Brian Royes

“The Government of Grenada calls upon the Bank of England to make reparations to Grenada on account of the direct involvement of the Bank of England in the 1780s in the enslavement of Africans and their descendants in Grenada.”

Rev Dr Michael Banner’s book, Britain’s Slavery Debt: Reparations Now!, estimates Britain owes over £200 billion to Caribbean nations, based on enslaver compensation claims post-abolition.

The Portuguese president’s timely speech should be leveraged by reparations advocates to redouble efforts to rouse the hibernating consciences of other European Union members.

Commenting on these developments, Denis O’Brien, founder of The Repair Campaign, said; “We are at a tipping point in the fight for reparatory justice. This is the first time that the UK has agreed to repatriate a natural history specimen to the Caribbean (something the Caricom Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice has been asking for since it was launched a decade ago) and the first time that a European power has unequivocally stated that the crime of the transatlantic traffickingof enslaved Africans had a ‘cost’ that has to be repaid. As real examples of affirmative action, these developments are hugely significant. The incredible advocacy efforts of so many are bearing fruit. Collectively, we must keep the pressure on. The door is finally ajar, now we need to power through it.”

The United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom on Sunday issued a solemn apology to Jamaica, the Caribbean, and Africa for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, regarded by many as the greatest crime against humanity.

Reparatory justice in my view has to do with the payment of reparations to the descendants of slaves in the Caribbean, whose ancestors were forcibly brought here and forced to work on plantations without reward, and treated most inhumanely. The advocates of reparations argue that it should be just and fair, and that this would facilitate internal development initiatives by Caribbean people themselves, and help to alleviate much of the poverty and underdevelopment caused by slavery and the plantation system.

Reparations that is embedded with a Ubuntu philosophy is the process of repairing our personhood. It is the way in which we can collectively call “See me here!”, the way in which we can be seen.