In light of the recent momentum to end the subjugation of Black Americans, the Black Lives Matter movement has dominated globally. As protesters extend the fights of civil rights revolutionaries, in an attempt to end the superstructure of race, the effects of this fight have already been demonstrated in many instances.
On the 8 June 2020, the world watched as the city of Bristol, UK, took a definitive stance against their colonial past. Protestors removed a divisive monument erected in honour of slave trader, Edward Colston. The removal served as a symbol against a history of torture and exploitation; as protestors threw the monument into the very river that Edward Colston would dock his slave ships.
Moreover, a distaste for the public depiction of former oppressors extended to Belgium, as BLM protesters stood proud on the statue of King Léopold II, waving the flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Additionally, protestors in Richmond, Virginia removed a monument in dedication to Confederate general William Carter Wickham on June 6. The black diaspora have decisively turned their backs on the commemoration of their oppressors; acts that commentators have said mirror the removal of the infamous monument of Saddam Hussein.
HAS THE MOOD EMERGED FOR A REPARATIVE APPROACH TO ISSUES OF RACE?
These instances beg the question as to whether there is a need to establish a reparative framework in states with colonial histories, as a means to bridging the peace between the formerly colonised and the former colonisers. Reparative justice is a victim-oriented, holistic approach to post-conflict reconciliation with the central idea being that by compensating the victims of gross human rights violations, it therefore provides the grounds for societal cohesion.
In response to the protests, UN experts on the Human Rights Council released a statement on 5 June 2020, recommending ‘reparative intervention for historical and contemporary racial injustice’. Not only this, but as the experts on the Council stated, remedies for the victims of gross human rights violations are ‘required in International Human Rights Law’; as identified in Article 8 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Given that the United Kingdom made payments worth 40 per cent of the expenditure budget to former slave owners, it displays that there is not only the need to implement reparative mechanisms to compensate the descendants of the subjugated, but that there is undoubtably the capacity to do so. This of course, as outlined by the UN General Assembly, would allow for the dignity of the victims to be restored, in addition to tribute being paid to those victims.
The UK government itself has a precarious relationship with the discussion of reparations, something that was displayed to its fullest extent in 2015 under Cameron’s premiership. When the former Jamaican Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller, suggested to Cameron that it was necessary for him to engage with the idea of reparations, Cameron simply responded by dismissing any notion of compensation being paid. Instead, he decided to donate £25m to the Jamaican government, under the premise that a prison was to be built with the capacity to hold over 1,000 inmates. The donation from Cameron perhaps epitomises how children of the empire are regarded in the UK: simply being reduced to a large-scale prison complex.
This instance highlights how Black bodies are perceived as disposable to those in power, particularly given that this was an opportunity to restore the dignity of the formerly colonised. Instead, this moment stripped Jamaica of any chance to restore dignity. Inevitably, this left room for discussions surrounding reparations to remerge 5 years later under the catalyst of the BLM movement.
It has become evident, as recent efforts to pay symbolic tribute to the subjugated have spread throughout the world, that there is this overwhelming need for justice. Further demonstrations such as the Black Lives Matter mural painted in DC and the official removal of slave trader Robert Milligan’s statue in London displayed the revived need for reparations. Are government officials beginning to hear the calls of their Black citizens?
There is no doubt that many colonial monuments that commemorate some of our darkest times in history remain in place, while compensation is yet to be given to the descendants of those who suffered at the hands of imperialism. On this basis, the question arises as to whether these recent acts of acknowledgement are simply performative in their nature, or whether they demonstrate the beginning of a wider reparative society that centres around justice.
Rhea is a final year Sociology student at The University of Warwick, about to embark on a Human Rights, Social Justice and Culture masters at Goldsmiths. Her aim is to research issues surrounding human rights for NGOs and equivalent organisations.