3071-The political economy of new slavery

Geraldine Van Bueren 243
In the United States there have been apologies from companies that
benefited financially from slavery. In March 2000 Aetna Insurance
apologized – as have several newspapers which accepted advertisements
from slave traders. In the United States at least ten cities including
Chicago, Detroit and Washington have passed resolutions urging federal
hearings into the impact of slavery (The Times, 2 January 2001). In January
2001 a Californian law required insurance companies to disclose policies
they held covering losses incurred by slave owners when slaves died.
In California the Slaveholder Insurance Policy Law as of March 2001
required all insurers whose businesses date to the nineteenth century to
review their archives and reveal the names of insured slaves and their
slaveholders. International reparations have also extended beyond the
state. German companies agreed to pay £1.67 billion to those who
survived Nazi slave labour atrocities.
There is also the question of slavery by Africans. In Ghana and in
Benin chiefs have participated in ceremonies which offer apologies for
the ancestors’ complicity in slavery (Williams, 2001). The Ivory Coast
film director, Gnoan M’bala, the director of Adanggamanican, an African
film which looked at African involvement in the slave trade observes
that, ‘In our oral tradition slavery is left out purposefully because
Africans are ashamed when we confront slavery. Let’s wake up and look
at ourselves through our own image’ (Associated Press, 2001). If part of
the purpose of reparations is for all of us to face the past and to educate
ourselves, then reparations will be serving a similar role to that described
by the Minister of Culture and Art in Burkina Faso, Da Bourdia, in
reference to Adanggamanican, ‘We need this kind of film to show our
children this part of our history, that it happened among us in our
own society.’
What form of compensation?
The international principle behind the purpose of reparations was originally
laid down by the Permanent Court of International Justice (the
predecessor of the International Court of Justice at the Hague) and is still
valid today. ‘Reparation must, as far as possible, wipe out all the consequences
of the illegal act and re-establish the situation which would, in
all probability, have existed if that act had not been committed’. 18
Reparations avoid a court judgement, although they do constitute a
formal acknowledgement of a historical wrong and its continuing injury.
It is symbolic of a commitment to redress, with the participation of
the victims or their descendants for guidance, as to the nature and the