This House Would Pay Reparations | Cambridge Union

foreign hello everyone welcome to week six of the Union it's great to see in such a Pack Chamber tonight the fire warning and people sitting on the on the floor and having a sort of tradition which I'm really pleased to see so thanks all for coming for this important debate the motion before the house tonight is this house would pay reparations this debate comes at a really prescient time the University of Cambridge has recently launched investigation into the legacies of slavery and additionally the university Council has had to return the collection of Ben and brontes to the government of Nigeria there is no better time to revisit the question of whether Britain owed reparation to its former colonies and I'm so grateful to our six paper speakers have agreed to come tonight to discuss just that given there's a lot of new faces in the room and we do a very quick intro to debating we roughly follow British parliamentary four Styles so we have a motion before the house and we split for and against we've got three wonderful paper speakers on each side they'll speak in order of proposition and then opposition they've got 10 minutes to speak if at any point you want to say something in that speech you can get up and give a short Point information it's completely up the speaker if they want to accept but I have strongly encouraged them to take one or two so I hope they will just a reminder point to finish in about 10 to 15 seconds if you've got far more to say than that do a floor speech these happen after each pair of speeches so between the proposition and the opposition um I will turn to the floor I will solicit speeches and you can speak for up to three minutes um four against from center of the motion so please do get involved these debates are important because we engage the whole membership in the discussion and I'm really grateful for that so I'm looking forward to it um without further Ado I'll move to our first proposition speaker and to belro ADI has been the labor Member of Parliament of streatham since 2019. she's a self-described lifelong socialist and feminist and served as shattered Minister for immigration in 2010 20. Bell the floor is yours thank you very much chair in starting it's very important that we start with the premise that there are no amount of payments no collection of Acts that could ever recompense for the hundreds of years of enslavement genocide ecoside the theft of National Resources colonialism deliberate underdevelopment and the forms of neocolonialism that persist today the crimes against humanity that was slavery and colonialism were too great and the impact was too wide but this is not an argument that we should do nothing at all the web reparations has taken from the Latin word reparray to repair to make amends and I argue that the focus needs to be on this repair which is as much about moral and social Equity as it is about financial compensation this is what makes reparations much more about the than the simplistic idea of handing over large sums of money to those who have been wronged from racism to economic inequality and climate breakdown so many of the problems that black Asian and minority ethnic people face in the global South and in this country have they its undeniable roots in the crimes against humanity namely slavery and colonialism the notion that these events are too far past is completely flawed they're very much present-day subjects and objects to the claim for reparations the evidence of the unjustly derived wealth and how it was derived is all around us the impoverished nations in the global South the socioeconomic status of descendants of the enslaved the auspices of Institutions like this are our place in this in this world are wealthy and industrialized cities and our treasury we cannot forget that when slavery was abolished Britain took out a loan the equivalent of 300 billion pounds to pay off slave owners we only finish paying off that loan in 2015. this means that for decades the descendants of the enslaved indentured and colonized including the Windrush generation contributed to paying their own oppressors so other than the obscene wealth that made this small island State one of the richest countries in the world its citizens continued to pay financially for the slave trade after it ended not only by doing this have the government established it was possible to pay reparations albeit by paying the oppressors instead of the oppressed they've established that the funds are very much in our present as have the individuals and institutions that continue to benefit from this wealth and it's not just the wealth it's the wrong that are also present today the undeniable crimes against humanity are as well evidence as are the continued effects in the form of global impoverishment and racism if we deny the need for reparations because because the crimes against humanity we refer to were a long time ago that means we're denying the very real experience of the object of this claim those for whom this impoverishment and racism exists lest we forget that race is an entirely social construct without any biological meaning a human invented classification system instituted and enforced primarily for the justification of owning human beings and for the purpose of Free Labor subjugation and theft when we talk about reparations we talk about repairing this imbalance which very much exists today and if we cannot deny that the lasting effects of the original crime exist and that we can that means we can identify where reparations need to be made and further to this we cannot eradicate racism in our society until we accept and understand that its roots are in these past injustices and make meaningful reparations for the damage caused yet we continue to argue against it if governments like our own don't believe there's a reasonable claim for reparations then why do they continue to refuse to make the direct apology that has been called for one of the arguments that I often make myself is that it's because we only apologize to our equals and the racism that persists in society means that a government like ours would never see people those people that have most affected us equals and that that view very much remains for me but the other is key to this argument because they've expressed deep regret they've called it a stain on a nation's history and they've feigned every other form of being apologetic without actually apologizing could it be that they recognize their culpability and like your average corporate body trying to avoid paying out for something that is so blatantly their fault they go to Great Lengths to ensure that they do not use the recognized legal language for liability they do not admit fault not because they don't believe they're not at fault they do not admit fault because they know they are at fault and simply do not want to pay the price for this we make so many arguments against paying for reparations when there are so many ways that we could actually begin doing it today simple things like returning artifacts and end to exploitative trade canceling debts that impoverished Nations have paid over and over again giving those former colonies the tools to deal with the effects of the effects of climate change which are the actually the product of European industrialization which itself was fueled by Colonial exploitation and as many will know there is a growing consensus in the museum sector there is no justification for holding artifacts in British museums that were stolen through Force so I was really pleased to hear again today about Jesus College Cambridge taking the important step of restoring two looted bunion bronzers to their rightful home and Glasgow councilors recently voting to repatriate stolen cultural Treasures but there are thousands more right across this country and the ultimate loot of empire in the basement of the British museum Finders Keepers was not an argument in the playground it's not one that would work for our justice system yet we continue to employ it when discussing these stolen items even to the extent that we suggested that we loan these things that we've stolen back to the people we stole them from restitution as a form of reparations is one that can easily be addressed another one I wanted to look to was climate reparations this week uh cop 27 was very much on the agenda we're reminded that countries including the U.S Canada much of Western Europe account for just 12 of the global population today but are responsible for 50 of the planet warming greenhouse gases released from fossil fuels and Industry over the past 170 years for the first time cop was discussing matters related to funding arrangements and responding to loss and damage these arguments suggest that funds will be provided by wealthy Nations to vulnerable lower income countries that bear little responsibility for climate warming emissions things such as canceling the depths of and free green energy funds to adjust the direct impact of climate change are viable ways of reparations and the arguments against reparations always seem to be about what we cannot do the question is why do we refuse to do what we actually can and for those of you who would not succumb to the moral Arguments for doing what is right what I would put to you it's probably going to be a very bad idea for us as a nation if we don't as our governments continue to Pander to nationalism across Europe they would do well to remember that nationalism is not a uniquely Western concept many commonwealth countries will only remember a past of exploitation and a present in which they're subjected to punitive IMF conditions crippling their social infrastructure in serving the interests of more powerful countries like the UK countries in the global South have their own nationalists and every one of them will tell you that they have achieved what they have in spite of British atrocities not because of Aid or the privilege of being colonized and as we leave our largest trading partner as we've left our largest trading partner and whatever your views on brexit were at the time I'm sure we can see quite clearly it is not working we need to look to the fact that we need to re-position ourselves in the world and we're not going to do that if we go around continuously flinging ourselves about as if there is still some sort of Empire we need to make friends and we're not going to make friends if we continue to act in this in this disgraceful way which which looks down on people in the global self because as I've said they remember what has been done and the longer we refuse to apologize the harder it will be to maintain those relationships so reparations isn't about reimagining the past it's about reimagining a future a future that's actually built on equality where we work towards building the equity that was denied to people because of the empire we can start where we can by acknowledging our wrongs actually apologizing actually accepting liability and we return what is up not ours we work to address the imbalance and Injustice in our society if we can attest that something is wrong how can we claim to hold on to the values of decency respect and equality that we preach constantly around the world in this way I see reparations is not only a necessity it is completely feasible thank you thank you so much Belle for such an insightful sad remarks and we've now across the floor of the opposition and to the Reverend Calvin Robinson Calvin is an Anakin Deacon TV radio presenter and a conservative commentator he regularly features on GMB BBC Radio GB news and in print for the telegraph Daily Mail spectator inspect Calvin you have the ears of the house thank you very much now I'd like to start with a question in return to reparations who pays whom bearing in mind that no one alive today was a direct victim of the transatlantic slave trade and no one alive today is at fault for the transatlantic slave trade and my opposition talks about nobody wanting to apologize the government and the monarchy have apologized at expressing regret for the situation but they were not directly at fault therefore they shouldn't directly take responsibility in an open apology wealth is never acquired justly not in a capitalist system and unless you're proposing communism where everyone is equally poor I don't think wealth ever will be acquired justly we heard a moment ago about the former colonies and we heard the word Empire and the word nationalism used in a derogatory fashion as if they're bad things now without without nationalism we don't have a national Society we don't have a border we don't have a country there are those that would propose though those that were proposed we should live in a globalist society where we don't have borders and countries I think that would be a bad thing give way very good very good I would argue that I'm not and I would argue why because on the on the point of colonies if we look at the data rather than speaking to anecdotes as my opposition did if we look at the latest data we have from the former colonies such as where my family are from Jamaica the vast majority in the latest polls suggest that they would have preferred to remained part of the British Empire now it's quite easy for people in in a metropolitan City like Cambridge to stand up and say well of course these people in the colonies wanted to be separate from us et cetera et cetera speaking on behalf of people but when he's actually asked the people on the ground what did they prefer being a part of the British Empire or being being separate from it the vast majority said part of it and why is that why is that I'll give way in a second why is that that's because the empire was not entirely bad nor was entirely good the Brit the British Empire brought hospitals schools charities Railway lots of other infrastructure Christianity the English language to the rest of the world right okay that just proves my point we shouldn't listen to anecdotes we should look at the data if you can give me a data that shows that I would listen to you give me some evidence that suggests that I've looked at the evidence from the former colonies that is in favor of remaining part of Britain because Britain bought a lot of good to the world let me let me get a bit further on then I'll give some more points of information so back to the question of which I started with who pays whom are we suggesting that the government pays money to Black Brits in an apology for the transatlantic slavery that seems to be the premise therefore that would suggest that well first of all there's no such thing as government money as we know it's taxpayers money which would mean that people in this room will be paying money to people like myself that would mean that people that are hard-working but not necessarily getting paid much would be paying very rich and successful black people in this country poor black people paying rich black people that is not reparations that's an injustice who would pay whom doesn't make any sense there is no pot of money to give to a certain demographic and where do you draw the line and why is it why is it that we're always talking about the transatlantic slave trade when when if we look at the demographics of this country three percent of us are from a black background seven percent so more than double that are from an Asian background why are we not talking about reparations for India Pakistan why is it specifically the transatlantic slave trade and I'll tell you why and I'll tell you why don't tell you why because it's popular because it's fashionable because post Joy because post because post George Floyd and the black lives matter movement is only fashionable to talk about reparations in terms of black people when there are lots of other minorities around the world that should be part of the conversation we see it in every aspect of this debate I I used to be a school teacher and a lot of the time people say we need more black history on the curriculum never not never more Arabic history never more Asian history never more Egyptian history always more black history why is that why that particular demographic why should we not be raising everyone up to the same platform that's the question I propose it's become somewhat of an obsession now you only have to look at my my sector the church this year the Church of England has proposed setting aside two billion pounds to pay in reparations for the church as links to colonialism and slavery forgetting of course that parliamentarian William Wilberforce his entire his entire involvement in pushing strongly pushing the abolition movement was motivated by his desire to put Christian principles into action and to serve God in public life and that the Christian abolitionists were the force that initiated and organized the abolition movement Wilberforce wrote in his diary God Almighty has set before me two great objects the suppression of the slave trade and Reformation of morals he succeeded in first I would argue that perhaps not in the latter go ahead who does money belong to my point is that money doesn't belong to people is that it does belong to people it belongs to private individuals and the government money doesn't exist that's taxpayer money that's our money so if we're going to give that money away to someone we should all have a say in where it goes but in terms of having more Egyptian history on the curriculum I would argue that the curriculum isn't about skin color or ethnicity or race the curriculum especially in terms of history is about how this nation came to be where it is today so if if there are significant dates and events that are affected that align with Egyptian history of course that should be taught and it is taught Egypt is massively on the curriculum but we don't teach in terms of black history and white history We Touch we teach English History European history and world history because that is the history that shapes this nation to what it is today Church cannot be complicit one man no I didn't say that Christianity but I don't think that that would make for instance the Catholic Church okay okay so I'll get back to that I'll get to the institution of the church because I'm not saying that I'm not saying that at all if the church is going to look at referations what I'm saying is it needs to look at history holistically and further afield than just the transatlantic slave trade that's the point I'm making so if we look at the Roman Catholic Church look at Pope Gregory Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine to this land to proselytize to bring Christianity to the pagans right we all just understand that happened but we also know the story of how that happened so so Pope Gregory came across two English slaves um in the Middle East and he knew they were different because they were fair-skinned they didn't look like the other slaves that he'd seen around and he asked them where they were from and they said the angles meaning England and he could tell by their Anglo-Saxon genes that they were different to see other people but we know by that story alone that that's one of the reasons he sent Augustine to come to England to proselytize to evangelize therefore we know as a matter of fact that there has been a history of slavery all around the world and one part of that one one footnote of that is English slaves in the Middle East now therefore if we're looking at if we're looking at history holistically should the English therefore seek reparations from Rome after all five to ten million slaves propped up the Roman Empire five to ten million slaves and these were not these were not black slaves I'll get some I'll get let me get let me get into my speech a bit more and then I can't take some more points of information so otherwise I could be one quarter of the population of Athens in ancient Greece were slaves so should we claim reparations from the Greeks too the Turks as well the Ottoman Empire was Rife with slavery my point on this is not that slavery is acceptable but it's common my point is that the cultural evil of slavery has always existed it's existed throughout pretty much every National Group the difference being that we are the one nation in thousands of years that worked flawlessly hard to put an end to it we said enough is enough I mean you can laugh but that's a historic fact right good sir okay okay consequences of slavery who's we who is we who is we are still very much suffering from the impact of Empire do you think that is real appropriate analogy to compare them to to people who are slaves under the Roman Empire thousands in what way are you suffering and what why are you suffering you can you can gospel cross your face you're starting one of the best universities in the world in what way are you suffering you are privileged we if we don't recognize our privilege then we kind of help people who are not privileged there are people around the world Suffering From Slavery today slavery is still happening but that people want to live in the past okay I'm gonna I'm gonna go further on because you are very mature you're going to succeed in life now it's after this if you'd like to speak please do not speak now the evil of slavery has always existed particularly amongst the elite and it was the Grassroots it was the normal folk in this country that said enough is enough we caused an uprising we protested and we said we don't want it to just stop at home we want it to stop all around the world that's quite significant the British people put an effort in to end slavery everywhere we spent half a century with gunboats sailing around the world eradicating slavery we broke International laws we broke the laws of the sea to abolish slavery we were bold we were Brave and we were a righteous Nation we composed 85 pieces of legislation in our Parliament to prevent slavery in the 19th century nope we spent 20 million pounds to fund the slavery abolition act and you could you could say that that money was poorly spent but if that's money spent on ending slavery I say that's very well spent that's the equivalent of 40 percent of the government's total expenditure we would not do anything like that today so of course I will wrap up of course slavery isn't evil one of the worst hot most horrible acts of all Nations pasts but what I'm saying is that it's an awful practice that has taken a hold of every part of the world at some point in history the difference being we put an end to it we're made arguably the biggest impact on clamping down on slavery there ever has been and that is something to be proud of it cost us daily not just in monetary terms but in human lives so no to reparations because it was a worthy cause fighting the good fight to end slavery but we have paid that price already thank you very much order couldn't pour it in the chamber please before I move to floor speech I request that everyone in this debate gets a fair hearing I will take as many floor speeches as possible in this debate but please make sure you make your contributions in a floor speech repair why not Wallace speaker speaking and that counts for everyone else in this debate but moving forward I'm looking for a floor speech in proposition of the motion this house would pay reparations and your hand was straight up at the back you don't it works the one thing that most priests and lawyers and police officers agree on is that when a crime has been committed when a wrong has been committed a debt is owed now there's there's two uh sides often that you hear on the opposition to reparations both in this country for imperialism and my country for the chattel slavery evil that my country committed you hear either that it's too big that we can't do it it's so Monumental there's no possibility or you hear the other argument that there were there were good things the country did that that that we brought schools and hospitals and Christianity I'm glad Britain brought Christianity to the world I'm Jewish so I don't know how to feel about that but but but it's interesting um but we hear this too small that there's good there's good sides on it so that that kind of evens out it makes it all good the British Empire was evil and it was evil not just because it was a collection of indignities daily discrimination daily indignities but it was more than that it was more than a collection of millions and millions of them though it and slavery were that it was a negation of people's personhood it was a negation of people's rights to land to self-determination to their resources to their dignity and that needs to be accounted for it was not acquired by accident John thiely whose name is on the Steely Historical Library in the faculty of History still said the British Empire was acquired in a fit of absence of mind it was not acquired absent-mindedly it was acquired intentionally and with knowledge of depriving people of their rights and we need to pay for it because in this society as the many many many socialists in this room even those of whom went to private schools and grew up in country houses apparently all of you did uh the many socialists remind me that in this in this capitalist Society we put money is money is where it hurts right money is how we can note value maybe we shouldn't but that's what it is it certainly hurt to pay my union dues at the beginning of this year um but but we need to Value it because it was evil and it was wrong and we do inherit responsibility I don't think there's such thing as in hereditary guilt the the Reverend here I would say the guilt is does not the father's guilt does not descend to the third and fourth generation of sons as in the Old Testament but responsibility does if you take pride in your country's strengths you take you'd have to be ashamed of its sins I'm proud of what my country and what this country did to fight Nazism that's why I'm wearing this poppy I'm very proud I'm very proud of D-Day but I only get to be proud of D-Day if I'm ashamed of VM Ritz or Massacre I that's how it works [Applause] you get to be proud of democracy and the civil rights movement in MLK by being ashamed of slavery that's how it works that's that's how a society so no hereditary guilt I don't think I'm guilty but I do think there's a responsibility that I bear if I want to be proud of my ancestors I think from anything some of them boring mundane traffic lights and laws but sometimes they have moral purposes too now for those who say that this will wash away this won't be good I give you two examples after World War II Germany paid reparations of monetary kind to Israel as part of making up for the Holocaust my country in the 1990s paid twenty five thousand dollars to living survivors of Japanese internment another evil does anyone here think that those wiped away those sins nobody would even make that argument and yet it was right to try to do because governments at their best can be moral creatures and that is what Britain that is what the United States should do not because it will wipe it away but it is trying to do the right and we should try to do the right [Applause] thank you so much for your speech I'm moving now to the abstention side on the back row in the green thank you um I am when it comes to voting I'm going to vote in proposition for this but I want to make this speech here today because I feel that the opposition has not engaged on the same terms as the proposition when it comes to this debate the proposition stood up made a respectful clearly articulated speech about the implications of slavery the legacies of colonialism and the opposition stood up and insulted one of our members and I think this topic is framed in a way that we can have a respectful conversation about reparations about legacies about the world of Cambridge uh and even this institution when it comes to this conversation but until the opposition and I hope the second and third speakers will when until the opposition engages on the same terms in this debate engage in a respectful and clearly articulated manner I cannot vote on this motion or hold a decent opinion [Applause] and finally across to the episode out to the opposition just that at the back okay so um I'm Oliver from Corpus Christi I just like to try and dispel this notion from both sides of the house at the British Empire some kind of moldy black and black owned white picture I'd like to paint some of the nuances and complexities of it so the first thing to note is that for every single Bridge Senpai committed we can point to some kind of proportionate benefit so we can as has already met being expounded by both sides of the house we can of course quite rightfully mention the transatlantic slave trade but on the other hand we can mention the abolition of it and the great costs and blood given by Britain over the hundreds of years since to do so no thank you similarly I like to try and mention some of the complexities of a inter-colonial relations it is not true that a British Empire and British rule was forced upon indigenous people unconditionally there were certain segments of societies I'm going to use some examples in a minute that benefited immensely and welcomed empirical and for actively fought and sent money to sustain that Imperial rule right up to Independence I'm going to go into India now which only what I've some people call the Ingenuity I was called Indian war of independence I believe it should be called the Indian Mutiny simply because half of India on balance supported the British Raj in combat against the revolutionaries we see the landed classes the elites the Sikhs the punjabis all fight for but so now that's not be trying to somehow justify which empire I'm not I'm simply trying to paint it as a more complex picture one in which you cannot simply point to Britain and say you are reparations you have to take into account that some classes benefited some groups benefited some groups wanted British rule some groups actively fought against their own people it's the same British rule no thank you and therefore we cannot Clearly say Revelations must be paid we cannot clearly make a mobile case for efficients being paid and since you are innocent until proven guilty and we cannot clearly weigh up the balance the scales in one way or the other we have to in effect say we cannot pay reparations because we cannot be sure they are due yeah just ask a quick point of information so I think as the first Speaker said quite eloquently um the real reparations should go to people um who are impoverished by imperialism so I don't think the speaker was arguing for a reward of Elites so do you think that perhaps would be appropriate to revise your argument in that light I no no no no I I accept your point but I simply say once again how are we possibly supposed to know exactly which groups benefits and exactly which groups were neglected by the British Empire it's far easier to look at countries and say well that Colony benefited and that Colony didn't but it is impossible to look at an individual in 2022's fortunes and directly Trace that to an individual in 1857. so thank you thank you thank you so much for all this adventure of the floor please do continue to engage the point of information floor speeches I really appreciate it moving back to our paper speakers and to us back and speak in proposition of the motion I'd like to welcome vaishnav Rajkumar vaishnab is an NFL student reading politics international studies at Pembroke you'll be pursuing a jurist doctor from Harvard Law School after graduation he won the right to speak through Opel audition vaishnav you have the ears of the house thank you madam president good evening ladies and gentlemen of the house tuvalu is an independent island nation in the South Pacific comprised of nine Islands for close to two decades the sea level around the islands of tuvalu has been rising giving the apparent effect to the islands themselves are sinking today two of those two nylon islands are almost completely submerged with Scientists predicting that all nine Islands will be completely underwater by the end of the century a terrible situation A horrifying and startling situation and yet why is it that I can guarantee that most of you seated in this house tonight haven't even heard of tuvalu it's a simple answer and it is one that will tie this admittedly long-winded introduction back to the motion put simply it is the impact of an unbalanced Global power structure and if we dig deeper into the reason behind this imbalance I'm sure you won't be surprised that we arrive at the Everlasting impacts of colonialism and as a second speaker for the government I thought I would take it upon myself to try and extend upon our case by Framing this debate as effectively as possible and I thought I'd start by pointing out that if we're talking about reparations while the most obvious ramifications of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade are no doubt of the highest priority it is the highest priority on a list that unfortunately spans across a number of heinous manifestations of imbalanced power structures that exist in society even today including climate change and so when we talk of reparations today don't allow your minds to be clouded by the assumption that their operations are only for the dustedly acts of a bygone colonial era allow me to show you where operations are important not just as a means of atoning for your past sins but of recognizing and changing this House's trajectory from one that seems destined to be committing even more in this new neocolonial era that said I would like to once again recognize the Crux of this debate is the colonialism of old that underpins this motion as far as reparations are concerned it is very much the original sin and I'll be using this as my primary case study to prove my three main arguments I have one model into practical standpoints First I'll tell you about the moral obligation of those who are unfairly advantaged to recognize and take responsibility for their actions and yes there still does exist there's moral responsibility second I'll give you some statistics on the exploitation and concerted economic and political ruin of the colonies in the last couple of centuries I'll make the Montreal argument for reparations and finally I'll leave you with some practical considerations on the future externalities of reparations as deterrence for policy inequalities in fields such as climate change but before I move on to my actual arguments I do have some points of rebuttal to the previous Peak and I believe this is where my problem lies in this debate because I'm just not sure where to start as far as the bottle is concerned the previous speaker I think I think the the main issue comes up at the point where he comes up and says that we're only dealing with the transatlantic slave trade today because it is a fashionable choice and that is the only reason why we're having this motion here we're not just dealing with that we're also dealing with colonization we're also dealing with the impacts on India and Pakistan plenty of other colonies of the British Empire yes plenty of other colonies Bangladesh included thank you and I think if we want then I have 10 minutes worth of useless words to waste the House's time at this point but I think it's important to also recognize on the idea that no one apparently alive today was directly involved in the colonization and therefore they shouldn't be held accountable well what if I said that there are those alive today who are and continue to be directly impacted by the impacts of that colonization there's a POI about the gentleman who perfectly encapsulated this and in this way I'll continue in my speech to show you why reparations continue to be important there's the idea that reparation that the acts of colonization are not entirely bad there's the idea that we need more data to prove on outside the house why exactly reparations are required there's the idea that apparently we don't have a say in the amount that goes into reparation but I tell you that we are a democratic Nation the very fact that we are debating this Motion in the house tonight is a key signifier to show you that you do have a say and that you should vote for proposition all the estimator bottle I'll integrated by arguments my first argument draws in the ideas of the principles of reparations and it's something that I'm drawing from a speech that I first heard seven years ago from Dr shashita Who was a former Diplomat and currently an MP in India the speech was by all means a tremendous success if you forgive the fact that was given at the Oxford Union this speech was so successful that it has its own Wikipedia page today and I was adamant when I won the right to speak that I would try my best to avoid ending up parroting these arguments and in true British parliamentary fashion I found a loophole I will instead extend upon his comments for this the remainder of my first argument Dr tarur suggests that reparations are above all a symbolic requirement now what does this mean this can be attributed to the moral obligation of colonial powers to recognize and exceed their guilt in the atrocities of the 19th and 20th centuries my previous speaker would have you believe this has already been done but I tell you this isn't enough equally importantly this can also result in a much needed changing of the narrative for far too long for instance popular discourse on the colonization of India has been treated to a response along the lines of the following but we gave you railways and I'm very happy my previous speaker actually said this because something I had written down and it's a perfect encapsulation of precisely why this course needs to change what I mean by this is that there is a tendency to try and make the colonial era out to be something that may have been damaging but had its fair share of advantages for the colonies themselves the most prominent examples of the building of Railways and the establishment of telephone poles and all of that by the British in India to this day it's something that's talked about as a positive alarming is the realization that this popular discourse is a result of a failing education system when it comes to the horrors of colonialism currently it is not compulsory for primary and secondary school students in the UK to learn about Britain's history in colonialism what Reigns instead are the misguided understandings of colonialism as not being all bad a rose-tinted notion they're often glosses over the sheer violence and brutality that characterize the British Empire and attempt to justify the transgressions of the past as not being so bad or that there were bad conditions that we heroically helped change and this very much hits at the center of the we gave you Railways excuse ladies and gentlemen it is high time that we start dismantling this harmful muddled narrative and we recognize the colonial era for the inexcusable horror show that it was and so when we speak of reparations my first argument on principle is that we do not need on-site proposition to necessarily defend the notion of an exceptionally large complicate complexly calculated monetary sum what we need above all else is symbolic reparation a payment different accounts so normal it could be as much as a single penny but it carries with it the value of an admission of guilt and an apology for the ages a payment that will bring the error of colonialism back to the Forefront of your history classes when hopefully much more accurate representation you will no doubt have noticed that their symbolic payment of course has the added benefit of quelling any opposition from my respected peers on the opposite bench that reparations may be an unfair burden on the people of Britain when the spirit of this debate I will take the argument that best and I will explain to you why even a full properly calculated monetary compensation by way of preparation is very much warranted which I'll get to in my next two points of this POI okay excellent um this is my second argument for the evening and um I guess one that will perhaps cause the most distress in that house tonight not because it is particularly controversial but because the sheer number of lost lives and the brutal ramifications of colonialism that is my great displeasure to detail for you tonight during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 in India which resulted in the death of close to 3 million people British prime minister Winston Churchill refused to provide Aid instead suggesting the fault was that of the Indians for breeding like rabbits but then consider this how in a country like India with an admittedly High birth rate was there no increase in population for a 74-year period between 1860 and 1934. a question easily answered while here is a number of Indian lives that were lost during the British Raj in India a number so high it is not calculable precisely today with conservative estimates placing it anywhere between 40 and 60 million that 60 million people who were forced to fight Wars for the British who were starved to death or tortured to death or maimed a whipped to any number of cruel displays of a hunger for power and a great Greed for an ever-expanding Empire now I'll certainly be there to admit that you cannot place a monetary value on the loss of life something that Bell so eloquently put to you earlier but you can certainly try in anything to the contrary is nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse and next I invite you to look at the extent of direct British involvement in these deaths because it's way too easy to choke up these debts by fam into something like natural disasters but extensive studies show you that the effects of the famines and yes that's plural famines were directly exacerbated and sometimes even caused by the land grabs and resource exploitation of the British my previous speaker was very fond of data and facts so I'll give you some facts India is a country that entered the 18th century as a major economic player comprising 27 percent of the world's GDP when it gained its independence in 1947 it contributed three percent of the world's GDP pre-colonial India had one of the first established forms of public schools called gurukulas with education considered universal for every citizen the British left India with a literacy rate of 16 percent but India is always the first example when we deal with British colonization let's look elsewhere during the second Boer War the British Australian concentration camps that resulted in the deaths of close to 30 000 boars some historians believe that up to a hundred thousand people may have died in The Mao Mao uprisings in Kenya in the 1950s this last case is particularly important since a number of the Kenyan veterans who fought in this war successfully sued the British government who paid a sum of 19.9 million pounds to the claimants there's an example of people who didn't like the British colonizing them so it's not like this house doesn't have a history of paying reparations we just need a reminder of our conscience and that is what the proposition bench is going to provide to you today my final argument is brief and will look to the Future why is it that paying reparations is a good move for the world in general it recognizes that actions have consequences more importantly it signals that the abuse of systemic imbalances of power can no longer go unpunished if you've been following the news or indeed if you've just paid attention to Bell speech you'll know the importance of cop27 you know that prime minister Rishi sonak recently opened the doors to potential discussions for climate change reparations countries like tuvalu have been struggling for decades to make their voices heard in these sessions cliche as it may sound it is the countries that contribute the least to climate change that are hit the hardest and of course the ones that contribute the most just happen to be among the richest and most developed nations in the world this disproportionate impact lays the ground for something that is referred to as a right-based climate change litigation whereby the country's worst affected yet largely ignored in the struggle against climate change we'll be able to get the compensation that they deserve in the capitalist world order we live in it is a sad fact of the matter that it often takes a monetary loss for many of our governments to set up and take notice of the problem this is the final and arguably most important impact of my case tonight and take this with you if you take anything away from my speech that the idea of reparations will act as an important precedent above all else to guarantee and deter a further abuse of power imbalances on the global stage and so as you walk out of those doors tonight all I can ask is that you vote your conscience and of course that you walk through the door on the right Madam president ladies and gentlemen thank you for listening thank you so much for your staff for this interesting speech at that we've across the floor again and I'd like to welcome Rafe haydel manku to take the floor Rafe is an author broadcast in historian specializing in Britain institutions the monarchy and the Commonwealth Realms from the BBC to ABC Rafe is a well-known commentator in National International media he is a trustee of the Royal Canadian Heritage Trust and a senior fellow of the new cultural Forum Think Tank Rafe the floor is yours round two I've been on The Winning Side of every debate apart from one at the University of these Sussex over the years but they somehow suspect that this may not be following along those previous lines but let's see how we go here it's a great pleasure to be invited back to this August chamber and to see such a full house and a very enthusiastic if not energetic crowd here today it's been seven years since I was last here and University campuses and this chamber were rather quieter in those days and undoubtedly one of the factors that's contributed to this increased passion is the emotion that envelops topics like Colonial movements and Empire and I say this also as a child of Empire but you know in recent months we've seen the issue of slavery and colonialism expand Beyond campuses as we've now got of course from Barbados to Jamaica problem Caribbeans also calling for Britain too pay reparations for slavery and the consequences of colonialism and Madam speaker were we engaged in this debate in 1807 or 1833 I likely would have crossed the floor to support the motion opposite because of course the victims of the horrendous horrors of slavery would have been alive and deserving of Damages but it's not 1807 it's not 1907 it's not even 2007 over two centuries have passed since Britain led the world as the first Empire in history to abolish slavery and the right of reparations died long ago because reparations are fundamentally about matters of tort law the purposes of Damages restoration of reparation is to restore the victim the slave to the position they were in before the damage occurred slavery the actual victim only can receive damages not their descendants and therein lies the rub because some six or seven generations separate those alive today from their British Empire slave ancestors and whilst not just yet thank you so much whilst it's undeniable that 19th century slaves suffered unspeakable Horrors in what way can this lead one to conclude that their great great great great great great great grandchildren are also victims and deserving of reparations too on the contrary from Britain to the Caribbean the descendants of slaves today have a far better and higher quality of life than they would have had had their ancestors remained in Africa and that's an indisputable fact but if you let me carry on I'll I'll tell you why first I ask you is a current descendant of a slave ethically entitled to benefit from their ancestors sufferings and who should pay is it ethical for an innocent person today to be comfortable for the sins of their forefathers now CARICOM which is the Caribbean body calling for reparations once British taxpayers to pay but why out of a population of millions there were only 3 000 slave owners in Britain the vast majority of the population of Britain descend from people whose lives or one of abject poverty and hardship working in Heather's conditions akin to serfdom why should they as taxpayers pay operations it's not just yet thank you so much sixteen percent of the British population is now also foreign born so why should they pay for reparations what about the descendants of slaves living in Britain today why should people from Trinidad and Tobago living here pay reparations to people in Jamaica then again why is the demand for reparations always focused and framed in terms of Britain why are no activists asking for reparations from the African states that were equally complicit in slavery should they not pay reparations they provided the slaves that were transferred over the ocean and millions more slaves were kept in slavery in Africa by other Africans just as we're being transported across the Atlantic why does nobody ever actually speak about that unpleasant truth what about the Arabs and the Muslims who bought and sold African slaves for centuries before the British arrived and continued to do so into the 20th century until the British and the French tries to stop it and indeed what about the slavery that carries on today the international labor organization says that it currently approximately seven in every 1 000 Africans is a slave 10 million people in 2017 CNN reported hundreds of slaves are sold every week in Libya so much energy is given to Historic reparations and the historic plight of slaves I would have more time for the argument if the people were activated actively pursuing that course of action were equally vocal about surely the far more horrendous plights of slaves today where there are more slaves today in bondage in slavery than crossed over the Atlantic so where are the protests outside the Nigerian High commission where are the protests outside the embassies of Niger which has 800 000 slaves today what about Marley and Chad and Sudan and the Cameroon it's almost as if there's an ulterior motivation behind the call for apologies and operations exclusively from Britain and how far should we I would love to and normally I would maybe a bit later but I'm getting into the swing of things now and how far should we take this should Britain seek reparations for the Barbary slaves one million Europeans at the same time as Africans were going over the Atlantic one million Europeans were enslaved by the ottoman states of Morocco Algeria and Tunisia and it carried on after the abolition of the slaves trade by the British should Britain demand operations from North Africa of course not it's time to move on and so should we but let's turn away from slavery and expand our view to colonialism more broadly what disadvantage has colonialism actually caused to those living in the former British colonies of the Caribbean and disadvantage compared to whom and this is to go back to the point that you asked most of the former colonies of the Caribbean are now successful middle-income countries the GDP per head of the Bahamas is higher than Portugal and is comparable to Spain and Italy you never hear that do you Barbados and Chica and the Buddhas and kids and Nevis and other former British slave colonies have higher rankings on the un's human development index than Brazil Mexico or many other Spanish-speaking South American countries how has the British Empire disadvantaged the Caribbean Nations it's not clear to me but let's test this further and let's go and look and compare the nations of the Caribbean with modern West Africa the original homelands of Caribbean slaves to see what life is like there GDP per capita in Benin is 1430 in Barbados it's 17 000 over 10 times higher life expectancy in Benin is 62 in Barbados it is 79. rather than writing checks to well-off areas of the world why not focus on countries and areas that are actually impoverished and require aid financial aid not attached to alleged attempts to cleanse one's Soul it can't it can't be clearer while slavery was abhorrent for those who were enslaved had they stayed in Africa the lives of their descendants today would be unquestionably worse so what exactly actually is Britain being asked to pay reparations for because Britain wasn't the first Empire in Africa in the India in the Americas but it was the most benign and Ben and the benefits from it far exceed those for example of the Islamic and Indian Empires that carved up India of the Ashanti Empire of the Dahomey Kingdom and all of the hundreds and thousands of slaves that were ritually sacrificed every year in Benin and the Benin bronzers were mentioned the Benin bronzes commemorates those who actually owned slaves so once on one on the one hand I can understand why your protest Coulson statue why is there a celebration of dominion bronzes when they also commemorate slave owners yes please and I find this argument very interesting forty percent your credit forty percent of the budget was spent on freeing the Slaves by paying off their owners but the Practical reality was the abolition of the slave trade would never have happened had it not been for that because of those three thousand slave owners for many of them that was their only source of increment investment and it would never have passed through Parliament no but one has to be actual and practical if you want to abolish slavery one has to compromise and that was how it was done the slave trade didn't fuel the Industrial Revolution the slave trade was abolished far too early for only five percent of GDP was it was alive with the slaves trade so why are we apologizing for Britain are we apologizing to Britain for introducing nutrition and food storage policies that led to a decline in the subcontinence processes of famine that happened every 40 years in India there was a famine the population of India soared from 170 million to 450 million over the course of the Raj because of medicine health and accurate and proper nutritional standards and food storage compared to how it had been there had never been in history of India such as surge in population growth and let's not forget also what Britain did for women's rights because I think it's fair to say that as thanks of the British Empire that we have had the progression of women in Africa and India through Society because of course India's history is one of female oppression it was the British who were bullish City the burning of widows on the funeral pyre of their husbands it was the British that stopped the infanticide of young girls and it was the British who allowed Hindu widows to remarry I'm sorry if you don't like the facts but facts are actually facts universities were brought into Africa and India by the British and it's quite there will be no there would be no system of democratic legislatures within these regions as Stephen Pinker has written pre-state societies before the British Empire arrives were on average far more violent than even the most brutal of modern States so whilst many wrongs were committed to the 19th and 20th centuries the modern success of Britain's former colonies today in the 21st century is due in large part to their colonial inheritance the English language and the common law that enabled them to become Global players their civic institutions the police the military the Civil Service the Judiciary Parliament universities every region of the world you go to British colonies are the ones most likely to be the most developed the wealthiest and the most democratic and therefore have no position in opposing tonight's motion but I'd like to end by quoting the great black civil rights activist and socialist Bayard Rustin a friend of Martin Luther King Juniors and posthumous recipients of the presidential medal of freedom from Barack Obama who said if my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years then he may deserve some money but he's dead and gone and nobody owes me anything thank you thank you so much Rafe order I sense there's a lot of passion on this topic I think as many four speeches possible on the motion uh starting this proposition and I'll go to U in the front right okay thank you very much for this opportunity to speak so to start off I think I'd like to address some of the power points made by opposition right so the second speaker for opposition mentioned the very successful examples of Caribbean countries of uh what was it again Barbados right and he compared it to the state of things in Benin but what really confuses me is that Benin too was also colonized and it was colonized by the French and it was treated much more brew and it was also it was treated much more brutally under colonialism so I'm not sure what the reason why Benin is so poor today is precisely because of neocolonialism by the French and by colonialism in the past so I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at here so um and furthermore what really boggles my mind is that the second speaker from from opposition has simply failed to mention much wider ramifications of colonialism right he didn't mention he mentioned how success how how Barbados managed to succeed despite its Colonial past but he doesn't mention how how how the the nations of the Indian subcontinental right like India Pakistan and Bangladesh remain what some of the poorest countries in the world today precisely because of colonialism so if we look at India in 1948 right jawaharlon nehru in his book uh hang on sorry the first Prime Minister of India wrote in his book uh let's see sorry give me a moment right but anyway the point the point to be made here is shortly after the decolonization of India Hebrew jawaharlal nehru realized that the regions of India that were colonized the longest had the highest correlation with poverty and in the 19th century Britain under under Britain undertook a deliberate effort to de-industrialize India in order to keep her own manufactured goods competitive in the Raj so I simply failed to see how opposition's case is a matter of fact if anything they are cherry-picking facts to support their argument and furthermore um there is there is I do think I have a solution to um what the first Speaker of the opposition mentioned about who pays who pays for who pays compensation right so what about the elite of the what about the British Elite right what about the people who benefited the most from colonialism what about the large companies like British petrol or Exxon Mobil who benefited from the colonialism from the colonialism of say Iran for example so I think there are many solutions to the points that they have mentioned and furthermore they fail to point out many many more examples of how of the living ramifications of colonialism today if we look at like say Rwanda for example right as as as as short as short as recently as in 1994 they were fighting a civil war in Rwanda and the reason for that was because of the board is drawn by the British and the ethnic tensions that that ensued so if you really think that the legacies of Empire are over and that our our responsibility as a nation towards the developing world has ceased then you are sorely mistaken thank you very much thank you so much for that I'll never um the abstention that if you'd like to speak because your name in college before you do so um just in the gray on the third row um yeah Zachary Marsh Robinson college um I thought it's very interesting that the two sides of this debate tonight haven't agreed on much but both have had in common a remarkable um a historicism into what they've said I mean anyone who's fought through the hap paper the history tribe wasn't Cambridge and a stumbled late at night into a library and opened up David lowenthal's book the past is a foreign country they do things differently there we'll understand the fundamental tension here and both sides are spoken in very different ways about teaching history in schools as someone who has taught histories in school I can actually say that both of them are completely wrong about what we do um one size you to think that we're we're sort of trailing out this war on woke and whatever the hell that means I don't know um and the other side is sort of suggesting that we're trying to brainwash kids the British Empire was the best thing since sliced bread the reality is that anyone who goes looking for answers in history is doomed to find none because history teaches us nuances and history teaches us that things are infinitely more complicated and unlike either side I'm not trying to say that means at the end Empire was all right and had just a few bad moments that it was bad but had some good moments I'm not trying to make any judgment call on that whatsoever I'm saying history is not something you can weaponize no one in this room can possibly understand the thoughts of people who operated 200 years ago I want to point you for example towards Steven Spielberg's film armistat which I don't know if any of you have seen it follows the Journey of slaves Who Rose up on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for the famous court case in the United States for their freedom it's well known that the slave Cinque who led the slave rebellion on his return to Africa became a slave trader that's not a verdict on that man that's not a verdict on anybody that is a verdict on different attitudes in history and when we attempt to apply them in the present day we are inevitably failing so I'm not saying that you can't believe that reparations are not the right thing because we have a debt in the presence and I thought the speaker over there put it very rightly to argue from the present but we should not argue from the past because if we look to people who have tried to draw a straight line through history to a present at best that has been foolhardy and worse it has been terribly dangerous thank you very much thank you so much and now over to the abstain to the opposition side you've been very persistent so hi my name is Kate I'm from Wolfson Wolfson is named after Lord Wolfson of Mary labone he was a philanthropist I love philanthropists as a preface I want to first of all acknowledge that there were a lot of things that were said on the opposition side that I actually agree with it is true that slavery existed in different forms in different societies a fact that was taken as granted even in Aristotle's theories of society as well as hegel's exploration of the Master Slave dichotomy we are Cambridge students so we probably don't need a history lesson but I want to raise the question which is what is the purpose of History well in my adopted faith of Judaism our ambition is this roughly translates to repairing the World by any means necessary tonight is also the anniversary of the crystal knot in which which translates to the night of broken glass in which Jewish homes hospitals and businesses in Germany were damaged destroyed in over 3 30 000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated unjustly so of course and it was horrible and in addition to that um in addition in in response to that Jews have actually taken on as a chosen people which I use Loosely to repair the world a responsibility that a marginalized group has embraced and so what do we do the rest of us um I just came back from a talk on zakat held by the Islamic Society um zakat refers to charitable giving charitable giving of course is done with good faith and not with resentment and any money that is paid should always be paid in good faith and not resentment in my humble opinion but what is the good faith for in other words how does that good faith benefit those who will be paying their reparations in the book discourses on civil discourses on colonialism black French author IIM cesari says what am I driving at at this idea that no one colonizes innocently that no one colonizes with impunity either that a nation which colonizes that a civilization which justifies colonization and therefore force is already a sick civilization a civilization that is morally diseased that irresistibly progressing from one consequence to another one repudiation to another calls for its Hitler I mean its punishment I am happy to oppose the motion that this how should their reparations because I believe that everyone should bear reparations thank you thank you Kate moving into a second round of floor speeches all those in favor of the motion uh in the second row in the white jacket I'm hyong from Peter Health um May I just tell what I don't want to hear from the opposition side for the second speaker um I wouldn't really want to glorify the British Empire I heard the second speaker of the opposition saying that before the pre-state they established the hospitals the railroads for the SEC um pre-stated colonial states and that exactly is a racism right like um thinking that uh um The Colony colonialized states were nothing before the colony actually happened so please please please please don't say that British Empire did a good job for the colonial um for the next argument please thank you and moving to abstention you were very quick in the black face yes Naaman college for the record please Tamara cats um there's been a lot of focus on kind of individual monetary reparations and the last thing legacies when we talk about colonialism and Empire it also like to be really like annoying and abstract and conceptual but talk about like structural practices and also mindsets like culturally so structurally I just want to talk about Colonial legacies in terms of the normalization of plundering another Nation considering it that it can be kind of like you know quartered and drawn for resources and this is a practice that is still maintained today not only you know this is maintained globally there are a lot of different powers doing this but as a in a position of power that the West does have perhaps we can talk about their power to propel normative changes in terms of codes of international conduct and how Nations treat one another as has been noted many different groups have engaged in in colonial realism and but many different groups still repeat those Colonial practices today in that same vein what was accompanying the structural practice of you know pillaging these countries and exploiting their labor and maintaining market dominance and so on was a psychological belief the you know racial legitimation of such an action that certain groups of people are inferior to others and it is okay to use these people as less than human to achieve your desired economic ends so if we take these two enduring legacies of colonialism which I think are some of the most powerful and some of the most influential on International conduct today maybe we can shift the talk about reparations not to only include individual monetary reparations which I'm not going to speak on that just because I don't know enough about that but when we talk about structural institutional practices when we look about for example imbalances in the funding allocated for research on climate change and and so on and so forth maybe we can consider what responsibility powerful Nations have in terms of re well paying reparations I guess more structurally and normatively with looking at the codes of conduct they set out we still see many countries in the world today you know Libya Yemen Syria which are literally treated as being quartered up for resources and squabbled over by multiple vying uh hegemonic Powers some of those in our own region so I think we need to talk about maybe how we can deal with Colonial legacies in terms of the practices that it normalizes and the beliefs that it makes supposedly acceptable and maybe that could be a more productive discussion not that this one hasn't been not that it hasn't been but maybe we can have a more productive discussion about how that could impact the lives of people today without getting into squabbles over which was the in-group and which was the out group and bonding statistics and so on thanks and for our final floor speech of the email like a speech in that opposition of the motion please you were very quick on the hand in the blue suit thank you name in college please [Music] now I know that you'll want to build a Buddha position and clap whenever the proposition says something very good but I would want to say that this entire uh this entire motion is is very relative I oppose how this is uh how this is worded because clearly the way of pay repaying reparations isn't the way to go because it directly counters the uh the propositions argument of how we should not delve into the past but look into the future and it also sorry and it also creates a clear clear problem for for both sides so the first two proposition speakers stated that we have been going around in circles and we have to move from the past and figure the future the two opposite speakers say that no one today is a direct victim or a benefiter from the transatlantic slave trade to look at uh take a look at this room the membership fee is 230 pounds I mean I would say that people who can afford this and B here are privileged and if you want to also think that who that who that there is no one that benefits today from transatlantic slave trade well how many people here are from the different ethnicities how many people in Cambridge University can pay the international fee of over 30 000 pounds there are there are obvious parts in in good current uh sorry there are obvious problems in today's world and their direct and they're directly affected by the roots of slave Doris of slaveryism now the American proposition student speaker said that he's proud to be an American and he's proud of D-Day the reparations to her Japanese I hereby ask whereabouts of preparations for Afghanistan Vietnam Iran and any Every Other Nation that has been tormented by the USA in a very recent history that good for the UK as well now I am Turkish and if we were to rephrase the motion in a form that resonates with my people it would be this house would pay reparations for The Armenian Genocide can you please clap if you agree it's dead okay there we go um now if we had a Turkish audience this will be completely the opposite if you were to ask a Turkish person I assure that over 90 percent would say what genocide do you mean the Fourth Movement of Armenian uh Rebels if Britain were to return the artifacts to Turkey they would add up end up in addicts turkey displays only five percent of its artifacts and constantly if you were to pay any sum of money erdon would just go buy himself a new sink so my general point would be that we have to I we have to physically change the meaning and and the means by which we actually provide but we actually provide the reparations return any form of artifacts or paying any sum of money will not uh would only uh would only counter uh the uh the fact of moving to the Future however this University as it's an as an education is institution of Education what we can do in my opinion is we can provide uh funds scholarships or uh or designated programs for uh for students or from people of all kinds that have been affected by by the British slave trade or by of course any any other Nation thank you thank you so much for such a passionate set of four speeches from all sides moving to our final paper speakers I'd like to invite Dr Mira sabaratnam to the floor Mary is a reader in international relations at soas University of London her research focuses on the colonial and personal dimensions of world politics and her book decolonizing intervention seeks to criticize the current model of development Aid mirror you have the ears of the house thank you very much for having me for coming um it's a delight to speak among such August company and um I'll try not to repeat the points that others have said in bringing the proposition to a close to say that this house would pay reparations I'm going to start by acknowledging that colonialism and actually Empire itself was enormously complex it had a large variety of forms right from the East India Company formation to the settler Colonial project in Australia from the Royal African company working in West Africa from direct rule where it worked an indirect rule where it didn't from forms of mandate that went from uh direct rule to the trusteeship we have a whole panoply of governance forms that take place over centuries and they're Innovative and they evolve and they depend on the responses of the local population and how responsive they are to the Imperial projects there but let us not confuse the diversity of projects and the numbers of intermediaries through which they worked from their structural logic right the structural logic of Empire everywhere no matter its form was to render the people the land the territories and the Commodities relatively cheap and relatively disposable in order to return the profits to Britain or the Metropol in some way Britain did this France did this Belgian tried to get in on the ACT with less success but there was a clear structural logic to all of it and that is why in the 200 years of Britain uh uh was the kind of primary Imperial power in India Indian GDP per head was actually pretty constant it didn't grow very much britons grew enormously uh The Economist at sapatnike has calculated the value of the drain from India across 200 years as being at around 45 trillion dollars right and that is through uh labor paid below an appropriate rate and it's through the forms of unequal exchange paying cheap for the Commodities that you have the invention of taxes that you then have to pay then you have to sell yourself into debt bondage in order to play it so yes slavery may have been abolished but people were still indentured and effectively bound to work for a particular employer or Master until they paid that debt uh it was off yes I'll take that so this is Pat Nike trying to put a monetary value on things like unequal exchange so of course the global GDP won't reflect that because it reflects the depressed prices which people are playing for those goods right so they're not worth anything but the the methodology that Nike is using in other people like hickler using is trying to find an appropriate estimate for that thank you so this is a clear structural logic and India is one part of the story and by the way they are asking for reparations India is asking for reparations Pakistan recently with the devastating floods that cost so much loss of life asked for reparations for climate change right so it's not just a fashionable thing about Africa so why might we want to pay reparations this house should pay reparations because we are a society organized by inheritance we inherit our wealth we inherit our culture we inherit our income we inherit our station in life we inherit identities that's not to say we are only what we inherit but we are so largely what we inherit that the fact of the transatlantic slave trade is still very much felt today actually I was reading today an economist who calculated the very clear differentials between uh in America the African Americans who were in the north and therefore freed relatively early compared to those in the South and there are clear disparities today in their access to education and in their income rates so you see that in America and I'm sure if you did similar studies elsewhere you would see that impact today and we know of course that wealth is inherited and we can see that very clearly from the legacies of British slave ownership project for example we where we just happen to have a ledger with all of the money that was paid out to the slave owners but we can find other kinds of um inheritance now the point about the British Empire is that inherited lots of assets but it does not want to inherit the liabilities right it does not want to inherit the responsibilities it's happy to hold on to the property and the wealth but then it doesn't want to actually accept the responsibilities that come within and as the speaker at the back said if you're going to take pride in things if you're going to take credit for things then an appropriate amount of responsibility is required and it is collective it's not individual it's not about finding the precise necessary descendant and everybody who's asking for reparations from the governments around the world to campaign groups are not asking for individuals unless they're easily identifiable in the case of say Kenyan torture victims what they're asking for is a collective reparation because of the collective harm right because of the collective responsibility and the collective relative benefit that has been experienced by those countries who did practice colonialism successfully in the recent past so what are we thinking about here so the philosopher olifemi uh taiwo has recently written a great book called reconsidering reparations in which he pushes past not just if you like a transactional taught law understanding of what reparations are and that's never really been at the heart of the the political campaign but it's not just about direct harm it's not just about repairing relationships it's about systemic transformation and it's saying what kind of world do we live in because of global racial uh Empire and Global racial capitalism and what kind of world can we live in how can we change that world the Benin bronzes is an interesting story and yes it's interesting that bronzers were looted on a punitive military Expedition and then are in museums around the world it's actually more interesting when you ask the story why was there a punitive military expedition in the Benin area in 1897 and the reason is because the local Elites had the temerity to oppose the Monopoly on palm oil being asserted by the Royal Niger company which was a royal chartered company couldn't really deal in slaves anymore in West Africa because that would have been abolished though looking for other Goods other markets and the Industrial Revolution all the machines of Britain they needed lubricating they needed oil and palm oil is your best lubricant and it turned out that palm oil was really useful for loads of other products so of course the enterprising British go out and they demand a monopoly on the palm oil and the crown says yes we will we will back your Monopoly and we will punish those who stand in your way and so they get the Monopoly on palm oil and that continues in the Royal Niger company eventually becomes the United Africa company and that is eventually sold to Unilever who continue to sell you various palm oil containing products today who maintained the assets that were gained through that period unilever's profits last year nine billion dollars right how much of that is going to the peoples who were dispossessed who probably continue to work on palm oil plantations for a very low wage so what colonialism the Empire has yes or the western African countries starting how much do you pay for your chocolate right how much do we pay for Products that come from a very long way away which are produced by very poor people who are much worse off than even the poorest in Britain in many cases and we can do that not because we are individually bad people but because enormous systems exist which keep that system of unequal Exchange in place right and this is the point of my speech so I'm running out of time so I'm going to cut forward to asking can we change this system of unequal Exchange in a reparative spirit and this is what reparations means really fundamentally can we change this system where people and planet Are Made disposable where we've normalized the violent extraction of goods across distances as the way in which to organize our world and our economies well what kind of other world is possible well we can start with some of the demands that have been made for debt cancellation for the construction the Urgent construction of a green infrastructure in terms of energy we can think about the intellectual property regimes that mean that even though India can manufacture vaccines for wealthy pharmaceutical companies of the north they can't actually vaccinate their own people right this is a crime and it's completely unnecessary and it's underpinned by the logic that underpinned colonialism so I'm not saying it's exactly the same but I'm saying that in the context of a conversation about reparations we have an opportunity to really remake the world and to say actually that system in which we said that all of those people were disposable in which their Humanity didn't matter their resources didn't matter which they can just grow one crop forever and then import their stuff expensively from us that system has to change so I put it to you that we would pay reparations yes there's compensation due for specific harms and specific acts yes we can restore objects to their rightful uh places of uh Heritage and yes we can repair relationships with apologies and symbols of repair but we can go further we can transform this world and think instead of killing our planet and holding on to what a battery and what about the Ottomans and what about the Mongols we can say look the way we organize the world is messed up it's messed up because we've got this hierarchy and we can do something about that so I would urge you all to vote for the proposition to pay reparations thank you so much Mira for that speech I move now to our final speech of the night and to Henry Buxton Henry is a first-year undergraduate student reading history at St John's College he won the right to speak through open audition Henry the floor is yours thank you madam president I should like to open my speech this evening with some qualifications and I'll be disagreeing with some of what you've heard from your position so far the fact that I'm opposing the motion that this house would pay reparations does not mean that I deny the horrendous suffering endured by millions of colonial subjects nor that that suffering continues to have an influence today for me the heinous crimes of the British Empire are not up for debates tonight and nor should they be there is in my opinion there is in my opinion an issue underlying this debate on which both sides should fundamentally agree that work should be done in the present to confront the injustices of the past disagreement lies in how this might be done I'd like to ask what is perhaps a painfully obvious question why are there calls for Britain to pay reparations to my mind there are two principal reasons to apologize for historical abuses of colonial subjects and secondly so the effects of that abuse can as far as possible be eradicated in the present yet Britain can apologize sincerely for Imperial crimes without monetary payment to its former colonies reparations are also not the best way of resolving historical iniquities that persist today my case consists of three strands of argument against the payment of reparations but they are utterly impractical they are a superficial approach to addressing historical injustices and lastly that they have the incorrect Focus paying reparations for Britain's crimes might at first seem as simple and just course of action but this course of action is one that breaks down as soon as one considers its practical execution perhaps the most fundamental consideration is to whom reparations should be paid on what grounds should people receive reparations and how should this be verified a possible response is that everyone who's a colonial subject of the British Empire is entitled to reparations and that this right could be checked with reference to historical records such as census data however by their very nature yes so the second speaker has of opposition has given you a model where it wouldn't be money being about it's just an apology to set and reset the global power bank I've just giving you a real example of where the pathway through Community but why do we engage with their examples rather than make up your own I will be engaging with those arguments later on in my my speech the historical record was by their very nature are imperfect and so some people's right to reparations might be missed moreover this approach is plainly flawed because people suffering under the British Empire was unequal the quality of this is that some people should be paid different amount of reparations to others but attempting to quantify human suffering is a reductive exercise that would be doomed to failure proponents of reparations as they have this evening might propose a different form of payment in the guise of a lump sum to formal Colonial powers however this approach is played by the issue of how individuals interests to be represented when it came to the distribution of such a payment the payments of reparations as has been slightly differently argued by a fellow member of the opposition also begs the question of what span of the past they should cover paying reparations would leave us teaching on the edge of an infinite regress ion take that in this position right now because how other countries should Rule and govern their own people are you suggesting that Britain should try and impose their own will on how other countries will distribute reparations as well I'm not suggesting that at all what I'm going to suggest later in my speech is that reparations are not actually the most effective measure by which we can change the um Power imbalances and uh Power structures that already exist as a result of colonialism yes another number I think the answer to that is self-evident is it not okay I'll carry on I'll come back to want some information later the sad fact is that if it were decided that Britain should pay reparations for every historical Injustice that we have perpetrated in our recent history we would never stop paying it's true history so far I've laid out the Practical case against reparations but my objections also concern their problematic nature the payments of reparations inherently carries the implication that money can resolve historical oppression and its present-day effects the idea that money is some sort of miraculous Panacea permeates our society today of course there are certain issues that money can resolve however historical oppression is not one of them monetary payment to the people of former Colonial territories might improve their situation in the short term however the structural imbalances and barriers to their development to Prosperity would still exist because money alone cannot remove these barriers yes I don't think that's actually relevant to the issue because to yeah of course I think that that performs part of my argument which is that if we were constantly trying to address the balance of the past it's not the way about to go about that and I'll address later my speech we should be looking forward to the future that's not to say as I shall mention that we should negate the influence of the past and also I think I really like to dissociate the notion that because I'm on the opposition that I'm proud or in some way believe that slave owners should have been given reparations that of course they shouldn't but that's not the issue that I'm going to be addressing that's not how I'm going to attempt to persuade you to vote for side opposition this evening sorry about my face reparations are in actual fact in my opinion a superficial measure one that encourages an indolent attitude that once Britain has paid its fee it can wash its hands or its Imperial crimes and need take no further action yeah okay I'm getting pulled down here alright once that would be that I I I'd argue why why would you want a superficial resolution to the problem why would you not want to force Britain and other formal Imperial powers to address this issue head on and for me you may disagree with me in which case go ahead and vote side proposition but for me the the way to the way to address these issues is not by simply throwing money at them it is by addressing them structurally it's by a partnership with Britain and its former colonies and any other formal Imperial power to work together to make the world a better place yes how now now this this is a point it's very important I'm not for me the a sincere apology does not have to take the form of monetary reparations we can debate the fact whether the British government or any other Imperial power has given such an apology but for me it is not necessary for that for that apology to take the form of money it can take the form of a declaration speech I'll go and say I'm feeling brave as similar case this is just a preparations in stockings I think just because just because exploitation took a monetary fall in the past has not necessitate or determined that reparation has to take monetary form in the present and I hesitate to say this but I think reparation and take a different form in the present of partnership and cooperation to make the world a better place which again I will get on to later my speech no no I need to get through it now I'm sorry the payments of reparations also establishes a troubling relationship between Britain and its former territories the notion that Britain should apologize to the deployment of its greater economic wealth maintains the idea that its ex-colonial powers continue to be diminutive and impotent victims one that I believe inhibits any resolution of structural inequities instead of merely paying money which is the point I'm now getting on to uh British British Britain should work in equal partnership with its former colonies which is dismantle structural barriers to their progression to prosperity for example this could take the form of closer trading Partnerships welfare projects and initiatives to increase employment opportunities I now move to my final point the reparations have the wrong Focus they look back in the past in despair rather than forward in future in Hope for the future towards the beginning of my speech I identified two reasons for the payment of reparations apology and Improvement reparations prioritize the apology rather than the resolution of the present day problems which persist as a specter of British imperialism I propose that the Improvement of today's situation is the most important part of Britain's apology for its Imperial abuses no thanks Sam this is because an apology expresses regret for the past it's also a desire to do better in the future reparations encourage a fixation with the past over a commitment to work for change in the future I can return no thank you I can return here to the Practical process of paying reparations to expend energy determining who should be paid how much for historical injustices is to waste it because our energy should be focused on working for change now this is not to say that we should forget the past or negate its significance just that we should not be slaves to it when the members of the House saw the title of the motion for the debate this evening I wonder what they thought it would signify to vote no perhaps a denial of the crimes of the British Empire a chauvinistic refusal to address the past a failure to apologize for historical crimes an avoidance of the responsibility to resolve historical Injustice thank you I hope that I have shown that to vote no signifies none of these things rather to vote no means a rejection of impracticality to vote no means a rejection of superficial measures to vote no means a commitment to making real and Lasting systemic change for a better and more hopeful future that is why I implore the house to oppose the motion before us tonight thank you very much thank you so much Henry for that fine speech and to everyone that participates tonight be it in a floor speech a paper speech upon information I have a few notices for me to vote the first is that The Haunting of Hill House the Cambridge Union's played this term opens tomorrow as a QR code in the water paper you can buy tickets here secondly we'll be down to the results in the bar if you'd like your you can do a bit longer than that we have a reggae Speakeasy down the sellers from 10 pm so do go and join you can pay on the door but now moving to a vote if you're unconvinced by either side or for the middle door the abstentions on the right you've got the eyes and on the left you've got the nose see you on the bar okay thank you that was a great debate well done for organizing it [Music]

Channel: Cambridge Union

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Keywords: Cambridge Union, Cambridge University, Speech, Debate, Cambridge

Id: lPMGs1E0ijA

Length: 107min 20sec (6440 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 10 2022