A day long in coming

Aug 01, 2008 Editorial

Happy Emancipation Day to all Guyanese. While this is a day in which the struggles and sacrifices of the African community is observed, it is also a day that is important to all Guyanese because without this freedom there would not have been the subsequent migrations to Guyana by the Portuguese, the Chinese and the East Indians. Emancipation is therefore a turning point in our country’s history.

On this day, 174 years ago, the most dehumanising system known in the history of the world ended when slavery was officially abolished.

On August 1, 1834, slavery in the British Empire finally ended, discontinuing centuries of barbarism and cruelty against the enslaved peoples. This cruelty was total. It was physical and psychological.

While the slaves were still required to work as apprentices for a period of four years after abolition, August 1, 1834 will always be a date that we in these parts of the world will never forget.

It was a day, long in coming, a day that represented an end to one system and the beginning of a new period in human history.

That the freed slaves faced monumental challenges was never in doubt. That they would overcome these challenges was also never in doubt.

That things would not however be easy was soon evident. That the freed people would however struggle to preserve and widen their freedom was also never in question. It is not easy to look back on this dark period in human history.

This task is not made easier when one considers that God-fearing individuals, sometimes shamelessly in the name of the same God, could for the sake of profits and to keep the wheels of industry going, resorted to treating fellow human beings as chattel.

It is not easy to look back and the cruelties of this period, of the many peoples who were forcibly taken from their homes and transported far away to be put in chains and forced to work without compensation against their will.

It is not easy to retrace the Middle Passage and the horrible stories associated with slavery. It is even harder to look back on this period because those who were responsible for this system have failed to back their statements of regrets with an offer of reparations.

The system most responsible for slavery lacks the conscience, not the will or the means to remedy what was done not for a day, not for a week, not for a month, not for a year, not for a decade but for centuries.

We believe that the countries that perpetuated, supported and benefited from slavery have more than an obligation to pay reparations to the peoples of those enslaved.

We support those local and international forces who are calling on the former colonizers to offer reparations for slavery.

To right a wrong means firstly to accept responsibility for what happened. While we have noted the statements of regrets and the guarded apology, we have noted the resistance of the very countries in conceding that certain moral and legal obligations flow from their restrained apologies and statements of regrets.

Having accepted responsibility, steps must be taken to as far as possible to offer recompense for the wrongs done.

We hope that reparations will not be as long in coming as the abolition of the very system of slavery.
On this Emancipation Day, Kaieteur News joins with all Guyanese in celebrating the freedom that was achieved on August 1, 1834.

We hope that our celebrations would however be tempered by the recognition that the enslavers are still to offer an adequate and unconditional apology as well as to pay reparations.