Our grievance is legitimate. Our memory is necessary. Our demand for justice is neither begging nor charity; CARICOM itself frames reparatory justice in terms of recognition, accountability and transformation. But beyond grievance lies a nobler embraceable possibility. Let Britain atone — not by paying backwards, but by helping the Caribbean move forwards.

This is not an argument for indiscriminate punishment of contemporary Britons. Quite the contrary. It is an invitation to British institutions to investigate themselves honestly, and the documentary ground for doing so is unusually solid. Legitimate standing to negotiate reparations should belong to the injured and their descendants, not to intermediaries who have discovered a profitable enthusiasm for ancestry, rural Jamaican-accented vocabulary and darker complexions. Ima

Why, despite decades of policy recognition, legislation, licensing and official declarations, does the ordinary Jamaican still experience beach access as a contested privilege rather than an unquestioned component of citizenship? That question cannot be answered by blaming one hotel. Nor should it be reduced to a crude argument against tourism or private investment. Jamaica needs tourism. But JM does not need a tourism model in which the profitable natural asset is progre