TT committee chairman: 'Decolonising our minds' on reparations

IN 1985, under the George Chambers administration, TT became the first country in the world to commemorate the end of African enslavement by marking Emancipation Day with a public holiday.
Although a holiday was not officially recognised, every year from 1838 onward, formerly enslaved Africans and their offspring would neglect work and celebrate with church services, drumming, dancing and fetes on August 1.

This year marks the first that TT has celebrated the occasion under its new name, African Emancipation Day. The Prime Minister announced that change on April 18, 2023. It comes during the last year of the UN-sanctioned International Decade for People of African Descent, which ends in December. The UN said the decade was proclaimed to “strengthen national, regional and international co-operation in relation to the full enjoyment of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights by people of African descent.”

As for reparations, the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC), set up in 2013 at a Caricom heads of government meeting, said its goal is to “establish the moral, ethical and legal case for the payment of reparations by the Governments of all the former colonial powers and the relevant institutions of those countries, to the nations and people of the Caribbean community for the crimes against humanity of native genocide, the transatlantic slave trade and a racialised system of chattel slavery.”

The commission outlined a ten-point plan in its pursuit of justice from 11 European countries – France, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and Norway as these are the countries that colonised the Caribbean. Some of the points include a full and formal apology, indigenous peoples’ development programmes, the enhancement of historical and cultural knowledge exchanges and education programmes.

Newsday spoke to the chairman of TT’s National Committee on Reparations (NCR), Dr Claudius Fergus, to find out more about the committee’s approach to reparations and the strides it has made thus far. Fergus joined UWI’s St Augustine campus as a history tutor in 1987 and became a full-time lecturer in African history in 2002.

The NCR was appointed by Cabinet in 2014, and Fergus became a member in its first year. But he said the government did not take it seriously until a new chairman was elected in 2021.

“There was not the kind of support (that it needed) from late 2015, but the committee continued to function until a new chairman was announced in 2021.”

Despite this, the committee continued to function and liaised regularly with the CRC.

The 11-person committee, which includes Caricom ambassador Jennifer Marchand, executive director of the Emancipation Support Committee Zakiya Uzoma-Wadada and chief of the First Peoples Ricardo Bharath-Hernandez, meets once a month. A management sub-committee meets weekly to “ensure decisions made at monthly meetings are actioned.”

Fergus said the committee, which falls under the Ministry of Caricom and Foreign Affairs, is now fully supported by and has an assigned budget from the ministry.
Concerning the THA, Fergus added, “The secretary of the Division of Culture, Arts and Antiquities, Tasha Burris, is very much on board with us. We are going to be working with her in promoting reparations in Tobago.”

The support given to the committee comes in the form of covering the expenses for the initiatives it plans and engages in.

“We have not received one cent from (the) Government and nobody (on the board) has demanded payment either.” He explained that board members do not receive cash payments or stipends, considering it unethical.

Fergus said very little had been done during the UN decade and “the governments of the region did not take it as seriously as they should have.” Fergus explained the decade was just a declaration that resulted in the formation of a body (the CRC) that liaised with the UN, but a permanent forum “is the agency that was lacking to implement any serious measures” towards reparations. Realising this, the CRC petitioned the UN for a new forum, which was set up about two years ago.

“Fortunately for us, this year we have two things to our advantage. One, the president of the UN (General Assembly) is a Trinidadian, Ambassador Francis. Also the president of the permanent forum is a St Lucian.” Fergus said the success of some points from the CRC’s ten-point plan is also dependent on governments, institutions and activists in the region. The NCR is focusing on community engagement and public education. “We cannot depend on the European governments and institutions to give us anything. The committee understands that education on the topic of reparations is vital in propelling the narrative forward. The successors of the oppressors want to control the narrative of reparations and we should not allow that at all.”

Fergus added the committee wants to facilitate “psychological rehabilitation” through its educational initiatives, as “slavery created an inferiority complex in African people.

“We are talking about decolonising our minds,” he added.

The committee held a community meeting in Pembroke, Tobago, and its next community-engagement initiative will be with young people in La Brea.

It also plans to take the topic of reparations to primary and secondary schools, as it is currently only taught as part of the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination syllabus, which is “just a drop in the bucket.”

It also sees music as an effective method of communication and hopes to engage the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians’ Organisation (TUCO) to include a reparations category in next year’s school and national calypso competitions.

Another goal of the NCR is to mobilise the youths of the Caribbean with hopes of creating a regional youth reparations movement that the NCR will guide.

Fergus said the First Peoples must also be considered when discussing reparations as they were also subject to enslavement and genocide, not just Africans. Concerning this, the committee plans on demanding an apology from Spain.

“The genocide we talk about didn’t happen under Britain, it happened under Spain. The NCR will demand an apology from the government of Spain for the centuries of exploitation of the First Peoples.”

He added the committee will engage the Catholic church for an apology, as it was at “the centre of the encomienda system.”

This was a form of forced and unpaid labour enforced by the authorities in the colonies of the Spanish Empire.