DOCUMENT IN FINAL STAGES
Tue, 08/02/2016 - 12:00am
By:
Patricia Thangaraj
A document that would lay out the reasons why the descendants of the African slaves should receive reparations is in the process of being finalised and would soon be brought before the House of Assembly for discussions.
This was revealed by Chairman of the National Taskforce for Reparations, Professor Pedro Welch, who delivered remarks prior to the start of the walk held to commemorate Emancipation Day 2016 yesterday at the National Stadium.
“As the Chairman for the Taskforce for Reparations and also representing the CARICOM Commission on Reparations, I wish to tell you that we have come to the position where we are about ready to deliver to our House of Assembly not too long from now, a particular document which would speak about reparations. The theme for our effort is, ‘They stole us, they took away from us and now they have to repay us’.”
He said that they would also soon launch a website that would provide more details on this matter to interested parties.
“We understand that there is going to be some opposition, but at the CARICOM Reparations Commission we (would) put up a website shortly and that will tell you more. But remember this, we are not asking for the impossible, we are simply asking for those who have done us harm in the past to acknowledge it, to acknowledge that we were affected by the past.”
Professor Welch also stated that although many things were taken from them including their languages, there are still some remnants of those languages present today in the Bajan dialect.
“Most of the ancestors who were brought to Barbados came from what we now know today as the Gold Coast or Ghana. Many of our ancestors spoke a language called Twi and there are still some remnants of that language in our local Barbadian vernacular. For example, when as Barbadians we say ‘wuh na’, it is not a form of broken English as some people say, but it is a direct reference to the language that was brought by our African forefathers; ‘wuh na’ of course meaning all of us or all of you.”
He continued, “When even in this season we use the word ‘jook’, many of us are unaware that the word ‘jook’ is an African word and it means to punch. We sometimes use it to refer to the gyrations that occur in the Kadooment bands, but generally speaking it was an African word meaning to punch.”
Some of the other countries in the African continent where slaves were brought from included Nigeria, a few from East and North Africa, but the majority would have come from the West Coast of Africa.