The chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Reparations Commission (CRC), Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, has described as “a very critical moment in the development of the reparations movement” the visit to the Caribbean by Britain’s King Carles and Prime Minister Andy Burnham to the “ancestral site of where this chattel model was established”.
King Charles who is on the last leg of a Caribbean visit is to speak with “unflinching honesty” and “sincere sorrow” on Tuesday the lasting pain of the transatlantic slave trade during the final leg of his Caribbean tour in Antigua, Buckingham Palace has said.
The King will be addressing the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) that ends on here on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Burnham had in an article in the UK Guardian wrote that he was “open” to the possibility of the United Kingdom formally apologising for its role in slavery – a change in the government’s stance.
Sir Hilary said that the entire Caribbean, including the CRC, welcomes the decision by The United Kingdom leaders eight months after the United Nations had already determined that chattel slavery was the gravest crime against humanity.
“So this is historic, this is a very critical moment in the development of the reparations movement that the King and Prime Minister of Great Britain are coming to the Caribbean, the ancestral site of where this chattel model was established.
“We know that chattel slavery was invented by the British, this was their concept. The world had never seen any kind of slavery like this. The British enslavers in the Caribbean, beginning in Barbados, created this concept of chattel like cattle, this new and innovative form of slavery.”
Sir Hilary, who is also the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), said that since then, the world has been coming to terms with the criminality of this system in which African people were denied the right to be classified as human beings, because “the chattel law says that we were not human beings, we were property, we were real estate… we were no different from any other kind of property”.
Sir Hilary said that while Prime Minister Burnham has indicated that the British government is now prepared to have a structured conversation with the Caribbean he has has “hastened to add that we are also open to the possibility of offering an apology, but we are not prepared to discuss financial reparations.
“So we’re going to have a structured conversation, and this is unique and progressive, but that structured conversation for now will not begin with an apology, neither should it end with financial reparations.
“Now in the Caribbean, in the reparations movement, we have been calling for decades now for a dialogue of decency, a diplomacy designed around the framework of dignity. Now, the UK has produced multiple reasons in recent years why reparations should not be on the agenda.
“Each one has been dismantled and dismissed. The people of the Caribbean have said, this is the number one item before us today. Our governments have said, we are all committed to a discourse of decency with the British and other European governments in respect of reparations for our citizens who have suffered indignity and the legacies of chattel slavery.
“You cannot say to us that we’re not deserving of reparatory justice, and even if we are entitled to it legally, the racist ideology says that we’re not human, and therefore we today, we are the descendants of non-humans, and therefore we are not deserving.”
Sir Hilary said that while the Caribbean has to recognise the Prime Minister’s assertion of leadership, his predecessors were not so forthcoming recalling that one prime minister on a visit to the Caribbean “told us to get over it.
“Emancipation was 100 years and more, get over it. That is the racist diatribe that we have had to deal with in our intergenerational call and demand for reparatory justice. But Prime Minister Burnham has said, I am willing to provide leadership on this matter. I’m open to an apology, and I’m willing to sit with the governments and people of the Caribbean to talk about this matter.”
Sir Hilary said that at least now, there is a prime minister who has said, “let us talk about it. Let’s have a dialogue of decency about it. He must therefore be commended for taking this historic step, and he is doing so within the context of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings here in Antigua and Barbuda.
“This is significant. The public media have said that reparations is not on the agenda of this summit. But it doesn’t have to be on the agenda because reparations is all around this conference. It’s on the streets, it’s in the corridors, it’s in the newspapers, it’s on the radio, it’s on the television.
“Everywhere there are people, reparations is on their lips and in their hearts. So it doesn’t have to be on the agenda because it will infiltrate and it will penetrate and it will dominate the environment of the conference. This is not the elephant in the room. An elephant is not big enough to correlate to what will be in the room when the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet.”
Sir Hilary said that the Caribbean understands the significance of this circumstance, saying “this is the first time, this is the first time in recorded history that the governments of the Caribbean and the civil society organisations from the grassroots to the churches, to the universities, to the colleges, they are all on the same page.
“Governments and citizens are on the same page that we are demanding reparations. For this crime that has been committed. So the governments will be in the summit and the people would be outside observing and sending their psychic energy into the summit.
“So there is a joint agenda and what our governments will be taking into the conference is the will and the desire of the people. The people have spoken and their governments are in full support. And so we have no difficulty with the matter not being officially on the agenda.
“But importantly, the Prime Minister of Britain has said, I will have that conversation I will have that conversation. And he is responding to what we have been calling for, a dialogue of decency.”
Sir Hilary said that the Caribbea is ready for this dialogue, recalling that the CARICOM 10-point reparations plan has been defined as a special documen, a manifesto for the coming enlightenment.
“Because we believe that reparatory justice is indeed the enlightenment on the horizon. All of us who are speaking about reparatory justice, we are concerned about the future of humanity. …we believe that reparatory justice that calls for human decency, equality and justice for all is the philosophy that will hold us together as humanity going into this 21st century. “ (CMC)