Soyinka proposes Heritage Voyage of Return as slave trade reparations

NOBEL laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has weighed in on the reparation for Africa debate, recommending what he termed ‘The Heritage Voyage of Return’.

The issue of reparatory justice for Africa for the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade has been raging for years, with different individuals suggesting various forms of compensation.

Professor Soyinka shared his idea on Tuesday, March 25, in a keynote entitled ‘Remembrance, and the Reparatory Ethos, 2025’ he delivered at the United Nations’ annual ceremony in observance of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, under the theme ‘Acknowledge the past. Repair the present. Build a future of dignity and justice.’

It was held at the UN Headquarters in New York. It was an official plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly. Others who spoke at the event were UN Secretary-General António Guterres, President of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly Philemon Yang of Cameroon and Permanent Representatives of all 193 UN member states.

For Professor Soyinka, ‘The Heritage Voyage of Return’ differs from previous propositions. His proposal, he said, “is a lived-in exposition as a moving Remembrance monument, a transitional warehouse of a continent’s past, present and future, a vibrant statement on a continent’s interrupted history. A special Honour Gallery will house artifacts looted from the African continent but since returned under the spirit and ethos of Restitution. Seminars. Readings. Africa-themed films. 

“Documentaries. Installations. Clinics and lifestyle parades. Music from Africa and the Diaspora. A unique library and manuscript collection. Archeological retrievals. An exhumed slave vessel. The boat will take off from the Diaspora, make a call at representative ports of Slavery connection, positive or negative, on its way to the West African coast. A television crew on board broadcasts events to the rest of the world. Primarily for descendants of the enslaved, it is also open to others—that is, others who are equally embroiled in the quest for a new humanity that embraces, not excludes, that is curious, not foreclosed, that still lays claim to conscience as the touchstone of the rational species.”

Continuing, the Nobel Laureate explained that the “nature of reparatory justice that befits the magnitude of slavery wrongs can only be symbolic, gestural. Yes, but also morally and therapeutically propulsive, one that goes to the core of a continent’s humanity, vividly expressed in its arts and spirituality. It is a symbolic voyage of return, one that stands to become an annual fixture.

“Effectively, it offers no more than a continuation of UNESCO’s work on the Routes of Enslaved Peoples, beamed deservedly, at the African continent. HVR is a voyage of Learning, Leisure, and Linkage. It is not only feasible, it is imperative. Yes, such a voyage presumes to teach the world, to bring the world into confrontation with centuries of wrongs and possibly a recovery of its lost humanity.

“It is however not designed to be a vessel of recrimination, but a floating festival of peaceful options and neglected knowledge. Glorified tourism? Why not? But Tourism “with an attitude”. This is a return, not just to a wronged continent, but a return of the world to its holistic potential, to what it can be, shorn of irrational concepts, embedded prejudice, lust for power and domination. It will be manifested as a first furlong in a voyage towards, put simply, a re-insertion of human in that grossly depleted word: humanity.”

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