Narrative Change & Structural Neo-Imperialism: A Pathway to Reparations
Opinion: Old imperial powers owe their former colonies reparations. But how best to achieve this?
The killing of George Floyd on the 25th of May sparked demonstrations, debate, and renewed engagement with the structural racism that blights Western societies. In the U.S., Americans are grappling with an inequality whose roots go back longer than the republic itself. In Europe, meanwhile, there are signs of a long-overdue reappraisal of empires and their legacy. Statues of Leopold II are coming down in Belgium, and Rhodes will soon fall. But there are some who are pushing for further meaningful action. As Europe re-evaluates the evils of the slave trade and empire, there have been growing calls for reparations to be made to former colonies, following last year’s congressional hearing on reparations for slavery in the U.S.
The first challenge for the proponents of reparations is to win the debate within European society and establish a consensus that imperialism was a disastrous experience for the former colonies. This year a YouGov survey revealed that European countries are split on the question of whether or not former colonies benefitted from empire. This should come as a surprise us: on a fundamental level, empires are run to enhance the prestige, the power and above all the profits of the imperial state rather than to benefit the colonised country. Indeed, the essentially mercantile nature of empire is most obvious when we consider that until 1858 it was the British East India Company, rather than the British crown, that controlled India. (There is not space in this article to further cover the case against imperialism. For those interested in exploring the matter further, Shashi Thoroor’s speech to the Oxford Union is a good place to start.)
In global terms, a reckoning over the perception of past empires has been coming. Whether we like it or not, the relationship between European countries and the rest of the world is defined by the imperial experience. Ignorance of this subject breeds incomprehension and resentment. Rather than gloss over past crimes, ex-colonial powers must apologise. In nations whose ethnic minorities can often be traced back to former colonies, greater understanding of the reality of empire is essential to achieve a truer, accommodating national identity. A student in the U.K. can take history at all levels of education and never learn about the British Empire. The debates over statues have exposed the general level of ignorance, and until this is tackled there is little hope in discussing financial compensations. To do so without the support of a national consensus would be to spark a culture war.
If we can succeed in changing the narrative about our imperial past, we might then explore the possibilities of reparations. Reparations themselves are not new. They are a common feature of post-war settlements, and there is a growing tradition of compensation for past atrocities. Germany has – as of 2005 – paid over 63 billion Euros to victims of the Holocaust and their descendants. Notoriously, Britain also paid reparations to former slave owners as part of the Abolition of Slavery in 1833, as compensation for the “property” they had lost.
The most common argument against reparations is that the actors and victims of past atrocities, such as the Atlantic slave trade, are long dead. We do not inherit the crimes of our ancestors, so the logic goes, and we are under no obligation to make amends. But this misses a central element of reparations: they are about the present, not the past. The one-sided dynamic of imperial exploitation has left behind a legacy of inequality. It is this inequality that reparations aim to reduce. If, after digging into our family history, we discovered that money inherited from our grandparents was the result of theft, we would not be thieves ourselves. But we would probably have to give the inheritance back.
Establishing the most suitable form of reparations has been contentious. One proposal is to make compensatory payments to the descendants of the victims of colonialism and the slave trade, both states and individuals. While this seems like the most direct form of reparation, it is far from a perfect solution. Determining who qualifies for compensation would be complicated and unsatisfactory. Would mixed-raced families be both obliged to pay and entitled to receive compensation? Several critics have argued that this measure is more suited to assuaging white guilt than reducing inequality on the ground. Injecting cash into a broken system seems unlikely to make a marked difference.
A far-reaching alternative would be to tackle macro-inequality in our global financial systems. The transformative effect of empire was the transfer of power from the Global South to Europe. While similar dynamic shift occurs within all empires, the difference lies in the financial institutions built during the heyday of European imperialism, which ensure Europe’s continued power despite a century of decline. The World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) concentrate power in the hands of a handful of states, many of whom are old imperial powers. Meanwhile, the Global South has over 80% of the world’s population and less the 50% of the votes in the WB and IMF. Rather than a one-off payment, the most satisfactory way to make amends for colonial exploitation would be to bring greater equality to these fiscal bodies. The best form of compensation for our imperial past would be to end the neo-imperialism of our present finances.
For further reading, I would recommend Jason Hickel’s blog.
Tom Shaw is a fourth year student at Durham University studying History. He is a regular author at Ensemble Magazine, and you can find more of his writing here.