There are two words, close in pronunciation but different in meaning, that are associated with the African diaspora reconciling with the mother continent. The words are repatriation and reparation.

Repatriation generally speaks to resettlement of ex-slaves and free blacks from North America and other Western societies, including Jamaica, in Africa, starting in the 18th century. Jamaica’s first National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey is best known for founding the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the Black Star Line shipping company, which supported the back-to-Africa movement or repatriation.

Reparation, on the other hand, speaks to the just cause of the descendants of former enslaved Africans claiming financial and other amends or restitution from countries which were involved in and profited from the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery from the 16th to the 18th century.

There is a stumbling block standing in the way of reparation. That stumbling block is the unsettled debate over whether African royalty, chiefs, and traditional leaders, back in the day, were complicit along with Europeans in selling their African brothers and sisters into slavery and so may be justly charged with being equally responsible for and beneficiaries of the slave trade and chattel slavery.

Professor Sir, Hilary Beckles, chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commission, and Professor Verene Shepherd, director of the Centre for Reparation Research at The University of the West Indies (UWI), have my admiration for their commitment and work towards reparation for the people of the Caribbean who have suffered and continue to suffer the effects of almost 300 years of enslavement. I say this while not being entirely convinced that this is something on which we should be wasting time.

There are several reasons why I feel this way.

1) Emancipation from slavery took place close to 200 years ago. It’s almost impossible to trace those alive today to the original perpetrators or victims of slavery.

2) Since Universal Adult Suffrage in 1944 succeeding governments have failed to materially better the condition of the average Jamaican. At this stage it is hard to say who is most responsible for the dysfunctional Jamaican society and economy, European enslavers or we ourselves.

3) There is no certainty that should the Jamaican Government get billions of dollars in payment from the former slave trading countries the money would not be squandered like the proceeds from bauxite and other fortunes of the country.

4) The time and intellect spent on seeking reparation could be better spent looking for solutions to the country’s most pressing problems, such as crime and violence and lack of economic inclusiveness.

On Thursday, March 2, 2023 at the regional headquarters on the Mona campus of The University of the West Indies (UWI) an important step was made towards uncovering the inconvenient truth surrounding the role played by African tribal leaders and royalty in providing human feedstock that fuelled the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. In a one-day symposium titled Reparations and Royalty, Africa and Europe: Exploding Myths, Empowering Truth an esteemed group of African traditional and tribal leaders, some of whom carried titles of king, queen, and princess, were on hand to set the record straight.

The long speeches boiled down to a simple set of propositions:

1) Slavery in Africa existed before the transatlantic slave trade.

2) In many cases slaves were prisoners of war taken into servitude by victorious tribes to compensate for damage caused and wrongs done.

3) The transatlantic slave trade presented an opportunity for exploiters to also make money.

4) There was no wholesale support among officialdom of the act of capturing Africans and putting them on slave ships bound for plantations in the West.

I left the conference feeling an apology would have been an easier pathway to reconciling the different views. Let’s face it, “when it comes to selling out dem one another, Jamaicans used to dem runnings deh” and would have, with open arms, embraced and forgiven their African forebears.

This brings me to two sets of words, also similar in pronunciation but different in meaning, restorative justice and reparative justice. The former is the approach I find to be more acceptable and respectful of the dignity of people who have been oppressed or wronged.

Following the example of the truth and reconciliation process that closed the chapter on apartheid in South Africa, progressive thinking governments seeking to remedy atrocities perpetrated against their own people have found a pathway to overcome, if not forget, the sins of the past. Two examples, which also included financial restitution come to mind.

On June 11, 2008 Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper rose in the House of Commons to deliver an unqualified apology to assembled leaders of Canada’s one million First Nation, Inuit, and mixed-race people for decades of institutionalised marginalisation. The apology followed an earlier announced CDN$2-billion settlement in 2005.

The second example will surprise readers. In 2017 Prime Minister Andrew Holness unequivocally apologised to the Rastafari community in Parliament for State-sanctioned atrocities which occurred 50 years earlier at Coral Springs. In addition to various amends, the prime minister announced that a trust fund of no less than $10 million would be made available to survivors and their families.

These are examples of non-adversarial restorative justice. Unlike reparative justice, it starts with a genuine desire to restore the dignity of both the oppressor and the oppressed, not with blame finding, finger pointing, and placing a monetary value on the hurt.

hmorgan@cwjamaica.com