Slave Raparation Petition

Reparation refers to the need to repair the damage done to Africans and people of African descent by the slave trade, colonization and neo-colonization so that they could compete more effectively in the global context, reverse the prolonged history of underdevelopment and rejoin the train of development in the world.

This definition clearly identifies two categories of victims who can claim reparation or compensation: Africans and African Americans. It also identifies the harm suffered or committed during three periods: the Maafa a Kiswahili term for the transatlantic slave trade of Africans (16th – 19th centuries); colonization, i.e. exploitation and the political, cultural and economic domination of Africa by Western Europe (19th – 20th centuries) and neocolonization; the surreptitious economic and cultural domination of the former African colonies. As we can very well realize, this subject is so emotionally charged that we question ourselves how we can rationally and objectively deal with it.

However, like other research work that has been done on slavery and its effects on Africans and African Americans in contemporary society, it is possible to show, as Daniel Payot writes at the opening of the conference Esclavage et servitude d’hier et d’aujourd’hui that “science can very well accept the questioning of the facts it deals with, and that in these domains, scientific rigoaur, without becoming confused with them, can very well go alongside emotion, revolt, the concern of justice and the desire to restore the dignity of those who were victims.