Whatever David Cameron’s motives for the repatriation scheme,our prisons are a shame – and the whining of the reparations lobby masks the screw-ups of our own governments
Given that black Jamaicans were shackled by Britain for 180 years in chattel slavery, many islanders felt a sense of deja vu with David Cameron’s announcement of a £25m gift towards the construction of a new prison here.
The decades-aged campaign for reparations – historically led by Rastafarians but co-opted by academics and politicians more recently – has been increasing in decibels as Jamaica and other anglophone Caribbean nations try to make the case for compensation. That, and though,seems wishful thinking, as it’s unlikely that the UK will flinch in a looming face-off with Caribbean governments who bear signalled that they’ll be demanding debt forgiveness and more for nearly two centuries of terror and torture.
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Source: theguardian.com