On Reparations: The Art of Debt Collection

CHAPTER ONE
Schrödinger’s Cat
Does someone owe you money?
Yes, you heard me right. In these extremely harsh times, are you fortunate to have in your books, a debtor or two? Does someone owe you l’argent, my brothers and sisters.

In these insanely hard times, that is both one of the best things and absolutely worst things that can happen to a person, isn’t it? To have someone owe you money. It is indeed a good thing because in this era of scarcity, it signifies for you, hope... A ‘recovery’ that will leave you better off economically than you presently are. But it is also concurrently one of the worst things that can happen to you, because in this same moment of scarcity, you are presently X amount of money short. No offence, but in this very difficult era, Jesus and that ‘good creditor’ friend of His can write off your existing debts to them all they want. But as for you, all those presently owing you money will have to repay their debts. In full. And fast!

And it is with this same fervour—this same forcefulness—that most of the leaders of the developing world entered the premises of the United Nations just a few weeks ago.

I mean, we all know that much of the developed world owes us money—latently and quite obviously both. But it is the very obvious we are talking about here… That debt which accumulated over the span of some four to five—and we daresay—six centuries. That debt which began as soon as the Transatlantic Slave Trade took its devilish effect. And that which is also found with yet another devilish trade, one for the longest time ignored whenever these conversations are had… And by that, we mean the Arab Slave Trade which kickstarted at an even earlier century… That equally gruesome slave trade which was spawned by the Arab world against, among others, our brothers and sisters of Eastern Africa, stretching the periods between the 7^th and 20^th centuries—and as some will dare say, still has pockets of it persisting to this day. But the latter is a topic for another day.

What we are presently talking about is the former—the Transatlantic Slave Trade. That devilish trade which quite literally involved blood and sweat—the syphoning of our human and natural resources in large quantities under gruesome, inhumane conditions to the West, to slave away, to cause the development of these countries. To our very own detriment. Of course, the West owes us a good deal of money!

And quite blatantly, most of the leaders of the developing world said this when it got to their individual turns to speak at the just-ended 78th United Nations General Assembly, General Debates.

The Honourable Mia Amor Mottley—the great, honourable lady—Prime Minister of Barbados started off her speech by quoting Rocky Dawuni, in her own words, “a famous reggae artist from Ghana.” And those words, quite simply were, “How many roads do we have to walk, just to make it to the door, only to be told that the door is closed?”

To be frank, I thought she was going to quote her own Barbadian ‘daughter’, Rihanna who famously sang, “B*tch better have my money!” But no, the Honourable Mia Amor chose to keep it classy. So, among other issues, on this matter of reparations—on this long-standing matter of the debt owed us by the West—the question for her remained, “How many roads do we have to walk, just to make it to the door, only to be told that the door is closed?”

Ladies and gentlemen, of course, this distinguished leader did not go so far as to quite bluntly yell at the West, “B*tch better have my money!” But the passion and earnestness with which she spoke, spoke these very words.

AN INSERT: PARABLES
I will be frank with you, this has not been an easy article to write. Mostly the thoughts that culminate in these pieces, they occur to me with such clarity and in such pristine order, that all I require is some small time, space, and place to sit to transfer these thoughts onto paper. But in this particular case, things are admittedly quite jumbled up in my brain. And the reason for this is simple… How do I put this? Firstly, have you ever found yourself in that peculiar situation where you wholeheartedly agree with a message, but are not necessarily so in sync with the messenger…? Secondly, have you ever found yourself presented with a number of different messengers, all saying the same thing, but you’re in a sticky position where you are in sync with some of the messengers but not so much the others? But then, when you go ahead and point out the fact that Messenger A may not precisely be in a good position to deliver that message, it tends to feel like you are saying the same of Messenger B…?

Because as I’m writing on and you’re reading on, the impression I’m getting is you are getting the impression that by making mention of an ‘undeserving messenger’, I may just be referring to the great Mia Amor. And that could not be ‘more’ further from the truth. That lady has demonstrated more foresightedness, unadulterated passion, and leadership to last nine national lifetimes.

On a totally ‘unrelated’ matter, let us turn our attention to the speech given by our very own President—during this same occasion…

CHAPTER TWO
“I do not need to employ any hyperbole, nor find any fancy words to state the reality of the situation humanity currently faces. Our world is not a happy place today. Wherever we look, and in whichever area of our lives to which we turn our attention, there is unhappiness, distrust and loss of confidence in the structures that have guided the governance of the world...” Shh, that’s our President talking.

I mean, we Ghanaians do not employ any hyperbole when we say that a lot of our fellow citizens are referring to this President and Government by the phrase ‘Yentie Obiaa’. But let us do ourselves a quick favour and replace the word ‘world’ in this very first paragraph of his speech with ‘Ghana’… Because, after all, Ghana is in this world, isn’t it?

Ha! After doing this mental substitution, it sounds like the President has had his ears to the ground all along, doesn’t it?

I hope we won’t be accused of employing hyperbole when we say that that paragraph right there is an admission on his part that this country of ours has, for some time now, not been in a happy place… And that everywhere one turns in Ghana, one finds unhappiness, distrust, and loss of confidence in the structure that have guided the governance of the country…

But let’s not get distracted, let’s listen on.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President goes on to further emphasise this point: “The choice of the theme [of the General Assembly] implies that there is general acknowledgement that things are not what they ought to be in our world. The mutual trust among nations that is required to ensure harmony has considerably diminished…”

Fast forward to a few paragraphs in, and he goes: “This organisation, the United Nations, under whose auspices we, the nations of the world, are gathered for the annual review of the world, was established in the belief that our common humanity would be the overriding consideration in dealing with the problems that would, invariably, arise when we deal with one another… But it is also true that the reluctance by the nations, that were the major powers at the formation of the organisation, to agree to any reform to reflect present realities has led to the undermining of the credibility of the United Nations and some of its organs, in particular the Security Council.”

Common humanity. Reluctance by major powers to agree on reform that reflect present realities. The undermining of credibility. This whole paragraph just feels like a trap. I’m going to leave you to do your own dissection to mine the sheer ridiculousness.

Let’s move on…
“We have witnessed, at first hand, over and over again, that the big powers of the United Nations might be preaching democracy, fairness and justice around the world, but are happy to [practise] the opposite here at the UN, prioritising parochial interests over those of humanity... We cannot continue to preach democracy, equality and good governance around the globe; we cannot insist on peace and justice in the world, when our global organisation is seen by the majority of its members and the people of the world as hampered by an unjust and unfair structure… Mr. President, the Assembly has quite properly chosen the rebuilding of trust as critical in restoring stability and prosperity to our world. We cannot rebuild that trust when the organisation that should bind us is seen by many as helping to perpetuate an unfair world order, which is reinforced by an inequitable, dysfunctional global financial architecture.”

Hmm, decorum where art thou? You know what, let us not attempt racking our brains for a comeback on this one; let’s just refer to the AP News website for comments: “…And on the day Ghana’s Akufo-Addo demanded equal rights and justice for Africa in his address, police officers in his country were arresting dozens protesting the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.”

But there is more to it than just this point raised by the AP News. And we could spend hours on that. But we have more grounds to cover. Let’s just fast-forward through the speech. But before we do, let me just say that this tirade about injustices, unfairness, and the failure of leadership (on the part of the UN and the world’s superpowers) took an entire six pages out of our President’s seven-page speech. That means right after saying his ‘hellos’ and ‘thank yous’ he dived right into finger-pointing.

But brothers and sisters, you will be happy to know that at one point in his speech he admitted to things not being alright, economically, in his own home nation of Ghana—but ever so latently. Blink and you might miss it! Here you go: “Mr President, we, in Ghana, are holding firm to our belief in democracy as the best route to building the prosperous nation that is our aim. It is true that the economic dividends that many of our citizens justifiably expected from the democratic process have not come as fast as had been anticipated, but we are determined to hold fast to the course because we believe that, ultimately, it will succeed.”

He then went right back to the finger-pointing: “At this time, unhappily, we feel no sense of the international solidarity that we believe we should receive. It is surely in the interest of the whole world that West Africa should be peaceful and prosperous. We want our young people to be part of a peaceful and prosperous West Africa, rather than part of the thousands that arrive at an unwelcoming Europe after perilous journeys across the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea.”

You see, this right here is an entirely different matter that we will have to delve into in the near future. Err… upon second thought, I may just leave that to Makafui Aikins to handle.

And last but definitely not least, the President dived right into the matter of debt collection… The succeeding paragraphs are his…

CHAPTER THREE: ON REPARATIONS
“Mr President, we do not seek to shirk any responsibility for the problems we face that are of our own making, and it bears repeating that we are not craving for sympathy, and do not want to be a scar on anybody’s conscience. But, we cannot, and the world should not pretend that the present day economic and social conditions of Africa have nothing to do with the historical injustices that have fashioned the structures of the world.”

Sorry for this quick interruption. But I need to point out the fact that this right here, by all indications, was the very heart of his speech. Ah! The way he stressed this point!

“It is time to acknowledge openly that much of Europe and the United States have been built from the vast wealth harvested from the sweat, tears, blood and horrors of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the centuries of colonial exploitation. Maybe we should also admit that it cannot be easy to build confident and prosperous societies from nations that, for centuries, had their natural resources looted and their peoples traded as commodities.

For centuries, the world has been unwilling and unable to confront the realities of the consequences of the slave trade, but gradually this is changing, and it is time to bring the subject of reparations firmly to the fore. Granted that current generations are not the ones that engaged in the slave trade, but that grand inhuman enterprise was state-sponsored and deliberate; and its benefits are clearly interwoven with the present-day economic architecture of the nations that designed and executed it.

Reparations must be paid for the slave trade. No amount of money will ever make up for the horrors, but it would make the point that evil was perpetrated, that millions of productive Africans were snatched from the embrace of our continent, and put to work in the Americas and the Caribbean without compensation for their labour.

If there are any hesitations in some minds about the paying of reparations, it is worth considering the fact that, when slavery was abolished, the slave owners were compensated for the loss of the slaves, because the human beings were labelled as property, deemed to be commodities. Surely, this is a matter that the world must confront, and can no longer ignore…

It is probably also the time to return to that vexed subject of illicit financial flows out of the continent of Africa. I refer to the report of the panel chaired by the highly respected former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, on the illicit flow of funds from Africa, which states that Africa is losing, annually, more than eighty-eight billion United States dollars ($88 billion) through illicit financial outflows.

Yes, those monies too must be returned to the continent. It is difficult to understand why the recipient countries are comfortable about retaining such funds, and are happy to call those countries from whom the monies are taken as corrupt. I believe that a joint taskforce of the African Union Commission and the OECD Secretariat, under the auspices of the UN, should be charged to find ways of stopping the damaging outflows…”

Oh! the forcefulness, the clarity of facts, the charge into history—one could have sworn that we at ‘Attempted Prophecies’ wrote this speech! But no, you and I didn’t.

CHAPTER FOUR: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
As you may have already gathered, I have no plans on mincing our President’s words today. Going in, I had no plans of attempting to paraphrase his words—with the hopes of lightening your ‘reading burden’, if any such burden exists in you. Even though, by being a reader of this column, one can safely say that you are of the category of persons who find no such displeasure in committing the art of reading.

It was really important that we looked at the President’s speech in detail (as much as we possibly could), for we really have some lessons to learn from him—especially as it pertains to the science of laying demands before leadership.

In this speech, we get a lot of pointers from our President on how to speak truth to power… How to speak truth to ‘the powers that be’—the failing powers that be, that is.

By demanding fairness, justice, a listening ear, and proactive leadership from the United Nations, the President empowers us to do same of his government. In fact, this President of ours boldly made all the accusations one could justifiably level against this body called the UN—he did all but actually use the word ‘corruption’ against them. And even without categorically saying this word in description of the organisation and the superpowers that ran it, it was latently felt throughout his speech. For by making reference to ‘reparations’ and the ‘Transatlantic Slave Trade’, he was referring to that which has been infamously termed by wise minds as the ‘Old Corruption’—the grand corruption committed by the West against us, Africans. Elsewhere in the speech, he wasn’t so covert. So, corruption, it is.

So then, who are we to keep quiet when these same leaders subject their own nations, their own people to these same evils they decry? We have no option but to cry out loud too, don’t we? So cry we must!—using the President’s own outcry as a blueprint. Injustices, unfairness, bad leadership, and corruption—these cancers, these abuses, the Ghanaian will no longer stand for!

TO BE CONTINUED: THE MESSAGE V. THE MESSENGER

I know that we have left a lot unsaid today. For one, we have not even tackled this matter of reparations yet. But now that we have critiqued the ‘messenger’, we can safely go ahead and look at the ‘message’.

You may be in the small group of people who find ridiculousness not only in the messenger, but the message of reparations itself. And to you, next week’s article is dedicated.

[Published in the Business & Financial Times (B&FT) - 12th October, 2023]