EDITORIAL
“…though centuries have passed since those historical crimes of slavery and genocide were committed, wounds continue to lie deep and legacies continue to endure.” – Rt. Hon. FJ Stuart former Prime Minister of Barbados and then Chairman of CARICOM, January 2016
The deleterious effects of slavery on the descendants of the enslaved and on the societies that they established after the end of that dastardly trade in human beings are undoubted. These range from the psychological to the economic to perhaps even, as suggested by one noted historian recently, the physiological, although we accept that it might be difficult to establish a direct causal link between the insalubrious slave diet and the regional prevalence of chronic non-communicable diseases, as he asserts.
We state this on the basis that our modern regimen of junk food (fat, greasy, salty foods with an irreducible insistence on sweetness), that contrasts sharply with that of our grandparents a mere century ago, would manifestly serve to break any chain of causation between these modern ailments and the meals of our ancestors.
In any event, our governments have seen it fit to allow these unhealthy foods to be the ones most cheaply acquired and, given our economic misfortunes, the most readily available for the ordinary individual and his or her family.
It could hardly be gainsaid that the infliction of such harms is deserving of a remedy (reparation) from the beneficiaries of the perpetrators, but the proverbial devil in the details might complicate devising the appropriate form this should take.
There are those among us who, in keeping with Christian edict, would advance, as did former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, once, that we forgive and concentrate on “building for the future and identifying ways we can work together to tackle the shared global challenges that face our countries in the twenty-first century”. For most, however, this simply is not enough, with apologies to Kamau Brathwaite.
Others might be content with a sincere formal generic apology from all the beneficiaries of this inhuman transgression, although there is too some conflict with this form of reparation. For more than a few, an apology is a necessary, though not sufficient, precondition to full reparation.
As far as we are concerned, the most appropriate and just form of reparation is one that seeks to repair the several harms caused by the wrong. In legalese, one that places the victims in the position they would have been in had the wrong not occurred.
We recognise, however, that this itself may be subject to some dispute by those who would advance the argument that it is far too vague a measure for our losses and is purely speculative since it is not practicable to determine our outcomes, absent a slave trade.
It is for this reason that we endorse the call by Sir Hilary Beckles for a structured conversation at the national level between the discernible beneficiaries, national, institutional and individual, and the diaspora of the descendants of the victims, of slavery. Indeed, the appeal to morality appears to be our strongest suit in this entire exercise.
The strictly legal solution does not appear to favour the regional claim currently, with its difficulties of identifying those entitled, the dubious illegality of the slave trade at the time it occurred and the complex nature of assessing causation and appropriate compensation.