Looks like while the British Government is stubbornly refusing to accept its role in fostering slavery and indentureship to build itself into a world power, some of the descendants of its citizens who operated under its auspices to exploit those institutions are having an attack of conscience. Earlier this year, two members of the British aristocracy – David Lascelle and Laura Trevelyan – apologized, on behalf of their families, to Grenada for their role in slavery. Trevelyan’s ancestors had more than 1,000 slaves in Grenada, and she offered a £100,000 donation to the island. She’s now a full-time advocate for reparative justice. They received £27,000 back in 1835 for their slaves – which would now be worth millions and millions!!
When they made their apology and donation, they promised to lobby King Charles and other aristocrats to follow suit for the ill-gotten gains – which make it possible for them to live so high off the hog!! And not so ironically, it was the practices of their slave-owning ancestors who gave rise to the expression “high off the hog”: Planters gave the tails, entrails and belly fat to the slaves, while they ate the meat from the carcass!! Anyhow, it seems their lobbying might’ve gotten to the ears of at least one other family – the Gladstones.
They, of course, were owners of Plantation Success, and gave their name to the slave who led the 1823 rebellion that was just commemorated – John Gladstone. Slaves were typically given their masters’ names. John Gladstone’s father’s name was an African one – Quamina. They were also the family who, after receiving £106,000 (worth almost 1 million now) for their slaves, decided that they could import indentured labourers from India to take the place of their ex-slaves in the sugar fields. Yep…it’s the same Gladstone – father of a future British Prime Minister – who brought those Indians on the Whitby and Hesperus to Vreed-en-Hoop and Highbury!!
So, we have a family who were like the Dutch Axe that cut from both sides – all to enlarge the family coffers. Well, your Eyewitness just heard that a member of the family – Charlie Gladstone and HIS family -will be coming to Guyana to apologise and hand over £100,000. He’ll be giving this to UG, where a “Diaspora and Migration Centre” was set up to pursue five specific areas of research interest, including, but not limited to, Diaspora and Migration in and around Academia, Youth, Technology and Vulnerable Communities, Indigeneity, Indentureship and Slavery!!
Now, what makes this interesting is that, by linking slavery and indentureship while doling out funds, this might just be the catalyst to have our two feuding groups cooperate?? Or will it intensify the fight by creating another bone of contention??
So, who’s gonna be deciding how the money’s to be spent??
…trouble
With all the strident charges of ethnic discrimination in a country like Guyana – we’ve always been tethering on the edge of ethnic/racial conflicts. Now, these are very serious charges. And must be dealt with just as seriously. But precisely because of that long history, fortunately, there are a host of institutions in place to deal with such accusations. For Public Servants, there’s the Public Service Appellate Tribunal. And how about the Ombudsman? Or the ERC?
The first stop for most, however, are the courts, and recourse to these have already been taken.
Ironically, however, because many of the persons fired have generally been taken to the courts by the Government ON SPECIFIC charges, some eyebrows have been raised. Aren’t the Courts the arbiter of the laws – and will decide whether the Government violated any of those laws?
Or are they saying that our most ethnically balanced judiciary is biased?? And justice will not be served?
…another moon race
The Russian Luna-25, which was in a race with an Indian spacecraft, Chardrayaan, to be the first to reach the south pole of the moon – after taking off weeks later – has crashed and burned!!
Let’s see what happens with the Indian effort.
