Where’s… the reparations??

We’ve just come off celebrating “Emancipation Day” – which goes all the way back to Aug 1st 1834 – when slavery was supposed to’ve been ended. But your Eyewitness starts counting from 1838 because of the “Apprenticeship period” that was immediately imposed – and didn’t end till then!! Imagine the gall of paying the slave owners fortunes for “losing” their slaves – and then forcing the supposedly freed slaves to continue working – but for a pittance to supposedly teach them the ways of “being free”!! Not even a firm handshake for working to receive lashes and hanging for hundreds of years!!
Anyhow, in the beginning of this new millennium, a movement for REPARATIONS was launched by some academics out of UWI. They were gonna convince the old slave-owning countries – in our case Britain and the Netherlands – to try correcting their historical crimes against African humanity!! One way suggested was funding programs to alleviate the structural impediments surviving since slavery – and holding back descendants from enjoying an equal place in their societies!!
Over the years, they’ve had some success in receiving a hearing and in some instances – like from the Gladstone family some years ago – even receiving acknowledgement, apologies and compensation!! But sadly, the slave owning nations’ governments – which built their successful economies on the backs of slavery and then indentureship that followed – have stoutly refused to own up and step up to the crease!! They haven’t even agreed to enter formal negotiations!
Britain’s official position, for example, remains essentially unchanged – arguing that contemporary taxpayers shouldn’t bear legal liability for historic wrongs. Never mind that the said contemporary taxpayers are enjoying the fruits of the old slave labour through the material and economical edifices constructed back then!! While there’s been greater willingness to acknowledge slavery’s horrors and support historical research – for example recently suggested by King Charles – London has stopped well short of accepting a legal obligation to compensate Caribbean nations!!
So your Eyewitness is suggesting that every Emancipation Day henceforth – in addition to parading up and down in “African” costumes and eating Conkee – we should be organizing demonstrations demanding reparations!! Maybe in the past no one would’ve taken notice, but now that we’re the fastest growing economy in the world – with economic opportunities coming out of our kazoos! – we’ve got the attention of the old colonials!! They want a piece of our action – so we can make it a quid pro quo that they cough up some reparations funding!!
Your Eyewitness can just picture next year’s Emancipation celebrations: decked out in our Dashikis and Kaftans with a conkee in one hand and raising the clenched other in the air – we’ll be screaming “Massa Day Done and we want we money!!”

…the production?
In most countries, earning a PhD means writing a dissertation. Hundreds of pages of theory, research, and citations that very few people gonna ever read and they end up gathering dust on shelves!! But in the last few years, China decided to try something different.
Under a law passed in 2024, select universities can now award engineering doctorates based on physical prototypes, new techniques, or major installations instead of traditional papers!! That’s right – rather than focusing only on theory by spinning ideas like cotton candy, the aspiring “Doctors” gotts get down; get their hands dirty and produce something useful!
The rule is straightforward: build something that works in real life and at scale – and you can graduate with that PhD!! They’re taking a Finnish educational innovation called Phenomenon Based Learning to the max!! And it’s already become reality – the first cohort has already gone into the world!!
Maybe with UG beating the bushes to find a new Vice Chancellor – maybe we should also introduce the practical PhDs!!

…the responsibility?
The opposition’s supposed to be “responsible” but from their behaviour on the Barima tragedy they’ve been anything but!! The latest is the government’s decision inviting bids to salvage the ship – which they say is dilatory!!
They want single source??