With King Charles making his first trip to meet with Commonwealth leaders in Samoa this week, the question of reparations is being asked of the monarchy once again.
The King largely met with supportive people in Australia — with the exception of independent senator Lidia Thorpe who after heckling King Charles, yelling: and accusing the monarchy of having “committed genocide against our people”.
In recent decades various groups in former British colonies have called for the British government to give compensation to First Nations’ people whose way of living was brutally upended by colonisation.
The specifics have varied with some groups calling for an apology and others demanding payments as compensation for their suffering.
A report, co-authored by UN judge Patrick Robinson, says the UK should pay £18.8 trillion ($36.6 trillion) for its involvement in slavery in 14 countries.
It was published by the University of the West Indies and the sum has not been subject to legal agreement or judgement.
But he acknowledged that was an underestimation and the true amount owed ought to be much higher.
Peaceful protesters gathered outside a Sydney church service attended by King Charles on Sunday. Source: AAP / Dean Lewins
The Brattle report, released in June last year, reignited discussion about reparations and apologies. Rishi Sunak, then prime minister, was asked about an apology for the slave trade, and said: “Trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward and is not something that we will focus our energies on.”
On Monday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson ruled out reparation payments, after Starmer’s fellow Labour party MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy said the UK should be open to discussing them.
“The UK has both a moral and legal duty to address the injustices of the past. If reparations is on the agenda for Commonwealth countries then the UK government must be willing to discuss it,” she said.
Starmer’s spokesperson added that it was “not on the agenda” of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa.
The Caribbean Community (Caricom) Reparations Commission, however, has promised to push for a “full and formal apology” for slavery and work towards establishing a reparatory justice model.
The 56 Commonwealth member nations will also choose and appoint the grouping’s next secretary-general in Samoa. The post has been held since 2016 by Britain’s Patricia Scotland.
All three candidates — Mamadou Tangara of Gambia, Shirley Botchwey of Ghana and Joshua Setipa of Lesotho — have said they are in favour of reparations.
Why are people calling for reparations?
Professor Jioji Ravulo, chair of social work at the University of Sydney, is in Samoa to attend the Commonwealth Youth Forum, held ahead of the King’s visit.
He told SBS News that calls for reparation are primarily about wanting governments to take responsibility for ongoing harms caused by systems set up by the British monarchy.
“A lot of the social structures and systems that exist in those countries that we’re talking about, the health and the legal and the welfare, and even the education system is still very much based on a Western and white approach,” he said.
“A lot of the work when it comes to moving beyond decolonisation means asking how do we meaningfully include First Nations perspectives, practices, views, and values into those social structures, those systems, those services”.
Ravulo, who is an Indigenous Fijian man, said First Nations people in colonised countries are consistently over-represented in “health issues, in educational disengagement, in areas of child protection, gender-based violence”, due to the legacy of colonisation.
Robinson, who co-authored the reparations report, said they were “necessary for the completion of emancipation”.
“Once a state has committed a wrongful act, it’s obliged to pay reparations,” he told the BBC in August last year.
At the weekend, Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said: “The time has come to have real dialogue about how we address these historical wrongs”.
Ahead of King Charles’ coronation last year, Lidia Thorpe was among the signatories from 12 countries sharing an open letter demanding King Charles apologise to First Nations people and compensate them for the disastrous effects of colonisation.
“The so-called king needs to be held accountable,” Thorpe told NITV at the time.
“We need him, as part of his coronation and as part of the legacy of his ancestors who did so much damage, to say sorry.”
Caricom’s reparations plan outlines 10 areas it believes European governments need to commit to, which does not include direct financial payments.
It calls for repatriation schemes for enslaved peoples, Indigenous development programs, a technology transfer and debt cancellations, amongst other things.
How does colonisation continue to affect people today?
According to a report from the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare amended in June, colonisation has had a “devastating” impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and culture.
The AIHW report said violence, disease and settlers occupying land had caused loss of life and disrupted Indigenous Australians from being able to support themselves.
The forcible removal of children had also contributed to intergenerational trauma, the report said, with the factors having a “fundamental” impact on disadvantage and physical and mental health.
Indigenous Australians were not given the right to vote until 1962.
According to the AIHW, cultural identity and participation, along with access to traditional lands and family, positively influence overall health and wellbeing.
Rates of incarceration, and suicide are going up instead of down, the Productivity Commission’s latest Closing the Gap report showed.
Similarly, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children assessed as developmentally on track has declined.
Dr Tracy Westerman, managing director of Indigenous Psychological Services and founding director of the Perth-based Westerman Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health, that racism, discrimination and generational trauma have major effects on depression and anxiety.
“The detrimental impacts of colonialism through increased risk for trauma; suicidal behaviours, depression and a myriad of mental health responses has been irrefutable for decades,” she said.
“When people have experienced massacres, segregation, forced removal which are historically documented and been witness to this type of violence and abuse, the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder becomes hard to calculate because it involves multiple trauma risk factors, which in isolation can result in a fourfold likelihood of post-trauma compared to the general population.”
In the minutes before Thorpe protested in Canberra on Monday, King Charles acknowledged Australia’s “long and sometimes difficult journey towards reconciliation”.
“It is in all our interests to be good stewards of the world and good ancestors to those who come after us,” he said.
“Because we are all connected, both with the global community and with all that sustains life. That is the timeless wisdom of Indigenous people throughout the entire world”.
Speaking to ABC Radio on Tuesday, Thorpe doubled down on her accusation the King was complicit in the genocide of Indigenous people by remaining silent.
“Why doesn’t he say, ‘I am sorry for the many, many thousands of massacres that happened in this country and that my ancestors and my kingdom are responsible for that'”.
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