Decolonizing The Mind

General Editors: Sandew Hira and Stephen Small

The aim of science is the production of knowledge. But colonialism has had a
deep impact on the development of science. Western colonialism, conquest and
domination have defined the way in which the European founders of science
regarded social reality in the world, specifically the relationship between Europe
and the rest of the world. Their perspectives have been translated into textbooks
in the educational system and continue to influence the policies of governments
and non-governmental bodies.
Currently there is a growing critique of Eurocentric knowledge production in
different parts of the world. This critique is rooted in the assessment that there is a
fundamental bias in Eurocentric knowledge production. It is also founded in the
work of social movements that fight against the legacy of colonialism, specifically
the fight for decolonizing the mind.
Decolonizing The Mind (DTM) is a school in science that argues that scien-
tific knowledge has been colonized. DTM has three lines of work:
1. A critique of how the legacy of colonialism is manifested in scientific coloni-
alism. Scientific colonialism is the branch of ideology that presents colonial
views as science.
2. An alternative analysis of scientific colonialism that is rooted in the expe-
riences of the colonized people.
3. A translation of decolonial knowledge into policies for change and the strug-
gle against the legacy of colonialism.
This series is devoted to the development of critique of and alternative for Eurocentric
knowledge production and the translation of this knowledge in policies for social
transformation.
Titles in the series Decolonizing The Mind
1 Stephen Small/Sandew Hira: 20 Questions and Answers on Dutch Slavery
and its Legacy
2. Sandew Hira: 20 Questions and Answers on Reparations for Colonialism

© Amrit Publishers 2014 The Hague

ISBN 978-90-74897-80-8
Cover design: Studio Daniëls

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
 20 Questions and Answers
on Reparations for Colonialism

Sandew Hira

Amrit Publishers
Contents
Introduction 5
1 What are reparations? 6
2 What can we learn from reparations for the Jewish Holocaust? 9
3 Why pay reparations for colonialism? 14
4 Who benefited from colonialism? 18
5 Who suffered from colonialism? 21
6 How did enslaved people argue for reparations? 25
7 Why and how did the colonizer get reparations for colonialism? 28
8 Is there a debt that Black people should pay? 31
9 What are the economic arguments on reparations? 34
10 What are the legal arguments on reparations? 37
11 What are the political arguments on reparations? 40
12 What are the moral arguments on reparations? 44
13 What arrangements can be made for reparations? 48
14 What are the differences and similarities between reparations
in the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean? 52
15 What is the significance of gender in reparations? 55
16 What is the role of law in reparations? 60
17 What is the role of apologies and truth commissions? 63
18 What is the role of international institutions in reparations? 67
19 How is the struggle for reparations organized? 71
20 How much money should be paid for reparations? 74
Further reading 80
Introduction
This book is a contribution to a debate about an important legacy of slavery
and colonialism, the debate on reparations. In the format of 20 Questions and
Answers it addresses the key issues in the debate on reparations. The book is not
a report on the current state of research on the subject. It is a critical appraisal
of the arguments used in discussions on this topic from a decolonial perspec-
tive. In this perspective slavery and colonialism are regarded as crimes against
humanity. In my analysis of reparations I bring together the relevant facts and
insights while positioning the debate on reparations as part of the continuing
struggle to decolonize the mind. For a long time the topic of reparations was a
taboo subject in the dominant discourse on slavery and colonialism and to a
certain extent it remains taboo. However, critics of the movement for reparati-
ons are now joining the debate and in doing so are breaking the taboo on the
subject.
The book is intended as material for debate and discussion on reparations.
It deals with reparations not only for trans-Atlantic slavery but also for coloni-
alism in general. In some sections the discussion focuses specifically on slavery
because many propositions and arguments are related specifically to slavery.
The last chapter presents a new economic model to perform calculations
for reparations. These calculations are based on a mathematical model and a
computer program that performed simulations to reveal the damage that the
colonizers have caused and the impact on the wealth of the colonizer nations.
The book draws on material from a larger study on decolonizing­
the mind that will appear in the fall of 2015 with the title
Decolonizing­ The Mind – a fundamental critique of and alternative to scientific
colonialism.
I have omitted footnote references from the published text because the series
targets a larger audience than just academics.
I would like to express my gratitude to Stephen Small who in the process of
writing provided me with critical insights and contributed to a more profound
assessment of the major topics in the book. Verene Shephard, Patrick Delices
and Kenneth Donau have taken the time to read the whole manuscript and gave
me much needed feedback.
My wife Sitla Bonoo, my daughter Pravini and my son Amrit are my bedrock
of love from which I can do the things I like in life such as writing this book.

5
1 What are reparations?

Definitions
There are two ways of defining reparations. One is to look at the linguistic
meaning of the word. The other is to look at the actual use of the word in social
and political discourses.
For the first type of definition I use Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. It
gives two meanings to the word reparations.
The first definition describes reparations as “compensation in money or ma-
terials payable by a defeated nation for damages to or expenditures sustained by
another nation as a result of hostilities with the defeated nation”. In this definition
reparations are the outcome of a war between nations. The parties that are in-
volved in reparations are nations. Reparation is paid by the nation that has lost
the war to the nation that has won the war. There are three rationales behind
reparations. The first rationale is to repair of the damage caused by the war. The
second rationale is the punishment of the defeated nation. The third rationale is
the amount due for the costs of keeping an occupying army and administration
in the defeated nation to ensure payment of reparations.
Examples of this type of reparations include the Napoleonic Wars (1803-
1815), the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), World War I (1914-1918) and
World War II (1939-1945). The Napoleonic Wars were concluded with a peace
treaty between France on the one hand and Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia
on the other. The French had to pay a total of 1,863.5 million francs that was fi-
nanced by taxes and loans from banks in London, Amsterdam and Hamburg. In
1871, the French had to pay an indemnity of 5 billion francs to Germany. After
World War I, the Allies forced Germany to pay reparations of 132 billion gold
marks or US $ 33 billion. After World War II, reparations payments were impo-
sed on the Axis powers. Germany paid US $ 5,277 million, of which US $ 839
million was reserved for Israel (which did not exist at the time of the war) and
Jewish individuals. Italy paid US $ 366 million to Greece, Yugoslavia, France,
and Ethiopia. Japan had to pay US $ 1,486 million to Burma, the Philippines,
Indonesia, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and South Korea.
The second definition of Merriam-Webster for reparations is “something that
is done or given as a way of correcting a mistake that you have made or a bad situ-
ation that you have caused; the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving
satisfaction for a wrong or injury.” This definition is about repairing a wrong for
6
an individual or a group.

The meaning of reparations in social and political discourse

The meaning of the word reparations in social and political discourse varies
for different discourses. Some narratives use the word reparations for financial
payments for harm that has been done in the past to a group of individuals or a
community. Others describe reparations as redistribution of stolen wealth (for
example land) that was taken from a group or community. A third discourse
describes reparations as programs to foster racial harmony. Finally, there is a
discourse that defines reparations as programs to fight against racism (global
white supremacy) as a legacy of slavery.

Reparations in the context of Decolonizing The Mind (DTM)

Decolonizing The Mind (DTM) is a school in science that argues that scien-
tific knowledge is biased due to the influence of colonialism and its legacy. In
the theoretical framework of DTM I analyze colonialism and its legacy in five
dimensions. Each dimension has a reparations aspect.
1. Geography: the rise of a global system where nations, states and people have
been dislocated and rearranged in global space. In this process land has been
colonized by the colonizer (companies, individuals, states) without payment
of rent. In the DTM framework payment of rent by the colonizer is part of
reparations.
2. Economy: the creation of a capitalist world economy in which the economic
system of the colonized world creates wealth for the world of the colonizer.
In the process the colonizer stole minerals and other goods without payment
while forcing people to work for free (slavery) or for little money (underpay-
ment). In this dimension of the DTM framework, reparations means restitu-
tion by the colonizer and their heirs of the value of the stolen goods and the
value of unpaid or underpaid labor. Colonialism contributed to the wealth
of the colonizer nations, but the colonized nations did not receive any com-
pensation for this contribution. Reparations in this context mean that the
colonizers nations should pay for a “fair share” in the wealth creation.
3. Social relations: the use of color, race, ethnicity and gender as organizing
principles of social relations and the organization of a social stratum of col-
laborators to ensure western domination. Under colonialism racism was
institutionalized as a system in which superiority/inferiority was linked to
color and ethnicity. Colonized women bore most of the brunt of colonia-
7
 lism, because they were not only exploited for their labor but also for their
sexuality. Repara­tions require the creation of institutions and practices that
combat racism and repair the legacy of colonialism.
4. Politics: the political and administrative control of the colonized world
through direct and indirect mechanisms such as governmental administra-
tion, police, army, courts and the judicial system. This control was exercised
in different ways during various historical periods. The purpose was to keep
the colonized in check. Reparations in this context mean identifying the po-
litical institutions that keep the colonized people and their heirs in check
while fighting to dismantle these institutions. This is a method of repairing
the continuing injustice of the political systems that were inherited from co-
lonialism.
5. Cultural and mental life: the creation of mechanisms of colonizing the mind
in religion, education and culture. Reparations in this context mean the de-
tection and analysis of the mechanisms of colonizing the mind and the deve-
lopment of mechanisms to decolonize the mind (which include, for example,
repairing the distortions and lies about slavery and colonialism). The colo-
nization of the mind has created a morality in which human suffering is not
acknowledged. Acknowledgement of human suffering in this context means
that financial compensation is offered to the victims and their heirs. Repara-
tion in this regard is compensation for human suffering.

Two types of reparations

So the meaning of reparations depends on the framework of the discourse
about the nature of colonialism and its legacy.
In the DTM framework, I distinguish between two types of reparations:
The first type consists of actions and programs that are executed by the colo-
nizer and their heirs. This type of reparations involves payment of outstanding
rent, restitution of the value of stolen goods and compensation for unpaid or
underpaid labor, compensation for human suffering and repairing the mental
legacy of slavery and colonialism by supporting institutions and programs to
combat this legacy.
The second type consists of actions and programs that are executed by the
colonized and their heirs. This involves creating institutions and programs to
liberate the colonized and their heirs from mental colonialism. This is called
self-reparations because it is something that should be initiated and carried out
by the victims of colonialism and their heirs. Both types are means of repairing
past injustice.
8
2 What can we learn from reparations for
the Jewish Holocaust?

Introduction
The Jewish holocaust is a well known example of a crime against humanity
where reparations have been paid and are still being paid to Jewish organiza­
tions, individuals and the government of Israel. The lessons from their expe-
rience should be taken into account for the movement for reparations for sla-
very and colonialism.

Lesson 1: be well prepared

Even before World War II had ended, Jewish organizations began formula-
ting demands for reparations. In November 1944, the World Jewish Congress
convened a War Emergency Conference that was attended by the major Jewish
organizations. The conference was well prepared with a detailed study of the
extent of Nazi depredation and looting of Jewish assets (then estimated as US$
8 billion). It concluded with concrete proposals on how to secure reparations
for individuals and the Jewish people as a collective.

Lesson 2: the counterpart for negotiation can be governments and

non-governmental organizations
Although Germans had killed Jews in the Holocaust, the Zionists did not
demand a homeland in Berlin or Frankfurt. Instead they occupied land from
people who had no part in the Holocaust: Palestine. In December 1951, six
years after the end of World War II and three years after the establishment of
the State of Israel in occupied Palestine, West German Chancellor Konrad Ade-
nauer proclaimed to Parliament that West Germany must address demands for
material reparations. West Germany would negotiate with two parties: the state
of Israel and the newly formed Conference on Jewish Claims Against Germany
(or ‘Claims Conference’), an umbrella organization of various Western Jewish
organizations. The negotiations started in March 1952 in the Dutch town of
Wassenaar and concluded in September 1952 with an agreement that featured
a lump-sum payment of DM 3 billion (US $ 715 million) to Israel (mainly in
the form of goods) and DM 450 million (US $ 107 million) to individuals via
9
the Claims Conference as compensation for human suffering and restitution of
stolen goods.

Lesson 3: morals and pragmatism can replace legal battles

The victims of the Holocaust were not in a position to enforce reparations.
Reparations were not the result of a law suit against Germany. There was no
army that forced Adenauer to make his statement in 1951. And the idea of pay-
ing reparations to Jews was not commonly accepted in Germany at that time.
According to polls during those times, many Germans considered themselves
victims of the war. They thought that the first recipients of support should be:
German widows and orphans, people who had suffered material losses, the re-
fugees and people who had been expelled from the country and relatives of
people executed because of their participation in the attempt on Hitler’s life.
Apart from the morality regarding German responsibility for the Jewish Holo-
caust Adenauer saw the pragmatic advantages: reconciliation and integration
with the West included getting aid from the Marshall plan. It worked, and Ger-
man opposition faded away. It did not hurt that the money for Israel was trans-
ferred to a bank account at the German Bundesbank which was solely used to
buy goods for Israel that were produced in Germany.

Lesson 4: law-suits helps

In 1996, victims of the Jewish Holocaust filed law-suits in federal courts in
the USA against Swiss financial institutions that collaborated with the Nazis by
retaining or concealing Jewish assets and by accepting and laundering profits of
slave labor in the concentration camps. The judge did not have to issue a ruling
because the parties reached an agreement to settle the law-suit for US $ 1.25 bil-
lion in exchange for stopping further litigation.

Lesson 5: those who argue against accepting blood money will accept it
In 1951, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, had a big debate whether to
accept the agreement for reparations with Germany. Some expressed the view
that accepting “blood money” would dishonor the victims of the Holocaust.
The condition that Israel should buy German goods with the money from the
reparation funds meant that the former perpetrators of the crime of the Holo-
caust would benefit from the victims actions. The Jewish Holy Scripture teaches
that a criminal should not profit from his crime. Furthermore, according to the
10
Talmud, one must not rob the robber. There were demonstrations outside the
Knesset, but the parliament accepted the agreement by a margin of 61-50. Once
the money began flowing, the opposition gladly accepted it. There has been no
significant movement after the vote, neither in Israel nor in the Jewish world
community, in favor of returning the blood money.

Lesson 6: making reparations work is very simple

Some people make simple matters complex. But in an era in which human-
kind can send people to the moon it is simple to create solutions for a problem
like reparations. All the major questions that are asked about reparations for sla-
very and colonialism have been answered by the experience of the reparations
for the Jewish Holocaust. Some examples:
What is the legal basis for paying reparations? None, it is a question of mora-
lity, civilization and political will.
Who should pay reparations? Two parties: the government and companies
(see the example of Swiss financial institutions).
What if the perpetrators are already dead? It is not about individuals, but
about communities. The community as the heirs of the victims is not dead and
the state and community as the heirs of the perpetrators are still alive.
What if the receiving government is corrupt? The rights of the people are not
related to the corruption of the government in the Holocaust reparations. Accor-
ding to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Israel ranks 24 out of 37 OECD members in its corruption index. Denmark and
Finland are the least corrupt and rank first and second. Israel belongs to the
most corrupt nations and is on the bottom list. It does not prevent Germany to
still pay for reparations today.
What about the Jews living in Germany and paying taxes? There have been no
mass demonstrations or protests of Jews in Germany to deduct their taxes from
the reparations fund. In fact, Jews in Germany can apply for money from the
reparation funds that the Claims Conference received from Germany.
Can you give reparations for the Holocaust to people who have not experien-
ced the Holocaust? Yes, you can. Israel got reparations as a country although
many people who migrated to Israel were not victims of the Holocaust. They
came from New York or London, drove the Palestinians out of their homes and
received money from Germany for the Holocaust. They continue to enjoy the
benefits today; and under the terms of the reparations agreement not only Nazi
victims but also their “heirs” were eligible for compensation.
Is it not too much stress to contact all Jewish individuals around the world
11
for reparations? No, it is not, especially in the era of digital communication
systems and internet telecommunications networks. And even just after World
War II the job could be done. The Claims Conference operates in 75 countries
where they distribute compensation payments to individual Jews, allocate funds
for social welfare programs and support education, documentation and research
on the Holocaust. They are happy to do it with all the money they get.

Lesson 7: reparations is also about race – it is easier to get repara-

tions for whites than for blacks
Those who claim that the Jewish Holocaust ranked first in the crimes against
humanity based their argument on the motives for destroying human lives. In
the case of the Black Holocaust (trans-Atlantic trade and slavery or the Maafa),
the primary motive was greed and in the case of the Jewish Holocaust, the pri-
mary motive was racial hate. In their argument if you kill someone because of
racial hate it is much worse than if you kill him or her because of greed. That
is why reparations are justified for the Jewish Holocaust, but not for the Black
Holocaust.
However, even within this argument, there is an inconsistency. Between 1904
and 1908 Germany committed genocide on the Herero people in their former
colony in South-West Africa. The Germans publicly proclaimed an exterminati-
on order (Vernichtungsbefehl) on October 2, 1904 and specifically made known
to the Herero in their own language that they were going to be exterminated.
Between 60,000 and 100,000 people, many of whom were women and children,
were executed by German troops in various ways or were forced into the desert
to die of starvation and thirst or by drinking water at water wells poisoned by
the Germans. Despite frequent calls from the descendants of the Herero victims
to the German government to pay reparations as in the case of the Jewish Holo-
caust, Germany refused to pay. In 2001 the Herero People´s Reparation Corpo-
ration filed a law suit against German corporations and another one against the
German state, but to no avail. The Hereros are black and the Jews are white.

Lesson 8: once you educate and civilize people, then the sky is the limit
“Who could have foreseen during those first negotiations that the Claims Con-
ference would still be negotiating on behalf of Nazi victims more than 60 years
later?”, wrote the Claims Conference at their 60th anniversary in 2012. The ori-
ginal agreement was the payment of US $ 822 million in the period 1952-1965
as reparations for the Jewish Holocaust. In 2012, the German government had
12
paid more than US $ 70 billion since 1952 and they are still paying (85 times
the original amount). The sky is the limit. The Jewish community has come up
with numerous ideas for reparation: a pension for people who were interned in
a concentration camp or ghetto, or performed forced labor, or lived in hiding or
under false identity; a one-time payment for people who fled Nazi invasion or
lived under curfew; a hardship fund; social services for Nazi victims; compen-
sation programs; funds to support Holocaust education, documentation and
research, etc. The Claims Conference has annual negotiations with the German
government. In 2013, Germany decided to pay another US $ 1 billion (more
than the original amount reserved for Israel and the Claims conference for the
period 1952-1965) for the care of aging Holocaust survivors between 2014 and
2017. Have the Germans gone mad? No, they have been educated and civilized.
Between 1945 and 1970, Israel and the world Jewish community built enough
educational institutions (research centers and museums) while producing mass
information (books, films, documentaries, textbooks, etc.) to educate the world
on the fifth crime against Humanity. Measured in terms of the total number of
victims, the Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) ranks fifth in the list of crimes
against humanity after trans-Atlantic slavery (200-400 million victims), the ge-
nocide of the Indigenous people of the Americas (50-75 million victims), the
Victorian famines in India and China (30-60 million victims), and the Belgian
genocide in the Congo (10 million victims). Due to the intensive information
campaign on the Holocaust, Germans believe that the Jewish Holocaust ranks
first and they are willing to continue pay reparations.
In addition to reparations from Germany the United States is a big donor to
the state of Israel. Israel gets US $ 3 billion a year from the US. Between 1948
and 2000, Israel received US $ 92 billion. The extensive and well organized in-
formation campaign regarding the Holocaust played a big role in assuring this
aid.
Some people might regard this as the most successful exploitation of victim
hood. I prefer to call it a shining example of the uneven rise of morality in Ger-
man civilization. The morals and civilized behavior were uneven because they
were correctly applied to the Jewish Holocaust, but not to the other Holocaust,
that of the black Herero people of Namibia. German morality and civilization
are racialized. They hold double standards for white and Black people.

13
3 Why pay reparations for colonialism?

The crimes of colonialism as the basis for reparations

European colonialism is different from previous forms of conquest in world
history. European colonialism was a global phenomenon that linked all the con-
tinents in the world in order to make them subservient to the interest of Euro-
pean nations and communities. In this process they committed crimes against
humanity. They committed genocide. They stole goods. They exploited and op-
pressed people all over the world. They brutalized people and violated their hu-
man rights. These crimes are the basis for the call for reparations. And in many
instances, these crimes are being committed today by European nations and the
United States.

Genocide in the Americas

In the Americas, European colonialism began with the genocide of the indi-
genous people. The Europeans stole their land. They stole gold, silver and other
minerals that belonged to the original inhabitants. They enslaved the people.
They destroyed their homes. They tried to destroy their culture and their spirit.
They brutalized them and committed atrocities.
Reparations mean paying rent for the use of the land, returning the value of
the stolen goods, paying for enslaved labor and exploitation and compensation
for human suffering.

Slavery in the Americas

On the ruins of these societies, in the Americas Europeans erected new so-
cieties based on slavery that stretched from Argentina to Venezuela, and from
Brazil to Ecuador. They populated these vast terroritories with people from Af-
rica that were kidnapped and forced to work for free in plantation labor camps
from the early morning until late at night. They were beaten if they refused to
work for free. The women were raped if they refused to have sex with their en-
slavers. Most of their children born from this rape were enslaved by their own
fathers. The women did not own their own bodies. Their bodies were owned
by their enslavers. The enslaved were forced to give up their religion, language,
culture and rights over their bodies. They were humiliated and dehumanized

14
on a daily basis. When they protested against oppression and exploitation they
were tortured and killed in the most brutal ways possible. They were made to be
chattel, non-humans.
Reparations mean paying for enslaved labor and exploitation and compen-
sation for human suffering.

After the uncivilized legal abolition of slavery in the Caribbean

After the uncivilized legal abolition of slavery by the Europeans, the oppres-
sion and exploitation of non-Europeans did not end, but continued in new forms
of colonialism. A discussion of the differences between civilized and uncivilized
legal abolition of slavery is given in chapter 12. The uncivilized abolition did
not end the ban on the freedom of expression and freedom of organization. It
did not end the abuse of human rights, especially the further period of mostly
unpaid labour via the Apprenticeship System implemented in some colonies.
The masses of Black people continued to be ruled and dominated by a racist
minority of white people. They continued to be humiliated and dehumanized
because of the color of their skin. They did not receive land to earn a living and
were marginalized to force them to sell their labor power to the white minority
at low wages.
In the British, Dutch and French colonies in the Caribbean a new form of
forced labor was introduced, the so-called indentured labor system where labo-
rers from Asia (mostly men), primarily India and China, were used to replace
enslaved Africans in the plantation labor camps. They were exploited, with wo-
men being violated, on the migrant ships. They were underpaid for their work.
They were beaten if they refused to work. They were not allowed to leave the
labor camp without a pass. They were forced to stay at one employer for at least
five years or face imprisonment.
Reparations mean paying for underpaid labor and exploitation and compen-
sation for human suffering.

After the uncivilized legal abolition of slavery in the USA

In the USA, blacks were not a majority, but an oppressed minority. After
a brief period of freedom, under the law and various amendments of the US
Consitution during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877), blacks were pushed
back into an apartheid system of subservience called Jim Crow laws. The system
forced them into underpaid positions in the economy. Blacks were not equal
before the law. They were stripped of their civil rights. They could not vote.
15
Their children could not go to the same schools as white children. They had to
sit at the back of the bus. They could not sit in the same compartment of a train
as white people. They could be lynched or hanged without a trial. They were
humiliated and dehumanized on a daily basis. It took another hundred years to
legally restore their civil rights.
Reparations mean paying for underpaid labor and exploitation and compen-
sation for human suffering.

Colonialism in Africa
In Africa, European colonialism set up a system to kidnap millions of hu-
man beings and deprive Africa of the labor force necessary to develop their own
societies. They killed millions of African people in the process of kidnapping
and transportation to the coast as they were also imprisoned in forts before they
were shipped to the Americas. Millions lost their lives during the trans-Atlantic
crossing. Europeans stole gold and other minerals as well as materials like rub-
ber from Africa. Europeans occupied Africa without paying rent for the land
they used. They committed genocide against the Herero people in Namibia and
the people of the Congo. They instituted Apartheid in South Africa and other
African countries. They exploited and oppressed African labor. They deprived
Africans of their civil and human rights.
Reparations mean paying rent for the use of the land, returning the value of
the stolen goods, paying for slave and unpaid labor and exploitation and com-
pensation for human suffering.

Colonialism in Asia and the Middle East

European invaders of Asia and the Middle East looked upon these regions
as a source of raw materials and as a market for finished goods. They occupied
these lands without paying rent. In the process of establishing their domination
they killed hundreds of thousands of people. They installed regimes of oppres-
sion and exploitation. They turned agricultural land that was used for feeding
the population into enterprises that were forced to produce for the European
markets. In doing so, they enforced systems of forced labor while benefitting
from the extraction of the people´s labor to enrich the Europeans and the in-
digenous elites in Asia and the European countries. They caused massive fami-
nes with millions of casualties by introducing capitalist market mechanisms in
agriculture.
Reparations mean paying of rent for the use of the land, paying for forced
16
labor and exploitation and compensation for human suffering.

Colonialism in Australia and New Zealand

In countries like Australia and New Zealand, European colonialism robbed
the indigenous people of their land. They mercilessly killed them when they
resisted the white invasion. They tried to destroy their culture. They enslaved
them and after enslavement made them second class citizens in their own land.
They deprived them of their human and civil rights.
Reparations mean paying rent for the use of the land, paying for forced labor
and exploitation and compensation for human suffering.

Colonialism and self-reparations

One of the most devastating and continuing effects of colonialism was the
creation of collective and individual self-hate along with an inferiority complex.
Consistent lies about the so-called “civilizing mission” of colonialism were and
still are produced and disseminated through the educational system, cultural
and religious institutions. The result was and is the mental colonialism that exi-
sts to this day. In order to repair this situation, a different kind of reparation is
needed: self-reparation.
Reparations mean repairing the psychological harm done by colonizers to
the colonized.

17
4 Who benefited from colonialism?
Immaterial benefits
Often the benefits of slavery and colonialism in the context of reparations
are discussed in terms of its material component (economics). The focus is on
individuals and companies that profited from slavery in terms of the exploita-
tion of enslaved labor and the system of slavery. The immaterial benefits are an
often neglected form of benefits.
What is often called “racism” and is sometimes called “White Privilege” is
rooted in the system of slavery and colonialism. In this racially based system
white people received social, political and psychological benefits. The social be-
nefits of access to higher positions in society were based on the color of their
skin. White people did not have to wash or iron the clothes of Black people.
They did not have to cook for Black people. The cultural benefits were based
on the fact that their culture was not destroyed but supported. They did not
lose their names nor were they forced to give up their religion. They received
all the support they wanted in expressing their culture. They had the benefit of
political power to shape their own lives. They were not excluded by the system
from political power as was the case with other races but were put in a position
not only to control their own life but to exclude others from those benefits.
The psychological benefits from the system were based on mechanisms that en-
hanced their confidence to the level that they developed a superiority complex.
They were educated in a system that promoted white supremacy and superiority
rather than white inferiority. It contributed to their self confidence and strength.
Although there are major class and gender differences within the white com-
munity and rich whites had a larger slice of the cake, white people benefited
tremendously from the colonial system.
These benefits were not limited to individuals and institutions but to com-
munities and a whole race. The benefits were not limited to men. White women
also benefited from the system. In comparison to white men they had fewer
opportunities in the social and political arena. In comparison to colonized wo-
men, they benefited infinitely more from the system.

Material benefits
The material benefits from slavery and colonialism were generated for an
entire network and not for a disconnected list of individuals and institutions.
This network was based on the process of economic exploitation. By analyzing
18
this process we are able to identify the actors in that process as the beneficiaries
of the system in different phases of its development. Take slavery for example.
We can distinguish the following processes and actors.
Colonialism started with the enslavement of the indigenous people of the
Americas. Prior to their enslavement their land was conquered and occupied.
The individuals and institutions that were the actors in this process (and got the
benefits) were first and foremost the monarchies in whose name the land was
conquered. They became the “formal” owners of the land. Some of these monar-
chies still exist. They should be targeted in the campaigns for repara­tions.
Entrepreneurs (private entrepreneurs as well as companies) started the
conquest. Francisco Pizarro who conquered the Inca Empire in Peru was an
illiterate pig breeder who extended his business to conquest. The West and East
India Companies that were set up in Britain, France, Holland and other Euro-
pean nations were private companies that often owned colonies that were ad-
ministered by the board of these companies. The directors and shareholders
have gained benefits from their enterprises. Their heirs should be targeted for
reparations.
The companies were functioning in an economic network. An important
sector is the financial sector: banks, private lenders, insurance companies. They
financed the companies that used enslaved human beings as collateral. They
insured the transport of goods and enslaved human beings. Some companies
from the days of slavery still exist in the 21st century, for example: Lehman Bro-
thers, JP Morgan Chase, Rothschilds, Barclays.
The transport sector is another important beneficiary. All companies in-
volved in building and maintaining ships were part of the system: the architects,
the suppliers of wood, nails, sails, ropes and provision as well as the captains
who were responsible for the ships.
The production sector in the colonies is a major beneficiary. This was a se-
parate economic network of its own. Plantations were built on conquered land.
The building sector constructed houses, factories, tools, canals, roads, offices
etc. Transport companies transported the goods from the plantation to the har-
bors for export.
The most important sector in the world economic system was the proces-
sing industry in Europe and the USA. A world wide trading system came into
existence where goods from the colonies were traded in staple markets or trade
centers (sugar, coffee, cotton exchange). These products were then processed
in factories into consumer products. The products were transported to retail
markets and ended up at the consumer. The whole fabric involved thousands of

19
companies and individuals that benefited along the way and were supported by
governments. The infrastructure that was built upon these economies benefi-
ted not only the entrepreneurs but also the white workers who were exploited
for their labor. Wage-earners were also oppressed and exploited. But the wealth
of their bosses created an infrastructure (economics, technology, education,
and politics) from which they also benefited substantially.
In the case of the legal abolition of slavery some scholars have identified
specific individuals and companies that got reparations for each enslaved hu-
man being at the legal abolition of slavery and published their names in data-
bases (for example in England and Holland). The family of the British prime
minister David Cameron got reparations for the loss of “human capital”. In the
future more research of this type is needed to identify individuals, companies,
institutions and their heirs that have benefited from slavery and colonialism
and the specific ways these benefits have been gained.

The Church
Christianity is now a world religion. Without colonialism this would have
been impossible. Christianity provided the ideological cloak to justify slavery
and colonialism. The first colonialists - the Spaniards - carried the cross on the
flags that were planted in the Americas. Colonialism was God´s mission. Sla-
very was the curse of Ham that justified the enslavement of Black people.
The mind of the colonized people was also colonized and Christianity was
the religious instrument in this colonization. Millions of colonized people have
been indoctrinated, cajoled or persuaded to accept Christianity as their reli­
gion thus making it one of the major world religions today. But it did not al-
ways work the way the colonizer had intended. Some resistance leaders, such as
Tula in Curacao, used Christian teachings about the equality of men to justify
the rebellion against slavery which he led in 1795.

Collaborators
A specific case of beneficiaries are the collaborators from the ranks of the
victims of colonialism. In all systems of exploitation the oppressor used mecha-
nisms of divide and rule that ensured that some sectors of the oppressed got
benefits from their collaboration with the oppressor. In chapter 12, I will deal
more extensively with this phenomenon.

20
5 Who suffered from colonialism?

The indigenous holocaust

Not all colonized people suffered in the same way at the same time and
through the same methods from western colonialism. Apart from the diffe­
rences, there are also many similarities.
The first people to suffer from western colonialism were the indigenous
people of the Americas. Before 1492, the total population the Americas was
estimated between 75 and 110 million. In a few centuries, it declined to 5%, a
tremendous decline in world history. This was the result of mass murder, wars,
enslavement and bacteriological diseases that the Europeans brought during the
conquest. The wars took place across the whole of the Americas, including the
Caribbean and resulted in the massive loss of land and lives. The Spaniards used
a method of enslavement in Hispaniola in the sixteenth century that the Belgian
colonialist would use in the Congo in the nineteenth century. In Hispaniola the
indigenous people were forced to collect a certain amount of gold every three
months. If they did not succeed, their hands were cut off so they bled to death.
In the Belgian Congo black African men were forced to collect rubber. If they
did not meet their quota the hands of their wives and children were cut off. The
Congolese Holocaust by the Belgians killed 10 million Africans.

The Black Holocaust

A consequence of the indigenous holocaust was the decimation of the popu-
lation of the Americas and the foundation of a completely new demography by
the import of forced labor from Africa and the immigration of free labor from
Europe. This led to a disaster in Africa. Africa lost a big part of her young and
industrious population as the result of massive kidnapping. At least 12 million
people were loaded in the floating prison ships for enslavement in the Ameri-
cas. Two million people lost their lives during the trans-Atlantic crossing and
hundreds of millions were born free and enslaved directly after birth in the 300-
400 years of enslavement in the Americas. For every African who left the coast
2-5 five died in Africa in the process of kidnapping, resistance and traveling to
the coast. In the Americas they were deprived of their human rights and their
culture. They were dehumanized and forced to work for free for the white en-
slavers.

21
Asia and the Victorian Holocaust
During the 18th and 19th century, European powers that became rich and pow-
erful from the exploitation of the Americas went to colonize Asia and the rest
of the world. Before the British intrusion in Asia, there were cycles of drought
due to the phenomenon of ENSO (El Niño - Southern Oscillation). The Asian
rulers of India and China had developed warning systems and took provisions
to prevent famine such as the establishment of food reserves on village levels.
British control forced Asian agriculture into a capitalist system that produced
grain for Europe and totally neglected the needs of the local population. The
result was that the droughts turned into disastrous famines that brought death
to 30-60 million people in the period 1872-1902 in Asia.
Outside the Americas other forms of oppression and exploitation were in-
troduced. In Indonesia during the mid-nineteenth century, the Dutch intro-
duced what they called the Cultivation System (“cultuurstelsel”) and the Indo-
nesians call Tanam Paksa ("Enforcement Planting"). The colonized people were
forced to devote 20% of their village land to government crops for export. The
­Nederlandsche Handelsmaatschappij (Dutch Trading Company established by
the Dutch monarchy) was the sole beneficiary of the system. They exported
products like coffee, tea, sugar and indigo to Europe for further processing. The
Indonesian people were exploited, oppressed and left impoverished while the
Dutch carried away their wealth.
In China, the British conducted two wars, called the Opium Wars (1839-
1842 and 1856-1860) to force the Chinese emperors to allow the British to
import narcotics into China and thus addicting millions of Chinese with the
devasta­ting drugs. The British got rich, not only as enslavers and colonizers, but
also as drugs dealers.

Scramble for Africa

At the end of the nineteenth century European colonialist powers decided to
tear up Africa as wild hungry beasts around a juicy piece of meat. In what beca-
me known as the Scramble for Africa, Europeans introduced direct colonial rule
in Africa and divided the territories among each other. This meant that Africans
lost the control of their lives and their destiny. Europeans also institutionalized
racism in systems of Apartheid. They stole African land with an appalling cru-
elty of force. This includes the previous example of the Congo.

22
The human cost of colonialism
Conquest of land and people came at a huge cost for the colonized people.
A typical example is the case of the Herero people in Namibia. The Germans
had conquered this part of Africa and committed genocide to drive the Herero
people of their land. A soldier of the conquering army wrote the following eye-
witness account: “While we were there a Herero woman came walking up to us
from the bush. I was the Herero interpreter. I was told to take the woman to the
general to see if she could give information as to the whereabouts of the enemy. I
took her to General von Trotha; she was quite a young woman and looked tired
and hungry. Von Trotha asked her several questions, but she did not seem inclined
to give information. She said her people had all gone towards the east, but as she
was a weak woman she could not keep up with them. Von Trotha then ordered
that she should be taken aside and bayoneted. I took the woman away and a sol-
dier came up with his bayonet in his hand. He offered it to me and said I had better
stab the woman. I said I would never dream of doing such a thing and asked why
the poor woman could not be allowed to live. The soldier laughed and said, “If you
won’t do it, I will show you what a German soldier can do.” He took the woman
aside a few paces and drove the bayonet through her body. He then withdrew the
bayonet and brought it, all dripping with blood, and poked it under my nose in a
jeering way, saying, “You see, I have done it.” Officers and soldiers were standing
around looking on, but no one interfered to save the woman. Her body was not
buried, but, like all others they killed, simply allowed to lie and rot and be eaten
by wild animals.”
There are hundred of thousands of such cases in the colonized world that
have yet to be documented. The suffering is not only at the individual level but
also at the level of communities and cultures. The humiliation by institutio­
nalized racism is on an individual, social and cultural level.

Brazil
More Africans were kidnapped, transported and enslaved in Brazil than
any other society in the Americas. It is estimated that as many as 40% of
the more than 12 million transported to the Americas were taken to Brazil.
A major reason for this is that the enslavers choose to work the enslaved
to death and purchase new African captives, rather than moderating work
regimes or production. That’s why the trade in African captives continued
in Brazil much longer than any other society. Rates of mortality and morbi-
dity were higher in Brazil than anywhere else. Tropical diseases, European

23
diseases, the brutal demands of sugar production, arbitrary violence and
sadistic punishments to keep the enslaved population under control, crea-
ted a lethal combination with disastrous consequences.

White victims of colonialism

Colonialism was a system of oppression and exploitation that was organized
on the basis of race and ethnicity. Whites were the oppressors and people of
color the oppressed. Although the overwhelming majority of the whites in the
colonies and the metropolis supported colonialism, there were occasionally
small numbers of whites that were against colonialism and were willing to pay
the price for their opposition. Most white abolitionists who mobilized against
slavery were ardent supporters of colonialism. The abolitionists did not suffer
any pain during their opposition to slavery. For them abolition was not about
justice, but about a cosmetic change in the system of injustice.
In the USA, there is the exceptional case of John Brown, a white abolitionist
who tried to organize armed struggle against slavery. He regarded slavery as the
“most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable War of one portion of its citizens
upon another portion; the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment,
and hopeless servitude or absolute extermination; in utter disregard and violation
of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Indepen-
dence”. In 1859, he led an unsuccessful raid on a federal armory with fifteen
whites and five blacks. His aim was to start an uprising of the enslaved people
in the USA. He was captured and hanged. He paid the ultimate price for his
struggle against slavery.

24
6 How did enslaved people argue for
reparations?

The feeling about working for free

During slavery, enslaved people had clearly developed many ideas about for-
ced labor and reparations. There are some written accounts about the thoughts
and feelings of enslaved Africans. Most books by the enslaved were written by
people who were enslaved Africans in the USA and had written their life stories
when they escaped or after they became legally free. The American abolitionist
­Frederick Douglass wrote about how he felt when he was hired out by his en-
slaver to work for other people: “I was now getting one dollar and fifty cents per
day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet,
upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that
money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it, not because he had
any hand in earning it, not because I owed it to him, nor because he possessed the
slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me
to give it up. The right of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the
same."
Solomon Northrop was born a free man in New York in 1808 but was kid-
napped and enslaved in 1848. He managed to get free and wrote an account
about his life. This is how he remembers the labor for his enslaver: "Ten years
I toiled for that man without reward. Ten years of my incessant labor has contri-
buted to increase the bulk of his possessions. Ten years I was compelled to address
him with down-cast eyes and uncovered head—in the attitude and language of a
slave. I am indebted to him for nothing, save undeserved abuse and stripes."
The most notable example of arguments for reparations is to be found in the
letter of Jourdan Anderson, a former enslaved who was freed from a Tennessee
enslaver Col. Patrick Henry Anderson by Union troops in 1864. Jourdan and
his wife Mandy moved to Nashville and worked in the Cumberland Military
Hospital for a while untill he became an employee and tenant of abolitionist
banker Valentine Winters in Dayton Ohio. Col. Patrick Anderson wrote him a
letter asking him to come back to work on his farm. Jourdan dictated his answer
to Winters who published it in August 1865 in Cincinnati Commercial.
The letter is a masterpiece of irony and sarcasm. It is also a razor-sharp ana-
lysis of what slavery means and how reparations are essential in getting justice

25
for a historical injustice.
African-American historian Raymond Winbush had tracked down the re-
latives of Jourdan’s enslaver. He recounts: “What’s amazing is that the current
living relatives of Colonel Anderson are still angry at Jourdan for not coming back
or to say that he should have been faithful and come back to the plantation to help
out because he knew that the plantation was in such disrepair because of the Civil
War.”

Here is the letter that speaks for itself.

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon,
and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do
better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought
the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found
at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to
kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you
shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am
glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again,
and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my
love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in
this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville
Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he
ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I
am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and
clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—
and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well.
The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school,
and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes
we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennes-
see. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no
disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have
been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what
wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my
advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on
that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the

26
Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some
proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded
to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served
you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and
friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy
twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for
Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty
dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and
deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling
a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to.
Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton,
Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in
your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the
wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making
us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every
Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any
more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those
who defraud the laborer of his hire.
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly
and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it
was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and
die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and
wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any
schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of
my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous
habits.
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you
when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson.

27
7 Why and how did the colonizer get
reparations for colonialism?

Imagine
Imagine – as W. Hanes III and F. Sanelloin in their study of the Opium Wars
against China have suggested - that “the Medellin cocaine cartel of Colombia
would mount a successful military offensive against the United States, then forces
the U.S. to legalize cocaine and allow the cartel to import the drug into five major
American cities, unsupervised and untaxed by the U.S. The American government
also agrees to let the drug lords govern all Colombian citizens who operate in these
cities, plus the U.S. has to pay war reparations of US $ 100 billion—the Colom-
bians’ cost of waging the war to import cocaine into America. That scenario is of
course preposterous and beyond the feverish imagination of the most out-there
writers of science fiction. However, a similar situation occurred not once, but twice
in China during the nineteenth century. In both cases, however, instead of thug-
gish Colombian drug dealers, it was the most technologically advanced nation on
Earth, Great Britain, that forced similar conditions on China.”
This would indeed blow your mind. Yet in two wars (1839-1842 and 1856-
1860) this is exactly what European powers did to the Chinese people. They
forced the Chinese through these wars to pay reparations to drug dealers that
had lured millions of Chinese into drug addiction.

Haiti
Imagine Germany organizing a blockade of Israel with the help of the major
western powers and demanding that the Jewish state should pay for the profits
that German companies had lost because of the closing of the labor camps and
for the expenses of operating the death camps. Imagine that Israel would con-
cede and borrow the money from German banks to pay Germany for repara-
tions. You just cannot imagine it. But it did take place in another crime against
humanity, in Haiti.
On the 6th of December 1492 the Taino people discovered Columbus when
he and his fellow criminals, strolled on the beaches of Haiti, the mountainous
island as the Tainos named their land. The Spaniards had to share the island
with the French.

28
 French slavery in Haiti was characterized by its extreme brutality. In his clas-
sic study of the Haitian Revolution C.L.R. James describes the torture Africans
had to endure: “The torture of the whip, for instance, had ‘a thousand refinements,’
but there were regular varieties that had special names, so common were they.
When the hands and arms were tied to four posts on the ground, the slave was
said to undergo "the four post," If the slave was tied to a ladder it was "the torture
of the ladder"; if he was suspended by four limbs it was "the hammock," etc. The
pregnant woman was not spared her "four-post." A hole was dug in the earth to
accommodate the unborn child. The torture of the collar was specially reserved for
women who were suspected of abortion, and the collar never left their necks until
they had produced a child. The blowing up of a slave had its own name: ‘to bum a
little powder in the arse of a nigger’: obviously this was no freak but a recognized
practice.”
At the eve of the revolution in 1789 Saint Domingue counted 30,000 whites,
40,000 free mulattos and 500,000 enslaved Africans. Enslaved Africans consti-
tuted 87% of the population of Haiti. In absolute numbers the enslaved society
of Haiti was huge. At the time of the legal abolition of slavery in Jamaica there
were 311,000 enslaved Africans. In Suriname there were 34,000 and in Curacao
7,000.
In 1791, the Africans started a revolution that ended in a victory on January
1, 1804 when they formally declared the first free black republic in the Ameri-
cas. It took the defeated French twenty years to reorganize for a decisive battle
to reinstate slavery. In 1825, the French came with 14 warships and 528 cannons
and presented Haiti with the choice: pay 150 million gold francs as reparations
and get recognition of Haiti as a free nation by France and other European na-
tions or face economic blockade, starvation, war and the reinstatement of slav-
ery. The amount was equivalent to a whole year of Haiti´s revenues. Haiti ac-
cepted unwillingly. They were forced to borrow the amount from French banks
who charged a 6% interest rate for their loans. Haiti finished paying reparations
to France in 1947.
In 1990, Haiti’s first democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide
came to power. In 2003, he announced that he would seek not reparations for
slavery, but restitution of the reparations that had been paid to France (then
valued at US $ 21.7 billion). In 2004, he was deposed by a coup supported by
France and the USA. He was kidnapped and transported to South Africa.

Reparations for criminals

Other criminals that were involved in the system of slavery got their repa-
29
rations not from the victims, but from their governments. When slavery was
legally abolished in the British Caribbean in the 1830s the British enslavers got
20 million British pounds so-called compensation (the equivalent of US $ 27.4
billion). This figure represented a staggering 40 per cent of the Treasury's annual
spending budget at the time.
The Spanish, French and Dutch governments also paid their enslavers repa-
rations for their “loss of capital”.

The racist concept of justice

The rationale for reparations for enslavers by European governments was
based on a peculiar concept of justice. The racist concept of justice was that
white people had the right to enslave Black people and regard them as property.
If whites were required to forfeit this right, then they should be compensated
because the injustice was done to the enslavers! The so-called abolitionist move-
ment went along with this argument and agreed to pay reparations to the crimi-
nal and left the victim destitute. That is why I term the European abolition of
slavery as an uncivilized form of abolition.
In 2013 British scholars published a database with names of families that re-
ceived reparations from slavery in the 1830s and beyond. It reveals that 46,000
awards of compensation were made to individuals and companies that owned
enslaved persons. These people included residents in port cities like London,
Liverpool and Bristol, but also in other cities such as Cheltenham and Bath.
More than one hunded Members of Parliament at that time, and more than 100
Clergymen from the Anglican Church also claimed or got money. And it reveals
that many women got significant sums of money.
Among the descendents of these families today is the family of British Prime
Minister David Cameron. One newspaper decried: “Britain's colonial shame:
Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition”, and left it like that. There was
no plea to undo the shame by reversing the heritage, retracting the money from
the heirs of the criminals and giving it to the heirs of the victims. The shame
is still there and nothing has been done to get rid of it. This silence is in stark
contrast to the loudly and pu­blicly proclaimed superiority of British morals in
the legal abolition of slavery.

30
8 Is there a debt that Black people should
pay?

The black debt

"If America as a nation owes blacks as a group reparations for slavery”, asks
conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza, “what do blacks as a group owe America for
the abolition of slavery?" He continues: "What did Africans make of themselves in
America? In sharp contrast to their tribal and communal past, they discovered the
virtues of individuality, which was a desperate and eventually triumphant defense
of personal dignity against the commonplace assaults on slavery. Right from their
earliest experience in the United States, black slaves began to develop distinctive
ways of walking, of talking, of telling jokes and stories. As if to assert their unique
individual identities, some slaves took to eccentric habits like carrying a cane or
cocking their hats. Slaves developed widely different personalities on the planta-
tion: the playful Sambo, the sullen 'field nigger', the dependable Mammy, the sly
and inscrutable trickster. Some of the personality types are still recognizable."
In the view of D´Souza Black people owe reparations to white people for the
abolition of slavery.

Racism and White Enlightenment

This racist view of Africans dates back to the days of slavery when founders
of the White Enlightenment in Europe argued that Africans were like animals
and chattel. The racist ideas were widespread among key philosophers of the
White Enlightenment. French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) said about Af-
ricans: “Their round eyes, their flattened nose, their lips which are always large,
their differently shaped ears, the wool of their head, that very measure of their
intelligence, place prodigious differences between them and the other species of
men. And they are not men, except in their stature, with the faculty of speech and
thought at a degree far distant to ours. Such are the ones that I have seen and
examined. And it is a big question whether among them they are descendants of
monkeys, or if monkeys come from them.”
His colleague Charles de Montesquieu (1689-1755) wrote: “These creatures
are all over black, and with such a flat nose that they can scarcely be pitied. It is
hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise Being, should place a soul, especially

31
a good soul, in such a black ugly body.”
In Britain, David Hume (1711-1776) said: "I am apt to suspect the negroes
and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds)
to be naturally inferior to the whites. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negro as
a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accom-
plishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly."
In Germany, George Hegel (1770-1831) stated: “The Negro, as already ob-
served, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state.”
And his colleague Immanuel Kant who coined the term “Enlightenment”
wrote: “The Negroes of Africa have received from nature no intelligence that rises
above the foolish.”

Racism and reparations

If blacks are inferior creatures then slavery and colonialism can have a posi-
tive influence on their development. The infamous racist scholar from the Net-
herlands, Piet Emmer, argues that enslaved Africans were happy to be branded
with the initials of their masters: “They saw it as proof that their new owner
would take care for them.” Naturally if there is any reparation to be paid it should
go these owners.
Slavery uplifted Africans from a barbaric state of affairs. That view was pro-
pagated by the enslavers and is echoed still today in works of, mostly white,
scholars of slavery when they compare the material conditions of the ensla-
ved with those of wage-earners in Europe. Writing in the 18th century, black
abolitionist writer Ottobah Cugoano provided the counterargument: “Bad as
it is, the poorest in England would not change their situation for that of slaves…
No freemen, however poor and distressing his situation may be, would resign his
liberty for that of a slave, in the situation of a horse or a dog. The case of the poor,
whatever their hardships may be, in free countries, is widely different from that of
the West Indian slaves. For the slaves, like animals, are bought and sold, and dealt
with as their capricious owners may think fit, even in torturing and tearing them
to pieces, and wearing them out with hard labor, hunger and oppression.”

Colonizing of the mind

A similar argument can be found in popular conversation among colonized
people with a colonized mind in America, the Caribbean and Europe. The argu-
ment goes as follows: “I am glad that the white man has brought us from Africa
or India to their colonies, otherwise we would still be living in poverty in Africa
32
or India.”
The argument is based on self-hate and self-humiliation. It is self-hate be-
cause it paints a picture of Africa and India that takes the lowest and worst
examples of underdevelopment while leaving out of the picture all positive ef-
forts by people from Africa and India to elevate their communities. Why could
you not have been a Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi? It reveals a stunning con-
cept of self-humiliation.
The phrase is an expression of gratitude for slavery and colonialism. Take it
one step further and blacks need to transform this gratitude into reparations to
the whites.
To state that Black people owe white people reparations is to perpetuate the
racist discourse that justified slavery and colonialism as a civilizing mission of
the west.

33
9 What are the economic arguments on
reparations?

The amount for reparations is so huge that it is not worth considering

This argument is related to estimates for reparations that go into trillions
of dollars. In 1999, The African World Reparation and Repatriation Truth
Commission (which was set up by a number of African countries), asked for­
US $ 777 trillion to be paid by the Western and American Nations involved in
the Atlantic Slave Trade to Africa within five years. The argument against re-
parations is that the amount is so huge that it does not make sense to even talk
about it. The logic behind the argument is: this is a megalomaniac idea that will
never be realized. So why discuss it?
Here is a counterargument. Why not accept the logic of the argument and re-
verse it? Ask the question: what would a reasonable amount be and how should
that amount be calculated? That question legitimizes the debate on reparations.
The purpose of the argument against reparation is to de-legitimize reparations.

The west has already been paying for reparations through decades of
development aid programs so there is no need for a new program of
reparations
The logic of the argument is: reparations has already been paid.
The counterarguments are along two lines. First, the nature of development
aid comes under scrutiny. Second, the amount of development aid is related to
the amount for reparations.
In the first line two questions are posed:
1. Is development aid really aid?
2. How is development aid related to historic injustice?
Development aid is not always aid. Development aid is a label for a broad
range of programs. Loans can be part of a package labeled development aid. But
a loan is not compensation for historic injustice. If interest is demanded then it
is just a commercial activity. If no interest is demanded and the loan should be
paid back, than it is not compensation.
If the program consists of grants, than the purpose of the grants should be
taken into consideration. Sometimes grants are used to build infrastructure for

34
foreign companies so that they can develop their business and transfer their
profits back to the west. Thus, even grants can be used to promote the business
of the west rather than the development of the receiving country. Take the case
of the former Dutch colony of Suriname in the Caribbean. Between 1954 and
1975, the Netherlands gave Suriname 4.5 billion Dutch guilders as development
aid of which 300 million was in the form of grants. However, in the same period
foreign companies transferred 800 million guilders from Suriname to the West.
So for each guilder in grant almost 3 guilders went back to the west in the form
of profit. By their very nature such programs cannot and should not be conside-
red a form of compensation for historic injustice.
Development aid was never conceptualized as compensation for historic in-
justice. Such aid was advocated from self-interest or from morality. The argu-
ments from such self-interest include:
• If poor nations stay poor the world will be unstable. Development programs
help to build stable social and political societies.
• Poverty stimulates migration flows to the west. Development programs help
to develop regions where people can stay to build their own future there.
The argument from morality is that rich nations should help poor nations as
a moral obligation.
If development aid was argued from the perspective of reparations (com-
pensation for historic injustice) than the nature of the programs would change.
Often development aid programs are directed from the west. The giver bears
responsibility for the program. Reparations are compensations for which the
receiver is responsible irrespective of what the giver wants. If the giver wants
to frame development aid as reparations the consequence would be that they
would have to relinquish their right and power to decide and determine the
nature of the program.
The second line of counterargument is related to the amount of the aid. First,
the programs should be stripped of every element of self-interest. Only some
grants would fall in the category of reparations. Grants that promote the interest
of the west would not be part of the reparation amount. In practice the amount
would be very small in relation to the amount for reparations. But once we ac-
cept the logic that a stripped version of development aid is part of reparations
we suddenly end up with a balance sheet that shows how much needs to be paid
and how much can be deducted from this amount because of development aid.
The logic then turns the argument around and uses development aid as a ba-
lance sheet in stead of the end result of payment for reparations.

35
There is no use in giving money because of corruption and inefficiency
The logic of the argument is that giving money is losing money. The people
that should benefit from reparations don’t benefit, so it is better not to give any
money at all. In this logic, the right to compensation is linked to the way the
compensation is spent. That principle would be a very strange principle in law.
Suppose someone has broken into your house, stolen your valuables, tortured
you, raped your family members and was then caught by the police? How would
one argue that your right to compensation is dependent on the way you will
spend the money? Compensation is a right in and of itself based on injustice
that has been inflicted upon you.
But even if you were to accept the logic, then the consequence would actually
be an argument in favor of reparations. If you argue that the problem is prima-
rily with the spending then you implicitly acknowledge that there is legitimate
ground for reparations. So you start with the acceptance of the legitimacy. The
next step is to answer the question: how to ensure and safeguard that the money
is well spent (see chapter 13).

36
10 What are the legal arguments on
reparations?

What is law and what is justice?

Law is a system of rules that regulates social behavior in society. These rules
are laid down in constitutions and legislations. The rules are made by people
who are in power. Their rules are enforced by force (police, military) and by
mind control. Mind control is the collection of mechanisms to get the rules ac-
cepted by the mind (education, indoctrination, propaganda, social control, etc).
The less control there is over the mind, the more force is needed to ensure that
the rules of the law are obeyed.
Law is often associated with justice. Persons or institutions that operate out-
side the law are considered to be criminals. But what happens when criminals
come to power and are able to make laws? Then injustice becomes embedded in
law. A clear case is the laws that were used to institutionalize a crime against hu-
manity: slavery. They were part of the judicial system that was based on slavery.
According to those law human beings could be sold as cattle. A human being
that was captured after trying to escape from bondage was whipped (the num-
ber of lashes was often specified). The law forbade every form of organization
among the enslaved. So if we discuss legal arguments concerning reparations
we have to look at the character of the legal system itself. Does the legal system
promote justice or does it create obstacles against reaching justice? If you want
to get justice in a legal system that promotes injustice then you can be sure that
you will not find justice.
Sometimes you can get justice outside of the legal system. In the case of repa-
rations the Jewish community succeeded in getting reparations from Germany
without the involvement of the German legal system. It was a political decision
(see chapter 2). Each country has its own legal system. Many of these systems
have the same basic tenets. But the variations are important. Ultimately the legal
discussion on reparations might result in legal decisions that are unjust.

There must be a direct relationship between harm and compensation

One legal argument is that the persons and institutions that caused the harm
of slavery or colonialism are dead. This implies that there must be a link be­

37
tween the person or institution that caused the harm and the payment. You
cannot have somebody pay for damage they did not cause.
In fact, you can. On September 9th 2001, agents of Al Qaida executed a series
of four coordinated attacks on the United States killing almost 3,000 people and
causing US $ 10 billion damage. In 2001 the US Congress enacted a law, the Air
Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, that compensated air car-
riers for the damage occurred on 9/11. Furthermore, the government provided
compensation to any individual or personal representative of an individual who
was killed or physically injured as a result of the attacks. Each victim’s family
got an average compensation of US$ 1.85 million. The airline industry got US$
11 billion and the families US$ 4 billion as compensation. Al Qaida did not pay
a dime. US tax payers who were not responsible for the attacks paid and their
obligation to pay was enacted in law. Why? It was seen as a moral and just act
by society.

It took place a long time ago: a person cannot be harmed by activities

that took place long before his birth
The legal argument is that you cannot prove that an individual is harmed by
activities that took place before he or she was born.
Actually, you can. If your great-grandfather owned land that was stolen from
him, then obviously his children are harmed because they would have inherited
the land. Not only was the land of the fore-parents stolen, but also the inheri-
tance of that land was prevented from passing to the next generation. The link
here is inheritance. Future generations have lost their inheritance due to theft.
What about wages that were not paid during slavery? How does that affect
future generations? Simply because of the same link: inheritance. If the enslaved
Africans were not enslaved but had gotten proper wages, they would have been
able to build a future for their children with their assets. The theft of wages has
crippled this ability and hurt their capacity for future generations.
And what about human suffering? Can you inherit individual suffering? Yes,
you can. The link is that individual suffering is the expression of collective suf-
fering. People live not as individuals but as part of a group, a collective. Enslaved
Africans were robbed of their original names. The names of the enslavers were
forced upon them. This was not just or primarily the result of individual acts of
individual enslavers. It was fundamentally a system imposed on a group. The sy-
stem broke down the culture of the group, and culture is a social phenomenon,
not a personal one. It created an inferiority complex, which is expressed in in-
dividual behavior, but has a social basis. There are institutions that still promote
38
the inferiority complex.
So in many fundamental ways the past continues to have its impact on the
present and the future. Harm done in the past can have its impact on the pre-
sent and the future because of inheritance and the creation of institutions that
continue to influence the material and immaterial position of the descendents
of the victims of past injustice.

A person cannot inherit the guilt of the perpetrators of a crime

The legal argument is that if my fore-father has raped your fore-mother I
cannot be held accountable for this rape.
Yes, you can! At first sight it seems ridiculous to hold somebody responsible
for a crime that his or her great grandfather has committed. But suppose the
crime was theft. Your great-grandfather has stolen the land and labor of my
great-grandfather and you have inherited the land and the value of the labor.
Would you be justified in saying that you had nothing to do with the crime of
your great-grandfather although you still own the inheritance of that crime?
It is a matter of what kind of morals you adhere to. In the moral system of the
perpetrator of the crime you can keep the inheritance that was based on a crime.
In the moral system of the victim you should not.

39
11 What are the political arguments on
reparations?

Let us forget the past and focus on the future

This argument is often brought forward in the discussion about slavery and
colonialism as a general principle of how to promote a harmonious society. It
touches upon a sentiment of unity and harmony. But it is hypocritical. If we
were to apply this principle to history in general, then it would entail the shut-
ting down of all museums with exhibitions on the past and the removal and des-
truction of all monuments to the past. The subject of history would be deleted
from the educational system, because we have to forget the past. All documen-
taries and films about the past should be put in archives. The general principle
sounds ridiculous if we apply it outside the realm of slavery and colonialism.
There, the colonizer loves to present history as a praise for his actions.
Why is it still used in the discussion on slavery and colonialism? It is a
technique of the colonization of the mind. The technique uses positive human
feelings (harmony, unity) and places them in an antagonistic position towards
critical discourses of colonialism as if it is a matter of choice between positive
and negative actions. The colonized nature is revealed when the general prin-
ciple behind the argument is applied to the rest of society. Then the hypocrisy
becomes obvious. Outside slavery and colonialism history is regarded as one of
the most important elements in defining the identity of a nation. If a nation was
involved in crimes against humanity it is faced with two choices: either you deal
with the legacy of the crime or you try to erase it from memory. This last option
is only possible when the descendents of the victims are silenced.
This argument is also disguised in an often used phrase: “We have a shared
past and a common future”. The phrase blurs the precise nature of the “shared
past”. It is a more subtle way to forget the past. Its preposterous character beco-
mes clear when we apply it to the crime of rape or the Jewish Holocaust where
the rapist says to the person raped or the Nazi says to the victim of the Holo-
caust: “We have a shared past and a common future”.
A similar phrase is: “You cannot change the past”. The suggestion is that the
debate is about changing the past. It is not. Obviously you cannot change the
past, but you can change the legacies of the past, and you can change the way
these legacies shapes the present and the future.
40
The issue of reparations creates divisions in society
This proposition is similar to the previous one. It uses the same technique of
the antagonism between positive feelings and critical discourse. However, the
argument centers on fear for social unrest rather than a call to forget unpleasant
memories.
There are three problems with this argument. First, it creates the fantasy of
a harmonious world. But there is no harmonious world at present. The world is
filled with social struggles. To assume that we live in a world in which everyone
currently gets along with one other and that this peace and calm would sud-
denly be disrupted by a discussion on reparations is a delusion.
Second, if there is social tension, why put the blame on one side? Why not
call upon the other side to stop resisting the call for reparations so that peace
and tranquility can be restored? Why argue for a one-sided responsibility that
rests on the shoulders of those who struggle for justice?
Third, when applied as a general principle it would mean that social change
is undesirable. This implies, for example, that it was wrong for white women to
argue for voting rights because white men got upset at that time. So the struggle
for universal suffrage was a wrong struggle because it created social unrest.

A call for reparations is emotionally devastating because it raises false

hopes that will never be fulfilled
This argument invokes sympathy for the victims of historic injustice in the
same hypocritical way as was described above. The argument runs as follows.
We should avoid emotional devastation because we empathize with the victims.
The struggle for reparations is a lost struggle. If people pin their hopes on a lost
struggle then they will end up with a lot of emotional stress.
Here are some counterarguments. The victims don’t need sympathy but sup-
port. The outcome of a struggle is not determined by definition, but by the re-
lationship of forces, organization, strategy, tactics and much more. Never in the
history of the struggle for justice was there a strategy based on defeat. Even if
the people that fight for justice are defeated, that is not because they based their
strategy on defeat. And even in the case of defeat, emotions can be positive be-
cause people gain pride and self-confidence from the fact that they have stood
up for justice. The struggle for reparations is a struggle for justice. Once people
are involved in a struggle for justice the process of struggle itself generates emo-
tions of pride. It contributes to combatting the self-hatred and inferiority com-
plex that the colonization of the mind has cultivated for so long.

41
There are more important issues in the world
In the analytical framework of Decolonizing The Mind I call this the concept
of focus diversion. If you can manage to divert the focus of attention away from
slavery and colonialism as a crime against humanity you don’t have to address
the issue of reparations. The proposition is: focus on education and hard work
to rise your socio-economic status, then you will be fine. Don´t bother with
reparations. There are several counterarguments against this proposition.
First, why are reparations unimportant? The argument assumes that the is-
sue is not important. For the descendents of the perpetrators there is a reason to
consider the issue as unimportant. They won’t have to pay. But for the descen-
dents of the victim the importance is obvious. So the question is: who decides
what is important?
Second, many of the people who argue for reparations and write articles and
books about it often have the best education and are doing financially well. The
assumption that only uneducated and poor people argue for reparations has a
fundamentally racist connotation.
Third, why is it impossible to have multiple purposes and focuses in life?
Individuals and institution seldom focus on one specific thing. An individual
can read, work, exercise, sing and dance all in the same period in the course of
their life. An institution can work on different themes. People spend time even
on “unimportant” things such as leisure.

Reparations have already been paid

In chapter 9, I dealt with the argument that development aid from Western
countries to the so-called underdeveloped countries is seen by some as a form
of reparations. In the United States, the colonized people live in the same coun-
try as the colonizer. A similar argument is used for African Americans. The pas-
sage of the Civil Rights Acts and the policies of affirmative action are regarded
as means to address historical injustice. As such, they are part of a policy of
reparations.
The counterargument is that these policies address a problem with historical
roots, but do not address historic injustice. Affirmative action is not a compen-
sation for stolen land. Nor is the right to vote a compensation for stolen wages.
These laws don’t address historic injustice, but current injustice. The current
injustice at that time is the fact that Black people did not have the right to vote
during Apartheid in the US. If that right has been granted then that is a cor-
rection of the current injustice at that time. If people are denied a job because
42
of the color of their skin, then this is an injustice in the present, not in the past.
So affirmative action laws or the Civil Rights Acts cannot be regarded as part of
reparation because they address the then present-injustice of the 1960s and the
continuing injustice since then, not historic injustice.

Reparations should address modern day slavery and not the slavery of
the past
The argument appeals to the sentiment of wanting to do something good
and having to make a choice between two similar forms of injustice of which
one is already past and buried.
There are two elements in the argument that need to be addressed: the com-
parison of modern slavery with slavery during colonialism in the Americas and
the choice between two forms of injustice.
The label “modern slavery” attaches a similar label to colonial slavery while
these are two completely different systems. In chapter 12, I will explain how
pre-colonial slavery in Africa was completely different from colonial slavery in
the Americas. So called modern slavery in countries in Asia and Africa takes the
resemblance of forced labor, but leaves out the crucial differences:
• “Modern slavery” is not embedded in the laws of the nations. Colonial sla-
very was embedded in the laws of the nation. Modern slavery is illegal. Co-
lonial slavery was legal for the colonialist.
• “Modern slavery” is not the cornerstone of the world economy and does
not have the infrastructure of the world economy. Colonial slavery was the
cornerstone of the world economy and had an infrastructure that was part
of that economy. The economic importance of “modern slavery” is minis-
cule compared to the importance of colonial slavery that shaped the world
economy.
• “Modern slavery” does not have the whole ideological apparatus to support
it. Colonial slavery was based on the ideology of racism.
Why is the label “modern slavery” used instead of the label “modern exploi-
tation”? By using “modern exploitation” no link is made with a historic system
that was incomparably more cruel and unjust. Using the label “modern slavery”
has a dubious function. It belittles the nature of the crime against humanity that
was committed by Europeans and shifts the blame for the horrors of colonialism
to the victim countries of colonialism in Asia and Africa who apparently are
now involved in a similar crime. It is part of the framework of colonizing the
mind. Not every form of bonded labor is trans-Atlantic enslavement and not
every murder of a Jew is a Holocaust.
43
12 What are the moral arguments on
reparations?

Africans should pay reparations to blacks in the Americas

This proposition rests on the argument that Africans in Africa are responsi-
ble for the system of the trans-Atlantic slavery, or at least share joint responsi-
bility. The argument rests on the assumption that trans-Atlantic slavery was an
extension of an already existing system of slavery that was operated by Africans.
So Africans bear a moral responsibility for the trans-Atlantic slavery because
they had set up the system that was simply developed further by Europeans.
There are two counterarguments to this proposition. First, the trans-Atlantic
system was not an extension of an already existing system of slavery. It was an
entirely new system with the following characteristics that did not exist before
colonialism:
• African slavery was based on debt or captives in war and not an economic
system of plantation labor camps with its continuous need for imported la-
bor. African slavery was not based on a new world economy with forced
labor camps situated in one part of the world and an international system
that was set up to kidnap and transport Africans to these labor camps. Trans-
Atlantic slavery was precisely this new system.
• The infrastructure that has arisen with trans-Atlantic slavery was absent in
African slavery: fortified forts along the African coast that directed the pro-
cess of kidnapping; a shipping industry of floating prisons that transported
the captured human beings, a system of production centers with forced la-
bor camps; the transport of the products from these centers to Europe, the
rise of factories in Europe and elsewhere for processing these products, the
distribution infrastructure for the consumption of these products and the
banking and insurance sector to finance the whole process. None of this in-
frastructure was associated with pre-colonial slavery in Africa.
• The ideology of racism and the articulation of superiority and inferiority lin-
ked to race and color was absent in Africa. It became a fundamental feature
and vital component of trans-Atlantic slavery.
If the trans-Atlantic system was an entirely new system then the blame for
that system should not be laid on the shoulders of the people who had nothing
to do with its foundation and played a marginal role in its development.
44
 The second counterargument is based on how you conceptualize guilt. How
can you blame the victim for the crime? The only way to do that is by putting
the guilt of the collaborator on the shoulders of the victim and by erasing the
character of the collaborator out of the picture. This is the essence of the Euro-
centric morals.
The role of African collaborators is not typically presented in terms of col-
laborators versus the people, but in terms of the whole people: Africans selling
Africans. In this picture Europeans play a subordinate role. In reality the reverse
was the case. The initiative for the trans-Atlantic slavery was taken not in Africa,
but in Europe. European institutions drew up business plans to set up forced
labor camps in the Americas and organized the transport of kidnapped Africans
from Africa to the Americas. Europeans ordered labor, financed the system,
provided the guns and organized the forts along the coasts as managerial cen-
ters for the trade. African collaborators played a small role in the system, only
as the suppliers of kidnapped labor.
The immorality of the argument becomes clear when we apply the principle
to the Jewish Holocaust. When the Nazis invaded European countries they or-
ganized the arrest and transportation to forced labor camps and the destruction
camps with the help of collaborators from both the Jewish community as well as
from the communities they had invaded. One scholar has detailed this coope-
ration for The Netherlands:
• People took Jews in their homes and then betrayed them to the Nazis to col-
lect rewards.
• The National Press Agency and many media outlets (print, TV, radio) accep-
ted Nazi-instructions to spread their propaganda without protest.
• Civil servants from the lowest officer to the highest ranking directors col-
laborated with the Nazis to keep the government apparatus running. In set-
ting up an administration to register Jews the Nazis got help from ingenious
Dutch officers who developed the system for them.
• The Highest Court in the judicial system decided to cooperate with the in-
troduction of the registration forms.
• When the Dutch army was demobilized, the Nazis set up a military unit –
the Waffen SS – that welcomed 23.000 Dutch volunteers.
• The Dutch police on all levels wholeheartedly cooperated in the arrest of
thousands of Jews. Police units were established to hunt down Jews.
• The education ministry created a commission to purify textbooks from anti-
German and pro-Jewish references. The ministry assisted in separating Je-
wish schoolchildren from non-Jewish.

45
• The libraries cooperated with the instructions to get rid of unwanted titles.
• A Dutch Nazi-political party (National-Socialist Movement) founded in
1931 saw its membership rise from 33.000 in 1940 to 80.000 in 1943.
• Private companies cooperated with the Nazi war machine in occupied Hol-
land. The Dutch Railway Company took care of the transport of Jews to la-
bor camps in Germany without a single case of protest. They got paid for it.
• The cooperation of Dutch collaborators with the Nazi-occupation of Holland
is astonishing. But the cooperation of Jewish collaborators with the Nazi is
even more shocking. The Nazis created a so-called Jewish Council that as-
sisted the occupiers in the registration of Jews, the communication of the in-
structions of the Nazi-command to the Jewish community, the distribution
of the Jew-stars that every Jew had to sow on their cloth, the organization of
meetings with the Jewish community to ensure cooperation with the Nazis,
the administration of the deportation to the trains, and the mobilization of
Jewish funds to finance this work!
• A Jewish eyewitness account of the death camp in Auschwitz describes life in
the death camp. The most remarkable points in his observations are:
• The Jews were the overwhelming majority of the population in such a
camp, yet hardly any of them fought back and went passively into the gas
chambers.
• There were special units of Jews – Sonderkommandos – who assisted the
Nazis in the extermination work. They aided the Nazis with the disposal
of the dead bodies. They pulled out the gold teeth and threw the burned
bodies in pits.
If we were to tell the story of the Jewish Holocaust and the Nazi occupa-
tion in Europe with these facts we could construct a narrative of Jews being
responsible for the Holocaust and Dutch people being responsible for the Nazi
occupation. Based on this narrative one could argue that it is the Jews and the
Dutch that should pay reparations because of their cooperation. It would rightly
be considered a grave insult to the victims of Nazism, because no distinction is
made between collaborators and victims. It would be considered immoral to
shift the guilt of the collaborators on to the shoulders of the victims. Why is it
so hard to apply the same principles to the slave trade in Africa? Because the
practice of a double standard is a crucial element of colonizing the mind.

Blacks should pay whites for reparation because whites abolished

slavery
The proposition is based on the argument that the legal abolition of slavery
46
was the pinnacle of human civilization. The act of abolition was not done by Af-
ricans. but by white Europeans. So blacks should be grateful to the abolitionists.
If any payment should be made then blacks should pay whites to show their
gratitude. There are three counterarguments to this proposition.
First, for every act of oppression there was an act of resistance. Blacks have
always resisted their oppression. No white man is needed to tell them that free-
dom is innate to every human being.
Second, why should a person be grateful if another person returns to him
­something that was stolen from him? It was not for the white European to steal
the freedom of Black people, so why should a black person be grateful if he or
she regains their freedom? It is as if someone is being asked to say: “Thank you
for not raping me anymore.” Or as Malcolm X once said: “If you stick a knife in
my back, if you put it in nine inches and pull it out six inches, you haven’t done me
any favor. If you pull it all the way out, you haven’t done me any favor.”
Third, we can argue that the European legal abolition of slavery was not the
pinnacle, but the nadir of human civilization. The argument is based on the
distinction between two forms of legal abolition of slavery: a civilized form and
an uncivilized form. The Europeans clearly used an uncivilized form of legal
abolition. They could have carried out a civilized form. But they did not because
within the system of colonialism the uncivilized form was the only way to keep
colonialism without enslavement.
The differences between the civilized and uncivilized legal abolition of sla-
very are:
• The civilized form would acknowledge that slavery was a crime. The uncivi-
lized form argues that it was not a crime, but a tragic set of circumstances.
• The civilized form would punish the criminal. The uncivilized form puni-
shes the victim by keeping him oppressed and exploited in a new system of
colonialism.
• The civilized form would offer humble apologies and ask the victims for
forgiveness. The uncivilized form regards the returning of what was stolen
from the other person as an act of generosity and asks that person to show
gratitude.
• The civilized form would offer reparations to the victims. The uncivilized
form compensates the criminal for loss of property.
It is matter of different morals.

47
13 What arrangements can be made for
reparations?

Two types of arrangements

There are two types of arrangements that can be made regarding reparati-
ons: material and immaterial arrangements. Material arrangements are arran-
gements that involve the return of stolen land or goods, monetary payments and
the construction of material infrastructure (buildings, facilities etc). Immaterial
arrangements are those that involve addressing the mental and cultural legacy of
slavery and colonialism. Sometimes material and immaterial arrangements are
made and executed in the same period. Sometimes immaterial arrangements
pave the way for material arrangements. Sometimes material arrangements are
made without immaterial arrangements.
I distinguish between the following forms of material reparations:
• Restitution of stolen land and goods.
• Compensation for stolen land and goods.
• Compensation paid to individuals for historic injustice.
• Compensation paid to communities for historic injustice.

Restitution of stolen land and goods

One obvious form of material reparations is the restitution of stolen land.
In Canada the various Aboriginal people are called the First Nations. They are
engaged in a long struggle to regain their land titles. In 1996, the Canadian go-
vernment had received 745 claims. Some were settled by negotiation, some by
litigation and some were rejected. Subsequently, First Nations and the Canadian
government are still fighting on the issue. In 1999, the First Nations Land Ma-
nagement Act was enacted as a federal law. It transferred administration of land
to First Nations. This includes the authority to enact laws with respect to land,
the environment, and most resources. It was the first step for a First Nation to
assume control over its reserve lands, resources and the environment. Its great
value became clear when oil and gas companies wanted to build pipelines. They
had to deal with the First Nations.
Goods that may have a low material value but a high immaterial significance
include art objects that have been stolen and brought to Europe. In 2005 the

48
British government changed the law to enable the restitution of looted art, but
it was limited to the period 1939-1945 to facilitate the return of stolen Jewish
arts. European museums have valuable objects that were looted in the colonies
and were never returned. A typical bizarre case is the restitution of 20 ancestral
heads of Maori ethnic people once held in several French museums as a cultural
curiosity. They were stolen in the 19th century. For a long time France resisted
calls from the Maoris to return the remains of their ancestors but the French did
not have the level of civilization to understand that is immoral to put on show
the remains of human beings as artifacts in a museum, and that instead they
should be returned to the families. In 2014 finally French civilization raised to
the level that they understood the importance of human rituals of death and
remembrance.

Compensation for stolen land and goods

Instead of returning stolen land some governments have decided to pay
compensation for stolen land. This is another form of material reparations.
In 1971, the American government granted US $ 1 billion and 44 million
acres of land to Alaskan natives. In 2010, the US government settled a long-
running dispute over government mismanagement of Native American lands
and accounts for US$ 3.4 billion. The deal was the final result of a law-suit filed
in 1996, which accused the government of failing to account for and provide
revenues from a trust fund representing the value of Indian assets managed by
the government. Although it was strictly spoken not a compensation for stolen
land but for mismanagement of land, it can be regarded as a form of compen-
sation related to land.
In the same year the government of Canada reached an agreement with the
Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation for compensation of a specific land
claim for two pieces of land (total 243,450 acres). On the basis of an agreed price
per acre and an interest rate the amount was settled at CA $ 145 million.
Land was not the only object that was stolen by the colonizers. Minerals in
the ground were also taken away without payment. More research is needed
about the stolen minerals and their present value.

Compensation to individuals for historic injustice

In the case of the Jewish Holocaust reparations have been paid by Germany
to a community (the State of Israel) and to individuals. The reparations for the
individuals are organized by the Conference on Jewish Claims Against Germa-
49
ny. Almost 75 years after the beginning of World War II, Jewish individuals are
still getting money from Germany in the framework of reparations for historic
injustice.
In 2010, the US government agreed to pay US $ 1.2 billion to 15,640 African-
American farmers as compensation for discrimination. For decades these far-
mers had been denied loans and assistance from the Agricultural Department
although they were entitled to get it. There was a direct link between the harm
done to the individual and the compensation.

Compensation to communities for historic injustice

One of the earliest demands for reparations in the US was formulated by
James Forman in 1969 in the Black Manifesto that was adopted in the Natio-
nal Black Economic Development Conference in Detroit, Michigan. The ma-
nifesto called upon White Christian Churches and Jewish Synagogues to pay
US $ 500 million for reparations. The money would be spent among others for
the establishment of a land bank to assist farmers in setting up their business,
publishing and printing industries across the country, TV networks, training
centers for teaching skills in different branches of industry, a National Black
Labor Strike and Defense Fund and the founding of a black university.
The demand was for reparations to institutions in the community rather
than individuals. The Churches and Synagogues did not pay these reparations.
One of the largest banks in the USA, JP Morgan, has acknowledged that two of
its predecessor banks had received thousands of enslaved people as collateral
for its loans during slavery. The bank offered apologies and established a special
scholarship fund as a way of compensation. Another US bank, Wachovia Corp.,
has also acknowledged the role of its predecessors in the slavery economy, of-
fered apologies and expressed its willingness to work together with community
organizations to further awareness and education of black history.

Immaterial arrangements
Acknowledgment of historic injustice, apologies and the search for truth are
immaterial forms of reparations. If they are sincere, they are linked to material
reparations. If not, they can float as good intentions in the air without adding
anything to repairing historic injustice. Various heads of state have expressed
some form of regret for the crimes of colonialism. Queen Elizabeth of Britain,
Clinton, Bush and Obama have crossed the globe expressing some remorse for
some crime. The follow-up is what matters. There was none.
50
 Immaterial reparations also include efforts to repair the cultural and psycho-
logical damage of colonialism. This form of reparations is initiated and executed
by the descendants of the victims of historic injustice and not by the descen-
dants of the perpetrators. Members of the Nation of Islam in the US rejected the
enslaver’s names and replaced them with an X, the symbol for the unknown va-
riable in mathematics. Malcolm X is a famous example. Eventually the “X” was
replaced with an Arabic name that is more descriptive of a person’s personality
and character. Malcolm X took the name El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.
A wide array of educational and cultural institutions and activities to de-
colonize the mind and produce and distribute new decolonial knowledge are
part of this form of reparations. This kind of initiative should address the most
fundamental factors involved in coloniaislm and its legacies, rather than simply
adding a few Black heroes or heroines to the colonial framework.
The CARICOM countries put forward a ten point program for reparations
that consists of full formal apology, repatriation, Indigenous Peoples Develop-
ment Program, cultural institutions, public health crisis, illiteracy eradication
African Knowledge Program, psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer
and debt cancellation. So this includes both material and immaterial elements.

51
14 What are the differences and similarities
between reparations in the Americas,
Africa and the Caribbean?

The link between the USA, Africa and the Caribbean

Throughout history, blacks in the USA, the Caribbean and Africa have been
in the forefront of the struggle for reparations. There are historic links between
the struggle of African-Americans in the USA for justice and against racism
and the struggles of the colonized people in the rest of the world. There are links
through ideas, organizations and personalities.
Pan-Africanism is an ideology and movement to promote solidarity between
Africans in the Diaspora and the continent, and has forged the links through
ideas of black pride, the value of African heritage, the common origin of ra­
cism and colonialism, the legacy of slavery and concepts of historical injustice
including the concept of reparations.
Organizations like Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Associa-
tion (UNIA) had an international appeal and infrastructure. Many organiza-
tions in these countries established links or were joined in a common struggle
such as support for the Civil Rights Movement in the USA and the struggle
against Apartheid in South Africa during the latter half of the 20th century
Activists, freedom fighters and decolonial thinkers have inspired people
throughout these regions. Examples are: Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba,
Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Samora Machel from Africa, Marcus Garvey,
Frantz Fanon, Stokely Carmichael, Aimé Cesaire from the Caribbean and Mal-
colm X, W.E.B. du Bois, Angela Davis and Martin Luther King from the USA.

Brazil
Brazil imported more captive Africans than any other country in the Ame-
ricas. It was the last nation to abolish legal slavery (in 1888). During the period
of enslavement many enslaved Africans escaped the labor camps and establis-
hed free communities, the so called Quilombos. Brazil was home to the largest
Quilombo in the history of the Americas, Palmares, with a populataiton estima-
ted between 11,000 and 20,000. This became a state within a state. Today, the

52
descendants of Brazil’s Quilombos have achieved a victory. The recognition of
their rights is now entrenched in Brazilian law since 1988.
In 2003 president Lula da Silva expanded the definition of “Quilombo” in a
presidential decree to include any descendent of enslaved Africans. The result
was that any black community could become certified as a Quilombo if a ma-
jority of residents wanted it. In 2003 there were 29 recognized Quilombos. Ten
years later the number had climbed to a staggering 2,400 comprising more than
one million people.
This policy is part of reparations, as a means to correct historic injustice,
but also as a means to address current injustice. In 2001 Brazil introduced af-
firmative action in higher education. The universities now have quota systems
in place to ensure access to higher educations for blacks. Affirmative action in
Brazil – like in the USA – continues to face great opposition. But in the minds
of many Brazilians it is one way to address the current injustice with historical
roots.

The similarities
The similarities in the struggle for reparations between the USA, the Carib-
bean and Africa are the link to slavery and its legacy and the call for justice.
The crime of slavery has connected Africa with the Caribbean and the
Americas. The call for reparations is based on the harm inflicted upon Africans
and people of African descent during slavery and colonialism. Walter Rodney’s
book with the telling title How Europe Underdeveloped Africa explains how sla­
very and colonialism have deprived Africa of its wealth and labor power while
creating a legacy of underdevelopment. This legacy is a powerful argument for
reparations.
Another legacy of slavery are the various forms of structural racism and
white privilege that still exist in the world. Structural racism and white privilege
are not only about ideas of superiority/inferiority linked to white and black.
They are fundamentally about institutions that have been created to perpetuate
racism and white privilege in all spheres of social life: economic position, politi-
cal power, knowledge production, social relations and cultural life. The call for
reparations is a call to correct the historical injustice of structural racism, and
the current injustice of white privilege.

The differences
There are a number of differences in the struggle for reparations.
53
 First, slavery in the USA had several distinctive characteristics compared to
the Caribbean. During slavery Black people in the southern USA were a mino-
rity while in many islands in the Caribbean they were the majority of the popu-
lationThe Caribbean plantations were on the average much larger in work force
than the plantations in the USA (10-30 times larger). In the Caribbean many
owners of the plantations were absentee proprietors who lived in Europe, while
in the USA the owners lived in the same country. The wealth from slavery was
located in the USA and benefited the whites, while in the Caribbean the wealth
of slavery was largely transferred to Europe and benefited European societies as
a whole.
Second, at the legal abolition of slavery the European enslavers got repa-
rations. In the USA 930 enslavers got reparations in the District of Columbia
for the freedom of 2,989 enslaved. At the end of the Civil War General Wil-
liam Tecumseh Sherman issued a famous military order to confiscate 400,000
acres (1,600 km2) of land along the Atlantic coast of South Carolina, Georgia,
and Florida and divide it into 40 acres (0.16 km2) parcels to 18,000 freed slave
families and other Blacks living in those areas. The order could not be enforced
because President Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln after his
assassination, revoked the order. The idea is known as forty acres and a mule.
Third, in the USA, the struggle of Black people was mostly a struggle to get
equal treatment in the same country. In the Caribbean, the issue was indepen-
dence from the colonizer. The call for reparations in the USA is directed towards
the whites and the USA administration as a whole. The call for reparations in
the Caribbean is directed towards governments in Europe.

Impact
The fact that there are so many similarities across the regions of the world
enables an international coalition of forces in the USA, the Caribbean and Af-
rica to demand reparations based on slavery and its legacy. This basis can be
extended to an international coalition to demand reparations for colonialism,
not only for slavery. The impact of the differences is that in the USA the debate
on reparations is sometimes linked to the question of how to bridge the gap be-
tween whites and blacks in that country. All measures that aim at bridging the
gap would then be considered part of the reparation framework. In the Carib-
bean and Africa the debate on reparations is a debate on how to use reparation
as an instrument in developing the underdeveloped countries.

54
15 What is the significance of gender in
reparations?

The oppression of women: an additional act of historical injustice

Colonized men and women suffered the common experience of oppression
and exploitation. But women had to bear most of the brunt. In the early begin-
nings of western colonization of the Americas, Hatuey, a leader of the Tainos
(one of the major indigenous people of the Caribbean) testified about the bruta-
lity of the Spaniards which included the mistreatment of Taino women. Hatuey
was from the island that the Spanish invaders called Hispaniola (the current na-
tions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). He organized a guerilla war against
the Spaniards and fled with canoes to neighboring Cuba with a group of Tainos,
including women and children, to warn their kin of the invading white barbari-
ans. He took a basket with gold and silver along with him and said: “Here is the
God the Spaniards worship. For these they fight and kill; for these they persecute
us and that is why we have to throw them into the sea... They tell us, these tyrants,
that they adore a God of peace and equality, and yet they usurp our land and make
us their slaves. They speak to us of an immortal soul and of their eternal rewards
and punishments, and yet they rob our belongings, seduce our women, violate our
daughters. Incapable of matching us in valor, these cowards cover themselves with
iron that our weapons cannot break.”
The invaders were not women, but men. The sexual urge of these men was
not controlled in the name of Christianity. It was unleashed upon women and
girls. It was forced upon them. The women and girls were raped and brutalized
with a complete disregard for their humanity or feelings as human beings. There
were no Spanish women raping Taino men during the conquest. Sexual preda-
tion under colonialism was a one way street in which the male colonizer preyed
on the colonized women.
In the chain of events that constituted the trans-Atlantic enslavement wo-
men carried the greatest weight from the very start of the chain. The care for
little children was one of their major concerns. So when they and their children
were kidnapped, they carried them on their back or held them in their arms
during the long and hard journey from the interior to the African coast. Like
men they were branded in the slave forts before they were brought to the ship.
Women were marked for the rest of their lives with hot irons on their shoulder,

55
breast, thigh, stomach, or even on the buttocks in the case of small children.
In the floating prison ships Europeans regarded African men as more dange-
rous than women. They were chained in compartments separate from women’s
compartments. This separation also allowed white men to rape African women
without interference by African men. Even little girls were not safe from rape
as shown in the case of captain Loth on a French ship on its way to the French
colony of Saint Domingue. For three nights in a row he raped a girl of eight
years old while keeping his hands on her mouth to prevent her from screaming.
The girl died.
In the plantation labor camps things were worse. Black women had to do
hard forced labor along with black men. But they were also targetted by the
white rapist whenever he felt a sexual urge. The case of the enslaved woman
Celia in Missouri, USA is indicative in this regard. She was bought at the age of
fourteen in 1850 by 60-year old Robert Newsom. He raped her for the first time
on the journey home from the auction place. From that time he raped her on
a regular basis for five years during which time she gave birth to two children.
In 1855, Celia began a relationship with George, an enslaved man on the farm.
She became pregnant. On the night of June 23, 1855, Robert Newsom went to
Celia’s cabin to rape her again. That night Celia protected herself with a hefty
stick and beat Newsom to death. Celia was arrested and sentenced to death. She
was hanged after her child was born so that the Newsom family could enhance
their live stock. Enslaved women had no human rights during slavery.
Enslaved men and women were the property of white men and women. The
reproductive organs of an enslaved woman were not owned by her, but by her
enslavers. The enslavers decided if a pregnant woman should have a child or
an abortion. In the Dutch colony of Suriname in the eighteenth century it was
cheaper to buy an enslaved African from Africa than to raise an African baby.
In this period it was customary to bury pregnant enslaved women half in the
ground in order to force an abortion. In the southern USA, if poor white men
wanted to buy an African, or an enslaved Black person, they tried to buy a wo-
man. They then raped and impregnated her, so as to increase their investment.
Under the pressure and stress of slavery enslaved men also mistreated en-
slaved women, but their mistreatment was fundamentally different from the
treatment of black women by white men and women. Black women were not
enslaved by enslaved black men. Charles Ball, an enslaved African from Ma-
ryland USA wrote an autobiography in 1860 after his escape from slavery in
which he outlined the difference between the white and black woman during
slavery: "There is no subject which presents to the mind of the male slave a greater

56
contrast between his own condition and that of his master, than the relative station
and appearance of his wife and his mistress. The one, poorly clad, poorly fed, and
exposed to all the hardships of the cotton field; the other dressed in clothes of gay
and various colors, ornamented with jewelry, and carefully protected from the rays
of the sun, and the blasts of the wind."
At the psychological level black women also suffered much more than black
men. Black men did not get white women pregnant without getting killed, so
the emotional problem of having a child from sexual intercourse with white wo-
men hardly existed for black men. On the other hand, black women faced this
psychological problem all the time. A child born from an enslaved mother and
a white father was not free, but an enslaved person of color. How does a black
mother deals with the fact that the white man, who often raped her, enslaved his
and her child? Frederick Douglas, a leading abolitionist in the USA, recounts
the story of his mother during enslavement. His father was a white man. He was
separated from his mother at an early age. Douglas: "I never saw my mother, to
know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times
was very short in duration, and at night. She was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived
about twelve miles from my home. She made her journeys to see me in the night,
traveling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her day's work. She
was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise,
unless a slave has special permission from his or her master to the contrary - a
permission which they seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud
name of being a kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the
light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me
to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took
place between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and
with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old, on
one of my master's farms, near Lee's Mill. I was not allowed to be present during
her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew any thing about
it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her
tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same
emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger."
The mother loved her son born from a free white father who enslaved his
own son. She took enormous risk just to express her love to her child and in
doing so also endured the greatest pain in watching him growing up as an en-
slaved young man.
Elizabeth Keckley was born a slave in 1818 in Virginia USA. After her free-
dom she wrote an autobiography in which she recounts her emotions about

57
getting a child after being raped by a white man: "For four years a white man - I
spare the world his name - had base designs upon me. I do not care to dwell upon
this subject, for it is one that is fraught with pain. Suffice it to say, that he perse-
cuted me for four years, and I became a mother. The child of which he was the
father was the only child that I ever brought into the world. If my poor boy ever
suffered any humiliating pangs on account of birth, he could not blame his mother,
for God knows that she did not wish to give him life; he must blame the edicts of
that society which deemed it no crime to undermine the virtue of girls in my then
position… Why should my son be held in slavery? I often asked myself. He came
into the world through no will of mine, and yet, God only knows how I loved him.
The Anglo-Saxon blood as well as the African flowed in his veins; the two currents
commingled - one singing of freedom, the other silent and sullen with generations
of despair. Why should not the Anglo-Saxon triumph; why should it be weighed
down with the rich blood typical of the tropics? Must the life-current of one race
bind the other race in chains as strong and enduring as if there had been no Anglo-
Saxon taint? By the laws of God and nature, as interpreted by man, one-half of my
boy was free, and why should not this fair birthright of freedom remove the curse
from the other half-raise it into the bright, joyous sunshine of liberty? I could not
answer these questions of my heart that almost maddened me."
There was another difference between enslaved men and women in relation
to white couples. For a white couple, black men were never a threat to their re-
lationship, because black men were hardly the object of sexual desire by white
women. And even if the desire was there, white women would not dare to act
upon their desire. But desire of the white man for the body of a Black woman
brought the rage of the white woman upon the enslaved woman. She caught
hell because white jealousy increased the brutality aimed at her and made her
life more miserable than it already was. She could even get killed because of this
jealousy.

Implications for reparations

Full acknowledgement that under slavery and colonialism women suffered
greater injustice than men should be an integral part of the reparations debate.
Breaking the silence about this suffering is a first step to greater understanding
and is also a key aspect of self-reparations. The fundamental role of sexual vio-
lence and gender relations, and its resulting exploitation and oppression should
receive far greater attention in the narrative of reparations.
Every act of oppression was followed by an act of resistance. At the very early
start of colonization women were in the forefront of the resistance. The case of
58
the young Taino chief Anacaona is illustrative of this. She organized attacks on
the barbaric Spaniards who invade her land. She was captured by the Spaniards
and sentenced to be executed. At the execution she was offered clemency if she
accepted the role of concubine to a Spanish officer. She refused and was put to
death at the age of 29.
In Africa, Queen Anna Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba led a struggle against
European enslavers in the seventeenth century. In the floating prison ships wo-
men had more mobility then the men who were chained in the ship’s dungeon.
They sometimes managed to acquire knives, guns and ammunition and helped
free the men in order to stage an uprising. On the plantations women were often
in the forefront of the revolts. In this role, Jamaica maroon leader Nanny rose
to a legendary status. In the massive maroon communities of Brazil, Guyana
and Suriname, women played important roles in all aspects of community. In
the USA, Sojurner Truth and Harriet Tubman are now acknowledged for their
leading role in the struggle for the legal abolition of slavery. From 1860 until her
death in 1883 Sojourner Truth campaigned for reparations. She put forward a
proposal to reserve land in the West for the men and women who were freed
after the legal abolition of slavery in the USA.
The acknowledgement of the gender-specific injustices of slavery and colo-
nialism has repercussions for both reparations and self-reparations. In the cal-
culation of financial reparations the element of additional human suffering by
women should be taken into account. With regard to non-financial reparations
and self-reparations the creation of and support for institutions that combat the
legacy of slavery and colonialism should be accompanied by demands for spe-
cial attention to the oppression of women and their contribution to the struggle
for freedom and humanity.

59
16 What is the role of law in reparations?

Morality and the makers of law

Law is an expression of the moral principles and power structures in a so-
ciety. In 2006 the then prime-minister of Britain, Tony Blair, expressed his ig-
norance about this principle, when he declared the government’s position on
the trans-Atlantic enslavement: “It is hard to believe that what would now be
a crime against humanity was legal at the time.” It is not hard to believe that a
crime was legal if you concede that criminals can make laws. Law is not made
by nature or gods, but by human beings. At that time criminals were in power
in Europe as heads of state and in government administrations. These criminals
had a different moral than their victims. So it is not a case of different morals
in different times, but different morals at the same time for different human
beings. If criminals get state power, naturally they will constitute a legal system
that enables them to sustain their criminal acts and make it legal to kidnap, en-
slave, exploit and oppress people. In Europe it was illegal to enslave white people
in Europe, yet at the same time it was perfectly legal to enslave Black people in
their colonies.

The concept of justice and freedom

There is a strange twist in the concept of justice in European law that became
evident at the legal abolition of slavery. In a civilized concept of justice once it is
acknowledged that an act is unjust and criminal (against the law), then the vic-
tims of the unjust and criminal act would be compensated by the perpetrators.
Europeans made an uncivilized twist when they abolished the laws that made
enslavement legal. The perpetrators were compensated and the victims were left
with empty hands. European historians are going out of their way to defend this
uncivilized act by British abolitionists. Eurocentric historian Seymour Drescher
talks about a “gallant band of Saints led by their English hero [Wilberforce].” He
states: "By 1833 British legislators had come to the point of treating the end of
slavery in the colonies as an unprecedented experiment in human development."
Even a marxist scholar as Robin Blackburn talks about “a very positive and high-
ly original achievement.” This is the white man’s version of justice. The Blacks
look at it and wonder: “Do you expect me to say: ‘Thank you for not raping me
anymore?’”

60
 A similar twist is found in the concept of freedom. European enslavers in
the USA were fighting for independence under the banner of human freedom.
Thomas Jefferson, who kept black human beings in enslavement, drew up the
USA Declaration of Independence that began with the phrase: “We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Eurocentric historian Davis Brion Davis cannot grasp the contradiction be-
tween freedom and slavery. He states: "But the irony of slaveholders fighting for
the natural rights of man was only part of a larger paradox which has seldom been
grasped in its full dimension." Albert Einstein once said: “Any intelligent fool can
make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of cour-
age to move in the opposite direction.”
There is no paradox at all. What Jefferson meant and what was obvious to
every person at that time was: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
white men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happi-
ness.”
The ruling morals and power of the times were based on racism. For the
racist there was no paradox and thus no need to explicitly mention race. These
racist morals were enacted in law.

The legacy of uncivilized law

There is a legacy of the uncivilized laws in the present time. The legacy is the
lack of acknowledgement of the racist morals and power during slavery. Davis
Brion Davis still defends enslavement when he writes: "Given the lack of an al-
ternative labor supply, it is difficult to see how European nations could have settled
America and exploited its resources without the aid of the African slaves."
Why is it difficult to see that there is an alternative for theft, murder or rape,
namely don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t rape?
Another Eurocentric historian, Robert Fogel, also defends slavery when he
writes “The religious radicals who sparked the abolitionist movement, convinced
that they were divinely inspired, dismissed the dilemma that had beset the foun-
ding fathers between the natural right of the enslaved to their freedom and the
natural right of the masters to the security of their property. “ Fogel speaks of a
“natural right of the master” to enslave black people. Apparently in his world
view there is a natural right of the enslaver to enslave the enslaved.
European abolition is still regarded by many Eurocentric intellectuals as an
61
“unprecedented experiment in human development” rather than an expression of
uncivilized morals and laws in the development of human civilization. The laws
that abolished slavery have never been challenged to include reparations since
they were accepted by European governments. Laws can be changed or remain
unchanged. It is a matter of civilized conduct to decide whether new provisions
are needed to include reparations for historic injustice into European law.

The laws of the colonized people

How can the law system of formerly colonized nations be used for the strug-
gle for reparations? Imagine a law system in Brazil or Jamaica that has a provi-
sion that enables one to sue Portugal or Britain for reparations during slavery
in the Jamaican court. What would the political repercussions be if Portugal or
Britain were convicted? Would the court enable the government to freeze their
assets in Brazilian or Jamaican banks? Could the law suit be used as a stepping
stone to bring Portugal or Britain to the International Court of Justice? There is
an interesting case that illustrates this new field of struggle. That is the case of
Israel’s former Defense minister Ariel Sharon in Belgian courts.
Sharon led the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. On September 18, 1982,
2,000 - 6,000 Palestinians were systematically murdered in Sabra and Shatila
by Lebanese extremists with the support of Israel. In 2001, 23 Lebanese and
Palestinian survivors of the massacre filed a law suit against Ariel Sharon in Bel-
gium. Under a Belgium law, Belgian courts could prosecute foreigners for cer-
tain offences committed abroad. The case looked promising, but then the USA
stepped in to support Israel. They told the Belgian Government that if their legal
authorities were planning to continue with the process, the NATO headquarters
in Brussels would be moved out of Belgium. This shocked the Belgians. The
Belgium parliament hastened to change the law. It adopted changes that created
barriers for future plaintiffs, such as provisions that a plaintiff or victim should
have lived in Belgium for a minimum of three years.
The case in Belgium holds an important lesson on how to influence interna-
tional relationships of power with regard to reparations. The lesson is that this
relationship can be challenged by changing national laws. The provision in the
national laws of Belgium opened the gate to indict individuals for committing
crimes outside of Belgium by people living outside the country. This provision
was an act of a highly civilized moral. The gate was closed as soon as the moral-
ity of the Belgians was put to the test. But it does imply that any nation in the
world can introduce national laws with international ramifications.

62
17 What is the role of apologies and truth
commissions?

Apology and regret

Apologies and truth commissions are prominent issues in the discussion on
reparations. Their basic function is to ensure acknowledgement of the historic
injustice that was committed.
Any civilized person dealing with injustice might regard the difference
between apology and regret as a semantic difference. If you regret the injus-
tice, offering an apology would be the logical next step. That is not the logic of
western governments. They don´t mind expressing regret for their country’s
involvement in slavery, but they refuse to offer an apology. Why? Because to
offer an apology would mean acknowledgement that there is responsibility for
the legacy of the historic injustice and therefore the country would be liable for
reparations. If you express regret, that means you do think that something bad
happened in which you were involved, but that does not mean that you have the
responsibility of a perpetrator. For these governments the difference is about
legality. For civilized people it is about morality.

Acknowledgement
The most important function of an apology is the acknowledgement that
there was historic injustice and that the party that offers an apology accepts
responsibility for the legacy of the historic injustice. A government accepts re-
sponsibility because it is the heir of governments that were actually involved
in the crime. Institutions (companies, churches) whose predecessors were in-
volved in the crime are another party that can offer apologies. In fact there are
some institutions that have offered apologies for their involvement in the trans-
Atlantic slavery.
In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention in the USA passed a resolution
“to repudiate historic acts of evil, such as slavery, from which we continue to reap
a bitter harvest”. Other churches in the USA followed suit such as the Unit-
ed Methodist Church in 2000 and the Episcopal Church in 2006. In 2006, the
Church of England apologized to the descendants of victims of the slave trade.
The Church had run a plantation labor camp in the Caribbean and individual

63
bishops had owned hundreds of enslaved men, women and children. In 2013,
the Dutch Council of Churches offered apologies for their role in slavery and
the slave trade.
These apologies were not the result of a sudden stroke of lightening but the
conclusion of hard work by black and white activists in these societies who have
struggled for the acknowledgement of enslavement and the slave trade as a
crime against humanity.
In the case of private companies, apologies have occurred because of the
pressure of litigation and new laws, especially in the USA. Several companies
have offered apologies when they were confronted with law suits. In 2000, Aetna
Inc., one of the largest health insurers in the USA, apologized for selling insur-
ance to enslavers for financial losses when the enslaved died. The public apology
was prompted by an enquiry that law scholar Daedria Farmer-Paellmann start-
ed (see chapter 19). In 2005, Wachovia, a bank in the USA, offered apologies for
their role in slavery. The bank was required by the laws of the city of Chicago to
investigate its past in order to be able to participate in the redevelopment of a
housing project in the city. Chicago’s law is the result of the struggle of the black
community. Similar laws have been enacted in other parts of the USA.

Elements of an apology
One scholar has defined the elements of an apology as follows: “Broadly de-
fined, an apology is a speech act designed to promote reconciliation between two or
more parties....Research on interpersonal apologies suggests that a comprehensive
apology could potentially contain as many as six complementary but distinguis-
hable elements.... These elements include: (1) remorse (e.g., ‘I’m sorry’), (2) ac-
ceptance of responsibility (e.g., ‘It’s my fault’), (3) admission of injustice or wrong
doing (e.g., ‘What I did was wrong’), (4) acknowledgement of harm and/or victim
suffering (e.g., ‘I know you are upset’), (5) forbearance, or promises to behave bet-
ter in the future (e.g., ‘I will never do it again’), and (6) offers of repair (e.g., ‘I will
pay for the damages’).”
These elements are also important criteria for judging the value of an apol-
ogy. The first five elements do not cost much. It is a matter of using the correct
words. The last element (offers to repair) requires a deed, an action that goes be-
yond words (material and immaterial compensation). Compensation signifies
that an apology is sincere. Without compensation the apology sounds hollow.

64
National Sorry Day
An apology opens the door to reconciliation and increases the faith in the
sincerity of the institutions to deal with the legacy of historic injustice. An inter-
esting case in how apologies can be institutionalized is the National Sorry Day
in Australia. In 1997, a government report on the historic injustice to Australia’s
indigenous people recommended that all Australian parliaments, police forces,
churches and other involved nongovernmental organizations officially acknow­
ledge the responsibility of their predecessors for the laws, policies and practice
of forcible removal of aboriginals, and issue an apology in recognition of this
responsibility. The report recommended that appropriate reparations should be
accompanied with the apologies.
Between 1997 and 2001, each Australian State and Territory government
apologized in Parliament. Since 1998, May 26 is recognized as National Sorry
Day to remember and commemorate the mistreatment of the indigenous popu-
lation. There is a National Sorry Day Committee that has programs for schools
across Australia to support teachers who plan events to commemorate National
Sorry Day. The National Sorry Day is an annual event of education and recon-
ciliation.

Truth commission
The Truth Commission (sometimes Truth and Reconciliation Commission)
is another instrument to deal with historic injustices. These commissions are
mostly installed to deal with current injustices. This was the case in South Af-
rica where a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up as an instrument
to prevent South Africa after Apartheid ending up in a bloody civil war where
a majority of blacks would presumably go after the perpetrators of the hideous
crimes committed during Apartheid. Perpetrators of these crimes could give
testimonies before the Truth Commission of their involvement and request am-
nesty from civil and criminal persecution. In many countries such commissions
have been established to deal with crimes of dictatorships and violence against
a population and individuals.
In 2009, Mauritius established a Truth and Justice Commission with a man-
date “to undertake an inquiry into the legacy of slavery and indentured labor in
Mauritius.” The remarkable thing about its mandate was that it deals with abuses
in a period of 370 years (1638-present), the longest period that a truth commis-
sion has ever attempted to cover. The Commission released its report in 2011. It
documents the economics of colonialism, slavery, and indentured servitude, the

65
experiences of indentured Africans, Indians and the living and working condi-
tions on sugar estates.
The report recommended the promotion of national reconciliation by me-
morializing slavery, better understanding and a more inclusive account of
Mauritian history and culture, better and increased protections of Mauritian
heritage, a non racist and elitist society, a more democratic public life, and em-
powerment of Mauritians of African and Malagasy origin. It also made recom-
mendations to increase economic and social justice, particularly related to land
issues and equitable and judicious use of the environment.

Reparations, apologies and truth commissions

Sincere apologies will automatically include programs for reparations. But
even when that is not the case they can be the first step in a process of getting ac-
knowledgement for historic injustice. The truth commission goes a step further
by actually getting the truth out about the crimes that have been committed.
From there it is a small step to arrive at the question of reparations.

66
18 What is the role of international
institutions in reparations?

Governments and communities

Many reparations programs involve national states and communities. The
war reparations that were paid by the defeated nation to the victor nation might
involve several states, but it was not an international structure. The Napoleonic
Wars ended with France paying reparations to a coalition of Britain, Austria,
Russia and Prussia. It was a matter between states and not of international or-
ganizations. The USA, Canada and Australia had reparation programs for in-
digenous people. This was a matter between a state and a community in that
nation. Germany paid reparations not only to the state of Israel, but also to
Je­wish communities around the world. The latter was a matter between a state
and communities outside the state. In the USA private companies have been
involved in reparation programs. This was a matter between private companies
and communities.
The right to reparations is embedded in international human rights. The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in article 8: “Everyone has the
right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violat-
ing the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.” So how
are international organizations involved in reparations? There are four types of
international involvement in reparations.

The United Nations as a political platform

The United Nations was established at the end of World War II to promote
international cooperation and peace. It has become a forum where nations and
communities put important issues on the international political agenda.
In 2001, the UN organized a World Conference against Racism, Racial Dis-
crimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. In a hotly debated resolution
the UN declared: “We acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade, including the
transatlantic slave trade, were appalling tragedies in the history of humanity not
only because of their abhorrent barbarism but also in terms of their magnitude,
organized nature and especially their negation of the essence of the victims, and
further acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against human-

67
ity and should always have been so, especially the transatlantic slave trade and
are among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance, and that Africans and people of African de-
scent, Asians and people of Asian descent and indigenous peoples were victims
of these acts and continue to be victims of their consequences.” The resolution
concluded that the “victims of human rights violations resulting from racism, ra-
cial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, especially in the light of
their vulnerable situation socially, culturally and economically, should be assured
of having access to justice, including legal assistance where appropriate, and effec-
tive and appropriate protection and remedies, including the right to seek just and
adequate reparation or satisfaction for any damage suffered as a result of such
discrimination.”
This resolution has linked slavery with a crime against humanity. It also
linked the legacy of slavery to the need for reparations.
In 2005, the general assembly of the UN adopted a resolution on Basic Prin-
ciples and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of
Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of
International Humanitarian Law. The resolution defined victims as “persons
who individually or collectively suffered harm, including physical or mental injury,
emotional suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental
rights, through acts or omissions that constitute gross violations of international
human rights law, or serious violations of international humanitarian law. Where
appropriate, and in accordance with domestic law, the term “victim” also includes
the immediate family or dependants of the direct victim and persons who have suf-
fered harm in intervening to assist victims in distress or to prevent victimization.”
So in this definition the heirs of the actual victims are not part of any repara-
tions program. However, the resolution opened the discussion on an interna-
tional level for the need for reparations of crimes against humanity.

The United Nations organizational apparatus

The UN is now more than just a forum for discussion and debate on repara-
tions. In 1990. Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait. This led to the first Gulf War.
The war ended in 1991 with a UN decision that Iraq should pay compensation
to individuals and corporations. The UN created the United Nations Compen-
sation Commission (UNCC). Between 1991 and 2005. the UNCC had received
2.7 million claims from individuals, corporations, governments and interna-
tional organizations. A total amount of US $ 52 billion has been awarded to suc-
cessful claimants. So the UN can set up an international apparatus to actually
68
process claims for reparations.

The international judiciary system

There is an international judiciary system. The International Court of Justice
(ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) are two institutions that have
been set up for international cases. The ICJ has been set up in 1945 as a court for
arbitration of international disputes between nations. The ICC has been set up
in 1998 as a criminal court, where individuals can be brought to trial. Special-
ists on international law look at whether such institutions of the international
judiciary systems are appropriate courts for cases of reparations.
In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled on reparations in a case of
a state against individuals. The Court considered that the construction of a wall
in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Israel violated its obligations under in-
ternational law and was not justified by security concerns. The court ruled that
Israel is “under the obligation to return the land, orchards, olive grove and other
immovable property seized from any natural or legal person’ during the construc-
tion of the wall.”
To what extent the Court can rule on cases of historic injustice is a matter of
further debate among specialists.

The regional international institutions

Apart from the global international organizations there are regional interna-
tional organizations that are relevant to reparations. The Organization of Afri-
can Unity (OAU) was founded in 1963 by 32 African states. It is now called the
African Union. In 1992, the OAU set up a body of eminent persons to “explore
the modalities and strategies of an African campaign for restitution similar to the
compensation paid by Germany to Israel and to survivors of the Nazi Holocaust.”
The group's work has not borne much fruit. It was inspired and supported by
the then president of Nigeria, Moshood Abiola, who was subsequently arrested
by his successor, Sanni Abacha, and died soon thereafter under mysterious cir-
cumstances.
In 2004, The African Union adopted an Action Plan 2004-2005 with a re-
commendation on reparations: “Debate in all African parliaments on slavery.
Objective: declare slavery a crime against humanity and discuss the nature of re-
parations.”
In 2009, the then president of the African Union Muammar al-Qadhafi sta-
ted in a speech during the 64th Session of the United Nations General Assem-
69
bly, that Africa deserves reparations, which amounts to US$ 7.77 trillion for
the resources and wealth stolen in the past. He also declared that colonization
should be criminalized and that people should be compensated for the suffering
endured during the reign of colonial powers.
The policy of the African Union has been expressed more in documents and
declarations than in concrete actions.
In July 2013, another regional organization went a step further. The Carib-
bean Community (CARICOM), established in 1973 by Caribbean nations, con-
ceptualized the call for reparations as “an integral element of the Community’s
development strategy”. The Commission declared that it seeks “reparatory dia­
logue with the former slave-owning states of Europe, which were enriched by these
crimes, with a view to seeking their support for the eradication of the legacy that
serves to subvert the development efforts of national societies.” And although the
Commission states that this dialogue should “be conducted in a diplomatic, con-
ciliatory, and morally uplifting fashion, consistent with the reparatory search for
social justice and human decency”, they also have hired a British law firm Leigh
Day to suit their former colonizers.
It seems that in the future the international institutions will play a bigger role
in the reparations movement.

70
19 How is the struggle for reparations
organized?

Types of organizations
There are four types of organizations in the struggle for reparations. They are
also linked to strategies for reparations:
• Individuals who file law suits against companies in order to get reparations.
• National organizations and networks that organize communities in a nation
for emancipation and liberation. Reparations are part of that struggle.
• International organizations and networks that organize for reparations.
• States that have a policy on reparations.

Individual law suits for reparations

The USA is a country where law suits are commonly used in the process of
opening up discussion on important social and political issues. In 2002, law
scholar Deadria Farmer-Paellmann found documents of an insurance company
in a New York archive that profited from slavery by offering payouts to enslavers
to protect their “human property”. They offered an enslaver US $100 should an
enslaved ten-year-old child die at a premium of US $ 2 per year. She collected
information on existing companies that benefited from slavery and started a law
suit, together with other plaintiffs, against Aetna Life Insurance Corporation,
FleetBoston Financial Services, and CSX Incorporated, a railroad giant, on the
grounds that they ‘‘knowingly benefited from a system that enslaved, tortured,
starved and exploited human beings.” A federal judge tossed out the case in 2005.
In 2007, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. In the wake of the law
suit the California legislature passed a law that required all insurance companies
doing business with the State to present records of any slaveholder insurance
policies they may have issued in the nineteenth century.

National organizations and networks

Every country with a black population that lives with the legacy of slavery
has some organizations that take up the cause of historic injustice. They are
sometimes supported by white individuals and organizations or find an expres-
sion in actions by politicians.
71
 In many countries where the Black population is the majority and hold po-
litical power or where (as in the USA) Black peo­ple have had greater success
through political and social moblization, the ­struggle for reparations has been
prominent on the political agenda.
In the USA there is a long history of organizations demanding reparations.
In 1891, a pamphlet entitled Freedmen’s Pension Bill: A Plea for American Freed-
men began circulating around the black communities in central Tennessee that
espoused the idea of financial compensation as a means of rectifying past ex-
ploitation of slavery. One of the central leaders of an organization based on the-
se ideas - National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association - was
Callie House. She managed to 300,000 people to her organization. In the late
nineteenth century Henry McNeal Turner, a prominent Bishop and advocate
for African American emigration to Africa, called for US $ 40 billion in repara-
tions for slavery. In the 1940s the Nation of Islam urged reparations for slavery
and propagated the secession of certain southern states to become the territory
of an African American nation. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. argued that the
United States owed black America social and economic compensation for the
wrongs of slavery and segregation. In 1969, James Forman published his black
manifesto in which he demanded US $ 500 million from the Christian white
churches and the Jewish synagogues. In 1987, a coalition of black organizations
founded the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’Cobra)
“for the sole purpose of obtaining reparations for African descendants in the Uni-
ted States.” They organized political pressure on the US government to deal with
reparations. In 1989, representative John Conyers re-introduced a bill (HR 40)
to acknowledge the fundamental injustice and inhumanity of slavery, establish a
commission to study slavery, its subsequent racial and economic discrimination
against freed slaves, study the impact of those forces on today's living African
Americans and make recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies
to redress the harm inflicted on living African Americans.
In other countries in the world the movements are not as strong as in the
USA. In England in the early 1990s, MP Bernie Grant founded the African Re-
parations Movement UK. His work on reparations involved demands that Bri-
tish museums account for the thousands of artifacts they had plundered during
imperial conquest, and return to their original owners any that had not been
legitimately acquired. He pressed especially for the return of the ‘Benin Bronzes’
stolen from West Africa in the 1890s during the so-called ‘Punitive Expedition’
of the British military. He publically boycotted the British Museum. For Bernie
Grant museums highlighted the legacy of colonialism in material culture. And

72
they were also a matter of mobilizing populations to challenge racist images, to
access resources, and to create alternative knowledge for better education and
employment.
In Europe the call for reparations has recently gained wider support among
the different communities. In 2010, ninety leading academics, authors, journa-
lists and human rights activists from around the world urged the French go-
vernment in an open letter to pay Haiti back the reparations they forced upon
the Haitians in 1825. In the same year in Holland black organizations convened
an international conference on reparations. In 2014, Rastafarians in London
staged a march in London demanding reparations.

International organizations and networks

Organizations from different countries have developed international net-
works. Many came together in 2001 in the historic World Conference against
Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Dur-
ban South Africa organized by the United Nations. In the declaration that was
adopted reparations prominently figured as an important issue that needs to be
addressed. The international networks have succeeded in generating political
support for states to take up the issue of reparations.

States and reparations

In chapter 18, I have dealt more extensively with the role of international in-
stitutions in reparations. Individual states have used regional institutions to take
on the former colonial power. In Africa, they have used the African Union as a
vehicle to address the issue. In the Caribbean the CARICOM is the instrument
to put reparations on the agenda. The policy of these states is to confront the
former colonial powers with the economic legacy of slavery and demand that
they take responsibility to repair the damage they have caused.
On the national level each country has installed National Committees on
Reparations. On the regional level, a CARICOM Reparations Commission was
established comprising of the Chairs of the National Committees and a repre-
sentative of the University of the West Indies (UWI). The CARICOM is prepa-
ring both a dialogue with and legal action against the former colonizers.

73
20 How much money should be paid for
reparations?

The outcome of negotiations

What amount should be paid for reparations for slavery and colonialism?
We can approach this question from two angles. The first angle is based on a
trade off in negotiations on reparations. The victim party asks for an amount X
and the perpetrator party offers an amount Y. Normally you would expect that
the offer is lower than the demand and negotiations eventually determine the
final amount.
That was not the case for the Jewish Holocaust (see chapter 2). Originally the
Jewish organizations declared in 1944 that the damage was worth US $ 8 bil-
lion. When the negotiations with the Germans started the State of Israel and the
Conference on Jewish Claims Against Germany presented a claim of US $ 1.5
billion. At the end of the negotiations the amount was settled at US $ 822 mil-
lion to be paid between 1952 and 1965. However, after 1965 Germany accepted
a continuous payment that went far beyond the original agreement of US $ 822
million and the 1944 estimate of US $ 8 billion. In 2012, the counter showed the
number of US $ 70 billion and the Germans are still paying every year.
At the start of negotiations a victim party will have to present some estima-
tes for a demand for reparations. There are two major ways of making such an
estimate. The first is based on a claim to a “fair share” of the wealth that was
produced by colonialism. The second is based on an assessment of the damage
that was caused. In both methods an additional claim is made based on com-
pensation for human suffering.

A “fair share” of the wealth

Economist Armand Zunder has done the calculation for Suriname, the for-
mer Dutch colony in South America. He collected the statistics on the value of
imports to Holland of the main products from the colony between 1683 and
1940: sugar, coffee, cotton and cacao. The value in 2006 was € 124 billion (US
$ 162 billion). He then proposed a ratio of 30% for a “fair share” based on un-
paid wages. He argues that colonial agriculture was a labor intensive industry
where the share of labor cost would easily be between 60%-70%. So his ratio is

74
small compared to the real situation. The amount for reparations based on a
“fair share” would amount to € 37 billion (US $ 48 billion).
The amount for human suffering was based on the compensation that the
Dutch enslavers received as reparation at the abolition of slavery. The amount
was 300 Dutch guilders. This amount should have been given to the enslaved.
Zunder calculated the value in 2006 and ended up at € 13 billion (US $ 17 bil-
lion). So the total amount for reparations for Suriname is € 50 billion (US $ 65
billion).
In Zunder´s model the “fair share” is based on the value of the import of
colonial produce in Holland. These products were processed and thus induced
further economic growth and development. We could argue that a “fair share”
should not be limited to the value of the import but to the value of the contri-
bution that was made possible because of colonialism. Sugar or cacao factories
could not exist without sugar or cacao from the colonies. The impact of raw
materials on the creation of wealth is not limited to the imports. The rise of new
industries such as shipping and banking were dramatically impacted by the co-
lonial economy. So it is not unreasonable to talk about a “fair share” of the total
wealth that was created due to colonialism rather than limiting it to the value
of the imports.
We need new econometric models that can simulate the impact of colonia-
lism on the rise of the world economy in general and the rise of western econo-
mies in particular. New estimates for the amount for reparations will be based
on such models.

The damage that was caused: unpaid labor

The second method is based on the damage that was caused by colonialism.
For slavery some estimates have been produced about the value of unpaid wa-
ges. What would the unpaid wage be based upon? One scholar in the USA sug-
gests taking the value of the price of enslaved men and women during slavery
as the basis of what should have been their annual income. That would amount
to US $ 448 billion to US $ 995 billion in 1970. Another scholar proposes to use
the market value of the food, shelter, and other consumption for reproducing
enslaved labor. His estimate amounts to US $ 1.4 trillion in 1983.

The DTM concept of reparations

In the Decolonizing The Mind framework I have developed a concept to cal-
culate the amount for reparations that is based on an assessment of the damage
75
that was caused by colonialism.
Our concept uses principles that are accepted by Europeans economic phi-
losophy.
The European economic philosophy is based on five assumptions:
1. If you build an enterprise on land that is not yours, you should pay rent. This
principle is accepted in the west, then and now. You do not set up a business
on a property in London, Paris or Amsterdam without asking permission
from the person owning the land and without negotiating about the rent
you should pay. Colonization was the conquest of land that did not belong
to the Europeans. So in our model we calculate the outstanding rent that the
colonizers have to pay for exploiting land that was not theirs during all the
years of colonization.
2. If you take goods that are not yours, you should pay for them. You don’t steal,
you buy. This principle is vested in religion, morality and law of the west.
One of the ten commandments of the Bible is: “Thou shalt not steal”. In our
model we take account of the value of the minerals and other material goods
that Europeans have stolen and taken away without payment.
3. If somebody performs labor on your behalf, you should pay a proper wage
for his or her services. If a painter comes to paint your house, you give him
of her a decent payment. What is decent is negotiable but the principle that
labor is not free was generally accepted in the west during colonialism. In
our model we calculate the hours of non-paid labor during slavery. Apart
from non-paid labor there is also underpaid labor. That is labor that did not
get the wage that was considered proper in Europe for the services that were
provided by the laborers. The fact that labor has been extracted from the
colonized without their consent and by force is included in this part of the
calculation.
4. If you intentionally (or even unintentionally) cause injury to an individual
or a community you should pay compensation for the injury. In the case of
an individual the injury can vary from emotional injury (stress from for-
ced labor or kidnapping) to injury in property and body. In the case of a
community, the injury consists in the annihilation of social institutions, the
destruction of human dignity and the suppression of basic human rights. A
basis principle in these cases is that the victim should be compensated and
not the perpetrator. The Europeans have reversed this principle. When they
abolished slavery in the Americas, the criminals were compensated. They
got a sum of money per enslaved person as compensation for their crime. In
our model we compensate the victim, not the criminal.

76
5. If you have a debt, you should pay interest. This is an accepted principle in
economics and morality in the west. If you were a Muslim, you might argue
that interest is forbidden in Islam, so no interest can be charged. But the
west was Christian, not Muslim, so we adhere to the principles of the west.
In our model I have used half of the interest rate that a European power
(France) has imposed on a colonized people (the people of Haiti) when they
demanded and got reparations for enslavement, which was 6%.
The DTM model is elaborated in a mathematical model. This model has
been used to develop a computer program to simulate the outcome of calcula-
tions for reparations. The technical explanation of the mathematical model, the
structure of the database and the code for the simulation is downloadable from
the following url: http://www.iisr.nl/download.
The significance of the simulation is twofold. First, it shows the inconceivable
damage that colonization has caused upon the colonized and the unimaginable
debt that rests on the shoulders of the colonizer as a legacy of colonialism.
Second, some writers argue that colonialism was a burden rather than a profit
for the colonizer. Their argument centers on relating the value of exports from
the colonies to the total imports or the total production of a European country.
It does not take into account the crime of stealing land, products and labor. Our
model shows that if Europeans would have acted as honorable citizens rather
than as criminals it would have been impossible to develop their wealth. The
global world system would be radically different with the west ending up being
poor and the rest would have developed their economy and society.

Computer simulation
The amount for reparations becomes extremely huge and can go into tril-
lions (1,000,000,000,000) or quadrillions (1,000,000,000,000,000) US dollars. In
order to get an idea of the dimension I have made a reference point: the total
GDP of the colonizers countries in 2013, which was US $ 30,980,662,000,000
(US $ 30 trillion) for Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and USA. The GDP of USA is US$ 16.8 tril-
lion (54% of the total). These nations were involved in western colonialism in
different periods and areas. The GDP is the market value of all final goods and
services from a nation that is produced in a given year.
In the computer simulation I use the following parameters:
• For the calculation of the present value: interest rate of 0%.
• For the rent of land and water: US $ 10 per square km at the start of coloni-
zation and an increase of US $ 0.50 per year till the end of colonization. The
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 periods of colonization differed per region.
• For stolen goods I have only taken figures for gold and silver that was stolen
from Latin America. The start production of gold was 8,000 kg per year with
an annual increment of 2 kg, a starting price of US $ 3,000 per kg and an
increment of US $ 10. For silver the starting quantity was 300,000 kg with an
annual increment of 200 kg, a starting price of US$ 80 per kg and an annual
increment of US $ 1.
• For unpaid wages: US $ 0,01 per hour for a working day of 10 hours and 313
working days in a year) at the start of colonization. That is US $ 31,30 for a
whole year. The increase per year of the annual wage is US $ 0.01.
• For the compensation for human suffering I have US $ 1,00 per person and
an annual increase of US $ 0,01.
• The amount for reparations based on these parameters is
US $ 10,759,777,102,101 (10 trillion dollars); that is 0.3 times the total GDP
of the colonizers in 2013.
• If I use the interest rate of 3%, which is half of rate that France imposed
on Haiti for reparations, to calculate the present value then the debt grows
exponentially: US $ 321,090,670,376,971,000 (US $ 321 quadrillion), that is
10,364 times the total colonizers GDP.
De distribution of the reparations by region and category in US$ trillions is:

Human Stolen Unpaid

Region suffering Rent goods wages Total
Asia/Middle East 212 96   1.444 1.752
Africa 174 286   1.212 1.672
South America 29.481 62.758 8.178 212.633 313.050
North America 25 4.438   148 4.611
Total 29.892 67.578 8.178 215.437 321.086

The computer model enables us to calculate the impact of a change in para-

meters such as the population, the amount for human suffering, the wages etc.
I used a working day of 10 hours. If I extend it to 11 hours then the amount
of reparations increases with US $ 20 trillion in current dollars. If I would keep
the working day at 10 hours and increase the hourly wage from US $ 0.01 to US
$ 0.02 the amount would increase with US $ 212 trillion. If I start from the basis

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and increase the compensation for human suffering from US $ 1 to US $ 2 to
compensate for women than the amount would increase with US 5 trillion.
The amounts for reparations are staggering even with minimum require-
ments for the parameters. It shows the extent of the damage that was caused by
colonialism.

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Further reading
Beckles, Hilary (2013): Britain’s Black Debt. Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native
Genocide. UWI. Jamaica.
Beckles, Hilary & Shepherd, Verene (2007): Trading Souls: Europe’s Transatlantic Trade in
Enslaved Africans. Ian Randle Publishers, Kingston.
Brooks, R. (ed.) (1999): The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human
Injustice. New York University Press. New York.
Brophy,A. (2006): Reparations Pro & Con. Oxford University Press. Oxford.
Claims Conference (2013): 2012 Worldbook. Conference on Jewish Material Claims
Against Germany. A Guide to Claims Conference Programs Worldwide.
Feagin, J. (2014): Racist America, third edition : Roots, Current Realities, and Future
Reparations. Taylor and Francis. elibrary.
Ferstman, C., Goetz, M. and Stephens, A. (eds.) (2009): Reparations for Victims of
Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Systems in Place and Systems in the
Making. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Leiden, Boston.
Gómez Isa, F. (n.d.): Right of indigenous Peoples to Reparation for historical Injustices.
http://paperroom.ipsa.org/papers/paper_2835.pdf. Accessed 24 July 2014.
Greiff, P. de (ed.) (2006): Handbook of Reparations. Oxford University Press. Oxford.
Lenzerini, F (2008): Reparations for Indigenous Peoples International and Comparative
Perspectives. Oxford University Press. Oxford.
Martin, M. and Yaquinto, M. (2007): Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States.
On Reparations for Slavery, Jim Crow, and Their Legacies. Duke University Press. elibrary.
Robinson, R. (2000): The Debt. What America owes to Blacks. Plume. New York.
Sarkin, J. (2011): Germany's Genocide of the Herero : Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His
Settlers, His Soldiers. Boydell & Brewer. e-library.
Shepherd, Verene, et. al (2010): Jamaica and the Debate over Reparations for Slavery;
Pelican Publishers, Kingston.
Torpey, J. (ed.) (2004): Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices. Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers. elibrary.
United Nations (2006): Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and
Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious
Violations of International Humanitarian Law.
Wolfe, S. (2013): The Politics of Reparations and Apologies. Springer. elibrary.
Zunder, A. (2010): Herstelbetalingen. De ´Wiedergutmachung´ voor de schade die
Suriname en haar bevolking hebben geleden onder het Nederlands kolonialisme.

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