“When will the de­mands stop? Every­one knows the transat­lantic slave trade was wrong. Britain played a huge role in stop­ping it. So when it comes to the ques­tion of repa­ra­tions, my an­swer is no. It’s time for the Com­mon­wealth to start look­ing for­wards, not back­wards.” —Ke­mi Bade­noch, the Leader of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty and MP for North West Es­sex

The re­cent Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da brought re­newed calls from Caribbean and African coun­tries for repa­ra­tions and a for­mal apol­o­gy for Britain’s role in slav­ery. The British gov­ern­ment ruled out di­rect fi­nan­cial pay­outs but did ex­press a will­ing­ness to dis­cuss an apol­o­gy. Ke­mi Bade­noch, a British politi­cian of Niger­ian her­itage, fur­ther ig­nit­ed the de­bate when she tweet­ed her op­po­si­tion to repa­ra­tions, stat­ing that it is African na­tions who should apol­o­gise for the transat­lantic slave trade.

Why has there been a per­sis­tent de­mand for repa­ra­tions and an apol­o­gy? For some, it is about ac­knowl­edg­ing their an­ces­tors’ suf­fer­ing and hav­ing those who ben­e­fit­ed from slav­ery ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. That suf­fer­ing can­not sim­ply be dis­missed be­cause it hap­pened cen­turies ago. For oth­ers, repa­ra­tions are about ad­dress­ing in­equal­i­ties which slav­ery and colo­nial­ism helped to cre­ate and which they ar­gue con­tin­ue to af­fect Caribbean so­ci­eties. They see it as a mat­ter of jus­tice and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­pair some of that dam­age.

So, can repa­ra­tions re­al­ly solve our prob­lems? Cari­com chair­man Philip J Pierre de­scribed the re­gion’s pro­pos­als as a “prac­ti­cal, de­vel­op­men­tal agen­da,” in­clud­ing in­vest­ment in pub­lic health, ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing, tech­nol­o­gy and debt can­cel­la­tion. These could make a dif­fer­ence in peo­ple’s lives.

Some­times I get the idea that those de­mand­ing repa­ra­tions think that once Caribbean na­tions are paid a hefty sum, all our so­cio-eco­nom­ic prob­lems will sud­den­ly dis­ap­pear. It’s as if we wave a mag­ic wand and be­come de­vel­oped na­tions. But re­al­ly, can mon­ey alone solve prob­lems of cor­rup­tion, poor plan­ning and a lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty?

Here’s my is­sue with this whole de­mand for repa­ra­tions. At what point do we take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for where we are to­day and ac­knowl­edge our own role in cre­at­ing the prob­lems we face? We want­ed in­de­pen­dence be­cause we want­ed to de­ter­mine our own fu­ture, right? Well, that al­so means ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the de­ci­sions we make and the way we gov­ern. What have we done, and what are we do­ing, to build our economies and deal with so­cial in­equal­i­ties?

Repa­ra­tions could pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for de­vel­op­ment, but we al­so have to ask how these re­sources would be man­aged and who would ben­e­fit. To me, it seems like we are mak­ing a habit of de­mand­ing things from for­mer colo­nial pow­ers, but what about our past and present lead­ers? Why are we not hold­ing them ac­count­able for their fail­ures to de­vel­op the Caribbean re­gion?

Giv­en the his­to­ry of cor­rup­tion and the lack of trans­paren­cy in pub­lic spend­ing, do we re­al­ly think that ad­di­tion­al re­sources will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly mean bet­ter lives for our cit­i­zens? We should be ask­ing what is hap­pen­ing to the re­sources we al­ready have and why so many of our peo­ple are still be­ing left be­hind. How much pub­lic mon­ey has been spent on projects that re­main un­fin­ished or pro­grammes that have done lit­tle to im­prove peo­ple’s lives? Who takes re­spon­si­bil­i­ty when these fail?

What are we do­ing to en­sure young peo­ple have ac­cess to train­ing and em­ploy­ment, that fam­i­lies can get prop­er health­care and that op­por­tu­ni­ties are not de­pen­dent on who you know?

If repa­ra­tions are paid, what would pre­vent those re­sources from be­ing man­aged in the same way? These are ques­tions our lead­ers must an­swer now, re­gard­less of whether repa­ra­tions ever ma­te­ri­alise. How can we de­mand that for­mer colo­nial pow­ers an­swer for what they did cen­turies ago while let­ting our own lead­ers get away with what they are do­ing to­day?

My col­league and friend, Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh, re­cent­ly sug­gest­ed that T&T should con­sid­er leav­ing the Com­mon­wealth to send a mes­sage over Britain’s re­fusal to pay repa­ra­tions. The way I see it, leav­ing won’t help us. We should be ask­ing how we can use our mem­ber­ship to build our economies, ex­pand ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and cre­ate em­ploy­ment for our young peo­ple. To me, the Com­mon­wealth should be a space where coun­tries work to­geth­er to im­prove their cit­i­zens’ lives. Would leav­ing bring us any clos­er to that?

How much of our fu­ture are we pre­pared to in­vest in se­cur­ing an apol­o­gy from King Charles III or a com­mit­ment to repa­ra­tions? We should learn from his­to­ry and un­der­stand how it has shaped our so­ci­eties. What­ev­er for­mer colo­nial pow­ers “owe” us, our con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment can­not de­pend on their will­ing­ness to pay. So maybe, in­stead of wait­ing for Britain to give us hand­outs, we could work on build­ing our economies and ad­dress­ing our lack of de­vel­op­ment in more sub­stan­tial ways. Frankly, the per­sis­tent “beg­ging” is be­com­ing em­bar­rass­ing. We owe our young peo­ple a fu­ture that we are ac­tive­ly build­ing, with lead­ers who are ac­count­able for what they do to­day. How about we se­ri­ous­ly fo­cus on build­ing our economies, so­ci­eties and iden­ti­ties with what we have now?