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Slavery

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Howells of St Davids for her clarity in setting out the issues of this debate in the context of the past but also the future. I firmly believe it is necessary to understand the past as well as the future, because we cannot establish a national consensus around the issues of Britishness and the multicultural society without understanding the history, culture and tradition of large numbers of our citizens. The essence of this debate is not just about the past; it is about the future, which should be informed by the past—the future of a multicultural Britain, of social cohesion in our communities and of a shared culture and mutual respect. Perhaps at this point I should declare an interest. Perhaps I am the descendant of a slave. I say ““perhaps”” because slaves were non-beings to their owners, and any record of their births was obliterated; they would be given the name of slave owners, not their family name. So many thousands share my plight, not knowing their origin, who they are or from where they might have come. Within the Afro-Caribbean community, we face the unanswered question weekly when we see our grandchildren and our neighbours’ children. The unanswered question is simply, ““Grandpa, who am I?”” A silence, or a change of subject, is the only response. Why? It is because our line of history has been severed. Slave owners practised total enslavement—enslavement of the mind; enslavement of the culture; enslavement of dignity; enslavement of humanity; enslavement of the body and soul; above all, enslavement of the human spirit. They owned their slaves and they even took away their names. It was the late Bob Marley who said in one of his songs that if you don’t know your history, you don’t know where you are coming from. That is perhaps the real inheritance of the slave trade. We do not know our history, we do not know who we are, and we do not know whence we came. However, we know that around the world, wherever the slave trade existed, it has left behind a legacy of poverty, destitution and confused identity in Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean. What should be the role of the United Kingdom in tackling the legacy of the slave trade? How can we move on? The nation must start by fully acknowledging that some of its institutions and companies were involved in this heinous crime against humanity. We must start by saying sorry. If we cannot find it in our own humanity to say sorry to the slaves, let us at least say sorry for the trade in which we were engaged. We must also give the victims of slavery a voice, a real voice. We have had a national celebration—and I mean celebration—of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, a law which was passed in this building. But is that really enough? Has there been sufficient focus on the victims of the slave trade and their descendants? I think not. We need an annual focus to remember the victims of the slave trade, an annual focus which will help the nation move on from the legacy of bitterness and ensure that it is transformed into a legacy of hope and forgiveness. UNESCO has urged countries to make 23 August international day for the remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition. The night of 22/23 August 1791 in Santo Domingo saw the beginning of the uprising by slaves that was to play a crucial role in the abolition campaign. To choose this date for our act of remembrance would provide an annual focus on the courage of the slaves and not just the law which abolished the trade. While abolition was a milestone in ending the trade, we must never forget the suffering of the slaves themselves. An annual remembrance, while not bringing total closure to that dark side of our history, would nevertheless provide a reference point for our displaced generation up and down our communities. A case has been made for reparation. As a nation we have a massive propensity to devalue the victim but comfort the perpetrator. The church and other slave-owners received compensation for losing their slave labour. Surely, it is morally right that the descendants of slaves deserve some consideration. However, we all recognise that the difficulties involved would be insurmountable, so we must find other imaginative and creative ways to atone for these crimes against humanity. We have already stated that the teaching of slavery should be included in our curriculum, but the relevance of slavery must be taught throughout that curriculum and not just in key stage 3 and 4. It should be taught in our language, as part of our history of the industrial revolution, in our literature and arts, and much more. It has been suggested that a legacy fund should be created, and those institutions including the churches, the companies and the banks which benefited from the slave trade should contribute. The use of the legacy fund should be geared to educational and economic opportunities, and be driven by the needs of the countries involved in the slave trade; they were victims too. Recently, the Guardian published a set of important speeches of the 20th century. I believe it missed one of the most important—certainly, an important one in the year in which we focus our minds on slavery and racism. The speech was made by Emperor Haile Selassie. When he addressed the United Nations in 1963, he said that, "““until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned … until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation … until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes … until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race … until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.””" Let those words, echoed in this House, be our legacy from the slave trade.