When last week, the Prime Minister of Netherlands, Mark Rutte offered a formal ‘apology’ for his country’s involvement in 250 years of slavery, calling it a “crime against humanity”, I was completely taken aback by the incident. It was so sudden and unexpected but still a move that would, possibly, have far reaching repercussion.
“Today on behalf of the Dutch government, I apologize for the past actions of the Dutch state,” Rutte said, stating that the past “cannot be erased, only faced up to.”
He noted that although nobody alive today “bears any personal guilt” or responsibility for slavery, the Netherlands as a state is still guilty of having “encouraged and profited” from it.
“People were commodified, exploited and traded in the name of the Dutch state,” he continued, adding that slavery had caused “great suffering, that continues to affect the lives of people now…And for that, on behalf of the Dutch state, I apologize.”
Most significantly, this ‘apology,’ though belated, might have opened up a new vista and reawakened the muted debate for reparations for the wrongs and crimes committed against Africa by some European countries during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and era of slavery and colonialism.
The Dutch prime minister’s remarks came amid a wider reconsideration of the Netherlands’ colonial past. It was also coming at the heels of a faint-hearted apology in June this year by the Government of Belgium whose monarch, King Philippe, expressed his “deepest regrets” for abuses committed during the country’s colonization of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Netherlands formally abolished slavery in 1863. The slave trade was considered to be the driving force behind the Dutch economic and cultural “golden age.”
Prior to Rutte’s speech, however, a number of activists expressed their disdain for the way the Dutch government decided to issue the apology. Some critics claimed the process was too quick and inadequate.
Historically considered a fringe issue, the reparations movement has been with us for several decades. It is firmly established among black societies especially in Africa, African communities in the United States and the Caribbeans.
Due to the entrenchment of white supremacy in world politics, compensatory measures for Africa has been elusive. Millions of Africans watched in bemusement as the Japanese, the Jews and others received reparations for government-sanctioned crimes against them. Payments made to various nations and groups for the crimes against humanity suggest that payment of reparations is firmly rooted in international law. But eye-brows are raised and arguments dismissed as nonsensical when similar justice for Africans, who suffered from European oppression, slavery and destruction, are made.
Reparations are payment of a debt owed; Remedies for wrongdoing and, legally speaking,compensation in the form of money, land, or goods.
In 1952, West Germany made payments of $822 million to Holocaust survivors and $25 million was also paid to the Jewish community in Austria as reparations. Similar payments were paid to the Japanese Canadians in 1988 ($230 million) by Canada and to the Japanese Americans ($1.2 billion) by the United States in 1990. From 1971 to 1988, the United States government had made several payments of reparations in money and land to the Native Americans.
The 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa presented an opportunity to press the issues of reparations at the global level. Then, the African World Reparations and Truth Commission, had asked western countries and institutions that benefited from slavery and colonialism to pay Africa almost $800 trillion. Hamet Maulana, the co-chairman of the commission, reportedly said: “The money would help Africa deal with some of the enormous problems caused by slavery and colonialism.”
It appeared that Europe and the United States opposed every discussion in the international arena on reparations. Hence they enlisted their lackeys among African leaders to assist in scuttling the movement’s agenda of pushing for reparations to Africa.
It was Olusegun Obasanjo, then as Nigeria’s president, who championed sidestepping the argument for reparations when he declared that Africa should be satisfied with an apology instead of insisting on reparations, saying it would help erase the bitterness and anger in the hearts of descendants of slaves. He stated that monetary compensation could actually hurt the dignity of Africans and may also lead to divisions between Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora.
With Obasanjo’s senselessness, the sizzling opportunity that presented itself at the turn of the century for the continent to buttress its case for reparations slipped away.
Given Nigeria’s strategic position in Africa and in the world, it was neither in our interest nor our duty to make case for those who perpetrated or the descendants of those who perpetrated the crimes against Africa.
Being the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria should naturally be leading the reparations campaign as its citizens accounted for a large percentage of the more than 12 million black slaves in Europe and the Americas.
I strongly believed that Obasanjos remarks at the 2001 summit lacked the representation of the people of Nigeria and the Black World as a whole. Recalling the Durban episode in August 2016, the Chairman of the Caribbean Community Commission on Reparation and Social Justice, Prof Hilary Beckles expressed displeasure on the refusal of African leaders, Obasanjo in particular, to support their request for apology from the European government regarding crimes of the transatlantic slave trade.
His words: “Shockingly, our African governments did not stand with us; it was very painful, that as we sought to lay the foundation for our future relationships, that the government in Nigeria, our largest government did not stand with us. The then Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo did say to me ‘we cannot support Caribbean on this.’ It was indeed painful. The language at Durban is that something awful has taken place…We believe in the Caribbean that Nigeria especially, must rise to this occasion and support the Caribbean.”
Now I think is time for Africa to rekindle the movement for reparations by making the case that millions of people were abused, brutalized, debased and massacred by Europeans and the result of that behavior is being enjoyed by millions of Europeans and Americans today.
Reparations need not necessarily be monetary. It could come in the form of debt cancellation or relief among other possibilities.
Alternatively, reparations could be in terms of technology transfer, education grants, agriculture trade guarantees and an infrastructure development plan.
The critical point now is for all the progressive forces in the continent not to allow some of our leaders to derail the debate. We must push it to the logical conclusion.
