Jamaica Demands Reparations for Britain's 'Haunting' Legacy of Slavery
Source: Common Dreams
Published on Tuesday, September 29, 2015
by Common Dreams
Jamaica Demands Reparations for Britain's 'Haunting' Legacy of Slavery
Ahead of his first-ever visit to the Caribbean island, British Prime Minister David Cameron called out for family ties to transatlantic slave trade
by Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Ahead of Prime Minister David Cameron's first-ever visit to Jamaica, the British government is facing growing demands to apologize and pay reparations for the country's "haunting" legacies of slavery, colonialism, and native genocide.
In an open letter published Monday in the Jamaica Observer, chairperson of the Caricom Reparations Commission Hilary Beckles declared: "We ask not for handouts or any such acts of indecent submission. We merely ask that you acknowledge responsibility for your share of this situation and move to contribute in a joint program of rehabilitation and renewal."
"You owe it to us as you return here to communicate a commitment to reparatory justice that will enable your nation to play its part in cleaning up this monumental mess of Empire," the letter states.
Those legacies continue to "haunt our best efforts at sustainable economic development and the psychological and cultural rehabilitation of our people from the ravishes of the crimes against humanity," the letter continues.
Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/29/jamaica-demands-reparations-britains-haunting-legacy-slavery
forest444
(5,902 posts)appalachiablue
(41,052 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Section 76. Unnatural Offences. Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal, shall be liable to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for a term not exceeding ten years.
Section 77. Attempt. Whosoever shall attempt to commit the said abominable crime, or shall be guilty of any assault with intent to commit the same, or of any indecent assault upon any male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding seven years, with or without hard labour.
Section 79. Outrages on decency. Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour.
DavidDvorkin
(19,404 posts)How far back should we go?
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)The roman empire at one point took over england, and abused their citizens.
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)The millions who perished on the ships coming to the Americas were the lucky ones.
24601
(3,940 posts)and interest, that comes to.....
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)You may be doing the best you can.
24601
(3,940 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)24601
(3,940 posts)been intentionally snide. Such comments were directed at several members, not just me.
If you want a serious conversation on slavery, don't do it with sound bites. You should consider all the participants in the slave trade and that means including the role other Africans played to enable the practice.
And if you fixate only on the African slave trade, you not only disrespect all the slavery victims that don't fit your chosen population, but you also ignore a history that began before history was recorded and continues today.
So if you want serious, begin by treating it seriously instead of superficially.
24601
(3,940 posts)Response to Travis_0004 (Reply #4)
Judi Lynn This message was self-deleted by its author.
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)great grandchildren of tortured, murdered people, or people whose lives were stolen by people who made them suffer for the rest of their lives after they lost their entire world, and everything which was loved and dear to them?
Is this your idea of serious, ethical conversation? Why would you try to mock them?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Because if they are gay, the Jamaicans will happily torture them right now.
DavidDvorkin
(19,404 posts)I'm not trying to trivialize anything. I'm making what I consider an important and perfectly serious point. It's absurd to try to right one historical wrong without righting all of them, and that would mean worldwide anarchy.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Let the Corporations/states, countries and governments who profited off slave labor pay.
And last 100 years to present day of 20 cent an hour prison labor for Corporations- pay up now out of their magnificent profits.
They have caused damage to entire society.
appalachiablue
(41,052 posts)the considerable sums paid by the British government to compensate them for the loss of slave labor and returned to the British Isles. There they built stately family homes and served as military and govt. officials like actor Benedict Cumberbatch's ancestors from Barbados. It was a black Bajan line of the Cumberbatch family that endowed the namesake building at Oxford University in the 1920s.
With the abolition of slavery on the islands, freed slaves received nothing after toiling to make their owners rich and comfortable doing the brutal work in sugar cane fields and processing lucrative products that created many wealthy sugar and rum barons on both sides of the Atlantic.
The De Wolf, or Wolf family of Rhode Island who held plantations in Cuba and elsewhere endowed Brown University like other affluent families who financially assisted and established early colonial colleges in America. Historian Craig Steven Wilder's 2013 book, "Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of America's Universities" focuses on this subject in depth.
In more than 250 years of institutional slavery in the United States, African American and Native American people erected the first, early 'Wall Street' in lower Manhattan in the 1600s, labored on buildings for the new Capital city like the White House, and played a major role in building the country.
America's economy and vast prosperity were fueled by the uncompensated labor of millions of slaves who were vital to the creation of wealth for leading colonial and American families, citizens and communities in New England, the Mid Atlantic and the South.
Postscript~ British actor Cumberbatch has spoken some to the press about his family's history and has taken roles of sympathetic characters in films. In "Amazing Grace" (2006) he played British Prime Minister Wm. Pitt the Younger, close ally of activist MP Wm. Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffold) who fought for decades to eradicate the slave trade and slavery in Great Britain. Ben also had a small part as a devout, more benign planter in the recent film "Twelve Years A Slave".
Seeking Serenity
(2,838 posts)Cumberbatch played the role of Prime Minister William Pitt (the Younger) in the 2006 film "Amazing Grace." Ioan Gruffudd, star of the "Horatio Hornblower" miniseries, played the role of MP William Wilberforce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace_%282006_film%29
appalachiablue
(41,052 posts)and did a excellent job I must say. So did Ioan Gruffold as Wilberforce, and the rest of the terrific cast. Excellent film. Gruffold also had a small part in "Titanic" at the end after the ship goes down. He's a crewman in one of the small life boats who is shouting and searching for any survivors in the dark waters.
Chettle House, Dorset, Queen Anne baroque style 1710 manor house used for scenes of Wilberforce's home. Many locations in England were featured as settings in "Amazing Grace". Chettle, Blanford and Dorset have genealogical associations and are on the visit list.
St. Nicolas Abbey, Saint Peters, Barbados. In the early 1800s the Cumberbatch family moved to this plantation estate from a more humble property. The Abbey is only one of three extant Jacobean manor houses in the western hemisphere.
I've seen it and a fair amount of other sites in the Caribbean and SA largely from having relatives in south Florida.
Seeking Serenity
(2,838 posts)FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)Stupid demand that will never happen.
appalachiablue
(41,052 posts)particularly the poorer Red Legs who were barbadoed.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)I wasn't aware of the red legs.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)Nihil
(13,508 posts)(For clarity: "Yawn" is directed at the chairperson of another quango out with a bowl, not Judi the
poster of the OP.)
Darb
(2,807 posts)Seems intentionally so. Si or no?
DavidDvorkin
(19,404 posts)There are very few groups all of whose ancestors are innocent.
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)There's not much you can say to defend your comment.
There is absolutely NOTHING which can be used as a defense for the long term degradation, torture, sadism, murder, shockingly evil treatment of millions, and far more millions of people at the hands of monsters who saw them as machines, and treated them with even less respect than they would ordinary machines.
Pulling a post like yours from your fund of respect for life, for humanity truly marks you. "Innocent." Almost beyond belief.
Darb
(2,807 posts)My bet is "he". I doubt a woman would write such a thing.
DavidDvorkin
(19,404 posts)Your attack does not follow from what I posted.
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)Legacy of Caribbean slavery still stings despite British PM saying "move on"
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Thu, 1 Oct 2015 22:05 GMT
Author: Rebekah Kebede
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Oct 1 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - After a long time wondering, Verene Shepherd took a DNA test last year and finally learned that her mother's family came from Cameroon in West Africa.
"How did Cameroonians reach over here? They never came over here voluntarily," said Shepherd, a Jamaican who heads the country's National Commission on Reparations.
Her ancestors were likely among the millions of Africans brought to the Caribbean to work on plantations, so she was disappointed when British Prime Minister David Cameron this week said he would like to "move on" instead of apologizing.
"I think he missed an opportunity ... we still need for someone to own up to the wrong," said Shepherd, a professor of social history at the University of West Indies.
More:
http://www.trust.org/item/20151001220732-3imeo/
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)had to be at play when people unleashed such hatred and monstrous disrespect against an entire continent, buying and selling them like baseball cards, and torturing them if they tried to escape the suffering.
So many died during the trip over, the ones who arrived came to a land knowing they would never see their loved ones again, not ever, would never know a moment's peace again, would never hear and see the familiar world around them which had been their home.
How anyone could even consider trying to talk others out of their awareness monsters unleashed pure hell upon a whole continent of people, and have continued, through their descendants, to hate, to abuse, to mistreat, terrorize those who came after the first stolen and wounded, destroyed, broken-hearted, broken in spirit, helpless, suffering people is to set oneself up as a fool of all fools. Surely you know you call yourself out to become repulsive to every man/woman of good faith.
There's nothing glib, or or clever in trying to inform us all how you mistrust/hate the descendants of the broken-hearted people who were brought here. You do not impress anyone other than fellow sociopaths, racists, and all life's big losers. You have lost your way, and all your meaning.
Thank you.
Judi Lynn
MisterP
(23,730 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Or do those lives matter?
closeupready
(29,503 posts)Not legitimately, but in the shadows. Important topic, and thanks for posting it.