Pempamsie is the Adinkra symbol for sewing together in readiness -preparatory actions for reparatory justice. building our future out of our principled operational unity despite our diversity. Indeed, part of the repair process is about Afrikan heritage communities developing our own community capacity and power-base as well as our own Afrikan Heritage Community Self-Repairs Plans. Mpango is the Kiswahili word for plan.
Maatubuntuman is the name of a self-repaired Afrika and means a global Afrikan polity which consists of a Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities. Coined from the conjunction of ‘Maat’ (the holistic justice concept from Kemet, Ancient Egypt, with ‘Ubuntu’ (the Bantu concept of the communion of humanity from Southern Afrika) and ‘Oman’ (the Akan concept of egalitarian polity from West Afrika). Upon the initiative of the Pan-Afrikan Forum of Ghana (PAFOG) in conjunction with the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE) and adopted by the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP) and the Maatubuntumitawo-Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council, it has been adopted as one of the key rallying objectives of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice.
The process of Pempamsie planning should occur within the context of a glocal framework which is establishing repaired Afrikan Heritage Communities which are referred to as Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination (AHCs-NSDs)/ Maatubuntujamaas in the UK and other parts of the Diaspora which organically builds links with such Communities of Resistance and Communities of Reparatory Justice Interest on the Continent of Afrika which are known as Sankofahomes.
Maatubuntujamaas are Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination that are regenerating themselves to become autonomous polities of national self-determination in the Afrikan Diaspora integrated into Sankofahomes. Sankofahomes (literally meaning a return to one’s Motherland) are indigenous communities in Afrika that are regenerating themselves purposefully to facilitate the integration of Maatubuntujamaas in the Diaspora. These Maatubuntujamaas are a form of non-territorial autonomy whereby we as a people build autonomous institutions of self-governance focusing on areas of Afrikan Heritage Community Self-Repairs such as education, healthcare, and community cooperative enterprise, for example.
Establishing Maatubuntujamaas is a Afrikan Heritage Community self-repairs effectuating work-in-progress for the holistic regeneration of Afrikan communities; mindful of the fact that such Afrikan communities at present exist in the UK as a multiplicity of different and sometimes even conflicting nation-state, ethnic, racial, class, gender, age and other socio-cultural configurations brought from all over the World; therefore, this Maatubuntujamaa regeneration of Afrikan communities is being done in such a radical changemaking way and manner of Intersectionality so as to enable the Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice development, out of their multifariousness, of a one distinct new type of Afrikan communion of people to serve as a living prototype of the component bodies of the future Maatubuntuman Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities throughout the continent and Diaspora of Afrika.
President Dame Sandra Mason & Prime Minister Mia Mottley
A version of this article was published on Self-Help News on the 30th November 2021. Uhuru means freedom in Kiswahili.
On 30th November 2021, Barbados transitioned from a parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the hereditary monarch of Barbados (formerly Queen Elizabeth II) to a parliamentary republic with a ceremonial non-executive President as Head of State elected by members of parliament and not the people. The Prime Minister, Mia Mottley EGH, OR, QC, MP remains Head of Government.
However, the question that I and many other citizens of Barbados have been discussing is whether this transition to a republic is more symbolic rather than substantive. Whilst much of the corporate whitestream media is hailing this move as some huge achievement, questions remain about whether selecting the existing Governor-General, Dame Sandra Mason GCMG, DA, QC, who had been Queen Elizabeth’s II’s representative in Barbados since 2018, to serve as Barbados’s first President and Head of State is really the kind of substantive change one would expect when a country transitions to a republic. Queen Elizabeth II bestowed on Mason the Dame Grand Cross in the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George when Mason was appointed Governor-General.
Lest we not forget, the hitherto Governor-Generals of Barbados are appointed by Queen Elizabeth II supposedly on the advice of the Prime Minister of Barbados. Nevertheless, the fact that two thirds of the Barbados Parliament selected the (former) Governor-General to become the first President of the Republic of Barbados could be seen as an attempt to hoodwink the people into believing that there has been a changing of the power structure, when that is clearly not the case. Indeed, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Significantly, Following the end of the Dame Sandra Mason’s term as president, future presidents will be elected by either a joint nomination of the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition or if there is no joint nomination, a vote of both houses of the Parliament of Barbados where a two-thirds majority is required. The electorate will therefore have no meaningful say. As Opposition Senator, Caswell Franklyn has also argued, there are flaws in the republic process. To raise legitimate concerns about the manner in which Barbados is transitioning to a republic does not mean that one is against republicanism, this is indeed long overdue. Nevertheless, it is prudent to raise the fact that the process we are embarking on in Barbados appears to be more symbolic rather than substantive. It reminds me of when President Obama became President of the United States and people got caught up with him being reported to have been the so-called first Black President of America (which was not true), rather than looking at how his presidency impacted on people of Afrikan ancestry and heritage.
Many are also getting caught up with the symbol of a first President of Barbados who also is a woman rather than critically examining the substance of how meaningful these changes will be. Whenever it comes to women in power and the tendency to see women in positions of (neocolonial) state power as emancipatory, I always question to what degree such women are or act, in ways that is described by Dr June Terpstra, as Women of the Hegemon. To find out more about what this means see here and here. In a global system of imperialism and neocolonialism, the Hegemon is ever-present even when it may be difficult to see because of the tendency to use a single lens of analysis when assessing reality rather than embracing an analysis of power on intersectional grounds.
I like many other agree that we should have a new constitution fit for purpose of what it means to be a republic drafted with input from our people who have up until now not really been given a say about what type of republic they want Barbados to be. Only then could it be said that there is a fair and equitable process which reflects a real intention to break with the coloniality of power of ‘Global Britain‘. Instead, Barbados’ republic status is premised on retaining links with European coloniality by simply making amendments to a constitution that came out of the Barbados Independence Act of 1966 passed by the UK Parliament, which gave Barbados “fully responsible status” (independence) within the Commonwealth. This Act has not been repealed.
“…provide a constitution for Barbados. This took the form of the Barbados Independence Order 1966, which was laid before the Barbados Parliament on 22 November 1966 and came into force on 30 November. The Constitution of Barbados formed a schedule to that order. This was drafted by a Constitutional Conference comprising political parties in Barbados and the then UK Secretary of State for the Colonies.”
In a recent article Dr Yearood & Professor Cynthia Barrow-Giles opined:
“….Barbados will move inexorably to republican status but with the status quo remaining, and with the symbolic change associated with the national head of state both practically and theoretically representing the citizens and not theoretically a foreign head of state. The real issue is therefore not about whether Barbados becomes a republic, or whether the Constitution is patriated, but about the relationship between the people and the Government as articulated in the Constitution. Is Barbados going to change its Constitution or be content with tinkering around the edges, masquerading as change?“
It would be far more transformatory, if an entirely new constitution was drafted instead of trying to seemingly ‘repair’ this colonial Westminster instrument. There is a long-standing need for constitutional review and reform which enables the electorate to have a greater degree of participation in accountable governance of the country. In order to become a republic, the Barbados Parliament had to revoke the Barbados Independence Order 1966 as an Order in Queen Elizabeth II’s Council via the Constitution (Amendment Bill) 2021, while keeping intact the existing Barbados Constitution. The amendment transfers the functions and powers of the Barbados Governor-General (Queen Elizabeth II’s representative) to the new President of the republic, amending the official oaths of Barbados to remove references to the Queen Elizabath II, as well as ensures continuity in all of the other aspects of the functioning of the state of Barbados.
The UK Parliament will have to pass consequential legislation “to avoid any confusion in its domestic law” as has been the case on previous occasions when Commonwealth Realms have become republics. The last time ithe UK Parliament passed a similar bill was the Mauritius Republic Act 1992. It is this aspect of the process thus far to republicanism that is most indicative that for now, Barbados will become a republic in name only. When a nation is seeking to establish true independence on the road to sovereignty, it cannot do so by maintaining relics of the colonial power that has ruled and influenced its institutions of governance for centuries. No wonder Prince Charles was invited as a guest of honour to make an address at the ceremony marking Barbados’ transition to a republic.
The cockily confident, Prince Charles felt it necessary in his public messaging on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II to emphasize those things “which will not change” such as the: “close and trusted partnership between Barbados and the United Kingdom”, the “common determination to defend the values we both cherish and to pursue the goals we share; and the myriad connections between the people of our countries.” He was even awarded the Order of Freedom of Barbados, which is now the country’s highest distinction. Quite rightly, the contradictions inherent in this decision has been condemned. In a recent facebook post Dr Tyehimba Salandy, a sociologist and scholar-activist based in Trinidad & Tobago says: “There is something very problematic about proclaiming Republic status and at the same time instead of pressing home the case for reparations awarding the creators of some of the worst crimes ever in human history with the Order of Freedom.”
Not surprisingly, Prince Charles’ visit has generated condemnation from across civil society, campaigners from the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration and the 13th June 1980 Movement had planned to stage a protest in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados yesterday. However, the government refused to grant permission for the protest. Clearly, such campaigners in Barbados, need support in amplifying their voices especially in the UK to present a counter narrative to this celebratory tone which is smothering those voices who are challenging the dominant state approaches to republicanism which are obfuscating the most fundamental issues of Global Europe and the continuance of Afrikan powerlessness in the Caribbean and elsewhere around the world. That is why the UK contingent of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations campaign, driven by the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign, to establish a UK All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice which prompted the establishment of the UK All-Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations (APPGAR), will become of increasing importance in this regard.
The Secretary General of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, David Denny is right to say that Prince Charles’ visit is an insult! According to a recent report in the Daily Mirror: David Denny who felt the opportunity should be used to call for an apology and reparations, said:
“Barbados should not honour a family who murdered and tortured our people during slavery. The profits created the financial conditions for the Royal Family to increase their power.”
Kevin Cahill provides good justification of this last point when he uncovers in his 2007 book: ‘Who Owns the World’, the world’s primary feudal landowner remains Queen Elizabeth II. She is monarch of 15 countries in addition to the United Kingdom, head of a Commonwealth of 54 countries in which a quarter of the world’s population lives and holds legalised title to about 6.6 billion acres of land, one-sixth of the earth’s land surface.
Wherever one stands on this issue, deeper questions remain; like how will the centuries old accumulated benefits acquired by the British Monarchy be dismantled in Barbados? What will the rulership do to free the country of imperial influences, the Maangamizi of neocolonialism and its attendant neoliberal economic reforms?, which are not only raising the cost of living for ordinary people and exacerbating income inequality; but also furthering the dominant model of maldevelopment worldwide which has implications for effectively tackling the genocidal and ecocidal glocal impacts of the worldwide Climate and Ecological Crises and the necessity for charting alternative paths of progression in Barbados premised on transformtaive adapatation as an aspect of Planet Repairs. Will there be widespread land, wealth and resource redistribution?, especially since (prior to becoming a republic) the British Monarch owned all state lands and state-owned companies etc. I really doubt it!
Despite becoming a Republic, Barbados remains one of the most important offshore financial centres in the Caribbean and one of the world’s top 15 according to Oxfam. Accordingly, there is a link between financialisation and the growth of top incomes. In an article written whilst he was a PhD researcher at the London School of Economics, Scholar Dr Collin Constantine argues that: “Barbados’ status as an offshore financial centre also contributes to rising inequality in Western Europe and the USA by allowing wealthy foreigners to shift income and wealth into a low-tax jurisdiction. Yet while OECD countries are attempting to reclaim their “hidden wealth”, Bajans face growing inequality alongside austerity measures and weak tourism.” Constantine provides an important perspective on how the ‘idea’ of Barbados as a beacon of democracy in the Caribbean persists. He argues that this is in part the same issue studied in other contexts by Thomas Piketty: “When you have large wealth, you cannot just consume like other people. You start to consume influence, consume politicians, consume academics, you consume power; this is what high wealth is here for.”
Constantine goes on to state: The enormous concentration of income in Barbados historically meant that the most powerful and prestigious positions were reserved for colonial elites. In present-day Barbados, economic elites use grants, media ownership, campaign contributions, and so on to influence public policy, public opinion, and key actors to forge societal buy-in on policies that protect and reinforce elites’ economic interests.Even more than in OECD countries, part of the problem is a lack of transparency about top incomes in Barbados, with a severe lack of studies on wealth and income distribution. But this is compounded by deliberate attempts to shift the blame onto the most visible participants in the local economy, namely migrants.
The above arguments put forward by various commentators demonstrate that there is still a long way to go before we can say that we have overcome the tyranny of gradualism and effected as well as secured Uhuru in Barbados and across the Caribbean region. The struggle to transform our material, spiritual and cultural realities naturally leads to the path less travelled; i.e. that of continuing to build and strengthen movement-building for Pan-Afrikan Liberation at home in our Motherland Afrika, as well as across the Diaspora. This is concretised by the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign’s advocacy of the necessity to prefigure decolonial post-Afrikan Reparations futures epitomised by the establishment of Maatubuntuman in Ubuntudunia built from the emerging Community Resistance Zones such as Maatubuntujamaas (Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination) in the Diaspora, organically and indivisibly linked to Sankofahomes premised on our indigenous Afrikan Communities of Resistance throughout the Continent of Afrika.
“Unless our struggle for Reparations leads to the Pan-Afrikanist revolutionary consientization, organization and mobilization of the broad masses of Afrikan People throughout the Continent and the Diaspora to achieve first and foremost, their definitive emancipation from the impeding vestiges of colonialism and the still enslaving bonds of present-day Neocolonialism, to smash the yoke of white racist supremacy and utterly destroy the mental and physical stranglehold of Eurocentrism upon Afrikans at home and abroad, delinking Afrika completely from imperialism of any sort whatsoever, we shall have no POWER to back our claim for restitution and to give us the necessary force of coercion to make the perpetrators of the heinous crimes against us to honour the obligations of even the best fashioned letter and spirit of International Law.”
*Esther Stanford-Xosei is a Motherist and Pan-Afrikanist Jurisconsult, Community Advocate and Reparationist. As a ‘new abolitionist’ emphasizing the need to ‘stop the harm’ and effect Planet Repairs, Esther serves as the Coordinator-General of the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign, among other responsibilities.
Zoe Steadman-Milne, Producer and all other organisers of the Bristol Festival of Economics as well as the Panel discussion on ‘What are the Ecomnomics of Reparation’.
I am writing to let you know that upon further reflection, I feel compelled to withdraw my participation in the forthcoming panel discussion on ‘What are the Economics of Reparations’. Since my agreement to participate in July 2021, I have come under scrutiny from Afrikan Heritage Community Members, who have quite rightly raised concerns about the ethical and legal dimensions of the contentious admissions policy for those attending the Festival of Economics and the panel discussion on reparations.
One overriding concern is how the admission requirements indirectly discriminate against certain sections of Afrikan Heritage Communities who have protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 and therefore creates differential treatment among individuals based on characteristics, (such as immunity status or vaccination status); thereby restricting their access to and ability to effectively participate in public events concerning issues of reparations. Indeed, the findings of report of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) on COVID-19 vaccine certification released in June 2021 are instructive here. The report raised concerns among MPs’ that certification schemes would “disproportionately discriminate” on the basis of race, religion, age and socio-economic background. It states: “While the committee accepts that in emergency situations the prospect of temporary infringement of rights may need to be weighed against public health or other emergency considerations, these occasions should only ever be when there is an overwhelming case of necessity and should, in all situations, be proportionate to that necessity”.
Even the PACAC has expressed concern about the UK Government’s “failure to make the scientific case” for COVID-19 certification schemes. It is not surprising then, that for some sections and groupings within Afrikan Heritage Communities, there is a lack of trust due to the UK Government and the medical establishment’s failure to provide convincing explanations and evidence regarding the scientific case for COVID-19 vaccinations, including concerns about vaccine efficacy and safety for a plethora of reasons, such as institutional racism, medical forms of discimination and structural inequalities in health outcomes. The arguments often put forward as justification for the infringment of human and people’s rights in imposing certification schemes, like public health and safety, also have racialised and other intersectional dimensions. Addressing these issues requires embracing intersectional human and people’s rights approaches which balance risk and benefits across society taking into consideration such risks and benefits for specific communities and groups.
There is a simple maxim that has been adopted by Afrikan Heritage Communities regarding the disturbing trend of many institutions to hold meetings which put on events discussing issues of reparations pertaining to Afrikan Heritage Communities, but which at the same time largely exclude us. This maxim is: Nothing About Us Without Us, Anything About Us Without Us is Against Us! Questions are also being raised about the way this event is organised and whether this is the best use of resources.
Whilst I was indeed looking forward to participating in such a discussion and offering perspectives from the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations on the ‘Economics of Afrikan Reparations’; I have had to take very seriously the challenges and critical questions raised by Afrikan Heritage Community Members about my own participation in the panel discussion. Some of these critical questions relate to perceptions that I appear to be ‘legitimising white spaces’ which host events of interest and vital concern to Afrikan Heritage and other Majority World Communities, but at the same time impose exclusionary conditions limiting their own access and ability to participate themselves, including among other things cost prohibitions.
This becomes all the more serious when many such discussions end up becoming springboards for policy and other programmatic proposals of white-led institutions as well as NGOs, which are not informed by Afrikan Heritage Community experiences, voices, perspectives and lineages of mass struggle and are often unaccountable to Afrikan Heritage Communities of Reparations Interest and the movements that they have built which advance the strategic goals and cause of effecting and securing holistic reparatory justice. This often occurs even when such institutions and NGOs choose particular scholars, scholar-activists and other professionals who represent particular classes disposed towards Eurocentricity, from Majority World Communites to work with, who are prepared to engage on the terms of ‘whiteness’, but do not necessarily recognise the wider autonomous structures and networks of accountability which promote substantive representation for the communities and groups that such persons are part of. In this regard, I am guided by the call for ethical engagements on issues pertaining to reparations for people of Afrikan ancestry and heritage as highlighted in the Principles of Partcipation of the International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR).
In particular, objections have been raised about the requirement of an NHS COVID Pass for all ticket holders over the age of 18.
One such intervention, (but by all means not the only one), has been offered by @AfriThinka who in a recent tweet states:
So-called 'Liberal White Ally' spaces are contradictory and funny.
Reparations in the context of ignoring the particular principled objections of many Black peoples to having a vaccine experiment imposed on them – and in such a neo-colonial, paternalistic way as this? Do better https://t.co/AiRrTy6UmHpic.twitter.com/D3g4vsHgUk
The full admissions requirements can be found here:
@AfriThinka then follows up with a tweet to me personally:
But what is this?
Is it not the epitome of a deafness to Black voices of those owed add entitled to reparative repair on their own terms?@Xosei Really?https://t.co/ftW2r0Hsto
Concerns have also been raised about the data protection implications, for Afrikan Heritage Communities, of the Festival of Economics admission policy in terms of individual community members COVID-19 status being ‘special category’ data, and a lack of assurances that use of it will be “fair, relevant and necessary for a specific purpose”. Furthermore, questions have also been raised as to whether We The Curious and Bristol Ideas have undertaken a data protection impact assessment which takes into consideration the potential disproportionate and high risks of the admissions policy to individuals from Afrikan Heritage Communities on the basis of data known thus far about the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19, the human rights dimensions of imposing the NHS Covid Pass as a requirement for admission as well as how COVID-19 discrimination manifests.
As you may be aware, there is a heightened sense of awareness of, and expectations among Afrikan Heritage Communities regarding their rights to effectively participate in events and discussions about reparations given their involvement, and that of the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign, working with Bristol based advocacy organisations, such as the Afrikan ConneXions Consortium and others, in creating the environment conducive to the passing of the ‘Atonement and Reparation for Bristol’s role in the Transatlantic Traffic of Enslaved Afrikans‘ motion by Bristol City Council on 2nd March 2021. This is more topical given the fact that Bristol based Afrikan Heritage Communities are organsing to develop their own glocal reparations plans of alternative progression known as Pempamsiempango’s given that the Bristol ‘Atonement and Reparations’ motion identifies that Bristol City Council resolves to call on Councillors, the Mayor or the Chief Executive as appropriate to:
2. Support Afrikan Heritage Community (AHC) organisations in Bristol to galvanise support for the emerging Bristol AHC led ‘Reparations Plan’ from, and in collaboration with, wider stakeholders including institutions, city strategic leaders, corporate leaders, key strategic programmes/initiatives and cross-party politicians, and
4. Recognise that reparative justice should be driven by Afrikan Heritage Communities experiences, voices and perspectives to ensure that advocacy messages not only reflect but also respond to the real needs of the community in order to recognise inequalities.
In these circumstances, my own participation in an event which appears not to have sufficiently considered these implications for and sensitivities of Afrikan Heritage Community stakeholders, has now become untenable.
I hope that as organisers you will draw the necessary lessons and do better going forwards in properly consulting stakeholding communities of reparations interest about everything to do with topics of particular relevance to such groups of people with particular emphasis of issues concerning barriers to participation.
In Service
Esther Stanford-Xosei
Coordinator-General, Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC) Co-Vice Chair, Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE) Official Spokesperson, Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC) Co-Facilitator, International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) Co-Founder, Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP) Co-Founder, Extinction Rebellion Internationalist Solidarity Network (XRISN)
Left to Right: Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Marsha De Cordova MP, Caroline Lucas MP, Sir Peter Bottomley MP, Representation of Ottobah Cugoano, Bernie Grant MP, Esther Stanford-Xosei
Please note where you see different spellings of Afrikan this is because we in the SMWeCGEC use the spelling of Afrikan with a K but have preserved the spelling of African with a C when that is used by others.
Today we in the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign and our educational arm the Maangamizi Educational Trust were participating stakeholders to the historic establishment of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on African Reparations (APPGAR) which was launched in the British Houses of Parliament (via an online AGM) at 10.30am this morning, Wednesday 20th October 2021. The APPGAR is chaired by Bell Ribeiro-AddyMP, the Vice Chairs are Marsha De Cordova MP and Caroline Lucus MP, the Assistant Secretary is Sir Peter Bottomley.
On behalf of the Stop the Maangamizi Campaign, the Maangamizi Educational Educational Trust will be sharing the running of the Secretariat for the APPGAR. Other organisations who will also be part of running the secretariat are the Glocal Afrikan Reparations Forum of London, (GARFOL) and The African Foundation for Development, (AFFORD).
The APPGAR will be officially launched on 27th October 2021.
Esther Stanford-Xosei, Chair of the Maangamizi Educational Trust and Coordinator General of the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign who was honoured to speak at the AGM made the following speech:
Good Morning
My name is Esther Stanford-Xosei and I speak as the Chair of the Maangamizi Educational Trust (MET) which is the charitable arm of the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC). Because of the historic importance of the AGM of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on African Reparations (APPGAR) today, the MET/SMWeCGEC has agreed a written speech from which I shall read.
First of all, we would like to acknowledge countless generations of Afrikans in the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) on whose shoulders, struggles and sacrifices we stand, whom since the mid-1700s in the UK specifically, have advocated for holistic reparations. In this regard, we particularly highlight the role of people like Ottobah Cugoano and other members of the Sons of Africa.
This idea for the APPGAR comes out of the campaigning efforts of the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign and our charitable educational arm, the Maangamizi Educational Trust. Maangamizi is the Kiswahili term for the continuum of chattel enslavement, colonialism and neocolonilaism.
We see the establishment of the APPGAR as a continuation of the world of the late Bernie Grant MPwho was the first member of the British Houses of Parliament to take up the issue of Afrikan Reparations following on from the ‘First Pan-African Conference on Reparations for Chattel Enslavement, Colonisation & Neocolonisation’ which took place in Abuja, Nigeria in 1993 and resulted in the establishment of the organisation known as the African Reparations Movement UK as well as the Abuja ProclamationEarly Day Motion 1987. It is in continuity of this work that we in the Maangamizi Educational Trust and the Stop the Maangamizi Campaign take our duties within the secretariat of the APPGAR very seriously. For this parliament has played a major role in legalizing, historical and contemporary injustices against Afrikan people worldwide including the passing of the Slave Compensation Act of 1837, which compensated our enslavers rather than Afrikan people. It has been very instrumental in legalizing our dehumanization, and continues with justifications being provided by this government for the discriminatory impacts of its extractivist policies in the Global South to supposedly avert the climate and ecological crises.
In terms of our MET/SMWeCGEC vision of the APPGAR, we see its purpose as: “bringing together parliamentarians, campaigners, communities and other stakeholders to examine issues of African Reparations; explore policy proposals on reparations and make recommendations to Parliament on how to redress the legacies of African enslavement, colonialism and neocolonialism today“. In this regard, a key objective of the APPGAR being to facilitate, work towards establishing the UKAll-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice (APPCITARJ) which is a key demand contained in the Stop The Maangamizi Petition and forms one of the main purposes of the ‘Atonement and Reparations for the United Kingdom’s Transatlantic Traffic in Enslaved Africans’ motions being passed by local and city councils.
People of Afrikan Heritage have been denied their right to be heard on what we mean by reparations, and what solutions we are already working on as part of Community Self-Repairs so that is what we are calling for a mechanism which can facilitate the dialogue between Afrikan Heritage Communities and the British State and society; which for us is the APPCITARJ. We therefore see this APPGAR as an important step in the process towards establishing such a mechanism of such vitally necessary dialogue. For it is only then that we can truly make appropriate policy and other programmatic types of redress by way of remedies to repair ourselves here in the UK and extending into the Afrikan Heritage Communities globally; and in the process also catalyze the repair of the entire British society and of course, of all peoples and societies, within and beyond in the UK.
It is necessary for the APPGAR to invite people to honest dialogue on this issue of Afrikan Reparations, because this struggle to effect and secure holistic reparatory justice, like all our struggles, begins with the need for, as advocated by Professor Karenga, a clear conception of what we want, how we define the issue and explain it to the world and what is to be done to achieve it. However, on this we should be guided by Afrikan Heritage Communities and the movements they have created to effect and secure holistic reparatory justice which have been operational over centuries.
We in the MET/SMWeCGEC want to emphasize that the grassroots of our Afrikan Heritage Communities across the world should be driving this work. It is up to this APPGAR to demonstrate that there is a leadership that will be of service to our communities at this time when there are big questions about what kind of leadership we have and even some of the state and non-state actors active on issues of reparations, being heavily scrutinised in terms of their credibility and commitment to our people in what some see as a tendency to want to make elitist deals under the guise of reparations which do not benefit the masses of the people. We should all be clear that Afrikan Heritage Communities have a right to participate in reparations programme and policy development and must be in the driving seat of such processes best summed up in the mantra: Nothing About Us Without Us for Anything About Us Without Us is Against Us. Furthermore, participation rights are individual and collective human rights under customary international law. They are enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and further established in states’ legal obligations as spelled out in the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination(ICERD) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples(UNDRIP).
That is why for us in the MET/SMWeCGEC, the emphasis should be on Afrikan Heritage Communities Self-Repairs as was recognised in the Bristol ‘Atonement and Reparations’ motion which states: reparative justice should be driven by Afrikan Heritage Communities experiences, voices and perspectives to ensure that advocacy messages not only reflect but also respond to the real needs of the community in order to recognise inequalities. Also, that Afrikan Heritage Communities in collaboration with wider stakeholders, should be supported to develop their own glocal ‘reparations plans‘ to tackle issues of community disrepair as a result of the Maangamizi, locally, nationally and internationally. These issues of disrepair rooted in conquest, dispossession, structural racism as well as intergenerational oppression and trauma include in the UK: gun and knife crime among young people, kidnapped and missing children, the discriminatory impacts of the criminal justice system, the education system and the issue of Afrikan heritage maternal death-rates and inequalities of primal health of people of Afrikan heritage and ancestry etc as a result of the continuing impacts of the Maangamizi.
Research of people like Professor Carlton Waterhouseshows that much of the reparations policy-making, scholarship and public discourse pays little attention to the quality of past reparations programmes implemented around the world and whilst the emphasis is placed on former and contemporary wrongdoers to make apology, recompense, or other types of restitution, very little attention is paid to results, the end result of any reparations process should be the restoration and recovery of those that have experienced enduring injustice and harm, as well as the critical role that communities and individuals suffering from past abuses should play in establishing those programmes in order to re-establish their personal well-being and societal standing. Similarly, a lot of attention gets placed on state initiated reparations programmes; but this is based on a false and outmoded notion of international law as just being about the law of nation-states or governments rather than peoples and/or affected communities.
As much as this APPGAR has been centuries in the making, we must also recognise the context within which this struggle to effect and secure holistic reparatory justice is unfolding as historian Professor John Henrik Clarke advocated, we must be conscious of what political and cultural time of day it is given our locations as Afrikan people on the map of human geography. At a time when the extent of the Maangamizi is now imperilling all life on Planet Earth and some of us are threatened with literal extinction; an approach to effecting and securing holistic reparatory justice is required which brings about Planet Repairs which means: when safeguarding the rights of past, present and future generations; the need to proceed from a standpoint of Pluriversality that highlights the nexus of reparatory, environmental and cognitive justice in articulating the impetus to repair holistically our relationship with, and inseparability from, the Earth, Environment and the Pluriverse. Such an approach recognises there is urgent need for us all to compel the stopping of the Maangamizi of Neocolonialism and its inbuilt manifestations of genocide and ecocide and for Afrikan Heritage Communities to engage in deep and transformative adaptation given the certainty of intensifying climate and ecological crisis which is already impacting all life support systems as we know it rapidly-changing Planet Earth; doing so in ways and means that repair and transform our existing failed institutions in all spheres of people activity, locally, nationally and internationally. Such repair and transformation being anchored in the ancient Afrikan ethical imperative of Serudj ta, i.e., healing, repairing and remaking the World, making it more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
For these reasons, an essential part of our communities self-defence is transformative adaptation which is also about us beginning to make Pempamsiempangos, an Adinkra symbol, which encapsulates the necessity to knit and sew together in readiness for our community self-repairs; these are Glocal Afrikan Reparations Plan for Planet Repairs Alternative Progression being drawn up locally, nationally, internationally as well as globally. Alternative Progression plans become necessary given the contested nature of currently dominant processes of globalized development as highligted in Pluriverse: A Post Development Dictionary, given its structural roots in the Maangamizi, modernity, capitalism, state domination, and exclusively masculinist values which have often ended up being instead maldevelopment.
Finally, it is important to note that we who have been struggling to effect community self-repairs over centuries have built up an extensive knowledge base about the kind of system-change reparatory justice policy and programmatic measures are required. It follows that reparations education and conscientisation is part of the preparation for effecting and securing reparatory justice and this requires the APPGAR to also facilitate intense study about this issue as well as recognising that there is such a thing as reparations ethics. In this regard to acknowledge the INOSAAR Principles of Participationwhich promote equity between the knowledges produced by Afrikan Heritage Communities on Reparations and all other stakeholders.
We in the MET and the SMWeCGEC commit to disciplined, proactive work in the APPGAR secretariat and in fulfilment of this vision and we are keen to work equitably with partners who recognise the principles of Afrikan agency in determining what is best for our people.
We thank Bell Ribeiro-Addy for taking up this challenge by taking this historic step in initiating this APPGAR and agreeing to chair it and of course also to all of you who have agree to be the other executive officers.
We look forward to supporting and working with you all in the APPGAR.
The orginal proposal for the APPGAR as proposed by the MET can be found here.
“Accepting our responsibility and obligation to our Ancestors for ensuring that the African identity is proclaimed, maintained and developed; and that Africa is restored to its rightful place at the centre of world politics; call upon all people of African origin in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, the Americas and elsewhere to support the movement for reparations and join forces with a view to forming a strong united front capable of exposing, confronting and overcoming the psychological, economic and cultural harm inflicted upon us by peoples of European origin.”
Birmingham Declaration, Africa Reparations Movement (UK), 01/01/94
“Reparations is a process of the repairing and remaking of a people who are in the process and practice of repairing, renewing and remaking the world”
Professor Maulana Karenga, Black Power Encyclopaedia: From “Black is Beautiful” to Urban Uprisings, 2018
The Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC) has, since its inception, been campaigning for the setting up of an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) to address the legacies of Afrikan Enslavement as highlighted in the Stop The Maangamizi Postcard (below). The Maangamizi is the Kiswahili term for the African Holocaust of chattel, colonial and neocolonial forms of enslavement. The call to set up an APPG on Afrikan Heritage Communities Legacies of Enslavement has now developed into a concrete proposal driven by the Maangamizi Educational Trustfor the estabishment of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on African Reparations (APPGAR).
We in the SMWeCGEC have had promising discussions with various members of the British Houses of Parliament, including MPs and peers, who have agreed to set up and be part of the APPGAR. Discussions and negotiations are still taking place on a number of key issues concerninG the scope, remit and timeframe for establishing the APPGAR; nevertheless, we felt it was important to share the proposals that we have made for such an APPGAR. These proposals also include aspects of the text within the the Lambeth, Islington and Bristol ‘Atonement and Reparations‘ motions as well as text contributed by the International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations(INOSAAR).
Please note in this proposal African is spelled with a C. We in the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign recognise that the consciousness raising journey of self-defining as Afrikan with a K has not begun for all people of Afrikan ancestry and heritage. Hence this starting point with a view to seeking to raise conciousness of the need for People of Afrikan heritage and ancestry to self-define as Afrikans.
DRAFT TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE ALL-PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP ON AFRICAN REPARATIONS (APPGAR)
All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are informal, cross-party, interest groups of MPs and Peers which meet to discuss, campaign on and promote a certain issue. Many APPGs choose to involve individuals, campaign groups, charities, and other non-governmental organisations from outside Parliament, but who are active in the field of interest, to become involved in their administration and activities. They have no official status within Parliament but can, however, be very influential in bringing matters to the attention of Parliament and ministers as well as also encouraging action by other bodies.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on African Reparations (hereafter referred to as ‘APPGAR’) is to be established in [October] 2021 by a cross-party group of parliamentarians.
The APPGAR is to be chaired by (MP’s name withheld until agreements reached).
SHORT DESCRIPTION
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on African Reparations (APPGAR) brings together parliamentarians, campaigners, communities and other stakeholders to examine issues of African Reparations; explore policy proposals on reparations and make recommendations to Parliament on how to redress the legacies of African enslavement, colonialism and neocolonialism today.
OBJECTIVES
1. The APPGAR exists to:
(a) raise parliamentary awareness and public understanding about the meaning of, rationale, and proposals for African Reparations to address the legacies of African enslavement, colonisation and neocolonialism within and beyond the UK.
(b) study, review research and share knowledge about the effects of African enslavement, colonisation and neocolonialism within the British Empire from 1662 to the present.
(c) provide a springboard for parliamentary action on African Reparations such as debates, questions for oral and written answers and legislative reform.
(e) seek evidence on what measures and reforms are needed to address African Reparations at the level of policy.
(f) advise and make recommendations to the UK Government on African Reparations.
(g) stimulate cross-community dialogue on African Reparations and explore interconnections with reparations campaigns and movements of other Majority World Peoples.
To further the above aims the APPGAR and its members and its members will:
· Maintain an important forum for discussion of issues relevant to African Reparations, including measures to implement proposals for African Reparations such as:
(a) the establishment of the APPCITARJ;
(b) debt cancellation and repudiation;
(c) restitution of African cultural property and human remains;
(d) public disclosure about which financial institutions were involved in the enslaver compensation loan taken out by the UK Government in 1835, and restitution of the value of taxes paid by African Heritage taxpayers in Britain until 2015 to service this loan;
· Produce high quality reports, publications and calls for action;
· Facilitate events that further the objectives of the APPGAR;
· Attend other events, meetings where influence can be brought to bear.
BACKGROUND
2. The roots of this APPGAR lie in the longstanding socio-political struggle of the International Social Movement for African Reparations (ISMAR) to have their voices heard. For centuries, African people and their descendants who were colonised and enslaved have been calling for reparatory justice to address the long-standing and harmful legacies of enslavement, colonial oppression, genocide and ecocide.
The United Kingdom establishment played a major role in the Transoceanic Traffic in Enslaved Africans (TTEA) which saw at least 15 million Africans forcibly trafficked to the Western Hemisphere with many thousands losing their lives during the crossing from Africa to the Americas on British Ships. A great deal of the wealth of the UK was founded on this vile Crime Against Humanity(CAH), and the legacies of chattel, colonial and neocolonial forms of enslavement are still prevalent in society today.
One of the most visible and enduring legacies of African enslavement, colonisation and neocolonialism is systematic Anti-Black and other forms of Afriphobic racism that exists within Western societies. The systematic racism that is ingrained in our society manifests itself in inequality in education, housing, health, employment and the criminal justice system. The legacy of African enslavement is responsible for ingraining racial inequality within Western society, that manifests itself both in overt acts of violent racism, deaths in police, prison, psychiatric custody and immigration detention in the UK, or in institutional failings to provide sufficient support and care for African Heritage Communities, such as the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on people of African descent in the UK.
For too long, the UK Government has ignored the repercussions of Britain’s involvement in the enslavement and colonisation of African People, preferring to emphasise its role in the abolition of slavery, which led to the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. While it is true that certain sectors and individuals within British society actively participated in, and helped to bring about, abolition of slavery in 1833, it did so only after 200 years of profiting from it. The prevalence of this historical narrative overlooks the fact that many within the British political establishment actively resisted the abolition of slavery, not least of which was Britain’s former Prime Minister William Gladstone. It was men like Gladstone who argued for the need for the enslavers to be financially compensated, resulting in the passing of the Slave Compensation Act in1837. This allowed the enslavers (rather than the enslaved) to receive a total of £20 million in compensation, amounting to 40% of the Treasury’s annual income at the time.[1]
That debt was not fully repaid by British taxpayers until 2015, allowing the bulk of the wealth of the European-led TTEA to remain in the hands of powerful elites and their institutions in both the former colonies and in the UK.
The APPGAR will also seek to build on the work done by campaigners in the UK to advance the cause of reparations.
In 2003 the Lambeth based Black Quest for Justice Campaign (BQJC) supported by the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe(PARCOE) initiated a class action for Pan-African Reparations for Global Justice against Queen Elizabeth II and agents of the Crown as Head of State and Head of the British Commonwealth; calling for the establishment of a Reparations Commission of Inquiry. This action was denied on the grounds that the Crown could not be prosecuted, and these crimes could not be enforced prior to the enactment of the International Criminal Courts Act in 2001.
In 2004 the Rastafarian Movement were denied their appeal for reparation because the UK government felt it could not be held responsible for events of past centuries.
In 2013 Caribbean Heads of Governments established the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) 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 Humanityin the forms of genocide, slavery, slave trading, and racial apartheid.
From 2015 to 2019, the Stop the Maangamizi Campaign in association with the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee co-organised the annual Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March on the 1st of August, commemorated as Emancipation Day. In 2020 the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign and the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee evolved the tactic of marching to co-organising the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Rebellion Groundings (PARRG) annually on the 1st of August. The Stop The Maangamizi Campaign presents the Stop the Maangamizi Petition to the Office of the UK Prime Minister annually calling for the establishment of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth and Reparatory Justice (APPCITARJ).
In July 2020 Lambeth Council, home to the largest African Caribbean population in the UK, became the first local authority in the UK to pass a successful Atonement and Reparations for the Transoceanic Trafficking of Enslaved Africansmotion followed byBristol City Council in March 2021 calling for the establishment of the APPCITARJ to address the impact of African enslavement, colonisation and neocolonialism on present generations of People of African descent and their environments.
The APPCITARJ is a campaigning initiative founded by the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE) and now driven by theStop the Maangamizi Campaign. The need for this Commission has long been supported by the work and activism of other members of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR), including those of the Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement and theINOSAAR. The campaign aims to urge the UK Government to commit to a holistic process of atonement and reparations in accordance with the United Nations Framework on a Right to A Remedy and Reparations. A key part of the process includes recognizing and addressing the longstanding legacies of African enslavement, colonialism and neo-colonialism, such as Afriphobic Racism and the racial discrimination of People of African descent and other Majority World Peoples, socio-economic inequality and environmental injustice.
The APPCITARJ’s main purpose is to inform the public of the nature of African enslavement and colonialism, as well as its long-term consequences, including present-day impacts of neocolonialism upon both individuals and communities. It will kick start a political process where the space to fully bring people together and listen to the voices of those who are normally excluded would be given the opportunity to be heard. It is intended to be participatory in nature, meaning that it will call for submissions from all those with knowledge of the nature and impacts of enslavement and colonialism to provide testimony. These include, but are not limited to: individuals, organisations, academics, communities and nations.
At a practical level, it is the process of conducting this Commission that is of the utmost importance. In order to be able to hear all voices on this matter, we need a mechanism similar to but building on the ‘Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals Act for African-Americans Act’, (also known as HR40) that will act as a conduit for that conversation.[2]
This process cannot be bypassed because there are so many different constituencies and Communities of African Reparations Interest that need to be heard. The APPCITARJ will provide the basis for affected communities and individuals to voice their own self-determined solutions in effecting reparatory justice, and will identify the steps needed to facilitate their participation in any reparatory process in which the UK is engaged going forwards.
The MET works in servicing the SMWeCGEC and its partners with highly qualitative community-based research, mindful of UNESCO guidelines, as well as with action learning, public conscientization, mainly through cross-community dialogue, and other lifelong learning ways and means of mural and extra-mural education; doing so in order to ensure Cognitive Justicebecomes the key driving impetus in the promotion of broad societal awareness about the full meaning, creative application and practical realisation of African Reparations as a matter of total Pan-African Liberation and the ‘Maatubuntu’ emancipation of all Humanity, in furtherance of holistically transformative African Heritage Community Self-Repairs as an integral part of Planet Repairs in Global Justice meaningfulness.
The MET guides the SMWeCGEC in its public intellectual work for the organic development of unifying Peoples’ Power to support not only grassroots Community Activist campaigners engaged in Pan-African Reparatory Justice Advocacy Action Learning, but also all interested public officials, including members of Parliament, local and central government officials, teachers and students and youths at all levels, including complimentary and supplementary education in their variations. The MET seeks, by so doing, to encourage, guide and provide all other forms of support, to enable such entities to organically learn to grasp the full meaning and practical know how in all ramifications of effecting holistic African Reparations in such ways of ‘Maatubuntu’ creativity as to embrace Planet Repairs in Global Justice meaningfulness.
In this regard, the MET works in guiding the SMWeCGEC and its partners with public intellectual support for its efforts towards establishing the APPCITARJ.
In this regard, the MET provides technical and administrative support to the APPGAR, upholds the rules of APPGs, and acts as a key contact/coordinator for meetings and members.
The role of the Secretariat is to act as a designated secondary enquiry point alongside the Chair, who is the main registered contact. The Secretariat supports the Chair to ensure records are maintained according to APPG rules. The Secretariat maintains a list of active members – both parliamentary and external; dates of meeting – both past and future; minutes of past formal meetings (which will record both attendance and decisions); any reports or other publications issued; and income and expenditure statements as required. The Secretariat also acts as the conduit for contact with sponsors, supporters, any external advisory functions and individual experts who may interact with the APPGAR.
The interaction between the Secretariat and outside bodies is determined and subject to approval by the elected APPGAR officers.
Where bespoke and original research is to be carried out to uncover new insights and support the APPGAR’s decision-making, the MET will lead on carrying out this work. The MET will also manage any sponsorship monies, events and expenses, keeping full accounts records and making any necessary declarations of interest within the rules of the APPGAR.
The APPGAR has a Memorandum of Understanding with the MET which covers the role of the secretariat and gives responsibility for maintaining personal data as the Data Processor for the APPGAR in accordance with the principles and legal obligations of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and related legislation.
The APPGAR’s Privacy Statement can be downloaded here….[to be added]
Further support provided to the APPGAR secretariat will be declared when confirmed.
The Secretariat will be supported by a Parliamentary Coordinator on administrative matters, such as registration, parliamentary event organisation, meeting scheduling, minute taking, communications, but with a particular focus on supporting the Chair.
5. MPs and members of the House of Lords from all parties are invited to join the APPGAR – if you are interested in exploring issues concerning African Reparations and other forms of transitional justice, we very much encourage you to join.
Officers of the group include: [Names withheld]
Other members of the group include: [Names witheld]
Members of the general public are encouraged to contact their local MP to encourage them to show interest in joining the APPGAR – either as a permanent member or for specific discussions – to play an active part in furthering African Reparatory Justice in the UK.
ADVISORY PANEL
6. External organisations and individuals are permitted to offer advice and contribute to the strategy of the APPGAR if the relationship is properly defined and declared and a register of interests is maintained by the group Secretariat.
An Advisory Panel will consist of independent specialists with specific expertise including policy or research expertise in all areas related to African Reparations who work in association with INOSAAR and adhere to its ‘Principles of Participation’ as a benchmark for good practice. The Advisory Panel will provide expert knowledge and guidance to the APPGAR.
The Advisory Panel of the APPGAR cannot have a formal relationship with the APPGAR – it is merely an informal function that can offer support on matters undertaken to further the objectives of the APPGAR. The officers of the APPGAR have the final say over all workstreams and strategic decisions taken by the group.
SUPPORTING ORGANISATIONS
7. Alongside its parliamentary members, the APPGAR invites Supporting Organisations with a campaigning track record or who undertake research and advocacy on African Reparations to contribute valuable opinions and expertise to work of the APPGAR.
Being a Supporting Organisation of the APPGAR does not necessarily signify support for or opposition to any particular reparations focused policy or initiative, but rather a desire to facilitate and informed, evidence-based dialogue and debate on African Reparations.
The APPGAR does not grant voting rights to Supporting Organisations. A full list of Supporting Organisations will be published in due course on the APPGAR page on the APPGAR Website.
PROGRAMME OF WORK
8. The APPGAR members will work together to build its annual programme of work. As part of its programme, the APPGAR will:
(a) hold an inquiry into the Legacies of African Enslavement on African Heritage Communities and;
(b) regularly review:
· new and emerging research on Reparations, working closely with civil society, academic as well as local, regional, national and international policy;
· Local, regional and international innovation, comparisons and best practice and the APPGAR may look to produce reports/documents following its own inquiries into specific areas. It will also signpost to and reference any external reports and information that it feels are appropriate to the topic and work of the APPGAR.
The APPGAR will ensure involvement of a broad diversity of African Heritage Communities within and beyond the UK, including people of African descent from all backgrounds in the work of the APPGAR, paying particular attention to the involvement of women and young people.
PURPOSE AND STRUCTURE OF THE INQUIRY
9. The purpose of this inquiry is, on a global level, to:
Redress global inequalities caused by the Transoceanic Trafficking of Enslaved Africans (TTEA). These include, but are not limited to, social, economic and ecological harms;
Acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of the imposition of the Maangamizi, i.e. African chattel, colonial and neocolonial enslavement within and beyond the British Empire;
Examine the health, social, environmental and climate impacts of neocolonialism as it impacts on African Heritage Communities;
Examine Afriphobia and subsequent de jure and de facto racial and socio-economic discrimination against Africans and people of African descent, including their gendered impacts and consequences;
Examine how African enslavement, colonialism and neocolonialism have directly benefited societal institutions, both public and private, including higher education and other public sector organisations, corporations, as well as religious organisations;
Make recommendations to Parliament and similar bodies at local, national and international levels, including the European Parliament, and;
Determine appropriate methods of dissemination of findings to the public within and beyond Britain for consultation about proposals for supporting initiatives of African Heritage Community Self-Repairs, Planet Repairs and designing other forms of redress and repairs.
Written evidence
The APPGAR is calling for evidence from organisations and individuals to be submitted to inform its recommendations to the UK Government on African Reparations proposals. All evidence received will be reviewed and submissions of particular interest may be followed up with an invitation to submit oral evidence.
This call for evidence is to get a better understanding of what reparations focused proposals and solutions are already taking place, and what needs to happen to address the legacies of African enslavement, colonisation and neocolonialism within and beyond the UK.
The inquiry would particularly welcome written evidence on the following key questions:
(a) What evidence is there to help understand the impact that enslavement, colonialism and neocolonialism have had on people of African descent and African Heritage Communities?
(b) What challenges/barriers are faced by people of African descent and African Heritage Communities in overcoming the legacies of enslavement, colonialism and neocolonialism?
(c) Are there examples of best practice in implementing reparations proposals and what lessons can be learned from other Majority World Communities experiences of implementing reparations proposals?
(d) What are the most effective measures the UK Government and other bodies could take to ensure that the crimes and violations of enslavement, colonialism and neocolonialism are repaired and redressed?
All written evidence should be emailed to:…., Coordinator of APPGAR. Any queries to that email: or telephone ….
The APPGAR will use responses to the call for evidence phase of the inquiry to inform and legislative proposals on African Reparations.
Oral evidence
The APPGAR is planning to hold a number of oral evidence sessions in February 2022 with a variety of people being invited to give their testimonies. Hearing African Heritage Communities’ stories and acknowledging the truth about their experiences is essential for healing and justice for people of African descent.
Report
A report, based on the written and oral evidence, will be produced which will make clear recommendations for the government and public policy decision makers.
MEETINGS AND EVENTS
10. The APPGAR will hold a minimum of two meetings per year, in the accordance with the rules on APPGs. Details of these meetings will be announced in due course. The APPGAR may also host a number of events throughout the year.
FINANCIALS
11. The APPGAR receives no taxpayer funding. However, funding is required to run a professional and effective group. There are costs associated with administration, event management, running a webpage and more. The APPGAR is currently seeking funding to support both its secretarial work for members, and for specific projects. External organisations and individuals are invited to sponsor the APPGAR to help pay for secretariat services to manage trips, events, research, the websites and reports produced by the APPGAR.
For example, if a report or other publication has been compiled or funded by any external organisation or individual, this will be made clear on the front cover of the report using the wording provided by the APPG Registrar’s office. The APPGAR is also required to identify sources of external funding on its headed paper. If the APPGAR receives over £12,500 from outside Parliament, in money or in kind, in its reporting year, it will undertake the reporting and declarations set out in the official rule book. All funds received (no matter how great or small the amount) are declared; and all monies go directly to funding salaries and reasonable expenses of the APPGAR Secretariat; nothing goes, or will ever go, to any officer or Parliamentarian.
A List of Supporters is maintained by the Secretariat and published externally along with the names of sponsors. Supporters are invited to attend all public meetings and may be invited to give evidence as or when appropriate.
Any monies received relating to the APPGAR will be declared on the UK Parliament website within 28 days of receipt. All funds received (no matter how great or small the amount) are declared in the Register of All-Party Groups, which is compiled and published by the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
Sponsors have no say over the running of the APPGAR, and sponsorship confers no special access or privileges.
It is the role of the Officers of the APPGAR to ensure transparency and independence within the group.
Full year accounts will be prepared by the MET and made available upon request
Please reach out to ……..if you would like to discuss options for providing funding, large or small.
GUIDELINES FOR COMMUNICATION
12. Sponsors and partners can communicate their association with the APPGAR. Once the reporting rules for declaring a financial or professional contribution are complied with, sponsors and partners are free to communicate their association with the group and the APPGAR can do the same. That includes sponsors and partners being able to take pictures and promote their involvement with the APPGAR on social media.
The following provides high-level principles for sponsors, supporting organisations and partners to follow when communicating their involvement externally:
• Press releases or statements announcing sponsorship/partnership should be signed off by the APPGAR Secretariat.
• Sponsors can acknowledge their affiliation with the APPGAR as a sponsor, but cannot use the APPGAR logo for their own PR and marketing purposes.
The APPGAR logo is only for use on the APPGAR’s letterhead, reports, website, and social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
• Tweets and other social media posts confirming an organisation is a sponsor, supporting organisation or partner and proud to support the aims of the group are appropriate but committing the APPGAR to policy positions outside the scope of the group’s aims and objectives are not appropriate unless the Secretariat has approved it
• Announcing support or funding for publications or events should be approved by the APPGAR Secretariat.
• APPGAR policy positions are agreed by the officers and Parliamentarians of the group. Sponsors, supporting organisations and partners should consider posting social media comments that complement the work and views of the APPGAR.
• APPGAR Advisory Panel meetings are internal meetings so discretion is needed on what constitutes appropriate promotion by sponsors and partners and should be approved by the APPGAR Secretariat.
[2] ‘H.R. 3745 Commission to Study Reparation Proposal for African Americans Act,’ 101st Congress (1989–1990), 20 November 1989, https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/house-bill/3745. Having been submitted by congressman John Conyers Jr every year since 1989, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to consider reparations for the descendants of African Americans who had been enslaved on 19 June 2019.
The theme for the PARRG 2021-2022 is Defeating the Maangamizi of Neocolonialism with Afrikan Autonomy: All Roads Must Lead To Our Sacred Cause of Reparations.
On the 1 May 2021, Pan-Afrikan youth commemorated the anniversary of the 1 May 1820 legal lynching of William Davidson, through the British courts of the enslavers of his Afrikan people, resulting in his murder by hanging and subsequent beheading by the British State, by launching a class-action to redress such harms of the Maangamizi with a historic case of Reparatory Justice for Planet Repairs utilising Law as Resistance known as the Global Majority Vs the UK Government Campaign.
William Davidson was the son of a formerly enslaved Afrikan woman born in Jamaica and the Scottish Attorney General of Jamaica. At the age of 14, against his mother’s wishes, he was sent to Glasgow to study law. He rose to become one of the pioneering leaders of not only the Trade Union Movement but also the Spencean wing of the emergent Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Movement for the transformation of Britain and its Empire into a true commonwealth of emancipated nations pursuing agrarian revolution that would seize back all stolen lands, redistribute them to everyone and thereby transform the world. Such land redistribution and agrarian repairs were intended to be done in such ways of environmental justice as would result in what today we refer to as ‘Planet Repairs as the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE) brought into conceptualising highlighting the interconnections between reparatory justice, environmental justice and cognitive justice.
‘May Day Garland’ hand-coloured etching, showing the head of William Davidson and others published by Samuel William Fores,
According to Esther Stanford-Xosei and Dr Nicola Frith, in a co-produced paper for a project known as REPAIRS; Planet Repairs refers to the need to proceed from a standpoint of pluriversality that highlights the nexus of reparatory, environmental and cognitive justice in articulating the need to repair holistically our relationship with, and inseparability from, the earth, environment and the pluriverse giving due recognition to indigenous knowledges in contrast with western-centric Enlightenment ideals that separated humanity from nature and thereby justified exploitation for capital accumulation.
Choosing to open the Afrikan Liberation Awareness Month activities from the 1st May 2021 with a Pagya strike of positive action and also to highlight the two year anniversary since the UK Parliament declared a climate emergency, three young people, Adetola Onamade, 24, Marina Tricks, 20 and Jerry Amokwandoh, 22, two of whom are from our Afrikan heritage Communities, working with the climate litigation charity Plan B and ourselves in the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign (SMWeCGEC), served legal proceedings on the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak and the Energy Minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, over the Government’s failure to honour its Paris Agreement commitments. The terminology of Planet Repairs is used by Claimants Adetola Onamade and Jerry Amokwandoh in their witness statements and publicity materials about the Global Majority case.
The following statement was issued by the Claimants:
Today we filed our claim as people of the Global Majority in solidarity with all communities resisting and suffering the violence of UK and Euro-Amerikan imperialism.
Today also marks the inauguration of Afrikan Liberation Awareness Month as well as International Worker’s Day. While the UK continues to claim international leadership in global justice, its inaction on the climate of injustice, its financial support of corporations responsible for our trajectory of genocide and ecocide, and the continuation of the Maangamizi, make us all complicit in the destruction of the Global South, colonised peoples everywhere, and the marginalised workers of the Global North. The UK must now respond to its criminal failure to safeguard our rights and the rights of our families in the Global South.
We demand the implementation in domestic law of the Paris Agreement. The domestication of international law obligations. Stopping the harm and funding repair in order to uphold Global Majority rights to life, family, self-determination, and the internationally recognised right to remedy and reparation.
All Afrikan Lives Matter, Global Majority Rights Matter.
This must include the killing of BOTH bills, the end to the selling of weapons of mass destruction, no more billions in Nuclear Weapons, and funding people led initiatives for community and Planet repairs.
GlobalMajorityvsUKGov
@GlobalMajorityV
Follow and support our action to stop the harm and fund repair.
The Government will have to reply by June as the battle continues
Aluta continua Blessings, love, and guidance
The following video explains the rationale for the case by the Claimants
What is the role of the SMWeCGEC in the Global Majority Vs UK Govt case and campaign?
Our role as the SMWeCGEC in this collaboration is to apply our expert knowledge and practical organisational experience in indigenous Afrikan knowledge, culture, concepts, symbols, methods and traditions of justice, in harmony with critical legal praxis, to the law as resistance development of the Global Majority V UK Government case and campaign. Our modus operandi entails utilising our scholar-activist expertise of guerrilla-intellectualism in ensuring that this legal action develops law as resistance, in its Pan-Afrikan revolutionary perspective, to support using action-learning experiences from the centuries of rebellion against genocide and ecocide by Afrikan and other Global South Communities of Resistance in link with Communities of Resistance throughout the Global North; doing so in defence of Human, Peoples and Mother Earth rights. The SMWeCGEC will also ensure that such extra-legal efforts of law as resistance harmoniously complements the conventional legal aspects of the case, in terms of advocacy in the courts.
Since the 2003 Black Quest For Justice Campaign (BQJC) legal & extra-legal Strategy of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice supported by the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE), the Black United Front (BUF), the Global Afrikan Congress (GAC) [between the years 2002-2003], and the International Front for Afrikan Reparations (IFAR), there has not been a reparations case initiated in the UK. The Global Majority case and campaign builds on the BQJC-led one by seeking to hold the British Government to account for the the crimes of genocide and ecocide that it is perpetrating and complicit in today as a key aspect in compelling a cessation of violations and guarantees of non-repetition of what we in the SMWeCGEC recognise as being the Maangamizi; all of which are necessary prerequisites for holistic repairs that will fruitfully result in our victorious building of MAATUBUNTUMAN in UBUNTUDUNIA*. The Claimants are very clear this is not just about what they and their immediate families are experiencing here in the UK, but also the harms that are being meted to their extended families and communities worldwide, especially in Afrika, Abya Yala, Asia and other parts of the Global South (read their witness statements linked below). This is a reparations case with a difference; it combines the struggles for holistic reparatory justice as a result of the impact of the Maangamizi on Afrikan Heritage and other communities with that of environmental and cognitive justice.
The Claimants have innovatively utilised law as resistance which seeks to hold the UK Government to account for its failure to honour its international obligations to implement the Paris Agreement; arguing that such failure violates their rights to life and to family life, which are protected by Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Claimants further argue that while the UK Government’s climate failures threaten us all, they as young people, with families in the Global South are exposed to disproportionate and discriminatory impacts and risks pointing out that the UK Government’s complicity in the climate crisis also breaches ECHR Article 14, the prohibition of discrimination.
The case recognises that we cannot just seek to be compensated, outside of a wider strategy to stop the harms of the Maangamizi, redistribute ill-gotten gains and resource the self-repairs that our communities all around the world are working on. This approach takes into consideration the SMWeCGEC’s aim of catalysing the mobilisation and self-organisation of advocates for ‘Stopping the Maangamizi’ as a force within the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations, (ISMAR) as the first step to redressing the crimes and repairing the harms of the Maangamizi.
THE SMWeCGEC also has the role of liaising between the Global Majority Vs the UK Government campaign and the emergent formation of support for its case called the MAATUBUNTUSAFO Pan-Afrikan Global Network of Communities of Resistance which includes the MAATUBUNTUMITAWO-Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council, Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), the ABLODEDUNOVISIHA Gbetowo Global Union for Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration, the KIZEZEMEGBA LIKPORKPEKPE of the Kideame of Avatime, the HEDZOLEHEWAMI GaDangme Association for Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration, the POLONIACOWAWYA Network of Abya Yala, among others.
SMWeCGEC Guidance by Way of a Call to Action
Despite the fact that the courts are becoming a critical site of resistance against climate breakdown and ecocide, we in the SMWeCGEC believe that it is equally important to wage this fight for governmental accountability in the international courtroom of public opinion. Upon hearing about this case and campaign, the natural question is, so what has this case got to do with me and what can I do to assist the progress of the campaign? The simple answer is, become an International Court of Opinion Advocate for the Global Majority Vs UK Government campaign, this simply means studying particularly, the extra-legal work on the case, engaging in law as resistance action-learning with the support of the Maangamizi Educational Trust and encouraging others to do the same.
This will also lead to you learning how to demystify law to others and assist them to raise their own legal consciousness to enable them to actively play their global citizenship role in exercising their right to be the actual makers of domestic and international law. Furthermore, you can be actively engaged, in which ever country you reside, in the creation and advancement of domestic and international law, for example, particularly in pressurising to ensure the criminalisation of ecocide and the outlawing of eco-fascism, defending our collective (group) rights to Self-determination and protecting our geopolitical interests as Afrikans. It is important for us to organise within our communities glocally to be the reparatory, environmental and cognitive justice changes we wish to see in terms of Afrikan Heritage Communities taking responsibility for leading in the development of a participatory democratic PEMPAMSIEMPANGO Glocal Reparations Action Plan for Planet Repairs Alternative Progression (PEMPAMSIEMPANGO-GRAPPRAP). Such plans can be developed locally, regionally and internationally through joining or seeking advice to create, wherever you are, units of the PEMPAMSIESAFO Pan Afrikan Reparatory Justice Special Task Action Research Forces (PEMPAMSIESAFO-PARJSTARFs). Your unit can contribute its work to developing, in your own locality, proceedings towards the All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice (APPCITARJ). By the time the APPCITARJ is established it is expected that the Pempamsiempango(s) will form part of the proposals for redress and repair which the UK Government will be compelled to adhere to, according to the dictates of how well we can harness and deploy our own Afrikan People’s Power glocally.
Now, the process itself of developing the Pempamsiempango needs to be one in which Afrikan Heritage Communities of Resistance are able to collectively organise to develop by way of consensus-decision making as part of the institutionalisation of MAATUBUNTUMI Pan-Afrikan Assemblies of Peoples Power (MAATUBUNTUMI-PAPPs) feeding into Global Citizens Assemblies of Peoples Power. These organising mechanisms are ways of contributing to organisational repairs in redressing Afrikan Peoples disempowerment and advancing Substantive Afrikan Representation by way of governance and political repairs that are necessary for the geopolitical restoration of our Afrikan People’s Sovereignty; doing it in such ways that will enable us to deliver to ourselves, as a global superpower, the victorious building of MAATUNTUMAN IN UBUNTUDUNIA.
Developing such mechanisms will redress the democratic deficit and creatively foster self-governance and forms of autonomy which Afrikans within and beyond the UK are self-actualising in their campaigning for Pan-Afrikan Reparations to win Planet Repairs in its Global Justice meaningfulness. This is being done in accordance with the Blackprint of the Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah; with emphasis upon the Pempamsiempango planning for Glocal Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration, by our own People’s ‘Black Power’, of our Community Resistance Zones such as ‘Maatubuntujamaas‘ (Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination) in the Diaspora, indivisibly linked organically to ‘Sankofahomes‘ inside our indigenous Afrikan Communities of Resistance throughout the continent of Afrika.
In this regard, that is why we are also utilising pertinent lessons from The Art of War by Sun Tzu, in order to advance in Freedomfighting without physical weapons, under the Spearhead Leadership of our own grassroots community-embedded valiant Pan-Afrikan Organic Revolutionary Guerrilla Intellectuals, both old and young, including the “Beautyful Ones” that are being born, steeled and tempered inside the Pagya of our Ogyataana furnaces (forever-burning flames in Twi) of ever raging Soweto Fire, such as the new breed of eco-warriors emerging from the Global Majority Versus the UK Government court case and campaign.
The significance of the 1976 Soweto Uprising to the Global Majority Campaign is that this generation of Claimants are doing Sankofa and going back to take the rebellion torch of Soweto fire forward.
If you would like to know and discuss more about the contents of this article and the types of action that we ourselves can be taking, please contact the SMWeCGEC Spearhead Team as follows: Email – stopthemaangamizi@gmail.com Tel- + 44 (0) 7956431498.
* Pan-Afrika, and not Eurafrica, should be our watchword, and the guide to our policies” – OSAGYEFO KWAME NKRUMAH, Africa Must Unite , 1963.
MAATUBUNTUMANis the name and concept being popularised for the envisaged future Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities by various organisations, networks and campaigns associated with the AMANDLA Global Assemblies of Afrikan People’s Power (AMANDLA-GAAPP), based in Accra, Ghana. Coined from the conjunction of “Maat” (the holistic Justice concept from Kemet, Ancient Egypt), with “Ubuntu” (the Bantu concept of the Communion of Humanity from Southern Afrika) and “Oman” (the Akan concept of egalitarian Polity from West Afrika), MAATUBUNTUMAN is meant to promote the concept of a global Afrikan polity (“Oman”), which is an organic embodiment of “Maat”, and therefore practices “Ubuntu” in relation to her own citizens and the entirety of Humanity, Mother Earth and the Pluriverse. Upon the initiative of the Pan-Afrikan Forum of Ghana (PAFOG) in conjunction with the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE) and adopted by the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP) and the MAATUBUNTUMITAWO – Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council (GAFRIC), it has been adopted as one of the key rallying objectives of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice.
UBUNTUDUNIA (Ubuntu+dunia) is a combined Nguni & Kiswahili word which means a Multipolar World of Global Justice.
By now hopefully you have heard about the recent ‘Reparations and Atonement’ motionpassed by Bristol City Council on 2nd March 2021, the role of the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC) working with local partner, the Afrikan ConneXions Consortium as well as Afrikan Heritage publicly elected officials in this.
So now that we as the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC) are catalysing advancement of the ‘Afrikan Radical Imagination’ (i.e. the ability to envision and work toward bringing about better and repaired futures) in galvanising processes with a variety of Afrikan Heritage Community stakeholders as well as the support of allies; many of whom are publicly elected officials who we work with to ensure that variations of the ‘Atonement & Reparations for the Transatlantic Traffic of Enslaved Africans’ motions get passed by local and city councils in different parts of the country, the question on so many people’s minds is: where do we go from here?
It is necessary to recognise what the added significance of the Bristol motion, which includes resolutions committing Bristol City Council:
To call on councillors, the Mayor or other appropriate council agency to:
1. Write to the Speakers of both Houses of the UK Parliament, Chair of the Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee, and Chair of the Commons’ Home Affairs Committee to express Bristol City Council’s view that they should consider establishing, and seeking UK Government support for, an All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. The purpose of this unprecedented commission would be to work on the scope of how reparations may be delivered and may also include for example raising concerns about how tax payers were until 2015 paying back compensation paid to enslavers.
2. Support Afrikan Heritage Community (AHC) organisations in Bristol to galvanise support for the emerging Bristol AHC led ‘Reparations Plan’ from, and in collaboration with, wider stakeholders including institutions, city strategic leaders, corporate leaders, key strategic programmes/initiatives and cross-party politicians.
4. Recognise that reparative justice should be driven by Afrikan Heritage Communities experiences, voices and perspectives to ensure that advocacy messages not only reflect but also respond to the real needs of the community in order to recognise inequalities.
The significance of sections two and four are critical to the success of section one regarding the establishment of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) demand for the All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice (APPCITARJ), which as we in the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign have always advocated, must be led by our Afrikan Heritage Communities rather than others seeking to define for us what reparations mean and should look like.
The struggle for reparations for the Holocaust of Enslavement of African people is clearly oneof the most important struggles being waged in the world today. For it is about fundamental issues ofhuman freedom, human justice and the value we place on human life in the past as well as in the presentand future. It is a struggle which, of necessity, contributes to our regaining and refreshing our historicalmemory as a people remembering and raising up the rightful claims of our ancestors to lives of dignityand decency and to our reaffirming and securing the rights and capacity of their descendants to live free,full and meaningful lives in our times. But this struggle, like all our struggles, begins with the need for a clear conception of what we want, how we define the issue and explain it to the world and what is to be done to achieve it.
The key point to note about the PEMPAMSIEMPANGO glocal reparations action-planning process in Bristol is that it asserts the primacy of Afrikan Heritage Communities driving the process glocally through the development of a PEMPAMSIEMPANGO Glocal Reparations Action Plan for Planet Repairs Alternative Progression (PEMPAMSIEMPANGO-GRAPPRAP)
PEMPAMSIE is the Adinkra symbol for sewing together in readiness -preparatory actions for reparatory justice. building our future out of our principled operational unity despite our diversity. Indeed, part of the repair process is about Afrikan heritage communities developing our own community capacity and power-base as well as our own Afrikan Heritage Community Self-Repairs Plans. MPANGO is the swahili word for plan.
Afrikan Heritage Community Self-Repairs are the self-determined efforts that need to be made in building our own power, in such a way, that Afrikan heritage communities are able to identify and enhance ongoing work towards stopping the contemporary manifestations of the Maangamizi, which are putting the individuals, families and other social groups that make up our communities into a state of disrepair; as well as reasoning and consciously carrying out the alternative solutions for glocally rebuilding our power base as Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination (AHC-NSDs), in such a way that that they are eventually transformed, in accordance with the principles and programmatic demands of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice.
However, such Community Self-Repairs for Afrikan Heritage Communities cannot take place in isolation but must link with Afrikan People’s powerbase our Motherland Afrika irrespective of whether we live on the Continent or in the Diaspora. The process of Pempamsie planning should occur within the context of a glocal framework which is establishing repaired Afrikan Heritage Communities which we refer to as Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination (AHCs-NSDs)/ Maatubuntujamaas in the UK and other parts of the Diaspora which organically builds links with such Communities of Resistance and Communities of Reparatory Justice Interest on the Continent of Afrika which are known as Sankofahomes. This simultaneous process of establishing Maatubuntujamaas in the Diaspora and Sankofahomes on the Continent of Afrika is what will help usher in a repaired Afrika known as MAATUBUNTUMAN that will take shape in a repaired multipolar world, i.e. UBUNTUDUNIA.
The planning process of developing such a PEMPAMSIEMPANGO, including the facilitation of glocal community hearings should itself be so participatory democratic that it sets the example for and leads into the establishment of the APPCITARJ from the ground-up.
The first step in the PEMPAMSIEMPANGO planning process is establishing working groups of PEMPAMSIESAFO Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice Special Task Action Research Forces (PEMPAMSIESAFO-PARJSTARF); the purpose of which is to work on addressing Afrikan Heritage Communities Community-Self Repairs Solutions to the various aspects of the Maangamizi that they and their families and communities are experiencing.
PEMPAMSIEASAFO – Afrikan Heritage Communities Self-Repairs forces that are ‘sewing in freedom-fighting readiness’ for Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice victory. Asafos are community militia formations to which everyone belongs for community self-defence in some indigenous communities in West Afrika.There are similar formations within Afrikan Communities throughout the Continent and the Diaspora of Afrika.
It goes without saying that our work continues in fulfilling the other SMWeCGEC aims and objectives as found here.
To call on Councillors, the Mayor or the Chief Executive as appropriate to:
1. Write to the Speakers of both Houses of the UK Parliament, Chair of the Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee, and Chair of the Commons’ Home Affairs Committee to express Bristol City Council’s view that they should consider establishing, and seeking UK Government support for, an All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. The purpose of this unprecedented commission would be to work on the scope of how reparations may be delivered and may also include for example raising concerns about how tax payers were until 2015 paying back compensation paid to enslavers.
The ISMAR’s glocal Afrikan Reparatory Justice process driven by the SMWeCGEC is now advancing with our partners, foremost among them the MAATUBUNTUMITAWO-Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council (MAATUBUNTUMITAWO-GAFRIC) on the Continent of Afrika as well as the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC).
Bristol is the best demonstration, thus far, of the combined ground-up and top-down approach working together in equity. The Bristol process has included meetings with Afrikan Heritage Communities, Afrikan Heritage Community elected officials and Afrikan Heritage representatives of Bristol-based institutions, as well as allies. There were also 72 statements received from members of the public in support of the motion and nearly 200 statements received last year when the motion went before the Council as a silver motion.
The passing of this motion is indeed a cause for celebration as now more than ever we have collectively been able to demonstrate that a radical agenda for change, (in the sense of tackling Maangamizi injustices from the root), can win.
There are however two key additions in the motion which surpass the original motions in London passed so far, and that is the inclusion of the following sections:
2. Support Afrikan Heritage Community (AHC) organisations in Bristol to galvanise support for the emerging Bristol AHC led ‘Reparations Plan’ from, and in collaboration with, wider stakeholders including institutions, city strategic leaders, corporate leaders, key strategic programmes/initiatives and cross-party politicians.
4. Recognise that reparative justice should be driven by Afrikan Heritage Communities experiences, voices and perspectives to ensure that advocacy messages not only reflect but also respond to the real needs of the community in order to recognise inequalities.
Of note, is the motion referencing what we in the SMWeCGEC refer to as the PEMPAMSIEMPANGO Glocal Reparations Action Plan for Planet Repairs Alternative Progression (PEMPAMSIEMPANGO-GRAPPRAP), which is a ground-up reparations planning process where our Afrikan Heritage Communities are organised and spearheaded by Pempamsiesafo – Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice Special Task Action Research Forces (PARJSTARF) to carry out as a matter of study and applied knowledge-production on the complexities of Afrikan Reparations. Although the passing of this motion is a stepping stone in an emerging participatory reparatory justice Afrikan Heritage Communities-led process, it is a huge leap forward and a vindication of the position of some of us in the SMWeCGEC took to championing such an approach on behalf of our people and were derided by both state and civil society actors for it.
The above resolutions constructively address the concern some of us in the SMWeCGEC have expressed about the top-down CARICOM Reparatory Justice Initiative known as the Ten Point-Plan, where appointments and disappointments are made to national reparations committees/councils by neocolonial CARICOM state bureaucracies. See here and here for further info about ISMAR position papers on such CARICOM Reparations initiatives. We are glad that lessons from our insights and advocacy in support of the right of the masses of Our People to participate in and steer reparations processes, from the ground-up, have not only been learned but also applied in Bristol.
It is truly laudable that Mayor Marvin Rees and Deputy Mayor, Cllr Asher Craig have been in dialogue with campaigners from the ISMAR and acted in ways which have supported and enabled Afrikan Heritage Communities’ grassroots leadership of this glocal participatory reparations process, rather than seek to hijack leadership of the ISMAR. By so acting, they have contributed immensely to strengthening our prospects for the ultimate victory of our Afrikan People at Home and Abroad in ensuring that reparations results in our Planet Repairs winning of MAATUBUNTUMAN in UBUNTUDUNIA as the true guarantees of non-repetition out of which all other reparations gains can be effected and secured as a continuation of the liberation visions of our Ancestors, not only for present, but also future generations.
The full Bristol Motion can be found here. 47 Councillors voted for the motion, 12 voted against, there were 0 abstentions and 4 apologies. You can read the ACC statement of thanks and call to action following the passing of the Bristol Atonement and Reparations Motion here.
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