Gaudeamus Hodie
Today is Emancipation Day- the day that the Slave Trade ended in the then-British Empire in 1834. It's been a holiday in Trinidad & Tobago for most of my life, and there were celebrations to mark this milestone. As I had noted in an earlier blog post. Emancipation celebrations were primarily for beach days or birthday activities for my dad. It was later on that the import of the day had an impact on me. mainly from my involvement with a community group.
My move to Canada awoke an activist spirit in me that I was unaware existed before. I'd like to pretend that I was "woke" from early on, but I was a fairly strong conservative who was largely comfortable with the status quo mostly because I was fairly privileged and comfortable with the protection of my family. I was naive, no doubt, but I'd never experienced racism or bias against me-until I moved to Canada. It's amazing the impact on personal experience of one's reactions!
Ironically, it was Canada's insistence that it was an open and welcoming nation that woke up my internal activist. There was the disconnect between that statement and the treatment of Indigenous Peoples and a number of similar instances. I began to wonder about the people who argued in favour of slavery and for keeping it legal. Because slavery was legal; it was state-sponsored. There were politicians whose entire careers were based on the trafficking of persons, whose fortunes were made off of human misery. Churches argued in support of slavery; it was justified by people who otherwise argued for love, clemency and mercy. The leaders of the abolitionist movement were Quakers who were not exactly popular, but who were leaders in progressive, liberal causes.
We would use the same, or similar, arguments as those who argued for maintaining slavery. The sad part is that those who supported this dehumanizing, cruel system were in all other respects good, kind and caring people They did, though, endorse and benefit from this disgraceful system. If pressed, they would say that they didn't own slaves, they didn't know any slaves or slave owners or that the slaves were happy and they benefitted from a system that encouraged dependence on government handouts. Abolitionists would be ridiculed for trying to effect change. We're watching this with the current situation of exposing systemic racism and the horrific legacy of Canadian residential schools. It’s unfortunate that we haven’t managed to progress much past this reactionary, closed-minded approach to blocking change. We should be focussed on ensuring an equitable, caring society that protects its weakest members.
Recent events have convinced me that if we were to find ourselves in the heat of the abolitionist debate, far more of us would support slavery than freedom. On Emancipation Day, though, our emphasis needs to be on freeing ourselves from the “us vs. them” mindset, where we’re trying to find someone to blame and to absolve ourselves from any responsibility. It would be a wonderful thing if we saw each other as siblings or at least as neighbours. We would want to protect the weaker members and to build a society that respects each individual member.
Apart from my utopian view of life, where I think that we can and should be able to to do more, it was still my father’s 87th birthday today. I got to video chat with him and most of the family, which was lovely. He was very happy to get phone calls from all of his children and most of his grandchildren. I’m looking forward to travelling home in early winter, so I can spend a few weeks in the warmth of the tropics! Could you please ensure that people follow mask mandates and get vaccinated? Thanks!
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