The Redemption of America

The American Civil War was at a close. On april 4, 1865 Lincoln walked on foot into Richmond behind victorious Union troops. On his walk he was surrounded by weeping Blacks to whom his name became synonymous with the word, Saviour, and a mere ten days later he was assassinated by a fanatic, southern actor.



On the left, above, Lincoln strolls through Richmond after its fall, signaling the end of the Civil War and above, centre, two weeks later his funeral procession, 141 years ago today, April 19, 1865.

Facts, such as those that follow, are often overlooked namely, that 186,000 Blacks enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. Some 38,000 loss their lives to defend the Republic and also to end slavery.

Perspective:

Lincoln’s walk through Richmond must have been bitter-sweet, especially after the death and carnage of the war, from which evolved the joy and exultation of the black masses of slaves who for centuries had known none. Imagine yourself in this position and ask yourself: were I in this time and place, were I in Abe’s shoes, would I have had the courage of conviction to do it?

Take your imagination a leap further and ask yourself: were I a slave would I have wanted to murder those who victimized me and my family for so many generations? Would you, in the naked feet of a slave, have had the courage of conviction not to take the lives of white oppressors who had murdered, raped and maimed your family members for generations?

Perhaps this is why the called for reparations is never addressed sufficiently.

For so many generations the lives of Black people, just as today in many parts of this earth, were considered worthless to those who live to take those lives away. What kind of human beings are they who do this? What are they worth to humankind? Would the world be a better place without them?

When, if ever, will the Blacks rise to right this wrong? Will the upheaval occur first, or will the world acknowledge finally that it has wronged the Blacks and move to acknowledge and correct it? It’s a no-brainer for most but for many this acknowledgement takes them back to their ardent, long-held belief in the “Christian Doctrine of slavery”, and no matter how wrong they are they proven to be such people would rather die before they acknowledge their wrong and they may have to do just that.

Still, the life of an assassin is worth more than the countless lives of Black people of peace who were tortured, brutally murdered, raped and maimed long before, and yet after, America became “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” but not to Abe. Through Abe’s death came some redemption and hope of the resurrection, no matter how brief or fleeting, of freedom in America and the acknowledgement of this wrong.

The hope and the despair of America live on and those like us in Canada standby and watch from the sidelines as if that were holy.

As always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd

The Boyd Family Thanks You, Dr. Burke

S.G. Burke Fullerton, MDCM

- A Life Celebrated

Funerals are things I once dreaded and still do. When there are strong feelings of compassion and love for the deceased, funerals are even harder, even if they are intended to be a celebration of life.

Today at a memorial service for our family doctor, Burke, my two sisters, Muriel, Clara and I said goodbye in a formal sense but in each of our hearts and minds there were special recollections of our family relationship with Dr. Burke.

My unforgettable recollection occurred when he became our family doctor. I was about seven years old and it was winter.

On my way to school I could not resist sliding on the icy sidewalks, although there were clear patches on which I could safely walk. Even though I could hear my father’s voice saying: “Don’t do that!”

I decided I could do it. But what is life to a young boy unless there’s adventure. Needless to say I fell and when I went down I did so with such a crash that I split my forehead open and I was bleeding profusely.

Until I go home I used the sleeve of my jacket to stop the bleeding. I was always falling and getting cut. When I returned home to face the music, my mother, to put it mildly, was not impressed especially as our “coloured” doctor, Dr. Waddell, had died recently and we could not, or had not, found a replacement.

But my bleeding forehead was the necessity that gave rise to my mother’s invention.

She took me by the hand to Dr. Burke and we walked into his office. He looked at my bleeding forehead but before she would let him touch me, mother asked him directly:

“Doctor, do you discriminate against coloured?” Dr. Burke said: “No!”

It was okay then, so Mother let him proceed.

He sat me down pulled out a needle and thread and stitched up my forehead and although I could feel every slice of that needle going through the skin of my forehead I never let on, or uttered a sound.

That’s how Dr. Burke became our family doctor.

Something else, just as profound, happened that day that since remains with me.

No, it is not the stitches for they have long gone and although there was a scar, it is not that; yet, it remains with me to this day. Something else became part of my being that day.

I came instantly to the belief that day that no one in Canada should ever have to ask that question; no one in Canada should ever have to answer to it.

That day I became a passionate opponent of racism.

The Boyd family thanks you, Dr. Burke.

As always, Well wishes,
F. Stanley Boyd

Publisher Writes Halifax Chamber of Commerce President

Dear Friends,


It was kind of spontaneous on my part but I thought it was time to communicate across the great divide that sometimes separates us.

So this morning I rather whimsically, while doing something else, found myself pressing the send button of the email below to the Halifax Chamber of Commerce president, someone I assure you I do not know. The president’s comments were the subject of yesterday’s posting.

Whether or not the recipient will reply is totally unknown to me. I wish that I had taken time to clearly think out its content, but it was very spontaneous I assure you and in retrospect I am pleased I wrote it and here in total spontaneity is what I said:


Dear Mrs. Payn,

Make no mistake about it; the Black Nova Scotia worker is being threatened yet again. In your recent address on the under utilization of youth and immigrant workers these questions can be asked:

Where is the fairness? Where is the equity? Where is "the just society" that internationally Canada claims to be? Where is your focus that you have not seen the injustice in your own community?

There are others who fit within the same categories you have cited and who are more often overlooked than any of the workers you have cited. The link below will bring some of these concerns to your attention.

It is hoped that some of these concerns might help in adjusting your focus on issues of long standing injustice here in Nova Scotia for some two hundred years. The link below might help.

Regards,

F. Stanley Boyd

http://wsog.blogspot.com/

Black Workers Still Not Recognized

Left:Valerie Payn, president Halifax Chamber of Commerce.

On Friday March 4, 1977 at a meeting of the Black United Front’s Employment Outreach Projects of Nova Scotia held at the Atlantic Christian Training Centre, in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia there was a very good turn out of Black Nova Scotians concerned about the lack of employment opportunities for Black workers throughout the province.

Cameron Brothers opened a meeting introducing those gather to discuss solutions to the employment problems facing Black Nova Scotia. Many among those introduced nearly 30 years ago by Cameron Brothers are now deceased. Still the problems of finding employment for visible Black minorities in Nova Scotia have not changed.

Those introduced were: Edward and Ada Fells, P.A. Best, Vern Simms, Alfred Bright, Beulah States, Lawrence States, Stan Morrison, Lowminda Clyke, Patricia Meade, Garfield Yakimchuck, Myles Beals and Gary Johnson.

These outreach employment project leaders unanimously said the same thing that the outreach workers, and thus, Black Nova Scotians do not have complete access to what was then called Manpower programs (Employment programs). Some of the outreach workers characterized their reception at the Canada Employment Centres in the following manner as “ranging from completely negative to boldly reluctant” to assist even the Black Outreach workers just introduced at the meeting.

Now, after more than a generation of lost Black labour force potential and of out migration to find work in other parts of Canada, it is more than interesting (downright insulting) that in 2006 we have a call from the Halifax Chamber of Commerce saying that N.S. firms must open their doors to immigrants and youth. Note still there is no specific mention of Nova Scotia’s Black workforce.

What this means is that if Nova Scotia firms can still find solutions to their need for workers, other than by hiring Black workers, they will continue the cycle of employment discrimination they have imposed on Black workers in this province in the last two and one half hundred years. Make no mistake about it; the Black worker is being threatened yet again.

Where is the fairness? Where is the equity? Where is "the just society" that internationally Canada claims to be?

This call from Valerie Payn president of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce is not only late but comes because Nova Scotia firms are finally beginning to realize their economic survival hangs in the balance. Here are some of her remarks (for more, see, The Chronicle Herald, Tuesday April 11, 2006 at page E3):

"There is the whole attitude in the community, and in particular in Halifax, that people seem to think we are diverse enough, as diverse as any other place," Ms. Payn said. "That is an incredible ignorance on our part. And they are also working under the misconception that immigrants will take our jobs."

Although Nova Scotians are polite and friendly, Ms. Payn said she wonders whether we are as welcoming as we could be. "Do we really open our doors?

"I don’t know what the answer is, but talking frankly about it helps," she said. She pointed to the community level as a solid starting point to deal with attitudes.

While the province’s ranks of professional workers, skilled labour and unskilled labour are being slowly eroded by the call to go west for more money and the retirement of the baby boomers, employers are being challenged to find qualified people.

A national study recently released by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business says there were 12,000 jobs in small and medium-size businesses left vacant over four months last year in Nova Scotia.

As always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd

Ohhh! It's Photo Time. Optics are the Real Thing

Commentary:

The barbarians are burning down Black shrines: the Black Cultural Centre and the Black Loyalist Heritage site in Birchtown, Shelburne County.

But as the new Nova Scotia premier gives the Black Cultural Centre its $200,000.00 grant to fix its roof would it be out of place to mention that there are racists out there in HRM trying to burn it down? Would it be out of place, or is it just plain stupid not to mention it?

Keep it quiet until we get the money and then keep it quieter because they may take it back.

We just better shut our mouths and go back to doing what we do best. Be silent! They tell us, asking: can't you see that grant we are getting?

Respect, we really don't need, but a new roof is worth a hand shake with the new Nova Scotia premier. Wow! A picture is worth two thousand words.Be assured that the arsonists are not exactly making a getaway for they know the authorities do not want to catch them; catching them would bring far too much unwanted attention and much too much focus on an issue HRM would sooner forget and does not acknowledge exists.

It is well-known though that HRM will pay hush money. Maybe the arsonists should turn themselves into HRM. They too can get mountains of that hard earned taxpayer money for their effort at being silent about what happened. Unjustly the arsonists might even get as much as did poor Mr. Symonds for far less effort. But, the public could not handle knowing the details of Mr. Symonds' racial nightmare at the hands of HRM’s “diversity” officials.

We are not allowed to know the details of the settlement and just how low HRM can really go. We might even imagine that we Canadians are living in South Africa’s Johannesburg, before the release from prison of Nelson Mandela. You might have to use your imaginations, but I feel confident that you can do it. But more to the point, were the truths about HRM's true prejudices really known, the myths would vanish and the truth would scare away the multicultural immigrants HRM finds it so hard to attract. All the dreams and all the illusions sourrounding Pier 21's immigrant history would simply vanish like the immigrants to other parts of Canada and the United States. God knows we need more immigrants in HRM to keep the myths alive.


Everyone in HRM is in denial about even the existence of racism. That is, everyone but the new, middle-aged novelist Stephen Kimber, who has recently written a fiction novel about its existence but of course only among the fictional characters who bear no resemblance whatsoever to anyone now living or dead who may have resided in HRM. As you can tell nothing is certain. Of course the names of the characters are not real because the story is supposed to be about racism in HRM, which is just true fiction and of course Africville never happened; it too must have been a fictional place since the characters and the story come out of Stephen Kimber’s imagination.

It is quietly rumored that HRM is an acronym standing for Home Racists’ Municipality. But you will not have to look too far into the 2006 Doers’ and Dreamers’ Guide to Nova Scotia’s tourism industry to find it. You know tourists have been heard to ask: Where did all the Black folks go? Is there Apartheid in HRM?


On this question, and others, the Black and White leadership of HRM is silent. Among those who are reported to be preparing statements but are not now available for comment are: the leader of the Nova Scotia human rights commission; the mayor of the HRM; the Premier of Nova Scotia; the Black candidates hovering in the background for political leadership of some sort, in fact, any sort; and the chairwoman of HRM's race-relations committee.

Cheezz!! Cheezz!! Flash! Flash! That's a good photo op.

Squeak! Squeak! Squeal the little Black and White mice as they run in circles around their barrel called HRM. The faster they go, the smaller the barrel becomes, until eventually there’s an incident as on July 19, 1991 when in Rosa’s Lounge tempers flared and the police, rioters and the entire community wondered how it all happened. We all know how it happens, don't we and we know why. I remember, do you remember the finger pointing?

If we want to stop the rat race we are going to have to deal with real issues, or face the music. To do this, we need real leaders, not cartoon figures.

As Always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd

See the stories below, they tell us why we are not ready yet to meet this challenged called racism.

The photo above appeared in the Chronicle Herald on Saturday, April 08, 2006, page B2. Above: Premier Rodney MacDonald shakes hands with Henry Bishop, chief curator of the Black Cultural Centre, on Friday after giving the centre $200,000 to fix its roof.(Tim Krochak / Staff)

City hall quietly closes book on racism case

The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Thursday, April 06, 2006 Page 1.

By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE City Hall Reporter

Halifax city hall settled a human rights complaint — once described as "a serious personnel issue" — behind closed doors this week, about five years after a former municipal employee was targeted by a co-worker because of the colour of his skin.

The agreement, ratified by regional council Tuesday night, means a complaint Randy Symonds filed with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission about his treatment at Metro Transit has been terminated, the man said Wednesday.

Mr. Symonds said he lodged a complaint with the commission around 2002 and was notified a few months ago that it was scheduled to be heard by a human rights board of inquiry.

"It was supposed to go to a tribunal at the end of this month," said the 43-year-old Dartmouth resident.

The complaint stems from evidence that Mr. Symonds, who’s black, was victimized by a bigoted colleague while working in the stores department of the city’s public transit service in Burnside Park. A confidential report done for Halifax Regional Municipality about three years ago said he wasn’t the only one stung by bigotry on the job.

"This investigation concludes that the complainants have been subjected to racial harassment," the June 2003 report said. The document was prepared for the municipality’s personnel director, Louis Coutinho, who has acknowledged "this is a serious personnel issue."

Mr. Symonds, who said he has battled severe stress and anxiety due to the discrimination he experienced, may be settling with his former employer but he’s not at all pleased with the way the municipality handled his complaint. He said the trouble started back in 2001.

"The city’s got quite a ways to go as far as employment equity and racism" are concerned, Mr. Symonds told The Chronicle Herald.

Wayne Anstey, the city’s deputy chief administrative officer of operations, said the municipality "did take steps within the workplace in terms of staff training . . . with respect to race relations." He said the city "obviously doesn’t condone racism in the workplace, and we do what we can to try and prevent it."

Though he has received an apology from the co-worker — who was initially fired by Metro Transit, then re-hired in April 2002 — Mr. Symonds feels racist treatment he endured during the three years he worked for the city has damaged his quality of life.

Aside from being the victim of derogatory comments, the man was taunted and teased and subjected to racist graffiti in a workplace washroom. Mr. Symonds has also alleged he was threatened by the offender after he complained to a supervisor.

At one point, Halifax Regional Police were called in to probe a complaint from the municipality regarding a letter the city’s co-ordinator of diversity programs received. A senior HRM manager said the letter was "hate correspondence." No charges were ever laid.

Terms of the human rights settlement, which were discussed in camera before Tuesday’s council meeting at Halifax city hall, have not been disclosed. Mr. Symonds said the deal was reached between his lawyer and the municipality’s legal staff, and he’s bound by "a gag order" not to release details.

Coun. Mary Wile (Clayton Park West) made a brief statement — a recommendation for the councillors — at the end of the council session about the settlement, saying the Amalgamated Transit Union must also ratify the agreement. She said details aren’t to be released.

Mr. Anstey said in an interview that "it’s a confidential matter between us and the claimant," and both sides have agreed to keep terms of the agreement secret.

Asked why he agreed to settle the matter shortly before it was to be dealt with by a human rights tribunal, Mr. Symonds, who’s unemployed, said depleted finances forced his hand.

His case, which made headlines locally and attracted the attention of a national radio show, follows the high-profile friction between professional heavyweight boxer Kirk Johnson and Halifax police. The black athlete’s car was stopped by police several years ago and was seized by a white officer.

Mr. Johnson, 34, won a human rights judgment covering the traffic stop incident and got an apology from Police Chief Frank Beazley. The chief also pledged to make race-relations improvements in his department.
( mlightstone@herald.ca)


Councillor: Committee doesn’t handle racism cases

The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Saturday, April 08, 2006 Page B1.

By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE City Hall Reporter

Racism cases such as that of a former municipal employee who recently settled a human rights complaint with Halifax city hall aren’t handled by the municipality’s community and race relations advisory committee, says a regional councillor who has twice served on the committee.

Councillor David Hendsbee (Preston-Lawrencetown-Chezzetcook) said Friday the group deals with employment equity issues within Halifax Regional Municipality’s workforce and promotes diversity in local organizations but doesn’t handle personnel matters.

He said the best way for the city to approach a race-based dispute between a municipal worker and his or her employer is through the labour-relations process.

"I don’t recall any particular (employee’s) case being brought to the attention of the committee," said Mr. Hendsbee, who has served with the volunteer group for several years spread over a couple of stints on council.

"We always spoke more in general terms of topics and issues but not of personnel cases," he said.

Mr. Hendsbee was commenting in the wake of a settlement this week between city hall and former Metro Transit worker Randy Symonds. The 43-year-old Dartmouth man, who’s black, was victimized by a bigoted co-worker when he worked in the public transit company’s stores department in Burnside Park.

Details of Mr. Symonds’s settlement have been kept secret by Halifax regional council; the agreement still has to be ratified by the Amalgamated Transit Union. Mr. Symonds had filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, but his settlement terminated it.

Asked if the municipality’s race relations committee ever dealt with the high-profile case of heavyweight boxer Kirk Johnson and police harassment, Mr. Hendsbee said the traffic stop incident was mentioned when it was in the news several years ago.

But the councillor said committee members didn’t focus on the athlete’s situation, instead they focused on the relationship between Halifax Regional Police and metro’s black residents. There has been distrust and friction between the two sides in the past.

"Mr. Johnson’s situation brought a focus on that topic in more general terms," Mr. Hendsbee told The Chronicle Herald.

According to the municipality’s website, the race relations committee is to meet the first Thursday of each month. It didn’t meet this week due to a lack of a quorum, a city hall staffer said, but held a session in March. The February meeting was also cancelled because not enough members attended.

Committee chairwoman Betty Thomas couldn’t be reached Friday.


(http://www.halifaxherald.com/NovaScotia/)


Struggle continues

Voice of the People - The Halifax Chronicle Hearald, Wednesday, April 05, 2006 page B

As I write this letter at 12:30 a.m. on April 1, the office building at the Black Loyalist Heritage site in Birchtown, Shelburne County, is ablaze. The fire appears to have started on the front deck. Strangers were noted driving through the community moments before. The building is only five years old.

The Black Loyalists, who arrived in Shelburne in 1783 as freed black slaves along with the Empire Loyalists, were the targets of a labour dispute between the white landowners and disbanded soldiers employed as white labourers. This kerfuffle resulted in what is now historically known as North America’s first race riot. White labourers tore down and burned the temporary shacks of the blacks and drove them out of town to the area of Birchtown.

The Black Loyalist Heritage Society has engaged in a 20-year struggle to gain recognition of the Black Loyalists and to develop this historic site. The office building is the workplace for the planning of this development as well as the genealogical data centre.

Until an accurate report of the cause of the fire is received, we can only wonder whether we are witnesses to another chapter in the social history of the Black Loyalists, or an April Fool’s distorted sense of humour.

Sharon Oliver,
Black Loyalist descendant,
Wolfville


Woman worried racists targeting black landmarks

The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Saturday, April 08, 2006 Page 1.

By RICK CONRAD Staff Reporter

With two African-Nova Scotian landmarks vandalized in the past two months, Sharon Oliver can’t keep quiet about what she considers hate crimes.

"The black community needs to take more responsibility and keep this front and centre," she said in an interview Friday.

"The quieter it’s kept, if we acquiesce to these kinds of actions, then it’ll continue to happen."
Ms. Oliver was reacting to the torching of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society’s office in Birchtown last week, along with many priceless historical artifacts. That came on the heels of the Black Cultural Centre in Dartmouth being blasted by six Molotov cocktails in late February. That caused about $1,500 damage, she said.

She believes different people are likely responsible, but the link the crimes share is the buildings’ obvious importance in each community.

"They didn’t target the Ross Museum, they didn’t target one of the other 18th-century buildings down on the dock (in Shelburne); they targeted the Black Loyalist Heritage Society," said Ms. Oliver, who lives in Wolfville but is a member of the heritage society’s board and helped plan the Birchtown site.

"It’s very sad. When I was phoned Friday night and (was told) the building was engulfed in flames, I really couldn’t say too much. I could see this small little community group with 20 years of work going up in flames, and I was dismayed."

Sgt. Barry MacLellan of Shelburne RCMP said Friday that two members of the detachment are "actively investigating" the Birchtown blaze, which appears to have been deliberately set.

"There was some indication that it might have had some racial overtones," he said. "However, at this point in time, we haven’t uncovered any evidence to suggest that."

Richard Gallion, the heritage society’s vice-president, said Friday he didn’t want to comment on whether the blaze was racially motivated, although he admitted "it’s in the back of every-body’s mind."

He estimated it could take all of the building’s $140,000 insurance to replace it and its contents, including original photos from settlers’ descendants "that are totally gone."

"It’s a great loss — for everybody," Mr. Gallion said, though the society is already planning to rebuild.

Henry Bishop, chief curator of the Black Cultural Centre, said he didn’t want to discuss the February incident.

"I don’t want to change the whole atmosphere of this," he said Friday after an announcement of a badly needed $200,000 from the province to fix the centre’s roof. "We’re beyond that now."

Ms. Oliver said she finds the Birchtown blaze especially suspicious since the society has plans to improve on the site, founded in 1783, to make it a more enduring monument to the largest settlement of free blacks outside Africa.

"One questions whether racism is still existing in this day and age. Of course it is. And this is evidence that it is. I know that the white population is very reluctant, particularly the media and the police, to label anything, and yet we’re not reluctant to label something with swastikas put on it."

(http://www.halifaxherald.com/Front/)
(asmith@herald.ca)

With Amy Smith, provincial reporter

Stephen Kimber's Novel "Reparations" Silent Still, Dishonest

In the photo above Stephen Kimber holds his “courageous” new novel, “Reparations.” The photo appeared with the article below in The Nova Scotian.

A tale of corrupt Halifax

Reviewed By Robert Martin and Comment below By F. Stanley Boyd

Halifax International Writers’ Festival
By ROBERT MARTIN

The Nova Scotian, Sunday, April 2, 2006 PP. 11-12

You know you’re in for a juicy roman à clef when the author admits that he was inspired to write a book in order to put in all the libellous bits that had been cut out of a previous work.

"I had wanted to describe the corruption that existed in Nova Scotia during that period because I was a young reporter then and covered a lot of it," Stephen Kimber says by phone from his office at University of King’s College, where the veteran journalist and Halifax native has taught for years. "But once I started writing, the story took on a life of its own."

It certainly did. From a tale of sleazy politics, Reparations morphed into the story of the citizens of the black ghetto of Africville, losers in a race war as white politicians of the city of Halifax razed their community in the 1960s. Along the way, Kimber spreads out before the reader all the nasty details about the corrupt, racist society that was Halifax in the not too distant past.
Reparations is a page-turning distillation of everything Kimber hasn’t been able to print for the past 35 years. He lays it all bare: not just the racism which was only a boil on the body politic but also the cancer of corruption beneath.

"There was an attitude of casual corruption," Kimber says, that was based on assumptions of entitlement. Politicians use a local brothel as a social club and order police cars as unpaid taxis when they’re too drunk to drive. Lawyers who run the back rooms of politics use their offices as storehouses for cases of vote-buying booze and solve problems with envelopes — sometimes even suitcases — full of cash. The media cut deals to kill stories. The cops are thugs.

Current members of all these groups who read Reparations will think they recognize colleagues in these pages, often in unflattering and sometimes illegal poses. I certainly recognized some of those booze-fueled reprobates of old.

However, Kimber insists that he has copied only some characteristics or anecdotes from real life and that individual characters are compilations of traits from many people, topped up with the author’s imagination.

"I took bits and pieces of different characters," he says. "I didn’t have a vision of any particular person."

The title, although not catchy, accurately sums up both the theme of the novel and perhaps the author’s attitude to many of the people in it. Reparations refers to making amends, usually by giving money to people who have been wronged during war-time, such as Canadians of Japanese ancestry who were interned in prison camps during the Second World War while their land and property were illegally confiscated. In Reparations, Kimber is saying it’s payback time for Halifax’s black community.

The plot circles around a young black city accountant who is arrested for stealing from the municipality. He readily admits he took the money but says he was justified because he gave every penny to organizations that help the children and grandchildren of Africville refugees. He asks for a black lawyer who is a former radical activist to act as his public defender.

The young idealist, having set the plot in motion in the present, then disappears for 200 pages while Kimber takes us through a complex series of flashbacks that provide both the story of Africville’s destruction and the interconnected backgrounds of the people who ultimately end up involved in the trial. My God, but Halifax was a small town, as far as the ruling class went. And that is the most important point that Kimber makes in Reparations.

"In the 70s, Halifax was a very insular place," he says. "Everybody knew everybody. . . . There was a long period when nobody wanted to think about what had happened (to Africville). But Halifax is very different now. We’ve come a long way and I think people are willing now to think of it as history." Not pleasant history but water under the bridge in an era when the human rights commission can find that police wrongfully arrested a man for driving while black.

One telling detail from the book encapsulates how the city has changed. A foxy old lawyer advises the black defender not to worry about race during jury selection. Instead, he tells him to concentrate on getting newcomers to the city, people who don’t have that shared history of Halifax’s seamy underside.

Reparations works as a novel. Kimber uses his journalist’s experience to provide the telling details that make stories come alive without declining into breathless tabloid prose. He has a large cast of characters which he establishes well and manoeuvres adroitly while slipping between different plot lines and time periods.

He overuses the device of shutting down a scene at the moment a character is about to reveal an important fact in order to retain suspense. He needs to integrate the stoppage into the story better — a phone call, an interruption, whatever — so that the reader doesn’t feel the author’s heavy hand.

Kimber has written five non-fiction books and says his next project is a non-fiction work about Shelburne’s early history but that he would then like to write another novel, depending on the reaction to this one, his first. Reparations may not be popular in the South End of Halifax where power once resided but the peninsula’s influence is shrinking like an unused appendix.

In the suburbs, among the new-comers with their new money and growing power, Reparations will be a fascinating parade through the seedy recent history of their new home town. What’s not to like? It even has sex.

Robert Martin is a freelance writer who lives in Eastern Passage.

Comment:

By
F. Stanley Boyd


There’re lots not to like. The fact the plot circles around a young black city account who is arrested for stealing from the municipality. There follows a flashback during which the circumstances around the Africville relocation story is told again from the standpoint of a journalist who says, “I was a young reporter then and covered a lot of it.”

Kimber admits that what inspired him to write this, a novel of fiction, was to “put in all the libellous bits that had been cut out of a previous work.”

“There was an attitude of causal corruption,” Kimber says, in this article, which was based on an assumption of entitlement.”

Had Kimber just published the novel and said nothing about why at this time it was written it would have been better than telling us what he does in this interview on the book he called: “Reparations.”

Protecting himself from fear of reprisal Kimber “insists that he has copied only some characteristics or anecdotes from real life and that individual characters are compilations of traits from many people, topped up with the author’s imagination.”

Robert Martin, the articles’ author writes: “I certainly recognized some of those booze-fueled reprobates of old.”

Kimber says, "I took bits and pieces of different characters," he says. "I didn’t have a vision of any particular person."

So, Stephen was safe. He goes on to say:

“But Halifax is very different now. We’ve come a long way and I think people are willing now to think of it as history." Not pleasant history but water under the bridge in an era when the human rights commission can find that police wrongfully arrested a man for driving while black.”

Still, if time had not past, and if circumstances were not different it would not even now be safe to write of this period, even in the form of a novel, with fictional characters, because otherwise there might have been reprisals from important people in the city’s South End power base, the people Kimber fears.

Like the “foxy old lawyer,” a character in the novel, Kimber is empowered because his new novel, “Reparations” to quote the article: “may not be popular in the South End of Halifax where power once resided but the peninsula’s influence is shrinking like an unused appendix.

In the suburbs, among the new-comers with their new money and growing power, Reparations will be a fascinating parade through the seedy recent history of their new home town. What’s not to like? It even has sex.”

Through this book Stephen Kimber has his say and here in this blog I have mine. Stephen Kimber, and other so-called journalists like him, is a product of the corrupted and racist Halifax from which he arose. This is a fact, not an excuse, not a reason to condone his silence. Spineless, he is a classic; he blames others for his silence.

Through his silence, he curried favour with the power elite of the day he described as corrupt and racist. Now, he curries favour with the new emerging power elites by ridiculing the dying one. Now he tells his story, not using the journalism in which he is trained but as a novelist with fictional characters, what strength of courage, what an honest stand.

Perhaps, he should have remained silent, for him it would have been the best course of inaction. Perhaps, he might have left “Reparations” for someone else to write, someone who has talked the talk and walked the walk. Someone who could have written it with the integrity and honesty it does not deserve. This was the time to be silent but Shakespeare’s Hamlet could not: “conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

Stephen Kimber’s new novel: “Reparations” is silent still and just as dishonest.

Stephen Kimber is a journalism professor at the city’s University of King’s College in Halifax.

As always, Well wishes, spread the word,

F. Stanley Boyd

Liberia's President Charles Taylor CAUGHT UPDATE Not Guilty

Africans Hope Taylor Case Sets Precedent

By DONNA BRYSON, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 1, 3:00 PM ET

A former Chadian military leader accused in the deaths and torture of thousands of opponents lives in this pleasant, seaside capital. An infamous Ethiopian dictator has a haven in Zimbabwe. Uganda's Idi Amin, perhaps the most notorious of all, died peacefully in his place of refuge, Saudi Arabia.

When Africans play "Where are they now?" the answer is rarely "facing justice." But that may be changing.

Hopes have been raised by the case of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president accused of greed and savagery extraordinary even for a continent that has known some of the worst tyrants of modern times. He was extradited Wednesday to face crimes against humanity charges at a U.N.-supported Special Court for his role in fomenting civil wars in Sierra Leone.

Taylor's case warns African leaders to "be very careful how they are governing their people," said Sierra Leonean civil rights activist Abdul Gilles.

Taylor fled to Nigeria in 2003 as part of a deal to end the civil war in Liberia, which he had financed with his trafficking in Sierra Leone's diamonds. Last week Nigeria, under pressure from the U.S. and others, said it would hand him over to the U.N. court. He tried to flee and was recaptured early Wednesday, reportedly with two 110-pound sacks of dollars and euros.

The arrest set the precedent that leaders accused of atrocities "must be judged," said Ismail Hachim, head of a Chadian group working to put their former dictator, Hissene Habre, on trial in Belgium.

Belgium, whose laws empower it to try crimes against humanity wherever they are committed, issued an international arrest warrant for Habre last year, though his Senegalese hosts have resisted pressure to extradite him to Belgium.

Habre was ousted by rebels and fled in 1990. Two years later a commission in Chad accused his regime of 40,000 political killings and 200,000 cases of torture.

As democracy spreads in a continent that used to be a Cold War battlefield, it's getting harder to run a dictatorship.

Nigeria's Olesegun Obasanjo, a former military dictator, is now an elected president who portrays himself as a democrat who respects human rights. Liberia has Africa's first woman president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former World Bank technocrat who took office in January pledging reform. Sierra Leone has an elected government.

"The chances each day are greater that if you commit atrocities, you will be brought to book," said Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch.

Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga last month became the first suspect to stand before the new International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. He was charged with war crimes, including recruiting child soldiers. And Jean Kambanda, prime minister of Rwanda at the beginning of that country's 1994 bloodbath, pleaded guilty to genocide before a U.N. tribunal and was jailed for life.

But some of the most notorious have evaded court. The colonial past colors some African attitudes to the West's prescriptions for good governance, and dictators stand together, fearing they could be next to go on trial.

Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia is blamed for the killing of hundreds of students, intellectuals and politicians during the "Red Terror" against supposed enemies of his Soviet-backed military dictatorship. He fled a rebellion in 1991 and was taken in by the authoritarian regime of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. His army had helped train Mugabe's guerrillas in their struggle for independence from white rule.

Mengistu was charged in Ethiopia with crimes against humanity, but Zimbabwe refused to extradite him.

Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia's then-president, cited shared history as anti-colonialists when he granted refuge to Uganda's Milton Obote. Obote had come to power by ousting Amin, and is himself blamed by the current Ugandan current government for more than 500,000 deaths from his urbanization policies in the early 1980s.

Then there's Sudan's Darfur region, which the United Nations has described as the world's gravest humanitarian crisis. Along with tens of thousands of dead, more than 2 million people have been displaced by fighting between ethnic African tribes and the Arab-dominated government and militias it backs.

Some analysts think the refusal by Sudan's leaders to let U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur stems in part from fear they will be pursued for war crimes.
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Associated Press correspondents Angus Shaw in Zimbabwe and Clarence Roy Macauley in Sierra Leone contributed to this report.

As Always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd


Taylor Pleads Not Guilty to War Crimes


By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor said Monday he did not recognize an international war crimes tribunal's right to try him, but he then pleaded not guilty to 11 counts for helping destabilize West Africa through killings, sexual slavery and sending children into combat.

Taylor is the first former African president to face war crimes charges. He was brought to Sierra Leone last week after briefly escaping custody in Nigeria, where he was staying since 2003 under a deal to end Liberia's civil war.

Security was tight at the Special Court in Sierra Leone, the country to which Taylor is accused of exporting his civil war. Court officials who received death threats and Taylor will be protected by bulletproof glass and dozens of U.N. peacekeepers from Mongolia and Ireland.