PM’s Remarks at the Unveiling of the Permanent Memorial for Victims of the Slave Trade

Salutations

• His Excellency Sam Kutesa, President of the General Assembly
• His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General  of the United Nations
• Other distinguished guests on the platform
• Excellencies
• Ladies and gentlemen
• Members of the media

Today is a significant day in history especially for Africans at home and in the Diaspora.

As Bob Marley sang: “There’s a natural mystic flowing through the air. If you listen carefully you will hear.”

Today, is all the more fitting for this International Day of Commemoration, as it was on March 25, 1807 that one European nation, Britain, passed a law to ban the forced relocation of our ancestors.

Slavery continued for much longer. So for us, freedom came after a long journey.

Freedom was not gifted to us, but was rather, earned by the sweat and blood of millions of our forebears, on whose backs the economic foundations of the New World were built.

Our people were strengthened by the hope of freedom and emboldened by the certainty of the inalienable right of every man, woman and child to a life of dignity and equality.

The indomitable spirit of our ancestors triumphed and conquered the “Door of No Return”. Here we are today, in New York to unveil the Permanent Memorial – The Ark of Return.

For generations of Africans, the return to their home, language and lifestyle, kept the flames of freedom burning, and the embers of hope smoldering through the centuries.

I stand before you today with mixed emotions: celebrating the ultimate triumph over the inhumane conditions of the Middle Passage and the reprehensible economic and social architecture of plantation slavery…READ MORE

Download Prime Minister’s Remarks at the Unveiling of the Permanent Memorial for Victims of the Slave Trade