Glenda Simms

From time to time, in the recent past, self-appointed spokespersons, talk-show hosts, academics, self-defined Afrocentric activists and other deluded visionaries got together in conferences, seminars and various talk shops in diverse regions of the world.

These persons seemed to put great efforts and mountains of passion in discussions on the strategies needed to force Britain and other colonising nations to accept responsibility to address the continuous effects of the slave trade and colonialism on peoples of African origin through a process of reparations.

While the question of reparations is probably a legitimate preoccupation of a few individuals in the Jamaican society, there is a real need to question whether or not the majority of the descendants of the slaves have any idea about the basis of the demands that are being made on the coloniser.

African ancestors

In other words, if I have no understanding of the process which drives the reparation movement, I would assume that my 89-year-old mother, steeped in the traditions of her African ancestors, also has no knowledge of the negotiations being done on her behalf.

Clearly, the majority of the persons whose disenfranchisement under the colonial slave regime has continued into the contemporary Jamaican society do not participate in any way, shape or form in the movement for reparations that could minimally address their inherent right to dignity and justice.

Next Generation

In an interview carried in the Volume 2, Issue 7 of the Summer/Autumn 2006 edition of Next Generation, Dr Robert Beckford, a lecturer in African Diasporan Religions and Cultures at the University of Birmingham (UK), defined reparations from the British government and the churches implicated in the African slave trade as a multifaceted concept. In his words, "such reparation is about social healing, financial compensation and also an apology".

If these are indeed the lofty goals of those who are taking the lead in the reparations debate, a significant model for achieving these objectives has been put in place by the Government of Canada and the political leaders of the aboriginal peoples of Canada. On June 18, 2008, the Government of Canada, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, addressed concretely the troubling issue of reparation to the aboriginal peoples who had owned the lands that today are shown on the map of the modern world as the federal nation state of Canada.

Canada, like all other geographical areas that make up the British Commonwealth of Nations, evolved out of the colonial enterprise in which significant segments of humanity were enslaved, murdered, corralled in restrictive, inhumane homelands and non-productive reservations.

In contemporary times, it is the descendants of such victimised people who have strategically organised and demanded reparation for the historical wrongs that have negatively impacted on their ancestors and on the many generations that have managed to continue breathing.

self-determination

The aboriginal peoples of Canada and their appointed and/or elected leaders have spent decades planning, organising and sensitising all the members of their diverse communities to understand and support the legitimacy of their demands for reparations, healing and self-determination. They knew that they could base their claims on a raft of historical injustices and the resultant social, psychological and economic dislocation of their entire society, but they also understood the responses that would come from the descendants of the coloniser and their allies.

There would be resistance to any form of reparation from the anthropologists and the historians who would point out that when the British, Scottish and French landed in what was to become the dominion of Canada, most of the lands were unoccupied. Land claims by the aboriginal peoples could therefore be seen as fraudulent.

dog sleds

There are others who would argue that if the white man did not take over this northern land mass, the aboriginals would still be in their igloos, wigwams and tepees and would be 'mushing' across the Arctic climes in their dog sleds instead of the fancy trucks and SUVs in which some of their chiefs and leaders now move around from one reservation and settlement to another.

Fully conscious of this 'fork-tongued' rhetoric, all of Canada's aboriginal citizens focused their demands on one undisputed historical fact. This is the well- documented collusion between the Church and the State forcibly to remove aboriginal children from their parents and incarcerate them in residential schools controlled by the churches. This was justified under the pretext of Christianising and educating these children in order to drag the aboriginals kicking and screaming into the so-called modern Euro-dominated world.

Generations of aboriginal children (boys and girls) were sexually, psychologically and physically abused by priests, pastors, nuns and their allies. This break between the aboriginal parent and his or her children has resulted in some of the pain, trauma, extreme poverty and the total marginalisation and alienation of the majority of Canada's First Nations. It is around this complex human tragedy that the aboriginal nations pressured the Canadian government to move beyond the rhetoric of change to the reality of reparation.

In the Thursday, June 19, 2008, edition of the National Post, journalists Juliet O'Neill and Tobin Dalrymple chronicled the passions, the pain and the promise of healing that came about in the Canadian Parliament when Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologised for the "legacy of the century-long assimilation policy that took 150,000 aboriginal children from their parents and forced them to live in schools where their language and culture were banned and where many were abused physically and sexually".

"we are sorry"

Speaking in five languages - Ojibwa, Cree, Inuktutuk, French and English - Stephen Harper declared to the approximately 87,000 living survivors of this atrocious school system that "we are sorry".

Across from him, elegantly dressed in an elaborate feathered headdress, was the Chief of the Assembly of the First Nations, Phil Fontaine "who personally suffered abuse at the residential school and was one of the first to go public about it years ago". Chief Fontaine and the other leaders of his people accepted the apology as an important mark of the "dawning of a new day" in a process of healing and reconciliation.

The thunderous applause and the sounds of the aboriginal drums changed the usual staid atmosphere of the Canadian House of Commons. Accompanying this profound apology from a prime minister, who is seen as right wing and extremely aloof, was the commitment to a 60-million roving commission and other tangible and monetary commitments to every individual who survived the residential schools. The numerous media houses that reported on this historical moment in Canada described the outpouring of tears to celebrate this "big moment in Canadian history".

While there are great differences between the experiences of the aboriginal peoples of Canada and the descendants of the enslaved Africans of the New World, there are lessons that can be learnt from the Canadian attempt at reparation.

The leaders of the aboriginal peoples remained close to their communities and their roots, and they fought assiduously to regain the core cultural values and practices that resided in the memories of their elders.

They had the authority and commitment to stand in the Canadian Parliament and accept the sincere apology of the prime minister on behalf of every member of the aboriginal community.

Reparations come about when the elected leaders of the people are committed to fight for their people's rights in a framework of respect and human rights. Unelected persons do not have the mandate to negotiate on behalf of all the people.

Reparations must focus on a seminal issue that reflects the connection between the oppressor and the descendants of the oppressed, and this issue must be fully understood and articulated as one on which there is consensus.

In short, Britain will neither apologise nor make any move to deal with the after-effects of the slave trade until our elected leaders make reparation a priority, by identifying in clear terms the relationship between the slave trade and the contemporary situation of African peoples in the Jamaican society. Our leaders also need to demonstrate to Britain that they are not guilty of any action or condition that continues to reinvent the slave class.

Let the real debate begin!

Glenda P. Simms is a consultant on gender issues. Feedback may be sent to columns @gleanerjm.com.