Edinburgh to apologise for slavery links

LONDON:

Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, will apologise for its historical links to slavery and colonialism after it adopted a series of recommendations from a review it launched in 2020 and chaired by Jamaican professor and civil rights activist Sir Geoff Palmer.

City councillors last week unanimously accepted all 10 recommendations from the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group, that statues and other parts of city architecture celebrating people who made money from the suffering of others should be reframed, in order to explain the consequences to the public and educate future generations.

This review was set up in response to the Black Lives Matter movement after the death of George Floyd by police in the USA in May 2020.

Sir Geoff said the council’s decision to accept the full recommendations was “very significant”, and a civic apology was another move towards redress.

He said: “An apology doesn’t buy bread, but it gives another form of sustenance. It is about feeling that somebody has looked at something and recognised it was wrong. They are saying to you, the person offended, that they regret what has happened.

“Even though many people say ‘we weren’t there, it wasn’t our doing’, we all have responsibilities. We are responsible for what happened in the past, because the past has consequences. We can’t change the past, but we can change the consequences of racism.

“As chair, my contribution to this report on slavery and colonialism came from my late dear mother and aunts who reminded me as I grew up in Allman Town, Kingston, that the past hasn’t gone, it remains in injustices such as racism, which we face today.

“They used to knock it into me that when things get dutty-tough…‘boy use yu head’. I did, especially when people tried to stop me telling the truth about our history, which is changing lives for the better.”

During the review process, Sir Geoff faced a war of words with leading Scottish historians Sir Tom Devine and Professor Jonathan Hearn, who both criticised the Edinburgh council-backed review, saying it risked being “historically superficial”.

Sir Geoff, at the time, said: “If they take legal action against me, I will defend myself in any way necessary, because the work carried out by the council’s Review of Race and History group is not superficial, and we do understand the complexities of history.”

The decision to re-present the description of historical figures around the city had already started with a monument to Sir Henry Dundas, a controversial figure, which was vandalised in June 2020 during protests precipitated by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Sir Geoff and others believe Dundas, the leading Whig politician of Scotland in the late 18th century, has been unfairly credited with fighting slavery in Scotland, when he in fact held back abolition for a generation through delaying tactics in parliament. A revised plaque explaining this background was erected at the monument last year.

Other statues and monuments being reviewed include the Melville monument in St Andrew Square; Dundas House, built by Sir Lawrence Dundas, who owned sugar plantations in Dominica and Grenada; the statue of Charles II, in Parliament Square, who played a key role in establishing the Royal Africa Company; and the statue of William Pitt the Younger, in George Street, who sent British troops to the Caribbean to fight against the anti-slavery Haitian Revolution.

The report also highlighted the first minister’s official residence in Charlotte Square, three historic owners of which “directly benefited from Atlantic slavery”, as well as India Street and Jamaica Street in the city’s new town, which were “named as a celebration of empire”.

The Edinburgh council leader, Cammy Day, said the review, which cost the local authority £18,500, showed “commitment from the council to be progressive, open and honest about the history of Edinburgh”.

The decision follows similar formal apologies by Glasgow, Liverpool and London.