By PATRICK HUNTER
The first International Decade for People of African Descent ended this year. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2015-2024 to be a period in which the difficulties to which people of African Descent were, and are, subjected as a result of enslavement and colonization are acknowledged and corrected”.
The Human Rights Council of the United Nations is proposing that a second decade be proclaimed, 2025-2034, to continue what has been started in the first.
This recommendation comes from the Permanent Forum of People of African Descent, a body that includes membership from the Caribbean and Latin America.
It is worth noting that all this effort is building on the World Conference Against Racism and Racial Discrimination, which was held in Durban, South Africa in 2001.
Many governments, including Canada, signed off on the declaration from that conference.
The Declaration states, in part: “We recognize that in many parts of the world, Africans and people of African descent face barriers as a result of social biases and discrimination prevailing in public and private institutions and express our commitment to work towards the eradication of all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance faced by Africans and people of African descent.”
For its part, the Canadian government announced a number of initiatives in 2018, including funding for Black-focused community activities and support for Black entrepreneurship.
We do not have to look too far to see that a lot of work still needs to be done. In February of this year, a coalition of organizations, including the Black Class Action Secretariat, launched a complaint against the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) over its alleged discriminatory practices. In June, the CBC reported that it had obtained a Treasury Board of Canada report that acknowledged that the CHRC “had discriminated against its Black and racialized employees” after nine employees had filed a grievance through their union in 2020 alleging systemic anti-Black racism, sexism and systemic discrimination.
Granted, a few European governments and some institutions have acknowledged the inhumanity of the transatlantic slave trade and the enslavement of African peoples. Some have gone as far as “hinting” at an apology. Some, particularly institutions like the churches and universities, have made some attempts or taken some steps towards reparations. However, these are still not ground-breaking enough.
As part of the Human Rights Council’s submission recommending a second decade, it included reference to the Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice developed by the Caricom Reparations Commission.
“In 2013, the Caribbean Heads of Government established the Caricom Reparations Commission with a mandate to prepare the case for reparatory justice for the region’s Indigenous and African descendant communities who are the victims of Crimes against Humanity in the forms of genocide, slavery, slave trading and racial apartheid.”
The submission also includes reference to the Bridgetown Initiative, a proposal fronted by Barbados prime minister, Mia Motley, to reform the international financial structure as it affects developing countries. The reform would allow for giving better advantage to developing countries in loans and the forgiveness of loans.
The Ten Point Plan is quite detailed. Among some of the demands, it calls for a full formal apology, development programs for the Indigenous peoples who were brutalized, and their lands seized, funding repatriation to Africa up to debt cancellation and monetary compensation.
The conclusions and recommendations of the Permanent Forum are, to put it mildly, substantial and fair. It’s an outline of what should be initiated or achieved during a second decade. Of course, there are no penalties for failures to achieve.
The United States Congress has refused for many years to consider a bill to establish a commission to study reparations for people of African descent who were enslaved. I have not heard any discussion of reparations in the current presidential campaign.
King Charles has apparently asked for a review of the royals’ connection to the slave trade. At the recently concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa, he and Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, faced call for reparations for slavery. Starmer had taken the position that there would be no discussion of reparations. I guess he didn’t know what he was up against. In the final communique, “Heads…agreed that the time has come for a meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation towards forging a common future based on equity.”
The Portuguese government has recently rejected a suggestion by its president to pay reparations for slavery. The Guardian reported that the government will instead focus on “deepening international cooperation ‘based on the reconciliation of brotherly peoples’.”
I am still trying to figure out what that means.
Perhaps we should take some hope that the discussion is happening and is generating some reaction. These are like political promises, much of which never see the light day when the ones making the promise takes over as the government. It is a part of the appeasement process – “we are thinking about it”.
Canada supports reparations for crimes against humanity, just not to people of African descent. Yet.
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