2007 was a year when the myth machine went into overdrive – over William Wilberforce and Robert Mugabe – but was also a year when the quest for truth increased.

US academics Dr Joy Leary and Dr Anthony Browder were popular visitors because I believe this demonstrates a hunger to be empowered through historical knowledge of self. The travelling tour by Robin Walker, who was speaking about his book When We Ruled, was one of several other examples. The events, so reminiscent of the traditional way of spreading knowledge in Africa, stood in stark contrast to soft-focus hero worship in the Hollywood film Amazing Grace; the sophistry of Tony Blair’s personal statement of regret; and much of the ‘abolition season’ as played out in the media.

The barrage of misinformation was only going to have one result, and a MORI poll commissioned by the bicentenary church coalition, Set All Free, confirmed that awareness of Wilberforce had rocketed upwards but remained virtually unchanged for Oladuah Equiano. And Toussaint L’Ouverture was not even on the scale.

However 2007 has given us some cause for hope. The decision to teach slavery as part of the national curriculum was one of only two concrete long-lasting achievements to come out of the bicentenary, but it should not be underestimated. And however predictable Black History Month may be at times - with its standard fare of Dr Martin Luther King Jnr and Mary Seacole – it has contributed to a greater awareness amongst the younger generation of the strength of our roots, if not the depth.

The challenge for us now is to make sure, firstly that it is taught properly, and perhaps even more importantly, ensuring that those that come after us are taught how to use that knowledge to grow spiritually and intellectually; to be tomorrow’s leaders.

It was little remarked upon, but white education secretary Alan Johnson went a lot further than the black man who chaired the advisory panel on the curriculum decision, Sir Keith Ajegbo. Sir Keith’s timidity – he only recommended that slavery be attached to citizenship lessons, not history lessons – seems to underline a lack of ambition too prevalent today over what can be achieved for our betterment. Sir Keith surely cannot have it engraved on his heart that they owe us, and owe us big. Otherwise his review would have asked for the earth, not a tiny crumb.

The other ‘legacy’ to come out of the bicentenary was the Slavery Memorial Day, now set for 23rd August. While the date is good news, it was noticeable that the ministers who announced it – Margaret Hodge and Parmjit Dhanda – excluded all reference to Haiti, or the three Rs: rebellion, revolution and resistance. To add insult to injury, literally, it soon became clear that African people would only get a fraction of the £500,000 that is given annually to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Trust.

The government is clearly relegating Slavery Memorial Day to the level of BHM local library events, and ensuring the vast majority of Britain remains as oblivious to 23rd August as they are to Marcus Garvey Day.

Whatever people think of David Lammy and Baroness Valerie Amos – and I personally hold them both in high regard – I firmly believe that with them around the table the government would not have made such a mess of this. But while they started the process working towards a Slavery Memorial Day, sadly it was left to Hodge to finish it – a politician who has given succour to the British National Party with her comments about ‘whites’ being left behind in the housing queue.

If a serious understanding about reparations is really going to flourish in the majority of African people, and at the moment I think we’re a million miles from that, then there is a serious amount of work ahead in the next eight months building up Slavery Memorial Day into a fitting commemoration. We cannot allow the establishment to continue picking and choosing which dates they will water with attention. To cold shoulder the 2004 UN Year to Commemorate Slavery, eulogise Wilberforce in 2007 and now sideline Slavery Memorial Day. The response surely has to be to force the agenda and declare that it is not up to white people to decide how or when to remember slavery. It’s our ancestors’ blood and pain, and our decision how or when to honour their bravery and struggle.

Perhaps a greater consensus around reparations would mean that every time the World Trade Organisation or trading blocks try to cut Africa out of a fair deal – as EU commissioner Peter Mandelson did in December – they face greater resistance by African people living in the West.
There are precious few voices raising the alarm over British mercenaries still skulking around the continent, or the French bombing campaigns in the Central African Republic, or even at the years’ end Tory leader David Cameron telling the Chinese to use their position to penalise Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe.

And now we are seeing the ‘Mugabe-isation’ of newly crowned ANC head Jacob Zuma, whose picture splashed across the British press with raised fist in the midst of oratory was a carbon copy of Fleet Street’s favoured image of Mugabe, and before him Adolf Hitler. Soon no doubt the Sun will be comparing Zuma to the German Fuhrer just as they did with Mugabe.

But at the year’s end there is also some room for optimism about Africa. Commodity prices are high, providing a rare window of opportunity for growth. So are oil prices. The African Union is not in bad shape despite its much-maligned efforts in Darfur. This could be Africa’s time to break the curse of Ham.

The World Cup is coming to South Africa in 2010 and its’ stadiums are being constructed on schedule, despite reported ‘concerns’ of the British media in 2007, three years in advance. Pity such column-inches were not saved for the countless African migrants who are washed up each year on beaches after failing to make it to Europe.

Last year also saw a noticeable increase in the numbers of failed asylum seekers being deported to Africa and the Caribbean, often violently. In March charter planes facilitated mass deportations to the increasingly unstable Democratic Republic of Congo after heavy-handed dawn raids across the country, coincidentally just days before the UK’s Country Guidance on the safety of countries was reviewed.

Like police stop and search, asylum and immigration is not too fashionable at the moment, and increasingly seen as an ‘old’ issue. Which it is not, as the whole system is as alarming as ever – from hassle at airports on the basis of skin colour to broken bones during removals and everything in between.

A special exception was made for Watford footballer Al Bangura, but apart from his profession there is little to distinguish this case from thousands of others who equally deserve attention.
What does seem to have attracted a lot of attention this year were visits from Rev Jesse Jackson, and Madeba – Nelson Mandela – to unveil a long-fought for statue in Westminster.

However as inspiring as these courageous figures are, when are we going to find our own leaders? Whoever they are, they’re unlikely to come from our political system. The idea of a ‘Bernie’s List’ of A-list black would-be Labour candidates begs the question: would Bernie Grant have got on a Bernie’s List? I think the answer would be ‘no.’

And whether our young leaders come through the established anti-racist movement is in question too, after the pummelling groups close to Lee Jasper have taken from the London Evening Standard, working in tandem with the capital’s Tories. I believe Jasper and many of the organisations singled out will survive, and I sense widespread sympathy and support from many in our communities. However the damage will take a while to repair.

Maybe this will act as a reality check. Instead of being seduced by Rev Jackson’s visions of shareholder action we need to return to the basics of campaigning over deaths in custody; mental health; and stop and search. Instead of building a black-red-Islamic alliance we should go back to asylum and immigration; the persecution of black workers; and reparations. I think its’ what Bernie Grant would have wanted.

Kwame Kwei Armah’s play A Statement of Regret featured a black organisation seeking to reinvent themselves with ‘new’ prescriptions to make them sound modern and relevant – and access more finances. There is a lesson here about a comfortable ‘Middle Class’ of activists grown fat on the public purse, out of touch with the tensions on our streets caused by racist policing, and a total exclusion from society still exercising the same racism they did when the Empire Windrush landed 60 years ago.

Labour has failed to tackle endemic racism in our society, only alter the language, the rhetoric. Yet all the figures show how abysmally unchanged disproportionately discrimination is, in whatever sphere of life you choose to look at. My hope for 2008 is that we not only continue to see empowerment through knowledge, and to care for our people wherever in the world they may be, but also focus attention where it is needed. To go back to basics; to stand outside the tent and declare: “We’re not going in until we get justice.”

Lester Holloway