One of Scotland’s largest health boards has just launched a programme of reparations to atone for its links to slavery in the 18th century.
The announcement by NHS Lothian has renewed the debate around whether institutions today should atone for the actions of the past and their links to slavery.
Opponents of this approach ask: why bring it up at all? Slavery is in the past, they say. Why atone for something done by others now long dead?
But the power of saying sorry, especially by our national institutions, does have impact for those who continue to be disadvantaged by the legacies of slavery: racism, racial injustice and inequalities.
Much of this debate is based on misunderstood facts, historical inaccuracy, and misrepresentations. We see our job as opening access to historical research, giving people the tools to explore historical sources, and sharing new resources.
Nobody ever really forgot about slavery. It is, as the late Black British novelist Andrea Levy said, “not that we cannot 'remember' slavery, or even Britain’s role. We are not so deluded as to believe it didn’t happen. The recollection does not elude us any more than the corpse of a victim eludes the murderer. It’s just that we would also like to bury it and hope it is never found, while we work on our alibi”.
As educators and historians, we are working to change the narrative and explore how to teach this nuanced and difficult history. Institutions, including our own, have researched their historical links to slavery and are beginning the work to address and repair it.
Meanwhile, on the same day that NHS Lothian announced their historic slavery findings, the initial cohort of students on the world’s first Reparatory Justice Masters degree course, were taking part in a lecture held online in Glasgow and the Caribbean. This new programme is in partnership with the University of the West Indies and forms part of Glasgow’s reparative justice programme launched following its own 2018 historic slavery report.
Teaching in our schools is equally important. Teachers need to feel confident in their approach to difficult histories and so academics from Glasgow, Stirling, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St Andrews universities are working together to support them. For Glasgow, the Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies is leading the work in partnership with teachers to help improve how slavery studies is presented in the classroom.
It isn’t easy to wipe away centuries of misinformation and a constructed history which sought to highlight the “great” in Great Britain and to ignore the difficult chapters of its colonial past. By shining a light right into the history box marked slavery we hope to educate and enable an informed conversation about our past.
Launching its report, NHS Lothian said it showed it was “committed to eliminating unlawful discrimination and harassment, advancing equality of opportunity, and fostering good relationships”.
In short being inclusive today requires being open about our slavery past.
Dr Peggy Brunache and Dr Christine Whyte are lecturers and historians at the University of Glasgow.
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