A Dream Arises Anew: on Reparations

Photo: Alice Seeley Harris (1904)A Dream Arises Anew: on Reparationsby Charles Bane, Jr. | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
The Pan- African dream of Malcolm X died in a hail of gunfire in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, but his spirit stirs at the talk of reparations, not only for African- Americans but other brethren who endured like Holocausts.
At the Berlin Conference of 1885, Leopold II of Belgium asserted his rights to the Congo, which he named the Free State of the Congo. Until 1908, his overseers and mercenaries murdered or brought disease that destroyed millions. The entire state was effectively enslaved and subject to cruelties that bear comparison to Auschwitz. No region or its men, women and children escaped a daily quota of rubber gathering which left no time for crop gathering or planting. At first, the Congo had exported ivory but with the discovery of rubber Leopold's prospects soared. Villages that fell behind in their assignment of rubber gathering were destroyed. The King of the Belgians became the richest man in Europe and was hailed for his philanthropy at home. No reparations have been made to what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The nightmare of African enslavement in Haiti exceeds the brutality of the Belgian Congo. No effort was made to feed slaves in the sugar cane fields, who were forced to wear tin masks without mouth openings to prevent them from biting the cane. The colony became the richest in the world, but the death rate among slaves was the highest in the Western Hemisphere. Torture was common; many were burned alive or put to death in constant exhibits of psychotic violence.
In 1825, France demanded a "fee" from Haiti, as a condition of independence. In American currency, the amount is equal to $ 20 billion. Haiti paid down the debt until 1947, but demanded it be returned in 2004. France has refused to do so; nor has the issue of reparations been breeched.
Much needs to be done in the U.S., to compensate successive generations of the slaves who enriched our country materially while toiling under terror, and former Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice could be of enormous value in bringing to the United Nations reparations to Black Peoples as an international issue. Such were the honeycombs of Malcolm's dreams.
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Photo: A Congolese looks at the hand and foot of his five year old daughter, her only remains, after her murder for not meeting her daily rubber quota.
Charles Bane, Jr. is an activist and published author.