British Prime Minister Andy Burnham (PC- CNN)

By Brent Simon

There is something deeply insulting about asking the descendants of enslaved Africans to help Britain shape an apology for slavery, while ruling out financial reparations. This is not reconciliation. It is an attempt to manage history without accepting its consequences.

I had to read this proposal twice.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham wants countries and communities affected by Britain’s role in slavery to help shape a formal apology. Apparently, the people whose ancestors were kidnapped, sold, brutalised and exploited should now help Britain find the right words to apologise for it.

Seriously?

How did we get to a point where the descendants of the victims are being asked to help the former colonial power work out how to say sorry?

Britain knows what it did. The historical records are there. The shipping records are there. The financial records are there. The laws, the plantations, the trading companies and the institutions that profited from slavery are all part of documented history.

This is not some historical mystery waiting for Caribbean people to solve.

Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, approximately 12 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic. British ships transported an estimated 3.2 million of them. The Royal African Company, operating under a royal charter granted by Charles II in 1672, became a major instrument of Britain’s involvement in the trade.

Human beings were turned into property. Families were separated. Labour was stolen. Entire societies were exploited to build wealth for others.

And here is where the conversation becomes particularly uncomfortable for Britain.

When Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, the British Government allocated £20 million to compensate slave owners. Not the enslaved. The slave owners.

The people who had been treated as property were not compensated for generations of stolen labour, violence and deprivation. Instead, the people who claimed ownership of them received compensation.

Let that settle for a moment.

Britain found a way to compensate the people who profited from slavery, but today appears reluctant to even entertain meaningful financial reparations for those who suffered from it.

In fact, the financial arrangements associated with those payments were not fully cleared until 2015.

And now we are being invited to help write an apology?

This is where I have a serious problem with the entire approach.

You cannot spend centuries extracting wealth from a people, build economic advantages through their exploitation, acknowledge that the system was wrong and then act as though the passage of time somehow removes the responsibility to address its consequences.

Nobody is suggesting that ordinary British citizens today should be personally blamed for the actions of people who lived centuries ago. That is not the argument.

The argument is about institutions, historical wealth, economic consequences and the responsibility of states to confront the legacies of their own actions.

Those are two very different things.

And let’s not pretend that the Caribbean has been sitting around waiting for Britain to tell us what reparations should look like.

CARICOM has already developed a Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice. It addresses education, public health, cultural institutions, technology transfer, debt cancellation and economic development, among other areas.

There has been serious thought, research and regional engagement behind this work.

So why are we being invited to help Britain shape an apology when the Caribbean has already articulated what meaningful reparatory justice requires?

An apology is easy. Accountability is harder.

Words do not rebuild economies. Words do not reverse generations of wealth extraction. Words do not repair the institutional damage left by colonial rule. And a carefully constructed statement of regret does not settle a historical account.

What makes this proposal even more troubling is that Britain has already ruled out financial reparations.

So, before the conversation has properly begun, one of the central issues has effectively been taken off the table.

What exactly are we negotiating?

Are we being invited to participate in a genuine process of reconciliation, or are we being asked to help Britain produce an apology that is politically comfortable, diplomatically convenient and financially consequence-free?

Because those are not the same thing.

Antigua and Barbuda must understand the moment

This matters particularly now, with Antigua and Barbuda hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

We have welcomed leaders from across the Commonwealth, including representatives of nations whose histories are deeply intertwined with colonialism.

But hosting the conversation must mean more than providing a venue, a programme and a diplomatic photograph.

We have an opportunity to put substance behind the discussion.

Our ancestors did not contribute to the wealth of the British Empire by choice. Their labour was taken. Their freedom was denied. Their lives were governed by a system designed to enrich the colonial power.

We cannot allow that history to be reduced to a polite exchange of apologies and expressions of regret.

Nor should debt relief, trade opportunities or development partnerships be packaged as though they automatically settle the question of reparatory justice. These are important areas of cooperation, but they are not substitutes for accountability.

Britain should not be allowed to determine the limits of a conversation about the consequences of its own historical actions.

And Caribbean governments must be careful not to confuse being invited to the table with having achieved something at it.

We know our history. We know what happened.

I have no difficulty with Britain apologising. In fact, an honest and unequivocal apology is long overdue.

But do not ask us to help you understand what you did. Do not ask us to make your apology easier to deliver. And do not approach this process with one hand extended in dialogue while the other firmly closes the door on reparatory justice.

If Britain wants to apologise, it should tell the truth, acknowledge the institutions and interests that benefited, and come prepared to discuss meaningful action.

The Caribbean is not asking for charity. We are not asking for sympathy. And we certainly are not asking for permission to remember our own history.

We are asking for an honest conversation about a documented history of exploitation and its consequences.

There is a difference between saying sorry because it is politically expedient and accepting responsibility because it is the right thing to do.

Britain should understand that difference.

Our ancestors were never consulted before they were taken, sold and exploited. Their descendants should not now be expected to help Britain negotiate the terms of its apology.

If you want to apologise, Britain, apologise.

But don’t confuse an apology with justice. And don’t mistake our willingness to engage in dialogue for a willingness to accept another carefully packaged version of colonial convenience.

We have heard enough apologies. It is time to talk about accountability.

This article was originally published by Antigua News Room. Read the original article here: OPINION: Don't Ask Us to Help You.