The west got rich off the back of colonisation and slavery. It’s high time former colonial powers ate humble pie and apologised.
On 13 April 1919 British Imperial troops opened fire on hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children in the northern Indian city of Amritsar, a centre of Sikh culture and religion. Contemporary records put the death toll at 379, although the real figure is probably higher, maybe even as high as 1000. The massacre sped up Gandhi’s radicalisation, and became a rallying call in the struggle for Indian independence. It still colours Anglo-Indian relations to this day. This is, in no small part, due to the fact that the British have never apologised for the atrocity. Not officially anyway. There have been sincere expressions of regret, accompanied by much wringing of hands, from a string of dignitaries, including the former Prime Minister David Cameron, but the words “we’re sorry” have never left British lips in any official capacity. This is despite calls for an apology from a wide cross-section of Indian society.
The British are not alone in refusing to apologise for their imperial past. The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) made a speech last year urging the Spanish King Fernando VI, and the Pope, to say sorry for the myriad atrocities committed by Spain in the name of Catholicism during its conquest of Mexico. The Spanish government promptly rejected his request, and it was accompanied by much outraged, nationalistic chest beating from the leader of the right-wing opposition party, the PP.
These two examples are part of a wider push by former colonies to obtain recognition for the wrongs visited on their people during colonial rule. However, given that many of these countries are still developing and (it could be argued) face many more serious issues, what purpose does an apology really serve?
Empires suck; no matter how hard they might try and brand themselves as a civilising force. There has been a recent move in Spain to try and revise the so called leyenda negra (black legend) surrounding the country’s imperial past, which supposedly gives a distorted view of its conduct in its colonies. Well, lo siento mucho but I’m not buying that BS. The reality is all empires subjugate, all empires steal, and all empires take by force.
If I behaved like an empire, i.e. went to a stranger’s house, moved in without asking, murdered their family, infected their friends with incurable diseases, stole all their food and natural resources, and forced them into slavery; and then when they finally managed to get rid of me I refused to say sorry, scoffed at them and told them to get over it, all the while expecting to carry on friendly relations, they’d tell me to fuck off, and I’d be lucky not to have a shoe thrown at me. Yet this is essentially what the west is saying to its former colonies.
Western governments, and white people in general, come up with a whole host of excuses to assuage their guilty consciences and avoid having to apologise. One of their favourites is that all this beastly wrongdoing happened so long ago. Can’t we just move on and be friends? Well that’s all fine and dandy, except for the fact that countries are still feeling the very concrete effects of colonisation to this day.
In 1945, France created the C.F.A (Central African Franc). Its purpose was to offer a stable currency to newly independent nations as it was pegged to the Franc, France’s currency at the time. Today it is pegged to the Euro. In return for this stability, the 14 countries that use the currency (12 of them former French colonies) agree to let France hold 50% of their foreign exchange reserves in its treasury. Seems a fair deal you might say. But France holds the C.F.A reserves at a lower interest rate than its own (0.75% as opposed to 1.6%), so African countries are in effect paying French banks to hold their money. Essentially the C.F.A is a tool for France to maintain its influence in Africa by conning former colonies under the guise of supposed financial stability. There is a real desire now though in many countries that use the C.F.A to get rid of it, and France has always stated that participation in the currency is voluntary. Viewed through the lens of theft then, which is essentially what this is (and after centuries of France lining its pockets with African money through force rather than financial trickery), I don’t think an apology seems like too much of an ask.
When the UK abolished slavery in 1833, the treasury paid out £20 million (£17 billion in today’s money) to compensate not the slaves, but the slaveowners for their losses. I can’t. The rage. That’s right, the British government spent 40% of its national budget to compensate the nation’s 46,000 slaveowners. The slaves themselves got zilch. This happened in 1833, 187 years ago. That’s not really that long ago. There are literally thousands of families in the UK still profiting directly from the proceeds of slavery, among them our former Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha. Slavery helped fill the coffers of organisations as well as individuals too. HSBC, The Bank of England, even the Church of England all profited from slavery. Everywhere you turn in modern Britain you are confronted with the rotten spoils of the slave trade (if you would only open your eyes). It is inextricably linked with the UK’s rise to power and yet no formal apology for it has ever been issued.
The effects of colonisation and the slave trade can also be felt to this day in less tangible ways, for example homophobia. Colonial governments (Britain was the worst offender) introduced draconian buggery laws, which in many nations are still in use today. Couple that with the indoctrination of the native population with a very specific brand of fire and brimstone Christianity and hey presto, instant homophobia (just add ignorance). It’s no surprise that many of the most violently anti-LGBTQ+ countries in the world today are former British colonies.
Colourism is another delightful colonial hangover. Colourism is the idea that the lighter you are, the righter you are, i.e. the lighter your skin tone, the more worth you have as a person. It originated during slavery in the US. When slave masters would rape their female slaves, the resulting offspring would often have light skin and be afforded more privileges than their dark-skinned counterparts. Due to their closer proximity to whiteness, these slaves were often used to work in the main house and were spared the backbreaking toil of working in the fields.
Ideas of colourism persist to this day. Beautiful dark skinned women around the world spend billions of dollars annually ($4 billion in 2017, forecasted to reach $8.8 billion by 2024) on toxic, damaging, and in many cases, illegal skin lightening products.
Colourism even played a role in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, as the (generally) darker skinned Hutus slaughtered their (generally) lighter skinned Tutsi compatriots. Tutsis had been favoured for years by the Belgian colonial government because of their lighter skin, in everything from education to jobs, and this fuelled resentment among Hutus.
There are however, some former colonial powers making the effort to reappraise their history, and Belgium is leading the way.
The King of Belgium, Leopold II, was at the head of an unbelievably brutal regime in the Belgian Congo. He ran the colony for 23 years as his private kingdom, enslaving the inhabitants and forcing them to harvest lucrative rubber for him. Conditions were harsh and punishments were barbaric. It is estimated that Leopold was responsible for the deaths of up to ten million people.
His brutal reign has been memorialised at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Leopold’s palace in Tervuren outside Brussels for years. The museum has recently undergone a €75 million renovation. But the narrative in Belgium has, in recent times, shifted away from glorifying the country’s colonial past, and moved towards a more honest appraisal of the country’s history. Therefore, exhibits will now be accompanied by an explanation of Leopold’s vicious reign.
On April 4 2019, the Belgian Federal government offered an official apology for the forced separation of mixed-race children from their families during the country’s rule of Burundi, Rwanda and Congo. In a speech to Parliament, Prime Minister Charles Michel said: “Throughout Belgian colonial Africa, a system of targeted segregation of métis (mixed-race) and their families was maintained by the Belgian state and acts were committed that violated the fundamental rights of peoples. This is why, in the name of the federal government, I recognize the targeted segregation of which métis people were victims under Belgian colonial rule in Africa, and the ensuing policy of forced kidnapping after independence. In the name of the federal government, I present our apologies to the métis stemming from the Belgian colonial era and to their families for the injustices and the suffering inflicted upon them. I also wish to express our compassion for the African mothers, from whom the children were taken.” It’s a start.
Australia and Canada too have both offered official apologies for their treatment of indigenous populations during colonisation. Indeed, in Australia last year there was a high-profile court case involving aboriginal land rights, which was won by the plaintiff. The Australian high court has ordered the government of the Northern Territory to pay damages of $2.53 million to the Ngalliwurru and Nungali people for illegally building on their land. This could establish a precedent for future compensation claims.
Like many things in life, money plays an important role in this discussion, and time and time again the word that comes up when discussing this topic is reparations. Western governments are terrified that in admitting their wrongdoing they’ll be opening the floodgates to a tsunami of claims for financial reparations. I think it speaks volumes for the moral fibre of our governments that they won’t say sorry because it might mean going to the ATM.
For years Germany has been promising an apology to the Herero and Nama people of Namibia for the genocide it perpetrated against them. Between 1904 and 1908 Germany slaughtered between 24-100 thousand Herero, and 10 thousand Nama after they rebelled against German colonial rule. An apology has not been forthcoming because of the issue of reparations.
Ultimately, what this comes down to is respect. We all make mistakes in life. And when we do, we’re supposed to recognise them, say sorry for them, learn from them, be remorseful, and then not make those same mistakes again. Apologising is an integral part of the social contract. It’s cathartic for both parties and, hopefully, allows them to move forward together. As children, one of the first things we are taught is to say please and thank you, and to apologise when we do something wrong. It’s basic fucking manners. And nobody in their right mind could deny that colonisation is a pretty big damn wrong.
The west’s continued refusal to atone for its past betrays its ongoing contempt for its former colonies, which is rooted in white supremacy. Western governments don’t apologise because at the end of the day they don’t really feel they have that much to apologise for. Yes, we can all agree that slavery, colonisation, and the rape and pillage of an entire continent were jolly unpleasant things but, you know, we gave you railways so let’s just call it quits, shall we? There is still a pervading sense of western paternalism with regard to its former colonies, and because of the skewed, jingoistic way in which colonial history is still taught in our schools, there is a real sense that former colonies are actually being ungrateful when they demand an apology. This is compounded by the mainstream media who often fan the flames of nationalism.
The narrative in most former imperial powers is still very much of the civilising influence of empire. The messy bits are seamlessly glossed over. When you look at it like that, it’s not surprising that governments are reticent to say sorry to those upstart picaninnies.
