I’d quite appreciate an apology from those who were critical about posts on this blog about the response to covid. The passage of time has demonstrated that, if anything, those posts were too equivocal and cautious. Pastor Sceptic was right. Not getting an apology won’t do me any harm though. It’s not damaging to me. But what of those things that are damaging? What should apology look like then?

One such example of damage is Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. In Britain’s Slavery Debt: Reparations now!, Michael Banner has written a compelling case for genuine apology to be made. When the idea of reparations for slavery is suggested (as it increasingly is) a number of typical objections arise, as expressed by fellow Cambridge academic Robert Tombs:

Precisely what damage today is to be repaired? Who are the victims now? Who alive in the 2020s is responsible for events in the 1720s? How can the monetary cost of remote harms be reasonably calculated? Would resentment be caused by the imposition of reparations? How damaging might that be to present society and to the relationship between payers and receivers? Could resources be better used to relieve urgent 21st-century needs, rather than to pay the distant heirs of long-dead victims?

These might seem insurmountable arguments but Banner deftly exposes their weaknesses and false presuppositions, as well as providing practical solutions. Previously I would have made similar arguments to Tombs but found myself being persuaded by the force of Banner’s reasoning.

Banner sees a biblical case for reparations in the example of Zacchaeus who paid back four-fold those he had wronged. This is an interesting case as at no point in the narrative does Zacchaeus articulate an apology: it is his actions that speak louder than words and Jesus commends him for it. Banner describes this as an example of ‘moral repair’ – it is an action that makes amends for past wrongs – and says that the UK should engage in similar action with the Caribbean nations.

Of course, in the case of Zacchaeus it his personal sin of which he repents and for which he makes restitution. How might this work in the case of the UK and Caribbean? I, personally, haven’t enslaved anyone and the UK as a whole has been opposed to slavery for the past two centuries. So in what way could or should we make apology for something not personally connected to us? Is this actually a mistaken view of the nature and purpose of repentance?

In response, Banner shows how the shame of slavery is ‘mine’ because Britain is ‘mine’.

To take pride in something is to suppose that, on account of it, I gain prestige, worth, and standing; conversely to feel shame regarding something is, in certain cases at least, to think that it somehow detracts from that prestige or standing. And these negative appraisals, like the positive ones, are appraisals of the self, so just as there needs to be some connection between me and the something of which I am proud, so too here. You probably couldn’t make much sense of my saying I feel ashamed of, let’s say, Russian atrocities in the Ukraine, since these are not ‘mine’ in any way you (or I) could fathom.

That, to me, seems to be a key ‘aha!’ insight. Contemporary Britons are not responsible for slavery, but its reality is part of our national story: it is ours. It is something of which we can rightly feel ashamed just as we can rightly feel pride in the abolitionists who fought against it. This means we can own the sins of our fathers while not being personally guilty of them. Banner illustrates this with the example of a stolen bike. Were I to discover that a bike I possessed in good faith had been stolen I wouldn’t be considered guilty for its theft. But I would have a responsibility to return it.

In the case of the Caribbean nations, clearly there was great harm done: the horrors of the middle-passage, the unspeakable nature of slavery on the plantations, and the extreme injustices that followed emancipation. Banner argues that these harms are evident, the consequences ongoing, and that we have a responsibility to make reparation. That reparation should include genuine apology – an owning of our fathers’ sins – and it should include financial restitution. Banner suggests linking this to the £20 million that was paid to slave owners as compensation when slavery was abolished. An equivalent sum (which he calculates at being somewhere between £105–£250 billion in today’s money) would be meaningful, and costly, but measured against total GDP (Banner says this is ‘about £20,000 billion’; the actual figure is £2.274 trillion - one less ‘0’ makes a significant difference!) not ruinous.

Banner recognises that at present making such reparations falls into the ‘ain’t never going to happen’ category, but is hopeful that might change. Afterall, there was a time when the abolition of slavery was in that same category.

Initially sceptical, I found myself increasingly persuaded of the rightness of the cause Banner espouses, and of the solutions he offers. (I have to declare an interest here as twenty years ago Michael was course tutor for my MA and very influential in shaping my thinking. Without him I might never have grappled with Augustine and Nietzsche, Vitoria and Marx. This predisposes me to find him convincing.) Some of my scepticism returned, however, towards the end of the book when he explains the actions of two institutions of which he is a member: Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Church of England. Both of these institutions have embarked upon a process of exploration of their historic involvement in slavery, a recognition and ‘owning’ of it, and an attempt to make reparation, including significant financial investment.

Yet this is the point at which the idea of reparations can start to feel somewhat odd – that institutions as liberal and egalitarian as Trinity and the CofE, whatever the actions of their forebears, should feel it necessary to apologise in the way they are doesn’t quite connect.

We also get into the complexities of how to assess those ancient sins in contemporary terms. For example, the Commissioners of the Church of England have committed £100 million in reparations, potentially rising to £1 billion, reflecting the funds they possess originating in the ‘Queen Anne’s Bounty’. This was a fund generated by the South Sea Company, which was active in the slave trade between 1714-1739.

Three hundred years on, though, it isn’t that easy to demonstrate the financial connection and the whole basis of the Commissioners sums has been called into question. As Robert Tombs summarises it, there is evidence that, ‘the Church Commissioners, with loud fanfare, have earmarked an enormous sum in reparations for a sin that was never committed out of profits that were never made.’

Calculating the extent to which the British economy profited overall from slavery is complicated and prone to very different interpretations. And the reality is that each one of us is most probably, somewhere in our family tree, both descended from slaves and slavers, those who opposed slavery and those who profited from it.

Against those realities the case for reparations can start to founder, yet that does not detract from the fact that very real harm was very evidently done to the people who were the victims of slavery. Perhaps, then, we should quibble less about the details and admit our responsibility. Perhaps it is time to say, with much more sincerity, meaning and empathy, I am sorry.