Black people globally are demanding reparations. It's time politicians listen

The demand for reparations to atone for slavery and tackle the modern legacy of structural racism left in its wake is by no means a new campaign.

Following the murder of George Floyd, global Black Lives Matter protests have become more amplified and have energised the calls for justice.

But these rallying cries have been met with dismissal and inaction from a political class who are, quite simply, disconnected from reality.

"Slavery is not our history – it interrupted our history.  Nor is it a politically partisan issue.  It’s a feature of European development with a continual price paid by black people"

Our so-called leaders and countries have no difficulty in sending colossal sums of money to support war, apartheid, and genocide, yet sideline reparations for the descendants of captive Africans.

Western nations built by slavery are represented by governments who deliberately seek to delay the issue of reparations for perpetuity.

In the United States, for example, the HR40 bill which suggests studying reparations will likely never become law and has been stalled for decades.

The United Kingdom, the world's leading slave trading nation, is so far from acknowledging its true role in slavery that classrooms actually teach that Britain was the first country to end slavery in 1807. In fact, it was Ayiti (Haiti) in 1804.

Indeed, Britain’s industrial and scientific revolutions and development were only possible because of slavery and the underdevelopment of Africa.

Britain’s so-called greatness and empire were predicated on the subjugation of human beings with darker skin. Slavery was not merely a chapter in the UK’s development but the very fuel that underpinned it.

Despite the deliberate ignorance and lack of political will in countries like the US and the UK, nations bearing the scars of slavery are banding together to fight for justice

Earlier this month, a plan for an international tribunal — modelled on the Nuremberg Trials after World War Two — was discussed at the third session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) in Geneva.

The proposed reparations tribunal, aiming to establish a legal framework and build UN consensus, has garnered strong support from both CARICOM and AU nations.

"Black communties in every country enriched by slavery are still impacted by the shadow of the past"

Transatlantic slavery was the greatest crime in modern history. The black holocaust saw tens of millions of Africans uprooted from their homelands, and forced to build nations in which they’ve yet to be treated as equal citizens.

Reparations can help to tackle the entrenched economic disparities and can at least attempt to heal the ongoing intergenerational trauma created by slavery.

There are certainly challenges. But the agreement for an international tribunal is indicative of a growing conversation which will not go away so long as structural inequalities persist.

Caribbean nations, in particular, remain neo-colonially shackled by financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.

But to be clear, black communties in every country enriched by slavery are still impacted by the shadow of the past.

We know all too well that racialised policing in the United States has its roots in slave patrols and that the US prison system is dubbed the new form of slavery for very good reason. Black people make up disproportionately high numbers in American jails and are often exploited for cheap labour, benefiting companies profiting from the private prison industry.

We can see, too, how black people are treated as less than human in Brazil, which accounts for the greatest number of enslaved Africans. There are many more examples we could highlight.

But our own families tell a tale too reminding us that slavery was not long ago, but yesterday in human terms. In fact, in my family, slavery was four people ago.

My Caribbean roots are Afro-Guyanese. My dad’s grandfather’s grandmother was born in 1832 before the end of emancipation in 1833. She was likely born as somebody’s property.

I have a picture of her, a black woman, with a Scottish surname, Chesney. James Chesney was a leading slave owner in Guyana.  I may never know what my families’ African name was or where they came from. But I do know that Europeans captured and owned them. Their lives meant something. 

"Africans, and black people of African descent, are saying no more and are demanding reparations. It’s not a handout but a debt that must be paid if European countries are to ever move forward in any meaningful way"

There has never been a moral counterargument to the notion of reparations. But both the left and the right have opposed it becoming a reality for different reasons.

Liberal hypocrites have supported justice for other communities including Jewish communties, Japanese Americans and Native Americans, but have offered near silence when it comes to black people. At best, they’ve offered ineffective anti-racism measures and might have argued for police reform in the form of holding a placard at a demonstration.

Right-wingers have openly and consistently expressed contempt for black people and have in some cases argued that slavery benefited black and African people culturally.

Slavery is not our history – it interrupted our history. Nor is it a politically partisan issue. It’s a feature of European development with a continual price paid by black people.

Africans, and black people of African descent, are saying no more and are demanding reparations. It’s not a handout but a debt that must be paid if European countries are to ever move forward in any meaningful way.

African and Caribbean nations moving toward a tribunal model of reparations to be taken to the UN is a good idea. This is what Malcolm X thought before he was killed.

It's also not a coincidence that African nations are kicking out the remaining European forces from their countries. 

States within the United States considering reparations independently, rather than relying on the federal government, serves as another sign of shifting perspectives and expectations.

The Brattle Report from last year, which assessed that nations that benefited from slavery should pay reparations amounting to trillions of pounds – and laying out why – was another important step.

Communities demanding reparations are organising like never before. There is work to be done, but I believe reparations will become a reality.  Black people are putting it firmly on the agenda, and there is increasing unity on this issue. 

Even the Church has pledged £100 million pounds to begin righting the wrongs of the past.

Our governments need to read the room and support these calls. To not do so will come at a high political and social price, sooner rather than later.

Richard Sudan is a journalist and writer specialising in anti-racism and has reported on various human rights issues from around the world. His writing has been published by The Guardian, Independent, The Voice and many others.

Follow him on Twitter: @richardsudan

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.