I raised the following questions with the Archbishop: “Your holiness, did you alter your collar for the Church of England’s responsibility in the European slave trade of African people, and or, your government’s participation? Did you alter your collar and demand former Prime Ministers John Blair and Gordon Brown make a compensatory apology to all Africans? If not, why Mr. Robert Mugabe?”
And for the historical record and root cause I wrote: “We are reminded of Luther, the German reformer, who wrote in the sixteenth century: “He that says slavery is opposed to Christianity is a liar!” And Bossnet, the great pulpit orator of the French Catholics, joined his words with Luther’s, the following century, by declaring that “the laws of all nations sanction slavery. To condemn it is to condemn the Holy Ghost.
As this controversy was brewing in the world media The World Council of Churches, 17.12.07 15:40, in a joint release with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Council for World Mission boldly released their conference report; "Abolished, but not Destroyed: Remembering the Slave Trade in the 21st Century" and “Reparation needed to address transatlantic slave trade”.
The WCC release stated that “Sixty theologians, church leaders and activists from Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas attended an event called held 10 to 14 December in Runaway Bay, Jamaica…The conference marked the 200th anniversary of the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of the British House of Commons. Between the 16th and 19th centuries an estimated 15 million Africans were forcibly removed from their homes and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to become slaves in the Caribbean and the Americas.”
‘We also realize, however, that people of White European ancestry, whether they were anti- or pro-slavery, benefited from the entitlements accruing to them by virtue of being White-skinned peoples. For example, in late 1800s, in Brazil and many other colonies, although Black peoples were being emancipated from legal slavery, they were not given land, and had to pay high rent for tools and other resources; at the same time, White European immigrants were given incentives such as land and other resources. Thus, people of White European ancestry who had no direct involvement in the slavery or the slave trade became never-the-less beneficiaries of the enslavement system. Much has been written today about White privilege; this privilege is one of the legacies of the ideology of racial superiority that infused the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.’
‘Jennifer Ayana McCalman of Nevis, a CWM delegate, said, "What has been done in one generation has effects in the generations following. If we don't deal with these consequences from the slave trade then we, the church, are living in denial."
‘WARC general secretary Setri Nyomi, who also attended the event, expressed thanks for the collaboration with WCC and CWM. "The statement sends a strong message challenging churches to look at their own past complicity in the evil of slavery and the slave trade and be at the forefront of exposing modern forms of slavery and oppression of people based on caste, race, gender or economic status," Nyomi said.”
These events of historical magnitude taken by the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Council for World Mission must be commended. For the complete WCC reparation conference reports see: http://www.oikoumene.org/en/home.html.
In reference to African and Caribbean nations where the governments are accused of being despotic and or tyrannical; methods should be devised to ascertain the truth in order to dismantle or revitalize these remnants of the Peculiar Institution and European colonialism. Ways that are not self-destructive to the people or their fragile economy. Ways and means for opposition groups to be heard and not falsely imprisoned, threatened, or disrespected whether in America or Zimbabwe, Haiti or Britain, Sudan or Egypt, France or Sierra Leone. This can be done.
We cannot afford to have a symbolic Samson complex pulling down the pillars of emotionalism down on ourselves.
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