By Erica James-King, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE ISLAND'S academia is renewing calls for reparation to Jamaica and other countries in the African Diaspora and Africa for the wrongs meted out to blacks during slavery.
This time around, Verene Shepherd, Professor of Social History at the University of the West Indies (UWI), is underscoring the need for Jamaicans to join the reparation movement.
"I urge you to join the Jamaica reparations movement and add your voices to those who are calling for an act of reparation, because it is the right thing to do," declared Professor Shepherd while giving the keynote address at the annual 'Emancipation Lecture' at Calvary Baptist Church in Montego Bay, St. James, on Sunday night.
Batting for citizens to become more proactive in advocating that the former colonial powers grant compensation and restitution for the socio-economic imbalances resulting from slavery, Professor Shepherd stressed that pressure should be brought to bear on Government to get it to take a bold stand in the reparation lobby effort.
"Let us press our Government to come up with a national plan, so that we can present a unified front to those whose ancestors trespassed against us," Professor Shepherd insisted.
MORE THAN CEREMONIAL OBSERVANCES
The UWI official is cautioning citizens that responsibility to themselves requires more than ceremonial observances highlighting freedom from slavery, as "what we need from them (colonials) is a willingness to pay reparation not necessarily in cash... but in kind, if only as a mark of reconciliation."
Turning to the matter of Haiti, the Professor said Jamaica should support its eastern neighbour in its bid to get restitution from France, its former colonial master.
BACKING THE CALL
FOR COMPENSATION
Noting that when Haiti gained its freedom from France, it had to pay $90 million in gold francs to that country, which is equivalent to some US$21.7 billion dollars today, she said that Jamaica should back the call by Haitian President, Jean Bertrande Aristide, for France to return the money as a form of compensation for the atrocities of slavery.
Meanwhile, Professor Shep-herd is appealing to Jamaica to reassess its attitudes towards Haiti and the people of that nation. Stating that this island should never forget that Haiti helped Jamaicans in the struggle for freedom, the senior lecturer recalled that by "harbouring those who reached her shores after 1791 and refusing to return any Jamaicans" to the slave system, Haiti aided Jamaica's resistance to oppression.
