Fr Clyde Harvey

On Sunday March 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted an Inter-Faith Service, beginning at 11.00 a.m., at the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

The Ministry invited Fr Clyde Harvey, parish priest of Holy Rosary/St Martin’s, to represent the Roman Catholic Church at the service and to say a few words.

The Catholic News offers its readers Fr Harvey’s contribution as it was prepared. It had to be edited in its delivery because of the need to join the rest of the Caribbean in observing a minute’s silence at noon.

In the letter of Paul to the Galatians, chapter 5, we read: “When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”

Today we join with those in England, Ghana and throughout the Caribbean who are commemorating this significant event, not the abolition of slavery, but the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807.

The Christian leaders of England have called for Remembrance, Repentance and Restoration. John Paul II, when visiting the slave port of Goree in 1992, had referred to “the horrible aberration of those who reduced to slavery the brothers and sisters whom the Gospel had destined for freedom”.

He cried out, “From this African shrine of black pain we beg pardon.” He has constantly encouraged Africa’s Catholic bishops to play a leading role in what touches upon integral human development, especially in the areas of health and education, as well as assisting the victims of war and disasters.

The bishops themselves had said at the Synod for Africa that, “in a world controlled by rich and powerful nations, Africa has practically become an irrelevant appendix, often forgotten and neglected.”

Today we remember and seek to celebrate the end of the slave trade. The end of a mode of trade does not mean the end of the relationships and purposes which enabled the trade itself.

The end of the trans-Atlantic trade did not mean the end of the trade in black flesh. The trade continued illegally.  Indeed, it was worse for many after abolition because, often when the Royal Navy ships tried to intercept illegal traders, their human cargo was thrown overboard to the sharks. The trade ended, but the trade continued. The trade continues.  Let us give thanks, but let us beware.

How many of those who hold power – economic, political, even religious – still see us black people as commodities to be bought and sold? The trade ended, but the trade continues.

It continues in the international arms trade that fuels wars in Africa to create jobs in Europe, the Americas and Asia. It continues in places of employment where black people are relegated to certain types of jobs, working for a minimum wage which cannot possibly be conceived of as a living wage. It continues at election time when we buy or sell a vote as the traders forget their ancestors and their past.

We have declared six months of celebration. What will that mean for the descendants of those who were traded? Will it be bread and circuses or transformation and empowerment?

Will what we do over these months help us to redeem our attitude to and conditions of work so that the scars of that trade will be no more? Christ has made us free. We must say, “Never again! Never again! Never again must we submit to slavery or to any conditions which may facilitate or promote it in this or any land.

And so today, I invite you all to a moment of reflection, a moment of truth. Do we really see people of African descent, black people, as persons, as free people? Those of us who have black people working for us in our embassies, in our businesses, in the government departments we head, do we really look upon these people as free human beings?

How do you talk about us behind our backs, in the privacy of your own homes? Those of us who have the power to change the circumstances of the people of the Diaspora, do we really want to change it?

Or is it to our advantage, economic, political or even religious, to keep black people in modern forms of slavery? This will remain just a celebration, empty and fruitless, if we do not begin by acknowledging our own truth even as the trade continues.

Never again! Never again will we submit to the yoke of slavery or contribute to the trade, however it exists today! Christ has made us free! So never again will we submit.

In the defiant words of the spiritual, death would be preferable: “Oh, Freedom! Oh, Freedom!  Oh, Freedom Lord for me! Before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.” Amandla! Amen!