Benefitting from Crimes against Humanity: Do we owe debts for slavery and colonialism? - My Opinion - World Conference against Racism, 2001 - Brief Article

Lost in the media maelstrom provoked by the dark events of September 11 was much coverage of the mid-September conclusion of the UN Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa. Most of the earlier coverage in North America centered around efforts to condemn Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, and Canada's official disassociation from the conference's final document on the Middle East.

But an even more controversial issue received little coverage in North America - the demands of African nations to have slavery and colonialism named "crimes against humanity." Further, African delegations wanted those western nations that participated in the slave trade to apologize for their sins, as well as to pay reparations. This provoked great concern among European nations and in the USA, since it could set the stage for demands for massive financial settlements, as well as years of litigation by descendants of those enslaved. In the end a watered down statement called upon those who participated in slavery to find means to restore the dignity of those enslaved. As one drafter of the compromise noted, this was an apology with no legal consequences attached.

Do those nations in the advanced world that benefitted directly and indirectly from slavery and colonialism owe anything to those nations victimized by such structures and practices? There is little doubt that the prosperity and affluence of western industrial nations have many roots in slavery and colonialism. The Industrial Revolution happened first in Great Britain largely due to its colonial empire and the slave trade - and the speed with which this modernization occurred had much to do with slavery and colonialism.

Between 10 and 12 million Africans were enslaved and sent to work the plantation system of the Americas. This human commerce was but one leg of the "triangular trade" that made Britain fabulously wealthy and provided the capital and the drive for industrial take-off. From Britain, ships loaded with manufactured goods sailed to Africa's Slave Coast. There the goods were traded for slaves. From Africa the slave ships crossed the Atlantic to the Americas were the slaves were sold or traded to plantation owners. From the Americas the ships, now loaded with cheap raw materials, especially cotton, so essential to the growing industrial economy, sailed to Britain. And every European power with the means tried to imitate, on a smaller scale, Britain's grand design. The ships were never empty. Enormous profits were made on each leg of the voyage, bringing home large amounts of capital for investment. The slaves provided the cheap and reliable labour to produce the cheap raw materials. Colonialism provided Britain - a nd the other European nations - with not only the source of slaves and raw materials, but access to a protected and enforced world market for manufactured goods. Whole cultures and whole economies in the colonial world were destroyed and swept aside. Africa, Asia and the Middle East were carved up and shared out among the European powers.

Hence, the foundational roots of the prosperity the developed nations enjoy today lie firmly in this inglorious past. And many of the persisting problems of today's less developed world can be traced back to slavery and colonialism. The jig-saw puzzle of nation states in Africa, which defies geopolitical and economic logic, is simply the legacy of Europe's sharing out of Africa. The Middle East of today with its series of arbitrary nation states, including monarchies more backward than those of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, is a fabrication of European colonialism and its legacy.

Do those of us who today enjoy the consequential benefits of this legacy owe a debt to those victimized by slavery and colonialism? Today the three richest people in the world control assets exceeding the GDPs of the 48 poorest countries. The 225 richest in the western world control over $1 trillion, equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 percent of the world. The wealth/income ratio between the 20 percent of people living in the richest areas of the world and the 20 percent of people living in the poorest areas of the world has grown from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in the late 1990s. The fact is that those of us in the western developed world enjoy our privileges and affluence partly due to the early advantages bestowed by, and subsequent consequences of, slavery and colonialism.

It is clear we owe debts - moral and economic - for slavery and colonialism. The real question is how do we pay them and to whom? The other problem is, of course, are we prepared to accept the consequences of not only refusing to clear those debts from the historical record, but of repudiating them altogether, as diplomats and governments speaking on our behalf did at the Durban conference?

John Conway is a University of Regina political sociologist and frequent contributor.

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