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Tag Archives: REPARATIONS

Not yet Uhuru in Barbados, is the transition to a republic more symbolic rather than substantive?

Posted on December 2, 2021 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

By Esther Stanford-Xosei*

President Dame Sandra Mason & Prime Minister Mia Mottley

A version of this article was published on Self-Help News on the 30th November 2021. Uhuru means freedom in Kiswahili.

On 30th November 2021, Barbados transitioned from a parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the hereditary monarch of Barbados (formerly Queen Elizabeth II) to a parliamentary republic with a ceremonial non-executive President as Head of State elected by members of parliament and not the people. The Prime Minister, Mia Mottley EGH, OR, QC, MP remains Head of Government.

However, the question that I and many other citizens of Barbados have been discussing is whether this transition to a republic is more symbolic rather than substantive. Whilst much of the corporate whitestream media is hailing this move as some huge achievement, questions remain about whether selecting the existing Governor-General, Dame Sandra Mason GCMG, DA, QC, who had been Queen Elizabeth’s II’s representative in Barbados since 2018, to serve as Barbados’s first President and Head of State is really the kind of substantive change one would expect when a country transitions to a republic. Queen Elizabeth II bestowed on Mason the Dame Grand Cross in the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George when Mason was appointed Governor-General.

Lest we not forget, the hitherto Governor-Generals of Barbados are appointed by Queen Elizabeth II supposedly on the advice of the Prime Minister of Barbados. Nevertheless, the fact that two thirds of the Barbados Parliament selected the (former) Governor-General to become the first President of the Republic of Barbados could be seen as an attempt to hoodwink the people into believing that there has been a changing of the power structure, when that is clearly not the case. Indeed, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Any new president of a republic, should be directly elected by the people of Barbados.- a point that was made months ago by Dr Ronnie Yearwood, a law lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus who has cautioned against a: “president formed in the backrooms of the Parliament functioning as an electoral college for choosing a president, likely one of the same political class.”

Significantly, Following the end of the Dame Sandra Mason’s term as president, future presidents will be elected by either a joint nomination of the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition or if there is no joint nomination, a vote of both houses of the Parliament of Barbados where a two-thirds majority is required. The electorate will therefore have no meaningful say. As Opposition Senator, Caswell Franklyn has also argued, there are flaws in the republic process. To raise legitimate concerns about the manner in which Barbados is transitioning to a republic does not mean that one is against republicanism, this is indeed long overdue. Nevertheless, it is prudent to raise the fact that the process we are embarking on in Barbados appears to be more symbolic rather than substantive. It reminds me of when President Obama became President of the United States and people got caught up with him being reported to have been the so-called first Black President of America (which was not true), rather than looking at how his presidency impacted on people of Afrikan ancestry and heritage.

Many are also getting caught up with the symbol of a first President of Barbados who also is a woman rather than critically examining the substance of how meaningful these changes will be. Whenever it comes to women in power and the tendency to see women in positions of (neocolonial) state power as emancipatory, I always question to what degree such women are or act, in ways that is described by Dr June Terpstra, as Women of the Hegemon. To find out more about what this means see here and here. In a global system of imperialism and neocolonialism, the Hegemon is ever-present even when it may be difficult to see because of the tendency to use a single lens of analysis when assessing reality rather than embracing an analysis of power on intersectional grounds.

I like many other agree that we should have a new constitution fit for purpose of what it means to be a republic drafted with input from our people who have up until now not really been given a say about what type of republic they want Barbados to be. Only then could it be said that there is a fair and equitable process which reflects a real intention to break with the coloniality of power of ‘Global Britain‘. Instead, Barbados’ republic status is premised on retaining links with European coloniality by simply making amendments to a constitution that came out of the Barbados Independence Act of 1966 passed by the UK Parliament, which gave Barbados “fully responsible status” (independence) within the Commonwealth. This Act has not been repealed.

According to the UK House of Commons Library Section 5 of that Act allowed Queen Elizabeth II, by Order in Council to:

“…provide a constitution for Barbados. This took the form of the Barbados Independence Order 1966, which was laid before the Barbados Parliament on 22 November 1966 and came into force on 30 November. The Constitution of Barbados formed a schedule to that order. This was drafted by a Constitutional Conference comprising political parties in Barbados and the then UK Secretary of State for the Colonies.”

In a recent article Dr Yearood & Professor Cynthia Barrow-Giles opined:

“….Barbados will move inexorably to republican status but with the status quo remaining, and with the symbolic change associated with the national head of state both practically and theoretically representing the citizens and not theoretically a foreign head of state. The real issue is therefore not about whether Barbados becomes a republic, or whether the Constitution is patriated, but about the relationship between the people and the Government as articulated in the Constitution. Is Barbados going to change its Constitution or be content with tinkering around the edges, masquerading as change?“


It would be far more transformatory, if an entirely new constitution was drafted instead of trying to seemingly ‘repair’ this colonial Westminster instrument. There is a long-standing need for constitutional review and reform which enables the electorate to have a greater degree of participation in accountable governance of the country. In order to become a republic, the Barbados Parliament had to revoke the Barbados Independence Order 1966 as an Order in Queen Elizabeth II’s Council via the Constitution (Amendment Bill) 2021, while keeping intact the existing Barbados Constitution. The amendment transfers the functions and powers of the Barbados Governor-General (Queen Elizabeth II’s representative) to the new President of the republic, amending the official oaths of Barbados to remove references to the Queen Elizabath II, as well as ensures continuity in all of the other aspects of the functioning of the state of Barbados.

The UK Parliament will have to pass consequential legislation “to avoid any confusion in its domestic law” as has been the case on previous occasions when Commonwealth Realms have become republics. The last time ithe UK Parliament passed a similar bill was the Mauritius Republic Act 1992. It is this aspect of the process thus far to republicanism that is most indicative that for now, Barbados will become a republic in name only. When a nation is seeking to establish true independence on the road to sovereignty, it cannot do so by maintaining relics of the colonial power that has ruled and influenced its institutions of governance for centuries. No wonder Prince Charles was invited as a guest of honour to make an address at the ceremony marking Barbados’ transition to a republic.

The cockily confident, Prince Charles felt it necessary in his public messaging on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II to emphasize those things “which will not change” such as the: “close and trusted partnership between Barbados and the United Kingdom”, the “common determination to defend the values we both cherish and to pursue the goals we share; and the myriad connections between the people of our countries.” He was even awarded the Order of Freedom of Barbados, which is now the country’s highest distinction. Quite rightly, the contradictions inherent in this decision has been condemned. In a recent facebook post Dr Tyehimba Salandy, a sociologist and scholar-activist based in Trinidad & Tobago says: “There is something very problematic about proclaiming Republic status and at the same time instead of pressing home the case for reparations awarding the creators of some of the worst crimes ever in human history with the Order of Freedom.”

Not surprisingly, Prince Charles’ visit has generated condemnation from across civil society, campaigners from the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration and the 13th June 1980 Movement had planned to stage a protest in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados yesterday. However, the government refused to grant permission for the protest. Clearly, such campaigners in Barbados, need support in amplifying their voices especially in the UK to present a counter narrative to this celebratory tone which is smothering those voices who are challenging the dominant state approaches to republicanism which are obfuscating the most fundamental issues of Global Europe and the continuance of Afrikan powerlessness in the Caribbean and elsewhere around the world. That is why the UK contingent of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations campaign, driven by the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign, to establish a UK All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice which prompted the establishment of the UK All-Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations (APPGAR), will become of increasing importance in this regard.

The Secretary General of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, David Denny is right to say that Prince Charles’ visit is an insult! According to a recent report in the Daily Mirror: David Denny who felt the opportunity should be used to call for an apology and reparations, said:

“Barbados should not honour a family who murdered and tortured our people during slavery. The profits created the financial conditions for the Royal Family to increase their power.”

Kevin Cahill provides good justification of this last point when he uncovers in his 2007 book: ‘Who Owns the World’, the world’s primary feudal landowner remains Queen Elizabeth II. She is monarch of 15 countries in addition to the United Kingdom, head of a Commonwealth of 54 countries in which a quarter of the world’s population lives and holds legalised title to about 6.6 billion acres of land, one-sixth of the earth’s land surface.

Wherever one stands on this issue, deeper questions remain; like how will the centuries old accumulated benefits acquired by the British Monarchy be dismantled in Barbados? What will the rulership do to free the country of imperial influences, the Maangamizi of neocolonialism and its attendant neoliberal economic reforms?, which are not only raising the cost of living for ordinary people and exacerbating income inequality; but also furthering the dominant model of maldevelopment worldwide which has implications for effectively tackling the genocidal and ecocidal glocal impacts of the worldwide Climate and Ecological Crises and the necessity for charting alternative paths of progression in Barbados premised on transformtaive adapatation as an aspect of Planet Repairs. Will there be widespread land, wealth and resource redistribution?, especially since (prior to becoming a republic) the British Monarch owned all state lands and state-owned companies etc. I really doubt it!

Despite becoming a Republic, Barbados remains one of the most important offshore financial centres in the Caribbean and one of the world’s top 15 according to Oxfam. Accordingly, there is a link between financialisation and the growth of top incomes. In an article written whilst he was a PhD researcher at the London School of Economics, Scholar Dr Collin Constantine argues that: “Barbados’ status as an offshore financial centre also contributes to rising inequality in Western Europe and the USA by allowing wealthy foreigners to shift income and wealth into a low-tax jurisdiction. Yet while OECD countries are attempting to reclaim their “hidden wealth”, Bajans face growing inequality alongside austerity measures and weak tourism.” Constantine provides an important perspective on how the ‘idea’ of Barbados as a beacon of democracy in the Caribbean persists. He argues that this is in part the same issue studied in other contexts by Thomas Piketty: “When you have large wealth, you cannot just consume like other people. You start to consume influence, consume politicians, consume academics, you consume power; this is what high wealth is here for.”

Constantine goes on to state: The enormous concentration of income in Barbados historically meant that the most powerful and prestigious positions were reserved for colonial elites. In present-day Barbados, economic elites use grants, media ownership, campaign contributions, and so on to influence public policy, public opinion, and key actors to forge societal buy-in on policies that protect and reinforce elites’ economic interests. Even more than in OECD countries, part of the problem is a lack of transparency about top incomes in Barbados, with a severe lack of studies on wealth and income distribution. But this is compounded by deliberate attempts to shift the blame onto the most visible participants in the local economy, namely migrants.

The above arguments put forward by various commentators demonstrate that there is still a long way to go before we can say that we have overcome the tyranny of gradualism and effected as well as secured Uhuru in Barbados and across the Caribbean region. The struggle to transform our material, spiritual and cultural realities naturally leads to the path less travelled; i.e. that of continuing to build and strengthen movement-building for Pan-Afrikan Liberation at home in our Motherland Afrika, as well as across the Diaspora. This is concretised by the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign’s advocacy of the necessity to prefigure decolonial post-Afrikan Reparations futures epitomised by the establishment of Maatubuntuman in Ubuntudunia built from the emerging Community Resistance Zones such as Maatubuntujamaas (Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination) in the Diaspora, organically and indivisibly linked to Sankofahomes premised on our indigenous Afrikan Communities of Resistance throughout the Continent of Afrika.

As Pan-Afrikan Reparationist Kofi Mawuli Klu, my fellow co-vice chair in the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe asserted in 1993:

“Unless our struggle for Reparations leads to the Pan-Afrikanist revolutionary consientization, organization and mobilization of the broad masses of Afrikan People throughout the Continent and the Diaspora to achieve first and foremost, their definitive emancipation from the impeding vestiges of colonialism and the still enslaving bonds of present-day Neocolonialism, to smash the yoke of white racist supremacy and utterly destroy the mental and physical stranglehold of Eurocentrism upon Afrikans at home and abroad, delinking Afrika completely from imperialism of any sort whatsoever, we shall have no POWER to back our claim for restitution and to give us the necessary force of coercion to make the perpetrators of the heinous crimes against us to honour the obligations of even the best fashioned letter and spirit of International Law.”



*Esther Stanford-Xosei is a Motherist and Pan-Afrikanist Jurisconsult, Community Advocate and Reparationist. As a ‘new abolitionist’ emphasizing the need to ‘stop the harm’ and effect Planet Repairs, Esther serves as the Coordinator-General of the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign, among other responsibilities.

Posted in INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, Uncategorized | Tagged APPGAR, Bajan, Barbados, Caribbean Movement for Peace & Integration, Dame Sandra Mason, David Denny, Dr Ronnie Yearwood, Governor-General, Independence, International Social Movment for Afrikan Reparations, Maangamizi, Mia Amor Mottley, Neocolonialism, Order of the Freedom of Barbados, Pan-Afrikanism, PARCOE, President of Barbados, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, Republic, Right to protest, Senator Caswell Franklyn, Stop the Maangamizi, Substantive Afrikan Reparations, Substantive Afrikan Representation | Leave a comment

INOSAAR Roundtable on Universities & Reparative Justice

Posted on October 11, 2020 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI



    About this Event

    This is the livestream video of the International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) Roundtable Discussion facilitated by Professor Joyce Hope Scott, Clinical Professor of African American Studies at Boston University, Boston, USA which took place on 09/10/20.

    In this third roundtable hosted by the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR), our panellists discuss the role and responsibility of universities in the struggle for reparative justice and in the context of recognizing the university sector’s historical links to slavery and colonialism.

    Reparations and acts of reparative and transitional justice will be interpreted broadly. For example, we could read the history of the Black colleges and universities in the USA as reparative, alongside the proliferation of centres and programmes dedicated to Black, Africana, African and African American Studies, which have sought to counteract the negative stereotypes of African peoples institutionalized by establishment academia.

    In 2003, Brown University in Rhode Island, USA, became the first higher education institution to openly acknowledge and apologize for its links to African enslavement. Its report, ‘Slavery and Justice’, acted as a catalyst for other institutions to establish how they profited from the enslavement of Afrikan peoples and functioned as primary sites in which racialized discourses were produced and validated.

    In some cases, recognition has resulted in the adoption of what might be considered reparatory measures, including: raising funds for educational grants and scholarships; renaming buildings and removing insignia and statues linked to enslavement, colonialism and racism; erecting new statues, monuments and sculptures; and inaugurating dedicated research centres.

    In 2014, an attempt to gather these efforts together and share practices across higher education institutions resulted the creation of an international consortium of ‘Universities Studying Slavery’, which now includes around seventy colleges and universities in the USA, the UK, Ireland and Canada.

    More recently, in 2019, the University of Glasgow signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University of the West Indies to work together on the foundation of the Glasgow Caribbean Centre for Development which was widely reported as being a reparative justice initiative.

    It is against this backdrop of widening interest and increased lobbying for universities to recognize and redress their links to enslavement and colonialism that we are asking our panellists to consider the following questions:

    • What are some of the ethical questions raised by conducting research into the links between universities and their histories of Afrikan enslavement and colonialism?

    • Within universities, as sites of educational knowledge production, what are the different ways that reparation and reparative justice can be approached?

    • What processes are already underway within universities that might be defined as reparative?

    • What role should universities play, and what responsibilities do they have, in engaging with local, national and international communities (including communities of reparations interest) on matters of reparative and transitional justice, and what principles should guide that engagement?

    • What consideration has been given to creating spaces within higher education institutions to enable difficult conversations to take place within and outside of the university community?

    Our panellists include:

    Dr Nicola Frith is a Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Edinburgh and co-founder of the INOSAAR, who focuses on the legacies and memories of enslavement and reparations.

    Professor Gus John, Visiting Professor at Coventry University and Honorary Fellow and Associate Professor at UCL Institute of Education at the University of London, is a renowned activist and academic who has been working in education, youth work and social justice since the 1960s.

    Dr Athol Williams is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where he focuses on ethical leadership, corporate responsibility and applied ethics.

    Professor Kris Manjapra, Associate Professor of History at Tufts University, and Chair of the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism and Diaspora. Manjapra is also a steering committee member of the Tufts Action Group; a grassroots organization of faculty and staff working in alignment with the Movement for Black Lives. Manjapra works on histories of colonialism, decolonization, plantation economies, and reparations movements. His most recent book is Colonialism in Global Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

    Professor Jemadari Kamara, PhD, is Founding Director of the Center for African, Caribbean and Community Development (CACCD) and Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is former Senior Fulbright Professor at the Université Gaston Berger in Saint-Louis, Senegal; international coordinator for the Youth Education and Sports (YES) with Africa Program (which has served nearly 3,000 African youth); Senior Advisor to the Boston Pan-African Forum; treasurer of the West African Research Association and Member of the board of directors of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century. Prof. Kamara has extensive expertise in Community Development and Public Policy; Black Social Movements; African-American Urban Politics and African-American Intellectual Thought. His numerous publications include State of the Race – Creating Our 21st Century.

    Esther Stanford-Xosei is a Jurisconsult, Interdisciplinary (Law & History) Scholar-Activist, Co-Vice Chair of PARCOE and Coordinator-General of the Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign.

    Posted in INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, ISMAR, PRIM, Uncategorized | Tagged Athol Williams, Esther Stanford-Xosei, Gus John, INOSAAR, International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations, Jemadari Kamara, Kris Manjapra, Nicola Frith, PARCOE, REPARATIONS, Reparative Justice, Reparatory Justice, Tufts Action Group, Universities, University of Glasgow, UWI | Leave a comment

    Esther Stanford-Xosei speech @ Pan-Afrikan Reparations Rebellion 01/08/20

    Posted on September 26, 2020 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI


    This video is the speech made by Esther Stanford-Xosei at the Movement of Movements Internationalist Solidarity Grounding with the Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement (MMISOG-PALM) in Max Roach Park which took place as part of the 1st Mosiah (August) Pan-Afrikan Reparations Rebellion Groundings co-organised by the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC) and the Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC).

    Esther is the Official Spokesperson for the AEDRMC, Coordinator-General of the SMWeCGEC and Media & Communications Coordinator of the Extinction Rebellion Internationalist Solidarity Network (XRISN).

    This video is part of the MAATUBUNTUJAMAA -SAAYOOO! (Pan-Afrikan Freedom-Fighting Clarion-Call Series produced by Ubuntudunia TV

    Posted in AFRIKAN HELLACAUST, AFRIKAN RESISTANCE, ISMAR, MAANGAMIZI RESISTANCE, PREFIGURATIVE POLITICS, PRIM, REPARATIONS, REPARATIONS REBELLION 2020, REPARATIONS REBELLION GROUNDINGS, SMWeCGEC, STOP ECOCIDE, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI CAMPAIGN, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI PETITION, Uncategorized | Tagged Allies, Communities of Reparatory Justice Interest, Community of Reparations Interest, Emancipation Day, Extinction Rebellion, Extinction Rebellion Internationalist Solidarity Network, Groundings, International Social Movment for Afrikan Reparations, Internationalist Solidarity, Maangamizi Crime Scene, MAATUBUNTUMAN, Mother Earth, Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement, Planet Repairs, Rematriation, REPARATIONS, Reparations Rebellion, Reparatory Justice, Restitution, Solidarity, Ubuntudunia, XRISN | 1 Comment

    UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW RESPONSE TO SMWeCGEC OPEN LETTER

    Posted on October 9, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

     

     

    Greetings Supporter of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC)

     

    This is the response from Dr David Duncan, Chief Operating Officer and University Secretary to the SMWeCGEC open letter sent to the University of Glasgow History of Slavery Steering Committee.


     

    Until next time!

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

    #StopTheMaangamizi!
    #Educational Repairs!
    #Institutional Repairs!
    #Decolonise!

     

     

     

     

    Posted in AFRIKAN HELLACAUST, AFRIKAN RESISTANCE, INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, ISMAR, MAANGAMIZI RESISTANCE, REPARATIONS, SMWeCGEC, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI CAMPAIGN, Uncategorized | Tagged Afrikan Heritage, Afrikan Liberation, Black Radical Imagination, Global Afrikan People's Parliament, Grassroots Leadership, Grassroots lobbying, Hellacaust, History of Slavery Steering Committee, International Social Movment for Afrikan Reparations, ISMAR-Building, Maangamizi, Pan-Afrikanism, People Power, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, Social Movement, Stop the Maangamizi, University of Glasgow | Leave a comment

    2018 HAND-IN OF STOP THE MAANGAMIZI PETITION

    Posted on August 3, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

    THABO P 1Thabo Downing StreetTHABO P 8

    All images are the © copyright of  Thabo Jaiyesimi and must be accredited as such

    14,590 Signatures of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Petition handed-in

     

    The 6-member delegation for the 2018 hand-in of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition were:

    From Right to Left

    1. Hon. Prophet Kweme Abubaka (Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee, Ethiopia African Black International Congress)

    2. Dr Barryl Biekman, (Europe-wide NGO Consultative Council for Afrikan Reparations, Netherlands)

    3. Mama Lindiwe Tsele (Pan-African Congress of Azania)

    4. Ms Kambanda Veii (Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, Namibia)

    5. Cllr Joshua Brown-Smith, age 12 (Office of the Young Mayor, London Borough of Lewisham)

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

    The delegation which handed-in the 2018 ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide!’ Petition represents a selection of the diversity within our Afrikan Heritage Community. The Young, The Elders, Born on the Continent, Born in the Diaspora, Male and Female, and as in previous members some members flew in from Afrika and Europe!

    #ReparationsMarch2018
    #Parliament is a Crime Scene!
    #StopTheMaangamizi!

     

    See the following letter which accompanied the hand-in of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition

    LETTER TO THERESA MAY 2018 FINAL-page-001LETTER TO THERESA MAY 2018 FINAL-page-002LETTER TO THERESA MAY 2018 FINAL-page-003

    PAGE 4-1

    LETTER TO THERESA MAY 2018 FINAL PAGE 5-5

     

    PAGE 6 2018-1

    Please note, the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition has been handed-in since 2015, in 2016 no signatures were handed in just the petition and a cover letter. In 2016, 5811 signatures were handed in, in 2017, 9636 signatures were handed in.

    It is important to note that the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition is not the only tactic we are adopting, the petition signatures accompany a Maangamizi Crime Scene sticker operation and lobbying of MPs strategy via the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Postcard involving support for developing Afrikan Heritage Community advocacy on the points contained in the petition.

    It is also important to note that we in the International Steering Committee Spearhead Team of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Campaign (ISC-SMWeCGEC) know that reparations will not be achieved simply by submitting this petition, if one reads the petition it is clear that this is not our thinking. In numerous articles and documents we talk about the March and the petition being part of revolutionary strategy and tactics that we are engaged in, which also involve all forms and levels of liberation struggle waged by various contingents of the International Social Movement for Afrikans (ISMAR).

    The Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March and the annual hand-in of the petition is about building a broad public support base for consolidating the ISMAR in order to strengthen the harnessing and building of Afrikan people’s power to advance reparations to definitive victory; whiincluding the establishment of MAATUBUNTUMAN Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities.

    See the following links for further info about the strategy and tactics of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Campaign in association with the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee:

    As we approach the 3rd year of marching, what has been achieved? (2016)

    https://stopthemaangamizi.com/2016/07/13/approaching-3rd-year-of-marching-what-has-been-achieved/

    After 4 years of marching, what has been achieved? (2017)

    https://stopthemaangamizi.com/2017/08/07/after-4-years-of-marching-what-has-been-achieved/

    Rationale for Afrikan Reparations March (2018)

     

    This video is of a workshop which took place on Friday 27th July, 2018 and provides some elaboration on the revolutionary thinking and work into for the long-term results that the March is meant to produce and to which it is already contributing.

    This is a link to the initial response that was received from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) in response to the 2017 ‘Stop of the Maangamizi!’ Petition and its covering letter, and also the further response from FCO Minister Lord Ahmad.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Posted in AEDRMC, AFRIKAN HELLACAUST, AFRIKAN RESISTANCE, ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSION OF INQUIRY (APPCITARJ), INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, ISMAR, MAANGAMIZI RESISTANCE, POPSAR, PRIM, REPARATIONS, SMWeCGEC, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI PETITION, THE 2018 AFRIKAN EMANCIPATION DAY REPARATIONS MARCH, UBUNTUKGOTLA/PITGJ, Uncategorized | Tagged 1st August, Activist Knowledge-Production, Afrika, Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March, Afrikan Heritage, Afrikan Heritage Community, Afrikan Heritage Community for National Self-Determination, Afrikan Liberation, Afrikan Reparations, Afrikan Sovereignty, Afriphobia, APPCITARJ, Black Radical Imagination, Bobo Shanti, British Colonialism, British Government, CHOGM 2018, Cllr Joshua Brown-Smith, Commission of Inquiry, Dr Barryl Biekman, EABIC, Ecocide, Education is Preparation for Reparations, Emancipation Day, ENGOCCAR, Ethiopia Africa Black International Congress, FCO, Genocide, Geopolitics, Global Apartheid, Grassroots Leadership, Grassroots lobbying, Hellacaust, Holocaust, ISMAR-Building, Kambanda Veii, Lindiwe Tsele, Lobbying, Lord Ahmad, Maangamizi, Maangamizi Crime Scene, Marching, Movement-Building, Namibia, Neocolonialism, Nothing About Us Without Us!, NothingAboutUsWithoutUs!, OGF, Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, Pan-Afrikan Revolution, Pan-Afrikanism, People Power, People's Power, Peoples Tribunal, Professor Gus John, Prophet Kweme Abubaka, REPARATIONS, Reparations Action-Learners, Reparations March, Reparatory Justice, Self-Repairs, SMWeCGE Petition, SMWeCGEC, Social Movement, Stop the Maangamizi, U-PITGJ, UK Reparations Activism, We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! | Leave a comment

    IS LABOUR NOW LISTENING TO AFRIKAN VOICES?

    Posted on April 13, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

    bernie grant collage 2

     

    Greetings Supporters of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign (SMWeCGEC)

    Following the 13th April 2018 news report on the front page of the Times Newspaper: ‘PM should apologise to ex-colonies says Labour’, it would appear as if the Labour Party is now taking steps towards listening to Afrikan voices for reparatory justice. It is only now since the passing of the late Bernie Grant MP that Labour is thinking of hearing Afrikan voices like his on our intergenerational struggle for reparatory justice.

    Within 24 hours of the 11 April 2018 letter from Esther Stanford-Xosei being sent to Heidi Alexander MP and also made available to the office of the Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn MP, leader of the Labour Party, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, advocates in the House Magazine that Prime Minister Theresa May should use the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to apologise for the UK’s historic wrongs. Emily Thornberry also states that, if Labour form the next government in Britain, they will ensure that promoting and engaging with the Commonwealth is one of their top foreign policy priorities. In Esther Stanford-Xosei’s letter to Heidi Alexander she states:

    “The fact that BREXIT is making it necessary for the UK Government to seek to strengthen its Commonwealth links in the aftermath of the BREXIT vote raises questions pertinent to Afrikan Reparatory Justice. Among such questions, for example, is the one about what type of relationship is Britain seeking to strengthen with Afrikan and Caribbean countries of the Commonwealth when the existing relationship is not only a product of the crimes of the past, but also fortifies present wrongs of the Maangamizi? So much is this the reality, that in the opinion of the constituencies of the ISMAR to which I belong, this relationship can only be transformed to ensure justice for all, by measures of reparations that will enable Afrikans and people of Afrikan heritage to equitably participate in re-ordering the war-begotten, unequal and unfair system of international relations that continues to be imposed, with manly Euro-American imperial might, upon the globe today.”

    It would appear that Emily Thornberry is in her article also providing an answer to the above question that has been posed, in various arenas, by SMWeCGEC and some other formations of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) when she states:

    “…we see our Commonwealth cousins [not] just as potential trading partners, but [because] we see them as full and equal partners in all of the challenges faced by the world and by each of our nations, from climate change and terrorism to the fight for gender equality.”

    We in the SMWeCGEC are of the view that the above comment on behalf of the Labour Party demonstrates that they can be influenced to advance steps towards better listening to the case being made for holistic reparations by authentic Afrikan Heritage Community voices in and beyond the UK who are involved in building the ISMAR. However, this realisation should, under no circumstances. make campaigners for Afrikan reparations lower our guard about critically engaging with the Labour Party and the wider Labour Movement on what repairs ought to mean, so as to enable us make gains of true reparatory justice.

    That is why we should be mindful and seek to ensure that the Labour Party is not made, by ‘BAME’ gate-keeping apparatchiks and other sections still clinging to its old ways of misusing the bureaucratic party machinery, to distort the legitimate measures of redress that oppressed communities influence it to address by revising them, sometimes even to the point of outright deformation; so that at the stages of policy-formulation and implementation, they become mere white-washing tokenistic gimmicks which tinker Afriphobically with vital concerns of particularly Afrikan Heritage Communities; thereby robbing us of the agency that is vitally necessary for us to do for ourselves the true reparatory justice we are seeking.

    So let us keep knocking at the door of publicly elected officials as those seeking such offices will come knocking on our doors in the coming weeks soliciting our votes. We must ensure that we use our votes wisely to make candidates we may be inclined to vote for support our Afrikan Heritage Communities strategic interests and concerns; top-most on the agenda should be their support for Afrikan Reparatory Justice and their concrete action on the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Postcard demands.

     

    In Service

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

     

     

     

     

    Posted in AFRIKAN HELLACAUST, AFRIKAN RESISTANCE, ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSION OF INQUIRY (APPCITARJ), INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, ISMAR, MAANGAMIZI RESISTANCE, MAANGAMIZI RESISTORS, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, SMWeCGEC, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI PETITION, THE 2018 AFRIKAN EMANCIPATION DAY REPARATIONS MARCH, Uncategorized | Tagged Afrika, Afrikan Heritage Communities, Afrikan Vote, Afriphobia, AHC-NSD, Apartheid, Apology of Substance, BAME, BAME Labour, Bernie Grant, BlackVotingCanonFodderNoMore!, British Colonialism, British Empire, British Government, CHOGM 2018, Commonwealth, Ecocide, Genocide, Geopolitics, Grassroots lobbying, Houses of Parliament, ISMAR, ISMAR-Building, Labour Movement, Labour Party, Lobbying, Nothing About Us Without Us!, People Power, PRIM, REPARATIONS, Social Movement, Tax Fraud | Leave a comment

    INOSAAR TEMPLATE LETTER TO MPs RE:THE ACADEMIC LEGITIMACY OF THE CASE FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR BRITISH STATE POLICY-MAKING

    Posted on April 11, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

    INOSAAR PARLIAMENT

     

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

    Last October we notified you about the launching of the International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) in association with PARCOE, the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe. We in the International Steering Committee Spearhead Team of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (ISC-SMWeCGEC) recognise this initiative for making a significant and unprecedented contribution to developing the intellectual arsenals necessary for tackling Afriphobia and other manifestations of the genocide/ecocide; particularly its mentacide within and beyond educational institutions. We are also pleased that the SWWeCGEC is recognised in the INOSAAR Principles of Participation.

    Since the launch event, the INOSAAR has had a conference in Birmingham and looks forward to two follow-up events in Senegal and a conference in Benin. One of the follow-up actions arising from the recent INOSAAR Birmingham Conference was for INOSAAR members and constituencies to support us in getting their MPs to support a meeting in the House of Parliament to discuss ‘The Academic Legitimacy of the Afrikan Case for Reparations and its Implications for British State Policy-Making’.

    See this link for the template letter which you can amend accordingly and send to your own MPs if you are based in the UK. The text is also reproduced below.

    Please let INOSAAR know of any progress you make with your MPs by emailing Dr Nicola Frith & Professor Joyce Hope Scott at inosaar.ed.ac.uk.

     

    Dear [MP NAME]

    I am writing as local constituent regarding a matter of concern to me as a person of Afrikan heritage/a concerned member of the public [DELETE AS APPROPRIATE].

    I was horrified to recently discover that up until 2015, tax-payers in Britain, including myself as a descendant or relative of enslaved Afrikans [DELETE IF NOT APPLICABLE], were paying off a debt that was accrued as a result of the compensation awarded to British enslavers as legislated with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (see, for example, the article in the Bristol Post from 13 February 2018).

    The opinion of experts working in the field, like Bristol-based historian David Olusoga, has strengthened my own conviction about the injustice glaringly showed in this matter (see, for example, the article published in The Guardian on 12 February 2018).

    Such is the public outrage, that a petition has been started about this misuse of taxes. This increasing public interest is stimulating not only public debate, but also academic research and discourses relevant to policy-making regarding these and other pertinent issues of domestic and foreign policies.

    The 17 March 2018 conference in Birmingham of the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) is an example of such activity, which is drawing together both scholars, activists and policy-campaigners to exchange perspectives on their thinking and actions about how best to address these kinds of injustices.

    One recent political response has been the plan unveiled by the Labour Party for firms with links to the so-called Atlantic ‘slave trade’ to contribute to the setting up of a Slavery Educational Trust (see, for example, the article in The Standard on 23 March 2018).

    In response to these developments, I am requesting your support to host a meeting in the Houses of Parliament to discuss ‘The Academic Legitimacy of the Afrikan Case for Reparations and its Implications for British State Policy-Making’.This proposed meeting in Parliament is important because, as hinted at in the ‘Refund Our Taxes’ petition, the refund of tax monies can assist the Afrikan Heritage Community to effect its own innovative ‘Pempamsie’-planning approaches to reparatory justice. In other words, Afrikan Heritage Communities will be able to design their own bespoke reparatory justice programme that will satisfy their own self-determined interests and purposes. Examples of such approaches include educational and other community self-repairs, which form a vital part of the reparative process and go far beyond paycheques to individuals and governments.

    I look forward to hearing from you on this urgent matter in due course.

    Yours Sincerely

    [YOUR NAME & SIGNATURE]

     

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

     

     

    Posted in INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, MAANGAMIZI RESISTANCE, PREFIGURATIVE POLITICS, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, Uncategorized | Tagged Afrikan Heritage Community for National Self-Determination, Afrikan Reparations, AHC-NSD, British Government, GAPP, Genocide, Global Afrikan People's Parliament, Grassroots lobbying, Houses of Parliament, INOSAAR, International Network, Lobbying, Maatubuntujamaa, Nothing About Us Without Us!, PARCOE, Pempamsie Plan, People Power, REPARATIONS, Reparations Agenda, Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations, Social Movement, Speaking Truth to Establishment Power, Tax Fraud, Template Letter to MPs | Leave a comment

    OPPOSING THE USAFRICOM BASE OF MAANGAMIZI IN GHANA: GLOBALISING PAN-AFRIKAN RESISTANCE FOR REPARATORY JUSTICE IS THE WAY TO VICTORY!

    Posted on April 5, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

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    “

    If we do not unite and combine our military resources for common defence, our individual [African] States, out of a sense of insecurity, may be drawn into making defence pacts with foreign powers which may endanger the security of us all”.

    Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, ‘Africa Must Unite’ (1963)

     

     

    We in the Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament (GAPP), in partnership with the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/ Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC), join the progressive forces of Freedom, Justice and Peace, in the once proudly inspiring Black Star nation-state founded by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, in expressing their outrage and vehement opposition to the shocking endorsement by the Government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his so-called New Patriotic Party (NPP) majority in Parliament, of the completely unjustifiable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on defence cooperation between the Republic of Ghana and the United States of America on March 8, 2018. It is unimaginable that, 61 years after the declaration of Ghana’s independence, the very Euro-Amerikkkan imperialist superpower of the West, whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) masterminded the violent February 1966 coup d’état which shattered the Pan-Afrikan Liberation dreams and efforts of Ghana’s first visionary head of state, is now supposed to be the country’s key security ally. For the sake of the serious lessons that must be critically learnt by us all, we must not lose sight of the fact that this current Akuffo-Addo-approved MOU is supposed to be the enhancement of two previous agreements that were signed with the USA without public discussion, scrutiny and parliamentary endorsement in Ghana in 1998 and 2015 by the preceding governments of President Jerry John Rawlings and President John Dramani Mahama respectively.

    We therefore urge you to keep up your resistance as you did with the 2008 attempts to establish an AFRICOM military base in Ghana until this manifestation of the Maangamizi (Afrikan Hellacaust of chattel colonial and neo-colonial forms of enslavement) is stopped. For, contrary to assertions that the USA Government is not establishing an American military base, the agreement indicates that the USA Armed Forces will have the use of a designated area in Ghana to set up their own camp inaccessible to anyone else, in other words a ‘base’ by another name. The presence of this enduring base will increase the militarisation of the state and society leading to increased hostilities directed against the people of Ghana for being in cohoots with the US Empire in committing crimes against Humanity.

    Just like in 1844 when Fante Chiefs were outmanoeuvred into signing an agreement on behalf of the Gold Coast with the British colonisers, similarly today, we have a Government and its majority in parliament surrendering the sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity of the people of Ghana, undermining their national interests and security. However, as in the past the people of Ghana at no time have ceded their sovereignty, which is what makes this agreement so injurious to the interests of Ghanaians; the implications of such will be felt for generations to come. The agreement had been drafted in a manner which does not state a termination point. Article 6 of the MOU states that: “Buildings constructed by United States forces shall ….be used by United States forces until no longer needed by United States forces”. If read literally, this agreement will in actuality bind all successive governments in Ghana.

    Furthermore, regarding the settlement of disputes between the parties, article 18 stipulates that: “Any dispute regarding the application, implementation, or interpretation of this Agreement, or its Implementing Arrangements…shall not be referred to any national or international court, tribunal, or similar body, or to any third party for settlement, unless otherwise mutually agreed”. Rather, the agreement reinforces USA military immunity from international law and imposes Euro-Amerikkkan law on the people and Government of Ghana in the settlement of claims arising out of the operations of the base, including death, destruction of property or injury. It is likely that such arrangements will increase covert military and security operations both in Ghana and across Afrika.

    We support you, the progressive forces of Ghana, in seeking to ensure that all your combined efforts to stop this manifestation of the Maangamizi succeed in making such affronts to Ghana’s sovereignty and the Pan-Afrikan dignity of Ghanaians to not occur again. Such resistance must keep us firmly on the path of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice through first and foremost arresting these continued violations of Ghanaian sovereignty and self-determined nationhood. Given the increasing expansion of neo-colonial tentacles of revanchist coloniality by Euro-Amerikkkan imperialism throughout the Continent of domestically and externally re-colonised Afrika, it is vital to recognise the need to accelerate the building of Maatubuntujamaas – Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination (AHC-NSDs) in the Diaspora to connect with their equivalent Sankofahomes on the Continent to achieve Maatubuntuman (Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities). Clearly, the Afrika that currently exists is being sold out by one neo-colonial government after another. It follows that organising to actualize Maatubuntuman, a globally superpowerful participatory democratic anti-imperialist polity of Maat which practices Ubuntu in relation to her people and all of humanity and the cosmos rooted in the indigenous nation-building practices of Afrika and her people, is the only force which can make the global apartheid racist agenda and structures of recolonization by White Supremacy ungovernable.

    Unlike in the past when Founding father of the Republic of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, called for unified armed forces (an Afrikan High Command), and a common Afrikan foreign policy, we have a situation where the current Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul is seeking to hoodwink the people of Ghana into accepting overt military domination; arguing that the USA Government has such defence cooperation agreements “in over 50 countries”. However, what Nitiwul and the misruling so-called New Patriotic Party (NPP) of President Akufo-Addo are refusing to admit to the people of Ghana is that these arrangements are part of what Chalmers Johnson in his 2004 book, ‘The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic’, called an “empire of bases” which advance US geopolitical interests, not those of so-called host countries.

    In this regard, we echo the sentiments of the Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases, which held its inaugural event January 12-14, 2018 at the University of Baltimore in Maryland, in the USA where it operates; we reiterate to you what they expressed in their Unity Statement: “U.S. foreign military bases are the principal instruments of imperial global domination and environmental damage through wars of aggression and occupation, and that the closure of U.S. foreign military bases is one of the first necessary steps toward a just, peaceful and sustainable World.” It is indeed alarming that the United States maintains the highest number of military bases outside its territory, estimated at almost 1000 (95% of all foreign military bases in the World).

    The ‘No Foreign Military Bases’ Coalition further asserts that: “These bases are centres of aggressive military actions, threats of political and economic expansion, sabotage and espionage, and crimes against local populations. In addition, these military bases are the largest users of fossil fuel in the world, heavily contributing to environmental degradation”. We concur with the coalition’s assertion that US foreign military bases represent the interests of the “dominant financial, political, and military interests of the ruling elite” and agree with their conclusion that: “Whether invited in or not by domestic interests that have agreed to be junior partners, no country, no peoples, no government, can claim to be able to make decisions totally in the interest of their people, with foreign troops on their soil representing interests antagonistic to the national purpose”.

    This is the time for the Pan-Afrikan essence of our Reparatory Justice struggles all over the world to take concrete shape by working in cooperation with all Freedomfighting peoples around the World in order to galvanise the Internationalist Solidarity of allies of Afrikan people at home and abroad, to reinvigorate the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and to win the hearts, minds and spirits of Peoples of Conscience for a just World of Peace for all. This is one of the surest ways to ensure that Imperialism in all its forms and guises is exposed, effectively counteracted and completely eradicated throughout the World.

    Accordingly, we identify with all the modes of legitimate Resistance being adopted in multifarious opposition to this disgraceful deal of treasonable sell-out to the USA not only by various organisations, networks and campaigns in and outside the homeland of founding father Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, but also by the conscientious chiefs and other true leaders of the indigenous communities that make up the authentic Afrikan polity of Ghana and who are upholding her independent Afrikan Personality in all its sovereignty, dignity and integrity. We support the calls from all the progressive forces of Civil Society, admirably including various youth, student, women and labour groupings, that are being echoed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) minority in the Ghanaian Parliament, and even some voices of sanity in the NPP, demanding an immediate withdrawal of the agreement, pending the holding of broad consultations and a thorough national discussion involving all relevant stakeholders. May we emphasize the salient point that our GAPP and all others involved in the SMWeCGEC and their affinity organisations, networks and campaigns all over the World see such stakeholders as including those Afrikans abroad who lay claim to Global Pan-Afrikan citizenship and who are, in this United Nations International ‘Decade for People of African Descent’ (UN-IDPAD), asserting their ‘Right to Afrika’.

    We are in consultations with Ghanaian progressive forces at home and abroad engaged in planning appropriate Global Actions of Internationalist Solidarity with Ghana Against Foreign Military Occupation. In this connection, we urge all those in Ghana to glocally face up, with enlightening global broad-mindedness, to the seriousness of the very dangerous geopolitical intrigue-weaving, malevolence and War-games which this agreement is drawing them into to descend further into the abyss of the World military-industrial-prison complex of the USA. This MOU will only worsen your Maangamizi plight of Neocolonialism by the Global Apartheid way of White Supremacy racist Recolonization by opening you up to suffer more crimes of Genocide and Ecocide. The narrow-mindedness of parochial obscurantism will not do in successfully rallying to defeat the war-mongering reactionary forces of USAFRICOM that very well master anti-people games of divide and misrule. That is why the necessity cannot be overstated now for United Front-building among all progressive forces unflinchingly committed to defending Sovereignty, eschewing sectarianism, ethnocentrism, egocentrism and similar vices, advancing together in Principled Unity to champion human, peoples’ and Mother Earth rights, while firmly upholding uncompromising Anti-Imperialism, Self-Determination, National Liberation, Social Justice, Participatory Democracy and holistic Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. That is why, now more than ever before, is the time to seize in globalising Pan-Afrikan Resistance for Reparatory Justice forward ever onward to total victory!

    GAPP Leadership Facilitation Team in association with the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC) Spearhead Team of  the SMWeCGEC International Steering Committee (ISC-SMWCGEC)

    05/04/18


    Endorse this statement

    If you are willing to endorse this statement please contact the Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament (GAPP) by emailing your name, organisation and position (if relevant) to globalappuk@gmail.com. You can also private message us on FB https://www.facebook.com/globalappuk/.

    Posted in AFRIKAN HELLACAUST, AFRIKAN RESISTANCE, INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, MAANGAMIZI RESISTANCE, MAANGAMIZI RESISTORS, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, SMWeCGEC, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI CAMPAIGN, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI PETITION, THE 2018 AFRIKAN EMANCIPATION DAY REPARATIONS MARCH | Tagged Afrikan Liberation, Afrikan Sovereignty, AHD-NSD, CIA, Counterinsurgency, Ecocide, Euro-Amerikkkan Imperialism, GAFRIC, Genocide, Global Apartheid, Grassroots Leadership, Hellacaust, IDPAD, ISMAR-Building, Maangamizi, Maatubuntujamaas, MAATUBUNTUMAN, MAATUBUNTUMANDLA, Movement-Building, Neocolonialism, Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice, Pan-Afrikan Revolution, Pan-Afrikanism, People Power, Recolonisation, REPARATIONS, Right to Afrika, Sankofahomes, Self-Repairs, Stop the Maangamizi, UN-IDPAD, USAFRICOM, We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! | Leave a comment

    VOICES OF CONTINENTAL AFRIKAN LEADERSHIP COUNTERACTING THE MAANGAMIZI WITH REMATRIATION STEPS OF PAN-AFRIKAN REPARATORY JUSTICE.

    Posted on March 29, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

    AFRICA DIASPORA

     

    The following two statements from members of the Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council (GAFRIC) in Ghana, express the reparatory justice perspectives of the leadership that exists for Afrikan communities of reparations interest battling the Maangamizi on the ground in Afrika. They were presented at the 17th March 2018 International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) Conference in Birmingham. Most importantly, these statements from Paramount Chiefs, Togbe Adzatekpor VII and Nana Kobina Nketsia V highlight their recognition, as leading members of the GAFRIC, of the right of Afrikan people all over the world to the Continent of Afrika!

    The ‘right to Afrika‘ incorporates the ‘right to return’ (repatriation) and ‘right to belong’ (rematriation) which is one process. One cannot happen without the other. It encompasses the Akan Sankofa principle of going back to fetch your Afrikan personality in material and spiritual terms all routed in the land of Afrika. The ‘Afrikan personality’, popularised by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, refers to manifestations of cultural uniqueness among Afrikans as reflected in our behaviours, social norms, customs, values, beliefs, spiritual zeal, attitudes, explanations of the cosmos and the supernatural, as well as social and political systems. The right to Afrika includes the right to belong to the peoplehood of Afrika and benefit from the shared land, wealth and resources of Afrika, as well as share in her many development challenges. This does not mean that all Afrikans physically has to up and return to Afrika, but that one should be able to exercise the global citizenship rights and responsibilities of being an Afrikan.

    Ultimately, it is about feeling the power of Afrika protecting us as Afrikans wherever we are in the world. However, for this to happen it is necessary to rebuild Afrika on the basis of our indigenous polities and delegitimise colonial state formations. This means rebuilding Afrika into a unified whole; integrating communities of Afrikan people from the Continent and Diaspora into a globally superpowerful polity (MAATUBUNTUMAN- Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities) based on the Continent that guarantees the collective strength, dignity and security of Afrikan people worldwide.

    The statements from Togbe Adzatekpor VII and Nana Kobina Nketsia V also show the readiness of such community leaders, and their respective communities of reparatory justice interest, to contribute to repairing the disrepair of our Afrikan communities. They are doing what they can to counteract the divisive impact of the Maangamizi with policies, projects, programmes and other measures towards reunifying our Global Afrikan Family, in accordance with the imperatives of holistic Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice.

     

    “Convinced that the pursuit of reparations by the African peoples in the continent and in the Diaspora will itself be a learning experience in self-discovery and in uniting experience politically and psychologically.”

    The Abuja Proclamation: A declaration of the ‘first Abuja Pan-African Conference on Reparations For African Enslavement, Colonisation And Neo-Colonisation’, sponsored by The Organisation Of African Unity and its Reparations Commission April 27-29, 1993, Abuja, Nigeria

     

         Togbe Osie Adza Tekpor VII, Paramount Chief of the Avatime Traditional Area

     

     

     

     

     

               Nana Kobina Nketsia V, Paramount Chief of the Essikado Traditional Area

     

     

    “To love Afrika, to seek the cultural freedom of Afrika and to serve the cultural truth of Afrika is to ask for death”

    Nana Kobina Nketsia V

     

    nana kobina book 2

     

    Recommended reading, ‘African Culture in Governance and Development: The Ghana Paradigm’ by Nana Kobina Nketsia V, with an introduction by Professor James Small.

    PROFESSOR jAMES SMALL

     

    “When we look at Afrika and see whose culture we are practising, we realise how vulnerable we are to genocide because we are practising the culture of our enemies and not the culture of our ancestors. Nana Nketsia is making a case that I don’t think any opposing legal framework can defeat; a case for us to return to the ways of our Ancestors and abandon and turn our backs on the ways of the rapists, the plunderers and the murderers who have imposed on us, their culture, their history, their notion of reality and their religion; and we must make this u-turn to continue our journey, we want to go back to the womb of Mother Afrika and compose again, as her child, her dreams, her aspirations, her hopes and her future. This will allow us to have full control of the economics, politics and culture that affects lives on a daily basis. This process must include at its core, the restoration of complete confidence in us and a belief system that is based on the reality of our own experience and that of our Ancestors, which is a challenge that Nana’s work clearly identifies.

    Nana is re-membering the Afrikan continent. Its members are scattered and Nana’s book is bringing them back together. That is the essence of the word ‘remember’; reconnecting the scattered members of a once collective whole to make it whole again. Nana is reminding us to bring back our Ancestors’ way of thinking that will allow us to reconstruct a dynamic path for the future.”

    Taken from the introduction by Professor James Small

     

     

     

     

    Posted in AFRIKAN HELLACAUST, AFRIKAN RESISTANCE, INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, ISMAR, MAANGAMIZI RESISTANCE, MAANGAMIZI RESISTORS, PREFIGURATIVE POLITICS, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, SMWeCGEC, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI CAMPAIGN, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI PETITION | Tagged Afrikan Heritage, Afrikan Heritage Community for National Self-Determination, Afrikan Liberation, Afrikan Sovereignty, AHD-NSD, Cognitive Justice, GAFRIC, Genocide, Global Afrikan People's Parliament, Hellacaust, International Social Movment for Afrikan Reparations, ISMAR, Land based reparations, Maangamizi, Maatubuntujamaas, MAATUBUNTUMAN, Movement-Building, Pan-Afrikan Revolution, Pan-Afrikanism, PARCOE, People Power, Rematriation, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, Sankofahomes, Self-Repairs, Social Movement, Stop the Maangamizi | Leave a comment

    ‘STOP THE MAANGAMIZI!’ POSTCARD ADVOCACY CASE STUDY

    Posted on March 8, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI


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

    This is a report-back of a meeting and series of correspondence between ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC) Advocate Esther Stanford-Xosei and Heidi Alexander, Member of Parliament for Lewisham East.

     

     

    SM POSTCARD - Postcode fix-page-001

     

     

     

     

    Follow-up letter to Heidi Alexander dated 20th January 2018 requesting her to take action on the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Postcard

    ESTHER STANFORD-XOSEI LETTER TO HEIDI ALEXANDER ON TAKING ACTION ON THE SMWeCGEC POSTCARD

     

    On Friday 9th February 2018, Esther Stanford-Xosei went to see her MP Heidi Alexander regarding the demands in the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Postcard campaign

    Upon visiting Heidi at my local surgery, she was asked to explain the purpose of my visit and what I wanted which gave me some opportunity to explain the holistic meaning of reparations and why it is relevant to the local community development and campaigning efforts of Afrikan heritage community groups organising in the borough of Lewisham and working on Maangamizi legacy issues.  She explained that the simple notion of ‘pay us’ is not what holistic reparations are about (and tend to close off discussions) and rather the starting point in addressing reparations is to take action on instituting the APPCITARJ.

    It was acknowledged that the most focus of elected officials would be looking at reparations policy-making in addressing to meeting community development needs in all areas of people activity where our people are working to address the impact of the Maangamizi by way of community self-repairs. Therefore, prioritisation should be given to hearing our perspectives on these issues and hearing from us about the impact of the Maangamizi locally, nationally and internationally and also finding out from Afrikan heritage communities what efforts we are taking to redress it ourselves, irrespective of government responsibility or action to do the same. This made sense to her in light of a similar approach which was initiated with former Home Office Minister for Race & Communities Fiona McTaggert, MP in 2004 by the Rendezvous of Victory (ROV) which Esther Stanford-Xosei and Kofi Mawuli Klu, leading members of the SMWeCGEC, were founder-members of, (see flier below ‘Commemorations 2004-7: Time to Resolve the Big Question of Reparations’ where a programme was launched acknowledging reparations from the approach I have highlighted above).

     

    This approach is also in alignment with the approach we are encouraging in the SMWeCGEC and support organisations in relation to Afrikan heritage community self-repairs (Maatubuntujamaa /Afrikan Heritage Community for National Self-Determination – AHC-NSD building as a model of a community repairing itself, see ). It was agreed that this is seen as a more viable approach to addressing reparations which is most likely to get support from elected officials who will be concerned with redress via local and central government policy-making and is most likely to secure short-medium term reparations goals in terms of what is referred to as administrative reparations processes. Heidi Alexander acknowledged that no issue facing people of Afrikan heritage today whether it is Anti-Black racism and/or Afriphobia, school exclusions, gun and knife crime, gangs, racial profiling, homelessness, health challenges, unemployment etc. could be tackled without acknowledging the impact of the Maangamizi on Afrikan heritage communities. Esther Stanford-Xosei that it is Afrikan heritage community self-repairs initiatives which need to be better resourced and supported as at the community level, we as Afrikans also have the responsibility to be and become the change we wish to see.

     

     

    Indeed, part of the repair is about Afrikan heritage communities developing our own community capacity and power-base as well as our own community rebuilding plan, which the SMWeCGEC recognise as ‘Pempamsie’ Afrikan Heritage Community Self-Repairs planning (Pempamsie is the Adinkra symbol for sewing together in readiness -preparatory actions for reparatory justice. building our future out of our principled operational unity despite our diversity). This planning is something that was championed in the Black Quest for Justice Campaign (BQJC) plan which was developed in 2003 as a result of the BQJC legal challenge to the UK government on Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice and also contributed to the development of the SMWeCGEC.

    Afrikan Community Self-Repairs are the self-determined efforts that need to be made in building our own power, in such a way, that Afrikan heritage communities are able to identify and enhance ongoing work towards stopping the contemporary manifestations of the Maangamizi, which are putting the individuals, families and other social groups that make up our communities into a state of disrepair; as well as reasoning and consciously carrying out the alternative solutions for glocally rebuilding our power base as communities, in such a way that that they are eventually transformed, in accordance with the principles and programmatic demands of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice.

    Esther Stanford-Xosei was therefore able to put into the context the importance and practicalities of the All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice (APPCITARJ) and the need for local data and hearings to assess the situation of people of Afrikan heritage locally. With the emphasis being on – recognise our people’s agency and self-determining community development initiatives which should be receiving greater support and resourcing. This includes initiatives in relation to implementation of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD).

     

     

     

    The main points raised with Heidi Alexander were:

    · Hear what Afrikan people are trying to do for themselves (Afrikan Heritage Community self-repairs) within and beyond the borough of Lewisham;

    · The intergenerational work being done to address the Maangamizi on the part of Afrikan heritage communities which will be as aspect of the proposed hearings of the APPCITARJ and provide an opportunity to hear about work being done to address the Maangamizi which should be recognised, better supported and resourced. It is not about saying to officials come and do something about our situation which reinforces our people’s powerlessness and denies their agency whilst the state and local government has responsibilities to support our self-determined efforts as we know best what is working and what is not working for our people.

    · Addressing the impact of the Maangamizi requires embarking on international conversations and actions galvanised by the IDPAD as even our communities own solutions are global and many activists involved in the SMWeCGEC work glocally. It follows that the UK government cannot adequately support Afrikan heritage communities locally or even regionally without recognising Afrikan people’s international legal personality as Afrikans who are connected to other people of Afrikan heritage within and beyond the UK which is part of our own re-empowerment process.

     

    The three asks of Heidi Alexander were:

    1. Heidi to support APPCITARJ Glocal Roundtables which are local hearings which hear Afrikan heritage community roundtables on the Maangamizi, efforts to address it and the IDPAD. It was suggested that in Lewisham we can use the model of the Peoples Commission of Inquiry on Saving Lewisham Hospital as a template.

    2. Heidi to write to the related appropriate Minister in support of the main goals of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition.

    3. Heidi to host or support, with other MPs, a meeting in Parliament on ‘The Academic Legitimacy for the Afrikan Reparations Case in British State Policy Making & Political Lobbying’ in association with the International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR), where the SMWeCGEC in association with the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee which facilitates the organisation of the annual 1st August Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March  and are engaged in UK reparations social movement-building actions which are contributing to knowledge-production through action-learning on reparations can be profiled. This is something which we are also encouraging other INOSAAR activists to do.

     

     

    Outcome

    Heidi Alexander wanted to know what was unsatisfactory about the response from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) to the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition and its accompanying letter presented to the office of the UK Prime Minister Theresa May on 1st August 2017.  She asked Esther Stanford-Xosei to email her to guide her follow-up enquiry to the relevant minister. Heidi Alexander stated that that she believed the issues Esther raised are very important for the Afrikan Heritage Community in Lewisham (46% so-called Black and other racialised and minoritized groups population of which about 32% is Afrikan heritage and local schools having 76% youth from Black and other racialised and minoritized groups !!!).

    Regarding glocal APPCITARJ hearings and addressing the concerns locally, Heidi wanted to know what work is being done in other boroughs that Lewisham could learn from and she specifically asked which other MPs have expressed a willingness to support the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ postcard campaign objectives. She said that Esther should provide info about what is happening in other boroughs which was good practice that Lewisham could perhaps also pilot.

    In relation to the meeting in Parliament, Heidi said that it was unlikely that she could host such a meeting as most of her parliamentary work is focused on Brexit and reforms of the NHS (which was an indication about how to also further present/frame aspects of the SMWeCGEC to gain local interest from MPs such as herself).

    Heidi also stated that the local Labour Party ‘BAME representative’ is someone she wanted to connect me with as he would be very interested in the issues Esther raised.

    Going forward, we in the SMWeCGEC cannot stress enough the importance of more of us making similar approaches to other MPs and elected officials.

     

     

    ESTHER STANFORD-XOSEI LETTER TO HEIDI ALEXANDER REGARDING THE FCO RESPONSE setting out what is wrong with the response received from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to the 2017 ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition & its accompanying letter.

     

     

     

     

    LORD AHMAD 1

    LORD AHMAD 2

    LORD AHMAD 3

     

    This link includes the response sent to Heidi Alexander MP further to receiving the above response from Lord Ahmad.

    See here for the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Postcard and template letter.

    Check out this guidance on lobbying MPs and other elected officials.

     

    In Service

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

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Posted in AFRIKAN RESISTANCE, ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSION OF INQUIRY (APPCITARJ), INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR AFRIKAN REPARATIONS, ISMAR, MAANGAMIZI RESISTANCE, MAANGAMIZI RESISTORS, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, SMWeCGEC, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI CAMPAIGN, STOP THE MAANGAMIZI PETITION, Uncategorized | Tagged Afrikan Heritage, Afrikan Liberation, Afrikan lobby, APPCITARJ, British Colonialism, British Government, Commission of Inquiry, Ecocide, Genocide, Grassroots Leadership, Grassroots lobbying, Hellacaust, International Social Movment for Afrikan Reparations, ISMAR-Building, Maangamizi, Movement-Building, People Power, REPARATIONS, Reparatory Justice, Self-Repairs, Social Movement, Stop the Maangamizi | Leave a comment

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