Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The European Council made it a high priority to strengthen relations with Africa. Historically, the relationship between Europe and Africa has been characterised by the exploitation of Africa and her peoples by the ruling classes of Europe. Let us consider the wealth in Amsterdam, Paris, London and Lisbon that was extracted through the profits from the slave trade. Today, in the main, there is no direct military rule but there is still a relationship of exploitation by economics.

Associate Professor Lorenzo Kamel, an historian at the University of Bologna, states "the natural resources (fuel, gold, gas etc) of most, if not all, African countries [...] are still being syphoned off through offshore companies that, to a large extent, are linked to European and American companies and businessmen." According to a UN report, over a period of 50 years, the African Continent has lost $1 trillion in illicit financial flows that are operated by western corporations.

This month is Black History Month. Information such as that I have just outlined should be taught in our schools. It should also be taught that Ireland has a relationship with all of this. For example, David La Touche, a founder of Bank of Ireland and a slave owner from a family of slave owners, was paid £7,000, the equivalent of more than €1 million today, for his 385 slaves in Jamaica. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and leader of the abolitionist movement in America, was exiled to Ireland and England in the period 1845-47. He had huge crowds at meetings he organised. For example, working class women attended his meetings in Cork. He stated:

I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. [...] Instead of the bright blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft grey fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man.

That is the way he explained the welcome he got from ordinary people in this country.

Earlier this year, we saw the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, a new generation of people of colour who will not accept discrimination or second-class citizenship any longer. They are demanding change. One of the changes that needs to be made is that black history needs to be taught in our schools, not just in the month of October but throughout the year in a genuine, deep and serious way.

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