Catching… Charles III

In case you didn’t know, dear Reader, Jamaica ain’t a republic like us – even though they became independent before us in 1962! – so that makes Britain’s King Charles III THEIR king as much as old Blighty’s!! However, we all chose to remain as part of the Commonwealth that’s made up of all Britain’s former empire – on which, they boasted, “the sun never sets”!!
Anyhow, as your Eyewitness had mentioned earlier, Charles and Camilla are coming to the Caribbean – Bahamas, Guyana and then onto Antigua and Barbuda – where they’ll grace the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit (C-HoGS) first week of November. We just heard that Jamaica’s gonna be using the opportunity to have Charles carry a message for them on the vexed question of Reparations for that “crime against humanity” – ironically kicked-off by Charles III’s ancestor and namesake, Charles I!!!
As we all know, Caricom’s got a Ten-point Demand for Reparations, but up to now the former country ain’t been paying no heed!! The British political establishment – in the form of Prime Ministers from Tony Blair since the beginning of the millennium to Ken Starmer – have uniformly rejected offering reparations – even as they engaged in the obligatory hand-wringing at the “crime”!! Their rationale is the present generation of Brits can’t be held responsible for the crimes of their forefathers and foremothers!!
Well the message Jamaica’s gonna be sending Charles III is to be delivered to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) – which remains Jamaica’s apex court since they haven’t acceded to the CCJ!! And it’s a three-parter that asks their Lordships a) whether the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica was legal under English law; b) whether it broke international law, and c) whether Britain now has a legal duty to provide redress!!
In a word, the Jamaicans are taking the reparations matter to the Courts – and it’ll be interesting to see how the eminent bewigged jurists from the House of Lords will respond!! As far as your Eyewitness knows, while slavery wasn’t legal in England itself – “the air of England was too pure!!” – they did have their Parliament pass laws like the Debt Recovery Act of 1732 – which explicitly classified “negroes” as real estate and property that could be seized to pay debts in the colonies!! In the colonies, of course, they approved the laws enacted by their local administrators that facilitated slavery!! Then, of course, their government did eventually abolish slavery in 1834 and offered £20MILLION reparations to the slave owners – and zilch to the slaves!!
Your Eyewitness notes that the Jamaicans don’t go along with local Black Pudding Man’s claim that as a “successor state” – which international law declares we ain’t!! – the Guyanese govt should also pay reparations!!

…Europe’s rightward drift
Europe has spent decades preaching unity – one market, one currency, one foreign policy—or at least ONE increasingly impressive collection of committees trying to agree on one!! Then along comes Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt – where the far-right AfD has collected 44!!of the vote. To your Eyewitness, the irony’s delicious. The EU was designed partly to make nationalism so economically irrational and politically unfashionable that Europeans would eventually forget why their grandparents fought wars over borders!! Yet parts of Germany have joined Italy, Hungary to saying: “Thanks, but we’ll take our country first!!”
The AfD’s breakthrough is therefore more than another regional election since Germany’s supposed to be Europe’s anchor!! If its voters increasingly pull toward nationalism, immigration restriction and hostility to the established political order, Europe’s famous Franco-German engine may soon discover that one of its pistons has developed a distinctly German accent!!
The EU may remain united on paper – but the more interesting question is whether Europeans still feel united enough to keep it that way!!

…Pressie’s momentum
Pressie just completed his first year of his second term – and the new Opposition’s criticism flies fast and furious!! But that means he’s active and taking risks as he moves Guyana from Third World to First!!