Reports circulating in the international media indicate 12 Caricom countries along with Haiti and Suriname have initiated proceedings to sue three former colonisers, Britain, France and the Netherlands. This is good news for many Blacks in the Caribbean who believe (and justly so) that the heinous practice of slavery must be addressed in a material way. Why should it be addressed? The societies of the mentioned colonisers have benefited from untold wealth which has been acquired as a result of sweat,blood and tears shed our ancestors. It does not matter if slavery was an accepted practice of those times. What matters is that it was a heinous act which has stained history’s page and said page should now reflect those who benefitted most address it!
The region recently appointed Sir Hilary Beckles to head Caricom’s reparations committee. He has not wasted any time lighting a fire under the issue. The committee has secured the services of British law firm Leigh Day whose reputation was enhanced recently when the it won compensation for hundreds of Kenyans arising from the Mau Mau rebellion.
Although there is no official figure given of the repatriations claim a few regional newspapers have suggested £200 billion, the equivalent to the £20 million paid to slave owners in 1834 when slavery was abolished. Prime Minister Ralph Gonzales, the most vocal of regional leaders, stated in a speech to the UN recently that “The awful legacy of these crimes against humanity ought to be repaired for the developmental benefit of our Caribbean societies and all our peoples.”
Although BU agrees with the move to exact reparations there is uncertainty about the approach. We are however hopeful our concerns can be explained.
If Caricom governments are suing for damages over the slavery of our ancestors, should it not be a class action brought by the descendants of the slaves themselves?
If the governments are doing it on behalf of the descendants, and they secure £200 billion damages, will the payment be made to the descendants of the slaves? BU is very interested (and we are getting ahead of ourselves) how any settlement would be distributed. We surely do not want regional politicians to have sole authority on its allocation.
Finally, Sir Hilary who is one of our decorated historians has confirmed many times that our slave ancestors were sold into slavery by their own people in Africa. Does Caricom intend to extend the scope of defendants of the action to include the African states?
Let us get this right!
163 responses to “The Caribbean Advances Claim for Reparations”
The Caribbean Advances Claim for Reparations for Beatrice Henry to Violet Beckles and Plantation Deeds.
“Finally, Sir Hilary who is one of our decorated historians has confirmed many times that our slave ancestors were sold into slavery by their own people in Africa. Does Caricom intend to extend the scope of defendants of the action to include the African states?”
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There is absolutely no dispute that the Moors were responsible for selling their own black people into slavery, however, the issue is not who sold whom, the issue is who benefited from the sale and purchase from the 14th Century and for centuries coming forward, some of that slave money is still in existence today and the benefactors would be Europeans and North Americans, please try not to confuse the issue or the lawsuit.
And besides, knowing the inherent greed embedded in the Europeans, they were not just satisfied with buying for pennies or beads whatever they paid the idiots who sold their own people, they turned right around and kidnapped as many blacks as they could carry, including the ones who sold their own people into slavery
David
Yep .. Who would receive the proceeds of a positive settlement …maybe a couple of consultants should be employed to advise the Governments… that would be a start in the usual direction.
Yep, Blacks did sell Blacks into slavery, so at least those Blacks and their African descendents cannot claim for not having been paid. It is the people who worked for nothing for all the centuries that you should be concerned with… you detractor …Ha! 🙂
DAVID A. COMISSIONG: EXPLODING THE MYTH OF AFRICAN RESPONSIBILITY FOR SLAVERY (Part 1)
• Posted by SendMeYourNews on October 4, 2013 at 1:27pm in Who I am for Africa and Africans?
• Back to Who I am for Africa and Africans? Discussions
Continued after the jump ….
Now that our Caribbean governments have launched a serious effort to
secure the payment of Reparations for the tremendous damage inflicted
on the people of Africa and the African Diaspora during the centuries
of European orchestrated slave trade and enslavement, a number of
“fifth columnists” have crept out of the proverbial woodwork and are
seeking to confuse the issue with allegations that our African
ancestors not only collaborated with the European enslavers, but were
so accepting of the slave trade that they refused or neglected to
resist it.
The only way to respond to this type of mischievous propaganda is to
subject it to the cold hard undisputed facts of history! So, before
we even consider the issue of Africans who collaborated with the
European enslavers, let us begin with a consideration of the methods
by which the various European powers commenced their trade in African
human beings on the west coast of Africa.
Let us look briefly at the cases of Portugal – the first European
nation to establish a trans-Atlantic slave trade – and Britain, the
European nation that developed the largest slave trade.
Portugal commenced the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1444 with a raid
on the western coast of the African territory that is today known as
Mauritania. This is how Gomes Eannes de Zurara, a courtier of the
Portuguese Royal Family, described the event in his “Chronicle of the
Discovery of Guinea”:-
“Most of the captives… had been taken in a village where …….
they (the Portuguese), shouting out, “St. James, St George, and
Portugal,” at once attacked them, killing and taking all they could.
Then might you see mothers forsaking their children, and husbands
their wives, each striving to escape as best they could. Some drowned
themselves in the water, others thought to escape by hiding under
their huts, others stowed their children among the seaweed, where our
men found them afterwards……..”
The British “trade”, on the other hand, started with the two voyages
of Captain John Hawkins in 1562 and 1564. This is how these voyages
were described in several publications, including the 1878 publication
of the Hakluyt Society entitled “The Hawkins Voyages”:-
“Hawkins sailed with three ships from England in 1562 ……. in the
River Sierra Leone, he captured at least 300 blacks, partly as he
said, “By the sword, and partly by other means”……… In 1564
…….. Hawkins set out on a second voyage …… The new expedition
again made for the River Sierra Leone ….. and every day, went on
shore: “to take the Inhabitants …… burning and spoiling their
townes”.
So, we can see from these two examples that this so-called “trade”
began with European criminals inflicting murder, mayhem and terror on
defenseless towns and villages along the west coast of Africa. There
was no talk of collaborators in these beginning phases of the
trans-Atlantic Slave Trade!
From these beginnings of attack, de-spoilation and mass kidnapping,
the Europe enslavers went on to devise several other means of
procuring so-called slaves:- befriending Africans and inviting them
onto the European ships where they were then kidnapped; constructing
castles or fortresses along the West African coast for the purpose of
collecting and storing enslaved Africans; purchasing enslaved Africans
from African collaborators; putting in place European or mulatto
“middlemen” who were stationed in Africa to raid for and collect
“slaves”; and engaging in the opportunistic kidnapping of individual
Africans whenever the opportunity presented itself.
The fifth columnists wish to focus on the role played by African
collaborators – as if every system of oppression does not feature some
members of the victimized group who collaborate with the oppressors!
However, it should be noted that even as Euro-centric a historian of
the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade as Hugh Thomas, the English author of
“The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade”, confirms the longevity of
the practice of the direct European “stealing” or kidnapping of
Africans:-
“In 1702, the Africans near Cape Mesurando complained to Willem
Bosman of the Dutch West India Company that the English had been
there, with two large vessels and had ravaged the country, destroyed
all their canoes, plundered their houses, and carried off some of
their people as slaves …. In 1716 the monarch of Fooni received
five men from the Royal African Company’s chief agent on the River
Gambia whose mission was to “panyar” (Kidnap) the people and make them
slaves…..”.
But if the fifth columnists insist that they wish to focus on the
issue of African collaborators, perhaps we could pay some attention to
how some of these collaborators got involved in the process of
collaboration in the first place. Let us take, for example, the case
of Bandi, a 1620’s King of a state in the territory known today as
Angola. Hugh Thomas tells the story in his “History of the Atlantic
Slave Trade” as follows:-
“A new Portuguese governor of Luanda, Luis Mendes de Vasconelos,
embarked on a campaign designed to finish with the threats of the
continuously hostile Ndongo, for good or evil. He captured that
monarchy’s capital at Kabasa, and the Ngola (or King) fled …… He
(then) defeated a native chief named Bandi, on whom he imposed an
annual tribute of one hundred slaves.”
And so, while there might have been some Africans who collaborated
because they adjudged, in their own self-interest, that there was a
profit to be made, there were several who had collaboration imposed on
them via European conquerors demanding a tribute of slaves, or because
they found themselves in a dangerous and unstable environment in which
a choice had to be made between collaborating with the enslaver and
saving one’s own skin, or remaining apart from the enslaver and
becoming a victim of the process of enslavement that was fast
engulfing the African continent.
It should also be noted that some of those who collaborated came to
regret it after the full consequences of the slave trade became
apparent, and ultimately attempted to resist and to extricate
themselves from the tentacles of collaboration. Two examples of this
phenomenon are King Afonso of the Congo and Queen Nzinga of Angola.
King Afonso had initially collaborated with the Portuguese enslavers,
but by 1526 he was writing to the King of Portugal complaining that
the slave dealers were depopulating his kingdom – “There are many
traders in all parts of the country … They bring ruin….. Every
day people are kidnapped and enslaved, even members of the King’s
family” – and went on, unsuccessfully, to appeal to the Portuguese
monarch to replace the slave trade with a more constructive type of
trade relationship.
Queen Nzinga, for her part, went to war against the Portuguese and
their slave trade regime in Angola, and in the words of Hugh Thomas –
“She eventually established herself as the strongest military power in
southern Angola, and the Portuguese failed to deal effectively with
her…. She never became the reliable purveyor of slaves for whom
successive governors of Luanda hoped.”
But the issue of African collaborators is completely routed and
dismissed by the recognition that ultimately, in the long scheme of
history, not even the most willing and “successful” of African
collaborators benefitted materially from the trans-Atlantic slave
trade or the associated system of racialised chattel slavery!
Eventually, all of them were set upon, conquered and exploited by the
said European enslavers who followed 400 years of slave trading with
100 years of the physical colonisation and domination of the entire
African continent!
A good example of this are the Ashanti of West Africa. The Ashanti
are an Akan-speaking people of central Ghana and neighbouring regions
of Togo and Ivory Coast, and their traditional capital is the town of
Kumasi in Ghana. During the 18th century, the rulers of the Ashanti
Kingdom participated in the European orchestrated slave trade,
collaborating with the Dutch in particular, and extending their
empire.
But what was the ultimate fate of the Ashanti? By the mid-19th
century, the British colonialists had decided that the Ashanti
“empire” had to be dismantled and the Ashanti brought under British
control. Thus, in 1874 the British Government launched a ferocious
military campaign against the Ashanti, using the latest in European
weaponry. The end result was the defeat of the Ashanti army and the
sacking of Kumasi. This military defeat led to the disintegration of
the Ashanti “empire” and the temporary deposing of the Asantehene or
King of the Ashanti!
The final phase of the destruction of the Ashanti kingdom took place
in 1896, when the British demanded of the restored Asantahene (Prempeh
1) that Asante be placed under so-called British “protection” and
Prempeh refused. Once again the British army marched on Kumasi,
deposed the Royal Family, and sent them and their generals into exile.
Thenceforth, the Ashanti territories were incorporated into the
British colony of the Gold Coast and subjected to colonial
exploitation.
Clearly, no serious 21st century Reparations activist would be looking
towards the Ashanti in modern-day Ghana as a target for Reparations
payments. Indeed, one would not be surprised if the remnants of the
Royal Family of the Ashanti are not preparing themselves to launch a
claim against the British Government for the damage inflicted on the
Ashanti people during and after the Ashanti wars!
No! If we are serious about Reparations we must focus on attention on
the Governments and institutions that launched, orchestrated,
maintained and profited immensely from the twin enterprises known as
the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the system of racialised chattel
slavery. I refer to the national governments of Western Europe, the
various Royal Families of Europe, major European multi-national
corporations such as Barclays Bank and Lloyd’s of London, and elite
European families such as the Leylands and the Camerons! This is
where the real wealth extracted with devilish cruelty from the sons
and daughters of Africa over 400 years is to be found!
(To be continued)
DAVID A. COMISSIONG
CLEMENT PAYNE MOVEMENT,President
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Payne_Movement
@ Commissiong
In your inimitable style, you copied text from one document and pasted it here sine any concern for the reader since all of the hard returns of the first document were imported in all of the wrong places in BU.
If you had deigned to pause and rectify this simple issue of adjusting a hard return one would have begrudgingly been able to read the content of your submission with some greater ease.
But this is you David.
Let the plebeians discern and glean from what YOu, Lord Mogork, have condescended to write, in the image of Clement Payne
A disjointed but enlightening article nonetheless.
@baffy
Hush :-))
It is about time that ADRIAN LOVERIDGE’s descendants pay up.
My ancestors worked for nearly four hundred years without receiving a single paycheck.
The JEWS who suffered less than us and for a shorter time than us got “pissing” money.
Pay up!!!!!!
Well Well
You making real sense of late.
Wha happen?
My problem with the Ashanti King is that by the time the British opened fire on them the first time, the Ashanti had NOT yet invented the wheel…! This is instructive and it speaks to stifling leadership that holds fast to the illusion of safety that traditional practices provide, leadership that steadfastly refuses to encourage true innovation, but would probably rather just speak to it on a platform.
David tell me shut up … so I gon’ sit back down before he pelt a board duster at me …!
CARICOM campaigning for reparations but not a word about the present day mistreatment of Haitians and people of Haitian descent by the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic court ruled that people descended from “illegal” immigrants (read Haitians) from 1929 (that is not a typo 1929 is correct!!!) who are born in the Dominica Republic are NOT citizens!
@Ping Pong
You are aware that the DR is an exalted member of CARIFORUM?
http://www.caricom.org/jsp/community_organs/cariforum/cariforum_main_page.jsp?menu=cob
Ping Pong you should set up a separate thread.
Now I work out that each of the eight million or so descendants should be paid 2,500 pounds each (each person has to claim more than fifty percent black) … I sitting back down
By Black I includin’ Red Leg … a Barbados only phenomenon
Carson…….enjoy it, you don’t know when i will once again revert to not making sense.
Chuckle…..so BAFBFP….we are going to work this using the old time 8th system…..once you can prove you are 4/8th black you can get some change?
Baf……………i am getting the feeling here that everyone is holding their breath for reparation payments in the form of paper money, by the time this case is adjudicated there more than likely will be no more paper money in existence in the world……….reparations will more than likely come in other forms, i for one believes it should be in the form of deprogramming and re-education of the black race guaranteed for another 1000 years so that our descendants can move forward devoid of the destructive brainwash that still is and has been embedded in the black psyche for the last 400-500 years.
Just imagine blacks in the Caribbean now with 200 billion pounds, the fake weaves, the fake blond hair, the fake bottoms, fake nails, big car, big house, the same idiocy we see now will prevail and more than likely at a more disturbing level……guess who will have the 200 billion pounds back in their bank accounts before you can say “the same Europeans and North Americans”.
As a matter of fact, i am wondering if the leaders in the Caribbean will even let their people know if they receive payment in money, since the above article did not come from any country in the Caribbean, i believe i am the one who posted it from the Daily Mail online, the British are the ones who are letting us know what the Caribbean leaders are doing, we are yet to hear the Caribbean leaders speak about the pending lawsuit individually to their people.
And in case people are still missing the point, the lawsuit specifically speaks about the EUROPEAN slave trade from AFRICA to the CARIBBEAN, it does not mention anything else in between, it may actually be defined by your visual African features.
@Baffy. You are at your best.
Actually, a few things about this lawsuit and the article in the Daily Mail give me some pause. So, Baffy, any light you can bring to my concerns would be helpful and, without doubt, give me a much-needed laugh.
The Daily Mail talks of “the ‘awful’, lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade”. No one (least of all myself) can possibly dispute the awfulness or the fact that it produced a “lingering legacy”; but it is an INDIVIDUAL legacy and the poverty that it may have created for those countries of CARICOM is, today, largely as a result of inept and venal governments. Let us face it, had it not been for the slave trade, there is little chance that we would be living in our beautiful, if disasterously mismanaged, country, the main population of which would be……white.
The Daily Mail report identifies the law firm retained for this action as being Leigh Day and reports its credentials for such cases as being, “recently won compensation for hundreds of Kenyans tortured by the British colonial government during the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s.” I fail to see the connection between what was a class action brought by individual victims or their families who themselves had suffered under the Mau Mau rebellion and a case brought by governments in what, being CARICOM is ostensibly a class action by governments for harm and damages suffered by individual people. I would also like to know how much compensation this law firm actually was able to pay to its clients – not how much they were awarded, but how much the victims got after the lawyers had taken their cut off the top.
But then you see the size of the damages being sought. An eye and mouth-watering £200 BILLION and all is explained. There are 14 CARICOM countries into £200 billion, meaning that each country could potentially claim £14.29 billion EACH, unless it is done on a per capita basis – which means that Jamaica would take the lion’s share.
When I voiced the concern that any awards made ought to be made, as in the case of the Holocaust and the Mau Mau risings, to individuals of slave descent, I was told that, should an award be made, it will NOT be paid to the descendants of slaves, but go into a sort of educational kitty regulated and under the control of government (s). In other words, yet another very rich trough for the piggies to gorge themselves from. Well, I have news for them. I want mine in my hand – and with good reason. And I will undertake to pay the educational expenses of my dependants myself, out of my share. Please take on board that it is our tax dollars that are paying for this case, so WE are paying for it.
Then there is the question of legal fees. On a contingency (no-win-no-fee) basis, Leigh Day would expect to pocket one third of such an award, or, in pounds sterling, £66.67 BILLION. A very nice pay day for facilitating the trough supply for CARICOM politicos. IF THEY WIN!!!!
The Mail reports that, “In its lawsuit, Caricom claims slavery condemned the region to a poverty that still afflicts it today. And they are comparing their demand to Germany recompensing Jewish people for the Holocaust and New Zealand compensating Maoris.” I for one do not see the comparison at all. And I respectfully point out that in both those cases, compensation was paid directly to the victims and their families, NOT to governments under the transparent guise of being used for education.
It is instructive that the Caricom Reparations Commission is headed by none other than Sir Hilary Beckles, whose disdain and non-acceptance of all trappings and things colonial did not, apparently, extend to his knighthood. But it also explains why this money that in all the other cited cases like the Holocaust and the Mau Mau risings was paid to individuals, should be earmarked for an “educational slush fund”.
But what neither CARICOM governments nor their lawyers (nor Sir Hilary) has explained to us is that, if the settlement they hope to achieve out-of-court is NOT achieved and legal proceedings are filed AND LOST, what will be the cost in terms of legal fees for both sides, all to be paid by CARICOM? Fees that these CARICOM governments (read “the taxpayers” irrespective of ancestry) will have to pay?
The bottom line seems to be that this is a case to be brought on behalf of governments, not individual victims, seeking a payout on behalf of individual victims which payout will then find its way directly into the trough from which the few government piggies will get to feed and enrich themselves, under the disguise of “education”. As slaves, our ancestors were exploited and abused by their masters. Now, as free citizens, we, their descendants, are witnessing that appears to be an attempt to see our ancestors’ sufferings and privations used and abused to line the pockets of the few. In other words, like our ancestors, we will be screwed. Screw me once, shame on you – screw me twice, shame on ME!
And what the hell if the case is lost? We will have to pay for it anyway. Through our taxes. So maybe this London law firm would like to provide us with an estimate of their costs for the action, along with a percentage projection on its chances of success. Or does anyone think that we the people are too blasted ignorant to understand what our financial exposure as taxpayers might be for a venture on which you can be certain we will reap no individual benefit if we win, but will have to bear the costs if we lose? Do they really think we are to stupid to understand and to question and to get caught up in a load of rhetoric, without examining all aspects first? Sadly, the answer is yes they do.
“.reparations will more than likely come in other forms, i for one believes it should be in the form of deprogramming and re-education of the black race ” Oh shoot Well Well, you are for once again putting the money in the hands of a few … like Governments using tax payers money to bail out banks and hotels, and have these people to spend on executive retreats …! Look man give de people the money let them buy de braids do ..! 🙂
Vincent
Wah point you trying to mek … this good Sundy …?
Baf………….I am actually wavering, like Amused is pointing out, the lawsuit should have been brought on behalf of individual descendants of AFRICAN slaves, i don’t like that the Caricom leaders have suddenly grasped the word integration only as it relates to getting their greedy hands on 200 billion pounds, in saying that however it is distributed, all hell will break loose.
My point is, if there is no physical money involved, but free deprogramming and education to the tune of 200 billion pounds paid for by Europe and North America, the Caricom leaders will not be able to gorge themselves, as it stands right now they are not even telling the descendants of AFRICAN slaves one word about what is happening re the lawsuit.
Baf…………it looks like you really love those Asians, i forgot to put them in my line up that 200 billion dollars will find its into their bank accounts before you can say “the 200 billion dollars will be returned to Europe and North America forthwith through sales, (black Caribbean people are just consumers), with the new players the Asians benefiting mightily from the sale of fake hair”
Lawd Baffy um is satday……Ah confused like Amused……Ah trying to fine out how we gine compute this 4/8th blakness…dah is all….leh muh wen yuh wake up.
Well Well
Yah mekkin’ laugh … the truth can be a funny thing …. indeed. You see how Amused mek the argument sound professional ..? huh ? That is class or what. Look cash money, Paypal money, banker’s draft, cashier check … ah don ‘ give ah shit … Ha. I want my piece, and like Amuse say I could decide to pay Hilary for the fancy re-education or not.
Now to the point that the inept practices of Governments is the major cause for our present predicament … I would argue that British institutions, and UWI, being first a department of such an institution, are responsible for the training of the political personalities that have been foisted on us as a people by an insane first past the post process that was also devised by British institutions that are all products of a colonial mindset, the same governmental mindset that is responsible for the development and rewarding of the exploitation of slaves. HA …
I sitting back down ,…
@Amused
Your statement is tantamount to suggesting that because a person who was given life as a result of his/her mother being raped should be eternally grateful.
Vincent
Oh shoot It is Satdy fah truuf … Stupse… I really ain’ know wah it is that I drink last night ..!
Baffy…..uh unstan’….um is awright…..lol
@Amused
Tell us whether the law firm of Leigh Day with its credentials and elevated profile would not have offered a cogent approach to bringing this matter.
Vincent
You get the feeling too that David studying fah a law degree …? You don’ find the phraseology a little complex…?
Baffy….I have always heard that cockroach have no right at fowl cock dance……so leff David and Amused to discuss the legalities,of which I am totally ignorant of, and hopefully we all will learn something.
Reparations, repatriation with compensation to include all modernized technology with spare parts for the greatest crime against humanity is a must. “Garvey’s soul is still young”.
The article also named the Bahamas and Barbados as being “wealthy states”, so I do not know if they want to say that our countries should not receive any of the money, if and when it is paid!
HERE IS A REPOST OF COMISSIONG’S ARTICLE
reformatted for the critics
http://www.rastafarivisions.com/reparationsdebate-248/the
I am a loss here. The first world countries, Canada, UK, USA are and have poured billions of dollars in continuous aid in to our regions. Does this not count as reparation for all the people?
I’d like them to get their one time lump of reparations. Then the countries decide NO MORE AID EVER. See what happens then.
@Posh
So should we nurture people to depend on handouts or countries and people with the capacity to sustain itself/themselves.
Baf said:
“Now to the point that the inept practices of Governments is the major cause for our present predicament … I would argue that British institutions, and UWI, being first a department of such an institution, are responsible for the training of the political personalities that have been foisted on us as a people by an insane first past the post process that was also devised by British institutions that are all products of a colonial mindset, the same governmental mindset that is responsible for the development and rewarding of the exploitation of slaves. HA …”
______________________________-
My point exactly Baf, that is why i still feel that the Europeans should pay for and guarantee for 1000 years the DEPROGRAMMING and RE-EDUCATION of the black race for 1000 years, that deprogramming and education will consist of the hidden truth, we know they still have information hidden in the Vatican, museums and buckingham palace about Africa’s great civilization……..no more European fantasies stuck in the heads of our descendants.
We know there are those who will not give two hoots or one rats ass about our descendants going forward, they want money to spend NOW…therein lies the curse of the black race….our descendants will benefit greatly from a brain that is not programmed and a mind that is not washed with European crap, just look at what the brainwashing has done to the leaders in the Caribbean.
In addition, Hilary Beckles cannot re-educate anyone in the black race, the ones who instilled the genetic memory will be the ones to deprogram and re-educate, you will not need to pay Beckles one red cent.
Baf…………we certainly don’t want inept governments with their hands on 200 billion pounds now do we???
@Well Well
Of late I must say that your heart seems to be in the right place but your idealism is a problem. You really expect these descendants of enslavers to honestly take part in any action aimed at de-programming de black man? Get real!
@ David | October 12, 2013 at 1:36 PM | “Your statement is tantamount to suggesting that because a person who was given life as a result of his/her mother being raped should be eternally grateful.”
On the contrary. There is no such inference or intent. The slave trade was an abomination. Slavery is an abomination, no matter where or in what form and the denial of human rights, like rape and murder that can and did arise with impunity as a result, makes it ever more heinous. BUT, had slaves not been available from Africa, then the early (white) settlers would have depended on indentured servitude of convicts and those of the Stuart Rebellions (which were Scottish and Irish) and Barbados and the entire Caribbean would have had the racial mix that exists in places like Australia, rather than as it exists in the Caribbean. THAT is my point. And THAT is what I said. After all, at that time slavery was not only a way of life, it was LEGAL. And I am descended from that abomination and I am sure that one or more of my ancestors was raped or murdered or beaten or brutalised. And that is shameful. And I am sure the convicts of Australia suffering indentured servitude faced the same brutality – indeed it is well documented. But it created the ethnic demographic of Barbados and the region. And therefore Baffy’s statement that this reparation should also be directed to the Redlegs is unassailable. As individuals.
@ David | October 12, 2013 at 1:43 PM | “Tell us whether the law firm of Leigh Day with its credentials and elevated profile would not have offered a cogent approach to bringing this matter.”
I don’t know. Do you? I would like to know. Wouldn’t you? Do you and I agree that we have the right to know? To demand that it be informed on to us? Because this is a matter dealing with individual human wrongs, not harm to governments and those very governments are using as their template the Holocaust, the Mau Mau risings where PEOPLE not governments, received the payments. Since the governments have chosen to front their claims based on the individuals and the denial of INDIVIDUAL HUMAN RIGHTS, we, the individuals whose ancestors were wronged, have the right to be able to “smell the coffee”.
Oilman…………they will do the math and see it will be cheaper than paying out 200 billion pounds/euros/dollars, particularly when it sinks home that their grand master plan is no longer working and the new world order is now a new world flop….they will do whatever is necessary for self-preservation, it is not just cut and dried.
Amused said:
“And therefore Baffy’s statement that this reparation should also be directed to the Redlegs is unassailable. As individuals.”
___________________________________
Amused you will be hard pressed to find one redleg/irish descendant/british descendant/ british australian/ british north american who would want to sue the Europeans for reparations for the ethnic cleansing that occurred back then, as far as i am concerned it is their business among themselves and their problem, just make sure they do not try to sue Caribbean people while claiming that they are entitled to reparations from the Caribbean as some like Adrian was hinting Barbados owes them something for what their ancestors experienced. They will have to address that to the Europeans, has nothing to do with the AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.
@Well Well
I put it to you that not one of those descendants of the former enslavers has any intention on providing information or technology to reverse centuries of programming that has enabled them to be pon top.
You mentioned the New World Order and I find that interesting because in my view de New World Order still has some work to do to achieve it’s illuminati goals. What you may see as a New World flop may very well be orchestrated mayhem to allow the New World Order to really and truly emerge. Anyway that is another thesis in itself.
@Amused
To your first rebut you appear to have ventured into the hypothetical, Blacks were the ones screwed. The fact that slavery was ‘legal’ does not remove the right to challenge years later. We challenge legal positions every day.
To your second point, yes we need informed positions ‘polluting’ the public space BUT ours is a culture which has been diluted by eurocentric positions. In fact some will argue this is who we are now anyway.
When are we in this region going to realise that we as a united entity have a unique opportunity to carve out our own niche in this world and be whatever force we want to be.
GOOD NEWS:
Expect the usual objections from people who have the psychological problem of opposing anything that does not come from their own minds. Those people are sick ; ignore them.
To the question of Africans selling Africans into slavery. Those who should know better always try to twist this to suit their own flawed arguments. Away with the idiots; Off with their heads.
Life is about timing demanding reparations when times are tough is probably not the best thought out plan, but as the lawyers say there is no time like the present when I need a paycheck. Win or lose they will be paid by someone. What about the people who have moved away, what do they get?
@David. I take your points and I don’t entirely disagree with you. In fact, mostly I would tend to agree. Indeed, I would tend to agree with the law suit. However, I am convinced that it is not properly or even honestly formulated and grounded. You cannot use as your precedent class actions by individuals and cobble together something which is a class action by governments. In that lies the fatal flaw that will likely sink the action. As for the time lapse, well I would hope that would not have any bearing.
I really think I want to investigate this a bit further with a view to being constructive. I make the following propositions:
• At 2006, the population of the CARICOM countries was 16,170,353. If therefore the net reparation awarded is £200 billion (or about $700 billion) then the individual payout would be $43,289,000 EACH.
• Would this not tend to negate any lingering problems with residual “slave/colonial mentality” from the slave trade? I think it would.
• Therefore, if my proposition that such an award should be paid to the INDIVIDUAL as reparation for the slave trade and this would eradicate (almost universally) the remaining mentality, then why, may I ask, should the CARICOM governments not act as agents for the individual populations in this proposed law suit and pay them individually their shares of the award, after deducting legal expenses and charging a nominal commission as agents of, let us say, 15%? Would this not be the act of caring and FAIR governments?
Please understand, I agree with the concept of the law suit, even if I question the chances of its success. However, I do not agree with it as it is currently framed. To me, it is using one form of servitude to promote another form of servitude. Slavery was, after all, the denial of all human rights, equating human beings with horses, sheep, cows, pigs etc. It denied human beings the right of individual self-determination.
If an award is given for the claimed purposes of allowing the descendants of slaves the right to self-determination, how can that purpose possibly be achieved by making what is claimed for individuals, subject to governmental dictate/whim? It seems to me that it is the same old in principle presented in a different way. The majority watching the few enjoy their big plantation houses and the perquisites of wealth, except now it will be the majority watching the few enjoy their private planes and yachts and their palaces in Florida etc. The prosperity of the plantocracy was built on the labour of slaves, while the prosperity of these new masters will be built on the exploitation of the descendants of those slaves.
Now, I could be wrong and if so, I will be happy to have the error of my thoughts and propositions pointed out to me. I don’t guarantee that it will change my mind, but certainly it will make me re-think. After all, what is this forum about, if it is not the exchange of INDIVIDUAL views and perceptions amongst people of goodwill, which is in and of itself far more educational and assistance to breaking the mould in which we have been formed than any massive pay-in to a through masquerading as an educational resource of money that, I submit, more properly belongs in the pockets of individuals. To better their lot in life, to allow them to determine the education and upbringing and advantages of their children; but most of all, to accord them the right of self-determination and humanity and simple human dignity that was so comprehemsively denied their ancestors.
I rest.
Steupssss
…..we ALWAYS find some meaningless distraction when faced with challenging watershed periods in our history.
When we should have focused on productivity and creativity – we went for CSME……
Now this shiite ….and led by Sir Hillary of all people….when a national coalition movement for economic survival needs to be conceptualized, and when RADICAL cultural changes need to be explored, we begging people who have a history of hating us for favors which they CAN’T afford even if they wanted to help…..
Rotfl… Um is like asking the man who destroyed Paradise Beach when things were good, to save Almonds now…..
Brass bowls!
This is a big bunch of shite. Deprogramming the black man? Give me a f…ing break. Get off your collective asses and make a life for yourselves like many of us and other black men and women have done recently without any handouts or pitiful prayers for compensation.
You will get nothing from this except stress and division on how to split up imagenatory spoils. And by the way, these “payments” will come from taxes in countries that include taxes black people paid.
I also find the arguments excusing the African black role in this pathetic. Do none of you have the courage to accept this happened, or is it easier to change history like Commy, Beckles and other “intellectuals” (word used very loosely)are so good at.
Damn sheep!
@ Konkieman
Yeal it real comical fuh trute: calling for a white man to help de-program a black man. LMOA, too funny. Shows that some black people don’t think they have it within themselves to go forward, relinquishing the slave mentality in the process.
@Konkieman
Yeah it real comical fuh trute: calling for a white man to help de-program a black man. LMAO. Shows that some black people don’t think they have it within themselves to relinquish the slave mentality and move forward.