London – Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the African slave trade and expressed deep sorrow for Britain’s role but stopped short Monday of offering an apology or compensation for the descendants of those victimized by it.
Activists are pressuring Britain to offer an apology – and reparations – for its role in slavery before it marks the 200th anniversary of the law that banned the country’s participation in the Atlantic slave trade.
Blair wrote in an article in the New Nation newspaper that it was right to recognize the active role Britain, its ports and its industry once played in the trafficking of human beings.
“I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was – how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition – but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever happened, that it ever could have happened,” Blair wrote in the black community newspaper.
Race issues continue to afflict multicultural Britain, with periodic outbursts – such as riots in the central city of Birmingham last year – laying bare smoldering tensions stemming from inequities in education and the workplace. Arguing that slavery’s legacy continues to affect race relations, activists are demanding a formal apology from the government as a step toward healing old wounds.
Activists have criticized Blair’s statement, arguing that his careful language reflects the government’s fear of paying out huge reparations for wrongs committed hundreds of years ago. They argue that those who benefited from the slave trade should admit their role – and pay for it.
“It is no longer justified to ignore this question,” said Esther Stanford, vice chair of the pan- African Reparations Coalition in Europe. “Those who do so are complicit in the genocide and covering up of the crimes against African people and her descendants worldwide.”
Other nations and institutions also have recently examined their role in the slave trade.
France launched efforts to heal lingering wounds linked to its colonial legacy, holding its first annual commemoration of victims of the slave trade earlier this year.
The Church of England voted this year to apologize for its role in the slave trade, while in the United States, banking giant JP Morgan Chase also publicly apologized after disclosing that between 1831 and 1865, two of its predecessor banks accepted 13,000 slaves as collateral on loans and took ownership of hundreds of them when plantation owners defaulted.
Activists say the slave trade was so odious and left such a lasting legacy of discrimination and racism that governments must compensate the descendants of those who suffered in Africa, the Caribbean or Asia. Organizations promoting such compensation argue that help could be funneled to African governments, for example – rather than offering direct compensation payments to individuals.
Proposals include writing off debt to African nations or the establishment of human-rights funds on behalf of communities that suffered.
