it s not an event. settlement is an event. you can show that you have suffered harm, the harm has become systemic, those who have benefited from that harm could actually say here s $1 billion, take it and go away. that s closure. reparations says no. so, what do you want, then? first of all, reparations is a process. it begins with the step that says we admit responsibility for the crimes we have committed. you don t get that, though, do you? you just get expressions of regret, like david cameron, the british prime minister in 2015, when he went to jamaica. no apology. the european governments prefer to say, we regret very much what we have done, and that s the end of the conversation. reparations says, we apologise for what we have done. now let us work together in partnership and work through the consequences of what we have done. so, reparations is really a partnership relationship that may lead to development, but importantly, it leads to the elevation of those who continue
to poorer people in the world, target uk aid there, rather than to. the slave owners, the slave owners. ..the relatively affluent people in barbados. zaineb, in the face of emancipation legislation, the slave owners were saying to the british and european parliaments, you don t need to pass the emancipation legislation. so many of the enslaved people are doing well, so many of them now have their own home, they have property. and then a percentage of them are free and they re doing so well. all you have to do is extend slavery longer and more and more enslaved will do better off, become better off. these are arguments, these are positions. so, there you are, chair of this caribbean regional commission, looking at these reparations. first step you wanted was a formal apology from the former colonial colonisers like the united kingdom and so on. you haven t got very far, have you? well, because there has always been two approaches to this matter. the oppressor class, the beneficiaries