Block building of monument to slaver John Newton

The following letter was written by Dr. Ajamu Nangwaya, who resides in Toronto Canada. It is posted here with his permission and in support of the cause Ajamu and the Network for Pan-African Solidarity are advocating for:

October 4, 2011

Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas

Government Headquarters

Church Street, Basseterre

St. Kitts

Re: Block building of monument to slaver John Newton


Dear Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas,

I write you with grave concern about the plan by private agents in St. Kitts and Nevis to construct a monument to John Newton, a man who traded in the bodies of Afrikan people and was, therefore, an enabler of the Enslavement of our people in the Caribbean. This proposed initiative, which is slated to be built at the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Sandy Point, would be an attack on the psyche and dignity of the Afrikan majority in your country.

The effects of the historical trauma from the Enslavement are still with the Afrikan population of St. Kitts and Nevis as well as with those of the other Caribbean islands. The construction of a monument to the memory of a slaver who later became a part of of the abolitionist movement should not even be recorded as a footnote in the history of the people of St. Kitts and Nevis. It is the acts of resistance to the Enslavement by the enslaved Afrikans in your country and other territories of the Caribbean that should be celebrated and memorialized in the landscape and minds of the people. 

Toussaint L'ouverture of Haiti and Sam Sharpe of Jamaica did more to advance the cause of liberty for enslaved Afrikans than that of White abolitionists. Many of of the White abolitionists still wanted Afrikans to remain on the plantations with labour relations which were merely slight improvement of that obtained under chattel slavery. It was the covert and overt acts of resistance by the enslaved Afrikans that led to their freedom.

By honouring John Newton, the agents who are promoting this scheme are unwittingly and subtly suggesting to the Afrikans in St. Kitts and Nevis that a significant act such as their ancestors' emancipation from the Enslavement must be attributed to the work of "enlightened" White abolitionists. White supremacy, in its ideological manifestation, has already domesticated the minds of many of our people with the idea that they are insignificant moral beings, existentially-speaking.

According to this racist ideology, it is Europeans, our intellectual superiors, who are responsible for important and noteworthy economic, social, scientific and political developments within the human family. Therefore, a monument to this peripheral person is a confirmation and perpetuation of the notion that whiteness is responsible for any forward developments made by Afrikans in St. Kitts and Nevis as well as elsewhere in the Americas. St. Kitts and Nevis ought not to be the stage on which "Prospero" and his promoters play out the drama of their civilizing mission on supposedly hapless, island-dwelling "Caliban" and his relatives. Not in our backyard!

Prime Minister Douglas, I am calling upon you to use all available means at your disposal to stop this project. We are counting on you you to do the right thing.

Sincerely,


Dr. Ajamu Nangwaya
Toronto, Ontario, Canada