Prof. Rex Nettleford. - Contributed

Below is a statement from Professor Rex Nettleford, vice- chancellor Emeritus at the University of the West Indies, on the recent apologies for the participation of the United Kingdom in slavery, put forward by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

If the British Prime Minister truly regrets the role Great Britain played in industrialising slavery throughout the world, then he can make amends to the people of the West Indies, the longest colonised pieces of real estate, in a very simple way. He can have the British Government make a contribution towards widening the provision of tertiary education and training in the West Indies to equip the descendants of the slaves to meet the challenges of this new century and beyond.

By and large, people of the old British West Indies are not interested in engaging in any spurious argument about apologies or expressions of regret to herald the bicentenary commemoration of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Lest we forget, the abolition of the slave trade did not end the miseries of the slaves on West Indian plantations. They in fact continued in servitude for several decades with an added period of 'rehearsal in freedom', called Apprenticeship.

West Indians also know that the British Government set aside the magnificent sum of 20 million pounds (several billions in today's currency) to compensate the plantation owners throughout the Empire for their loss of pro- perty when slavery was abolished. Slave plantations in the West Indies were bywords for cruelty and brutality but they were veritable gold mines, enriching the newly-industrialising England. Yet the slaves who worked for nearly two centuries without pay received nothing.

The descendants of these people have struggled for decades to find place and purpose in the world; and education has provided an escape route for a great many out of the endemic poverty which has plagued the islands for many years. Today, the West Indian countries are functioning democratic societies with a genuine record of peaceful, diverse intercultural existence. They have made their mark in the world in many fields, not least in sports and the arts, but also in intellectual pursuits. And while they have not engaged in any meaningful way in the discussions about reparations, they do feel that some acknowledgement of the role of their ancestors in creating England's early wealth should be acknowledged.

Proposal

It is in this context that I would like to propose (yet again) that this British Government, with its high regard for the benefits which education can bring to all societies, should now consider the virtue of making a substantial contribution contribution to education in the region.

This can be easily accomplished by setting up a fund or helping to seed an existing endowment fund (which has had the late Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, and Her Royal Highness Princess Anne as former patrons) for the University of the West Indies (UWI), the only institution of higher learning which serves all the former British colonies and existing British 'overseas territories' in the Caribbean. The university was established in 1948 before the islands became independent as one of five post-war universities serving the developing countries of the then Empire. That it has maintained high standards and has gained international respect and acclaim is impatient of debate.

The present British Prime Minister himself may recall a request from the UWI to the British Government for a contribution to the UWI Endowment Fund of some 10 million pound at the time of the university's 50th anniversary. Unfortunately, he was neither able to grant the university's request nor be the guest speaker at its graduation on that occasion. What an excellent opportunity is now offered to reinforce the Prime Minister's recent expression of regrets for what was indeed a crime against humanity, by investing in the education of the descendants of those now tenanting the Commonwealth West Indies whose forebears were not only severed from ancestral hearths and suffered in plantation slavery but who survived the traumas of that heinous crime lasting a few centuries. It is now time to go beyond survival.