‘Emancipate Yourself… Choose Life’ by   Professor Gus John

an extract for www.black-history-month.co.uk  website

In this pugnacious booklet, published today, Professor Gus John lays down a timely challenge for the Government and for Britain’s black communities.

1. v      Do you remember the days of slavery?
2. v      Do you remember when Christians claimed that slavery was ‘divinely sanctioned’ because it helped bring Africans to Christ?
3. v      Do you remember how enslaved Africans were both ‘beasts of burden’ and ‘pets’ of lower social standing than dogs?
4. v      Do you remember Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines, Ottobah Cuguano, William Cufay, Olaudah Equiano, Robert Wedderburn, and other monumental figures written out of the anti-slavery movement?
5. v      Do you remember the 1807 Slavery Abolition Act?
6. v      Do you remember how, in spite of it, the institution of slavery persisted until 1838?
7. v      Do you remember the £22million that was paid to British slave owners and slave merchants after 1807 in compensation for loss of property and of future income?
8. v      Do you remember how, on top of that, the enslaved Africans themselves received nothing and had to buy their ‘freedom’?
9. v      Do you remember how much the £22million of 1807 is worth 200 years later?
10. v      Do you remember?

And how about the British descendants of enslaved Africans transported to the West Indies? Ironically, in the first 3 months of this bicentenary year of the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act, 10 African males have lost their lives at the hands of other African heritage males like themselves. The Government’s only solution appears to be more and more laws and draconian measures to draw an even greater number of them into the criminal justice system.  There are already 3 times as many of them in the ‘the secure estate’ than there are in universities, and yet the community is even more insecure, fearful and bewildered than ever before.

Professor Gus John establishes the connections between the commemoration of slavery abolition and these senseless murders which must make the enslaved Africans who gave their lives in the name of freedom turn somersaults in their graves. He calls for a radical rethink of the stop gap measures successive governments have employed to deal with the condition of being young and black in British society and an end to black communities’ collusion with them.

He argues for Acceptance and Ownership, Repentance and Restitution:

Acceptance and Ownership 

• An acknowledgement of the quadrillions of pounds sterling the slave trade generated for the British economy and for the ruling elites whose successors enjoy the wealth generated by ‘that epic holocaust’ to this day.
• An end to the pathologizing of the African Caribbean community and to myths about the effects of family breakdown and absent fathers.
• An acknowledgement of the impact of slavery, colonialism and 500 years of racism on the consciousness of a once proud people with a rootedness in their history and a clear sense of their achievements and of who they were.
• An acknowledgement of the self loathing and distaste for all things African that that has engendered in succeeding generations of the descendants of enslaved Africans.
• An acknowledgement of the myriad ways in which that same racism operates today, especially through the schooling and education system, to deny them opportunity, place them on the margins of the society and have a generation of them living ‘on the edge’ and posing a huge threat to themselves and to others like them.
• An acknowledgement of the fact that gangs don’t all have a common culture and that young people go through various stages in gangs, ranging from peer support and a sense of solidarity and safety to wanton criminality
• An acceptance of the fact that it is an indictment of the society that in some of our urban centres, the life expectancy of the average black male is 25.
• An acknowledgement of the disturbing fact that in the shadow of male gang members is a growing number of young women, often demonstrating that they could indulge in even more vicious forms of criminal behaviour than the men.

Repentance

• Understanding by the British state and the British people, white and black, that it is not enough to remember Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, William Wilberforce and the white abolitionists. 
• It is especially critical for this and coming generations of white and black British to know how the enslaved Africans organised themselves and abolished slavery, and to understand how they were written out of history.
• Understanding of how the same process of writing black people out of history is at work today, especially in the schooling and education system and through the media.
• Understanding that too little has been done to expunge from the psyche of white Britain the racism on which its identity was constructed, and that the schooling and education system still shows no sign of putting that urgent task on the agenda any time soon.
• Understanding that the future of this society lies in the hands of descendants of enslaved Africans as well as of those who enslaved and traded in them, of industrialists and of factory workers, of lairds and of crofters, of those who have never left upstairs and of those who have only known downstairs.
• Understanding that murders of black men by black men is the business of the entire nation and not just ‘the black community’

Restitution

• A belief that this nation has the power and the means to fix what has gone wrong cumulatively over generations.
• That restitution is an urgent and obvious moral necessity, never mind a legal duty.
• An acknowledgment that the descendants of enslaved Africans have never benefited from the wealth created by the sacrifice of their ancestors.
• That there is absolutely no point in remembering the abolition of slavery if, 200 years later, something sensible and urgent is not done to put an end to its disturbing legacy in our communities.
• Schools of a difference in our communities, designed, structured and managed to meet the needs of black children.
• Academies for black children, managed by black communities, led by black principals and run by re-trained black and white teachers.
• Schools in which every single child receives their educational entitlement, irrespective of their presenting behaviour.
• Opportunities for the rehabilitation of our damaged children in our communities and not in young offender institutions.
• Opportunities to work with convicted gunmen and gang members while in ‘the secure estate’ and link them to meaningful employment and positive networks in our communities so they could reconstitute themselves.
• Resources for former gang members and development workers to work with current gang members and develop appropriate methods of conflict resolution and meaningful alternatives for accessing the advantages the gang gives them.
• Opportunities to build a critical mass of young people who gain kudos and street credibility, power, status and ‘worth’ by legitimate means that restore self esteem and enable them to sleep with both eyes closed.
• Resources for the black community to develop tertiary Centres of Excellence for developing leaders, managers and entrepreneurs in our communities and for rapidly increasing the number of those ‘role models’ that we keep being told we do not have enough of. 
• Government funds for us to establish our equivalent of Moorhouse College, Spellman College and Howard University and name them:  Claudia Jones, CLR James, John La Rose, Pearl Connor-Mogotsi.

Professor Gus John believes it is time for black communities to stop the talking, to organise and call for restitution from the British state and from corporate Britain and to use the capacity we undoubtedly have and take the lead in dealing with the deepening crisis in our midst.

Emancipate Yourself… Choose Life  - Gus John
First published 2007 by and available from:
The Gus John Partnership Ltd
4 Ellesmere Road South
Manchester M21 0TE

© Gus John Partnership 2007

ISBN 978-0-9547843-2-4

Price: £3.50

Contact: Chief Omilade
Email:  [email protected]

www.gusjohnpartnership.com

www.black-history-month.co.uk  This booklet gives a good overview of the issues and what importantly. The considered path that  we may  need to do to take  the debate and discussions  forward. 

This a perspective of many and adds much need fuel to the on going  debate and much needed discourse and is most welcome as a starting point.