Dear David,

Reparations for slavery, a topic that comes and goes, has once again come to the fore of public discourse. This topic's most recent public showing, is due in large part to the Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron's official visit to Jamaica, a former British colony, his address to their government and Portia Simpson, Jamaica's Prime Minister's words to him.

Prof. Sir Hilary Beckles, in his role as the Chairman of the CARICOM Reparation Commission, penned an open letter to the British PM, raising the issue of reparations to him. Just over a year ago, in an address before The House of Commons, Prof. Sir Hilary Beckles spoke on reparations and gave suggestions/proposals of how reparations could work. The letter is posted in full below. The link to the reparations address can be read by clicking here, or the link below the letter.

This is not an opinion post today, but rather one seeking discussion about reparations, and the opinions of people here in Barbados, the Caribbean and the wider world about the topic. What do we think folks, reparations yay or nay? Yay, but different to the proposition in the link?

Open Letter to the Honourable David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK & Northern Ireland

26th September 2015

Dear Honourable Prime Minister,

I join with the resolute and resilient people of Jamaica and their government in extending to you a warm and glorious welcome to our homeland. We recognise you, Prime Minister, given your family's long and significant relationship to our country, as an internal stakeholder with historically assigned credentials.  To us, therefore, you are more than a Prime Minister. You are a grandson of the Jamaican soil who has been privileged and enriched by your forebears' sins of the enslavement of our ancestors.

As we prepare for you a red carpet befitting your formal status we invite you to cast your eyes upon the colours of our national flag that symbolise the history we share. You are, Sir, a prized product of this land and the bonanza benefits reaped by your family and inherited by you continue to bind us together like birds of a feather.

Be assured, Prime Minister, that you will find no more generous people on our planet Earth than those who will greet you with golden hearts and civilised consciousness. I urge that you embrace the sincerity of our salutations. It is born and bred in the cauldron of our enslavement by your family and society. Consider it a golden gift of friendship and not simply the empty expression of protocols relevant to the events you will attend. It is furthermore, an overture to an expectation of a dialogue of reparatory justice that can redefine for us a new intimacy for this long 21st century on which we are embarked.

Your advisers would have informed you that beyond the boundary of the affairs of State, civil society welcomes you without reservation, though with a qualification that bears the burden of our tortured past within the historically textured present. I speak of outstanding and unresolved matters that are relevant to our sense of mutual respect as equal nations dedicated to the cause of furthering humanity's finest imagined destiny.

I speak, Sir, of the legacies of slavery that continue to derail, undermine and haunt our best efforts at sustainable economic development and the psychological and cultural rehabilitation of our people from the ravishes of the crimes against humanity committed by your British State and its citizens in the form of chattel slavery and native genocide.

In this regard I urge you to be aware that the issue of reparatory justice for these crimes is now before our respective nations, and the wider world. It is not an issue that can be further ignored, remain under the rug, or placed on back burners, as your minister who recently visited us so aptly described your agenda for Jamaica and the Caribbean. It will generate the greatest global political movement of our time unless respected and resolved by you, the leader of the State that extracted more wealth from our enslavement than any other.

The Jamaican economy, more than any other, at a critical moment in your nation's economic development, fuelled its sustainable growth. Britain as a result became great and Jamaica has remained the poorer. Jamaica now calls upon Britain to reciprocate, not in the context of crime and compulsion, but in friendly, mutually respected dialogue. It is an offer of opportunity written not in the blood of our enslaved ancestors but in the imagination of their offspring and progeny who have survived the holocaust and are looking to the future for salvation.

As a man, a humane man, with responsibility for the humanity of your nation we call upon you to rise to this moment as you realise and internalise that without the wealth made by your enslaving ancestors, right here in our Jamaica, we would not be enchained together, today, called upon to treat with this shared past.

Successive governments in this land, a place still groaning under the weight of this injustice,  have done well during the fifty three years of sovereignty, but the burden of the inherited mess from slavery and colonialism has overwhelmed many of our best efforts. You owe it to us as you return here to communicate a commitment to reparatory justice that will enable your nation to play its part in cleaning up this monumental mess of Empire. We ask not for handouts or any such acts of indecent submission. We merely ask that you acknowledge responsibility for your share of this situation and move to contribute in a joint programme of rehabilitation and renewal. The continuing suffering of our people, Sir, is as much your nation's duty to alleviate as it is ours to resolve in steadfast acts of self-responsibility.

In the four corners of Kingston there are already whispers that your strategy will be to seek a way to weaken Jamaica's commitment to Caribbean reparations in a singular act of gift granting designed to divide and rule and to subvert the regional discourse and movement.  You Sir, are a Briton, not a Greek, and we have no reason therefore to fear what you bear. But we do ask that you recall that the Caribbean region was once your nation's unified field for taxation, theatre for warfare, and space for the implementation of trade law and policy. Seeing the region as one is therefore in your diplomatic DNA; and this we urge that you remember.

Finally Sir, I write from the perspective of an academic bred in Britain and reared in the University of the West Indies, an institution your nation planted in Kingston in 1948 with a small but significant grant. It would honour us to show you what we the people have reaped from this single seed. We have created a flourishing federal farm that now cultivates the minds of millions, a symbol of our collective determination to take seriously our self-responsibility and to place our dignity as an emerging nation before any other consideration. From this singular seed we have grown one of the finest universities in the world crafted by our hands and inspired by our dreams.

This story, Sir, can guide your reflection as to who we are and what we expect of you.  We urge you then, in this light, to indicate your nation's willingness to work towards a reparatory justice programme for the Caribbean, with a view to allowing us to come together in order to come to closure, put this terrible past behind us, and to leave it to us to continue the making of our future.

Kindest regards,
Hilary Beckles,
Chairman, CARICOM Reparations Commission.

The reparations proposal as taken from a transcript of a speech given by Prof. Sir Hilary Beckles before the British House of Commons in the summer of 2014 can be viewed here: https://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/news/releases/release.asp?id=514

#InTheBrightestRed

#InTheBrightestRed (For Pompasette Magazine) Monday November 24^th, 2014, a grand jury does not indict police officer, Darren Wilson, in the shooting death of 18 year old Michael Brown in August 2014. The decision, unsurprising to many, stirred the emotions of people across the US, and the international community, sparking protests and even riots. Barbadians took to social media, as did the world, to follow the situation and voice opinion on it. #JusticeforMikeBrown and #Ferguson were popular hashtags on my timeline and newsfeed that night. Last year, Skittles, iced tea, hoodies and blacked out profile photos signified solidarity with Trayvon Martin. Sadly though, I cannot recall this level of solidarity with, or outcry for, I’Akobi Maloney, or indeed anyone that may have suffered similar injustices in Barbados.
Why is there this disparity in responses? Why are we so vocal and active, online at least, about the tragedies and injustices in America, but so muted – indifferent even – to local injustices that are similar?

To begin, it is always easier to judge the faults of others and avoid your own. The bigger the fault, the more we judge. The more we expect from the party at fault, the more intensely we react. The USA has painted itself as the defender of freedom and democracy in the world. The President of the United States is often referred to as “The Leader of the Free World”, so terrible events like Mike Brown occurring on their soil create an opening for foreign critics, giving license to cast a self-righteous side-eye in their direction. However, to turn that critical eye inward is not an easy nor desirable task. The required introspection makes us uncomfortable and admitting that we too can be host to great injustices is a confession that we may not be quite ready to make. #sipstea

I’Akobi’s case did not experience the same level of media attention as the Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown cases did. This is not to say that it was not covered by the local media, it was, but we live in a time when the lion’s share of media consumption by Barbadians, especially by the social media generation, is American. Trayvon and Michael received coverage on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, Comedy Central, in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and a host of other television, radio, print and online media outlets, all of which have huge social media presences and followings. How does this affect Barbadian sentiment and response? The listed media outlets are constant and consistent with their output. They take, or create, trending topics and have hours of time dedicated to them specifically. Interviews with experts and officials, family members and friends, animated charts and graphs; these things and more come with this “American media package.” The result of this bombardment is that issues are always in your face, you become increasingly engaged, meaning, more tweets, more statuses, ie. a greater response. I’Akobi did not have the benefit of this. By contrast, I’Akobi was covered by the two local print newspapers, the one television station’s news hour, and a few popular local blogs.
They went beyond viral, I’Akobi did not.

Spoken word artist, Adrian Green, in a piece titled “Too Small” notes that the size of Barbados, and the intimate nature of Bajan life is a factor in the differences in reactions to the Trayvon and I’Akobi incidents. It is a valid observation. I did not know I’Akobi personally, but I know his brother, and many people that were close to him. I was awoken by a phone call from a friend, on the night he died, who was so distraught that she could not speak clearly. On the flip, I know police officers, and I know people that know officers involved in the incident. The intimacy and connectedness of small societies can be very intimidating for people, and this can inhibit even the most passive forms of protest against perceived injustices. We feel less afraid of personal repercussions when engaging international topics, but are much more self-aware and self-censoring when approaching local topics. Within the confines of 166 square miles there is the very real chance of actually coming face to face with the person(s) that you are protesting against, and that is an uneasy thought for most of us.

Finally, being a population of mostly black people, able to identify with the racial history and dynamic of the US, it is easy to identify with Mike and Trayvon because #itcouldhavebeenme. For this same reason it is a bit harder for most to identify with I’Akobi. There is no clear racial element to make I’Akobi’s cause “trendy.” Consider this though, just as most white Americans will be unable to understand what it is like to be #livingwhileblack in America, most Barbadians will not understand what it is like to be a Rasta living in Barbados; draw your parallels.

*As written for, and submitted to Pompasette Magazine.


Click here for the trailer to the documentary,  "The I'Akobi Conspiracy: From a Mother's Perspective"

Free-Dumb

Slaves no more!
we are free!
Free!
Free?
Are we? - Carson Howard

Is there any justification for believing that human beings are free? Will sweet freedom come my way?

Donkey before the cart, first things first, before attempting to find justification for human beings being free, if there is any justification to be found, we are going to have to sort out what we mean by ‘free human being.’ We will define such a human being as one who possesses free will, and, just to cover all bases, free will will be defined as the ability to consciously and independently make choices, decisions and commit actions without prior cause, coercion and/or divine intervention, in other words do as you please without being told, otherwise prompted, the divine intervention of God/god(s) or without some thing in late or recent, social or personal, history influencing the action/deed.

 T_*

Free will is a topic which has plagued the minds of man from time immemorial across many disciplines: philosophy, theology, physics (theoretical) and more. What is it about freedom and by extension the free will of human beings that has caused such constant rumination and discussion?

The essence of human freedom is the fundamental problem of philosophy and therefore the question about human beings being free is the fundamental question of philosophy.¹ - Martin Heidegger

Being an amateur philosophe I will (try to) get all philosophical and shit. When speaking about free will one will inevitably hear about Determinism and determinist, if not by that fancy academic term, by the points of their arguments and the tenets beliefs which are, the actions and thoughts of a person are not freely created or committed but are predetermined by various factors ranging from that persons socialisation, their genetic inheritance or socio-biological makeup and environment and education, and politics, etc. There are two types of these determinist people; hard determinist, who believe completely in predestination and that no person can therefore be held morally accountable for any deeds he or she commits, good or bad. The second type are the soft determinist who believe that there is some compatibility with determinism and free will, manifested in acts of compulsion, consent and intent < which I think is like those choose-your-ending type books that were popular sometime ago, the story is written your choices are limited to a set of predetermined outcomes ( I could be wrong; never read one of those books).

There is no doubt that the average human being believes in free will, our belief in our own free will is necessary to our very (structured and defined social paradigm of an) existence; this is what we have been led to believe, here in the “civilised west”. From the liberal, anti-establishment, rebels (Occupy this and that) to the most traditional and conservative of persons are firmly rooted in the free-will paradigm. Capitalism, and democracy are based on human beings having free will; they need it to function really. The ‘American Dream’, one of the most powerful driving forces of the American way of life, is based on the concept of human free will. Democracy, the socio-political system wherein each individual is allowed to offer themselves to lead their country, the system wherein each individual has the choice to choose whom among those, who, by choice, offered themselves, should be allowed to govern over them and their country. Democratic countries are the ones where there is freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association and the list of “freedoms” goes on. Freedom and choice are the core components of democracy, therefore the free will of its citizens is not just accepted as existent but a right inherently granted (btw if something is granted to you, it can be taken from you - just saying).

Even cultures/religions with predestination as a main philosophical tenet free will still manages to somehow creep in. Indian culture and the philosophy karma is an example of this. Karma is the idea that actions or deeds committed and their effects create the experiences of the future, present and the past, basically it is a cause and effect situation. The concept of karma found in Indian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, makes room for the modifying of one’s karma by deeds one commits and therefore one can freely will to change one’s karma and change one’s destiny. So free will is all over the place, but is it a justifiable belief?

As we said earlier, determinist arguments for predestination include a person’s upbringing and socialisation and genetic inheritance as a type of mold or foundation for the type of person that that person will eventually develop into.

“At the point where you can predict my acts directly from my state of health or my social conditioning or what I have just eaten, you can stop treating me as a free being. And if you choose to predict them in this way, rather than trying to make sense of my point of view, then you are choosing to not treat me as free. You are merely regarding me as a thing, that is, as part of the surrounding process.”² -Mary Midgley

Predictions are made all of the time about human behaviour. Poor and underprivileged people will usually be the ones most likely to turn to a life of crime. The probability of an African American male from a poor, urban background ending up, undereducated and incarcerated in the American penal system is higher than that of an African American from a middle class, suburban background and is definitely higher than those for white Americans from any social bracket. You always hear about the child who accidentally killed or seriously injured his/her, usually his, friend after trying out some wrestling technique that they would have witnessed on television. It would seem then that certain factors, once in place would lead to a predictable outcome. From this angle life seems like a mango seed; plant the mango seed and you will get a mango tree, no matter how much you wish for mahogany, mango will bear.

So what about those folks who appear to react differently to those in similar environs or develop differently to those with a similar socialisation like the person who gets out of the ghetto and gets some money and moves into the suburbs, or the person raised among thieves but develops into a pious person, is this where free will comes into play? Soft determinist would claim yes and that this exemplifies the free will of human beings. Where one makes the conscious choice to do something one is not expected to do is the execution of free will. The hard determinist however will continue to say no and to argue that there was something in this person’s life, other than the visibly obvious, that would have determined their change. They would claim that while yes the person was raised by thieves that their social interaction outside of the thieves that raised them would have lead to their religious development or that maybe by seeing the negative effects of thieving on the people who raised them constantly hiding from authorities or constantly being arrested would have lead them to act differently. This argument by the hard determinist does however present room for a choice to be made by that person; whether to grow into a thief or to move away from it because of what they would have seen or experienced elsewhere. Even within Capitalism, where competition and freedom of choice for the consumer is needed, there is an element of predictability. The way products are marketed, the location of product sources like stores, are all dependent on the predictability of human behaviour.


In religion [read Christianity], the concept of seeking God and the kingdom of God is one which requires human freedom. According to Heidegger, freedom is independence from nature, meaning that human action is not caused primarily by the natural process. Heidegger also goes on to say that since freedom is independence from nature then it must also be independence from God and autonomy in relation to God. In this autonomy one can then develop a relationship with God, wherein one seeks God and acknowledges God.³


Is there any justification for human beings being free? Yes. On an average day, for the average person what determines what we eat? What makes us change our minds in the canteen line to have rice as opposed to the pie we were craving, there are no health issues for this person, no dietary problems, no bio-physical problems like stomach gas or anything to initiate that change from pie to rice, nothing except our own free will to choose, our compulsion. “I do not feel like going to the gym today.” Why not? There is no fatigue, no work to be done, no reason for not wanting to go to the gym other than because I do not feel the need to go. Modern human civilizations are based on the concept of free will and its existence, especially western, "developed" (that is another story) countries like the USA. The American dream was mentioned earlier and the American dream is the belief in a freedom that allows a person to achieve what they want to by hard work, by luck, by ‘being all that they can be”, regardless of one’s disposition at birth. The American dream is the idea that one can better one’s self and those around you if you try hard enough to; simply put the American dream is Hope. Hope is the belief in a positive outcome to the unlikeliest of circumstances moderated by the realization that nothing is certain.⁴ The democratic nations and institutions across the world offer hope, hope that one can be part of something bigger, hope that one can participate in the governance of one’s country, i.e. one can make the rules for him or herself. The poor, underprivileged, the oppressed, the minorities of a country are all promised hope and this hope is manifested in their choices, in their will to want better and to live above the expectations/predictions their society prescribes for them. Free will is justified because it is the core of civilisation as we currently know it, even the Buddhist can change their karma by good deeds.


So yeh free will justifiably exists, but it sure is not independent to predestination. Most human actions are the reactions to actions previously committed or events gone before, free will manifests itself when the course of action is not clearly defined or more than one course of action presents itself like the person raised by thieves but experienced a way of life outside of their upbringing. While free will exists and is justifiable, the question as to human freedom remains. For example, while people are “free” to choose a leader for their country, the felon has no such freedom, and while democracy promises a plethora of freedoms, like the freedom of speech, one is not free to slander a person. Any time you compromise these freedoms in the manners stated you are liable to be giving up your freedom within society to be punished ranging from fines and services, to incarceration and execution. So, yes it is justifiable to believe in human freedom, but as for it actually existing I beg to differ. As I commented to a friend sometime back, a dog on a plantation is no freer than a dog restricted to an apartment, it is just less restricted. Freedom within a parameter is not freedom. I would be so bold to even question if freedom exists at all? From a Kantian perspective even God, whom or whatever it may be, is duty bound to maintain this world and the natural order of things; what ever that is and if you believe in that sort of thing.





1. Martin Heidegger, The essence of human freedom: an introduction to philosophy (London. New York: Continuum, 2002)203.

2. Mary Midgley, The Ethical Primate; Humans, Freedom and Morality (London. New York: Routledge, 1994)164.

3. Martin Heidegger (2002) 4-5

4. David Straker, http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/hope.htm (Syque, 2002-2008).

StrangeRasta is now on twitter so look up there above the toolbar ^ and follow me on twitter. New blogs will now be posted via Twitter along with Facebook and Blogger. More ways to connect with the strange one. A Facebook page soon to come so look out. The Facebook page is here! http://www.facebook.com/StrangeRasta

Help Temple Yard and the Rastafari Community

 

SPECIAL POST. TEMPLE YARD FIRE RELIEF FUND.

Next regular post coming this weekend. Look out for it.

Almost a month ago, on Saturday 9th of April 2011, the Rastafari business community known as Temple Yard was affected by a fire. This fire destroyed 10 shops, but had and continues to have an effect on the entire community, both from a business point of view and also from a personal/emotional level. 

Some of the nation's treasures, in the forms of sculptures and other art works, have been damaged and lost in this blaze. There will be donation boxes and sponsor sheets in the public circle from next week so keep an eye out for them. I ask that we try to make donations to this community which is not just a part of Rastafari life, but Barbadian life as well.

Temple Yard has had a trying past, from the days at Rockers Alley through all the re-locations to its current location at the edge of Bridgetown. This fire is just another chapter in this history, with help from the general public Temple Yard can overcome this latest setback and get back on track.

I give thanks in the early for any help given to Temple Yard in this time.

For more information keep checking Our Afrikan Heritage Magazine on their Facebook page, or on their website.
Ras ILive can be contacted at 232-1222