Just the other day, British Foreign Secretary William Hague
announced that Kenyans tortured by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau
uprising will receive payouts totaling 20 million pounds. Thousands of people were killed during the
revolt against British rule. The victims
cannot be brought back to life and most if not all of the perpetrators of genocide
are now dead. On the other hand in the
affairs between states or countries the violence done to collectives by those
operating in the name of other collectives call for collective compensation by
way of punishing those guilty of crime.
In Britain’s case, the living have benefited from their ancestors’
handiwork which of course cost and continues to cost those whose ancestors
received the blood-worth of that very handiwork. ‘It happened a long time ago,’ is a cop-out
objection for the past is always past, whether we are talking of yesterday, the
day before or one hundred years earlier.
Apology is a good thing, but we’ve not seen any of
that. Hague, speaking on Kenya, stated
that the British government recognizes that Kenyans were subject to torture,
regrets the abuse and understands that they marred Kenya’s progress towards
independence. No mention of how Kenya
came to lose independence in the first place.
If he were speaking of Sri Lanka, would Hague say that the British
violated the agreement signed with the Kandyan Chieftans and ‘recognize’ that
that very act, complemented by a butchery replicated in other countries that
are now members of the Commonwealth ‘marred progress towards independence’ to
the tune of 133 years?
Talk, though, is cheap and cannot be banked. If saying ‘sorry’ would do, then all legal
systems would degenerate to the ‘give-take’ of Catholic Confessionary. Anyone, then, could get away with ‘It was
God’s will, His ways are not our ways and it is not ours to question Him’. The British courts won’t accept that and
neither should any other member state of the Commonwealth.
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| Statue of Tara ferreted away by Governor Brownrigg |
The reverse transaction is not possible in full. The true value that was extracted and the
true cost of the damage done cannot be ascertained accurately. How does one cost the erasure of a culture
and destruction of ways of life, for example?
Do we know how much of value was extracted from slaves, over and above
the costs of dislocation, the violence associated with slavery and the trauma
that entire communities were subjected to?
Has anyone kept count of the resources that were extracted and shipped
‘home’; the gold, diamonds, sapphires and other precious stones, the ivory, the
spices, the timber? Never mind their
true value can anyone make a complete list of the items that were robbed?
Still, fourteen Caribbean nations are getting ready to sue
the United Kingdom (and also France and the Netherlands) for reparations over
‘the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade’. The exact amount demanded has not been
specified, but it has been noted that Britain paid 20 million pounds
(equivalent to 200 billion pounds today!) to British planters in the Caribbean
in 1834, i.e. the time of ‘emancipation’.
Britain may point to roads, railways and other ‘development’, but all
that was built by local labor, funded by illegal taxes and for more than a
century only facilitated the extraction of resources. The British, in addition to the butchery,
destroyed temples, set fire to countless and invaluable Buddhist manuscripts
and shipped out countless artifacts.
So let’s talk of loot now.
A few days ago, Yale University in Connecticut decided to return to Peru
a collection of antiquities taken from the Inca site of Machu Picchu almost one
hundred years ago. Richard Burger who
has been in charge of these items for 30 years says that the situation is
different from classic repatriation because it was not about stolen goods but a
contract dispute; things were not clandestinely dug up’.
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| Mask from Nigeria |
Yale has a case. Barely.
Britain does not. ‘A catalogue of
antiquities and other cultural objects from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) abroad,’ is the
title of a book by P.H.D.H. De Silva, published in 1974. It lists a considerable set of known
artifacts stolen from this island. There
are over 15,000 items listed. The loot
it seems has ended up in 23 countries and 140 holding facilities. The vast majority are in Britain. Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Berkshire, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Sheffield, and Windsor all have
‘Little pieces of Ceylon’ so to speak.
All stolen goods. For antique and
historical value, each and every amulet, the tiniest statuette, the most
fragile manuscript with hardly legible lettering, is priceless.
What was common in all this wealth and all the wealth
plundered from all Commonwealth countries?
Theft!
That’s a crime, ladies and gentlemen. Sure, the present day custodians did not
pilfer anything. They are not answerable
to crimes committed by their ancestors.
They may not suffer guilt on account from benefitting from the sacking
of cities. But there is no getting
around the fact that possessing stolen goods is a crime. Punishable.
And on the other side of the equation there is a people, a nation that
demands that stolen goods be returned, even if the thieves got away with murder
and were duly unburdened of whatever ghosts spawned by wrongdoing by death
decades ago.
After all these years of lies and self-delusion, perhaps it
is now time to sober up. There was never
a commonwealth. There was never a
sharing of wealth. There was wealth
accumulation through outright looting.
We can let bygones be bygones and move on, but if that is to happen,
dignity has to be restored. Some will
have to hang their heads in shame but that’s just necessary but not sufficient
condition for friendship.
Collection centers will duly be set up in all member
countries of the ‘Commonwealth’. That is
easily arranged. Return the loot. It’s as simple as that.
That’s a first step.
We’ll talk reparations later.
msenevira@gmail.com