Why There is No Logic for Reparations

I note with interest that while it is being reported by at least one media house that it is not convinced by the logic of reparations, I have yet to see anything substantive, either from that media house, or anywhere else, as to why demanding reparations has no logic.  Therefore, I will show why there is no logic to this demand.

The claims that the British Prime Minister, Mr. Cameron is personally accountable for the supposed sins of slavery and that we Jamaicans cannot advance without the British first apologizing for reparations are so ridiculous that no time is needed to respond to them.  However, some of the other reasons why reparations must be paid can be easily and successfully challenged – and with little effort.

While it has already been established that slavery was very much a legal institution up to 1834, some commentators continue to insist that slavery was indeed a crime at that time.  They base this on a court case, the Somersett case that ruled slave ownership a crime in England in the 1700s.   However, while the ruling is not even clear on whether slave ownership was indeed a crime in England, even if it did, that did not make the institution of slavery a crime in the empire.

It must be noted that even if slave ownership was a crime in England, I don’t see how that would help the legal case of the reparations lobby.  That ruling did not illegalize British subjects’ and entities’ participation in the institution of slavery – many British insurance companies, for instance, were still insuring slaves throughout the slavery era.  Also, while slave ownership may have been a crime in England, it certainly was not a crime in colonies, and it must be noted that it is not England that is demanding reparations, but the former colonies, like Jamaica.

Very weird comparisons have been made between the reparations payments made by Britain and Germany and the lack of any to us.  However, none of the reparations payments mentioned are the same as the one we are demanding.

The case of the Jews is the most popular miss-comparison.  Germany paid reparations to the Jews after the war for what Hitler did to them.  However, there are very significant differences between what happened to the Jews and what happened to us.

Unlike slavery, Germany was not openly exterminating the Jews.  Notice how, unlike the African exporters and European importers, the Germans were desperately trying to hide their extermination facilities by building them in the forests and other remote locations?  Notice that while the Africans and Europeans were doing all they can to promote the slave trade, right up to the late 1700s, the Germans were strenuously denying British claims that they (the Germans) were exterminating the Jewish race?

Also important, is that the slaves in the West Indies were not considered to be human beings, but property, in law and according to the social norms of both the Africans and Europeans.  Their standard treatment did not violate any law or international convention at the time. Jews may have been seen as less than human, both by German law and social norms, but they were not considered to be property and the attempted German extermination was a crime in Germany (which was why Hitler was trying to hide it) and violated international conventions at the time.

Notice that the reparations demanded by the Jews and paid by Germany were paid to living victims and paid by living villains?  Where are the supposed living perpetrators and the supposed living victims of slavery today?  Very similar considerations can be made of the other popular miss-comparison being made with the Mau-Mau case in Kenya.  Talk about comparing apples and eggs!

The demand for slavery on the basis that the planters were compensated itself, at least on the face of it, is a contradiction.  This basis for demanding reparations must be an admission that the planters deserve to be compensated.  If so, then what the reparations lobby is really saying is that, as the planters should have been compensated, the reason why must also be true.  That reason is that the slaves were not human beings, but property.  If those demanding reparations then agree that the slaves were property before 1834, how can they then say that property should get compensation?  Strange logic indeed!

The reparations lobby has been very good at manipulating the emotions of people in its quests. However, morality is a very misunderstood phenomenon.  Surely, within the context of our time today, slavery would be seen as inhumane – even by me.  However, when looking at the issue of slavery we must always remember to do so within the correct moral context.  The problem with the reparations lobby is that it has taken slavery out of its correct moral context and is trying to fit it into ours today – which is wrong.

The world of slavery centuries ago was a very different place from ours today.  The typical person, both European and African, didn’t understand human rights the way we do now.  Concepts such as racial, ethnic and gender equality were alien to most.  Foreign conquests were considered normal – even necessary, by both Europeans and Africans.  As for slavery and the trade in slaves, those were typical institutions that were well-established in Africa long before the Europeans even knew of the place.

Europeans did not visit slavery or the trade in humans on Africans, so when they went to Africa to buy slaves, the Africans were only too eager to sell them.  Very few gave the treatment that the slaves got, both in Africa and the West Indies, much thought.  The few who were brave enough to say that slavery was some sort of immoral act were seen by the majority as deviants.  Such was the world then.

We must be careful not to judge past generations and societies, especially ones that are extinct.  When our time is up and our societies become extinct, our future descendants will surly find some of what we do today as immoral and criminal.  Those future descendants will have no right to condemn us, just as we don’t have any right to condemn our ancestors – both European and African.  We must understand and not judge.

There is one more contradiction.  Seeing that all of our problems are being attributed to our slavery experience, then everything that is good about us must also be attributed to that same slavery experience.  As such, our world-renowned reggae music, enviable culture and cuisine and our sporting prowess are all products of this same slavery past.  I know that our reparations lobby would want to have its cake and eat it too, but when will it start thanking the British for these slavery products too?

Another case is being made that crimes such as genocide and slavery have no time limitation.  The reparations lobby has been very persistent in the use of this argument. Again, the issue is not if there is a time limit to the crimes of slavery and genocide, the issue is whether these were understood by the typical person centuries ago as crimes in the first place.  Everything about slavery tells us no.  

The reparations lobby must prove that the typical person at that time saw the institution of slavery as a crime.  It has not done so.  This is the very reason why I think that the call for reparations has no logic.  It is not what we today think of the institution of slavery.  For any case for reparations to have any force, those calling for them must prove that the typical person then thinks like they do.  No such thing has happened.

As such, I will agree with that media house, when it declared though its own editorial, that it cannot find any logic for this call for reparations.  How can it, when there is none?

Michael A. Dingwall

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