Ourstory continues to be made: APPG on African Reparations (APPGAR) established today

Posted on October 20, 2021 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

*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-Addy MP, 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 have been pleased to see this campaign develop with the solidarity of elected officials which has resulted in ‘Atonement and Reparations for the United Kingdom’s Transatlantic Traffic in Enslaved Africans‘ motions in the London boroughs of Islington and Lambeth in July 2020 as well as Bristol City Council on March 2^nd of this year.

We see the establishment of the APPGAR as a continuation of the world of the late Bernie Grant MP who 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 Proclamation Early 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.

Our ‘overstanding’ of the term reparations is the conceptual framework offered by Professor Chinweizu in his Reparations and A New Global Order: A Comparative Overview paper presented at the 1993 Abuja Conference of systemic and ‘holistic repairs’ of every type, social, cultural, political, economic, environmental as well as the United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to A Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. The specific meaning given to Afrikan Reparations as advocated by Professor Maulana Karenga is that Reparations are a process of the repairing and remaking of a people who are in the process and practice of repairing, renewing and remaking the world.

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 UK All-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 Waterhouse shows 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 Participation which 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

M.E.T. Proposal for the APPG on African Reparations (APPGAR)

Posted on September 23, 2021 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

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 Trust for 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.

(d) accelerate action on the establishment of the All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice (APPCITARJ) and set out recommendations for the government on African Reparations proposals and measures.

(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;

(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;

(e) declaring 23^rd August, the United Nations ‘International Day for Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition’ as a public holiday in the UK.

· 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 1993 Bernie Grant, MP tabled Early Day Motion (EDM) #1987 in the House of Commons welcoming the Abuja Proclamation after the first Pan-African Conference on Reparations for Enslavement, Colonisation and Neocolonisation sponsored by the Organisation of African Unity urging all countries who were enriched by enslavement and colonisation to review the case for reparations for “Africa and to Africans in the Diaspora”.

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 Humanity in 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 Africans motion followed by Bristol 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 the Stop 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 the INOSAAR. 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.

SECRETARIAT

3. The secretariat for the APPGAR is provided by the Maangamizi Educational Trust (MET) with the support of the Stop the Maangamizi Campaign and the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR).

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 Justice becomes 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.

PUBLIC ENQUIRY POINT

4. Esther Stanford-Xosei, Chair of the MET. Email: maangamizitrust@gmail.com.

MEMBERS

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.

[1] Kris Manjapra, ‘When will Britain face up to its crimes against humanity,’ The Guardian, 29 March 2018,https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/29/slavery-abolition-compensation-when-will-britain-face-up-to-its-crimes-against-humanity.

[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.

Bristol Takes the APPCITARJ Reparations Motion in the ISMAR Direction of Afrikan Heritage Communities Self-Empowerment

Posted on March 2, 2021 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

Bristol Extraordinary Full Council, Full Council Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021 4.00 pm

The Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC) is pleased to report that the OURSTORY of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) continues to be made glocally and the Bristol Reparations & Atonement Motion passed today by Bristol City Council on this the 40th anniversary of the Black Peoples Day of Action, commemorating the 1981 New Cross Massacre. The motion calls, among other key resolutions:

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.

We salute the exemplary leadership of all those who worked on co-producing the Bristol motion which was based on the Cllr Scott Ainslie of the Lambeth Green Party initiated Lambeth Council and Cllr Caroline Russell initiated Islington Council ‘Atonement and Reparations’ motions significant sections of which we as the SMWeCGEC co-produced working with Cllr Scott Ainslie; with some key additions pertaining to the context, institutions and progress made in tackling legacy issues in the City of Bristol. In this regard, we commend: proposer of the motion Cllr Cleo Lake of the Bristol Green Party; seconder of the motion, Deputy Mayor, Cllr Asher Craig and Mayor Marvin Rees of the Labour Party, as well as the Afrikan ConneXions Consortium (ACC) and African Voices Forum (AVF).

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.

Further Coverage – 2019 Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March

Posted on August 12, 2019 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

BBC- Victoria Derbyshire Show

“We will not let the British state get away with historic and contemporary crimes against African people”

Reparationist Esther Stanford-Xosei, @Xosei, is organising today’s Afrikan Emancipation Day March fighting for justice for the descendants of slavery pic.twitter.com/7huy6rZnh2

— Victoria Derbyshire (@VictoriaLIVE) August 1, 2019

CLIVE SMITH – AS IT IS TV

NATION OF ISLAM – London Study Group

CAPTAIN SCARLETT

News Reports

Bristol Live – Bristol group marches on Number 10 demanding reparations for the slave trade

Medium – As Quiet as It’s Kept, the U.K. Also Has a Reparations Problem

FCO Response to the 2018 ‘Stop The Maangamizi!’ Petition

Posted on January 28, 2019 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

Greetings Signatories of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition and other Supporters of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC)

After sending two letters to the UK Prime Minister Theresa May, requesting a response to the 2018 ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition and its accompanying letter (which was handed in to the Office of the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street on 1st August 2018), the letter below is a scanned copy of the response that we received.

The letter from Stephen Townsend in the Multilateral Policy Directorate of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, dated 19th January 2019, was received by post today. You can find a scanned copy below.

Clearly, more needs to be done on our part, as community members, campaign supporters and advocates as well as other interested parties to ‘up the ante’, so that we do not keep getting such unsatisfactory cut and paste responses. We are reminded by the late Frederick Douglass that: “the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Your constructive suggestions as to what can be done are welcome. Please contact us by emailing stopthemaangamizi@gmail.com or call/message us on 07956431498.

Until next time!
‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign International Steering Committee Spearhead Team (ISC-SMWeCGEC)

Please note, Esther Stanford-Xosei’s address has been redacted

This is the second page of the letter

SOME UK ISMAR POSITION PAPERS ON CARICOM REPARATIONS

Posted on July 16, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

This is a link to a further Position Paper on CARICOM Reparations adopted by the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP) in 2015.

REPARATIONS INTERNATIONAL DIALOGUE HIGHLIGHTS ‘STOP THE MAANGAMIZI!’

Posted on November 23, 2017 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

AN ISMAR UK DIALOGUE IN LONDON WITH CARICOM – NATIONAL COUNCIL ON REPARATION IN JAMAICA (JNCR): AN INITIAL REPORT-BACK

DIALOGUE DATE : 14 NOVEMBER 2017

*ISMAR stands for International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations

Including:

1. Professor Verene Shepherd: Scholar-Activist Co-Chair of the Jamaica National Council on Reparation (JNCR), Director of the UWI – Centre for Reparation Research, Independent Expert at the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

2. Bert Samuels: Pan-Afrikanist Attorney-at-Law, Head of JNCR Legal Working Group.

3. Lord Anthony Gifford QC: Attorney-At-Law, Member of Queen’s Commission, Member of JNCR, Citizen of Jamaica since 1990’s, involved with reparations since days of mentor Bernie Grant, MP.

“Dialogue is a form of struggle. It is not a chit chat. Create a dialogue that focuses not just on the vulnerability of all groups, but on those larger issues of justice, democracy and the crisis within our own communities then try to hammer out some everyday problems that relate to the everyday lives of those groups”

Professor Cornel West

Purpose of the Meeting

The meeting started with introductions and a reminder of the purpose of the deliberations:

1: The status of the reparatory justice movement in the UK and Jamaica (update on both sides);

2: What strategies have worked and why? What strategies have not worked and why?;

3. The way forward.

It was reiterated that this meeting is a dialogue and, notwithstanding the limits of time, participants should adhere to and help reinforce the principles of dialogue. Communication agreements were highlighted: it was emphasized that people should speak from their own reality, speak in their name, from their own point of view and also realise that we are here to share as well as listen to others; and that in doing, so we do not all have to agree with each other.

From the JNCR

Professor Shepherd made some preliminary comments. She recognised that there were some misgivings and acknowledged that some of the participants had previously sent in their issues of concern in advance of the meeting. She stated that they would not be able address all the points and issues that had been sent in advance from some parties in the dialogue but emphasized that this is not the only trip the delegation will make. She informed the gathering that she is head of the JNCR Diaspora and International Engagement Working Group. There is another JNCR working group which is the Internal Reparations and Internal Engagement Working Group for Postcolonial Wrongs committed by post-colonial regimes like Coral Gardens. So, the JNCR is working externally and internally.

Professor Shepherd acknowledged that there were lots of questions about the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC). The Chair of the CRC, she explained that Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, wanted to join on this trip and was not able to but has committed to a separate trip here next year on behalf of the CRC. She reiterated that this engagement is part of the JNCR terms of reference point 6, which is “to engage the international community in Afrika, the Americas and Europe in discussion on reparations and build a global coalition of reparations activists”. It was pointed out that the experience in the UK can guide in what they are doing in Jamaica. After all, many in the United Kingdom are part of Jamaica and have been calling for closer collaboration. She acknowledged that reparations conversations in Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean cannot continue to exclude us in UK.

Professor Shepherd explained that the JNCR was first established in 2009, but this version of the JNCR is the 3rd version of it. She explained that the JNCR is preparing a report on its activities of the last few years, in order to advise on the way forward, including what forms reparations should take. It is currently consulting on this with a view to better comprehending what reparations would be like internally and externally.

First reason being the need to ally itself with civil society, including Rastafari organisations, as governments should not stand aside from the movement. Secondly, was their own conviction that the Maangamizi (Afrikan holocaust/hellacaust) is a Crime against humanity and that Western European nations have failed to repair damage done by the Afrikan holocaust.

Professor Shepherd commented on the recent visit to Jamaica by Lord Tariq Ahmad, the current UK Government Minister responsible for the Caribbean, Commonwealth and the United Nations Affairs. During his visit, Lord Ahmad insensitively stated that it was better for Jamaica to look ahead and maximise its potential rather than to peer into history at a time when everyone was peering into history at Remembrance Day. She pointed out that similar comments were made by Lord Ahmad’s predecessor, Mark Simmonds, as well as former UK Prime Ministers, David Cameron and Tony Blair. She mentioned the letter of Barbados PM Fruendel Stuart, QC. to Lord Tariq Ahmad proposing a meeting to discuss the evidential basis of Caribbean Reparations Initiative to which there was a response that the British Government “does not believe that reparations are the answer”.

Professor Shepherd referenced the reparations context from a state perspective, within which the movement is growing and why the Jamaican government felt it should establish the JNCR. It was highlighted that Gordon K. Lewis reminded us in ‘The Growth of the Modern West Indies’ that Britain “sought withdrawal from the Caribbean area without providing the sort of economic aid to which, on any showing, the colonies were entitled.” In addition, Sir Ellis Clarke, who was the Trinidadian Government’s United Nations representative to a sub-committee of the Committee on Colonialism in 1964, had made this point in his statement: “An administering power… is not entitled to extract for centuries all that can be got out of a colony and when that has been done to relieve itself of its obligations…. Justice requires that reparation be made to the country that has suffered the ravages of colonialism before that country is expected to face up to the problems and difficulties that will inevitably beset it upon independence.”

Professor Shepherd spoke about challenges that the JNCR has had in implementing its workplan in relation to receiving submissions, undertaking public consultations, conducting hearings and receiving testimonies to guide a national response on reparations and consulting various constituencies. Nevertheless, they have tried to reach people by conducting a media blitz, utilising the ‘Running African’ show of Ka’bu Ma’at Kheru on IRIE FM and big public events where reparations are promoted and discussed such as:

• Establishment of a memorial for the ‘Zong Massacre’ in Black River to commemorate the lives of the 133 enslaved Afrikans who were thrown overboard by the crew of the ‘slave ship’ Zong in 1781 for insurance purposes);

• Play on the ‘Trial of Governor Eyre’ written by Bert Samuels, directed by Michael Holgate; the play addresses what would happen if Edward John Eyre, governor of Jamaica during the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865, was tried for murder, including the deaths of National Heroes Paul Bogle and George William Gordon;

• It was acknowledged that the Jamaican Government must follow through on obligations to pay compensation to Coral Gardens victims and deal with responsibilities to family members where victims have died;

• Committing to youth engagement as youth are not significantly engaged;

• Highlighted the regional ‘run for reparations’ baton relay, which is going around the country, to end on 27th December in St. James, where war of 1831-2 started. So, the focus is on the youth using media and events;

• Professor Shepherd informed the gathering that she had helped to revise history on the syllabus in schools; over much objection, reparations is now on the syllabus; having to take applied history perspectives i.e. using history to address a modern concern.

She concluded her comments by sharing other challenges that they are working with in the JNCR including:

• 49% in a 2011 poll by the Jamaica Gleaner suggested most Jamaicans believe the country would be better off today if it had remained a British colony;

•”Reparations are another begging bowl”;

• “Governments cannot be trusted and only a grassroots movement will succeed”;

• People don’t trust academics, elite Rastas and lawyers and worse CARICOM;

• People do not agree on forms of reparations and only individual reparations with a personal benefit will appeal to them;

• People are not too happy how £350 million distributed in the region, not part of reparations.

Professor Shepherd closed her comments by asking “So how do we overcome the challenges, how do we go forward, what has worked for you and what lessons can be learned?”

Lord Anthony Gifford QC

Lord Gifford commenced by stating that he sees the delegation and their colleagues in the JNCR as being “independent thinkers” with connections and skills who have been asked to advise the Jamaican government. In this regard, firstly, it must be continually emphasized that reparations is a legally sound just cause for crimes against humanity, and reparations have never been addressed. This case was made in Abuja in 1993 and in Durban at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism (WCAR). He highlighted that there has been at least a verbal acceptance by CARICOM governments that this case is made out. He pointed out that lots of strides have thus far been made in the Caribbean by mobilising people in support of reparations.

Secondly, it is important to work out what reparations mean and if possible agree upon what forms reparations will take. He explained that this point of unity among pro-reparations forces has not as yet been arrived at. Hence why it is important to consult people and friends in other countries as well as consult with the wider Diaspora.

One of most important things on which to give honest and correct advice to the JA government is the necessity to consult the people. Gifford explained that we cannot just have a scheme that just looks good on paper; adding: “you can’t even just have a scheme that is good on paper because government can be destabilised by all kinds of forces, and there are many working against reparations in a vicious way. He pointed out that it is no coincidence that Lord Ahmad was visiting the Caribbean at the same time while their JNCR delegation is in the UK; and also surmised that part of Chief Abiola’s downfall in Nigeria was because he spoke out on reparations on behalf of Afrika and her Diaspora.

Lord Gifford concluded by highlighting that it seems that in the UK we are in a potentially life changing situation, with a possibility of a Corbyn led- government; stating that he was, interested to know how the gathering, in attendance, thought a change in UK government will assist the cause of reparatory justice.

Attorney Bert Samuels

Bert Samuels raised the case of Somerset v Stewart highlighting contradictions within the British legal system, (as well as between Britain and Jamaica), concerning the whole idea of slavery being a crime against humanity. He sees internal reparations as very important, and is proud to be lead adviser to the Coral Gardens group, helping to win $10 million Jamaica Dollars for the Rastafari community. He believes we must “tidy our own houses” before we can approach others to say they should help tidy ours. He also spoke of what happened at the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion, where 400+ persons were killed by militia and that historical-legal research was being done to include various dimensions to the Jamaican reparations case.

Samuels concluded by highlighting the role of legal actions in ‘demystifying the law’ and also creating avenues for public education and mass mobilisation which are part of the power-building to institute alternative legal and extra-legal measures.

To demystify law is to make people lose their awe before the law as it being something ‘sacrosanct’ by simplifying and summarizing legal principles, concepts and decisions/judgements for those not critically schooled or untrained in the disciplines of law ultimately leading to a democratisation of law-making and legal practice.

UK ISMAR Report Back

It was stressed that we need to recognise the fact that the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) is the way it is here in the UK because of the radical ground-up anti-imperialist approach, led from the grassroots, by non-state actors that we have inherited in terms of the global legacies of the Pan-Afrikan Congresses, the Garveyite Movement, the Black Power and Rastafari Movements as they have developed in the UK. We endeavour to maintain fidelity to such legacies that have been shaped by the roles of Afrikans from both the continent and diaspora of Afrika such as Attobah Kwodjo Enu (aka Ottobah Cuguano), Olaudah Equiano, Henry Sylvester-Williams, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, John Archer, Paul Robeson, C.L.R. James, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Peter Abrahams, George Padmore, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Ras Makonnen and Jomo Kenyatta in advancing together from Britain the Pan-Afrikan Movement to enhance the global harmonisation within the Pan-Afrikan Congresses of the reparatory justice demands that Afrikan people have been making for centuries from their own homeland and extending throughout the World.

It was further emphasized that it is with their precious blood, sweat and tears from exertions not only of brawn but also of brain power, wherever our Afrikan people were compelled to endure the dispossessions, degradations and dehumanization of various forms of enslavement, that they have bequeathed to us a most treasurable arsenal of intellectual and organisational weapons that we continue to utilise in updating our ISMAR-building and its strategy and tactics here in the UK, with input from all those contingents of the ISMAR and its interconnected Peoples’ Reparations International Movement (PRIM) throughout the World, particularly Afrikan Communities of Reparations Interest and their allies, with which we keep networking. Therefore, most of the leading Afrikan Heritage Community activists who identify with the ISMAR and are conscious of its history and true legacies see ourselves as custodians of a Reparations Movement which is informed by a global and glocal, rather than country national, or even regional perspectives. Most of such leading activists see reparations as inextricably connected to global Afrikan Liberation, recognising that it is through such total liberation in Pan-Afrikan revolutionary perspective that we can glocally effect truly meaningful reparatory justice by our own Black People’s Power.

However, it was also recognised that there was a need for this history to be more accessible and widely known by ordinary members of the public who are largely miseducated about this history due to state schooling; more so since ordinary members of the public are recipients of a state-miseducation system which continues to perpetuate the disconnection of generations of Afrikan Heritage Communities from their history and the neglected social history that Afrikan people have made in the UK, particularly since the so-called World War I and II. In addition to the failure of the education system to equip Afrikan people to see the connections between their current reality, in relation to deaths in custody, school exclusions and colonialism and neocolonialism, i.e. the failure to see the domestic colonised/neocolonised status of people of Afrikan heritage in the UK. In this regard, it was recommended and strongly advocated that we cannot approach Afrikan reparatory justice from the perspective of sentimentality but that there was a need for serious scholarly work to be done which was put in service of building a people-centred mass movement for reparatory justice.

At the same time there was also a need for scholars/intellectuals whether they are establishment scholars or grassroots scholars to become or stay community engaged and accountable. In this regard, the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) was highlighted as an approach to non-extractivist research and scholarship which is accountable to the ISMAR. Just as is being done by some constituencies of the PRIM in various countries of Abya Yala (the so-called Americas), including Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, the USA and Canada, the INOSAAR is supporting the ISMAR-promoted development of endeavours towards building a more egalitarian, equitable and pluriversal Global Academy Commons by giving recognition to scholars not only in Establishment Academia but also those of Grassroots Academia, including those engaged in scholarship utilising Afrikan Indigenous Knowledge Systems that indigenous communities of Afrika are revitalising on the continent as well as other systems of knowledge production developed by Afrikan Heritage Communities of the Diaspora.

It was further recommended that the JNCR as well as the UWI-based Centre for Reparations Research (CRR) should link into the work and replicate some of the approaches of the INOSAAR.

ISMAR activists in the meeting articulated their defence of advocating for activists in the UK to work from the non-negotiable standpoint of critical support for some reparations state actors, while maintaining that it is non-state actors of civil society that remain the foremost driving force of the ISMAR. Hence taking the uncompromising standpoint that it is the grassroots of Afrikan Civil Society that leads the ISMAR, with its own independent programme of action arising from its anti-establishment strategy and tactics of total Pan-Afrikan liberation as the process through which we can best take, effect and secure holistic reparatory justice, by our own people’s power, in pursuit of this strategy and tactics.

• It was pointed out that the 1993 Abuja first Pan-Afrikan conference on Reparations for chattel enslavement, colonialism and neocolonialism was appealing to many of us who identify as being part of the ISMAR in the UK, because of its interconnection of the past with present systemic injustices of the Maangamizi, unlike the CARICOM position which emphasizes reparations for the past of chattel enslavement and native genocide only. Accordingly, very good note must be taken of the popularisation of the 1993 Abuja Declaration, and its related documents such as the very enlightening paper of Professor Chinweizu, by the likes of the late Bernie Grant MP in his parliamentary and extra-parliamentary work. Noteworthily, Bernie Grant drew together both state and non-state actors within and beyond the UK, to buttress the African Reparations Movement (ARM) with the active involvement and support of some of the participants in the 14th November 2017 Dialogue in London. The remarks about this made in the meeting by Lord Anthony Gifford are therefore of very important significance. These legacies from before and beyond the Abuja Declaration are what have left deep imprints upon the landscape of reparations movement-building in the UK, which most of us committed to advancing the ISMAR to its definitive victory continue to energetically promote.

It was explained that, notwithstanding this fact, there are some in the movement here in Britain that still do not appear to be taking reparations for neo-colonialism seriously and it was pointed out that some of the pro-reparations forces were reluctant to countenance any critical appraisal of the CARICOM Reparatory Justice Initiative including its 10-Point Plan for this reason. Some groups and individuals appear therefore to be taking neocolonialism off their reparations agenda. It follows that some of the standpoints of uncritical support for the CARICOM position on Reparations were devoid of objectively critical people-centred appraisal of CARICOM because they do not see reparations for neocolonialism and the role of CARICOM states in the still ongoing perpetuation of neocolonialism. Therefore, it was reasoned that such elements do not want to interrogate neocolonialism because of what others see as ‘complicity’ in aiding and abetting it in the desire to be what is perceived to be ‘economically successful’ within the Global Apartheid status quo of the ongoing Maangamizi against Afrikan and all other oppressed “Wretched of the Earth“.

“The neo-colonialism of today represents imperialism in its final and perhaps its most dangerous stage. In the past it was possible to convert a country upon which a neo-colonial regime had been imposed — Egypt in the nineteenth century is an example — into a colonial territory. Today this process is no longer feasible. Old-fashioned colonialism is by no means entirely abolished. It still constitutes an African problem, but it is everywhere on the retreat. Once a territory has become nominally independent it is no longer possible, as it was in the last century, to reverse the process. Existing colonies may linger on, but no new colonies will be created. In place of colonialism as the main instrument of imperialism we have today neo-colonialism. The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.”

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, ‘Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism’

• Disapproval of ‘Caribbean citizenship by investment programmes’ was expressed. The creation of such Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programmes have mainly driven by the Caribbean governments desire to find new ways to raise revenue and are currently operating in St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St Lucia. In particular, concern was raised by what is currently happening in Barbuda where politicians and investors are taking advantage of the island’s devastation after Hurricanes Irma and Maria to grab land from people displaced by the recent series of hurricanes. It is feared that the government will overturn Barbuda’s communal land system by introducing land privatisation. Prime Minister Gaston Browne recently proposed changing the law to privatise the land by selling it for a dollar a plot to leaseholders. But, local people, activist groups and even some politicians are saying that it is really commercial leaseholders of large plots such as those for hotels, who will benefit from the move. This is even more worrying given that no land has been bought or sold on Barbuda since the abolition of slavery more than 180 years ago, so in this era it was stated that Antigua & Barbuda were going back to the days of English ‘slave trader’ and plantation developer Christopher Codrington! It was asserted that this and other failures to interrogate the operation of neocolonialism leaves doubts about where heads of government are finding the ‘collective consciousness’ through which to authentically champion true reparatory justice on behalf of their Afrikan Caribbean citizenries.

• Concerns were raised about the impact of neocolonialism on Afrikan Heritage Communities in Europe which has the purpose of seeking to assimilate and co-opt Afrikan and other Black peoples into the system of white supremacy within and outside the imperialist metropolis. It was pointed out that this is occurring through the whitening of Black spaces through the spatial racism and Afriphobia of gentrification such as is occurring in Brixton. Initiatives such as those of Brixtonics@Brixton, which are seeking to counter the erasure of Brixton’s association with the legacies of CLR James, Olive Morris and their associated militant traditions of Revolutionary Pan-Afrikanism and Black Power resistance, were highlighted, including the work now happening to bring together Black traders and their allies who are seeking to develop a glocal economic base. It was pointed out that the success building of such a glocal economic base in the Diaspora to impact effectively on reparatory justice transformations on the continent of Afrika will require the development of a global Pan-Afrikan Government in waiting hosted by the Afrikan Diaspora. It is this kind of governance body that some refer to as the MAATUBUNTUMANDLA – Pan-Afrikan Government of People’s Power Abroad.

• Challenging questions were asked about the outcomes of existing CARICOM legal and diplomatic strategies and a discussion ensued about conventional legal strategies and their effectiveness in securing reparatory justice gains to our people. It was highlighted that a key feature of the ISMAR in the UK is that there is not a prioritization of conventional Eurocentric legal strategies, hence the strong critique of Leigh Day & Co which came from many activists in the UK. There was a recognition that the settlement in Mutua & Others V FCO (Mau Mau case) was a not a precedent that could or should be replicated in the global Afrikan reparations case. In this regard, there was a discussion about Lord Gifford’s legal opinion on the Leigh Day advice and some of the ‘legal insurmountables’ that his advice indicated. There was an exploration of the limitations as well some benefits of the uses of conventional legal strategies in terms of public conscientisation and mobilisation. The approach of ‘Law as Resistance’ was highlighted, from the standpoint of which grassroots legal and extra-legal initiatives in Britain, such as the 2003 Black Quest for Justice Campaign case for the Queen Elizabeth II to answer was advocated. From this precedent was identified the need to enhance the international popularisation of ‘Law as Resistance’ and also to support the proposal for partnership with the INOSAAR in training younger legal practitioners and activists to utilise community-engaging forms of lawyering as well as alternative mechanisms to the International Court of Justice such as the Ubuntukgotla-Peoples’ International Tribunal for Global Justice (U-PITGJ), as advocated by the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC).

• The question of London-centrism was raised and the need for outreach to and participation of activists, communities and other stakeholders outside of London. It was agreed that greater attention should be paid to broadening engagement within the ISMAR by doing outreach, community education and mobilisation etc. It was also highlighted that due recognition of the reparations movement-building work that is being spearheaded from London, which is also informed by activists from outside London; and also to recognise the rich intellectual sophistication and greater audacity of perspectives and praxis emanating from activists who have taken advantage of the global positioning of London and its Black demographics in order to shape London-based and glocally rippling Pan-Afrikan liberatory activism, rooted in militant intellectual and organisational traditions cultivated from the Global Apartheid anti-racism of anti-imperialist dimensions. It was pointed out that such historically conscious advancements were possible because of the presence and central role in contemporary ISMAR-building of London-based and London influencing activists with specially privileged elevation from gains of ‘Struggle’ made by those from previous generations that provide considerably advantageous ramparts more than is currently possible to have in other places within Britain and even throughout Europe.

It was agreed that there should be regular report-back sessions which included the various regions where people were organising for reparations and jointly collaborating and publicising each other’s initiatives and programmes for reparations. It was highlighted that there needed to be greater information sharing and planning among and between reparations organisations and stakeholder groups in the UK especially when it came to matters such as initiatives being taken at the United Nations, the African Union, and especially in relation to meetings regarding the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD) and the Committee for the Convention of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). GACuk highlighted some of the work they have been doing in relation to the CERD.

• There was a reiteration of the importance of voluntary Repatriation, which some of us prefer to call Rematriation, given the fact that conceptually, we refer to Afrika as our Motherland rather than Fatherland. Rematriation/Repatriation should be central to all we do, in addition to recognition of the need to include renewal of Afrikan material cultural as well as integration and restoration of independent Afrikan community and nationhood. This must be pursued being sensitive to and cognisant of the perspectives of formations like the Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council: the developing network of Chiefs, other traditional leaders and activists in Ghana/West Afrika who are demanding, in accord with the legitimate reparatory justice interests of indigenous Afrikan Communities on the continent of Afrika, particularly those arising from their still ongoing freedom-fighting against neocolonialism and its related vestiges of colonialism and the devastating impact of chattel enslavement, as manifestations of the continuing Maangamizi; such as land rights and the divisive borders of the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference, among all other concerns of their inalienable human, peoples‘ and Mother Earth rights.

• The question of the inadequacy of existing internal reparations initiatives, including compensation for the Tivoli Gardens Massacre was reiterated. In addition, concerns were expressed about the role of lawyers in what was stated to be the “cover up” process of the ensuing 2016 West Kingston Commission of Enquiry was expressed as a cause of concern.

• There needed to be greater recognition of the importance and role of sites of community organising and activity where masses of our people are engaged to focus on in seeking to advance the cause and build the movement for reparations. Such sites of organising including, trade unions, faith groupings, youth and student groupings as well as women-focused and other sites of social justice activism.

• A point was made about the representativeness of the meeting and other groups that ought to have been represented in the deliberations. Explanations offered highlighted the request of Professor Verene Shepherd and others who had asked for the meeting to be convened to restrict this initial meeting to a selected group of about 10-12 activists capable of engaging in mutually respectful discussions on the agenda proposed by the National Council on Reparations in Jamaica (JNRC) initially; in accordance with which request the Convenor diligently acted as best as she could with the necessary serious consideration in the careful choice of the participants in this meeting. Attendees to the dialogue with reparesentatives of the JNCR were identified on the basis of those who were considered, with appropriate consultations, as not only representative of our Afrikan Heritage Communities and groups of reparations interest in and around London, in addition to having an organisational/ track-record on reparations organising as groups and associated individuals; but also who are most capable at this initial stage of engaging meaningfully with due respect for the required best practice and rules of meaningful dialogue.

This was added to by emphasizing the wider terrain of representation and the need for Afrikan Heritage Community representation outside of narrow activist circles which were not representative of wider Afrikan, Afrikan Caribbean and other Afrikan Diaspora communities, including Afrikan and Caribbean country Diaspora representative groups and organisations who are doing work relevant to reparatory justice. It was emphasised that we all had to do more to broaden our outreach work to much wider embrace our Afrikan Heritage Communities (AHCs) in their rich diversity from all over the World that make up the Diaspora and our mother-continent of Afrika. In doing so, we must always remember that it was on our mother-continent of Afrika that the ISMAR began; when the first captured Afrikans immediately started raising their Reparatory Justice demands, with insistence upon recovering their inalienable freedom and other human, peoples’ and Mother Earth rights according to their own values and worldviewpoints. They did so in full cognisance of their Cognitive Justice right to their own self-determination of whom they regarded themselves and their own communities and systems of being, knowledge and societal organisation and progress to be; with what they regarded as their own civilizational systems of morality, law and Justice, for which reason they, there and then, started their freedomfighting against the Maangamizi crimes of denial of their humanity, enslavement and colonisation in various forms.

• It was advocated that there needed to be a ‘truth’ process among various representatives and groupings of the ISMAR in the UK; because, in spite of our lofty declarations and the grandstanding of some amongst us, there were not only commendable strengths but also some despicable weaknesses among us, including negative tendencies such as unscrupulous pandering to Establishment power no matter how unjust it is, sycophancy, sectarian competitiveness, male-chauvinistic and other egoistic posturings that are at variance with the ethics of the very reparatory justice we claim to be standing up for and demanding of others to honour! It was also pointed out that recognition should be given to initiators of initiatives like what has now developed to become the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March which takes place annually on the 1st August, now has specific aims and objectives and is organised in such a way as to promote and strengthen ISMAR-building. Equally it was stressed that is necessary and truthful to recognise when there are developments and improvements on such initiatives especially when they are abandoned by initiating groups. It was pointed out that history was relevant here, as often the consequences of actions taken historically often have unforeseen consequences which must also be acknowledged and reflected upon when surveying and assessing the current state of the ISMAR in the UK. It was emphasized that in all our endeavours, we must listen to the wishes of our communities to guide our organising actions and that there should be transparency and accountability to the constituencies we represent.

Way forward

• We as the Civil Society grassroots from diverse Afrikan Heritage Communities of Reparations interest in the UK, shall work with all non-state actors in and beyond Britain on our terms; as such, we shall also work in critical engagement with those state actors that are prepared to engage in honest dialogue with us. We will proactively engage such state actors, with whom, we will identify in such dialogue; and maintain our right to be critical of those positions taken and/or advocated which we find detrimental to the interests of the majority of Afrikan people all over the World and therefore not conducive to the kind of victory for holistic reparatory justice that we are pursuing.

• We ask those who represent or are accountable to CARICOM states (e.g. national commissions and councils for Reparations) to make it clear that, as state actors or organising as state-appointed and accountable actors, they do not control or speak for civil society in and beyond their respective countries. It should be recognised that Afrikan Heritage Community civil society, via their own autonomous organisations, is freely pursuing and should be encouraged and where possible facilitated to carry out its own programmes, strategies and tactics in doing what it has to do independently locally, nationally and internationally, with due respect for human, peoples’ and Mother Earth rights. Further that they, as state actors, should seek to increase overstanding for, and in certain circumstances, even critical support for, what the non-state actors of civil society can do, mindful of the strengths and weaknesses on both sides, and with particular attention in all honesty to the realities of neocolonialism and therefore the limitations it imposes upon all those located within the state machinery, even with the best of their intentions to advance the goals of reparatory justice.

• We will recognise points of convergences and differences between state and non-state actors. Accordingly, we will be mindful of each other’s strengths, weaknesses and resources, as state and non-state actors as well as within and between various groups of non-state actors.

• Our independence is non-negotiable as non-state actors of the ISMAR, located at the grassroots of Afrikan Heritage Civil Society in the UK, and therefore, in thinking globally and acting locally in fidelity to the legacies bequeathed to us by some of the very best of the sons and daughters of Mother Afrika, committed in firm principledness to working glocally for holistic Reparatory Justice from the fundamental global Pan-Afrikan liberatory perspective of our “Wretched of the Earth”.

• There is a need to recognise the importance of such dialogue that we entered into and institutionalise such dialogue between state and non-state actors, as for example with the establishment of the kind of forum mentioned below.

• It is important to promote diligent reparations study and application of knowledge through praxis by way of action-learning conducive to cognitive justice for Afrikan people at home and abroad as integral to true reparatory justice.

• It is necessary to pay greater attention to how we harmonise strategy and tactics; and therefore, recognize that such a process of harmonisation should be in the form of knowing what state actors can do most effectively and equally what non-state actors can do most effectively. For example, non-state actors are best able to build people’s power from the ground upwards through initiatives like the SMWeCGEC in association with mass mobilisation and community unifying processes like the street column of the ISMAR which is being strengthened through organisation and mobilisations towards the annual Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparation March as spearheaded by the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC). It was therefore important to recognise, support and implement the SMWeCGEC campaigning operations such as advocating and defending human, peoples’ and Mother Earth rights to the point of working towards shutting down Maangamizi crime scenes on the continent and Diaspora of Afrika. It was proposed that this should be done also being cognisant that state actors will feel unable to openly advocate such operations.

• It was advocated that this issue of shutting down Maangamizi crime scenes is key in relation to stopping the ongoing pillage of Afrikan resources and despoliation of lands and destabilisation of Afrikan communities as can be seen to be the manifestations of the ongoing Genocide/Ecocide of the present-day phase of escalating neocolonial enslavement against Afrikan people throughout the World. This point was further elaborated on in the ‘Britain’s New Colonialism’ report by War on Want. If we can stop the Maangamizi, resources can be used for Afrikan people’s self-empowerment, self-emancipation and self-development in Afrika and throughout the Diaspora all over the World. The importance of abandoning dehumanising enslaver-mentality terminology like ‘slave’ and ‘slave trade’ was emphasized. It was proposed that there should be a greater usage of terminology such as Maangamizi and the awareness-raising popularisation of its contemporary manifestations as well as the imperative to stop this phase of the Maangamizi in order to effect genuine reparatory justice, hence the clarion call to ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’

• It was further asserted that unless we have an ‘or else’ dimension to our advocacy and relations when dealing with European powers, they will not respond seriously to our respective campaigning demands; there is ample global historical evidence that the forces of white supremacy never seriously respond to merely gentlemanly and diplomatic approaches because there is no threat factor in that and powerless groups do not subject themselves to less powerful groups. This would also impact on our ability to capture the imaginations of and attract the youth, who often see our people as powerless in relation to other peoples who are able to flex their power on the international stage. ‘Separation’ was advocated in terms of carrying this reparatory justice struggle to its logical conclusion, which entailed separating our Black/Afrikan selves from the stranglehold of white supremacy racism instead of appealing to the absent morality of the European Establishment and pursuing a course of reparations which is palatable to and on the terms of our historical and contemporary oppressors. The self-repair process of reclaiming, recreating and reinforcing our Afrikan Personality and ‘Black selves’, was key to realising the intergenerational goals of the re-establishment of the sovereignty of Afrikan people; given that the question of Afrikan reparatory justice, even for people of Afrikan origin in the Caribbean, is premised upon a global Afrikan solution to the Afrikan National Question at home and abroad.

• Common areas of possible joint work between state and non-state actors identified include education, mass Mobilisation and international community diplomacy. In this regard, it was proposed that a joint Memorandum of Understanding should be developed to include joint working protocols in furtherance of principled operational unity, including adherence to principles of reparaBerlntions ethics.

• Whilst our approach to International Community Diplomacy as non-state actors is “Grassroots People-to-Peoples’ Internationalist Solidarity and Ground-up Diplomacy Action Learning” through the ISMAR as a vital column of (PRIM); that of state and state-aligned actors is working through governmental organisations and other state institutions at local, national and international levels. A relevant action point in this connection is targeting, with our soft as well as hard power, the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in London and Windsor in April 2018.

• A Forum of State and Non-State Actors for Reparatory Justice (FOSANSARJ) will be established as a UK-wide formation, with local branches as deemed necessary, to keep the dialogue going towards concrete aims and objectives flowing from the above matters as well as other relevant issues to be determined in a ‘summit of solutions’. In light of the concerns about what diplomatic missions of the CARICOM member countries, in London, are failing to do with regard to desirable public engagement with its Reparatory Justice Framework, it is envisaged that such a forum (the FOSANSARJ) shall include duly mandated representatives of high commissions and other embassy officials from member-countries of the CARICOM, the African Union (AU) and other such bodies in the UK representing countries with significant Afrikan Heritage Communities.

• Practical steps can be taken to counter anti-reparations propaganda by reading Caribbean/UK/European newspapers to get a sense of the extent of such anti-reparations propaganda and that activists and other stakeholders should also counter such negative propaganda by writing rebuttals and giving alternative perspectives by way of a corrective to counter media disinformation. One such example that was highlighted was Professor Shepherd’s response to statements made by the UK Minister of state with responsibility for the Caribbean, the Commonwealth and the United Nations, Lord Tariq Ahmad, on his recent trip to the Caribbean, where he denounced the call for reparations.

• In guiding our reparations activism as activists, scholar-activists, civil society groups/organisations and members of communities of reparatory justice interest, we must be mindful of the need to ‘ground’ with the masses as advocated by the late Dr Walter Rodney who explained the relevance of the term “grounding” to the Black Power Movement and his manner of activism in Jamaica. This included the need for the Black/Afrikan intellectual to “attach himself/herself to the activity of the masses”, by facilitating public and open critical dialogue at the level of the society and engaging in free, popular education sessions beyond Establishment Academia with workers, the dispossessed and ostracized groups, where the classroom takes on any form as a site for organising cells of popular resistance in his ‘Groundings with my Brothers’: “I was prepared to go anywhere that any group of Black people were prepared to sit down to talk and listen. Because, that is Black Power, that is one of the elements, a sitting down together to reason, to ‘ground’ as the Brothers say…We have to ground together [Groundings, pg.78]” As well as adhere to the admonition best articulated by Amilcar Cabral that: “we should always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas [about reparatory justice], for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.” In this regard, what should unite us is our focus and prioritisation of efforts to create a better world; and, in doing so, to be conscious of the varying and various strengths that we have; strengths to which we should work, whilst at the same time struggling together, individually, collectively and organisationally, against our own weaknesses.

“We must begin by asking ourselves: What weaknesses on our side made the holocaust possible? Weaknesses of organization? Weakness of solidarity? Weaknesses of identity? Weaknesses of mentality? Weaknesses of behaviour? If we do not correct such weaknesses, even if we got billions of billions of dollars in reparations money, even if we got back all our expropriated land, we would fritter it all away yet again, and recycle it all back into alien hands. We must therefore find out what deficiencies in our sense of identity what quirks in our mentality, what faults in our feelings solidarity made it possible for some of us to sell some of us into bondage; still make it possible for us to succumb to the divide and conquer tactics of our exploiters; make it possible for all too many of us to be afflicted with Negro necrophobia- our counterpart of the self-hating disease of the anti-Semitic Semite. Twenty years ago, when I was writing The West and the Rest of Us , I gave it a subtitle: ‘White Predators, Black Slavers and the African Elite.’ That was to serve notice that we cannot overlook our complicity, as Black Slavers and as the African Elite, in what happened, and is still happening to us. We must, therefore, change ourselves in order to end our criminal complicity in perpetuating our lamentable condition.”

‘Reparations and A New Global Order: A Comparative Overview’ by Professor Chinweizu

Sis Esther Stanford-Xosei
Convenor of the Dialogue

23 November 2017

Meeting Venue: May Day Rooms @Fleet Street

Attendees

1. Abu Akil, Global Afrikan Congress, uk (GACuk)

2. Judy Richards, GACuk

3. Sorena Francis, GACuk

4. Jendayi Serwah, Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC)

5. Dulani Masibuwa Dumisai, (AEDRMC)

6. Chief Gege, Stop the Maangamizi’: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC)

7. Kwame Adofo Sampong, Pan-Afrikan Fora International Support Coordinating Council (PAFISCC)

8. Leo Muhammad, Nation of Islam, London Study Group (NOI)

9. Althea Gordon Davidson, Pan-Afrikan Community Educational Service (PACES)

10. Daniel Solomon, Brixtonics@Brixton

11. Simeon Stanford, Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP)

12. Ras Shango Baku (Contributed in absentia), Nyabinghi National Council (NNC), IDPAD UK

13. Sugar Dredd, Rastafari Movement UK (RMUK)

14. Prophet Kweme Abubaka, Ethiopian Afrika Black International Congress (EABIC)

15. Cecil Gutzmore, Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum, (PASCF)

16. Professor Gus John, Gus John Associates, Member of the African Union Technical Union Technical Committee of Experts on the 6th Region

17. Esther Stanford-Xosei, Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE)

18. Kofi Mawuli Klu, (PARCOE)

19. Rosemarie Davidson-Gotobed, Founding-Member of Sam Sharpe Project, Jamaica Baptist Union, Founder and Direct of Sam Sharpe Lectures

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POPSAR@PARLIAMENT SQUARE

Posted on August 8, 2016 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

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The 2016 Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March saw the introduction of the POPSAR (People’s Open Parliamentary Session on Afrikan Reparations) in association with the Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide (SMWeCGE) Campaign.

The POPSAR is a mass conscientisational forum for public debate and discourse on Afrikan Reparations as a matter of critical social importance.

The purpose of the POPSAR is to engage speakers and audiences in action-learning on participatory democratic parliamentary debate on critical issues such as Afrikan Reparatory Justice.

Each year a different but reparations related motion will be debated and people are encouraged to engage in practical rehearsals in preparation for the annual POPSAR on 1st August which takes place as part of the programme for the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March.

In between Marches, members of the public are invited to rehearse arguments for reparations and to also find ways of countering the opposing arguments. The theme for the 2017 POPSAR will be announced by October 2016.

See the following videos for some snippets of the speeches made at the POPSAR.

Please note such productions were produced independent of the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC).

	Adé Olaiya, M.A. on Ourstory continues to be made:…
	Morgan Moss, JR on Ourstory continues to be made:…
	Morgan Moss, JR on Response to 2nd written questi…
	Morgan Moss JR on Stop The Maangamizi Campaign c…
	STOP THE MAANGAMIZI on Stop The Maangamizi Campaign c…

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Tag Archives: Reparations debate

POPSAR@PARLIAMENT SQUARE