Next week, the people of the English-speaking Caribbean will hold activities to commemorate the historic end of the inhuman system of slavery in what was the British empire and is known as Emancipation Day. Once a major holiday in our region, the significance of the day has waned considerably over the years, in spite of educational advancements, and it is the recreational aspect of the Day which has superseded its political and historical significance.

In recent years there has been a revival of long-standing demands for those who benefited from slavery and genocide of the indigenous peoples such as the Garifuna and Kalinago here, to receive what is known as reparatory justice. This stems from the fact that when slavery was officially ended, it was the slave owners who received “compensation” not the enslaved. This has remained a major bone of contention since then and gave rise to a global movement for reparatory justice.

This movement has had a new infusion of life in recent years with now even governments in the Caribbean and Africa playing an important supportive role.

Globally, there has been a flood of calls and demands for the governments of the previous slave-owning states and the successors and beneficiaries of the enslavers and slave traders, to engage in meaningful discussions towards reparations and a programme to ensure reparatory justice. Unfortunately, the other side has not yet gone beyond offering apologies.

In the Caribbean, a CARICOM Reparations Commission has been established with governmental backing and has gone as far as drafting a 10 – point Reparations Action Plan. This and other matters pertinent to the advancing of the claims for reparatory justice will be central to discussions next week at an International Conference to be held at the Cave Hill campus of The University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados.

The Conference marks yet another important step in formalizing the region’s strategies to achieve its goals for reparations. However, the region needs to re-examine whether it is not relying too much on high-level approaches. The demands for reparatory justice do not yet have the active support of the mass of our people, many of whom do not even understand the concept.

There must be an accompanying mass education programme starting from the infant level so that our people get to understand slavery, its repercussions and impact and how that has bearing on our development prospects. The demands from our leaders and intellectuals need to be backed by the conscious support of all our people. A top-down approach will not work.