The most memorable moment of King Charles and Queen Camilla’s recent royal tour of Australia and Samoa was the insult to the monarchy by Australian Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe. She was escorted from Parliament House in Canberra after heckled the king and accused him of genocide. The British media were furious, calling his “outburst” simply “rude” and “ill-mannered.”

It is true that Senator Thorpe’s behavior may be unjustified. However, this ensured that the royal visit was anything but unforgettable. Days later, the issue of reparations raised by former British colonies at the biennial Commonwealth summit in Samoa was another brutal treatment that British royalty quickly received.

A direct message to Samoa

Held roughly halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, the Samoa summit last month saw King Charles and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer join leaders of 56 Commonwealth countries. It coincided with the BRICS summit in Kazan and therefore received little media coverage in India. Regardless, the context may have been distant, but the message about reparations was direct and will not be easy to ignore. Fortunately, the leaders of two Commonwealth heavyweight countries, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, were attending the BRICS summit. Their presence would have made things more difficult for the British government. India was represented at the summit by Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju.

Nonetheless, calls for the UK to pay monetary compensation and make a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade resurfaced with new urgency at the summit. Predictably, the UK vetoed the proposal to directly address reparations in the final summit communiqué. Instead, the document tiptoes around the issue, referring only to the possibility of “future discussions” on “restorative justice” regarding the transatlantic African slave trade.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer rejected calls for apologies and reparations, telling delegates there was no point in having “very long, drawn-out discussions” about the past. Instead, he urged former colonies to focus on problems of the present, such as climate change, that his government could help. Speaking at the Samoa summit, King Charles was more conciliatory: “None of us can change the past. But we can commit, with all our hearts, to learning from them and finding creative ways to correct the inequalities that persist. »

But for the leaders of the former colonies, this circumvention approach will probably not put the subject aside any time soon.

Apologies from only a few

Privately, some families who owned thousands of slaves apologized for their part in the slave trade. For example, last year, descendants of the family of 19th-century British Prime Minister William Gladstone traveled to Barbados, St. Lucia and other Caribbean islands to acknowledge and apologize for their ancestor’s involvement in slavery. John Gladstone, William’s father, owned slaves on Caribbean plantations. William Gladstone, however, was a prominent abolitionist. Caribbean leaders welcomed the apology, calling it a step toward healing and reconciliation.

Like Britain, most European colonial powers expressed regret for their past sins. But they have not officially apologized. The only notable exceptions are the Netherlands and Belgium. They apologized for colonial atrocities and their involvement in the slave trade, although no monetary compensation was promised.

Britain owes its former colonies $24 trillion

UN judge Patrick Robinson said last year that the UK could owe more than $24 trillion in reparations for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. In a report he co-authored and published in June last year, he said he viewed the figure as a conservative assessment, highlighting the extensive and lasting damage inflicted by the slave trade. The report estimates that in total, reparations to be paid by 31 former colonial slave powers – including Spain, the United States and France – amount to $107.8 trillion. Expressing astonishment, Robinson noted that some states involved in slavery appear to be ignoring their obligations, stating: “Once a state has committed an unlawful act, it is obligated to pay reparations. »

Robinson, known for presiding over the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, emphasized the principle that reparations are a duty, not an option. He has been a member of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) since 2015 and conducts research on reparations as part of his honorary presidency of the American Society of International Law. It is almost obvious that the former colonial powers, which are among the richest countries in the world thanks to their colonial exploits, do not seem in the mood to pay compensation to the nations affected by the slave trade.

“Am I neither a man nor a brother”

The British Empire’s system of expansionist exploitation was based on three sins against humanity: colonization, the slave trade, and indentured labor. Indentured labor was particularly targeted against India.

One of the most enduring symbols of the 19th century abolitionist movement is the drawing of a black man in chains. If you look closely, you will see an enslaved black man, kneeling and chained, with the words “Am I not a man and a brother” surrounding him. The image and the advocacy reflect a deep aspiration for freedom and equality for African and Caribbean slaves. This emblem challenged the cruelty of slavery and called for justice.

The British Empire bears a dark legacy as one of the largest forces involved in the transatlantic slave trade, a tragedy that caused immense suffering and disruption. Yet it is only fair to recognize at the outset that Britain was also home to a powerful abolitionist movement which rallied public opinion at the local level and pushed Parliament to abolish slavery in 1833. The Slavery Act he abolition of slavery undoubtedly marked an important turning point in the world situation. fight against slavery. He outlawed slavery throughout most of the British Empire.

But the abolition of one sin gave rise to another, equally evil in nature, indentured labour, which had a direct impact on India.

Slaves versus coolies

Which is worse: the brutal reality of the slave trade or the ruthless labor of indentured labor – the so-called “coolies” of the British Raj? Each system wore a different mask, but all served the same purpose: maintaining the empire on the backs of exploited labor. The slave trade was brutal oppression, tearing people from their homeland, stripping them of their identity and treating them like property. Then came contract labor, less blatant, but just as ruthless. This “sanitized” slavery locked workers in harsh conditions with barely a trace of freedom – an acceptable substitute for colonial consciousness.

The British Empire ended the slave trade with the Abolition Act of 1833, but had little hesitation in introducing indentured labor the following year, in 1834. Records show that private plantation owners actively lobbied the Empire for cheap labor from India, which quickly became the most important country. the backbone of colonial projects in the most remote corners of the Empire. Hundreds of thousands of Indian workers – many of them poor, illiterate and desperate – were “hired” to work on the plantations of Caribbean countries and on the railways, particularly in East Africa. Many were forced to enter into these agreements, often only having to put their thumbprint on a piece of paper they could not read. What they gave up was their freedom, chained to a five-year contract with little hope of escaping abusive conditions. The British National Library has a huge archive of documents documenting several incidents of workers’ revolt, many of whom were killed or maimed as punishment.

So which system carries the greatest sin? Hard to say. But perhaps the most persistent sin lies in the claims of some Western apologists – including some right-wing politicians – that these practices have helped famine-stricken Indians improve their living conditions and that the entire colonial project was part of the “civilization” of the coolies. .

(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a senior Indian journalist based in London with three decades of experience in Western media)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author