Bicentenary of abolition of slavery in Britain
Any cause for celebration?
TOPE ORIOLA STAFF
British Prime Minister Tony Blair spurred a huge controversy recently when he reportedly expressed a tame “deep sorrow” about his country’s role in the shipment of able-bodied men and women from Africa to Europe and the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade from around 1500 to the 1850s. Blair followed up his “regrets” with unreserved apologies saying he was “sorry” for what remains the worst crime against humanity to date. What is the import of Blair’s apology and how best can the historical agony of slavery be assuaged?
It is almost generally agreed that six million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust, but what historian or statistician can estimate the number of Africans killed during slave raids, captured but never made the fatal voyage across the Atlantic, who died aboard the vessel of death on the sea, those annihilated as a result of the drastic change in weather and the gruelling labour they were put to on plantation farms?
While Tony Blair’s apology is both symbolic and commendable, the Queen of England ought to take the lead by publicly stating an unreserved apology for the complicity of her primogenitors, specifically Queen Elizabeth I after whom she was christened, in the heinous crimes of slavery.
The astronomical level of involvement of the monarchy, especially how the queen served as the underwriter of Captain John Hawkins, who had an African in chains as the symbol of his ship and took his first set of 300 captives from Sierra Leone to Haiti in 1562 is well-documented in “Gunboat Criminology and the Colonization of Africa” (article in Pan African Issues in Crime and Justice) by Emmanuel Onyeozili. The Queen’s Slave Trader: John Hawkins, Elizabeth and the Trafficking in Human Souls by Nick Hazelwood is also a compendium on this issue. Both authors evidently prove that the activities of slave merchants received official seal from the British monarchy. For his “patriotic” efforts, Hawkins was knighted by Elizabeth I.
However, as Ghana’s president John Kuffour argued, slavery was also facilitated by the betrayal of Africans by Africans. African families and monarchies that traded in slaves and became “entrepreneurs” as a result of the unscrupulous profits from the sale of their kith and kin, community members and supposed “outsiders” also need to apologize to set a process of healing in motion.
Repressive African governments like those in Zimbabwe and Sudan also need to free their people from modern home-grown enslavement. Other governments in Africa also have to realize that though “formal” slavery and colonialism might indeed be over, as former Ghanaian prime minister Kwame Nkrumah put it, neo-colonialism is now the main issue; a condition where an independent state still has its socio-political and economic policies externally determined by former colonial powers.
Having said that, Blair and his government must go beyond tacit admission of the beneficial consequences of slavery for Britain. That slavery set forth Britain’s industrialization and consequent prosperity is not in doubt. Port cities like Liverpool and the now gargantuan Barclays Bank remain incontrovertible evidence of what Walter Rodney called “How Europe underdeveloped Africa.”
Therefore, reparations need to be paid to all 54 African countries. This could be done by cancelling what has been appropriately called “odious debt” by Norway. Another avenue is to utilize the African Union, an organization set up and run by African countries, to disburse whatever all parties agree is commensurate compensation. Celebrating the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery is foolhardy if Britain continues to collect the toil, sweat and blood of Africans through interests on loans African countries pay to organizations like the London and Paris clubs. There is nothing novel in any of these suggestions; the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery is tantamount to sheer public relations stunt if the looted funds of African countries remain in the vaults of banks in Britain, (more notoriously) Switzerland, and some countries in Europe and the Americas.
Some are suggesting that what should be the focus on March 25 should not be Britain’s ignominious role during slavery, but how it helped to end the trade. Indeed March 25 would be incomplete without recalling the efforts of the likes of William Wilberforce, who stood on the side of justice despite possible personal perils.
The BBC quotes Blair as saying he believes the “bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was — how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition — but also to express our deep sorrow that it could ever have happened and rejoice at the better times we live in today.” I do not share Blair’s optimism.
The March 25 bicentenary will be an exercise in futility if “blacks” continue to be treated as peripheral and prosthetic parts of the U.K.. It would also be an excursion in meaninglessness if Britons of African descent continue to feel unfairly treated in the justice system as it happens now. If Africans in Britain continue to face discrimination in housing, employment and other spheres of life, we may as well cancel the event.
The event should be a day of sober reflection and not a day of political gymnastics and display of oratory prowess. The scars of slavery may remain indelible because of its use in the social misconstruction of people of African descent, but the real challenge is making descendants of former slaves and former slave owners to live together harmoniously. In spite of daunting problems facing the realization of this goal, I dare say this is the world’s future.
