An African Union-Caribbean Community alliance in the global reparations movement: promises, perils, and pitfalls

ABSTRACT

Due to shared colonialist histories, current economic and political struggles, and challenges in charting inclusive futures, it is, in the opinion of the authors, essential for the people of the Caribbean and Africa to unite in their advocacy for reparations and justice. This article articulates what such an alliance might look like through a comprehensive analysis of documents between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the African Union (AU) and by building upon Robin Kelley’s critical Nine Theses on Decolonisation and CARICOM’s current 10-Point Plan. In assessing the current state of collective reparatory movements, the authors have identified three gaps that require further research: the representation of the Indigenous Caribbean in theory but not in practice, the overarching emphasis on the state-to-state approach to reparations, and the lack of youth participation. Their proposed expansion of the Caribbean-Africa Knowledge Programme will, argue the authors, address these gaps and further the conversation on the importance and urgency of a trans-regional call for reparations by Caribbean and African citizens.

KEYWORDS:

• Reparations
• CARICOM
• African Union (AU)
• 10-point plan
• Caribbean
• decolonisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In this article, we use the term ‘transatlantic slavery’ rather than the more popular ‘Transatlantic slave trade and slavery’ because the second term suggests that Africans who were the victims of enslavement were on the African continent waiting to be sold, which contradicts historical facts. Most of the people were stolen and shipped away from the continent. It is important to note that the kidnapping of people involved no transaction, and most of the affected African communities did not partake in related business deals (Diouf, as cited in Wittmann, 2013).