Dear Editor,
The Caricom Reparations process has gone miles beyond the debate of whether to pursue reparations or not. Yet Mr Abu Bakr seems to have been left at the train station or missed the elevator and remains mentally stranded on the ground.
Mr Bakr’s recent missive to Mr Cedric Joseph’s fact-based letter (SN, October 30), was captioned ‘Joseph’s letter evades the issue of who should pay reparations to whom.’ Why Mr Bakr wants Mr Joseph to pronounce on which of the eight European countries should pay reparations to Africans in the same way Germany was forced to pay reparations to Israel, is hidden in the arguments his letter makes.
His first argument is the 6 for 9 argument that Africans sold Africans and therefore Africans should not receive reparations from Europe. This non-issue seems to have imprisoned Mr Bakr’s thought processes for he fully well knows Africans did not practise chattel slavery, did not create chattel slavery and did not run the 400-year criminal enterprise called “a crime against humanity” at the 2001 United Nations-sponsored Durban Conference.
Given that Mr Bakr is a person of considerable intellect, there seems to be a legal disconnect about the reason why Europeans should pay reparations for the crime of chattel slavery which was state-sponsored, church-sponsored, private-sector sponsored and which was and is criminal enrichment. I am certain the ordinary illiterate in the street would know that it is not the person who sold the gun, but the criminal who used the gun to kill, rape and plunder, who would be held criminally responsible. I guess Mr Bakr has his own reasons for this personal amnesia and cognitive dissonance.
The second point raised by Mr Bakr is an attempt, much like one of his earlier letters, to embed racism into the local reparations debate in Guyana. The quintessential ‘divide and conquer’ European governance philosophy. I doubt he writes on reparations in the Trinidad or Jamaican media so I must conclude his efforts and knowledge are about the dynamics of Guyana.
Hence as Mr Bakr introduces racism or discrimination by writing, “So, in the reparations talk there is this strange absence of the other victims. It would appear to me that the African activists leading the charge are, as usual, guilty of the same crimes of which they accuse the white man, a self-serving ethnocentricity as unconscionable in its blindness as the ills they decry.”
I am puzzled by the enlightened idiocy of this statement by Mr Bakr given his deep interest in Guyana and his knowledge that the issue of “reparations” is addressed by a Government of Guyana ap-pointed Reparations Com-mittee in which the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, a government controlled and managed ministry, was invited on many occasions to be a part of the Guyana National Committee since Septem-ber 2013. I am sure he knows there has been no response from the Minister of Amerindian Affairs to the numerous letters and approaches made.
Why doesn’t Mr Bakr write to the editor asking why there has been no participation from the said minister is a mystery.
Perhaps Mr Bakr already knows (I am sure of this) that the Indigenous experience in Guyana was very different from the Indigenous experience in St Vincent (Garifuna) and other islands. Perhaps Mr Bakr knows the 80,000 Indigenous population in Guyana has already received 15% of Guyana and is perhaps satisfied with this. Perhaps he may know about the injustice of them being denied them their legitimate economic rights on these lands be-cause the minerals below them are owned by the state.
There is no African racism or ethnocentricity as Mr Bakr has said, and he should change his mindset.
Finally, Mr Bakr states in his response to Mr Joseph’s brilliant factual letter, “In sum, seeking a big British law firm is okay, but we have to allow into our midst our own devil’s advocates to anticipate and examine the counter-arguments our case will meet in any tribunal. Dismissing this process, as happened when Afro-American scholar Henry Louis Gates was pilloried for saying things (that Africans were in-volved in the slave trade) unacceptable to the mythified narrative some Blacks prefer, is to reduce us to an unthinking mob. For that there would be volunteers, but there cannot be conscripts.”
That Africans sold Africans, is not a matter for debate or denial. But the reparations movement and case is for “crimes against humanity”; for Indigenous genocide and African slavery in the Caribbean.
It seems as if Mr Bakr feels left out of the debate and wants to be officially invited into it. Stating that Africans like the Ashantis practised slavery and grew wealthy from the trade and that “… even after some Africans visited Brazil to look at the slave plantations, or Europe to look at the cities, still kept shipping them out. Preparing them, it could be said, to lay claims to reparations in the soon future” is a logic not heard by reasonable people. The question then becomes 1) who were these Africans? 2) How many were they? 3) Whose ship did they travel on? 4) How did they return to Africa? 5) How did they share this information about bad White men with other Africans in this vast land without telecommunications or airplanes or fast boats? These defy the logic of Mr Bakr’s argument and therefore lend question to his sincerity.
That Caricom and individual sovereign states will pursue the process of reparation is a fact.
That National Committees welcome inputs; this too is a fact (Guyana has open meetings every Thursday attended by 30 plus people of all walks of life).
Next week (Oct 12-15) the 2nd Annual Caricom Reparations Conference in Antigua will be held with the theme ‘An Experts Conference on Caribbean Reparation: scientific engagement and community mobilization.’
Invitees include Congressman John Conyers (USA) ; PJ Patterson (former PM of Jamaica); Dr Julius Garvey (son of Marcus Garvey); Lord Anthony Gifford (former Member of the Group of Eminent Persons on Reparations); Sister Esther (UK) and several prime ministers. Perhaps Brother Abu Bakr may wish to attend the conference and share his valuable insights with the experts over a 4 day period.
The year 2015 is the beginning of the United Nations decade for people of African descent and reparations is a key theme. As Sir Hilary Beckles puts it, “This is the century that will be known for reparatory justice.”
Yours faithfully,
Eric Phillips
