we have not had any benefits to be associated. what harm does the queen do as being head of state? she s a very benign presence. no power. look at what happened to the windrush people. we fought for the british empire in the second world war, we kicked the butt out of hitler and his third reich, we won the war, then we were invited to britain, my parents generation came to britain to clean up the mess that the british had experienced from all the bombings of the germans, and the first opportunity they were surrounded by deepening institutional racism that hurt those caribbean people to the core. they appealed to the monarchy, they appealed to the government, there was silence because that is the history. but let me tell you, there s a photograph on the cover of my recent book, britain s black debt, and it shows queen elizabeth visiting the bell sugar plantation in 1966, february, on the eve of independence,
world of the west. it s a tremendous history. a tremendous history, but it s also one of great, great tragedy. absolutely. the entire structures we see here, these economic systems called plantations, the enslavement of thousands of african peoples on these islands, the tragic nature of the slave trade, the exploitation of people at the most extreme levels in human history, all generated tremendous wealth. and barbados became known as the wealthiest colony in the world because of slavery and sugar, and the way in which it plugged into the british economy, the way in which britain grew wealthy out of all of this. but, so the legacy of british enslavement, the exploitation of african peoples on these plantations, the legacies are all around us. the poverty, the underdevelopment, the consistent institutional racism, white supremacy, all of those structures that made the system work are still here with us. so, you are chair of a caribbean commission, caricon, the inaugural chair in 2013
of enslaved africans. what are his chances of success? professor sir hilary beckles, welcome to hardtalk. tremendous honour, pleasure to be here. right, so, we re here in the part of barbados that is your ancestral land, your great, great, great grandparents worked on sugar plantations just nearby. what is the legacy of that history of slavery here in barbados? well, this is where the global world and a small island came together a00 years ago. this is barbados, the first slave plantation economy in the world. this is where slavery plantations, british capitalism all came together. a small place becoming a centre
of the financial world of the west. it s a tremendous history. a tremendous history, but it s also one of great, great tragedy. absolutely. the entire structures we see here, these economic systems called plantations, the enslavement of thousands of african peoples on these islands, the tragic nature of the slave trade, the exploitation of people at the most extreme levels in human history, all generated tremendous wealth. and barbados became known as the wealthiest colony in the world because of slavery and sugar, and the way in which it plugged into the british economy, the way in which britain grew wealthy out of all of this. but, so the legacy of british enslavement, the exploitation of african peoples on these plantations, the legacies are all around us. the poverty, the underdevelopment, the consistent institutional racism,
white supremacy, all of those structures that made the system work are still here with us. so, you are chair of a caribbean commission, caricon, the inaugural chair in 2013 a commission set up to look at reparations, to redress all these grievances that you ve just set out. but i ll be frank with you, i mean, talking to diplomatic sources here in barbados, western sources, they say reparations, this isn t a topic that concerns the ordinary barbadian. at every moment in history, when there s a major crime to be adjudicated, a major transition to be made, the general view has always been it s not going to happen in my lifetime. if you asked the enslaved people in 1830, british parliament is going to legislate the abolition of slavery in 1833, but if you took a census on the west indian sugar plantations of the slaves and you asked them the question,