Ancestor Of Slave Owners Calls For The Government To Apologise And Pay Reparations

Chatting to host Ali Milani on the political programme Politics Uncensored, the campaigner articulated his views on the urgent need for government reparations for Britain's involvement in transatlantic slavery: "I think they need to engage with CARICOM, and the first thing they need to do is actually sit down and meet with them, and then they need to apologise, and that apology needs to be heartfelt, and it needs to recognise the wound that was created. And I think they then need to also talk to the diaspora in the UK, and ideally they'd also be talking to the African Union, and also, of course, all the Commonwealth countries that are asking for this."

He continued: "The government is a massive organization, obviously, and it's a very poignant and significant act for it to make an apology, as we did, but I would argue that make an apology they must, because for too long, the Senate, the descendants of the enslaved, have been ignored. They've been calling for justice. They've been treated appallingly, and I think the government need to start to talk to them. Now, one of the really important things to us to establish here is that reparations don't automatically equal money. It starts with an apology. It starts with a recognition that a wound was caused, and the responsibility lies with the government and the Royal Family, particularly because they are the organisations that sanctioned so much of this.

He also highlighted the potential repercussions for the monarchy and the government if these calls are ignored: " I think there is a great danger of the government alienating them if they don't engage, through this properly. I saw some figures that 60% of this country believe that we should engage in some kind of reparative justice, and that, I think, is probably on the low side. I think if you really talk to people about what should be done, I think there is a majority of people who believe this, and I think the government is really in danger."

Later in the episode, Dower shared insights on the initiatives undertaken by Heirs of Slavery regarding reparations: "We offered, at the time, £100,000, which we would, which we essentially said to the Grenadian government, what, what would you like to do with this? And we've subsequently set up a charity called the Grenada Education Charity, which is funding programs, education programs in Grenada "