LONDON -- A new database launched Wednesday lets Britons uncover uncomfortable information: whether their ancestors owned slaves.
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Researchers at University College London spent three years compiling a searchable listing of thousands of people who received compensation for loss of their "possessions" when slave ownership was outlawed by Britain in 1833.
Today the much-anticipated records that detail just how much the trade in humans benefited the UK will be made public, Catherine Hall reports for London’s Guardian.
Forgetting the violence, pain and shame that is an inevitable part of any country's historical record is a critical aspect of a nation's history. This disavowal of the past is an active process: forgetting…
“Haiti: Jamaica's Embarrassment” is the title of a recent article by Dr. Orville Taylor, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of the West Indies-Mona. Here, he writes about cultural similarities, shared histories and experiences, and the stigma and injustices suffered by Haitians at the hands of other Caribbean peoples.
It might sound like the Jamaicanised pronunciation of the number which comes after 79, but Haiti is a historical enigma and its people are a worthy of respect, dignity and even our admiration.
When the United Kingdom abolished slavery in 1833, the government of the day paid out £20m in compensation -- not to slaves, but to their owners. What happened next to that money has been tracked by a team of historians from UCL, whose new site, Legacies of British Slave Ownership, launched today, as Ian Steadman reports for the UK’s Wired site.
Many Caribbean countries participated in the global One Billion Rising campaign. You can view photos from the events across the region and even add yours to the pool.
Barbados held two events: One at the Cave Hill campus on the University of the West Indies which focused on sexual violence since three Caribbean countries are in the top 10 globally for rates of reported rape. The other took place in the capital and featured collaboration among many women’s organisations, artists and UN WOMEN. The Bridgetown gained significant publicity in the mainstream media, particularly radio and press. The following letter to the editor details the UWI event which was hosted by the Institute for Gender & Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit.
Barbados might be interested to know that the UWI Cave Hill Campus also held a significant One Billion Rising event that mainly targeted students, but also involved staff in the audience and as performers.
I write this letter and hope it is published because of what emerged. Female students at the campus routinely face harassment, sometimes physical, on ZR vehicles. Some also continue to face the problem of voyeurism (peeping toms) in some private residences around campus. Obviously this is unacceptable.
The Cave Hill campus administration does what it can from what I can see, including establishing protocols and addressing safety issues. In fact, the event was hosted by the university’s Institute for Gender and Development Studies – Nita Barrow Unit as a means of gathering just such data.
Students testified, a Guild of students spokesman informed that the Guild’s position was zero tolerance on campus and off, one male students spoke touchingly of the solidarity he feels his colleagues should express to prevent not only physical but also emotional abuse of young women.
Staff members and students performed poetry and sang songs relevant to the theme of rejection of violence in all its forms, and the need for the embrace of more loving, respectful and self-respecting behaviours by men and women singly and collectively. One staff member spoke of the fact young men are themselves victims of sexual violence by other men, and this underscores the evident necessity for men to strongly support the eradication of this scourge.
Violence against women is a feature of vulnerability, especially when men congregate in even temporary gangs.
It is good to see the solidarity your paper offers in highlighting these issues. I certainly ask our community of ZR drivers, conductors, owners and the owners of private residences around the campus to join you in that solidarity and put measures in place to secure the young women using their services. It is just the right thing to do.
– Margaret D. Gill
Source: This article originally appeared in the Barbados as a letter to the editor.
Guyana also hosted a significant One Billion Rising event in which many women’s organisations participated. There were events in St. Lucia, Grenada and Antigua as well.
A recent comment on the CODE RED blog called into question the political strategies of the One Billion Rising Campaign:
I wish every Feminist initiative, everywhere around the globe, wholehearted success.
But… I have a seeeerious problem with the “Let’s All Dance!” focus for the “One Billion Rising” event. Could someone tell me WHY – and in a way that makes pellucid sense to me, WHY Women, in their seemingly chronic male-designation as Abuse Fodder, would choose the carefree, spontaneous, *celebratory* act of …dance: to (somehow?!?) symbolize the One Billion Rising initiative?
The whole things seems miscued, somehow; it appears – at least to me, like some desperate psychological “buffer” being enacted by Women globally, to try to distance themselves emotionally from what I have NO FEAR in stating as The Harsh REALITY: i.e., WOMEN’S RIGHTS IS ON A STEADILY DOWNWARD CURVE!
Consequently, to “Dance While Women’s Lives are BURNING TO HELL…smacks oddly of a SIMILAR Roman initiative. Only I think the Ancient used FIDDLES to distract themselves whilst their Home-Space INCINERATED!!!
So – as they say in Showbiz: “Break a Leg!”
This Huffing Post article took One Billion Rising to task for a lack of feminist consciousness, a refusal to name the causes of violence against women in favour of feel-good dancing in which everyone could participate and a false notion of sisterhood which perpetuates racist hierarchies.
What do you think? Is One Billion Rising a celebrity-driven, white-feminist-saving-the-Third-World-woman danceathon/mediafest that lacks political edge? Or were local organisers able to “creolise” the One Billion Rising to make it meaningful for their communities as part of wider and ongoing efforts to address violence against women?
