The System is Working just fine
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Category Archives: Blacks
That Multi-racial Advertisement is Dangerous to Society
Submitted by Fatimah Farah Mohammed-Ali
This Trinidad and Tobago Republic Bank “Kern and Alana’s love story” advertisement is an attack on all Black women. Most of us are already struggling to survive as single mothers. Our Black men are often absent fathers in the home which is the main cause of so many of our sons, brothers and nephews being gunned down every day with their blood soiling the streets. Every day, two and three Black men are murdered like dogs. There are few Black role models for our young sons in the home.
And on top of that, you have our young black successful men leaving and making a new home with other women. The bank advertisement shows a fatherless young man living with his granny. He works hard making a backyard garden to eat food in the kitchen. He studies hard at university. He graduates. He buys a car. And after all that sacrifice and care with his grandmother, he gets a job and wants to settle. And who does he choose to marry? Certainly not a black woman. He is too ambitious and bright for that.
Where does this situation leave the Black woman? According to a 2018 U.S. survey, black mothers are four times more likely to be single and serve as the primary breadwinners of their home, as granny is depicted in the advertisement. The headline of a nbcnews item published in 2010 reads: “Blacks struggle with 72 percent unwed mothers rate”. The article begins: “Debate is growing within and outside the black community of how to address the rising rate of unwed mothers. Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers, government statistics say — and changing that is a complex issue.”
There is a clear link shown between family structure and delinquent or gang behaviour. Children who grow up in a single-parent household headed by the mother appear to be most at risk. This finding was published in an article entitled “Black Single Female-Headed Households and their Children’s Involvement in Gangs” published in 1992. These kinds of advertisements are setting a trend and promoting a model that is destructive to the black community with a negative impact on society with respect to an increase in crime by black youths.
See Relevant Links:
https://www.facebook.com/republicbanktnt/videos/571173347999237
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THE FLUTES AND THE VISIONS
Same Script Different Cast
Submitted by Black Bear
The Covid19 Vaccine and The Slave Code Cast – Featuring Barbados
August 2021, 400+ years since the first Africans arrived in the Caribbean as enslaved men and women and nothing has changed! Absolutely nothing! Were I to superimpose the slavery period on this modern-day covid19 era it would indeed fit like a glove; the very same script is now being played out by a different cast.
Lights, cameras, action!
Black regional governments of Afro Caribbean descent aided and abetted by black trade union leaders CTSUAB, NUPW, BWU and BUT have now graced the stage and repeating well-scripted verses to entice and incentivize their countrymen and women to their possible demise – a mandatory experimental covid19 shot. Rounding up other trusting black people and negotiating their sale with the colonizers is the theme of this scene. It’s a brilliant reenactment of the 17th-century transatlantic slave trade. Transactions on the Ivory Coast of Africa? No, not this time. These transactions are being conducted in the halls of parliaments, institutions and organizations across the Caribbean region by our very own. This time they are selling their constituents not for trinkets nor pieces of glass but for money, recognition and hopefully inclusion into the inner circles of their white puppeteers. Just as the Europeans could not have gained access to our ancestors without the support of the treacherous Negros of the past, these new black sell-outs (just as gullible and malleable as their ancestors) are performing the same role and creating the pathway to our enslavement and unwittingly their own. Same script different cast.
New age African Caribbean people are now being delivered to the white business class on a platter by the black political class. “You cannot work on this plantation without a vaccine”, declares off-white slave owner Edward Clarke. These actors, local white business owners, play the same role as their ancestors before them – the slave ship captains and their murderous crews. These are folks who have been practicing for this performance all their adult lives and finally the curtains are raised and they will stop at nothing, genocide even. They have sold their souls to the devil. In the same way millions of Africans were transported across the Atlantic and delivered to the plantation owners in the West Indies, it is the same way that their descendants are now being placed at the disposal of the white-controlled WHO, UN Agencies etc. for use in ‘science’. You just cannot make this stuff up. Same script different cast.
Not to be outdone, the house Negros in their award-winning performance are castigating and reprimanding the resistant blacks while singing the praises of their masters and their ‘benevolent ‘ gifting of covid19 vaccines. Expertly cast for these roles because of their past performances, they have now become the enforcers of the new medical apartheid slave code.
Remember Stephen in Django? Well black medical professionals,totally dense black journalists and cheaply bought black radio disc jockeys, black government apologists, black idiotic comedians, black vapid social media personalities, black Human Resources managers (this group is legendary) and black representatives of tourism organizations are all starring as modern-day Stephens. They are all people of Afro Caribbean descent and their performances are rich. Many of these actors received their formal training in House Negroism in Crumpton Street, Bridgetown; phenomenal performances in scenes already filled with effective cameos and an ensemble cast working at the top of their game. It is more powerful still because they have finally been granted the kind of roles they have been worthy of for so long. This group mainly performs for an audience of one – the local slave-trader-in-chief. Best supporting role goes to apologist Redman! Same Script Different Cast.
The cast of the modern-day type 1 field slaves is extremely intelligent, brave and astute. They are not in any mood for the deceit because unlike their house cousins who eat at the feet of their masters, the field Negros are now able to identify and spot their enemy from a distance. From the bloodline of Bussa, these actors are prepared to fight for their freedom and that of their children and grandchildren to come. May God save us all if this line of defense ever crumbles. The self-loathing house Negros keep getting in the way of the fight as they advocate for the demise of the rebellious blacks by way of alienation, unemployment, vaccine passes and social exclusion. One overzealous and totally compromised Barbadian house Negro, in his weekly call-in program audition, seemed to have gotten confused with the history of the Maroons, bolted onto the stage as if on cue and shouted: “ banish the rastas to the hills”. Epic! The Willie Lynch theory is proven! After the freedom protest scene was played out by the field Negros on the streets of Bridgetown, we saw how local black media and clowns, all starring in the house Negro role (these are the master’s favourite tools) emerged to ridicule and scandalize their brothers and sisters who are on the frontline fighting for freedom. And the award goes to Eric Lewis for his brilliant performance! One extremely talented actress giving all of herself to her house negress role got her script totally mixed up and likened one leading field Negro to MalcomX. Same Script Different Cast.
Also standing in full view of the cameras are the type 2 and 3 field slaves. Like their ancestors on the yesteryear plantations of rural Barbados, St Kitts, St Vincent, Jamaica they too are paralyzed by fear and are squarely in the clutches of the stupid house Negros. These other field Negros have perfected their role on social media pleading with and trying to coerce type 1 field Negros to submit and take the jab for the good of all mankind. So serious about their roles they even encircled their faces with a ‘ I Have Had My Covid19 vaccine Stamp’. These folks have now defined themselves by the damn vaccine…they refer to it ‘my vaccine’. This movie is just off the fucking chart. The type 2 field slave true to his ancestral nature is confused, torn and delusional. He still doesn’t understand the end game. There is no returning to normal! Starring in this role is our favourite come-a-long pretend black pan Africanists and others whose stage names are Denny, Prescod and Olutoye who circle Bussa every Emancipation Day. Now type 3 field slave is terrified and has the role of the old mute Negro. He has no speaking parts for he has no courage and cannot be trusted. This role is being played by the Church leaders. Same script different cast.
The stage is set! Regional black-led development agencies are in full Oscar mode, engaging in extraordinary tactics and behaviours to persuade, coerce and force black people to take a drug that is still in its experimental stage. CARPHA and PAHO provide the film with its bruising heart and its most horrifying tragedy. In this scene they are the enforcers as were the chief house slaves of the day. Same script different cast.
The directors have even cast the indentured servants who like their ancestors are stuck in the middle. In the film, this set is not rich nor white enough to be considered valuable to their white-supremacist cousins in faraway lands. Neither are they trusted by blacks because they have spent the last 100 years trying to convince themselves of their own superiority and trying their hardest to create their local version of apartheid (well at least in Barbados). They too are squarely in the bull’s eye of their old colonial master cousin as were their direct ancestors – they too are collateral damage. Same script different cast.
The producers, directors and the screen writers operate remotely from far away in Europe, Asia and North America. The architects of the new models of the slave economy. Just like European aristocracies and monarchies of the past who divided up Africa, created, controlled and sustained the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we have the real covid19 powerhouses carefully hidden behind the cameras. These include wealthy global philanthropists, the big pharmaceutical companies, the big tech companies supported by CNN. They are capitalists with one agenda and that is the attainment of wealth and absolute power by any means necessary. Psychopaths who have absolutely no empathy for people of colour and are privileged to have the little house Negros of the region running around at their bequest. In the same way that King Leopold and his tyrannical and utterly cruel allies divided up Africa for their own gain and in their wake left 40 million Africans dead, physically sick and dismembered and emotionally and mentally broken bruised and divided………The playwright is an absolute genius. Same script different cast.
Indeed the next scene is that of full-scale medical apartheid and unless the sleeping lions awake from their slumber, history WILL repeat itself. Alas, the final scene will NOT be one in which any black man, woman or child will be cast in a leading role, least of all the prized house Negros, because white supremacists destroy their tools when they are done with them. It will be the final curtain.
It’s just a tale of same script different cast.
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THE CURSE OF INFERIORITY
Submitted by Ras Jahaziel
This inferior behaviour substantiates the claim that your were just naked savages until the white-man came and civilized you.
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WOKE-ISM AND THE WHITENESS OF CANCEL CULTURE
Submitted by Pachamama
A sign of the nature of these times is the imposition of a new etymology. Whether it is ‘woke-ism’, on the one side, or ‘cancel culture’, on the other, the willful misguidance is no less profound. “Whiteness” is generally defined as being a political construction, a fiction.
In this piece we will attempt to tease out, or even capture, an ‘ahistorical’ moment where a faux progressivism pretends to confront long-held establishment lies, wickedness – across the board.
This convergence of interests should properly be the province of academia and particularly those from the Frankfurt School of critical social theory. Unfortunately though, It has long-failed to help us rethink or reform the social critiques of Marxism, as they had promised, even as Marx gave the ‘soft touch’ to racism and slavery; has not led to the rejection of mainstream political views; its tepid criticisms of capitalism have made it no less vicious; there has been no substantive ‘liberation’ of humanoids anywhere; while domination and exploitation continue at an algorithmic pace.
Some, with rightness, may suggest that woke-ism is deeply culturally bound. Others are reticent to jettison certain unrealities. Others are entrenched in the misbelief, or fear, that there will be some meeting of the minds at a point of moderation. Yet others wrongly look to this divine age of technological innovation to deliver mankind. In reality they intend that establishment systems should only be tinkered with on the margins if at all, but never radically transformed, far less prevent the new formations of the old systems of subjugation now reemerging as more virulent manifestations of technological oppression.
It is however clear that the perceived meanings of woke-ism and ‘Whiteness’ can never comfortably coexisted. For the first is predicated on the existence of what is real, presumably, while the other is entirely based on a deep and wide culture of unreality. An unreality not based within the longer evolution of humanoids.
Those who suggested that the removal of Horatio Nelson from the top of Broad Street was an attempt to ‘cancel’ their ‘culture’ are ideologically well-connected to the Proud Boys and other White supremacist forces in the United States of America, and elsewhere. We include Black lackeys in high places, like ‘a Johnny’ Muh Boy as the quintessentially modern-day house niggers! But still, its mere removal only flirts with the symbolic. The same is true about removals from landscapes elsewhere as well.
And for the lack of historical memory, eminently demonstrated by many on the side of Black Lives Matter, prevents a better understanding of their own arguments. This requires, amongst other things, taking a hard look at the ways in which that movement has been appropriated, internally and externally, by a wide range of interests included the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America, no less. It’s a ‘crying shame’ that even the marketing and recruitment of CIA agents, as an historically racist organization, have now fully appropriated wokeness.
There was a time when ‘whiteness’ meant something entirely different. It denoted somebody who was spiritual. It had nothing to do with pigmentation or ‘pinkness’. At that time all the ‘white’ people were Black, there was nobody else around.
But etymology is a linguistic bitch. People who argue that others seek to cancel their culture are ignorantly doubling-down on all the crimes committed in the name of the political construction which is Whiteness as if seeking to eternally be in a march to war against 90% of Earth’s peoples.
When those who represent ‘Whiteness’ talk about the cancellation of culture, or the irrational moderation of just demands, a level of credibility should be brought to the table based on the real and continuing cancelling which White people and their agents have committed for millennia. In the absence of such an accounting there can be no legitimate claims to a genocidal culture still being constructed and maintained on the bones of others.
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Who in the World Respects Black People?
Submitted by JS Demba for AFRICAN HERITAGE UNIVERSE
Why pick on China?
Who in the world respects Black people?
The English? No!
The French? No!
The Americans? No!
Germans? No!
Canadians? No!
Ukrainians? No!
Australians? No!
Filipinos? No!
Russians? No!
Arabs? No!
Anyone? No!
Blacks? Certainly not!!!
Quite apart from the fact that “Black” and “White” are artificial constructs based on bogus premises and stupid stereotypes (which distort our existential authenticity as much as it does theirs) the simple truth is: all we have to do is respect ourselves. REPEAT: ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS RESPECT OURSELVES!
Respecting ourselves, truly respecting ourselves (not a stand-alone phenomenon, but one that is accompanied by self-esteem, self-belief, self-validation, self-actualization and, most importantly, self-love) is a mammoth undertaking for any people who have had a comparable history to ours. This turn of phrase is laughable for its emptiness, since no others have; not by a long shot. In short, nothing to compare! The task at hand is uniquely ours. The task at hand is two-fold. One. Demand & collect trillions of dollars in reparations from Arabia & the West for 14 centuries of material enslavement. Two. Regain our rightful minds. This task is to effect our own rebirth and cease to be what Professor Thomas has aptly termed natally alienated and morally imbecilic. Admittedly, this is no easy task. One generation of enslavement is bad enough. Fourteen centuries of inter-generational dehumanization is deadly. But rise from the dead, we must!
To every poison there is an antidote. Ours likely exists in our midst, hiding in plain sight. In fact our problem is not one of discovery but legitimization. Legit # 1: recognizing that we have a problem in the first place. Legit # 2: desiring its resolution. Legit # 3: actually taking the medicine. This is what we owe ourselves, our Ancestors and our children’s children. Yes, we owe it to ourselves! (What they owe us is trillions in reparations). It is entirely likely that a handful among us have undergone this process and effected our rebirth. Speaking personally, we know of only a few; a precious few. And, at the very top of this very short list stands such luminaries as Mirambo, Nzinga, Sandy, Rodney, Azikiwe, Kaunda, L’overture, Hypatia, Nkrumah, Lumumba, Imhotep, Toure, Shaka, Diop, Nyerere, Garvey, Zumbi dos Palmares, Jomo Kenyatta, av gbhnd, hiding in plain sight from most of our blinkered plant-African brothers and sisters, Molefe Kete Asante. Thank you Molefe and your illustrious associates for swelling our Ancestors’ chests with pride! Thank you, thank you, thank you!So, let’s not pick on the Chinese or any other group. Let us simply respect ourselves, truly respect ourselves and be the self-validating people God intended us to be. This must be the basis upon which we relate to ourselves. And this, in turn, is the only basis upon which we should countenance transactions with others; be they large or small, friendly or hostile, material or spiritual.
NM5. Ashe!
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Race Issue: Barbados and Everywhere Else
During the sitting of the Senate of 25 March 2021, Senator Rev. Dr. John A. Rogers delivered an interesting presentation. He referred to the heinous event history recorded as the Atlantic Slave Trade and its relevance to Barbados formulating fit for purpose policy to protect our future well-being in a volatile global space. The blogmaster recommends those interested in pursuing serious discussion to take the time to listen to Roger’s presentation from around 30 minutes of the video.
…it revealed that the top one percent of households globally own 43 percent of all personal wealth, while the bottom 50 percent own only one percent. That top-tier one percent amounts to 52 million people who are all millionaires in net wealth (after debt).
Top 1 percent of households own 43 percent of global wealth
In a related event this week President Joe Biden had reason to say in response to Georgia’s new suppression law that it is antithetical to who Americans aspire to be. The issue of race is not a Barbados condition, it is a human condition, a condition that has created an US versus THEM condition. It is also a zero sum condition that benefits the capitalists. When we we learn.
The blogmaster has been around the block long enough to know the divide and conquer mentality of imperfect humans based on gender, class AND race will be with us until the end of time. However, as a people we will be forced to co-opt creative approaches to mask and contain the prejudice, bigotry and yes- racism of many who will walk beside us because the establishment is vested in the system.
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Crypto Racism in Barbados EXPOSED
This video raised its ugly rh head in Barbados last evening.
The more discerning among us are aware racism and bigotry are unwelcome human characteristics present everywhere humans exist. We accept human beings are imperfect creatures. However, it does not mean when these unsavoury qualities show its ugly head that civil society should not promote relevant policies and other measures as requires to nurture tolerance and educate fellow citizens in the interest of growing a wholesome society.
The mouthings from the person in the video is the result of many things which Barbadians have known and been tardy to addressing over the years. Crypto racism has been discussed often enough in this forum- for years. It must be addressed in a structured way. Spouting balderdash is easy for some but it will take much more to excoriate the scourge of racism and bigotry that has metastasize over centuries.
#primeministermiamottley
#civilsociety
Comment for 100 marks.
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Marijuana Laws and Legal Banditry
MARIJUANA LAWS AND THE LEGAL BANDITRY that maintains The Old Slavery Status Quo of White Wealth and Black Poverty.
The Old Slavery Status Quo of White Wealth and Black Poverty long after Emancipation. Their purpose? to keep Rastas and the majority of the Black population ECONOMICALLY DESTITUTE, so that they would be forced to keep on begging for jobs
Read on – https://rastafarivisions.com/wordpress/marijuana-decriminalization/
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Lord Nelson Put to Rest
Finally the symbol of an oppressed colonial past was laid to rest. Nelson statue for years positioned at the top of Broad Street and lately in Heroes Square was removed by the Mia Mottley government on the International Day of Tolerance. History the blogmaster suspects will view this act- delayed though it was- kindly.
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“THE SLAVE IN YOUR MENTALITY” PROLOGUE TO CHAPTER 3
Submitted by Ras Jahaziel
that was purposefully designed
by white Slave-Breakers.
AFRICA has been painted with such a negative brush that for a very long time, the knowledge that you came from Africa was not a source of great pride. This shame has long plagued the mind of the African who became a Negro during the slave-breaking process. It caused the search for origins outside of Africa, because very few Negroes wanted to be linked with a place that had been covered with such shame.
Read full Text here @Ras Jahaziel – https://rastafarivisions.com/wordpress/elementor-23448/
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The Wigs of Inferiority
Submitted by Ras Jahaziel
Who will heal today’s X-Slave from the long-lasting sore of SELF-CONTEMPT that prevents him from escaping slavery’s shameful legacy of inferiority? Think about this: Slave Breakers were very skilled in the art of terrorism. They were actually the first terrorists that many Africans encountered, and they frequently used the tools of RAPE and SODOMY to completely break the spirit of the African.
Ultimately the intent of the Slave-Breaker was to strip the African of his SELF ESTEEM so that he would consent to be a life-long slave.
Also think about this: Consistent use of these tools of terrorism was designed to perpetuate lack of self esteem from generation to generation. That is why today the victims of this historical rape are quite satisfied with carrying the stamp of humiliation that is embodied in their slave names (or more accurately their Rape Names.) This long lasting PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE is also the reason why, in all parts of the globe, Black mothers are ashamed to let their heads be seen in public WITHOUT THE WIGS OF INFERIORITY.
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African Re-Defined
Lest we forget Chinua Achebe’s things fall apart, the center cannot hold, and no longer at ease. It is no longer at ease for the west to sustain the fallacies that Africa did not contribute to world civilization and or history.
The internet was described as a disruptive technology, so it is the idea of redefining and repackaging Africa. And, as Omoyele Sowore vividly described Nigeria as a construction site and that the leaders can no longer operate with an analog mindset for the 21st century.
Thus, redefining and repackaging Africa requires a disruptive delicate balancing creative act that must challenge the colonial contradictions and dismantle the old colonial indoctrination. Therefore, just as the internet was a disruptive technology, Africa needs a disruptive awakening, for the new dawn. Africa can no longer operate with the colonial mindset and contradictions in the 21st century. Consequently, Africa needs a shock therapy, a rude awakening for the 21st century, and must challenge the future.
And, until Africa tells her stories from her perspectives, her stories will always be told from other’s cloudy lenses. Africa must develop her storylines and make it appealing, if not, Africa will not be respected anywhere in the world.
However, according to Dorothy Blake Farden, Africa’s first contribution to human progress, then, was the evolution of man himself. And, as George G.M. James revealed in his book, Stolen Legacy; how Greek philosophy was stolen Egyptian philosophy. James also stated that ancient Egyptian were the first to develop a complex religious system called the Mysteries, the first system of salvation in the world, yet, the west argued that Africa did not contribute to world civilization.
All the countries with colonial imposed names should change their names to reflect the new Africa. According to Jim Rhon, whatever happens to you from age zero to eighteen, we blame your parents, however from eighteen up, we blame you. Africa is long due for redefining herself with new names and attitudes that reflect her for the 21st century.
Consequently, Chukwudi Okeke Maduno (White Magic: The Origins and Ideas of Black Mental and Cultural Colonialism) emphasized that the role Africa played in the evolution of human civilization has not been enthusiastically acknowledged, but falsified and understated by the west. Thus, we must understand the destruction of black civilization by Chancellor Williams, which led to the delimitations of Africa, her current state of despair.
Conversely, the basic factor for Africa regeneration is the awakened race-consciousness, which means that a new, and unique civilization to be added to world history, as posited by Pixley Ka Isaka Seme.
And W. E. B. DuBois prophetically stated that the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, and Africa has long been the clown of history, the football of anthropology, and the slave industry.
We must be attentive to the alarm of Carter Godwin Woodson, the mis-education of the Negros and Fela Anikulapo warnings, teacher don’t teach me nonsense, an education without interrogation.
We should remember the writings of Yosef Ben-Jochannan’s Africa the mother of western civilization, and Cheikh Anta Diop’s Africa Origin of Civilization.
And Dr. John Henrik Clarke’s famous quote on religion, anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their god, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of God. However, Africa spirituality forms the fundamental pillars of all aspects of our societies, as Joshua Maponga III also contended.
Marcus Garvey believed that all Africans in the diaspora should return to their rightful homeland — Africa. And Dr. Kwame N’Krumah proclaimed resoundingly; that the survival of Africa can only be achieved by United Africa, in his 1963 OAU speech. Likewise, Amílcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba, Samora Machel, and Frantz Fanon were strong advocates of African unity. On the other hand, Muammar Gaddafi played a significant role in the transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU). And as the head of the African Union (AU), Muammar Gaddafi was resolute that Africa’s power lies in its unity — One Africa (United States of Africa).
Bob Marley reminded us to guard against mental slavery, and the liberation of the consciousness of our mind is a must, to change the course of Africa’s history.
Nevertheless, Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao opened the French pandora box, revealing the sustainability of the French economy by the francophone African countries. While Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (PLO) eloquently urges us to seize this opportunity and make our mark as a people in this 21st Century. In essence, PLO was advising Africa not to miss this window of opportunity to make a change for the 21st century. And I preached that the way forward for the 21st century Africa is to re-define herself on the world stage and not by any foreign religious salvation.
Although most eastern and western world sees negative media depictions of Africa as a land of social, economic, and political failures, instabilities, and sufferings, Africa is a huge continent rich in natural mineral resources, human capital, and underdeveloped opportunities. Roughly 1.3 billion Africans reside on the continent, while an additional 400 million of her children live in the diaspora. What a resounding powerhouse of people!
Despite the negativities, Africa is the motherland of humanity, a continent of extraordinary beauty and endless fascination.
So far, Africa has not seen reasons to aggressively campaign to redefine, repackage herself, and sell herself to the world. These can be attributed to African leaders’ unfamiliarity with the power of imagery and public relations or the fear of retribution from the colonial interests in the status quo Africa.
However, I applaud new Africa’s consciousness and efforts in repackaging Africa. A strategy I called “Africa Re-Defined”, a new way forward for the 21st century.
And according to Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (PLO), We must refuse to be known as the Continent that never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
In this new world order, Africa cannot afford to be waiting for handouts from the east or west, Africa must start promoting herself in earnest, a move that will undoubtedly create opportunities for her many children. I have religiously preached this reasoning to Africa for over 30 years, and it is time to challenge the contradictions of the colonial interventions in Africa. And I have been a strong advocate that the way out for Africa is to create her unique marketing strategies geared towards the new world order (a media house).
Nevertheless, it is Africa’s responsibility to promote her image in the new dawn. And who can best develop Africa’s image rather than her many children scattered all over the world? These are the people I called the “ambassadors” in your backyard. However, it is necessary to use these ambassadors to promote, redefine, and repackage Africa for the new dawn. The diaspora understanding of Africa, skills, cultural know-how, personal interest, and enthusiasm uniquely position them to help facilitate and promote Africa for the new dawn. They are dedicated and have the best interest of Africa in mind, and they understand the significances of the positive image of Africa on the world stage.
Their expertise and understanding of these countries’ perceptions of Africa will clear the paths to strategize a comprehensive redefining and repackaging for Africa. Beyond all else, they understand these perceptions, can anticipate, overcome culture, tradition, life, and business style, that can help elevate the image of Africa for the new dawn.
Although many African countries have begun opting for selective eastern and western styles for tackling political, economic, and social problems, lifestyle changes have created vast African market opportunities for anyone with quality products and services. Yet, African countries refused to use these ambassadors as tools to answer these pressing progenies.
New strategies must constantly be formulated, implemented to meet the needs and demands of tomorrow’s marketplace.
However, before Africa can successfully implement the repackaging strategy, and sell herself to the world, she must undo the effects of colonialism and eliminate the residue of the colonial brainwash. Hence, Africa must first make the necessary conscious internal efforts to change and sanitize her home, while simultaneously eradicating the ruminates of colonialism, when implementing the new media strategies.
Furthermore, James Baldwin made a passing reference, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Africa is facing new dawn in world history, and must not miss the golden opportunity to change and make her mark for the 21st century.
It is better to follow even the shadow of the best than to remain content with the worst.
Here are some recommendations for the media strategy that requires some internal changes, which will help facilitate and affect the new image campaign. These suggested recommendations are not limited to only these ten: Beauty & Hair Care, Diaspora Relocation Assistance, Education, Governance, Health & Medicine, Judicial,Languages, Names, Religion and Technology — Internet Accessibility.
- Beauty & Hair Care
The African woman is the epitome of beauty, God’s best creation. However, African women need to redefine their concept of beauty in the context of Africa and self-esteem, and not from the Eurocentric perspectives. Huberta Jackson-Lowman posits that perhaps the most insidious effect of white supremacy racism has been its impact on how people of color view their physical appearance.
As a psychoanalyst, and in his book Black Skins White Masks to analyze the psychology of colonialism, Fantz Fanon examines how the colonizer internalizes colonialism and its attendant ideologies, and how colonized peoples, in turn, internalize the idea of their own inferiority and ultimately come to emulate their oppressors. Thus, racism functions as a controlling mechanism that maintains colonial relations as ‘natural’ occurrences.
After centuries of being brainwashed to believe the fairer-skinned are superior and should, therefore, be more favored, particularly if their facial features mimic Eurocentric ideals of beauty, has had a rippling effect — Fumi Fetto.
Most of the hair care products purchase and used in Africa are imported from countries such as India and China. According to Statista.com, the Asia Pacific region has the largest market for hair care in the world. And the global haircare market value amounted to about $85.5B in 2017 and is expected to grow to $102B by 2024.
Catherine Saint Louis noted that throughout the Caribbean, Africa, and in the United States, the devastating effects of skin bleaching, can be seen in the faces of women whose skin though lighter, exhibits thinning, and who are requiring dermatological treatment to deal with the destructive health effects of skin bleaching.
- Diaspora Relocation Assistance Program
When reasonable basic infrastructures are in place, many Africans in the diaspora will be incentivized to come back home — Africa, which will undoubtedly lead to knowledge and technology transfer. The proposed five-year special relocation incentives or program should include but not limited to the followings:
- Housing and personal effects
- Education
- Health
- Special Business Funding
- Tax Breaks (Business & Personal)
- SMB/SBA New Business Support Programs
- Other additional appealing incentives (country specifics)
Imagine how many Africans in the diaspora that would return with their entrepreneurial spirits, talents, know-how, to stimulate and rejuvenate the economies of the continent, coupled with the rich African cultures and people. These are the future architects of Africa’s developments, their diversities of knowledge from around the world, to be harnessed in Africa, imagine the possibilities? The improved infrastructure will also help reduce the brain drain from Africa.
Colonial Germany set a historical partner of racism and discrimination against dark-skinned people in Africa and the African diaspora, that some feel continues, unfortunately, down to this very day — Firpo W. Carr Ph.D.
- Education
Education without interrogation and intelligence is an immense progeny in Africa. For example, roughly 4% to 6% of Nigerians in the US have PhDs/Doctorate degrees, higher than any groups, and South Africa leads the continent with the highest PhDs/Doctorates. Despite all these academicians, Africa has not seen any reason to reverse the colonial imposed academic systems that failed Africa.
Why should our literacy competencies be based on foreign languages? How many countries in Europe use other languages for their literacy standards, no matter how small the country? The West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), should be abolished, it has outlived its usefulness. Each country in that council should set its own standard high school examination, independent of other countries.
History of Africa should be taught from elementary to the university level, particularly the effects of slavery, colonialism, and corruption. Courses on corruption and its effects on the continent should be offered and emphasized from kindergarten to university levels. Why study the geography of North America, and not study the geography of North Africa in our school system? Unfortunately, and likewise, most Africans are not taught the history of their country or Africa. Instead, they study and glorify the history of Europe, while neglecting their history.
More degrees should be offered for African history and languages, instead of degrees in English, French, and other worthless languages without added impact or significance to the development of Africa. Practical vocational and technical institutions should be developed, rather than theoretical academics. Africa should be proud of her diversity of languages, and they can be harness for open source software and apps developments that will facilitate technology development within the continent.
- Governance
Plato warned that the punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of bad men. All political power is inherent in the people, and accountability is the core of any democratic system, which is based on elected officials working on behalf of the people — their constituents. Africans deserve better. Africa has enormous natural resources, and human capital unparalleled to other continents. Foreign forms of governance are not conducive for Africa, they do not put our cultural settings and values into consideration, likewise they are not sustainable. How can small countries like Malawi, The Gambia, Eritrea, Togo, Kingdom of Lethoso, Swaziland and Benin support a democratic or parliamentarian system of governance?
What Africa needs are officials, both elected and appointed, who are dedicated and accountable to the citizens they are required to serve by law. According to Peter Obi, a former governor in Nigeria stated: what the society allowed them (politicians) to abuse today will take revenge on us tomorrow. Accountability has the potential to transform government and put political power back in the hands of masses — not politicians. Thus, wise men who refuse to do anything, suffer under the rules of idiots. If all Africans determine to hold their public officials accountable, Africa will be a prosperous, peaceful, and harmonious continent.
It is time for change in governance in Africa, hold elected officials accountable to transform government, and put power back in the hands of people.
- Health and Medicine
Africa should have eradicated malaria, sickle cell, and tuberculosis from the continent by now, instead of waiting to the east or west. According to the World Malaria Report 2019,sub-Saharan Africa accounted for approximately 93% of all malaria cases and 94% of deaths in 2018. More than two-thirds of deaths were among children under the age of five. The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the number of deaths caused by malaria in sub-Saharan Africa could double to 769,000 in 2020.
Africa must understand that the east or west is mainly interested in diseases that affect their race and continent. Africa should question their medical interventions or interests in Africa, because of their history for medical abuse and neglect. We cannot forget the famous syphilis research experimentation on African Americans and in Guatemala; because their goals are for their safety and profits.
Africa must develop her pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing facilities for security reasons and stop depending on the west or east for medicines. Instead, Africa should also encourage and harmonized standards for herbal medicines within the countries and across the continent. We have all the natural cures and remedies to cure Africa and beyond.
- Judicial
The imposed judicial system is not conducive to the African cultural systems. The old fashion judicial wigs and gowns have out grown their usefulness. It is time for change and the change is now. Our judicial gowns or representations should reflect Africa and not the colonial intervention. The whole judicial systems should be reformed to reflect Africa, not Spain, England, America, or France. However, we can harness the best parts and incorporated them with our cultural settings. Africa needs a reformed judicial system to reflect 21st century Africa.
- Languages
Research and studies indicated that the mother tongue (thinking language) is the best instructional language, an enabler that facilitates better learning, understanding, and transfer of knowledge. Colonial languages should be phased out and no longer used as the standard to measure literacy in Africa. Africa should be proud of her diversity of languages.
Africa should use major languages of their country as the instructional language; however, they should also teach other major languages alongside the instructional language of the locality. The colonial languages should be an elective, if at all offered. This will finally lead to developing a new lingua franca for the country, just like Sawhili is used in eastern and southern Africa.
Language is not inherent in humans; it is a learned process. We can develop a new lingua franca for Africa to facilitate commerce, development, and harmony.
- Names
Places such as Victoria Falls, which the people call Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders on the Zambezi River at the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and likewise Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria. When and how did Victoria own lakes and islands in Africa? They ought to be reverted to their original African names.
Are there any islands or falls in the colonial countries named or called by African names? Africa needs redirection of her thinking, mindset, and should free herself from the destructive colonial mentality.
Africa ought and must erase all the colonial indoctrination from her psyche to forge a new beginning for the 21st century. Africa should think and must think like leaders rather than have the enclosure of the mindset, names like Nollywood should be changed as well. Nigerian movies industry should be a leader and not a follower of Hollywood. Every European country name their movies industry their own creation, yet for Nigeria movie industry to be relevant, it has to associated or align with Hollywood by naming her movie industry “Nolly-wood”. What a disgrace? Leaders always behave like leaders; Africa should develop the leadership mentality or mindset in all its endeavors for the new dawn.
- Religion
If foreign religions are the answers to Africa’s colonialization challenges, then what are the questions? How are foreign religious salvations relevant to the answers to the questions of colonialism, social issues, instabilities, economic and political failures in Africa?
We are children of superior religions and Gods. Thus, Africa should develop their indigenous religions, package it, and sell it to the world like other religions. We should export our superior Gods to the world, instead of worshipping imported religions or gods. Why settle for foreign gods in our land?
If these foreign religions offered a better place other than this earth as they claimed, how come the so-called religious leaders have not gone there to get a better life? This absolute brainwash of the foreign religions, the opium of the poor, failed Africa.
Every group of people should worship the Gods of their imaginations and representations. After all, God is an exaggeration worship of the cultural self. The Bible or Torah and the Quran is a collection of religiously authoritative texts or books, a documentary hypothesis. After all, every religion is about morality and ethics, an elaborate system of worship and levels of discipline which imposed dos and don’ts on the activities of humanity concerning nature. Religions are different roads converging upon the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads so long we reach the same point — The words of Gandhi. Africa has superior religions and Gods, worship your Gods, and be content.
- Technology — Internet Accessibility
Internet accessibility and affordability should be a human right in Africa. Internet technology is a game changer and should be deplored in all aspects of life on the continent. The 21st century is a knowledge-based society or economy and is no longer limited to any geographical area. However, affordability and accessibility are the keys to develop and harness the full potential of the technologies.
Internet cost is far too expensive in Africa, Nigeria has the highest cost for accessibility in the world. The high cost limits people’s ability to harness the power of internet technology possibilities. Make Internet more accessible, affordable and open to accelerate development, says New World Bank Report. Why outsource our technological needs to India, if the cost of housing the technology is made affordable and reliable? Imagine the number of jobs it will create on the continent? Affordable high-speed connectivity facilitates and accelerates business development, innovation, expansion, e-commerce, it creates wealth and new opportunities by attracting businesses that want to relocate to areas with a strong and connectivity presence.
The future is creativity, innovation, and technology. Why has Africa not developed her social media apps or platform to rival Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Tiktok? Africa should innovate, develop, support, and buy technologies made in Africa.
The ultimate goal of the redefining strategy is to create, own, and operate a continental (African) media house. We recommend all African countries to contribute a minimum of half a billion dollars towards the creation of the continental media house that will rival CNN, RT, France24, and Al Jazeera.
The personnel should include Africans, African Americans, and Afro Brazilians media gurus, with the HQ located in any African country, and housed in the US and Brazil, with branches all over the world. We also advocate a name from any African linguistics, meaning Truth or Telling Our Stories. This media house will tell the world our stories and to correct any negativities about Africa.
Linguistic diversities define Africa as one of the most linguistically diverse continents. It has roughly estimated 2,000 different spoken languages, divided into four major categories which include: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Khoe. I am very confident that we can formulate or create a name from those 2,000 languages for the media house. Hence, we do not need any foreign names for the media house.
We are gods in the body of God, truth and love our destinies. Go then and make of the world something beautiful, set up a light in the darkness — Awakening Osiris; The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Normandi Ellis.
In conclusion, will Africa ever rise again? Yes, there has to be a re-thinking and re-birth, only when she becomes Africa all over again, The New Africa of the 21st century. Thus, the world is changing; Africa must change her thinking, and think anew, act anew.
God Bless Africa!
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Religiosity and Failed African States
The greatest tragedy of all African states is the introduction of foreign gods and languages, cemented by tribes, decimated by education without interrogation or intelligence.
Welcome to Africa, the new Africans, our world, our opportunities.
Before the advent of foreign intrusion into Africa, African societies have their concept of Supreme Being or High God, which is generally held to be the creator of the world (Lord of the universe) and the source of all powers operating it. African Gods are usually associated with particular cultures and tribes with an elaborate system of worship, ethics, morals, and levels of discipline which imposed dos and don’ts on the activities of humanity concerning nature.
Africans worshipped our Gods in harmony with our neighbours. There were no levels of superiority or rivalry between our Gods. Africans respected each other’s Gods despite their tribes, cultural spaces, and intellectual differences. Africa was a borderless state, yet a big family of people with no defined boundaries and many Gods.
In the past, Africans were capable of learning to attribute meanings to her surroundings and situations, drawn from her religious resources (our original Gods). Africa’s spirituality forms the fundamental pillars of all aspects of African societies.
The spirit of Godliness is within us, and we are the temple of God. Hence, no one can give Africa their Gods, because the essence of God is in all of us ⎯ humans. And, according to a Ghana proverb, no one teaches the child to know God, and the consciousness of God is deemed inherent in the child from birth. Thus, Africa did not need foreign religions or gods to be spiritual or Godly. Africa was the quintessence of Godliness and the glory of all Gods manifested in Africa.
However, the arrival of foreign incursion changed everything, and it disrupted our Gods, cultures, languages, and cultural spaces. Although there is no right or wrong culture, every culture has its logic of philosophy guiding it. Africans operated in other dimensions of realities that have parallelism to our cosmologies and mythologies that continued to dictate behaviors in our societies.
African culture is not an accident or trivial, it is not decorative, or the songs they sing as the west contended but culture is about the body of moral and ethical values place on each human being lies in each of us.
Thus, cultural diversity is not an academic pursuit, it is the fundamental indications of the ways things are meant to be. Hence, our culture guided us in harmony with our neighbours concerning our religions and languages with man-for-nature or eco-centric acclimatization mentality.
Africans were later cursed, brainwashed and indoctrinated with foreign religions to believe that they were people of inferior Gods and languages. And the only gods and languages Africans should value and respect were theirs. Thus, Africans guiltily resented her Gods and languages along with their meaningful names; it became shameful and tormented. Africa’s identities were compressed, polluted, and converted, and it became fashionable to acquire the colonial master’s attitudes and ways of life, particularly their gods.
And anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their god, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of the God — Dr. John Henrik Clarke.
On behold to the Africans that they signed their death warrant to foreign inferior gods at the detriment of our superior Gods. African Gods were devalued, relegated to the bottom while they introduced their gods in their image, and elevated their gods above ours, what a tragedy of faith.
You may westernize me, but my God, do not Christianize me — Jerry Rawlings, former president of Ghana.
Foreign religions were used to dominate, manipulate, and oppress Africans. They were the subtle key elements in masking class and race superiority. This foreign religion manipulation was vividly evident in the use of the Slave Bible to push a message of servitude to enslaved Africans.
British colonists created the Slave Bible, a truncated version of the bible, by removing portions, and in some cases, entire books out from it for the fear that it would encourage insurgence among enslaved Africans. On average, a typical standard Bible edition (Roman Catholic-66 books, Protestant-77 books & Eastern Orthodox-78 books), contains roughly 72.3 books while the Slave Bible contains only 14 books, an approximately 81% reduction. The Slave Bible was published in London in 1807 and used by British missionaries to convert and manipulate enslaved Africans about Christianity while inculcating obedience and safeguarding the slavery institutions throughout their colonies.
The Slave Bible is the openly recorded history of abuse and manipulation of religion in the modern era. It provides insight into how the Slave Bible performed a vital role in race relations (racism), discrimination, and economic gains.
Unfortunately, Africans are so embedded in these foreign religions that they failed to understand their discriminatory, chauvinistic, and detrimental nature. Thus, Africans refused to develop, refine, make our Gods palatable, and sell it to the world like other religions.
Today in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, they are doomed to the forces of foreign gods; Christians against Muslims, fighting over religious hypothesis, an abstraction of ideas. Currently, in Nigeria, ninety-nine percent worship foreign gods, only one percent worship their original Gods. Nigeria is not the only country in Africa susceptible or prone to this religious calamity and malady.
Africans are prisoners of sorrows and lamentations. They have relegated what they should do to God when God is an exaggerated worship of the cultural self. God is as the wind, which touches everything. Africans failed to conquer, master, and nurture their natural environments. Instead, they solely rely on divine intervention in their survival.
The Bible and the Quran is a collection of religiously authoritative texts or books, a documentary hypothesis. A hypothesis is an assumption or concession for an unexplained occurrence that does not fit into current accepted scientific theory. In other words, the hypothesis implies insufficient evidence to provide more than a tentative explanation.
Religion has no place in any business equation. In Africa today, research and development along with common sense have been relegated to divine intervention. Africans must understand that religion is about morality and ethics, while science is about the natural order of things or nature.
Hence, religion and science are mutually exclusive. Likewise, wishes and hopes are not business strategies, while denial is not a life strategy. Religions can hardly fit into the generalized theoretical categories employed by social scientists, a contestable character of religions.
Africans are slaves to their colonial masters who govern them, and the religions they gave them, manages their conscience. Hence, Africans will continue to be under the control of their colonial master’s bondage.
The danger to the development of Africa is in the hands of the so-called educated Africans, education without interrogation. They are the architects of Africa’s failures due to their religious zealousness. Even though we are defined by courage and redeemed by character rather than religion, Africans tend to be more religious than the foreigners that introduced these doctrines to them. They have no common sense approach to religion and development.
Africa is the only continent where we do not value and worship our Gods. Research and studies indicated that the mother tongue (thinking language) is the best instructional language, an enabler that facilitates better learning, understanding, and transfer of knowledge. Africa is the single continent where we use foreign languages as lingua franca, both in our institutions of learning and business.
Yet, Africans cherished the inviolability of language, because the most fundamental aspect of human identity is their language and name, a foundational part of the conscious self. Hence, Africans considered our names with meanings as a powerful concept of self-identity, and self-esteem which should be honoured.
The energies and creativities Africans infused to foster foreign religions, and languages, if channelled to develop African Gods and languages, it will catapult Africa to the pinnacle of developments. And, Africans will be respected around the world. This creative tenaciousness will also lead to further developments within the continent, particularly in Nigeria.
According to Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Benin, and Togo proverb, until the lion tells the story of the hunt, the tales always glorify the hunter.
Until Africans develop and make their Gods palatable, think, and teach in their mother tongues, speak in one voice, break the border barriers both mentally and physically, Africans will never have peace or harmony, not anytime soon.
In Africa, what is logical is not practical, while what is practical is not right. Whichever is right, is not ethical, and ethical things are not desired. And the desire is not logical. Africans like innovative things, without been innovating, and things that require efforts without putting in any efforts. Unfortunately, Africans have become feeble-minded and lazy thinkers. That is the state of Africans and Africa affairs.
Why are African leaders consumed with power, prestige, pomposity, popularity, and property?
Africans have the “enclosure of the mind” syndrome, in other words, inferiority complex. Africa always embraces detrimental foreign solutions to Africa’s problems, instead of the solutions for Africa by the Africans and for the Africans.
Africa must ostracize the ghost of low self-esteem from their consciousness, return to their original Gods, use their languages for learning, and lingua franca. Until when that sanitization takes place, Africa is going nowhere anytime soon in their developments.
Leadership is the center of the effective utilization of resources. The true essence of leadership is personal conquest, discovery, and self-esteem. And the first duty of any leader is to create more effective leaders, and a true leader is successful when their successor succeeds.
Are African leaders creating more effective leaders?
Leadership is about serving, sacrificing, and seeking the best for their people. African leaders or people in leadership positions should show selfless leadership by example. If not, the world will once again leave Africa behind in the process of development. Hence, Africa needs selfless leaders, soldiers of truth, and promise keepers.
How many African leaders are about the service of their people, or are African politicians truthful about their governance intent?
While the sleeping giant of Africa is busy sleeping, other countries are busy working on developing their economies. Instead, they are religiously praying for the foreign gods to rescue them from greediness, selfishness, and ignorance. A country where the primary mission of their politicians is to amass wealth and undeviatingly abuse their position of power with impunity, and where greed runs in the veins of its citizens, instead of rectifying their situation, they are busy praying for salvation.
As an alternative to building factories and businesses, Nigerians are busy building churches and mosques, instead of paying taxes, they are religiously paying tithes. Their pastors are getting fatter while the congregation is getting leaner by religious manipulation and deceit.
A religion where your salvation is directly proportional to the number and amounts of your tithes, along with other contributions. A religion where salvation is on sale. What a religion!
Rather than take a diligent, constructive, creative, practical, and empirical approach to rectify their appalling situations, Nigerians rely on the efficacy of prayers, fasting, and are religiously waiting for their foreign gods to change their horrendous circumstances while languishing in sorrows.
The devastating influence of foreign religions on the African’s psyche in individual conscience and social life reveals that 85% of Nigerians trust religious leaders, and a similar percentage are willing to allocate them more power. Yet these religious leaders are greedy, selfish, materialistic, ignorant, and manipulating as the politicians.
The greediness of Africans would not allow them to consider the next person, yet they expect God’s blessings. Africa has greedy, selfish, and ignorant people, which elucidates greedy, selfish, materialistic, and ignorant leaders. Where the rich, are deluded by their precipitous audacity of impunity, and oblivious to the misery of the masses.
Are Africans not the leaders they want their leaders to be?
Yet, they keep praying for change. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome, that is not the law of nature, and there is no divine intervention that will change that outcome.
Africa turns to foreign religions and gods for salvation, while religious salvation is more important to Africa than research and development. Africa’s salvation is in the hands of Africans, and will only come from the African Gods. No foreign religions or gods will deliver any salvation to Africa.
While Africa is still trying to recuperate from its past colonial misery, sadly, there is a new wave of re-colonialization in the making, called China, in the form of elephant projects that are doomed to fail.
Very soon, Africans will start seeking Chinese gods and goddesses to worship even though 90% of Chinese classified themselves as non-religious. It will be surprising if this is not already happening. Africans will once again neglect their original Gods for other foreign gods and goddesses from the far east.
The world is changing, Africa must change her thinking if she excepts any change in her state of affairs. Africa will never return to its past glory until there is a total transformation of her mindset.
Africa, one continent, many worlds, prisoners to foreign religions and languages, while neglecting their Gods with a refusal to develop their languages or Gods. Africans have adopted Willie Lynch’s making the slave mentality, and are perpetuating it very well.
In the essence of the religious argument that religion is the opium of the poor, typifies the current state of Africa affairs, and Africa must remove that mentality from her consciousness.
Africans must believe and have the dignity that they are capable of being great because they are Great. Africans must change their mindsets because that is where most of the problem lies. Unfortunately, the truth is as hard as adamant and tender as a blossom. African religiosity and divinities should be homegrown ⎯ Africa, no foreign religion will save Africa, but African Gods.
Africans are intoxicated, constipated, and religiously obsessed with foreign religions that Africans have ignored the social issues that changed the dynamics of Africa’s affairs. Likewise, Africa runs on borrowed foreign religions and gods; hence Africa must be re-introduced back to its original Gods for repentance, purification, and forgiveness.
While Africa is religiously praying to foreign gods and waiting for salvation, their colonial masters are once again busy with their think tanks on how to re-colonize Africa again.
Africa will not change until Africa finds African solutions to Africa’s challenges, through African Gods, languages, and ingenuities. The time is right for the change, and Africa must seize this opportunity to make the necessary changes. However, changes must take place in the minds and hearts of Africa to affect the change.
What has Africa contributed in the past sixty years to profoundly change the world in medicine, technology, or science, rather than raw materials without added value?
Africa is a blessed continent and should use her diversity as intellectual diversity. However, once the engine of development starts, there is no limit to the power it can generate. If only all the natural resources are still available for development and for Africa to eliminate the spiritualism for foreign salvation from her consciousness.
If Africa wants to command her dignity on the world stage, Africa must regain its Africanity through the deep-rooted practices of the cultural self, integrity, and dignity, which was lost through the colonial encounters. Hence, it is time for her to start acting accordingly, and the time is now.
And according to Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (PLO), We must refuse to be known as the Continent that never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity; let us seize this opportunity and make our mark as a people in this 21st Century.
Africa must wake up to the new realities of our world and protect her opportunities. And for the change to occur, Africa must have a knowing, curious, and informed mind of the new realities of her surroundings. Africa must understand other’s ways of thinking and learn to deal with them as equal stakeholders, not as beggars, but as equals.
Then, we will see the beauty in the gloom, and when glee replaces wailing in Africa, the motherland of humanity. Consequently, Africa will eventually take her rightful leadership position on the world stage.
We are gods in the body of God, truth and love our destinies. Go then and make of the world something beautiful, set up a light in the darkness — Awakening Osiris; The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Finally, the key test for Africa is whether or not she is self-correcting. And for Africa to be self-correcting, Africa must first be open and truthful about herself. The voice of truth is easily known, and credibility is earned through action, polished by words and knowledge.
In conclusion, is Africa open and truthful about herself?
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An Angry Black Man
How does it make you feel that already one man can boast that he has the biggest solar energy operation in Barbados? Obviously it is his intention to replace the generation department of Barbados Light and Power.
It is only the sun and a few pieces of hardware and this is what it has to be?
How does this make you feel as a Bajan, black, white or Indian? (BU’s emphasis)
Every opportunity the same people feature. I am really worried this. While some of us are hurting and frustrated by the circumstances of our country, you mean we can have an elite that is getting on with securing their succeeding generations?
These thing don’t bother you, they don’t anger and demoralised you?
I have been crying out about this all year, only to hear Bizzy William’s boasting about his latest economic coup. He did it with desalination and sea water, now he is doing it with the sun, Jesus.
What will be our end?
Can see we are heading for a major political fall out over this. That I should have to rent my roof to some body to get solar power? Or for expats to turn up as investors. This model is wrong and it is time to speak up. Gov’t needs to revisit its policies as it relates to renewable energy and economic empowerment. Years ago the sugar industry was restructured but the white people were allowed to cut off the plantation houses and yard, and rent the lands to BAMC. Everything we do in Barbados, white people get the cream.
When is this all going to end man?
It is making me angry and frustrated man. And black Gov’ts always?
Everton’s comment is interesting because it highlights how Blacks in Barbados – for whatever reason – are grasping the opportunity to create wealth in an emerging new economy.
Who are the key players in the renewable sector as Everton observes?
COVID 19 has fast tracked movement of financial transactions to the online world, who are the key players in the electronic transactions space?
Who are the key players in technology and telecommunications in Barbados?
The time has come for ALL Barbadians to advocate for policies from our leaders that will unleash economic empowerment with equitable distribution in mind. We are an educated people, let us behave like it. Blacks resorting to blaming the problem will not help, blaming successful Whites and other minority players will not solve the problem. Can you guess who must solve the problem? WE must solve the problem if we want to create an equitable society.
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PHARTFORD FILES: Of Covid-19 Contact Tracing Registers and African Embassies
Submitted by Ironside
Someone needs to help me understand why Nature’s Discount has a Covid-19 Contact Tracing Register in its stores. Help me find the Government announcement that proclaimed this!
There are at least two Nature’s Discount stores I am aware of where this contact register appears. You must sign before you enter the store! Some stupid people obviously have done so and their names are there for the next signatory to see! Don’t take my word for it. Here are two images that have been acquired. One from the Dome Mall store and one from the Sky Mall store.
Does Mr. Nicholas Kelly….excuse me: Dr. Nicholas Kelly think black Bajans- well, ALL black Bajans – are that stupid? Orrrrrrrr! Is it that the recent “victory” over Representative Prescod has emboldened the White Shadows League?
Peoples, there is no covid-19 protocol that makes it MANDATORY for ANYONE to give out your contact details BY ANY METHOD on entering a store! What Nature’s Discount is doing is illegal! Where is the Covid-19 Monitoring Unit? Where is the Minister of Trade and Commerce or whatever? Where is the Fair Trading Commission? Where are the policemen for that matter?
Using Covid-19 as a pretext to develop a direct marketing database is to say the least, unethical! What happened to our Data Protection Act?
My advice to anyone who signed his or her name in Nature’s Discount log is this: if you see any marketing messages / direct mail coming from Nature’s Discount, report it to Fair Trading Commission – and the Police! Better still, if you have any guts at all, go back to the store and BLACK OUT your name from the list!
OR… just BLACK OUT Nature’s Discount!
New Barbados Embassy
Yesterday, according to Barbados Today, Minister Bostic announced that Barbados will be opening an embassy in Ghana. Yep, that is the country where those African nurses “ah come from”!
Let’s unpack this. This country is in dire straits financially; NIS has been overrun, people’s salaries have been affectively cut via BOSS and we are going to open an embassy in Ghana? With one planned for Kenya in the near future?
There has got to be a lot more than “acknowledged…cultural and historical bonds between Barbados and the African continent” to justify opening an embassy at this time.
Tell me there is legit business to be obtained from Africa and that on the basis of COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS, the Government expects to gain more than what it will spend on embassies.
There are other ways to implement diplomatic representation other than by a full embassy, for example, a High Commission, a Consulate. Have these other options been explored? An embassy means renting premises, more or less permanent staff, frequent travel etc. From whence are the funds to support this? Justify this!
If the Government is trying to get Barbadians angry they are doing “excellent” as my mother-in-law would say!
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Caribbean Scholars Renew Reparations Call
Submitted by Don Rojas
Scholars from the Caribbean recently renewed their call for reparations in recompense for hundreds of years of native genocide and enslavement in the region. The calls were made during a recent virtual symposium to honour the life and work of St. Lucian Nobel Laureate Sir William Arthur Lewis…
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Sir Hilary Beckles Raises His Voice on Reparations and Juneteenth
The following two media releases were sent to Barbados Underground – David, Blogmaster
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Minister John King is Wrong
Submitted by Tee White (article submitted to the Nation newspaper)
Dear Editor
I was shocked to read your article in the Nation of 18 June, which reported that Minister of Culture, John King, is opposed to ‘dumping Nelson’.
Mr King is, of course, right that everybody can form their own personal opinions about any issue, including that of racism. However, the problem is that as Minister of Culture, he represents the people of Barbados. How would it reflect on our country if in international meetings he is defending the maintenance of statues glorifying racists and mass murderers even as countries all over the world are removing these offensive objects from the public space?
Mr King says that he has been reading the cabinet papers from previous discussions of this matter but demonstrates a shocking lack of understanding of the issue. I will pass without comment his preposterous statement that removing symbols that glorify racism, such as Nelson’s statue, amounts to visiting the horrors of chattel slavery on others. He appears to think that taking a stand against racism amounts to excluding non-Africans from the history of Barbados. According to this logic, every Bajan of non-African descent supports anti-African racism and the glorification of its architects. This is a terrible insult to those Bajans of non-African descent who strongly oppose racism and also demand the removal of statues and monuments that glorify it. Is John King not aware that the earliest rebellions in Barbados saw enslaved Africans and indentured Irish people fighting together against the oppressive powers of that time? Does he not see across the whole globe that millions of people of all nationalities and colours are taking a united stand against racism, and those who seek to glorify it?
The thing is that the foundation of racism, upon which modern Barbados was established, cannot be incorporated into any new Barbados in which we simply see each other as human beings because racism is opposed exactly to this concept and insists on categorising people into superior and inferior groups. That is why today, people are demanding that racism has no place in the modern world. You cannot defend racism and its symbols and at the same time claim to be against it. Would anyone take Germany seriously if it claimed to be against Nazism while maintaining statues and other monuments glorifying Hitler and the other leaders of the Nazi regime?
I wonder if Mr King’s comments about the parliament building, the wharf and elsewhere are serious comments. If they are, he really does have no understanding of this issue. Wasn’t Barbados itself around during slavery and playing a part in it? What are we to do with it? Throw it in the sea? The demand is very clear. Statues and monuments are some of the ways in which society honours individuals from the past. Those that glorify racists and people involved in the commission of crimes against humanity should be taken down from the public space because they are a statement that the society honours racism and crimes against humanity in the here and now.
There are, of course, many other issues in Barbados that need to be addressed in order to build a new and inclusive society that works for all Barbadians. However, we will make no headway with these if we are unable to confront and overcome the monster of racism that still disfigures our island. The taking down of Nelson is a small step in this effort.
On this issue, Minister King is quite simply wrong.
Read Minister John King’s article published in the Nation newspaper 18 June 2020
King not on board with dumping Nelson
MINISTER OF CULTURE John King is not in support of the wholesale removal of Lord Nelson’s statue in The City.
He told the media yesterday his opinions on Nelson and race on the whole were personal and he would stick by them, even if they cost him.
“There are a number of papers I am now studying, from about 2009, on discussions various Cabinets would have had on this issue, but on a personal note – and I know what I am about to say is going to upset a lot of people – I would agree that if you’re talking about Heroes Square,there are validations to the varied opinions. But I will not – and it could cost me everything – be a part or party of trying to do to others what we say has been done to us,” he said.
Calls for the removal of the statue were made again during last Saturday’s protest march through Bridgetown in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United Sates and across the world.
King said he did not believe in “stripping down everything and throwing it away”, saying there was a history before slavery and it was now time for a new mindset.
“If you are saying that during enslavement and the colonisation process, that our history, culture and way of life were wiped out and we came into places like the Americas as minorities, why would you now turn around and advocate to do the same thing to somebody else? The discussion we should be having is, if we want to remove this statue, where do we put it?
“How do we recognise the collective history of Barbados is not relegated solely to Barbadians of Afro descent? How do we also incorporate the history of the indigenous people who were here [first]? How do you incorporate
all of the groups that make up Barbados? Let us look at these things for what they are and use them to inspire ourselves to change our prejudices and look at each other as human beings,” he urged.
King said the Parliament Buildings
and the Wharf were around during slavery and played a part in it, asking if those too should be thrown away. He said the Nelson statue should be utilised to the advantage of Barbados while not disadvantaging anyone.
As for the Black Lives Matter movement, King, who as a calypsonian and Pic-O-De-Crop monarch performed social commentaries such as
Fool’s Paradise, How Many More? and I Want A Plantation, said he was accustomed to speaking out against social injustice on his own and would only join any group if and when he felt it necessary.
“I’ve always been advocating against racism, as an entertainer performing overseas and from growing up in England, so I know it well. What is going on in the Unites States has been going on for eons but it is now easier to see due to social media.
“[However] there are other issues right here I don’t hear people talking about, issues some people don’t want to protest, such as classism, which is also a knee on people’s necks. We need to talk about the violence in our own communities . . . and I don’t hear anyone talking about the history of the people we call ‘red legs’ in St John. I hope our future generations find themselves in a different place,” he said.
(CA)
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If YOU Are Black, YOUR Name is George Floyd
Submitted by The Mahogany Coconut Group
As Black progressives and other informed, enlightened citizens, seek to identify with the George Floyd protests in America, it is becoming embarrassingly clear that the region’s educational systems, have failed to explain the importance of the historical connection between Afro America and the Afro Caribbean.
The MCG, unapologetically, aligns with all those people and individual countries, who are actively protesting the brutal public execution of Afro American George Floyd. Those who believe that this should be of no concern to the region, are to be forgiven for it is really not their failure but the societies from which they come, that have refused to enlighten them.
We cannot be diplomatic, and sugar coated, on this sordid or any other issue that seeks to justify and defend, the continued murder of Black Americans by those who are supposed to execute and defend the law. We are at one with the Trinidad and Tobago calypsonian, the Mighty Stalin, who in one of his vintage calypsos stated: “We took the same ship on the same trip.”
The collective failure of the region’s educational system, to have comprehensive Black history taught from the primary school onwards, must carry a tremendous amount of blame for how we see ourselves physically and mentally. Should we remain in this barren state, we would never understand why, due perhaps only to pure historical fate, that George Floyd could have been any Afro Caribbean man, in another time and place.
We go further and predict that if we don’t teach our current and future generations about the historical ties and connections we have with our Afro American brothers and sisters, history would repeat itself in a different form but with more dire, brutally destructive consequences.
The MCG therefore joins with all protests and protesters from all countries, racial and ethnic groups, in expressing sincere condolences to the family of George Floyd and all those who are left to grieve because of his brutal inhumane murder.
William Skinner, Information Officer, MCG
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Black Lives Matter – Part 2
Submitted by Grenville Phillips II
Black persons in the US can be sorted into three main groups. Caribbean immigrants, African immigrants, and the American descendants of enslaved people.
While all of them can claim to be victims of colour discrimination, only the American descendants of enslaved people, are owed reparations from the US government. It is that group that is normally pushed aside by other groups, as those groups clamour for the attention of US politicians.
Are Caribbean descendants of enslaved people owed reparations. Of course, and we received those reparations at our Independence. What we chose to do with them is our responsibility.
We received entire islands, including their infrastructure and institutions. But our leaders betrayed our trust and burdened us with unnecessarily high taxes and debt.
Our leaders taxed us to live on our own land, which was already paid for by the blood of our enslaved fore parents. They also instituted corrupting no-bid contracts, where taxpayers may pay between two to five times what a contract is actually worth. But these problems can be solved by voting for better persons.
Black Americans have yet to receive their reparations. Instead, they get to see other people redefine their issues to benefit themselves. They get to see Caribbean and African immigrants claim the US slavery existence as their own, as they lobby US politicians to give them reparations, to which they are not entitled.
They get to see Caribbean and African immigrants displace them in affirmative action places at schools and jobs. They get to see their community leaders receiving trinkets, to keep them voting for the Democratic Party.
Democratic Party governors and mayors have been implementing Democratic policies, without resistance, for decades. Yet, black Americans in those cities have remained at the bottom for generations – poor and hopeful.
Democratic policies have been proven not to work for black Americans. Yet, Caribbean and African immigrants are trying to shame black Americans, into continuing to support a party that has consistently failed them.
There is finally some momentum to getting the US to pay the debt owed to black Americans. Not with talk, but with permanent action. By some cosmic comedy, Trump appears to be the President who has done more for black Americans than any other president since Lincon – by any relevant measure (see Part 1 for details).
There will be a reckoning for Caribbean and African immigrants, whose activism on behalf of the Democratic Party, has held back most of their black American cousins, from prospering in the US economy.
If they trapped generations of black Americans in poverty in ignorance, then they need to repent. If they promoted proven failed Democratic policies, to selfishly take what rightfully belongs to their American cousins, then the only black lives that seem to matter to them, are their own.
Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados. He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com
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Lack of ‘Exposure’ Creates Vacuum for Some Barbadians in the Black History Debate
Submitted as a comment by Lyall to the Open Letter to Prime Minster Mottley and Minister King
Captain Hutt taught me History at HC. I was therefore someone who learnt that history from the viewpoint of the English teacher class, by rote. For many years I had no need to check the truth or otherwise of what I had been taught, as History played a miniscule part in my life until the Sir George William’s / Concordia University fire in Montreal and the activities that led up to it. I later on visited Ghana where I saw first hand the places and trails where my African ancestors were caught and enslaved and then shipped under unspeakable conditions along the Middle Passage to Barbados. I also spent some time in Hull, England, another hub of the Slave trade, where racism was palpable even just 20 years ago.
These experiences forced me to progressively reevaluate Black History and, after an initial cognitive dissonance, accept that chattel slavery and its fruit and most of its manifestations is responsible for much of what is wrong in many aspects of life and governance of present day Barbados.
I think that my experiences also allow me to understand the standpoint of many of my acquaintances, friends and colleagues, of my age, who have had the benefit of seeing both sides of white/black relationships in Metropolitan countries. I see the postings of several BU posters who appear to be resident in Canada, the US and perhaps England, which show that exposure to life in metropolitan countries, forces an understanding of the black side of history that is largely missing from those who lack such experience and have remained in Barbados and who must depend on local sources to inform their views. Lack of such exposure in the Bajan who has largely stayed on this rock tends to lead to such persons staying with what what they have been taught by rote several years ago.
There is another type of BU commenter. The commenter who always espouses the decadent views of the Bajan white class, whether they themselves are black or white. Some of these BU commenters are totally predictable in the stances they take. Some even totally mimic Trump or Rush Limbaugh. You know who I mean.
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Open Letter to Prime Minster Mottley and Minister King
Open letter to The Hon. Mia Amor Mottley, Q.C., M.P. (Prime Minister) and
The Hon. John A. King, M.P.(Minister of Creative Economy, Culture and Sports)
Dear Prime Minister and Minister of Culture,
Minister of Culture, John King
Prime Minister Mia Mottley
I am sure by now you are aware that people in Bristol removed the statue of slave trader, Edward Colston, and deposited it in a nearby river. With this act, people in that city sent a clear message to the world that they would no longer tolerate the glorification of accomplices in the commission of crimes against humanity and those who grew rich from their sordid involvement in human trafficking.
In the present climate when there is a heightened global awareness of the need for zero tolerance towards racism and its symbols, it is unconscionable that in Barbados, a country where over 95% of its citizens are descendants of enslaved Africans, that a monument like Colston’s in Bristol, sits in the heart of our capital city. It is an affront to the people of Barbados and to those all over the world who are standing up to speak out against racism that Nelson’s monument continues to sit in the heart of Bridgetown. It is long overdue that this odious tribute to racism be removed.
There are no longer any excuses that can be made for your government’s failure to remove it. I am therefore writing to you as a concerned Bajan to call on you to do the right thing and remove this affront to the people of Barbados and to all those who today are courageously raising their voice against racism.
It would be very fitting, if it was replaced with a tribute to Nanny Grigg and to the many thousands of unsung Bajan women whose self-sacrifice, ingenuity and struggle have played a decisive role in our people’s progress from the pit of degradation that the English slave masters threw us into.
Yours
Tee White
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The Death of George Floyd
Submitted by Nathan’ Jolly’ Green
George Floyd was no innocent when it came to crime; he was from an early age, becoming a career criminal.
Unable to find work in Texas as an ex-prison convict, he moved to Minneapolis in 2014 for a fresh start after release from prison in Houston, having served time for aggravated robbery with a firearm [deadly weapon].
On the day of George Floyd’s death, Floyd was arrested by police officer Derek Chauvin, at whose forcible detention he met his death. An end that most decent people would declare unlawful and a disgrace, regardless of what we now know about Floyd’s past, and perhaps latest alleged behaviour.
Following a complaint from a store clerk, Floyd was approached and spoken to by two police officers outside the store while sitting behind the wheel of his car. Floyd was then pulled from the vehicle and handcuffed by the two police officers.
https://www.fox9.com/video/688157
The police officer Derek Chauvin had knelt on his neck, after trying to get him into the back of a police car, which Floyd refused to enter. Floyd was arrested for allegedly paying for cigarettes with a fake $20 bill.
Some newspaper stories state that “None of the officers could have been aware of Floyd’s more than a decade-old criminal history at the time of the arrest.
But George Floyd and officer Derek Chauvin had worked at the same club, the El Nuevo night club in Minneapolis. Derek Chauvin as a security officer, and Floyd as a bouncer.
There is a distinct possibility that George Floyd and officer Derek Chauvin were acquainted, and the officer may have even known Floyd’s criminal background and that he was dealing with a man capable of violence.
The owner of El Nuevo Rodeo confirmed it was likely Derek Chauvin had “crossed paths” with George Floyd during their time working at the club. It turns out that Floyd, a former bouncer at Minneapolis bar El Nuevo Rodeo, was a long-time co-worker of Officer Chauvin — who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes until he died.
Local politician Andrea Jenkins, who sits on Minneapolis’ City Council told NBC affiliate WRAL-TV “He knew George,”. “They were co-workers.” Jenkins went on to say to MSNBC that Chauvin and Floyd both worked at the same bar for years as well.
Chauvin and the three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest have been dismissed from the force, a spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department confirmed. The case has now been turned over to Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s governor, announced over the weekend. Chauvin has been transferred to a maximum-security facility.
The Floyd family believed that 46-year-old Lloyd had left behind his past in Houston after being released from prison stemming from a 2007 robbery, in which he plead guilty to entering a woman’s home, pointing a gun at her stomach and searching the house for drugs and money.
The financial cost of demonstrations, peaceful but angry, is acceptable whatever they should be. But the cost of billions of dollars in the looting and burning of property and vehicles is not. Neither is the violence, the murders, setting police 0fficers on fire, looting, arson, and destruction, unacceptable under any circumstances, and cannot be excused.
It was not only George Floyd who had a violent background, Police officer Chauvin, who joined the force in 2001, had been involved in several other violent incidents.
But perhaps most police officers in Minneapolis are subject to being involved in the inherent violence in the communities in which they work.
In 2006, according to a database by Minneapolis’ Communities United Against Police Brutality, Chauvin was involved in the fatal shooting of a man who stabbed two people before reportedly turning a gun on police.
In 2008, Chauvin shot a man who allegedly reached for an officer’s gun during a domestic-violence call. (The man survived the shot.)
In 2011, he was one of five officers placed on a standard three-day leave after the non-fatal shooting of a Native American man. The officers returned to work after the force determined that they had acted “appropriately.” (Another officer, not Chauvin, fired the shot.)
Communities United Against Police Brutality also faulted Chauvin indirectly for the deaths of three people that Chauvin and another officer were chasing after a crime in 2005, were struck by a car.
Minneapolis’ Office of Police Conduct complaint database shows seven complaints against him, although all are listed as “closed,” “non-public,” and resulting in “no discipline.” The city’s Civilian Review Authority, which lists complaints before September 2012, reveals five more complaints, which are also closed and resulted in no discipline.
A prisoner at a Minnesota prison sued Chauvin and seven other officers for “alleged violations of his federal constitutional rights” in 2006, although the case was dismissed.
Since the death of George Floyd, a GoFundMe for Floyd’s family has raised more than $7 million.
Black Lives Matter, so do all lives, some politicians in the Caribbean have treated the citizens as if the only lives that matter is their own, and those of their family. People have been processed, metaphorically speaking, as if they had a knee on their neck and the whole country is choking to death. With black police beating black people, worse than any white policeman behaves in America. The politicians allow it to happen and condone it by saying nothing.
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George Floyd – Black Man Treated Like a Dog by White Policeman in the USA
The FBI is investigating the death of George Floyd, black man who was pinned on the neck by a police officer and later died in custody. Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison joins The Beat with Ari Melber’s breaking coverage on the latest from the FBI and the protests. While the officers involved have yet to be charged, Ellison argues a “quick arrest” might “make people feel better about justice” it is “important” for investigators to “take the time to make sure that these charges, if they are brought forward, stick.
‘Haunted’: Minnesota Attorney General responds to death and investigation of George Floyd
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Ahmaud Arbery: Blacks NOT Worth More Than SALT in the Eyes of Some
It seems Blacks living in the USA cannot catch a break. In recent months the Black community has been under attack from the marauding COVID 19. This week we learned that in February 2020 two White men shot a young Black man as he was jogging through a White neighbourhood as if he were a target at your neighbourhood shooting range. The fact it has taken two months to gather public attention can be attributed to COVID 19 but are there the usual factors to consider?
There is no doubt that the USA harbours a racist system.
We are quick to point to China, reluctant to do same to the USA.
– David, blogmaster
The Killing of Ahmaud Arbery and the Justice of God
I turned off the video the first several times I tried to watch it. I couldn’t bear the thought of what I knew would be pictured. Many people, from what I hear, had a similar reaction. The violence was so raw that it was painful to watch. And so many other videos and images, showing similar bloodshed, have emerged over the past several years.
I’m referring, of course, to the video that has emerged in recent days of the killing of 25-year-old African-American man Ahmaud Arbery by two white men in a south Georgia neighborhood. This case will now, with the urging of the governor of Georgia, go to a grand jury to seek justice in this matter. From what reports tell us, Arbery was jogging through the neighborhood and the two men thought he seemed suspicious and took off after him, ultimately shooting and killing him. This was not a case of an interrupted home invasion, nor was it the case of law enforcement personnel involved in an escalating crime situation.
In almost any breaking news story, I usually ask myself, “What sort of information could emerge to make this the opposite of what it seems to me right now?” In this case, I am stumped to think of what that could be. The video seems to show us exactly what we have seen so often in human history: the violence of armed self-styled vigilantes against an unarmed man.
The justice system will proceed, of course, and evidence will be marshaled by the prosecution and by the defense, but there’s little question as to what the investigation will be—into a question of murder.
The system of temporal justice is important here—crucially important—but I am perhaps even more concerned about the sort of weariness that has come upon the country, when we use the word “again” about such a case, as if any happening like this should not immediately shock the conscience. The temptation will be to, as I did at first with the video, just avert our eyes.
Whatever the specifics of this case turn out to be, we do know several things. The first is that the arguments, already bandied about on social media, that “Arbery wasn’t a choirboy” are revolting. We have heard such before with Trayvon Martin and in almost every case since. For all I know, Arbery was a choirboy.
But even if he were the complete opposite (let’s suppose just for the sake of argument), that is no grounds to be chased down and shot by private citizens. There is no, under any Christian vision of justice, situation in which the mob murder of a person can be morally right. Those who claim to have a high view of Romans 13 responsibilities of the state to “wield the sword” against evildoers ought to be the first to see that vigilante justice is the repudiation not just of constitutional due process but of the Bible itself. And, of course, the Bible tells us, from the beginning, that murder is not just an assault on the person killed but on the God whose image he or she bears.
Sadly, though, many black and brown Christians have seen much of this, not just in history but in flashes of threats of violence in their own lives. And some white Christians avert their eyes—even in cases of clear injustice—for fear of being labeled “Marxists” or “social justice warriors” by the same sort of forces of intimidation that wielded the same arguments against those who questioned the state-sponsored authoritarianism and terror of Jim Crow. And so, they turn their eyes.
Now, again, these two men will get their due process, and their day in court. But ought we not to grieve for the family of this young man who is dead at just a quarter-century of life? And should we not lament the fact that there are so many names and faces—from those lynched by domestic terrorists throughout much of the 20th century to the names and faces killed much closer to our own time? Yes.
And, whatever the facts that are offered up in this case as the process moves forward, we ought to be reminded of the threat of violence that has raged inside of humanity since Cain. The courts will decide whether these men will be punished as murderers—and we can pray the courts are right and just in their verdict—but we also ought to remember that many of our black and brown brothers and sisters were killed by mobs or individuals where there was no video to show anything.
The memorial sign marking the murder of Emmett Till had to be replaced with a bulletproof marker because too many people were shooting it up, delighting in the lynching of a man by a bloodthirsty mob. And, like Cain, those who do such things always think no one will ever see. But God says to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” (Gen. 4:9).
And, similarly, Jesus said, “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known” (Lk. 12:2). Whatever is ruled in this case, we know that the blood cries from the ground in countless matters of violence and bloodshed. And God sees and knows. That’s a word of promise for those weary in seeing justice done. And it’s a word of warning for those who would avert their eyes.
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Sacramental Cannabis Bill 2019 Debate – Social Justice Issue
An interesting presentation by Minister Kerrie Symmonds during the debate of the Sacramental Cannabis Bill 2019. His address starts at 1hr.15min of the video. It is interesting because he crafted his delivery in a social justice context.
There is another view the government has been moving with unholy haste to force this Bill through the legislative process.
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Why Black People Were, Are and Will Always Be Slaves
Dear Sir/Madam,
Daily, readers of news media are bombarded by the news litany about “white policies and practices of institutionalized and/or overt actions, that speak of “hate towards blacks”.
My attached documents provide a different, disturbing, self-deprecating perspective of an act that is particularly egregious, one that on examination makes the reader carefully consider “what whites are chronicled to have done, and continue doing” but we find that such will pale in significance.
In fact, as you read through the attached document the information suggests that black people should be moving rapidly to canonize King Leopold of Belgium for his Congo massacres
Pardon the anathema above or language at the end of this sentence, but I want you to introduce you to the details of this unbelievable “Rape of Self”.
- On Friday (0) I contacted the Ambassador in (0)
- At that time she expressed (o) and asked that I [details]
- On (0) I [provide dates and copies of materials]
- I further provided the Ambassador (0)
As can be seen above, this is a chronicle of “Self Rape”.
Imagine that I, a black man, reach out to (0), a country that is promoting (0) free land for Diasporians”, I am then asked to submit a document (0), which outlines my Door of No Return Initiative and thereafter, not only does said party embrace my Idea but they, after packaging the idea as their own, proceed apace to prostitute the concept.
Readers will have no difficulty understanding the importance of this initiative, whose name they have had the gumption to change, BY USING ONE WORD!
Readers certainly will have no difficulty comprehending my rationale as a black man, making an outreach to a black nation, whose (0) representative made colorful speeches at *(0) in *(0)
But what readers WILL HAVE a difficulty assimilating is how one of these leading, self proclaimed “black mother nations”, one which, in its postings to the Diaspora, loves to speak of “One People, One Africa”, readers would have great difficulty understanding why it would be involved in this act of appropriation of A BLACK MAN’s proposal in this specific matter!
Lord have mercy, even if it was a white man, while appropriation, it would not be as distasteful.
Sir/madam, as a black man, you CANNOT EVEN BEGIN to comprehend how FILTHY I feel because I, and others, in the Castle of My Skin, while I live, MUST REMAIN in my skin, we have no place to run and to have this done by another black man/woman well…
This matter, IS NOT ABOUT A CONSUMER COMPLAINING “there is an problem with a product” where one submits a complaint and the company sends you a replacement order.
At the core of this is the Black Experience of Slavery and that sir/madam, IS NOT an issue to be GLIBLY SULLIED by ANY NATION, particularly a BLACK nation, using this self denigration for such a facile purpose.
The perpetrators of this act have IN A SINGLE ACT, destroyed the reputations of all its Reparations Partners, Freedom Fighters, Equality Champions, Civil Rights leaders and the panoply of stakeholders in the Diaspora Struggle of People of Colour.
They have irreparably marred a global proposal that served the Coloured Diaspora, a proposal that was discussed and requested to advance “What is our Mirror Image?” and strategies we People of Colour can employ to leverage it globally.
Now this ADIMI has been reduced to an issue of banditry and highwaymen theft where, in 2019, there is clearly no need for others to enslave us since, WE ARE DOING THIS WICKEDNESS QUITE EFFECTIVELY AGAINST OURSELVES
Sincerely,
David Weekes
Ashamed to be Black
Cc Undisclosed List including Ambassador Andrew Young, Bishop Walker, Ambassador Jesse Jackson, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles,
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Don’t Come Prince Charles – Purging the Monarchy Growing a Republic
Prince Charles and Camillia
(Barbados Nation) Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will pay an official visit to Barbados on Tuesday, March 19, as part of a Caribbean tour. During the visit, they will participate in several events, including a parade and wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in National Heroes Square and a reception at which they will be able to interact with a cross-section of Barbadians.
A great deception of the last decade was the promise made by a Stuart led government to move the country to a republic. To quote former Prime Minister Freundel Stuart …”he said he found it awkward in the year 2015 to have to stand up and pledge allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen.“
This is one of many examples how members of the political class demonstrate little compunction by making empty promises to a gullible public it swore to serve. A public that tolerates a level of disrespect by not holding them (members of the political class) accountable for their repeated empty mouthings.
If there is one thing that makes the blood of the blogmaster boil, it is the ignorance of so-called educated Barbadians meekly swearing allegiance to the Queen. Surely it makes a mockery of the idea we are a sovereign country by any definition. As a people how can we inculcate values in our people – especially young minds – to nurture a feeling of patriotism? Isn’t it the feeling of patriotism that must define us? Why do our parents not feel a level of abhorrence listening to our leaders swear the oath of allegiance to the Queen?
Disgusting!
All people have a history: ours (Black people) is the never ending struggle to overcome a deep psychological scar resulting from the practise of slavery by people from a country we continue to swear an oath of allegiance. It is the responsibility of an educated Barbadian class to purge symbols and messages which are the vestige of a colonial past and serve only to create a conundrum about life for our people.
A story appeared in a section of the British media last week that reinforced a view. Here is a quote from the article:
Racist letters penned in the 1920s by the then Prince of Wales about Aboriginal Australians – calling them ‘revolting’ and comparing them to monkeys – will be explored in a new documentary.
The future King Edward VIII, who was then known as David, expressed his disdain for the Indigenous population during a Royal tour in 1920, when he visited all six Australian states.
His opinions were revealed in letters to his then mistress, married English socialite Freda Dudley Ward. She was the future King’s lover between 1918 to 1923 and they remained close until 1936, when he met American divorcee Wallis Simpson, who he gave up the throne for later that year.
Full article in the Daily Mail –
The most revolting form of living creatures I’ve ever seen’: Edward VIII’s racist letters to his mistress comparing Australian Aboriginal people to ‘monkeys’ are explored in a new documentary
How is it possible for a majority Black nation (Barbados) to continue to swear allegiance to actors of a country which harboured virulent racist sentiment? There was a time we had to slavishly sing along to rule Britannica. We need to purge all references to the British monarchy to save to our young minds IF we want to grow a proud nation – independent and free.
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African Liberation Education (3)
Submitted by Ras Jahaziel
In this post-emancipation era, the world has become split into two different economic realities: Slavery-Wealth and Slavery Poverty…. otherwise known as First world and Third world…. otherwise known as
The Developed World
and The UNDER-Developed World…
otherwise known to the wise as The Shameful and Unjust Results of The Great Robbery.Look at this picture below: It can be called “Inequality as a result of The Great Robbery,”
…and you can be sure It is a strategy of White Supremacy.
One US dollar equals 134 Jamaican dollars.
Any place in the world where you look, you will find the same economic disparity when comparing any predominantly white country with any predominantly Black country.That is why there is always an exodus from the countries that were invaded and robbed to the countries that benefited from invading and robbing other countries. The survival instinct is always the prime motivator of Black and Brown migration.
Read full text @ Ras Jahaziel Website
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A Heather Cole Article – I Dream of Africa
Submitted by Heater Cole
Part 1: Why?
I am on a mission to visit Ghana in West Africa and you may wonder why. It is all because of Slavery. It has always bothered me. I never knew that I was descended from someone who was kidnapped and made a slave until one fateful day when I was in Infants A or Infants B at Christ Church Girls’ school. I do not recall which class it was. An argument started in the class between two little girls, mind you we were all little then. One wanted the other one to carry her bag and the other refused. It became boisterous and caught the teacher’s attention. Her name was Ms. Lovell. It was only when she teacher was addressing the matter that I found out what it was about. The first little girl said she only asked the second girl to carry her bag. The second little girl said she was not carrying the bag because she was not a slave.
What was a slave? I had not a clue. I lived in a bubble that was the world that I knew. I do not remember who asked the question out loud. However, Ms. Lovell began to tell us a story which became my first history lesson. I do not remember if anyone else knew what she told us; that we were all descendants of people who were taken from West Africa and made slaves in all the Caribbean Islands. The slaves worked without pay and belonged to the white people who owned the sugar plantations. Her history lesson must have had a profound affect on all of the little girls because from that day on if any one of the of the girls asked each other to do something menial for them the response was “no! I am not your slave!” This story and those words have stuck with me for a lifetime. However, that was not all that those works did, they made me feel as though I had been living a lie for all the 5 or 6 years of my life.
I could not wait to get home after school. When my cousins and I turned the corner onto to our gap from the main road in Cane Vale, I ran home. When I reached the opened back door, I ran inside and I told Aunt V (my grandmother) “the teacher say that we were slaves,” and I waited for her to say that it was not true. Instead of saying no or yes, she calmly asked what had happened and I repeated the story. I was still awaiting and wanted her to say no that is not so but the look in her eyes filled me with a deep sadness as I waited for her to respond. Her failure to respond to my shock started my traumatization and made me ashamed of who I was. After what seemed like an eternity, all she said was to stop worrying my little head, but I never did.
By the time my mother got home from work I was still quiet; engulfed in a state of sadness. She asked what was wrong and Aunt V told her. I do not recall her response. Later that night as I snuggled up next to Aunt V, I asked her to tell me about the slaves. She said she did know anything about slaves but she could only tell me about the old-time people. From that I understood that it was her way of saying that she would never call them slaves; it was as though she was part of the resistance. That was my comfort and from that night on, it was the stories of the old-time people and the old-time days that my grandmother told me.
Not that she knew much but it was a start. We were already close but the stories she told drew us closer. They were the stories that she had been told about mud houses the old- time people lived in, what they wore; about a woman who lost her hand feeding the canes in the mill and about duppies, how the dead were buried facing the East and more that I have long forgotten. I was a curious child one who asked for minute details, one who wanted exact details and if a repeat was not the same version, I would remind her what was missing. So much so, that she would get tired of my questioning and ask me if I was a lawyer. I never got tired of hearing the same stories.
By the time I entered high school at 11, I had long exhausted my grandmother’s informal knowledge. So, I read every history text book every year before the school year started. I had developed an insatiable appetite for knowledge of the people from my past.
The year that I was 16 we did a school project and I went to the Archives and there I discovered that there were slaves at Hannays Plantation whose last name was Cole. My great grandmother somehow made the journey from there to Church Hill of the Christ Church Parish Church and my grandmother moved from there to Oistins Hill and then Cane Vale. I never got a chance to see the oldest Slave Registers because they were closed from public viewing, so I never found out who were the old-time man and woman who lived at Hannays Plantation from whom I am descended.
Throughout the years, I have thought of them, where exactly did there come from, what did they do for a living prior to them being taken away. I may never know who they were, whose big dove shaped eyes I now wear or whose smile grace my face. I will never know what their real names were, or the exact area they came from, which tribe they belonged to, I do not know who gave me this streak of determination and fearlessness that I possess. I wonder if I am a descendant of a griot, yet I have this thing in me that makes me love art and colour. I always want to make things with my hands and then there is this love that I have for fabric. I cannot explain my numerous trips to Abeds and the other stores in Bridgetown that sell fabric to see what they have for sale. What I do know is that my ancestors’ blood still runs in my veins and I still carry their DNA.
Somehow long ago someone did things that are still a part of me. It is as though through me my ancestors live forever. Your knowledge of your distant past may not be much different from mine and our stories may be intertwined.
The President of Ghana is welcoming the Diaspora home in this historic year of our destiny that commemorates the 400th year anniversary of the commencement of the slave trade. Will you join me and friends and be part of this historic occasion from August 5 to 15, 2019 as we reconnect to our distant past?
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African Liberation Education 1
Submitted by Ras Jahaziel
A captive people are not likely to recognize their captivity if they were born in captivity and have no memory of freedom.
Nor are they likely to identify liberation as an urgent necessity… if they have been schooled and churched to see their landless bondage as normal.
(That is why “The Manual of Slave Control” clearly spells out in its preamble: “the need to educate all X-Slaves with the myth that their captivity ended on the day of Emancipation, and to support this myth by keeping the X-Slaves constantly doped, domesticated, and entertained in a drunken stupor.”)
Read full text – Chapter 1
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Prime Minister Rowley Can’t Count Indians
Submitted by Dr Kumar Mahabir
A few days ago, Prime Minster Dr Keith Rowley lashed out at mainly Indo-Trinidadian (Indian) critics by saying that they were “trying to stir up racial hatred” in the multi-ethnic society.
He was reported in the media as saying that his ruling PNM party “continues to be the only true national party” in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) where “every creed and race find an equal place.”
Rowley added: [J]ust remember half of the PNM Government is Indian” and that “those Indians [critics] are insulting the Indian population … please have a conversation with them [Indians in the Government].”
Rowley was trying to deflect criticism by ethnic, religious and women’s groups that his party had promoted violence on a sari-clad Hindu and Indian woman in a skit at its Sports and Family Day on Sunday August 12, 2018.
There are 23 PNM Members of Parliament (MP) in the House of Representatives. Of these, there are only two (2) Indians: Faris Al-Rawi and Terrence Deyalsingh. Indians, therefore, constitute a trifle nine percent (9%) of PNM MPs in Parliament.
Apparently Rowley miscounted. Half of the PNM Government is not Indian. There are only 26 percent (or 6) Indians in Cabinet as Ministers viz Clarence Rambharath, Terrence Deyalsingh, Kazim Hosein, Rohan Sinanan, Franklin Khan, and I reluctantly threw in Faris Al-Rawri too in the daal pot.
Seventy-four percent (74%) or 17 Ministers in government are non-Indians. There is a margin of error of plus or minus one minister whose ethnicity could not be determined.
The PNM Indian minsters are neither recognised nor respected by the vast majority of Indians long before the PNM’s refusal to select Kamaluddin Mohammed or Errol Mahabir as the Prime Minister on the death of Dr. Williams in 1981.
According to Government’s CSO population survey in 2011, Indians consist of 35 percent of the population, the largest ethnic group in the country. Comprising 26 percent in the government, Indian ministers are, therefore, underrepresented and do not find a proportionate “equal place” in Rowley’s PNM administration.
The Ministers in Rowley’s Government who are all members and representatives of the PNM have tremendous rights, powers and privileges. Pursuant to Chapter 5, Section 74.1 of the Constitution, the Prime Minister and Ministers in his Cabinet have been empowered to “have the general direction and control of the government of Trinidad and Tobago …”.
Rohan Sinanan is the only Hindu in Cabinet and Kazim Hosein is the only Muslim. These two non-Christians were installed in the Cabinet in June and November 2016 consecutively, more than a year after the PNM took Government in September 2015.
Rowley appointed these two non-Christian Ministers after complaints by Hindus and Muslims that they were not represented in Government. Sinanan represents six percent (6%) of the Hindus and Kazim 20 percent (20%) respectively in the population. According to the CSO population survey in 2011, Hindus comprise 18% of the population and Muslims 5%. Sinanan can, therefore, be seen as a window dressing because Hindus are grossly underrepresented in Government.
Operating under a republican constitution, the Prime Minister in T&T heads a cabinet of ministers who are chosen by him or her. In the current administration, Rowley has the power to appoint and revoke ministers in his cabinet who are executive, high-ranking decision-makers.
The book Caribbean Islands (1989), edited by Sandra Meditz and Dennis Hanratty, states that in T&T: “The prime minister is by far the most powerful figure in the government and is responsible for running the government. The prime minister chooses cabinet ministers from Parliament, who are then appointed by the president, and he can change ministers and ministries at will.”
There are 19 ambassadors chosen by Rowley to embassies abroad. Of the 19 ambassadors, only three (or 16%) are Indians: H.E. Garth Chatoor in Ottawa in Canada, H.E. Roger Gopaul in South Africa, and H.E. Stephen Seedansingh in China. Sixteen percent (16%) is not half (50%), Mr Prime Minister and Political Leader.
Despite the etymology of her last name, Jenelle Pariag is not an Indian. Pariag is the Acting Consul General in Miami in the USA. His Excellency Dave Persad was T&T’s High Commissioner in India until he resigned in July due to reportedly corrupt “financial accountability” in the embassy.
An attorney and former chairman of the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation under the People’s Partnership Government, Persad joined the PNM campaign during the general election in 2015. It is widely believed that he was awarded the diplomatic post for his betrayal of the People’s Partnership.
Appointments of High Commissioners/Ambassadors are made by the President in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister. They are highest-ranking representatives of T&T in their respective host countries and represent the interests and policies of their home country.
The abysmally small number of Indians as directors and heads of State boards would be another article for another day.
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When Will Bajans Purge Ourselves of White Supremacy?
Submitted by Tee White
Recently, I was listening to an African Bajan, like me, sing the praises of my hometown and make the argument that it had made a significant contribution to the development of Barbados. In support of his argument, he declared that “we provided some of the first governors of the Carolinas”. I was taken aback by this comment. Did the speaker not realise that he was referring to the English slave masters, who saw both his and my fore-parents as sub-human chattel and against whom they committed every crime that could be committed against a human being? Why would a descendant of the enslaved Africans take pride in the fact that the tormentors of his fore-parents had grown so rich from their crimes in Barbados that they emigrated to the USA to continue these barbarities against other African there and rose to be political leaders of the slave masters in that country? It makes no sense but it reflects the official ideology of white supremacy that has been passed down to us from the days of slavery and colonialism and which we have continued to promote during the last 52 years of independence.
This racist doctrine is enshrined in the very preamble to our Constitution which declares:
Whereas the love of free institutions and of independence has always strongly characterised the inhabitants of Barbados:
And Whereas the Governor and the said inhabitants settled a Parliament in the year 1639:
And Whereas as early as 18th February, 1651 those inhabitants, in their determination to safeguard the freedom, safety and well-being of the Island, declared, through their Governor, Lords of the Council and members of the Assembly, their independence of the Commonwealth of England
In reality, Barbados was a laboratory for the destruction of human freedom, safety and well-being. Professor Beckles has pointed out that on the coast of Africa, Barbados was widely known as a place worse than hell and the life expectancy of an enslaved African once they arrived on the island was no more than 7 years. Yet our Constitution presents a fundamentally racist gloss of our country’s history which basically denies the humanity of our African fore-parents.
This psychological dislocation from reality which white supremacy has imprinted on the Bajan psyche is further reinforced with references to the parliament in Broad Street. For example, at Grantley Adams International Airport there is a mural which hails with pride the fact that ‘we’ have the second oldest parliament in the Commonwealth. But who is this ‘we’? The parliament in Broad Street was set up by the English slave masters and used as an instrument for the violent subjugation of our African fore-parents. In 1688, this parliament passed a law entitled “An Act for the Governing of Negroes”. This Act legislated the following:
WHEREAS the Plantations and Estates of this Island cannot be fully managed, and brought into Use, without the Labour and Service of great Numbers of Negroes and other Slaves : And forasmuch as the said Negroes and other Slaves brought unto the People of this Island for that purpose, are of Barbarous, Wild, and Savage Natures, and such as renders them wholly unqualified to be governed by the Laws, Customs, and Practices of our Nations: It therefore becoming absolutely necessary, that such other Constitutions, Laws, and Orders should be in this island framed and enacted for the good Regulating and Ordering of them, as may both restrain the Disorders, Rapines, and Inhumanities to which they are naturally prone and inclined
That no Master, Mistress, Commissioner, or Overseer of any Family in this Island, shall give their Negroes or other Slaves leave on Sabbath-days, Holy-days, or any
other time, to go out of their Plantations, except such Negro or other Slave as usually wait upon them at Home or Abroad, and wearing a Livery ; and no other Negro or Slave, except with a Ticket under the Master or Mistress’s Hand, or some other Person by his or her Appointment, specifying the time allowed for his or her Return ……. And if any Master, Mistress, Commissioner, or Overseer of a Plantation, shall find any Negro or other Slave in their Plantation at any time without a Ticket, or Business from his said Master, and doth not apprehend them, or endeavour so to do; and having apprehended them, shall not punish them with a moderate Whipping, shall forfeit Ten Shillings Sterling, to be disposed of as aforesaid
A N D be it further Enacted and Ordained, That if any Negro or Slave whatsoever shall offer any Violence to any Christian, by Striking, or the like, such Negro or other Slave shall, for his or her first Offence, by Information given upon Oath to the next Justice, be severely whipped by the Constable by Order of the said Justice; For his second Offence of that nature, by Order of the Justice of Peace, he shall be severely whipped, his Nose slit, and be burned in some part of his Face with a hot Iron; And for his third Offence he shall receive, by Order of the Governor and Council, such greater Punishment as they shall think meet to inflict.
Why would the descendants of the enslaved Africans take pride in an institution which committed such crimes against our fore-parents? Should we not instead take pride in the parliaments our fore-parents set up in the cane fields and gullies to fight for human rights on this island against the slave masters and their parliament in Broad Street?
Malcolm X described this psychological affliction that is plaguing Barbados thus:
If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,” the house Negro would look at you and say, “Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?” That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a “house nigger.” And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running around here.
In 2018, Barbados, it’s way past time we purged ourselves of this white supremacy.
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180 Years of Emancipation- Some Perspective
Submitted by Mohammed Degia
On August 1, 1838, enslaved people across the British Caribbean gained their freedom. Contrary to what is often peddled about the singular role of abolitionists in ending transatlantic slavery, there were two main reasons for abolition- economic and rebellions. The British did not in some great moralistic and ethical wave bestow freedom upon the enslaved. The system was altered because slavery had become an economic liability. Furthermore, the planters lived with the constant fear of slaves rebelling and of another Haiti transpiring. In the end, it was better to agree to free the enslaved than to live with this fear or worse to experience a rebellion. I discuss all of this in more detail in a piece I wrote in 2007 which was the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain.
As we commemorate the emancipation of our Caribbean forefathers, remember that the British in abolishing slavery also provided a large compensation package for the slave owners. The sum of money amounted to £20 million (£15 billion today) or about 40% of the national budget. The formerly enslaved of course received nothing. What is even more perverse is that the loan taken out at that time by the British government to fund the compensation package was not paid off until 2015. Thus, the British taxpayer was until recently, through payments to the holders of the slavery bonds, still contributing to the beneficiaries of slavery. This is the same British government and society that dismisses the descendants of the enslaved condescendingly, lecturing to them that they should move on and stop living in the past. This is the same British government and society that refuses to consider the just demands of Caribbean people for reparations. The same British government that argues absurdly that the slave trade and slavery were not illegal at the time and so they are not obliged to provide compensation for the heinous role they played in one of the worst crimes against humanity. For these people though, it is not a historical matter to be left behind when until February 2015 they were still reaping the benefits of the slavery abolition loan. The height of dishonesty, arrogance and hypocrisy.
In addition, as we celebrate August 1, we must be mindful that 180 years after abolition and 56 years after the decolonisation period in the British Caribbean commenced with Jamaica’s independence on August 6, 1962, we have a long way to go in the quest for true freedom. The legacy of colonialism and slavery endures in our tiny island states. Most of us continue to experience significant socio-economic challenges. Race and class considerations remain central factors in how our societies function. For example, in Barbados, the justice system still operates in two forms- one for the rich and white and nowadays Indian and one for blacks particularly those that are not rich. Just under a year ago, I penned a long article about the harsh realities of race in Barbados beyond the symbolism of its Emancipation statue. Last week, two prominent white Barbadian businessmen were charged with drug offences and anyone following the saga would have seen first-hand the playing out of the politics of race and class that I wrote about.
The Caribbean has much work to do. We need to examine in earnest these mental chains that impede us. An honest, brutal conversation about our past, how it looms large over us and how we must proceed is essential. Our intellectual giants started the process. It is necessary for us to build on it and propel it to the next level. It is also imperative that we do this together as a region. We are one people with a shared history of colonialism, slavery and exploitation. People to people relationships that transcend artificial borders have always been a central feature of our Caribbean reality. In addition, in a world of large and medium powers, we have no choice as small islands but to integrate. Our politicians with their egos and selfish interests have frustrated the institutionalisation of our deep ties. We the people must take the lead.
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Emancipation Day, a Good Reason to Give Pause
Barbadians join former colonies to celebrate Emancipation Day on August 1.
There can be no disagreement the Black race had to endure a form of slavery that to this day weighs heavy on the conscience of world citizens. Some will engage in a spurious rebuttal that the immoral act of chattel slavery practiced on Black people should be distilled using a logic that it was the legitimate activity of the day. What cannot be refuted is that until the Slavery Act 1833 Blacks resident in the Mother Country (England) and its colonies were regarded as chattel. Then there was the apprenticeship period where the former slave masters exploited Blacks because it was determined that it was cheaper to pay a rock bottom wage or provide room and board to the former slave in exchange for labour. A capitalist thinking?
The benefit of slavery is that the White race was able to accrue great wealth to build an establishment that to this day supports how the so called developed world does business to the marginalizing of minority populations. More fundamentally the period of Black slavery practiced by the British empire created a White supremacy mindset the legacy of which is with us today. Dismantling the legacy thinking to promote an equal global community continues to be a work in progress. The establishment will not yield to demands from former colonies for reparations. It is not in the nature of man to surrender riches even if ill gotten. The blogmaster’s perspective is that demand for reparation by Barbados and other former colonies is not just about compensation in the form of a money transfer – it represents the opportunity for the former colonist to record on history’s page the egregious business of slavery.
We fast forward to 1 August 2018 and so the struggle continues as we celebrate Emancipation Day. Many Black Barbadians – especially the young – will remember today as a day to recover from attending RISE. How many will participate on the Emancipation walk to Bussa statue? How many Blacks are aware there is a walk?
To Barbadians every where, the struggle continues to nurture a just society for all. One that we can make proud for our children and future generations to cohabitate on the planet. We must never forget what our Black forefathers had to endure to support what we have been able to achieve to date.
The following is the Emancipation Day message from Sir Hilary Beckles, the Chair of the Caricom Reparations Committee:-
Emancipation Day message from Chair, CARICOM Reparations Committee
Press Release
July 31, 2018
(PRESS RELEASE VIA SNO) – We join annually with communities across the world in marking the moment in which the crime of chattel enslavement was confronted and uprooted from our existential realities. For us, the moment is August 1st; other dates are determined elsewhere and officially recognized.
Marking the moment in a celebratory fashion remains necessary despite the despicable nature of the gesture of Emancipation, legislated by Britain in 1838. It was an act in which black peoples were finally defined by Parliament as property, and their enslavers deemed entitled to compensation for property loss.
Today is an opportunity for descendants of the enslaved, and enslavers, to reflect upon the causes and consequences of these crimes against humanity, and in particular their significance on how we live today, and will in the future.
Rising up from the barbarity of bondage, we have dedicated our development energies to the advancement of democratizing social values, with a primary emphasis on building societies that are free and fair; upon platforms of multiracialism and multiculturalism.
As descendants, we celebrate the values of human decency left as an additional burden for our ancestors to carry. Every day they imagined would be an Emancipation day. They protected and projected the best tried and tested human values – joys of family life, fine spirit of community living, vitality of food security and material production, moral commitment to equity and justice, and critically the overarching, indispensable importance of freedom as the source of all happiness.
Effectively transcending and conquering the legacies of enchainment, impoverishment and racial denigration continue to elude us. Residual elements of the plantation-based past continue to shape our societies and determine their trajectories.
This year, we find it necessary to litigate the restoration of democratic rights and citizenship, illegally stripped away by the British government from thousands of Caribbean descendants rightfully living in that country since the immigration door was opened to passengers aboard Empire Windrush in 1948.
Last year, evidence of hostility against the Caribbean community by the British state erupted against the background of data, unearthed by historians, showing that the finance bond, by which the British government raised £20 million in 1834 to pay reparations to slave owners, remained active until 2015.
This fact powerfully shows that, for the British state, the slavery world persisted well into the 21st century, putting to rest its argument that “slavery was a long time ago”. These contemporary examples show how the effects of historic crimes still surround our societies. ‘Emancipation’ for us remains a work in progress and in no way can be considered a distant event that is settled and closed.
It is specifically for these reasons that we celebrate Emancipation day as a moment in which we demand reparatory justice. The Caribbean calls upon the enslaving governments of Europe, and their national institutions, all enriched and empowered by their crimes against humanity, to return to the region in order to participate in cleaning up their colonial mess. The advancement of economic growth is dependent upon it; social justice is dependent upon it; and a 21st century humanity is dependent upon it.
As we confront the future, let us be guided by Sir Arthur Lewis, who stated in 1939 that the 200 years of unpaid labour extracted by the British from the enslaved people of the Caribbean is a debt that must be repaid to their descendants. This is important, he asserted, if we are to have a fair shot at sustainable development. Pushing ahead with a self-emancipatory agenda is critical, but we must do so fully conscious of this broader context of our development efforts.
Blessings to all on Emancipation day.
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Race Talk | Making the World a Better Place
[Barbados Underground] The blogmaster promised to continue the discussion on race and how all citizens must feel responsible for making the world a better place.
How do we do it? In thought, work and deed.
The millions that watched the CNN Lebron James interview last night would have gleaned how prominent individuals in a society can use star power to set an example for others how we approach the many challenges life will present – including that of race. Too many of our prominent citizens do not step out of the shadows to try to positively influence others to attempt to make the world a better place.
While watching the interview the BU household was able to draw a parallel to our neck of the woods.
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An Interview with Prime Minister Mottley
The Father of Our Nation is BUSSA : the Mother of Our Nation is NANNY GRIG
Submitted by David Comissiong
Who are the “Father” and “Mother” of that unique aggregation of people organized as a body politic on 166 square miles of Caribbean land and possessed of a distinctive cultural and social way of life, that we know of as the nation of Barbados?
Well, the term “Father of the Nation” is a well known honorific title that– in many nations — is given to a man who is considered to be the driving force behind the establishment of “his” nation, and who — in many instances –has made a monumental sacrifice (even a “blood sacrifice” of his very life) for his people.
But the term “Mother of the Nation” is not nearly as well known nor as widely applied and conferred!
Yet, if one looks closely enough one will surely discover that behind the establishment of every nation there is, in addition to a male “driving force”, a similar female “driving force”. And that for every man who made a sacred sacrifice of his life for the people, that there was a similarly heroic and self-sacrificing woman.
And so it was and is with the nation of Barbados !
We therefore make bold to say that anyone with a discerning eye can perceive in the history of Barbados both a “Father of the nation” and a “Mother of the nation” !
And just as a Father and Mother together create the fertilized egg from which a biological child emerges, the titles of “Father” and “Mother” of the nation must be applied to those two male and female historical personalities who played critical roles in giving birth to the very possibility, the very seed or root of the precious nation that we Barbadians possess today.
You see, over the first two centuries of the history of Barbados it was difficult to even conceive of the “possibility” of a Barbadian nation, simply because Barbados was a “slave society” in which a sizeable majority of its sons and daughters were denied the status of human beings and were held by their enslavers to be mere soul-less chattels or things.
Thus, if a majority of a people are not even considered to be human beings by the governmental and official structures of a society, how can one talk sensibly or meaningfully about being a nation?
No, in order for a nation to be established in Barbados, slavery first had to be abolished. And therefore, those historical personalities who played the critical roles in striking the death blow to the evil system of slavery would have to be considered the seminal figures who planted the very seeds of Barbadian nationhood.
Our search for the “Father” and “Mother” of the nation must therefore take us back to the great early 19th century slave rebellion that irretrievably set in train the processes that led ineluctably to the abolition of slavery in 1834— the 1816 Bussa Rebellion!
It is therefore relatively easy for us to identify the “Father” of our nation. Clearly, that title must go to the Right Excellent General Bussa, the Commander of the revolutionary forces of 1816, and an historical figure who has been conferred with the title of National Hero of Barbados.
But upon whom should the title of “Mother” of the nation be conferred?
Well, in the 1818 historical document entitled “Report from a Select Committee of the House of Assembly appointed to inquire into the origin, causes and progress of the late Insurrection” — the Bussa Rebellion— we read the following testimony of “Robert”, an enslaved man attached to Simmons Plantation:-
“………..some time the last year, he heard the negroes were all to be freed on New-year’s Day. That Nanny Grig (a negro woman at Simmons, who said she could read) was the first person who told the Negroes at Simmons so: and she said she had read it in the Newspapers, and that her Master was very uneasy at it: that she was always talking about it to the negroes, and told them that they were all damned fools to work, for that she would not, as freedom they were sure to get. That , about a fortnight after New-year’s Day, she said the Negroes were to be freed on Easter-Monday, and the only way to get it was to fight for it; and the way they were to do, was to set fire, as that was the way they did in Saint Domingo.”
Here then we see emerging from the historical record the figure of a mature literate enslaved Creole black woman who worked in the household of Simmons Plantation in the parish of St. Philip, and who was clearly the revolutionary ideologue of the rebel forces — a revolutionary ideologue who was committed to a military solution to terminating the evil system of slavery, and who was relentless in spreading that message to her fellow enslaved brothers and sisters.
The fact that she was called “Nanny” is not necessarily suggestive of an occupation as a nursemaid or a children’s caregiver, but could speak to her ethnic identity. You see, in the case of the Jamaican “Nanny” — Nanny of the Maroons — the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History informs us that the name “Nanny” was derived from the Akan word “Nanani”, meaning “ancestress” or “mother”, and therefore is suggestive of an Akan ethnic ancestry .
Thus, our Nanny Grig may well have been a Barbados-born “creole” woman of Akan (present day Ghana) ethnicity.
What we do know for a fact is that General Bussa’s revolutionary troops did faithfully adhere to Nanny Grig’s admonition to commence a battle aimed at securing freedom for themselves on Easter- Monday of 1816 and to use arson as a primary methodology of insurrection!
Undoubtedly, as a literate, well informed and intelligent woman, Nanny Grig would have known that the chances of success were slim, and that the possibility of defeat and death was very real. After all, the revolutionary troops were not only facing a number of well armed local parish militias, but also the might of the British Imperial Army stationed at St Ann’s fort at the Garrison in St Michael.
It is extremely likely therefore that Nanny Grig had her eyes set on a more distant and futuristic goal: that she was striking a blow against Slavery and making the ultimate sacrifice in order that future generations of black or African Barbadians would no longer have to live in a condition of enslavement.
And surely she did make the ultimate sacrifice, for not only was the Rebellion put down— largely through the efforts of the professional black soldiers of the British West India Regiment – but the racist white parish militias then proceeded to inflict a regime of terror on the black population, burning and otherwise destroying the houses and property of blacks and executing hundreds of black women, children and men!
Without a doubt, Nanny Grig either perished in the fighting or was subsequently executed – perhaps hanged, beheaded and hung up on a post – in light of her role as a major leader of the Rebellion.
But who can doubt that her courage, activism and sacrifice played a major role in bringing down the evil system of slavery and hastening the day of the emergence of a genuine Barbadian nation.
The reality is that the Bussa Rebellion sent such a forceful message of uncompromising hostility to Slavery that in 1819, a full three years after the Rebellion, the Governor of Barbados, Lord Combermere, was still writing to the English Colonial Office warning them that “the public mind (in white Barbados) is ever tremblingly alive to the dangers of insurrection.”
It is not surprising therefore that when – in 1833 – the British Secretary of State for the colonies introduced the Emancipation Act in the British Parliament, he expressed the view that “they were compelled to act; for they felt that take what course they might, it could not be attended with greater evil than any attempt to uphold the existing state of things.”
Thus, it was really the courageous military activism of the Bussas and Nanny Grigs that was ultimately responsible for the abolition of slavery.
And this is why, in the final analysis, no-one other than our heroic Nanny Grig must be conferred with the title of “Mother of the Nation.”
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The Prophecy
(Excerpt from A RASTA PLAY, written and illustrated by Ras Jahaziel August 2010 www.rastafarivisions.com)
| An Inter-faith Dialogue between Snow-white The Money God and The Three Dragons
SNOW WHITE-The Money God: Gentlemen, welcome to this our fourth-hundred annual inter-faith dialogue where we exchange ideas for the better management of our slave-holdings in the modern colonies. Now please relax and take off your masks. Those do-gooder masks are only for the outside when we have to put on a public show. But here, if you want to say “Nigger” you can say “Nigger.” HA HA HA HA HA CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP. This is the forum where we can be ourselves and speak our minds without worrying about political correctness. We do not have to go around corners and pretend that PROFIT is not the only thing that matters. Every-one in here knows that the advancement of our empire has often called for ruthless action against inferior peoples. Often times it has involved moving populations from areas that we desire. Sometimes the methods may be bloody and involve lost of life amongst the inferior peoples, but everyone of you know the ropes, so to speak. So please speak your mind without worry. The press is not here. This is the place where we can discuss the dirty details that would shock the larger public outside. Now the first thing I would like to do is to express my concerns about the stability of our modern plantation system in the Caribbean and the volatility of our Negro labor force in light of recent events. I am sure that we all agree the image of “Paradise” must be maintained at all costs. For close to four centuries we have reaped billions of dollars in profit from the sweat of Black labor in the hot climes of these islands, and what has made our businesses so profitable is that up to this day Black labor has been for the most part free or very cheap. But now our old sugar plantations that required us to maintain thousands of slaves have been phased out, and Tourism has now become our new sugar plantation. Not only do we need fewer Negroes, but unlike in the days of sugar cane it is important to project an idyllic paradise image despite the glaring wide-spread poverty of the locals. But we have a problem looming on the horizon: As a result of our recent economic adjustments the weight on the poor has been increased significantly, to the extent that they are nearing breaking-point. If we do not act preemptively and take drastic measures they are likely to rebel and spoil our paradise image. We need to crush rebellion long before it happens. FIRST DRAGON, The Minister of Legal Terrorism and Plantation Protection: Pardon me for saying so, but I think your fears may be a little bit exaggerated because as you know, we have always used our police and army as a barrier of terror to protect our slave-holding properties. They have been trained to be very brutal and ruthless, and as a result of their consistent terrorism most of the slave population fears them. I don’t think we have anything to worry about, but if it would make you feel better we can increase the terror. SNOW WHITE-The Money God: Well make sure the media publishes a good excuse for doing so before giving the police the go-ahead. But no matter what it takes we must maintain the flow of profit from our human and material possessions on these islands. Even though these economic measures will affect the lives of the poor fairly harshly, such measures are necessary to maintain THE PROFIT FLOW. But keeping the plantation from burning has always been a balancing act. On the one hand, too much hardship may cause spontaneous rebellion, and on the other hand the extra hardship that the Niggers feel also makes them desperate for money. In that state of mind it is easier to control and manipulate them, and it is never difficult to find spies and informers. Another very important advantage in keeping the Negroes in a desperate economic state was demonstrated just recently in Tivoli Gardens. If you did not understand the power of our economic grip on the Negroes you would have been surprised by the zeal that was exhibited by our police and soldiers as they went about maiming and killing other Niggers that look just like themselves. With our power to decide who eats and who starves it was easy to enlist dozens of paid killers. So despite all of the idealistic calls for equal rights and justice, we know from long experience that we have to keep the economic lid on the Negroes. It is a form of control that we have always used, and in any case it has never been wise to let the Nigger get too far. We just need to be prepared at all times for any eventuality. FIRST DRAGON, The Minister of Legal Terrorism and Plantation Protection: Well, in light of your concern about the possibility of these economic measures causing dire social consequences, let me assure you that we have already equipped our FORCES with the appropriate training and practice in the event of an uprising.. SNOW WHITE-The Money God: But what do our sociologists say about this, do they concur with me about the potential social fall-out? SECOND DRAGON, The Minister of Guile and Deception and Social Manipulation: Yes, total agreement. When the increased stress is added to the persistent mal-nourishment that already exists, it is quite likely that many of the poor will be driven to desperate measures, and many of them will be forced to break The Laws of the Plantation in order to survive. It should be expected that increasing the stress on the Negroes at a time when they are already locked down in a seemingly never-ending cycle of malnutrition-foods and low wages will be enough to bring out the very worst in their personalities. And this will be most evident in those places like Tivoli where they are all packed together like sardines in a can. The fact that they are landless means that every facet of their daily existence will be subjected to increasing pressures to get the dollar in a time when LEGAL MONEY IS SCARCE. For the poor and vulnerable it has therefore become a dog-eat-dog rat race that is spawning an increase in lawlessness, and the development of illegal survival systems like gangs. SNOW WHITE-The Money God: OK, so do you have any recommendations? SECOND DRAGON, The Minister of Guile and Deception and Social Manipulation: Yes, it is vitally necessary that we enlist the Church and influential leaders of other religious groups like the Rastas, if possible, to maintain an inordinate level of docility amongst the people at the very same time when their life conditions are drastically worsening. UnHoly Father, What do you have to share on this matter? THIRD DRAGON , The UnHoly Father with the Forked Tongue: Well gentlemen my throat is sore from preaching last night, so pardon me if I am a little brief with my comments today. Speaking from a position of long practice and experience I would say that the best way to do this is to revive the old “God is soon coming for his world” sermon. Another one that I would highly recommend is the “Patience and Long suffering sermon” that teaches the people to be patient with bondage, and imprints in their minds an attitude that SUFFERING LONG IS A VIRTUE. Also another trump card that we have always played is to teach them to love their enemies. With this combination of doctrines we can do anything to them and get away with it. The desired objective here is that through the influence of properly cooked religion, the people’s natural instinct to act in pursuit of freedom will be totally erased. You may think that it would be difficult to immobilize the human’s natural instinct to be free, but it is not. All we the religious leaders need to do is to continue feeding the Nigs with doctrines that condition them to look beyond themselves for a miracle-working God or a super-man Selassie to bring betterment to their lives… if they are prepared to patiently wait and be long-suffering. We must continually hammer home the importance of blind faith and belief so that their minds are sufficiently spooked out. When crippled by this mental condition they will see two thousand years of waiting as no big deal. But for this thing to be truly effective these doctrines and our ministers that are chosen to spread them must be made to look very holy. We and our rituals must be elaborately clothed with the utmost sanctity, so that if anyone dares to think critically about these spooky myths they would feel like they are committing sacrilege and sinning against God, and their conscious minds will be therefore afraid to THINK. After a few short generations of these teachings the natural instinct to act in pursuit of freedom can be effectively erased for thousands of years. SNOW WHITE-The Money God: I totally agree with you. Properly cooked religion can definitely work wonders on the mind of a slave. The evidence is all around us. We have successfully tricked them with the idea about emancipation, and control their labor and their time, and their very lives the same way as we did before we told them that they are free. We have cloned for ourselves a true slave people, and programmed them with slave doctrines that taught them to love their enemies more than they love themselves. Most of them live from day to day in a permanent hustle for scraps, and have no prospects of handing down anything to their children but more slavery. Every generation passes it on to the next, and yet they still can be heard talking about slavery in the past tense. They are a very stupid people. They have stupidly fallen for our emancipation trick and believe that the absence of chains means the absence of bondage and that the absence of a white face in charge means the end of white power. We will always be able to trick them and rule them, because although they can play sports and make music, thinking is something that they always have a problem with. Go ahead and tell us some more!
THIRD DRAGON , The UnHoly Father with the Forked Tongue: Well, as you all know, we have never failed to collaborate with the schools and universities in making the historical robbery of African people and the historical enrichment of our people look like remote events that left no lasting social and economic legacy. We have always held that any discussions that throw light on the connection between past robberies and present poverty must be made taboo, and all the focus and the blame must be placed instead on the sins of the slave whose morality was bound to crack from the constant stress of the long historical weight of oppression. If the truth were to gain recognition that the soul-destroying nature of slavery and the stress of present-day oppression are the main contributors to the moral decay of the people, then unhealthy attention and the glance of condemnation may become focused on us. God forbid that such a thing should happen, because the issue of reparations would be unavoidable, and it would be difficult to extricate the Church from responsibility for its long years of collaboration with the slave owners. To counter such an eventuality I would suggest using the News Media to create a despicable image of those slave-descendants at the bottom of the economic ladder so that their poverty and social confusion will be seen as a direct result of their own laziness and their own innate immorality and inferiority. To be continued next part
VIDEO VERSION http://rastafarivisions.com/features/a-rasta-play |
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DECLARATION of REPARATIONS CONFERENCE held in Caracas
Submitted by DAVID COMISSIONG, Chairman, Caribbean Pan-African Network (CPAN)
Dear Colleagues,
Please see the attached Declaration of the International Conference on Reparations that was held in Caracas, Venezuela between the 8th and 10th of May 2018. The background to the Conference was the historic March 2018 announcement of the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that it was officially committing Venezuela to the pursuit of Reparations for the damage caused to the Afro-Venezuelan people as a result of the centuries of European orchestrated slavery and slave trade.
In so doing, the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela became the first Government to officially launch a campaign for Reparations since the historic Reparations claim launched by the fourteen independent nation states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in August 2013.
The Conference was attended by scores of delegates from the Caribbean , Africa, Latin America, the United States of America, and Europe, all of whom adopted the attached Declaration.
Attendees from the Caribbean included Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Mr Jomo Thomas, Deputy Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, Dr Pedro Welch, Chairman of the Barbados government’s National Task Force on Reparations, Ms Mireille Fanon, daughter of legendary Pan Africanist freedom fighter Franz Fanon and a leading Reparations scholar and activist in her own right, and Mr Bobby Clarke veteran Pan-Africanist lawyer .
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela– the host of the Conference– provided a solid foundation for the event with participation and inputs from the leadership of the newly established Afro-Venezuelan Commission on Reparations, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza, and President Nicholas Maduro.
INTERNATIONAL MEETING ON REPARATIONS
Caracas, May 8th – 10th, 2018
DECLARATION
We, activists, scholars, government representatives and social movements, gathered in the city of Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela from 8th to 10th May, 2018, on the anniversary of the anti-slavery and humanitarian rebellion of the Maroon Jose Leonardo Chirino, which occurred in Las Macanillas, Falcon State, on May 10th, 1795, declared as the Afro-Venezuelan National Day.
Delegates from different parts of the world gathered with the aim of discussing the topic of Reparations and finding a common strategy that enables us to translate what was discussed into concrete actions and results in the short, medium and long term.
We welcome the calling of this Meeting by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and recognize the encouragement given by President Nicolas Maduro Moros and the Bolivarian government to the topic of Reparations, placing it as a line of political action that shall generate a wide support from social movements, political organizations and national governments litigating reparation cases.
WHEREAS
Racism, discrimination, xenophobia and their related forms have intensified in recent times as a result of the continuity of the consequences of slavery and its many contemporary effects and impacts.
The trafficking of enslaved persons and slavery were recognized as crimes against humanity at the 3rd United Nations World Conference against Racism and its related forms, held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.
After developing the discussion points related to legal-juridical, multilateral, political, historical, economic, social and philosophical aspects of Reparations within the framework of this meeting, we hereby declare, and commit to:
1. Joint and collective legal efforts to demand and ensure that those States that were and are legally and morally responsible for the trade in enslaved Africans (including the transatlantic slave trade) and for slavery shall make compensation for the damages and traumas caused to the African people and their descendants.
2. Form a multidisciplinary work team to channel the legal and economic / historical process of reparations as one of the priority tasks of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent. Such work team must include Governments of progressive countries, the CARICOM Reparations Commission, research centers specializing in the topic of reparations, universities, the United Nations (UN), as well as social and community-based organizations committed to achieving reparations.
3. Create a Venezuelan Research Center specialized in Reparation Processes in relation to Slavery and to Contemporary Struggles in Africa, Our America and Europe against the dispossession of lands, rivers, religious spaces and new forms of neocolonization, articulated to others parts of the world with similar characteristics.
4. Establish alliances based on the topic of reparations with the Thabo Mbeki Foundation of South Africa and others, as a strategic mechanism for the exchange of experiences, training and promotion of the reparation topic on the African continent, in Our America and in the Caribbean.
5. Establish a “modus operandi” as a result of which our reparations movements and campaigns will ensure that the roles and positions that are undertaken will be shared equally between women and men.
6. Promote a United Nations (UN) high level meeting on Reparations and develop a continuing strategy which allows us to make the issue a priority in different multilateral forums.
7. Make the topic of Reparations a priority in multilateral spaces such as CARICOM, ALBA, the African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, GRULAC, the United Nations, and BRICS, among others; and emphasize the need to consolidate strategies and tools for the effective negotiation and the pursuit and achievement of Reparations in such spaces.
8. Include indigenous populations in this struggle. To this end, the ALBA Executive Secretariat has hereby presented a proposal allowing such articulation.
9. Implement an international campaign addressed to the peoples of the world in general and to policy makers in particular, with the aim of making the topic of Reparations a priority.
10. Promote the understanding that the entitlement to Reparations is a human, ethical and political right in order that the crimes committed in the times of the transatlantic slave trade, conquest and colonization of indigenous peoples, and slavery be definitively punished as crimes against humanity that caused social and economic inequality among our peoples.
11. Pursue the topic of reparations as a fair demand based on justice, respect and dignity, and not on confrontation.
12. Encourage social movements, and relevant civil society organizations such as the trade unions, to ally themselves with States and other institutions and organizations with the aim of fostering the historical claim processes of Afro-descendants in pursuit of their legitimate rights.
13. Recommend that the States of Our America and of the Caribbean extend official recognition to Afro-descendants and to their entitlement to their legitimate rights in the Constitutions of our States, and also give legislative commitments to implement the International Decade for the People of African Descent as decreed by the United Nations.
14. Recognize and acknowledge the strong and firm support given by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the establishment of the Legal Multidisciplinary Team which shall be responsible for addressing the reparation cases.
We, the participants of the International Meeting on Reparations, approve this Declaration on May 10th, 2018, in the city of Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
223 years after the pro-independence movement by Jose Leonardo Chirino, the Afro-Venezuelan Day!
Caracas, May 2018
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Cuba is Making Progress Mr. Degia!
David Comissiong RESPONDS TO MOHAMMED IQBAL DEGIA’S NATION NEWSPAPER COLUMN ON CUBA AND THE ISSUE OF RACE.
How easy it is for the Nation Newspaper’s columnist of East Asian descent, Mohammed Iqbal Degia, to get up on his journalistic soapbox and assume a posture of being “blacker” than all the Pan-Africanists and Afro-centrists of Barbados by self righteously railing against what he characterizes as the Republic of Cuba’s inexcusable deficiencies in tackling and eradicating black inequality and anti-black racism.
But the “super black” Mr Degia conveniently doesn’t tell us what he is comparing Cuba’s record in tackling black inequality and anti-black racism with !
As we all know, in 1959 revolutionary Cuba — a society with a large minority black population — inherited a socio-economic system that was severely disfigured by entrenched black inequality and anti black racism from the pre-Revolutionary era. And therefore, if we are to assess the record of the Cuban revolutionary government in dealing with and transforming that negative heritage, we would have to make comparisons with other white majority/large black minority societies such as the United States of America, Columbia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the United Kingdom, France and the list goes on. And the reality is that not a single one of these countries have come anywhere close to Revolutionary Cuba in dismantling anti-black racism and black inequality!
The “super black” Mr Degia seems to be demanding that by now Cuba should have eradicated black inequality and all vestiges of anti-black racism. But lets be honest — which nation on the face of this earth can be credited with having eradicated black inequality and anti-black racism?
Can we make such a claim for our own Barbados — a nation that possesses a 95% black population? Do we possess a society of racial equality in Barbados? Have we rid Barbados of all or even most aspects of anti-black or anti-African sentiments and discrimination? I, for one, think not.
No-one — certainly not me — is claiming that Cuba is some exemplary post-racial paradise, but I truly find it hard to think of any other nation that has made a more solid contribution to the cause of Black dignity and upliftment over the past half century.
Perhaps Mr Degia could tell us– in measuring a country’s commitment to the cause of black dignity and equality– what weight should we attach to the fact that thousands of Cuban soldiers (most of them being volunteers) sacrificed their lives on the very soil of Africa fighting the forces of white supremacy?
Or what weight do we attach to the fact that for several decades now literally tens of thousands of Cuban doctors, nurses, engineers, and a host of other technicians have served in Haiti and in a plethora of other Black and African countries in an effort to contribute to their development?
In addition,what weight should we attach to the fact that Cuba has opened its schools and universities — free of cost — to hundreds of thousands of of black and African students over the course of the sixty odd years of the Cuban Revolution?
You say — Mr Degia — that Cuba made mistakes in its approach to fighting racism. You imply that it was a mistake for the revolutionary leadership to believe that the establishment of socialist programmes geared towards fostering social equality and delivering education, health, housing and other social services to the people at the bottom of the social ladder would be enough to disrupt and rectify the inherited racist social structure. Well, maybe it was too optimistic to think that a sheer commitment to socialist equality and human development would be enough,but which country has not made mistakes in its approach to fighting racism?
Mr Degia, you write vaguely and glibly of a white Cuban elite that represses black Cubans. But — tellingly — you provide not a scintilla of evidence, other than your nonsensical pointing out that the three Presidents of Revolutionary Cuba thus far have been white. In case you don’t know Mr Degia, two of those Presidents– the Castro brothers– were the historical leaders of the Revolution, and they happened to be white.
Though, truth be told, it is really difficult to think of Fidel Castro as merely a “white” man, for at an ideological level Fidel was such an enemy of the system of white capitalist supremacy that most of us consider him nothing less than a “black brother”. In fact the great Black Power advocate, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) once described Fidel as the blackest man in the Americas!
Pray tell us Mr Degia, when was the last time you heard news of a police officer in Revolutionary Cuba shooting down an unarmed black man? Or when was the last time you heard of the state intelligence or law enforcement agencies of Revolutionary Cuba setting out on a campaign to subvert and bring down black office-holders? If you are looking for a society that is oppressive of black people, Mr Degia, you are looking in the wrong place— you have to shift your gaze a little further North.
Permit me to conclude — Mr Degia — by sharing with you the following FACTS about the racial make-up of the governmental administration that was elected to office in Cuba less than a week ago:-
(1) The National Assembly
The President of the National Assembly or Parliament of Cuba– Esteban Lazo Hernandez — is a black man, and of the 605 Deputies, some 36% of them are black or of African descent.
(2) The Council of State
The Council of State or Cabinet comprises 31 members, and close to half of its members (45.1 % to be precise) are black or of African descent.
(3) The Leadership of the Council of State
The leadership of the Council of State consists of eight persons — a President, a First Vice President, five other Vice Presidents, and a Secretary. Three of the eight members of this leadership cohort are black, including the First Vice President.
All the facts underlie that Cuba is making progress — very substantial progress — in solving the historic problem of racial inequality that the Revolution inherited! I wish the same could be said for several other countries that are well known to us.
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Repeal ALL Slavery Legislation and for Reparations
Submitted by nineofnine
Photo Credit: Ras Jahaziel
Inherently, the LAWS of the Slave Trade and the Slave code conceived by the Europeans did capitalized on the exploitation of Africans making Barbados the first Slave Society and by extension built the North American Society on the said slave code LONG AFTER. Much damage has been done to the psyche of the descendants inclusive of inferiority complexes as well as economic destitution at the whims of controls and servitude. Be that as it may, the onus for any revival of character, formidable self worth, lost self esteem and degeneration, lies in acceptance of the experience, forgiveness of the perpetrators which clears all mental blockages that prevent human development and advancement and by resisting and refuting the bombardment of subliminal suggestions from enslaving negative thought forms and visuals via movies, advertisements, games, some historical records ..et al designed to keep the mental experiment and experience alive.
HOW CAN THE DAMAGE BE RECTIFIED?
FIRSTLY
Its root is embedded in the Colonial Legislature of ENGLAND under the guise of the Slave codes (1661),The Antimiscegenation Law (1664), Naturalization laws, Immigration Laws along with other laws that exploit and subdue Blacks physically, mentally and economically, failing to recognize blacks as human beings, only as property, denying interracial marriages, disallowing the right to protect their families and what little property they held …further subtly enacting Supremacist laws that did not held those captors accountable for their hostile actions against those of African decent and other non-white ethnicities …et al.
BARBADOS like other Territories have a REPRESENTATIVE of that Domain known as the GOVERNOR GENERAL.
For all intent and purposes, should not the GOVERNOR GENERAL (as PROTOCOL representative dictate) move/petition to have the LEGISLATION that “enacted/legalize” slavery across the British Commonwealth, be stricken / repeal and removed from the Books of Legislature, along with pardons and reparations made to those territories due to their NOW Independent Status and Sovereignty?
Surely any success will see Her Excellency the Governor General as the legal LIBERATOR of the remnants of the Slave Trade exploitation agenda. What an admirable legacy that would be as well as for all other GGs who collectively renders solidarity.
FOR THE CLAIM OF LEGAL REDRESS
The Entity that can, must and will facilitate ANY REPEALS OF LAW or issue directives to recompense those who have suffered from the slave trade is the UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION …controller of edits of all global money and governments … headquartered in Bern, SWITZERLAND.
All communications toward this cause MUST BE SIMULTANEOUSLY BE ADDRESS TO ALL ENTITIES AT THE SAME TIME by all GGs if necessary, firstly to The UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION and copied to the British Monarchy, the British Legislature using the CODES of MARITIME LAW and Quantum Parse Syntax Grammar….as well as notifying and gaining the support of all affected territories of slavery throught the British Commonwealth BY its Colonial Masters.
Other bodies can render support as aided petitions.
For the lack of the correct Parse Syntax Grammar of those enslaving laws/documents of slavery will render them illegal, of no fact, fictitious by nature and of no contract. Only thus SHALL it BE RESOLVED and so be it.
SECONDLY
Reinforce upon yourselves that you are not your ancestors, you are their offspring, BUT ALSO an individuality of a soul incarnate existing on a different timeline WITHOUT SHACKLES.
OF NOTE..
Descendants of slavery must look at the slave trade as a learning experience. These experiences were registered in the quantum field of the DNA structures of those who suffered and endured slavery passing on those experiences genetically to their offspring, which will appear today that descendants of those who suffered, displays traits of inferiority, docility, submissiveness or some other form of “mental illness”.
By targeting “thoughts of redress” directly at the quantum field of the DNA, CHANGES the “code” that passes this information (experiences) unto their offspring….finding redress, change and healing and cure.
THIRDLY
What’s left is to deal with the economic disenfranchisement which today is being engage by those who control economic wealth.
HOW CAN ECONOMIC WEALTH BE GRASPED?
Education?
Take a serious look at it and you will see that its being imploded here and around the world….why? and does it guarantee economic stability or growth? How many of sound educational background fear in todays society, highly paid but living from paycheck to paycheck.
Look around and see how many are they of economic wealth that has no serious educational background yet their world is a stage while the sky is the limit.
The onus then, if by education, most relay on it to gain meaningful employment being subservient to employer and business, is this not the another form of slavery subtly cloaked and exploited via “sound education and corporate placement?
The empowerment of education must be fringe on the precept of KNOWING ONESELF ABILITIES and to engage CREATING creative BUSINESSES, CREATING YOUR OWN JOB, start business with what you have or do best at… a hobby, skill, knowledge gained of a profession or of family tradition… that’s where the tables begin to turn, and yes… as a people, one can boycott the enslavers or by Governance create a just balance in economic activity, BUT the one who CONTROLS his OWN JOB and economic destiny is the one without shackles and has gain real liberation from the “bonds of ECONOMIC Slavery”
WE SMARTER THAN THAT, MORE THAN THAT AND SERIOUS ABOUT THAT!
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The Slave in YOUR Mentality – CHAPTER 4
Submitted by Ras Jahaziel Tafari
Chapter 4 of THE SLAVE IN YOUR MENTALITY is a continuation of the introspective journey that seeks to identify the many ways in which the X-Slave continues to carry the marks of his enslavement. In this chapter we examine an issue called “SATISFACTION WITH INFERIORITY,” showing how long slave conditioning caused inferiority to become normalized to the point that it is not even recognized as inferiority.
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Black Slavery is Back
SAY SOMETHING!!!!!
The press is saying very little about this! Repost!!!!! This is no laughing matter! I’m so grieved! We WILL NOT be silent! This must stop!!! So what are we gonna DO? #REPOST #Repost @bishopjakes (@get_repost)
・・・The slave trade that is going on in Libya, and even globally, is an atrocity that has to STOP. We, as a people have to partner together to put an end to this horrific disregard for human life. Here are a few ways you can help: —Use YOUR voice (Social Media, your community, etc.) to raise awareness! —Support organizations that give aid to countries from which migrants are fleeing. —Contact your local officials and become an advocate in the fight against slavery & human trafficking.
We have got to say something…we CANNOT be silent. #Libya #HumanTrafficking #SlaveryInLibya
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The Slave in YOUR Mentality (Chapter III)
Submitted Ras Jahaziel
Decolonizing the African mind has become the most urgent task that now needs to be done if there is to be any meaningful reparations. What will it take to accomplish this most sacred mission? It means curing the broken slave of TRUTH ALLERGIES.
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REPARATIONS MADE SIMPLE or almost everybody’s guide to reparations
DAVID COMISSIONG, Chairman, Caribbean Pan-African Network (CPAN)
The campaign to secure “Reparations” for the multiplicity of genocides and crimes that have been committed against the sons and daughters of Africa during the centuries of Slavery and Colonization consists of an “outwardly directed” process in which we level demands at the liable European and North American Governments and institutions for a comprehensive package of compensatory money payments, developmental programmes, transfers of resources, and national and international institutional reforms , as well as of an “inwardly directed” process that we African or African-descended people must engage in ourselves to repair those aspects of the damage that pertain most directly to our minds and psyches.
And deeply embedded in the concept of and campaign for Reparations are the following twelve fundamental principles :-
1. NO IMPUNITY!
The campaign for Reparations sends a message to all and sundry that there will be no impunity for those who commit “crimes against humanity”. Who so ever commits a “crime against humanity” must know and expect that justice will be demanded of them– even if it takes two hundred years, and even if it is their successors and beneficiaries who are ultimately required to make recompense !
2. VALIDATION OF OUR HUMANITY
If we Africans or African-descendants fail to demand that the present-day representatives and beneficiaries of those institutions and nations that committed the most horrible crimes imaginable against our ancestors be held accountable and made to pay restitution, we would be implicitly sending a message to ourselves and to the world at large that we do not consider our ancestors (or ourselves) to be sacred beings invested with inalienable rights and deserving of respect and justice! And so, the very act of demanding Reparations constitutes a validation by us of our own precious humanity, and is a critical component of the process that we must engage in as individuals and as a collective of repairing ourselves!
3. KNOWLEDGE OF OUR HISTORY
The Reparations Campaign must be built upon a foundation of knowledge about who we African or African-descended people were before the criminal European impositions of slavery and colonialism — knowledge of the achievements and glories of our pre-slavery, pre-colonial African civilization; knowledge of the history of European orchestrated enslavement and its destructive effects on the civilization of Africa; and knowledge of the extent to which the present-day materially imposing Western industrial societies constitute agglomerations of wealth stolen from the sons and daughters of Africa over the centuries.
4. COMPLETION OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCESS
Of course, the point must also be made that the racist oppression of black or African people did not end with the formal abolition of slavery! Indeed, after the abolition of slavery in the 19th century our historical oppressors deliberately entrapped our ancestors in economic, political and social arrangements that were designed to handicap them and to serve the interests of the former enslavers– arrangements that have persisted (in modified form) down to the present day. The struggle for Reparations must therefore be– among other things– a struggle to expose and put an end to such arrangements and to complete the Emancipation process!
5. COMPENSATION MUST BE PROPORTIONATE TO THE CRIME
The demand for compensation from the present-day representatives of those who inflicted horrendous crimes on our ancestors and who damaged and disabled succeeding generations must consist of a demand for the transfer of material resources in an amount proportionate to the enormity of the crimes and their deleterious effects—resources to enable present-day African and African-descendant populations to counter the economic and social imbalances derived from those centuries of criminality.
6. REPARATIONS MUST PRODUCE THE JUST SOCIETY
The campaign for Reparations or for Reparative Justice must be designed to produce the “just society”, in that the demand for Reparations must be formulated as a demand for a fundamental transformation of the currently existing inequitable and exploitative economic and power relations that exist in the international arena and in many of our domestic societies. This principle has implications not only for the restructuring of such international entities and phenomena as the United Nations Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the terms of international trade and finance, but also for the manner in which our domestic African and Caribbean societies and Governments function. Implicit in the demand of our Caribbean and African Governments for Reparations must be a commitment to themselves deliver justice to their own people! And this is a commitment that the masses of African and Caribbean people must be prepared – through dynamic activism and advocacy– to hold our Governments to!
7. WE AFRICANS MUST EXERCISE AUTONOMY THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS
An integral strategy of the contemporary Reparations Movement is to present the demand for the payment of compensation (in financial and material resources as well as in developmental programmes) to the present-day representatives and beneficiaries of the evil system of slave trade and slavery and to invite their collaboration in addressing the tragic effects of this monumental historical crime. But even while adopting this approach, we Africans and African-descendants make it absolutely clear to all and sundry that even though we value the concept of collaboration, that the strategies and tasks to be implemented for our psychological repair and for our economic and social empowerment are our own responsibility and will be conceptualized, directed and controlled by us!
8. WE MUST REPAIR OURSELVES
A critical component of the campaign for Reparations is the African’s and African-descendant’s own inwardly directed struggle for psychological, cultural and spiritual self-repair. Thus, African or Afro-descendant members of the Reparations Movement and their governments must be committed – as individuals and as collectives – to seek to identify all of the ways in which we have been and continue to be negatively affected by false notions of white supremacy and black inferiority, and to rigorously attack them and eradicate the negative effects that impact on our individual and collective psyches!
9. SELF-REPAIR WILL GENERATE MASS SUPPORT FOR REPARATIONS
The effort to “prosecute” and hold accountable the present-day representatives and beneficiaries of the historical oppressors of the African and African-descendant people will require the widespread participation of Africans and African-descendants: and the attainment of such widespread popular participation will, in turn, be dependent on the inwardly directed struggle for self-repair and its capacity to persuade a critical mass of the African population to re-evaluate themselves and their history; to perceive the gravity of the injustice; to feel the tragic historical loss they have suffered; and to be sufficiently motivated to get involved or otherwise support the campaign for Reparations. The Reparations Movement and the African and Caribbean governments that lead it must therefore engage in a comprehensive mass education outreach programme to the community that is designed not only to educate about the relevant history, but to also help as many of our people as possible to emotionally connect with that history and the tragic loss and injustice suffered.
10. REPARATIONS MUST BE A BROAD MOVEMENT
The campaign for Reparations must be designed, on the one hand, to bring on board with us all of our natural allies in Africa and the Diaspora, Latin America and Asia and to enlist the tremendous weight of world opinion on our side, and, on the other hand, to isolate and publicly hold up to international embarrassment and critique all those entities that perversely and unreasonably seek to deny and resist the manifest justice and righteousness of our claim to Reparations. This will call for a concerted effort in the field of international diplomacy by the Ambassadors, Embassies and foreign Missions of the nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the African Union (AU). It will also require consistent effort at the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Commonwealth and in other relevant international organizations.
11. THE MASS OF OUR PEOPLE MUST BE INTIMATELY INVOLVED
The masses of our African and African-descendant populations must be intimately involved in the campaign for Reparations: they must be permitted enough time and opportunity to thoroughly discuss and understand the issue; their right to have the final and decisive say on the concrete details of the Reparations claim must be respected; and they must have a say – through representatives specifically selected by them – as to how the compensatory resources are utilized. Furthermore, at a national level– within our many nation states–the Reparations Movement should systematically appeal to and challenge all of the relevant local and national organizations to put support for Reparations on their agenda and to include it in their programmes and Manifestos – political parties, trade unions, youth organizations, churches, women’s organizations, educational institutions, local government administrations, and the list goes on.
12. NETWORK AND ESTABLISH A NEW INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STRUCTURE
The successful pursuit of Reparations will require the establishment of a world-wide network of community, regional, national and international organizations. Indeed, at the grassroots level, the community based Reparations organization must be linked into a national network, while at the level of our African and Caribbean governments we should establish a trans-Atlantic international network that is preparing and engaging in legal, diplomatic and political strategies at the international level to achieve Reparations. The African and African-descendants Reparations Claim (s) will either be consensually negotiated between mutually respectful State parties gathered around an international negotiating table, or it will have to be litigated in a series of international law cases brought against the Governments of the liable nations.
CONCLUSION :
The time has come for the African and African descendant people of the world and their Governments to finally present their Reparations Bill to the current day successor Governments of those national Governments of Europe and North America that organized, facilitated, legitimized, financed, and benefited from the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the associated system of racialized Chattel Slavery — the governments of Britain, Spain, France, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and the United States of America (a former colony that perpetuated the enslavement of African people for nearly one hundred years after attaining its independence).
Onwards to the achievement of Reparations in this United Nations International Decade For People of African Descent!
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Ten Fundamental Principles of Reparations
Submitted by DAVID COMISSIONG, Chairman,Caribbean Pan-African Network (CPAN)
Marcus Garvey
“I, and I know you, too, believe in time, and we shall wait patiently for two hundred years if need be, to face our enemies through our posterity……When I am dead wrap the mantle of the Red, Black and Green around me, for in the new life I shall rise with God’s grace and blessing……. Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you…… I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life….. I shall write the history that will inspire the millions that are coming and leave the posterity of our enemies to reckon with the hosts for the deeds of their fathers.”
The Hon. Marcus Garvey, February 10, 1925
The fundamental point that the Honourable Marcus Garvey was making in the passage quoted above is the fundamental message that is encased in the demand for Reparations, and it is that there is and will be no impunity for the commission of any crime against humanity. In other words, whosoever commits a crime against humanity must expect that justice will be demanded of them or their posterity—even if it takes two hundred years! And so it is with the demand for Reparations for the multiplicity of genocides and crimes that have been committed against the sons and daughters of Africa by the nations, governments, and institutions of Europe and North America.
The good news is that the campaign to achieve the payment of Reparations to the nations and people of Africa and the African Diaspora for the atrocities committed against their ancestors and the damage inflicted on their civilization during the centuries of European-imposed slave trade, slavery and colonial domination is well and truly underway!
At an historic 2013 Summit meeting of the Heads of Government of the nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) — Jamaica, Antigua & Barbuda, the Bahamas St. Kitts & Nevis, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Haiti, Dominica, Belize, Montserrat, Suriname and Grenada — a decision was taken to collectively pursue a Reparations claim against the national governments of those European nations that actively participated in the genocide that was inflicted on the native or indigenous people of the Caribbean, and in the centuries-long imposition of slavery on the African-descended population of the Caribbean, and to establish a regional governmental “Reparations Commission” to pursue the Claim.
And so, not only do we now have a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Reparations Commission representing 14 independent national governments and nation-states of the Caribbean, but we have also witnessed the recent establishment of such important Black civil-society institutions as the National African-American Reparations Commission of the United States of America (USA) and the European Commission For Reparations, and we are aware that similar Brazilian and Canadian initiatives are currently in various stages of preparation.
In addition, the government-owned university of the Caribbean– the University of the West Indies (UWI) — has announced that its newly established Reparations Research Institute will be situated at the Mona , Jamaica campus of the University, and will be officially launched in October of this year.
It is anticipated that this new scholarly institution will help us to structure an “outwardly directed” process in which we level demands at the liable Governments and institutions for the compensatory money payments, developmental programmes, transfers of resources, and international and national institutional reforms that all go to make up a package of Reparations “payments”, as well as to pursue an “inwardly directed” struggle that we must engage in ourselves to repair those aspects of the damage that pertain most directly to our minds and psyches.
Furthermore, these important developments are taking place against the background of the commencement, on 1st January 2015, of the United Nations International Decade For People of African Descent– a specially designated ten year period during which the critical issues facing people of African descent are to take centre-stage and to engage the full attention of the international community.
In light of these historic happenings, there can be no better time than now for a concerted effort to be made to construct a truly global Reparations Lobby centred primarily around the African or predominantly African nations, governments and population groups of the continent of Africa, the Caribbean and other regions of the African diaspora, but also extending to important governmental and civil society allies in Latin America, Asia, and Europe .
But, it must be acknowledged that if such a development is to be actualized it will be essential that the African Union (AU) commit itself to partnering with its kith and kin governments in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in pursuit of this sacred cause.
And there is a clear historical basis for such a partnership, in that the continent of Africa suffered just as much — if not more– from the ravages of the European-imposed and orchestrated “Slave Trade” than did the slavery-based, plantation societies of the so-called New World.
Indeed, the famous international multi-disciplinary Pan-African scholar, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima (author of the ground-breaking “They Came Before Columbus”) succinctly described the impact of the European-orchestrated Slave Trade on the African continent as follows:-
“No human disaster, with the exception of the Flood (if that biblical legend is true) can equal in dimension of destructiveness the cataclysm that shook Africa. We are all familiar with the slave trade and the traumatic effect of this on the transplanted Black, but few of us realize what horrors were wrought on Africa itself. Vast populations were uprooted and displaced; whole generations disappeared; European diseases descended like the plague, decimating both cattle and people; cities and towns were abandoned; family networks disintegrated; kingdoms crumbled; the threads of cultural and historical continuity were so savagely torn asunder that henceforth one would have to think of two Africas: the one before and the one after the Holocaust.”
(Extract from “Blacks In Science”)
But in addition to the continent’s historical grievance and cause of action, it should be noted that it was actually the continent of Africa that– through the work of the now defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU) — provided the Caribbean region with much of the initial inspiration and impetus on the issue of Reparations.
You see, the people and organizations of the Caribbean really began to reconnect with their historic claim for Reparations when, in the year 1990, word reached the Caribbean about the First International Conference on Reparations that was held in Lagos, Nigeria. This effort was pioneered by the late Chief Moshood Abiola of Nigeria and his Caribbean collaborator, the late Ambassador Dudley Thompson of Jamaica.
This International Reparations conference led to the OAU establishing a Group of Eminent Persons as well as a Commission on Reparations in 1992. And those developments led, in turn, to the staging of the OAU’s First Pan-African Conference On Reparations in Abuja, Nigeria in the year 1993, and to the issuing of the historic “Abuja Declaration” with its demand that the international community recognize that “there is a unique and unprecedented moral debt owed to the African peoples which has yet to be paid”, as well as its clarion CALL to the Heads of States and Governments in Africa and the Diaspora to establish National Reparations Committees to pursue the claim for Reparations in tandem with the OAU.
As we are all aware, in or about the year 1999 the OAU was succeeded by the African Union (AU), and as a result both the Group of Eminent Persons and the Commission on Reparations became defunct.
Fortunately however, the historic developments of 1992 had laid a groundwork that made it possible for the Governments of Africa and the Caribbean to collaborate (even if informally) during the preparatory stages of the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism (UNWCAR) , and to ensure that resolutions acknowledging that the European-orchestrated trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery were “crimes against humanity”; that Africans and African descendants continued to suffer from the consequences of these crimes up to the present day; and that reparative measures to repair the still existing damage are necessary and justified, were placed on the Agenda of the Conference and ultimately adopted.
What made this successful African/Caribbean collaboration all the more impressive is that it was engaged in against the background of strident demands by the governments of the USA, Canada, and Western Europe that the UNWCAR was not to be concerned at all with issues related to the trans-Atlantic slave trade; to the centuries of European-orchestrated slavery; or to any notion of reparative justice for these historical crimes.
However, these arrogant Western “stipulations” all came to naught as a result of the African and Caribbean delegations at the various World Conference preparatory meetings engaging with Latin American and Asian allies to defy the Western powers and to force resolutions pertaining to slavery, trans-Atlantic slave trade and Reparations unto the agenda– resolutions that the Western powers (with the sole exception of the USA, which petulantly walked out of the Conference when it became clear that it would not be getting its way) actually acceded to during the deliberations in Durban , South Africa.
This experience demonstrated conclusively that where nations — even relatively small and supposedly “powerless” nations– pursue a manifestly just and righteous cause with passion and commitment, that they will not only win over the majority opinion of the World community but will also generate a moral force that is irresistible, even for the most intransigent and powerful Governments and nations !
And then, some ten years later, in August 2012, at the AU’s “Global African Summit” in Johannesburg, South Africa, it was resolved by the governmental representatives of Africa and the Caribbean that the AU would seek to collaborate with the governments of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in pursuing the quest for Reparations.
It is against this background that we would now like to present a brief but important outline of the Reparations concept in its holistic comprehensiveness by exploring what we have termed the ten fundamental principles of Reparations.
These ten principles are as follows:–
1. VALIDATION OF OUR HUMANITY
The first and most basic principle of the Reparations Movement is that the very demand for Reparations constitutes– in itself– an indispensable validation by African and African-descended people of our own precious humanity!
You see, if we Africans or Afro-descendants fail to demand that the present-day representatives and beneficiaries of those persons, institutions and nations that committed the most horrible crimes imaginable against our ancestors be held accountable and made to pay restitution, we would be implicitly sending a message to ourselves and to the world at large that we do not consider our ancestors (or ourselves) to be sacred beings imbued with inalienable rights and deserving of respect and justice!
And so, the mere act of demanding Reparations is important, and is a critical component of the process, that we must engage in as individuals and as a collective, of repairing ourselves and of reaffirming the value of our civilization and heritage!
But clearly, any such validation of our humanity will have to begin with a knowledge of who we Africans or Afro-descendants were as a people before the criminal European impositions of slavery and colonialism. Thus, the Reparations Movement and the African and Caribbean governments that lead it must make it a priority to promote the study and the dissemination of information about our pre-slavery, pre-colonial African civilization, as well as of the history of European orchestrated enslavement and its effects on the civilization of Africa and on the development of the modern world.
2. COMPLETION OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCESS
Of course, the point must also be made that the racist oppression of black or African people did not end with the formal abolition of slavery! Indeed, after the abolition of slavery in the 19th century our historical oppressors deliberately entrapped our ancestors in economic, political and social arrangements that were designed to handicap them and to serve the interests of the former enslavers– arrangements that have persisted (in modified form) down to the present day.
The struggle for Reparations must therefore be– among other things– a struggle to expose and put an end to such arrangements and to complete the Emancipation process! This is the second fundamental principle of the Reparations Movement.
It goes without saying therefore that the Reparations Movement (and our Governments in particular) must engage in an examination of our post-slavery history (with a view to identifying the many ways in which our historical oppressors unlawfully enmeshed and entrapped post-slavery generations down to the present era) , as well as in an examination of the many examples of resistance to these oppressive stratagems that were engaged in by our fore-fathers and mothers, inclusive of their many decisive contributions to anti-colonial victories against European colonialism and to the founding of independent African and Caribbean nations .
And having properly informed ourselves we must be prepared to undertake efforts to expose and deprecate such racist present-day arrangements; to advance demands that they be terminated; and to undertake relevant protests and boycotts as well as forms of individual and collective State action to bring about the termination of all such still existing racist arrangements.
3. COMPENSATION MUST BE PROPORTIONATE TO THE CRIME
The demand for compensation from the present-day representatives of those who inflicted horrendous crimes on our ancestors and who damaged and disabled succeeding generations must consist of a demand for the transfer of material resources in an amount proportionate to the enormity of the crimes and their deleterious effects—resources to enable present-day African and African-descendant populations to counter the economic and social imbalances derived from those centuries of criminality.
The Reparations Movement and the African and Caribbean governments that lead the Movement are therefore expected to collectively discuss and work out with civil society and other popular organizations, ideas for appropriate Reparations initiatives, payments and programmes that are capable of achieving such an objective.
4. REPARATIONS MUST PRODUCE THE JUST SOCIETY
The fourth fundamental principle of the Reparations Movement is that the campaign for Reparations or for Reparative Justice must be designed to produce the “just society”, in that the demand for Reparations must be formulated as a demand for a fundamental transformation of the currently existing inequitable and exploitative economic and power relations that exist in the international arena and in many of our domestic societies.
It should be noted that this principle has implications not only for the restructuring of such international entities and phenomena as the United Nations Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the terms of international trade and finance, but also for the manner in which our domestic African and Caribbean societies and Governments function. Implicit in the demand of our Caribbean and African Governments for Reparations must be a commitment to themselves deliver justice to their own people! And this is a commitment that the masses of African and Caribbean people must be prepared – through dynamic activism and advocacy– to hold our Governments to!
And here again, it will be incumbent on the international Reparations Movement and the African and Caribbean governments that lead the Movement to collectively discuss, work out and document ideas for appropriate initiatives, programmes and payments that are imbued with the potential to achieve this very ambitious (but critical) goal of producing the just society—internationally and domestically.
5. AFRICANS MUST EXERCISE AUTONOMY THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS
An integral strategy of the Reparations Movement is to present the demand for the payment of compensation (in financial and material resources as well as in developmental programmes) to the present-day representatives and beneficiaries of the evil system of slave trade and slavery and to invite their collaboration in addressing the tragic effects of this monumental historical crime. This, indeed, has been the approach of the CARICOM governments to date — they have collectively written to the relevant Governments of Western Europe calling upon them to acknowledge the crimes that were committed and the damage that was caused, and requesting them to agree to a collaborative approach to engaging in developmental programmes and transfers of resources designed to repair the still existing damage.
But even while adopting this approach, we Africans and Afro-descendants make it absolutely clear to all and sundry that even though we value the concept of collaboration, that the strategies and tasks to be implemented for our psychological repair and for our economic and social empowerment are our own responsibility and will be conceptualized, directed and controlled by us!
6. WE MUST REPAIR OURSELVES
A critical component of the campaign for Reparations is the African’s and Afro-descendant’s own inwardly directed struggle for psychological, cultural and spiritual self-repair. Thus, African or Afro-descendant members of the Reparations Movement and their governments must be committed – as individuals and as collectives – to seek to identify all of the ways in which we have been and continue to be negatively affected by false notions of white supremacy and black inferiority, and to rigorously attack them and eradicate the negative effects that impact on our individual and collective psyches!
7. SELF-REPAIR WILL GENERATE MASS SUPPORT FOR REPARATIONS
The effort to “prosecute” and hold accountable the present-day representatives and beneficiaries of the historical oppressors of the African and Afro-descendant people will require the widespread participation of Africans and Afro-descendants: and the attainment of such widespread popular participation will, in turn, be dependent on the inwardly directed struggle for self-repair and its capacity to persuade a critical mass of the African population to re-evaluate themselves and their history; to perceive the gravity of the injustice; to feel the tragic historical loss they have suffered; and to be sufficiently motivated to get involved or otherwise support the campaign for Reparations.
The Reparations Movement and the African and Caribbean governments that lead it must therefore engage in a comprehensive mass education outreach programme to the community that is designed not only to educate about the relevant history, but to also help as many of our people as possible to emotionally connect with that history and the tragic loss and injustice suffered.
8. REPARATIONS MUST BE A BROAD MOVEMENT
The campaign for Reparations must be designed, on the one hand, to bring on board with us all of our natural allies in Africa and the Diaspora, Latin America and Asia and to enlist the tremendous weight of world opinion on our side, and, on the other hand, to isolate and publicly hold up to international embarrassment and critique all those entities that perversely and unreasonably seek to deny and resist the manifest justice and righteousness of our claim to Reparations.
This will call for a concerted effort in the field of international diplomacy by the Ambassadors, Embassies and foreign Missions of the nations of CARICOM and the AU. It will also require consistent effort at the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Commonwealth and in other relevant international organizations.
The Reparations Movement should therefore set about to bring allies (in the form of Governments and important civil society organizations) on board by reaching out and educating such entities about the African Reparations cause.
We will surely win the Reparations struggle when, wherever in the world representatives of the legally responsible governments go, other governments and people of goodwill are constantly asking them about their long outstanding moral and legal debt to the people and nations of Africa and the African Diaspora !
Just as virtually the whole world has come to know about the horrors of the Jewish holocaust and to acknowledge and respect the legitimacy and moral rightness of the Jewish demand for Reparations, we too must bring about a similar state of affairs in world public opinion in relation to the African Reparations cause.
9. THE MASS OF OUR PEOPLE MUST BE INTIMATELY INVOLVED
The masses of our African and Afro-descendant populations must be intimately involved in the campaign for Reparations: they must be permitted enough time and opportunity to thoroughly discuss and understand the issue; their right to have the final and decisive say on the concrete details of the Reparations claim must be respected; and they must have a say – through representatives specifically selected by them – as to how the compensatory resources are utilized.
Furthermore, at a national level– within our many nation states–the Reparations Movement should systematically appeal to and challenge all of the relevant local and national organizations to put support for Reparations on their agenda and to include it in their programmes and Manifestos – political parties, trade unions, youth organizations, churches, women’s organizations, educational institutions, local government administrations, and the list goes on.
There must also be no compromise on the requirement that the “trustees” of any Reparations Fund that emerges out of the Reparations Campaign must include- along with the elected Governmental leadership– trusted representatives of the people directly selected by the people themselves for the special purpose of overseeing the expenditure of Reparations resources.
10. NETWORK AND ESTABLISH A NEW INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STRUCTURE
The successful pursuit of Reparations will require the establishment of a world-wide network of community, regional, national and international organizations. Indeed, at the grassroots level, the community based Reparations organization must be linked into a national network, while at the level of our African and Caribbean governments we should establish a trans-Atlantic international network that is preparing and engaging in legal, diplomatic and political strategies at the international level to achieve Reparations.
The African and African-descendants Reparations Claim (s) will either be consensually negotiated between mutually respectful State parties gathered around an international negotiating table, or it will have to be litigated in a series of international law cases brought against the Governments of the liable nations.
And since the Reparations claim that is being advanced on behalf of the sons and daughters of Africa and the Diaspora is of a magnitude and complexity hitherto unknown to the currently existing international court system, it may in all likelihood require the setting up of a special new International Tribunal specifically designed by the member states of the General Assembly of the United Nations to deal with and do justice to a claim of this historical importance and magnitude.
The time has come for the African and African descendant people of the world and their Governments to finally present their Reparations Bill to the current day successor Governments of those national Governments of Europe and North America that organized, facilitated, legitimized, financed, and benefited from the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the associated system of racialized Chattel Slavery — the governments of Britain, Spain, France, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and the United States of America (a former colony that perpetuated the enslavement of African people for nearly one hundred years after attaining its independence).
Onwards to the achievement of Reparations in this United Nations International Decade For People of African Descent!
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AMOS WILSON Speaks on the Continuation of Black Slavery
Submitted by by Ras Jahaziel
Amos Wilson speaks on the continuation of Black slavery in the present day, illustrating how the behaviors that were implanted by the slave system persist today and serve to keep Black bondage in place.
