic rape & collective punishment committed in the name of its racist British empire – a genocidal & thieving empire that still profits off former colonies to date.”
Historian William Dalrymple described Jenrick as a ‘Tory moron’ in reaction to his comments.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
“These comments are deeply offensive and an obnoxious distortion of history."
Robert Jenrick continues to show just how far-right he is during the Tory leadership contest, this time claiming that ‘former British colonies owe us a debt of gratitude’, comments which have resulted in condemnation.
Jenrick made the remarks in a column for the Daily Mail, in which he claimed that British colonies should be grateful for the legacy of empire.
He wrote: “Many of our former colonies — amid the complex realities of empire — owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them.”
Jenrick made his disgraceful comments after Commonwealth leaders agreed at the weekend that the “time has come” for a conversation about reparations for the slave trade.
The Tory leadership hopeful was condemned by Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan reparations. She told the Independent that Jenrick’s remarks were deeply offensive.
She said: “These comments are deeply offensive and an obnoxious distortion of history.
“Enslavement and colonialism were not ‘gifts’ but imposed systems that brutally exploited people, extracted wealth, and dismantled societies, all for the benefit of Britain.
“To suggest that former colonies should be ‘grateful’ for such unimaginable harm disregards the legacy of these injustices and the long-term impact they still have on many nations today.”
Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, lawyer and activist posted on X: “The ingratitude of this political illiterate @RobertJenrick. Britain would be nothing without colonised African & Asian nations. It’s Industrial Revolution & Capitalist Wealth were built on the blood, sweat, forced labour & lives of our forebears.
“The ‘inheritance’ it left were the resources it stole, lands it pillaged, genocides committed, division of nations, systemic rape & collective punishment committed in the name of its racist British empire – a genocidal & thieving empire that still profits off former colonies to date.”
Historian William Dalrymple described Jenrick as a ‘Tory moron’ in reaction to his comments.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
Why Robert Jenrick is wrong about the British Empire
Tory MP Robert Jenrick has absurdly claimed that former British colonies 'owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them'
Robert Jenrick at a Tory leadership hustings (Picture: The Conservative Party)
By John Newsinger
Wednesday 30 October 2024
Tory MP Robert Jenrick has absurdly claimed that former British colonies 'owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them'
Robert Jenrick at a Tory leadership hustings (Picture: The Conservative Party)
By John Newsinger
Wednesday 30 October 2024
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2929
Comment
The Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick’s shamelessly declared in the Daily Mail newspaper that the victims of British imperialism should be grateful to the British Empire.
To be fair, this was very much the view of New Labour, of the likes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and there is every reason to think that Keir Starmer shares this view today. His response to the demand for reparations for slavery has been little better, and makes this pretty clear.
The claim is, of course, absolutely outrageous. Nothing better demonstrates this than the history of slavery.
The horrors of British involvement in the slave trade and the appalling exploitation of slaves in Britain’s Caribbean colonies—men, women and children worked to death for profit—are not the focus of Jenrick’s attention.
Instead, it is the British abolition of slavery that is celebrated as showing the Empire’s humanitarian side. This is a gigantic distortion of history.
Slavery was not abolished out of any humanitarian concerns, but because the British government had become convinced that the slaves could no longer be kept in chains. Successive slave revolts, culminating in the great Jamaican revolt that broke out on 27 December 1831, doomed British slavery.
The revolt began as a general strike involving over 60,000 slaves, but the British unleashed bloody repression and it turned into a rebellion. One slave woman, shot for her part in burning down her owner’s sugar works, defiantly told her executioners, “I know I shall die for it, but my children shall be free.”
Troops killed over 400 slaves and executed another 326 in the aftermath of the revolt.
The last to die was the leader of the revolt, Samuel Sharpe, hanged on 23 May 1832, who made it clear that he “would rather die on yonder gallows than live in slavery”.
The military brutally flogged hundreds more, with some being flogged to death.
What worried the British government, however, was that this bloody repression did not appear to intimidate the slaves. According to one minister they seemed to be “burning for revenge for the fate of their friends and relations” with many of them “regarding death as infinitely preferable to slavery”.
He was convinced that if slavery was not abolished, then the slaves would free themselves. The minister was worried that news might arrive at any time that “Jamaica is in the possession of the negroes”.
It was this fear of slave revolt that led to the abolition of slavery, not any humanitarian concerns on the part of the British ruling class. The slaves would continue revolting until they had overthrown their masters and the only way to pre-empt this was abolition.
There was a powerful mass movement in Britain demanding abolition at this time, a movement rooted in the working class, with petitions signed by more than 1.3 million people.
Establishment historians reduce this movement to the respectable figure of politician William Wilberforce. They present persuasion, appealing to the conscience of our rulers, as the way forward rather than struggle and revolt.
What about the question of reparations? The British government has already paid reparations—but to the slave owners, not to the slaves. The government borrowed some £20 million to compensate the slave owners, an unprecedented sum.
In today’s money it would amount to £300 billion. But the people being compensated were rich and influential so it was accepted.
The £20 million loan was not finally paid off until 2015. This means that the descendants of Caribbean slaves living in Britain, the Windrush generation, would have been paying taxes that went towards the cost of their ancestors’ emancipation.
This is what the British Empire was all about.
The Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick’s shamelessly declared in the Daily Mail newspaper that the victims of British imperialism should be grateful to the British Empire.
To be fair, this was very much the view of New Labour, of the likes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and there is every reason to think that Keir Starmer shares this view today. His response to the demand for reparations for slavery has been little better, and makes this pretty clear.
The claim is, of course, absolutely outrageous. Nothing better demonstrates this than the history of slavery.
The horrors of British involvement in the slave trade and the appalling exploitation of slaves in Britain’s Caribbean colonies—men, women and children worked to death for profit—are not the focus of Jenrick’s attention.
Instead, it is the British abolition of slavery that is celebrated as showing the Empire’s humanitarian side. This is a gigantic distortion of history.
Slavery was not abolished out of any humanitarian concerns, but because the British government had become convinced that the slaves could no longer be kept in chains. Successive slave revolts, culminating in the great Jamaican revolt that broke out on 27 December 1831, doomed British slavery.
The revolt began as a general strike involving over 60,000 slaves, but the British unleashed bloody repression and it turned into a rebellion. One slave woman, shot for her part in burning down her owner’s sugar works, defiantly told her executioners, “I know I shall die for it, but my children shall be free.”
Troops killed over 400 slaves and executed another 326 in the aftermath of the revolt.
The last to die was the leader of the revolt, Samuel Sharpe, hanged on 23 May 1832, who made it clear that he “would rather die on yonder gallows than live in slavery”.
The military brutally flogged hundreds more, with some being flogged to death.
What worried the British government, however, was that this bloody repression did not appear to intimidate the slaves. According to one minister they seemed to be “burning for revenge for the fate of their friends and relations” with many of them “regarding death as infinitely preferable to slavery”.
He was convinced that if slavery was not abolished, then the slaves would free themselves. The minister was worried that news might arrive at any time that “Jamaica is in the possession of the negroes”.
It was this fear of slave revolt that led to the abolition of slavery, not any humanitarian concerns on the part of the British ruling class. The slaves would continue revolting until they had overthrown their masters and the only way to pre-empt this was abolition.
There was a powerful mass movement in Britain demanding abolition at this time, a movement rooted in the working class, with petitions signed by more than 1.3 million people.
Establishment historians reduce this movement to the respectable figure of politician William Wilberforce. They present persuasion, appealing to the conscience of our rulers, as the way forward rather than struggle and revolt.
What about the question of reparations? The British government has already paid reparations—but to the slave owners, not to the slaves. The government borrowed some £20 million to compensate the slave owners, an unprecedented sum.
In today’s money it would amount to £300 billion. But the people being compensated were rich and influential so it was accepted.
The £20 million loan was not finally paid off until 2015. This means that the descendants of Caribbean slaves living in Britain, the Windrush generation, would have been paying taxes that went towards the cost of their ancestors’ emancipation.
This is what the British Empire was all about.
