Friday, November 14, 1997
Compensations should last, not be spentBy John Shapley
Reparations is a well established principle of international law
that usually involves payment from one nation to another for war
damages. The concept for the need of reparations is not new to the
United States.
In fact, numerous nations have been forced to come to terms with
their horrific past through the repayment, however that may be, to
the persons who felt the wrath of oppressive policies. Throughout
history we have seen many examples of how reparations have been
carried out. Take, for example, the payment of nearly a billion
dollars in reparations by the Federal Republic of Germany to the
state of Israel for the murder of six million Jews in Europe from
1935-1945. It is very interesting that at the time these atrocities
were happening, the government of Israel, which received the
billion dollars in reparations, did not exist; Israel came into
being officially in 1948.
Some recent developments regarding reparations and the United
States are as follows:
In 1983, former Mayor Diane Feinstein of San Francisco approved
a bill compensating Japanese American employees of the city with
$1,250 for every year that they were interned.
In 1984, the Los Angeles City Council paid $5,000 to each
Japanese American employee of the city who was forced to resign and
enter concentration camps.
In 1988, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill
granting $20,000 and a formal apology to Japanese survivors of U.S.
concentration camps.
So, as we can see, the concept of reparations is not new, even
to this bastion of imperialism we call America. Thus is the basis
for the need of reparations for the New Afrikan Nation, the most
oppressed within the annals of American history. Reparations to the
New Afrikan Nation is not just another case of "handouts" from the
government. We must remember that our origins in this country were
as a result of a war declared on us by European colonialists. We
were kidnapped by whites with the direct knowledge and support of
the United States government. We feel that we are entitled to
reparations for the loss of over 100 million Afrikans during the
trade in human cargo; we are entitled to reparations for the
countless lynchings, and Ku Klux Klan, police, National Guard, FBI
and CIA murders of our people, and we are entitled to reparations
because we built this country, laboring without one cent in wages
for over 250 years, and as compensation for the land that was taken
from us wrongly.
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) feels that reparations
should be in the form of money with interest, machinery and
technology, and land. Many groups have advocated money as
compensation for our suffering, but the truth is that the United
States does not have enough money to repay us for our misery;
besides, cash payments to individuals are not important; we have
suffered as a people, a collective, not as individuals.
Secondly, cash doesn’t last long. What we need is something that
lasts.
What is needed is something that has intrinsic value, something
that multiplies itself. Land has value; it reproduces wealth that
can be used over and over again. Food, machinery and technology on
the land, mineral resources, and the potential to trade with other
nations can be used only with control over the land and that which
comes from the land. It is only with control over our own land that
we can be assured of power over our own lives. Reparations and
self-determination are closely connected to each other. We in the
MXGM believe that one of the ways to relieve ourselves of this
"monkey on our back" (i.e., white supremacy, oppression,
discrimination, capitalism, etc), is to be repaid for what is
rightfully ours, and we are committed to organize our people for
this purpose.
Shapley is a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. For
further information, call (213) 294-3836.