‘We have no desire to bankrupt anybody, but we have a desire for justice’: Reparations movement pushes towards action

by Keryn Nelson F or three days, government officials, regional leaders, reparations advocates, academics, and representatives of African and Caribbean communities and the global diaspora gathered in Barbados as the Caribbean’s reparations movement sought to translate decades of advocacy into concrete action. The Third CARICOM Regional Conference on Reparations, held from September 17 to 19 at the Wyndham Grand Barbados Sam Lord’s Castle, brought together regional and international voices under the theme “Reparatory Justice as the Coming Enlightenment”.

The conference came at a significant point for the movement, following the adoption of a United Nations resolution in March declaring the trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans the “gravest crime against humanity”, as well as Jamaica’s recent petition to King Charles seeking legal consideration of questions surrounding slavery and Britain’s responsibility for reparatory remedy. But while the historical case for reparations has been made repeatedly, speakers in Barbados stressed that the movement must now focus increasingly on what comes next. ‘The damage is deep’ One of the conference’s highlights was a panel discussion featuring Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who reflected on the continuing effects of slavery and colonialism and the reasons the region continues to press for reparatory justice. “The damage is deep psychologically, economically, it is real. ” Mottley said Barbados and other Caribbean islands continue to grapple with the consequences of a period in which power was the dominant currency. She pointed to psychological consequences that continue to shape attitudes towards work. “We fight the consequences today of what we call the eye-servant mentality, that people only work when…