by Sarah Ingham, Conservative Home
In just over a fortnight the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will be held in Antigua and Barbuda. Despite PM Gaston Browne’s warning that it is “critically important” that all 56 nations stand together, the summit could well be overshadowed by that most divisive of issues: reparations for slavery.
The Reparations Commission of the 15-member state Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a dozen of which are Commonwealth members, is determined that “reparatory justice for the Caribbean and Global Africa” is on the CHOGM agenda. Indeed, Commission chair, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles – author of Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations for Slavery in the Caribbean (2013) – described the summit as “very, very critical to this trajectory we are on.”
Campaigners have had a good year. In March, the UN declared the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as “the gravest crime against humanity.” The initiative came from Ghana. In June, Accra hosted the Next Steps conference to chart a roadmap to advance the UN resolution. It was shaped by CARICOM’s manifesto, the Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice,
CARICOM’s partnership with the African Union has injected fresh energy into the reparations campaign. It enables the two blocs to “speak with one voice on this matter” as Beckles stated at a recent briefing.
Shortly before cosying up to an al-Qaeda supporter, the Archbishop of Canterbury also visited Ghana, once a centre of the transatlantic slave trade. After tenuous three century-old institutional links were found to enslavement, the Church of England set up Project Spire.
This “Healing, Repair and Justice” endowment is worth £100 million. Reparations seekers could be hoping that this is just the opening offer, given that the Church Commissioners allegedly control £11billion+.
There has been some pushback against the reparations bandwagon. The United Kingdom was among 52 countries which abstained from the UN vote, stating “we must not create a hierarchy of historical atrocities.” In September, the King declined to meet a Jamaican delegation demanding reparations. But as Head of State of (currently) eight Caribbean nations, CHOGM could be far from easy for H.M.
Demands that Britain should pay reparations for the wrongs of slavery should be turned down flat. British institutions should not surrender to moral blackmail. Surely, the Church of England should know the verse from Ezekiel: “The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father.”