Sonjah Stanley Niaah | New decade for reparatory justice

Over the last decade, the Caribbean reparatory justice movement has seen an unprecedented injection of energy from private and public entities including governments, inter/non-governmental organisations, educational institutions, families, and activists, building on the centuries-old movement for emancipation and decolonisation more broadly.

The movement has now been institutionalised in The University of the West Indies (UWI) and CARICOM within institutions such as the Caribbean Centre for Reparation Research (since 2017), which functions as the research arm of the CARICOM Reparation Commission (CRC) and its network of National Reparation Committees (NRC).

Many important alliances and successes can be highlighted. There has been a tremendous focus on advocacy within several networks, jurisdictions, and the public at the CRC and NRC levels, strengthening ties in the region and within the African Diaspora. From radio programmes and newspaper articles to conferences and stakeholder fora, the reparation agenda has been solidly institutionalised. But has it touched the lives of the ordinary Caribbean citizen? Do they have a sense of the importance of the Caribbean movement and how it has significantly influenced the global reparatory justice agenda? Where are we today?

NEW DECADE FOR PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT

On August 29, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a welcome joint statement from a group of experts ahead of the International Day for People of African Descent, celebrated on August 31.

Following the Durban Declaration and the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and other initiatives and mechanisms for eradication of all forms of structural and systemic oppression, it is clear that in 2024, we continue to grapple with the fact that millions of people of African descent are faced with oppressions of the worst form. Moreover, racism is even more enshrined than the mechanisms that have been previously mentioned, and thus, work to counter the existing and emerging atrocities has to be consistent.

The call for a second International Decade for Peoples of African Descent (2025-2034) is very much a priority of the UN, which has emphasised that the prevailing consequences of colonialism, chattel enslavement, apartheid, and genocide (and even neo-colonialism) need to be systematically highlighted and justice for people of African descent made a priority beyond 2024. In this light, a new Decade is anticipated for continuation of the vital work of ‘righting’ the historical and contemporary wrongs.

The last Decade saw focus on three pillars all linked to repair: recognition, justice, and development. While much has been done by way of advocacy, there is significant room for mobilising stakeholders and getting every Caribbean citizen to take reparatory justice seriously. For example, a developmental agenda geared at repair would sharpen focus on education for development with inclusion of reparatory justice learning outcomes in not only history curricula, but in all disciplines. Repair is needed in such spheres as health, legal and constitutional reform, and the very educational structures that stand today as memories of our colonial past.

THE CARICOM REGION

What then must the next Decade achieve, considering the outstanding work to be completed? I want to recall key figures in the call for repair all over the region such as Marcus Garvey, Kamau Brathwaite, Rex Nettleford, Erna Brodber, Elsa Goveia, Walter Rodney, Hilary Beckles, Barry Chevannes, and Verene Shepherd, among others, who have consistently reminded of the work at hand. They have all laid a footprint for the region that can buttress the work to be done over the next Decade. Their writings, speeches, creative outputs, and advocacy are accessible, and combined with that of international stakeholders, provide a platform for increased recognition of paths of justice to further eliminate effects of systemic and structural racism, racial discrimination, and colonial oppression towards reparatory justice.

New regimes of inclusion and development practice built on a foundation of racial equality and sustainable development, including environmental justice and the eradication of violence, must define the new Decade.

The CARICOM Ten-Point Plan has been a defining instrument for reparation in the region. Within the regional reparation ecosystem of research, stakeholder engagement, bi-lateral and multilateral negotiations, there is an emerging structure that has reaped significant returns thus far. Though it is now time to review the Ten-Point Plan, which outlines forms of repair such as apologies, technology transfer, and debt cancellation (it did not include direct individual or collective payments), the regional movement has ignited a groundswell of apologies and mobilisation towards repair. Here are just a few of them that have defined the Caribbean reparatory justice movement in real and symbolic terms since 2017.

BRATTLE REPORT

A signature feature of the movement is that the economic case for reparatory justice has been made in unquestionable terms. The Brattle Report has provided definitive costing on reparations for the TransAtlantic chattel slavery of Africans in the Americas and the Caribbean around which two significant fora have been held to share information with stakeholders far and wide. The report emphasised the harm caused by transatlantic chattel slavery and the contemporary implications that continue to affect descendants of enslaved peoples. Scholars have long worked to document, study, and quantify these harms. Even as we identify the tremendous value of the Brattle Report, there is more to come. For example, the psychological weight of the African holocaust is yet underestimated and unquantified. Additionally, the health or physical implications are also to be definitively investigated considering the overwhelming link between contemporary non-communicable diseases and the slavery diet.

APOLOGIES AND ACTIONS

Over the last FIVE years, significant mobilisation, through apologies and pledges, has defined the movement. In 2018, Scotland, through the University of Glasgow, pledged to assist The UWI to raise £20 million for reparatory justice initiatives. In 2020, Lloyds of London issued a formal apology, which has since been followed up with a £52 million endowment in 2023.

In 2023, the Church of England pledged £100 million to impact development needs in the Caribbean in the service of which representatives have been consulting with individuals in the region to better understand the needs of descendants of enslaved Africans and the harm done to their ancestors. In 2023, the Trevelyan Family pledged to provide £100,000 in support for education in Grenada through The UWI’s Global Campus. In that same year, the Gladstone Family pledged a similar amount for initiatives in Guyana.

Further, public apologies in the Caribbean have come from families to descendants of enslaved persons in Grenada, Jamaica, Guyana, and the Dutch Caribbean, among others.

THE WAY FORWARD?

If you have been sitting on the sidelines and saying to yourself that the reparatory justice movement has been a wasted effort thus far, you are wrong. It is time for all of us to get on board and shape a future of inclusion, especially over the next decade. The time is now for action. Why not create a discussion in your community, within your home, on social media and engage with others to learn and share?

Sonjah Stanley Niaah is director of the Centre for Reparation Research and senior lecturer in cultural studies at The University of the West Indies. Send feedback to reparation.research@uwimona.edu.jm.