Bert S. Samuels, Contributor

The dawning of the year 2007 will witness the bi-centennial of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. As a descendant of the survivors of that one-way journey from home to the island of Jamaica, January 1, 2007, becomes a solemn moment for reflection, contemplation and in general, represents an opportunity to assess the past and point ourselves forward.

The year 2007 has sparked a debate among the slave-owning nations and institutions, including the Church of England which itself owned slaves. Slaves were part of the capital stock, belonging to a myriad of British institutions ranging from members of the British royalty to their churches.

To its unpardonable disgrace, the slave-owning church taught its slave worshippers that they landed here with an evil religion and desperately needed to embrace its brand of Christianity, which accepted and reinforced white superiority.

As the lust for profit outweighed the liberating theology that Christianity ought to represent, the church got caught up in the trade in humans where racial hatred and inhumanity were justified in a warped interpretation of the Bible.

The political leaders of the early 1800s were no less hypocritical and contradictory than the unrepentant Tony Blair, the current Prime Minister of England. While the British Parliament of the 1800s was busy promulgating laws to curb the inhumane treatment the early industrialist class was meting out to the British working class, consequent on the industrial revolution, it blithely ignored the horrors that very class had been imposing on us for centuries.

Similarly, Blair refuses to apologise and atone in a meaningful way for the genocide England committed against us. However, he did not hesitate three years ago to 'save' the world in general and the people of Iraq in particular, from the so-called 'threat' Saddam posed to the civilised world, by sacrificing thousands of lives and plunging his people into an expensive and senseless war.

Transfer of capital and wealth

How could Blair support the trial of a head of state for the alleged mass murder of his people when in the same year he fails to account for centuries of mass murder - his country included - committed against us?

Britain has benefited from centuries of the transfer of capital and wealth from the West Indies and Africa to fund the making of the British Empire to the world super-power it became when Britannia ruled the waves. Jamaica, in the meantime, became a penniless jewel in the British crown. What is Mr. Blair's response to the fact that that unjust enrichment was gained at the expense of our development, leaving us to wallow in misery and subservient poverty?

The British Parliament outlawed slavery in England in 1807. However, all black babies born in Jamaica in that year would remain slaves until age 30 and the majority of adult slaves, who no doubt, celebrated the 1807 abolition in England, died before the 30-year wait for its abolition here.

Added to that extra 30-year bonus, the planters were voted £20 million as compensation for the losses abolition cost them. We, the heirs of slaves, have been waiting for 230 years for our equitable compensation from a deaf English listenership.

The pain for me, as the descendant of those robbed to build this wealthy British Empire, is that during this 230-year wait, I have witnessed compensation paid to other peoples. The Jews, who are not the sole example to be given, have received worldwide support for the repatriation of the ill-gotten gains of Hitler's Nazi Germany, following on the six-year holocaust meted out to the Jews of Europe.

The apologists have offered varying reasons to deny us our just demand for compensation. When the matter was debated in the House of Lords in England some 10 years ago, one of the Lords there, arguing against compensation, was bold enough to opine that we Africans are by nature a forgiving people.

Others have said we should be happy that we were taken out of Africa to the West. They reason that the 400 years of suffering were worth it because we are enjoying the fruits of Western civilisation!

Having myself, along with my eldest daughter, visited Ghana and met with numerous Africans from the mainland, I can attest to Africa's natural beauty, its rich culture and vast mineral wealth. Ironically, the Europeans who raped Africa are more enlightened about the value of Africa than these apologists, many of whom are themselves descendants of slaves.

Relentless fight

We must never buy into the popular belief that slavery ended because the conscience of the whites was haunting them. It is the relentless fight of our forefathers who burnt cane fields, resisted and escaped from the prisons called plantations, and revolted and killed many white masters that eventually made slavery uneconomic and unworkable.

Many of our fathers paid the ultimate price in resisting the yoke of slavery and to them we give our highest tribute as we remember, at this time, the factors leading to the end of our misery. We salute them as the true abolitionists, as we will never discount the pivotal role they played in making sure that forced labour was itself uneconomic as a factor of production.

We must also recognise that the abolition of slavery has not brought an end to our suffering as a transplanted people. Following its abolition, Europe continued to milk the colonies of their wealth. Those who were handsomely compensated pushed us to marginal lands to eke out a living, having to choose between farming the unproductive hillsides or tolerating below-subsistence wages on the old plantations. The plains remained firmly in the hands of the already compensated and powerful planter class.

As regards our human rights, our post-slavery position hardly improved. The United States provides an example where racism denied freed slaves the right to vote as our brothers were forced to live in a racially segregated society well into the 20th century.

We will never forget or forgive them for the massacre that was visited upon us as we dared to peacefully demand equal rights, better living conditions and justice in Morant Bay, 27 years following the abolition of slavery in Jamaica.

Bert S. Samuels is an attorney-at-law; email: bianca@cwjamaica.com.