Ghanaians reacted with disbelief and disappointment to Blair's speech

The whole talk about modern day slavery is a deliberate attempt to shift focus from the call for reparation. Tony Yeboah, Teacher

What started last Sunday as a note of reflection at Elmina Castle, the slave fort built in 1492 by European slave traders, ended with angry outburst by Ghanaians after the speech of the British Prime minister was aired.

"The speech lack substance," said Prof Nkunu Akyea, president of the Ghana Tour Guides Association and former head of Ghana Heritage Conservation Trust.

"He spoke as if people here would not understand. It was hypocritical and empty. Sometimes they forget that we learnt their language. His words were carefully selected as if people here would not understand."

Akyea who was one of the consultants behind the event, said Tony Blair's speech which was broadcast live from UK to Ghana: "did not do justice to the truth."

"The speech of Prime Minister Tony Blair was typical; it was patronising," he said. "To me it was undoing all the hard work and the money spent by the British Council in organising the event."

Although the events brought together artists, activists and politicians from across Africa, the Caribbean, the UK and the USA, it was in some ways a divisive one, with the speech of Prime Minister Blair sparking disappointment and anger among the Ghanaian crowd for failing to acknowledge the role played by British in the slave trade.

Mr Blair's speech he played tribute to the role played by abolitionists such as William Wilberforce and spoke of the fight which must continue today against all forms of slavery, such as human trafficking. But he said nothing of the role played by the British in instituting the chattel enslavement of Africans and made no apologies whatsoever.

"The reaction amongst the audience was certainly one of disappointment and disbelief," according to Prof Akyea.

Ghanaians see through attempt to shift focus away from reparations

Elmina Castle.

Blair's speech was an insult on Africa and Africans. It demonstrates their unrepentant attitude, pride and self-centeredness. Amah Aryee, University student

"Everyone turned to their neighbour and said, 'Is he serious?' when he compared the slave trade which existed in Ghana before the Europeans came, to the trans-Atlantic slave trade under them."

For Amah Aryee, a graduate student of the University of Legon who attended the event: " Blair's speech was an insult on Africa and Africans. It demonstrates their unrepentant attitude, pride and self-centeredness. What does it cost Britain to offer a formal apology for their role in the repugnant trade?" he asked.

"The whole talk about modern day slavery is a deliberate attempt to shift focus from the call for reparation. If Africa wasn't depleted and plundered by colonialism and slave trade, the level of underdevelopment we see today wouldn't be there," said Tony Yeboah, a high school teacher.

"He was talking about debt relief and how is it helping people in Zambia. Is the debt relief granted Africa anything near the economic damage that slavery did to the continent? Can it compensate for the labour that Europe and America got from our forebears?" asked an Accra-based African-American who gave her name as Tyra Benjamin.

In his own reaction, Exfel Clankson, Senior Museum Education Officer at Cape Coast Castle, stated: "For me, it was political talk. It was just a speech to mark the 200th anniversary because he had to say something. But if you ask me to outline what he actually said there was nothing of value at all."

Elmina Castle, the venue of the bicentenary, was sub-Saharan Africa's first permanent slave trading centre, built by the Portuguese in 1492 and later handed over to England. It is estimated that from it, over 5 million slaves were shipped to America and Europe through the infamous 'door of no return.'

Archbishop urges church to consider slavery reparations

The Church of England should contemplate paying reparations for its historical role in the slave trade, the Archbishop of Canterbury said today.

Dr Rowan Williams said Anglicans needed to acknowledge that they belonged to an institution partly shaped "by terrible things that our forebears did”.

He said the church had to “work at” the question of reparations, but added that the issue was complex and it was unclear who should receive such payments.

The church, which owned slaves on its Caribbean plantations, did not free them until 1833 - 26 years after the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire.

Britain's government paid the church significant compensation for the loss of its slave labour, and Dr Williams said passing on that reparation should now be considered.

The church"s missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, owned the Codrington plantation in Barbados, where slaves had the word society branded on their chests with red-hot irons.

The Bishop of Exeter and three business colleagues were paid nearly £13,000 to compensate them for the loss of 665 slaves in 1833.

Dr Williams told BBC Radio 4’s Trade Roots programme organisations that received compensation in the 1830s were still “living off the historical legacy” of slavery.

However, he added: “While it sounds simple to say ... we should pass on the reparation that was received, exactly to whom?

“Exactly where does it go? And exactly how does it differ from the various ways in which we try to interact now with the effects of that in terms of aid and development and so forth?

“So I haven’t got a quick solution to that. I think we need to be asking the question and working at it. That, I think, we’re beginning to do.”

His comments - a day after the 200th anniversary of the advent of UK legislation abolishing the slave trade - could be seen as a challenge to other institutions that profited from slave labour, such as banks, universities and galleries, to consider paying reparations.

Last year, the church voted to apologise for profiting from the slave trade despite Anglican reformers such as William Wilberforce playing a key role in bringing about its abolition.

On Saturday, Dr Williams was joined by other senior clergy at a prayer service in London to commemorate the anniversary of the abolition.

He and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu - who has called on Britain to make a formal apology for the slave trade - led a procession to mark the bicentenary.

Yesterday, the prime minister, Tony Blair, said the UK’s role was a “matter of deep sorrow and regret”. However, his statement appeared to fall short of demands from campaigners, who said he had not gone far enough.

The deputy prime minister, John Prescott, has said the emphasis of the anniversary should be on helping African countries rather than offering apologies.

Westminster Abbey - Slavery abolition events

The Abbey of Westminster will run a series of events to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of the abolition of the Slave Trade Act. Click on the picture to find out more.

 

Link to Westminster Abbey - House of God and House of Kings

Door of no return opens up Ghana's slave past

Castle of Elmina

ELMINA, Ghana, March 19 (Reuters) - For many, it was their last glimpse of Africa.

Pushed through the "door of no return", millions of Africans were shipped from places like this whitewashed fort in Elmina, Ghana, to a life of slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean and America.

A band of light from that same door now cuts through the air in a small, dank room crowded with about 30 tourists.

"We are very lucky. Today we can go back out of this room the way we came," says Robert Kugbey, their softly spoken guide.

As Britain marks the bicentenary of its abolition of the slave trade on March 25, Ghanaians are still coming to terms with slavery's impact on their country's development and the role Africans played in the capture and sale of fellow Africans.

The view from Elmina, built by the Portuguese in 1482 and later held by the Dutch and the British, is picturesque with fishing boats bobbing in the sea off a white sand beach lined with palm trees.

But Elmina has a brutal history -- shared with other slave forts on West Africa's coast, ports in Western Europe and what was then known as the New World, the Americas -- in a triangular trade that fuelled Europe's colonial empires.

Sometimes sold into slavery by rival tribes, or captured during communal conflicts, African slaves could face a long forced trek to the coast or weeks in a coastal dungeon before a lengthy sea voyage packed in the hold of a European ship.

CHOOSE A FEMALE

Estimates vary widely, but somewhere between 10 and 28 million Africans are believed to have been shipped across the Atlantic between the 15th and 19th centuries.

Many died on the way. Those who survived endured a life of drudgery on sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations.

At modern-day Elmina, the ocean thrashes under a clear blue sky, the breeze blows and in the airy heights of what was once the governor's chambers, Kugbey tells a rapt audience stories that never lose their power to horrify, no matter how often told.

Stepping onto his balcony in the evening, the governor would choose a female slave from the yard below, he said.

"Any time he wanted to rape one of the slaves, he looked through and picked one," Kugbey said.

About 150 of the castle's 1,000 inhabitants, of which 400 were women, lived in this dungeon, the only ventilation provided by a single porthole.

Once covered with faeces, vomit, urine and menstrual blood, today the stone floor is quiet but for the tourists' shuffling feet.

"When they died they were thrown into the sea. They said if they gave them good food, they would fight. Some refused to eat, they preferred to die," said Kugbey.

On the fort's upper floors, above the bodies in chains, the governor and his soldiers prayed in a chapel.

"After buying and selling human beings, they came here and prayed to God. Where was God at that time?" asked Kugbey.

COMPENSATION?

British involvement with the slave trade did not end overnight with the 1807 abolition and a more stringent abolition law followed in 1833. Slavery continued in other countries too.

Governments of countries most responsible for the slave trade have skirted around the prickly chapter of their history, wary of strengthening the case for huge financial compensation some say they should pay the descendents of slavery's victims.

"They owe us an apology, they have to compensate us. They took our men, those who were gifted, who could learn. If it were not for the slave trade, they could have stayed and improved things here. It was a brain-drain," said Alex Adi Aboagye, a 65-year-old Ghanaian farmer visiting Elmina for the first time.

Some people say the loss of generations of men and women to slavery is partly to blame for the economic problems and slow development of modern Africa.

Yet Africans too played a role in slavery, a trade which existed before the arrival of the Europeans, said Kugbey -- though he said slavery as practised by Africans was less harsh than under Europeans.

"That type of slavery, you were taken somewhere, you could be killed, raped or even tortured," he said.

For many African traders, it was a simple question of money.

"We were enticed. You can take the money or you can refuse. We took the money," said Richard Noi, a 28-year-old teacher.

Even today, Ghanaian children are trafficked to fishermen, sold by their poverty-stricken parents into a form of modern slavery, Kugbey added.

For the British tourists that make it here, Elmina is a reminder of a time when the British empire stretched far and wide: fuelled by trade, colonial ambition and exploitation.

"We felt we had to come, it is part of the history we share, not a pleasant part of our history," said Anne Wilkins, a British teacher on a short exchange with a Ghanaian school.

"It is important to come as it helps put things to rest. It is horrible to think people were treated in this way."

Link to Reuters AlertNet - FEATURE-Door of no return opens up Ghana's slave past

Former slave believed she was an Asante - Descendants

Accra, March 15, GNA - Hariet Tubman, the woman who ran the underground railroad in the US in the 1880s escorting slaves to freedom, always believed she was of Asante origin.
Her descendants said this when they paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Tourism and Disaporan Relations, Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey in Accra.
A statement issued by the Ministry said the Minister said he was not surprised Ms Tubman was an Asante as her bravery mirrored that of the legendary Yaa Asantewaa.
Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey briefed them on the Joseph Project and described Ms Tubman as one of the 93Josephs" who should be an inspiration to all.
The descendants, who attended the 50th anniversary of the Golden Jubilee, were led by Ms Michele Jones Darwin, a great grand cousin. They said they were also in the country to conduct research into their Ghanaian connection to Ms Tubman.

Link to General News of Thursday, 15 March 2007