Latest news: Apology for slavery
17/12/07
Anti-racists welcome 23 August - National Slavery Memorial Day
Welcoming the announcement by government that 23 August is adopted as the National Slavery Memorial Day, NAAR Executive Committee member Kofi Klu said: "This is a huge victory for the anti-racist movement…
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Apology for slavery
The NAAR is calling on the British Government to offer
an apology of substance to black people for its role in slavery and colonialism
across the globe. Britain enslaved and colonised millions of people in scores
of nations and communities for centuries. The destruction of people’s
way of life and the systematic exploitation and often brutal subjugation inherent
in this process was predicated entirely on racism and the myth of white supremacy.
The myth of innate white superiority was encouraged and endorsed at every
level in British society and used to justify the many excesses of British
imperialism.
The most abiding colonial legacy is the deep rooted racism that is embedded
in contemporary British popular culture and pervades every aspect of modern
Britain. It is this legacy that provides the basis for the institutionalised
racism in Britain today.
It is time for Britain to exorcise the ghosts of the past and come to terms
with its history.
'Incomplete and imperfect as the process may be, it shall leave us less burdened
by the past and unshackled to pursue a glorious future'
Nelson Mandela
'Peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice. Without
justice there will be no peace.'
Martin Luther King
’I think it would be a good idea'
MK Gandhi
— on being asked for his view on Western civilisation
Demands of the campaign
1. Make an apology for the inhumanity and injustice suffered
by black people over five continents through enslavement and colonisation.
2. Formally apologise to black people in Britain today who have to live day-to-
day with the worst legacy of colonialism: racism.
3. Acknowledge the voluntary and enforced contributions that black people
have made to Britain and its economy, and agree in principle to the emerging
demands for reparations.
4. Cancel the debts of countries which have suffered as a result of slavery
and colonialism.
5. End the practices of neo-colonialism and advance the cause of establishing
an equitable world order.
6. Integrate Black history within the British education curriculum ensuring
a true depiction of the past and present.
£150 million profit made by the British from West Indian plantations
alone
Michael Craton Sinews of Empire: A Short History of British
Slavery (1974)
It is estimated that during the last thirty years of British colonial administration
British trading and shipping interests took out of Ghana a total of £300
million
Kwame Nkrumah Africa Must Unite (1963)
Bengal famine of 1770 killed 10 million people
Stanley Wolpert A New History of India (1982)
Britain’s loot alone from India was worth up to £1000 million
William Digby Prosperous British India: A Revelation
from the Official Records (1901)
During British imperial rule half of India’s annual net revenues flowed
out of the country
Romesh Dutt The Economic History of India under early
British Rule (1906)
28,825,000 Indians starved to death in 24 famines between 1854 and 1901
Ibid.
The Bengal famine of 1943 claimed 1,500,000 victims
Famine Inquiry Commission report on Bengal, Delhi
(1945)
As late as 1834 Britain had 540,559 African slaves in the Caribbean
Prior to the European’s arrival in 1772 there were 4000 black Tasmanians
in Tasmania. This was reduced to 203 survivors within 59 years. By 1846 there
were forty. By 1878 Tasmania’s black population had been wiped out.
MM Bennett The Australian Aboriginal as a Human Being
(1930)
The European settlement in Australia in 1788 saw a Black population of 300,000
reduced to 77,501 by 1921. By 1932 the population was down to 59,719
Thomas Dunabin The Making of Australasia
