…for slavery
CariCom will be writing Britain and the other European countries that conducted and benefited from the African Slave Trade and plantation slavery, to remind them about the claims for reparations it made against them back in 2013.
It’s a shame they’ve had to do this at a time when the UN’s pushing its entire collection of 196 countries to “do something” about the dread status of Africans in this “International Decade of People of African Descent” (IDPAD).
Since it would be racist that this is due to just “being African”, it conclusively shows the world’s only willing to engage in empty rhetoric when engaging with the crime against humanity that was African Slavery. But rather than looking at all the European nations, let’s just consider Britain – the colonial power that tried to convince us that, out of the goodness of its heart, it ‘freed” the 650,000 slaves it owned in the “British” West Indies; 82,000 here — and we should be eternally grateful for that act.
It’s like a criminal violently raping a woman and then telling her she should be grateful she could crawl away!! And slavery was rape lasting for centuries; it so corrupted the minds and bodies of the slaves that their descendants are still to recover fully. Not to mention that slavery provided the profits from the plantations to establish the foundations for the development of Britain and Europe, which they still are enjoying. And it is this anomaly that the 10-point Reparation Demand by CariCom is asking to be addressed – but it yet has still to get an answer even on the very first one, which simply calls for an apology!!
How do you enslave a people by announcing they don’t even have a soul – and as such aren’t “fully human” – and not apologise for it? Or not make reparations for the lingering effects still playing out in the racist premise that people of African descent can be discriminated against by whites as a matter of course? The closest Britain’s come to giving an official answer to CariCom’s demands is PM Cameron’s 2015 advice while visiting Jamaica: that slavery was in “the past” and the Caribbean should “move on”!! The irony of his making such a statement didn’t strike him, even though he was in Jamaica to help build a prison to deal with the high level of crime that became endemic to Jamaica in its post-slavery traumatic history.
But CariCom also asks for reparative justice for the Indigenous Peoples, who numbered 3,000,000 in 1700 but were reduced to 30,000 three centuries later – and are in even worse condition in every which way than the descendants of African slaves.
Your Eyewitness thinks CariCom should take Britain to the International Criminal Court for justice!!
…for validating the nouveau riche
Your Eyewitness is quite confused about the fallout from the decision of the owners of Mae’s to raise the tuition fees by 42% or so. The parents are going to picket the school!! In some cases, we’re talking about a base of G$60,000 per term, (Of course, they call it “semester”) so this merely confirms Mae’s claim that they’re an “elite” school. Now, how can you be “elite” if you don’t have a way of separating your kids from those from the hoi polloi?
Mae’s are simply raising the bar higher in preparation for the oil boom, which will dilute their present criteria. They should simply give the striking parents the advice of the world’s first billionaire — J. P. Morgan:
“If you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it.”
…for being close
The Chronic, we know, is close to the Government. Very close. So it can’t just be the printer’s devil that’s responsible for the clarification on the IsDB’s US$900M loan.
Said the Chronic: “THE Ministry of Finance has pointed out that the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has made available US$900M for Guyana to BURROW.”
“Burrow”. You know…like in “hide underground”!!