Writes: James N Kariuki

Calls for compensating Africa by former colonisers has gained momentum over the years.

According to the London-based Africa Reparations Movement (ARM), the campaign for reparations is as old as enslavement itself. In Africa, the first international Conference on Reparations was held in Lagos, Nigeria, in December 1990.

This was followed by the 1993 Abuja Conference in Nigeria, attended by representatives from the Diaspora. That conference issued a declaration, the Abuja Proclamation, which called for a national reparations committee to be set up throughout Africa and the Diaspora. The Africa Reparations Movement (UK) was formed in 1993 as a result of this proclamation. The momentum for reparations increased with mobilisation before and during the World Conference Against Racism, which was held in Durban South Africa, from August 31, 2001 to September 08, 2001.

The question whether colonies should be compensated for evils visited on them by former masters has been under discussion for many years now. Over 200 years ago, Black Haitians launched a successful slave revolt against their French colonisers. In 2003, Haiti was again in the world’s headlines with a demand from France. The Haitians were demanding $22 billion from their former colonisers allegedly extorted by landowners (French) as a condition for independence in 1825.

Haiti’s 21st Century demand for reparations had special symbolism for Global Africa. First, it came prior to 200th anniversary of the country’s revolution — the first successful strike against racial subjugation of Black people anywhere. Second, the demand came as the 30th anniversary of the 1974 coup in Portugal neared. That historical event precipitated the collapse of Portuguese empire. African anti-colonial rebels played a key role in the phenomena that led to collapse of Portugal as a global force.

In 2004, South Africa celebrated its 10th anniversary since the end of apartheid. The end of anti-apartheid marked the death of ‘legal’ racism in Africa and around the world. It also became the last successful revolution against racial subjugation. In a real sense then, South Africa completed the process that Haiti initiated in 1804. If Haiti was the first-born in the successful struggle for racial justice, South Africa became the last born in that lineage–a familial bond is very much there between the two states.

Finally, Haiti’s demand for restitution came up as Black people’s global crusade for reparations was gathering steam one more time. Developments in Haiti earlier this century found a point of convergence with the global crusade for reparations, including the quest for reparations by South Africa’s victim of apartheid.

The Haitian demand for payment from France had a ring of crude and hollow absurdity as we are tuned into thinking of Third World debts rather than the other way round. In this sense, the Haitian demand was also a subtle invitation to reorient our minds and revisit the question: “Between Africa and the West, who really owes whom?”

SA was caught in an animated debate on the same issue of a debt. Should the Black victims of apartheid seek legal restitution from those corporations that benefited from their exploitation in the past?

Opinions differ on this question but powers-that-be urge that we should let bygones be bygones, go on with our lives. In short, South Africans should resist the temptation to seek compensation by means of litigation, particularly on foreign soil. On this issue, the SA Government finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place, a condition symptomatic of foreign dependency generally. The underlying preoccupation here is not whether Black South Africans have legitimate claims; it is whether pursuing those claims would not be too disruptive to society at large.

Is this a case of political considerations of ‘collective good’ obstructing the wheels of justice for a few injured parties? Lawsuits could trigger greater racial polarisation within South Africa. What is more, would demands for reparations not scare off foreign investors and touch off an avalanche of unemployment?

REFERENCE: Global Reparations vs Human Exploitation

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