Reparations: Its time has truly come

One of the most prominent intellectual, political and philosophical voices on the issue of reparatory justice for Britain’s role in slavery, colonialism and its legacy of structural racism was the guest speaker for a debate about reparations in Parliament.

Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, and Chair of the CARICOM reparations commission, told the audience including, writer and film maker David Olusoga, UCL Professor Nick Draper, David Lammy MP and Baroness Floella Benjamin, that:

Never before have so many countries -14 - collectively come together to say to the British Government that the barbaric deeds spanning over 400 years still have a profound effect today, not least on the Caribbean States, its people and the Caribbean Diaspora who are subject to its continued structural inequalities.”

Olusoga, the historian and film maker who recently made a BBC documentary 'Britain’s forgotten slave owners: profit and loss', told the gathering:

After this meeting I’m going off to a Holocaust memorial event, but it deeply saddens me that when it comes to slavery and reparations here in the UK , there's a short circuiting that cuts off any debate.”

It was an excellent debate. At one point the Guardian’s Joseph Harker pointed out that any debate about reparations is always met with a visceral almost demonic response that often shouts ; ‘they’ve got the begging bowl out again’, and, ‘they want to burden us with guilt from our ancestor’s crimes’. Maybe, he argued we should change the name and find another a more palatable terminology.

Harker is right that any discussion about reparations is met with the most vitriolic racism, but many voices in the room said, ‘we know what they’ll throw at us, ‘we’re ready for that and more. ‘

The debate of lack of it about slavery and reparatory justice reminds me of the George Bernard Shaw quote that says: “All great truths begin as blasphemies”.

With great unity on this subject growing in the Caribbean islands, in the US, Africa and here in the UK, the ‘great truth’ about the debt owed to global Africans and our negatively affected Nation States will not go away, on the contrary its time has very much come.

The gathering pledged to support CARICOM in its global endeavors for get justice on this issue .

Simon Woolley

The event was hosted by Diane Abbott and organised by OBV and Dr Michael McEachrane.