British must make
reparations for slave trade – President
Jagdeo
- 200th Anniversary of the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Trade commemorated
- 200th Anniversary of the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Trade commemorated
Georgetown, GINA, March 26, 2007
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dear Asgarallie,
I have read it
with interest. I personally fully support
the call for reparation. My only regret is
that President Jagdeo (according to this
article) did not add a call for apology
and reparation for the 1.2 million India's
indentured laborers, who were transported
to the European colonies after the African
slavery was, thankfully, abolished. The
Indian indenture system, know as the girmit
system in Fiji and South Africa, was as
brutal as the African slavery. It took
nearly a century from the abolition of the
African slavery to abolish the Indian
indentured slavery in 1916. I feel that it
is not inappropriate for a descendant of
the Indian indentured slavery to
speak of it while speaking of the African
slavery. The two forms of slaveries
interlocked by the fact that the end of
one heralded the start of the other. Both
were brutal forms of human exploitation
and both needs apologies and reparation.
The article states:The
consequences of the slave trade for
African societies is still being debated.
The removal of millions of young men and
women led to depopulation that stifled
African creativity and production.
This is also
true of more than half million young
Indian men and women removed from a small
region of East UP and West Bihar. Today
these two regions are perhaps the most
depressed regions of India. Is there a
link here? These young labourers from
India contributed greatly towards the
economic progress in the indentured
colonies of Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius etc.
It can be argued that removal of so many
of them from a small region of India would
have contributed towards the economic
degeneration of the same. If this is the
case then reparation for these regions
must be sought as well.
By linking the
two forms of slavery we can support each
other in our calls for apology and
reparation.
Here is a
website www.girmitunited.org
which calls for apology and reparation for
the girmitiyas and their descendants http://www.girmitunited.org/Apology_Reparation.htm
.
Regards
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
