- William Wilberforce
Speech on a motion for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, April 2, 1792
Last Friday night I went to see the movie Amazing Grace. This movie has stirred much that I have been thinking about all week. I know it's a long post, but I really want to share this.
Amazing Grace is the true story of a man named William Wilberforce, elected at age 21 to the House of Commons in England. Facing so many injustices in the world at such a young age and place of privilege, William wonders if he should use his gifts to "praise the Lord, or change the world?" A friend humbly proposes that he can do both. John Newton passionately agrees, and William proceeds to dedicate his life to the abolition of slavery.
Amazing Grace was released this month to celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain. While there is much to celebrate, there is much more work to be done...
The fact is that modern day slavery exists, and the movie has prompted a movement called The Amazing Change. It is definitely a site and a cause worth checking out.Relatedly, this week I have also been learning a great deal about Haiti in preparation for my journey there next Saturday. What I have learned has startled me.
Haiti was "discovered" by Columbus in 1492, and the original inhabitants of the island, the Arawkas, were decimated in about 25 years. The Spanish claimed what now is the Dominican Republic, and the French claimed the land that they called "The Pearl of the Antilles". It was a beautiful paradise island, and made France the envy of Europe. For over 100 years Haiti was France's most important overseas territory, supplying it with sugar, rum, coffee and cotton. How? At the cost of thousands and thousands of people forced into slavery from Africa. At the height of slavery near the end of the 18th century, some 500,000 people mainly of western African origin, were enslaved by the French.
The following excerpt I read from the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti startled me. (This was written regarding the International Donors Conference held in Madrid in November '06) Much of Haiti's current situation-- they are the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere-- is based upon an immoral debt once required by France in exchange for the freedom of the slaves who inhabited the island. I know it's long, but I believe this is worth reading...
"On November 29th, international diplomats and financiers will gather in Madrid to coordinate the disbursement of aid to fight poverty in Haiti over the coming years. The November meeting follows on the heels of a July meeting in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where the international community pledged $750 million in aid. Those generous commitments will build badly need roads, schools and hospitals that will make a real, short-term difference to ordinary Haitians – the poorest people in the Americas. But the commitments are based on charity, not human rights, and are not likely to make a sustained reduction in the daily deadly violations of Haitians’ economic and social human rights. What Haiti really needs to permanently end centuries of misery is not the world’s charity, but its justice.
The November donors’ meeting will not be discussing the one fair and lasting solution to Haiti’s grinding poverty: enforcement of Haiti’s right to the restitution of the independence debt imposed by France in 1825. The debt – calculated at $21 billion in current dollars – dwarfs current aid commitments (the pledged $750 million is less than a year’s interest on $21 billion). Its payment would allow Haitians to develop their economy according to their own priorities, without the attached strings that keep poor countries dependent on international aid.
Haiti won its independence from France in 1804, becoming the second independent country in the Americas and the only independent nation in history born of a successful slave revolt. But world powers forced Haiti to pay a second price for acceptance into the “international community.” Not a single country would recognize the Black Republic, and French warships remained off Haiti’s coasts, threatening to invade and reconquer the island. After twenty-one years of insisting on its right to respect and recognition, Haiti finally paid for it: in exchange for diplomatic recognition, Haiti agreed to pay the French government to compensate French plantation owners for their loss of “property,” including the freed slaves. The agreement required the compensation to be paid with a loan from a designated French bank. The debt was ten times Haiti’s total 1825 revenue and twice what the United States paid France in 1803 for the Louisiana Purchase, which contained seventy-four times more land.
Haiti’s poverty is inextricably linked with its history of slavery and the independence debt imposed by France. The debt was a crushing burden on Haiti’s economy, as the government was forced to redirect all economic activity to repay the debt. Up to 80% of some years’ government revenues went to debt service, at the expense of investment in education, health-care and infrastructure.
Haiti did not pay off the independence debt to the banks until 1947. Over a century after the global slave trade was eliminated as the evil it was, Haitians were still paying their ancestors’ masters for their own freedom. After the debt was paid, Haitians were left with a chronically undeveloped economy, rampant poverty, and a spent land- today relatively minor environmental stresses like tropical storms cause catastrophic damage in vulnerable Haiti....
A human rights-based approach to Haiti’s poverty would start with restitution of the independence debt. A just repayment of the debt would allow Haiti to develop the way today’s wealthy countries did – based on national priorities set inside the country. It would also right a historical wrong, and set a strong example of international cooperation based on justice and respect for international law. If the international community really wants to help Haiti, repayment of the independence debt will be at the top of the agenda, not off the table.
William Wilberforce worked to break the chains of slavery, and on March 13th (this past Tuesday) a bill was introduced in the US Congress to break Haiti's chains of debt.
Praise the Lord or change the world?? I humbly suggest that we can do both...
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