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Songezo Zibi @SongezoZibi sets the scene for the conversation.
“No country has pursued slavery and racism with as much vigour, violence and noise than the [US]”
“No country has pursued slavery and racism with as much vigour, violence and noise than the [US]”
“figures range from US$10 -15 trillion for US government reparations”
“Sound, efficient, accountable and focused institutions are vital. The lack of focus and seriousness among governments of the oppressed portends poorly for achieving the institutional shits that are required to deal with racism, hate, systemic exclusion and oppression”
Stephen Raurau lawyer and a descendant of the Herero people gives a historical account of the violence and dispossession of the Herero and Nama people in Nambia, which led to the migration of the Herero people to Botswana and some to South Africa.
Herero owned land in Nambia has been sold by German imperialists. Herero people have also lost a great deal of their culture and have even lost their language.
The Herero people demand Germany to acknowledge the genocide, to apologise and to atone for the genocide visited on the Herero people.
Kae Matundu, an activist for the reparations for the Herero and Nama people in Nambia people, is up next.
80% of the Herero and the 50% of the Nama people were killed by the Germans during the genocide.
The Namibian government is reluctant to confront the German government because Namibia receives aid from Germany. Germany refuses to define the atrocity as a genocide #Reparations
The refusal of Germany to acknowledge this as genocide, has created an impasse in the negotiations. If there is no acknowledgement we cannot speak about reparations #Reparations
In the negotiations the Germans have suggested compensation in the form of developmental projects which will also be defined by the German authorities #Reparations
If South Africa, Botswana and Namibian governments could collectively call for such reparations on behalf of the Herero people, it would strengthen it #Reparations
Dr Tendai Murisa is up next on resolving the land question in Zimbabwe #Reparations.
We must make the connections between colonialism, capitalism and racism. Racism becomes a coincidence in the process. Colonialism is spearheaded not by governments but by private companies e.g. VOC #Reparations
Unravelling racism is unravelling capitalism #Reparations
Before 2000, Zimbabwe had already made a great deal of strides in terms of land reform. It had achieved more than the its counterparts.
Zimbabwe is now being charged US$ 3.5 billion in reparations to the white farmers that lost farms post 2000 in the aggressive land reform strategy. They demand compensation from the current government #Reparations
Ella Henneart Elesse from the Democratic Republic of Congo, will discuss Leopold’s and Belgium's legacy as they relate to colonialism and reparations. She is a journalist and a communications expert.
The colonialisation gave people a different legal status. Europeans had one legal status and indigenous people had a different legal status. Thus the biracial 'mixed blood' group is an interesting group of people because they sit in neither category.
Some of the biracial children came about as a result of sexual violence from the Belgian minority. It also meant that these biracial children could not be left to the care of their mothers because their mothers were black. #Reparations
The Belgian Prime Minister has made an apology to the biracial children and have recognised the violence that was committed by Belgians #Reparations
But no one has apologised to the Black women whose children were removed from. Despite the apology to the children there has been no other form of compensation #Reparations
The Belgian government is currently being sued by the biracial descendants from the DRC for crimes against humanity #Reparations
You can watch Ella's film with the link below. The film explores the call for reparations from Belgium regarding biracial children being removed from their mothers in the DRC http://osisa.org/anti-black-racism/
Lucia Kula from Angola is up next. She is a lawyer with a focus on international law. She will discuss colonialism, racism, xenophobia and assimilation in Angola.
Colonial violence transcends bodily harm, the extraction of resources and land dispossession. Colonial violence is also reproduced in postcolonial policies and in identity formations #Reparations
Colonial inheritance is also the stripping of identity. Language also reproduces this violence. In Angola, how well you speak Portuguese is still very important. #Reparations
Xenophobia is also linked to these ideas of being that we have inherited from colonialism #Reparations
The way in which communities interact is still loaded with our common colonial inheritance #Reparations
Didier Mumengi gives a perspective on DRC colonialism and speaks on the atrocities and violence of the Belgians in the country. Including the mass beheadings committed by the Belgians. #Reparations
Since independence we are living in an era of confusion. Morally, intellectually and culturally we are confused. We need to re-write the history of Black Africa. We need a remake of Black history #Reparations
We need our own cultural ideas, our music, our values, our art. What we were given by our ancestors since the Egyptian era. We need to invent, to produce and to make coalitions to build an Africa that can depend on itself #Reparations
Yasmin Sooka, human rights lawyer and Commissioner in the TRC speaks now on the South African context #Reparations
It is important to understand in South Africa that no one won the war. It was a negotiated settlement. At the end of the negotiations it was agreed that there would be no prosecutions and we entered into an amnesty deal #Reparations
What we didn't deal with are the structural violence. The rich have become richer and inequality has widened. The unfinished business of the TRC has come back on the table. #Reparations
The TRC set out to recover the truth, to apply for amnesty on the grounds of full disclosure and reparations and rehabilitation. In 5 years TRC heard from 22 000 victims around these issues #Reparations
The apartheid state after 1980 became a criminal state with its establishment of death squads #Reparations
The TRC became a site of struggle for much of the inheritance of apartheid and colonialism. The TRC did not demonstrate sufficiently the link between racialised oppression and white privilege #Reparations
The TRC did not raise the question on the beneficiaries on apartheid sufficiently to give rise to sufficient reparations. There were even talks with corporate and a wealth tax that were inconclusive #Reparations
We discussed other forms of reparations like being fast tracking in the housing queue #Reparations
This discussion on reparations we must contexualise our colonialist past. Even in SA with its xenophobic tensions, these are a reverberation of the apartheid isolationism #Reparations
Masego Madzwamuse from the Southern African Trust is up next.
South Africans still have to think through and make sense of what it means living with other Africans. With each Xenophobic outburst we are energised to address this then the conversation dies down #Reparations
An exchange programme with young people allows for learning about what it means to be African and living with other Africans. They can draw on similar experiences and build solidarity #Reparations
Part of the economic reparations sit in the social security apparatus of the state. Apartheid was extractive on black bodies from all of Southern Africa #Reparations
The institutions we set up at a national level must allow access to reparations #Reparations
Deprose Muchena ( @DeproseM) director of Amnesty International for East and Southern African to speak on the global comparative approach from a human rights perspective on the question of reparations.
Colonialism had no intention to develop anyone on the continent. It needed false narratives in order to justify itself. Colonialism consolidated racism and ranked the world based on race and assigned power accordingly #Reparations
Law including international law, acted to further racism and colonialism. Many laws between South Africa and Zimbabwe were identical. Colonialism's cleverness is understanding that it needs transnationalism to survive #Reparations
Colonialists worked as cousins in the colonies and distributed labour across the colonial networks as needed. National sovereignty cannot undo colonial work #Reparations
We need to revise laws, water rights law for example privilege white farmers. We still have colonial laws in our statutes. Citizens have to rise up in a new movement to fight against these #Reparations
We are also plagued by illicit outflows, we are victims along with our governments. Multinationals operate as they want. In Marikana, Lonmin did not build houses as they promised. They built 3 out of 5000 #Reparations
We must decolonise the education system, the law and create a new possibility of running our societies. Victims must be at the centre of reconstruction projects #Reparations
The anti black racism movement at the regional level must do a legal audit of the laws that govern in these countries #Reparations
Housing patterns and their inequality run across southern Africa. Colonial patterns are reproduced by our governments through neo liberalism #Reparations
Dr Kabhele Matlosa from the African Union will give a perspective on the issue of reparations from the continent #Reparations
The African Union is happy about this initiative and hopes to continue to collaborate and cover all six the regions of Africa including the diaspora to make sure it is truly Pan African #Reparations
We need to deliberately eradicate the notion of us vs them. We are a community. Ubuntu is central to us, I am because we are. We must address Afrophobia and Xenophobia. It is unAfrican. It is colonial mentality #Reparations
Africa is the richest continent on earth but poor at the same time. It is unthinkable. It is a shame. We need to do something about it. The AU has initiated the process of reclaiming Africa's stolen assets. This is led by Pres Buhari. How can this platform assist #Reparations
It is important that we see to it that the African Continental Free Trade Area and the Free Movement of People (with the African passport) are successful #Reparations
The African Union is going through serious reforms. We need civil society to shape the direction. We welcome civil society opinions. The Africa We Want Agenda 2063 is people centred #Reparations
Next year, is the year of art, culture and heritage towards the Africa We Want. We would like civil society to influence this #Reparations
As we draw to a close @LeviKabwato, notes that pain and the violence visited upon ourselves and our psyche has come out strongly today. This pain is historical, is present and enduring #Reparations
How do we become human again? #Reparations
What is the role of the post colonial state in this question of reparations and racism. We need to look into history and be makers of our own history which was interrupted. Nkrumah, Lumumba, Machel all attempted this and were disrupted #Reparations
We need to be Pan Africanist, without it you have xenophobia and Afrophobia #Reparations
What does Africa in the Black imagination look like? #Reparations
To what extent are looking to go to establish an Africa for Africans to restore our dignity. Have we considered revisiting Nkrumah's idea of granting Ghanaian citizenship to every African for example? #Reparations
