Amount proposed is described as ‘just a start’ to rectify the ‘evil’ of enslavement
Neha Gohil Community affairs correspondent
Tue 5 Mar 2024 19.51 GMTShare
The £1bn fund proposed to address the Church of England’s historic links to slavery would “just be a start up” to rectify the “evil” of enslavement, Black faith leaders have said.
A report by an oversight group led by descendants of enslaved Africans found the £100m earmarked for the Church’s new investment fund is “not enough” and instead proposed for £1bn to be raised for a “broader healing, repair and justice initiative.”
In response to the proposal, the Rev Canon Yemi Adedeji, an Anglican priest and a Pentecostal pastor, said: “The £100m is grossly insufficient if we are going to address the centuries-long impact of the evil of slavery, not even the target of £1bn will be able to do that.
“Even £1bn will just be a start up to rectify on the journey of the pain and the dehumanisation that people have suffered.”
Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, acknowledged the report by the oversight group as the “beginning of a multi-generational response” to the “appalling evil” of slavery.
An investigation last year found the Church of England had invested a significant amount of money into a company that transported tens of thousands of enslaved people.
The Rev Bazil Meade MBE, the director and founder of the London Community Gospel Choir, praised the archbishop of Canterbury for his “integrity” but argued no amount of money could repair the impact of slavery.
Meade said: “It could never be put right. It doesn’t matter how much money is promised, a billion, a million, it will never correct the wrong but it can go some way towards addressing this. It was genocide, happening over 400 years or more.”
In response to the report, the head of the Church Commissioners, who manages more than £10bn of assets for the Church, said £100m was the “appropriate financial commitment” at this stage with hopes the fund will grow “to a billion and more.”
The Right Rev Mike Royal, general secretary at Churches Together in England, said he “welcomes” the £1bn proposal but acknowledged the impact of slavery could “never” be repaired.
Royal said: “You can never repair the fact that Britain threw the kitchen sink at the transatlantic slave trade and benefited over many years.
“Now there has been no repair to those who were enslaved and today communities in the Caribbean but also in the diaspora are still living with the legacy of the slave trade.”
Adedeji, who was born in Nigeria, questioned how the fund will be distributed for communities affected by the legacies of slavery.
“Where do you even start?” he asked. “Where do you want to invest the £100m? In this country? … For my [brothers] who are in the Caribbean, the Africans, whose generations have suffered and continued to suffer from the impact of slavery? Or will it be to my brothers back in Africa?
“Where do you really start? £100m is nothing.”
Fidelia Onyuku-Opukiri, archbishop of Born Again Christ Healing Church International and moderator at the Council of African and Caribbean Churches, urged the Church to take more action in persuading the government and other European countries to acknowledge their role in transatlantic enslavement.
“Reparations for the slave trade is such a big thing that it is not just about the Church of England, it’s a worldwide situation,” she said. “Really we would have liked the Church of England to try to persuade the Europeans, the governments, Americans, every one of them that were involved because it’s a very big thing.”
Rev Kingsley Appiagyei, senior pastor at Trinity Baptist church, said acknowledgment from the Church should have come earlier but described the archbishop of Canterbury as a “gift” who “genuinely desires to see this reparations done.”
Appiagyei, who was born in Ghana, said critics of the fund should visit the country to learn about the legacies of slavery, adding: “To the critics, what I would say to them is that they should take a trip to Ghana to Cape Coast and to Elmina … I think that they are totally ignorant, they have no clue.
“It’s very easy to sit in the United Kingdom and criticise, come and have a look.”
Categories: Africa, America, American History, Americas, Europe, European Union, UK, Western Africa