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The Amount Britain would have to pay in reparations for its part in the transatlantic slave trade has been calculated at a whopping £7.5 trillion.
The figure, set to be revealed in a new Channel 4 documentary, comprises £4 trillion in unpaid wages, £2.5 trillion for unjust enrichment and £1 trillion for pain and suffering. Theologian and broadcaster Dr Robert Beckford consults an economic historian, a compensation lawyer and an expert on loss of earnings to calculate the true cost of slavery for the programme The Empire Pays Back.
‘The figure we arrive at makes the sums talked about at the G8 pale into significance,’ Beckford (pictured), told New Nation. ‘I wouldn’t expect that £7.5 trillion to be paid, because it would bankrupt the country, but it provides a measure of how much we contributed to Britain and how much we would be due.
‘It’s also a measure for foreign policy. Many of the poorest African and Caribbean countries were bound up in slavery. It provides a new way of talking about aid and turns it on its head. Aid is often seen as charity, but it’s really about justice.’
In the hour-long documentary, Beckford looks at the legacy of slavery and how it impacts on everyday life in Britain through institutions such as the Bank of England, Barclays Bank, the National Gallery and the monarchy.
He visits The Guildhall in London and stands before the statue of William Beckford, a former Lord Mayor and slave master who once ‘owned’ Beckford’s ancestors and made his fortune off the back of his slaves. And he visits Liverpool, where slave children are immortalised in carvings on the side of one of the city’s major bank buildings.
Beckford tells viewers that, when slavery was abolished in 1834, slave owners received £20 million in compensation while the slaves received nothing. He argues that, while Britain has prospered from the toil of our ancestors, both here and on sugar plantations in the West Indies, African Caribbeans are still paying the price of slavery.
We are twice as likely to be unemployed, earn 60 per cent less than white people and there are more black men in prisons than universities.
Beckford may not be telling us anything we don’t already know, but he hopes to reach out to a wider audience: the white people who think these problems have nothing to do with them, and the African Caribbeans who believe we should just move on.
‘I’m hoping to raise consciousness of how Britain benefited from the slave trade and how the repercussions continue to negatively impact on African Caribbean life,’ he says.
‘We are looking at issues of employment, racism and underachievement as well as the economic difficulties experienced by Africa and parts of the Caribbean. They are linked to hundreds of years of exploitation.’
But just how likely is it that black Britons will receive reparations for something that happened so long ago? The US, which abolished slavery 30 years after Britain, seems to be moving in that direction.
In January, JP Morgan Chase – America’s second largest bank – admitted it took ownership of around 1,000 slaves as collateral on loans during the 1800s and set up a $5 million scholarship for African American students as a form of apology.
In June, financial services company Wachovia Corporation, based in North Carolina, apologised to African Americans after learning that two institutions it acquired – the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company and the Bank of Charleston – had owned around 690 slaves between them.
The company pledged to work with community partners to increase awareness of African American history. As yet there has been nothing to indicate that the same could happen here.
In 2001, slavery was condemned as a crime against humanity at the United Nations conference against racism in Durban, South Africa, but it was not until last year that the British government accepted it as such. Speaking in a Commons debate, Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart conceded: ‘Slavery is a crime against humanity. Slavery and the slave trade were and are appalling tragedies in the history of humanity.’ However, she stopped short of supporting reparations.
In an interview with New Nation in April, Prime Minister Tony Blair backed calls for a Slavery Memorial Day but added that he did not see reparations as ‘the way forward’.
Reparations campaigner Esther Stanford, of the Black Quest for Justice Campaign, says: ‘We launched a legal action [for reparations] in 2004. The response we had is that the British government does not acknowledge crimes against humanity that were committed prior to 2001.
‘The law in the UK is such that only the Attorney-General is empowered to bring perpetrators to trial for crimes against humanity. In effect, the legal system limits true justice from happening because it would be asking the Attorney-General of the British government to bring the British government to trial.’
Stanford believes there should be a ‘global approach’ to reparations and her group is working closely with N’COBRA (the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America). She says: ‘The battle we have is getting people of African descent to own the reparations movement and to see that their contemporary situation is not because they are lazy, bad or incapable but because of the legacies of the African holocaust.’
But others believe reparations are not the answer. Barrister Peter Herbert says: ‘It’s worth pursuing but if we are looking to the courts in Europe to provide reparations the track record is not good. They will probably say they don’t have jurisdiction or they may give such a nominal reward it’s hardly worth the bother.
‘I give all credit to the people who campaign and struggle for reparations but if we were written a cheque for £7.5 trillion tomorrow I don’t think the situation of Africa would improve. There would be an argument about who gets what. I think it creates a diversion. I would far rather see proper debt relief for African countries than people who are indigenous to Africa or the Caribbean having a few pounds extra in their bank accounts.’
But for Beckford, reparation is about retribution. ‘I am in no way saying that a cash dividend should go into the pocket of every African and Caribbean person,’ he says. ‘Reparation is about more than just finance; it’s about healing. I want to show that you can heal the past just by acknowledging what took place. Where a wrong is done in the past, if it continues to have a negative impact on the present, we need to make it right.’
He wants to see a monument to slaves in London, celebrating the contribution they made in creating the Britain we have today and acknowledging what was done to them.
The Empire Pays Back will be broadcast on Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday 15 August.

My question is who will they paid the money to and what country will all the black folks be moving to?

As a Ghanaian I don't trust anyone with this money.

interesting piece. but we know dem der people nar pay whe dem s'pose fe pay

7.5 trillion!!

i guess thats why we get black history month

instead of

african history as part of the national curriculum

I normally find reparations talk quite interesting.

Honestly I am all for it in terms of giving people who claimto be apart ofcommunities descended from slavery/chattels scholoarships and business grants! However I do BELIEVE that such a thing will NEVER happen 4 some of the reasons listed:

1.) Most historians believe Africans themselves held slaves and sold other African war prisoners into slavery. 50O and 600 years later when Africa begans to fall behind the Western part of the world one can not all of a sudden cry "foul" and blame it all on evil whites...........

2.) Many right wing/conservates claim Blacks in former slave countrieshave benifited from slavery just as much as anyone else. For example, many such people claim MOST Blacks in the Westlive in far more econmically stable countries than Africans on the Continent.

3.) The question of WHO SHOULD GET THE REPARATIONS MONEY is probably the hardest argurement yet! If the Black people demanding reparations are 20 or 25% White in hertiage should they be able to get "rewards" on behave of their Black side when they have White hertiage too? And what about mixed raced children? They would TECHINICALLY be the descendants of African slaves as well? Can they get reparations on behave of the slave side when they have the masters blood too? And what of White people who get DNA test and find slave ancestors in the family tree?

7.5 Trillion? Hmm that's alot of dough you talking about. If the UK is made to pay that they will go bankrupt. You know that folks Britain is only worth 5.4 trillion pounds. But you know what, we are in a very precarious situation. As those white folks will never want to address the issue of paying back. Because , slavery still exists today.. Only in another form.

http://www.channel4.com/culture/micr...parations.html

Slavery began in 1440 when Portugal started to trade slaves with West Africa. Britain, Denmark, France, Holland, Portugal, and Spain all profited from the slave trade. During the Triangular Trade 20 million African people would be kidnapped, taken across the Atlantic in chains and sold as chattel. However even 300 years after slavery started, no church condemned slave ownership or slave trading. The Quakers however organized opposition to slavery in the late 1750's. In 1833 Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act which gave all slaves in the British Empire their freedom.

The British government however, provided £20 million in compensation to the slave-owners who had lost their 'property.' Each plantation owner received compensation of £12 14s 4¾d (£1270) in today's terms for each emancipated slave. Meanwhile, the ex-slaves received nothing but hollow promises. In 1865 the US Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau. Its purpose was to distribute 850,000 abandoned and confiscated acres of land to former slaves. But the distribution never happened and former Confederates were allowed to reclaim the property

However the termination of slavery did not bring closure. Instead it left a legacy, which many regard as the root for many of the social issues, which afflict black people in contemporary British society. These include family breakdown, poor job prospects, to crime and social exclusion. Others counter that it is used as a convenient excuse for those within the black community who fail to face up to their individual inadequacies.

In the Caribbean and Africa, slavery's legacy is not the basis for sociological debate, but a grim reality. Massive debt is prevalent and across many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. And from Senegal to Angola, Mozambique into Malawi and Tanzania, there is evidence that the depopulation and socio-political effects caused by the slave trade stunted the growth of a continent.

Estimates show that Africa's population remained static at around 100 million between 1650 and 1850 while in the same period the populations of Europe and Asia increased between twofold and threefold. The great kingdoms of Africa such as Mali, Songhai and Ghana fell into decline while the slave-trading nations prospered mightily

The late Bernie Grant MP campaigned tireless for reparations by the British Government. For Bernie Grant, the starting point in the healing process lay with the wrongdoers of Europe acknowledging their crimes. British Prime Ministers have consistently stopped short of issuing such an apology and none has shown the fortitude of the Whig Government led by Lord Grenville, who started the political process to end slavery two centuries ago. Needing to win over the traditionally anti-abolitionists in The House of Lords for the abolition of slavery bill to be passed Grenville launched into an impassioned speech arguing that the slave trade was 'contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy'.

In more recent times, the late Pope John Paul II set an encouraging example when he recognised the collusion of Catholic Church in the Transatlantic slave trade. While visiting the slave dungeons of Goree in Senegal in 1992, he said: 'From this African sanctuary of black pain, we implore forgiveness from Heaven'

The concept that reparations are payable where a crime against humanity has been committed by one people against another is well established in international law. Germany paid reparations to Israel for the crimes of the Nazi Holocaust. Indeed, the very creation of the State of Israel can be seen as a massive act of reparation for centuries of dispossession and persecution directed against Jews

Meanwhile, 10 years ago, Japan apologised to the victims of its wartime atrocities citing its 'mistaken national policy of colonial rule and aggression' during the Second World War. The US also made an apology and restitution for the internment of Japanese Americans during that period

The media and politicians continually stirred up agitation against Jewish immigrants in the 1890s. They claimed that Jews were living in overcrowded unsanitary conditions, spreading disease, undermining sexual mores, undercutting British workers' wages and spreading political subversion

Going further back into history, the Queen, personally signed the Royal Assent to the Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Bill which saw the New Zealand Government pay substantial compensation in land and money for the seizure of Maori lands by British settlers in 1863. The Queen apologised for the crime and recognised a long-standing grievance of the Maori people.

But world leaders have consistently proved more reticent on apologising for the Transatlantic slave trade. Clearly, any claim would be on an unprecedented scale. The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission has put the bill at £400 thousand billion, which, it insists, should be met by 'all those nations of Western Europe and the Americas and institutions, who participated and benefited from the slave trade and colonialism'. It also calls for all international debt owed by Africa to be unconditionally cancelled.

But it is not just nations which profited. Many commercial entities were able to gain an economic foothold through the slave trade, which, it should be noted could not have been established without the involvement of some Africans. In addition a clear distinction needs to be made between the gains made by some Africans, and the long-term wealth accrued by the nations of Europe. Acquisitions, mergers and dissolution of companies make following the paper trail a messy business.

In addition to individual companies benefit, entire cities such as Liverpool and Bristol enjoyed a period of economic prosperity thanks to the triangular trade of manufactured goods going to Africa, slaves going from Africa to the colonies, and sugar coming back from the colonies to Britain.

In the US, the reparations debate is far more advanced. Investigations by historians and lawyers have even exposed some British firms – operating in the tobacco and rubber industries – to the prospect of litigation. Earlier this year, America's second biggest bank, JP Morgan Chase, made a rare apology for its subsidiaries' involvement in the slave trade with the admission that it accepted slaves as loan collateral and ended up owning several hundred. It sent a letter to employees expressing contrition for its involvement in a 'brutal and unjust institution' and established an initial $5m college scholarship programme for black students.

While it is unlikely a time will ever come when the British government will find it politically expedient to financially compensate the descendents of slaves for crimes of the past, it does nonetheless have a duty to redress the disparity it helped create between Africa and the rest of the world through the slave trade. The continent was stripped of its wealth over a period of centuries. And in reality, no amount of money can repair the damage done.

400 years of slavery, followed by 200 years of inertia would undoubtedly take an equal amount of time to fully remedy. But until the wounds begins to heal, slavery continues to serve as a reminder that those with blood on their hands have a debt to the people of Africa. Cancelling the debt of African nations is surely the first step on the road to reparation, although the journey is so long that there will be no end in sight for centuries to come.

This show is made by Dr Robert Beckford, I think he the same dude who asked about the writers of the bible in another show on C4. Anyway it looks good. Im glad that at least it is being tackled on mainstream TV as opposed to being swept under the carpet or ignored.



What spin on this or the conclusions he draws will be interesting to see. And which side of the debate the shows comes on and how it gets there should give us ample opportunity for discussion here on BN

@DM

can you please move this one to OPEN forum? I think thats where many will read more about it and wemight start a thread about it