Apologizing for Slavery and Colonialism

In an interesting counterpoint to all the controversy over the Pope’s recent remarks about Islam, a group of European Church leaders recently went to Africa to apologize for slavery and colonialism:

A delegation of European church leaders, recently in Harare, has publicly apologized to Zimbabweans and Africans for the historical wrongs of colonization and slavery.

At a prayer conference in Harare that ended Sunday, delegates of the European-African Reconciliation Process apologized for what Cecil Rhodes, who colonized Zimbabwe in the late 19th century, “has done to the country and the continent.”

Chairman Chris Seaton of the European church organizaiton said the formal apology, delivered in Harare and witnessed by an audience that included former president Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, aimed at healing historical wounds.

Apologizing for slavery seems to be in vogue these days. The Church of England recently apologized for benefiting from Carribbean slavery in the 18th century:

The church’s general synod in London began its deliberations yesterday by commemorating its role behind the abolition of slavery in 1807, pledging members to continue campaigning against modern slavery. But the debate was transformed at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, with an apology being issued for the church’s complicity in sustaining – and profiting hugely – from the trade.

Although the motion was passed unanimously, the synod stopped short of endorsing a specific call for financial or other reparations.

[snip]

Rowan Williams, the archbishop, told the synod that the church ought to acknowledge its corporate and ancestral guilt: “The Body of Christ is not just a body that exists at any one time; it exists across history and we therefore share the shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors, and part of what we can do, with them and for them in the Body of Christ, is prayerful acknowledgment of the failure that is part of us, not just of some distant ‘them’.

“To speak here of repentance and apology is not words alone; it is part of our witness to the Gospel, to a world that needs to hear that the past must be faced and healed and cannot be ignored … by doing so we are actually discharging our responsibility to preach good news, not simply to look backwards in awkwardness and embarrassment, but to speak of the freedom we are given to face ourselves, including the unacceptable regions of … our history.”

Although many scoff at such apologies — and they obviously do come a bit late! — I think they are important. As the Pope has learned the hard way, sensitivity to the past can go a long way toward improving relations between different races and religions.

I’m particularly impressed by the Church of England’s frank admission that slavery played a critical role in England’s industrial development:

The Rt Rev Tom Butler, Bishop of Southwark, told the synod: “The profits from the slave trade were part of the bedrock of our country’s industrial development. No one who was involved in running the business, financing it or benefiting from its products can say they had clean hands.

“We know that bishops in the House of Lords with biblical authority voted against the abolition of the slave trade. We know that the church owned sugar plantations on the Codrington estates.”

That’s a significant admission. Opponents of reparations and affirmative action often claim that such restorative-justice mechanisms are unfair because they penalize individuals who had nothing to do with the historical injustices at issue. That might be literally true; English citizens alive today did not trade slaves or participate in colonialism. But as the good Reverend points out, they benefit from both of those practices every day — when they go to school, ride the trains, buy domestically produced products, and so on.