I would love to respond, but unfortunately, you don't matter. You are blinded by a lack of real-world experience. You know nothing except the walls of your insular world. And you are on the losing side of history. You are weak; and conquered with absolute ease. Good day.

rory. I didn't say I was suffering. Let's not mischaracterise. I think that you are missing the link between the oppressive nexus of colonial symbolism, self-hatred and crime, violence and all of the things you speak of. Can a society built on slavery, colonialism, rape, murder and all of these other other wrongs possibly be anything but barbaric and amoral? The British were immoral in colonising our ancestors; and you are comparing this to littering? Well monkey doo. What you are woefully missing is that we actually need reparations and the discussion around it, in order to verbalise some of these historically rooted sources of anger and mistrust. That is why I am so happy to see persons such as yourself spewing, er I mean expressing, your quite racially charged rhetoric. We need to get all these nanny ideologies out into the open so that they can be flushed down the toilet.

OK. America, which is definitiely not a white country, has gone to war in the name of million of its citizens who disagree vehemently. In a democracy, the majority says what goes. Self-identified white people are a minority of the Bahamas, about 10-15% (and most of them are not truly 'white'). So, you can have your say, but you are outnumbered. No-one has to ask your permission for anything. Being White is not itself a qualification, you know? It just means that you lack melanin point blank, and tells us about your ancestors. It is not a privelege or leverage. It is just a colour.

you know, its not about the money. Its about saying that what happened was wrong. We have really ignorant people who think Britain did us a favour by kidnapping us from Africa. We need it to be said, strongly, that that is incorrect. That millions of Africans and their descendents were wronged. WE need to know this because it is the only way we can heal, or 'repair' (hence reparations') from slavery, all of us black and white. I see this as a way to move forward together.

1. the Jews said 'never again' after they got a hefty reparations pay-out.
2. the beginning of the end of economic and mental slavery is understanding your human rights and entitlements therin

'When one thinks of all that Britain, for example, has given to help uplift our people to the level of statehood, maybe Britain should be sending us a reparation bill.'

This is an outrageously offensive statement, (and indeed the whole tone of this article is totally offensive to the majority of Bahamians who are of African descent.

Britain did nothing to lift us to statehood. I repeat. We owe Great Britain nothing. Before she set sail on the high seas to brutalise unsuspecting indigenous peoples the world over, African civilisations were self-sustaining entities that needed nothing from Britain or any other European nation. She built her palaces from the blood of our ancestors.

A little secret about the world is that the so-called 'first world' nations are constructed on the premise of inequality and exploitation. Historically, this has included slavery, servitude, colonialism etc. In other words, they MUST exploit cheap or free labour in order to sustain the high standard of living in their own countries. Dr Walter Rodney has called this the European 'underdevelopment' of Africa.

I wholeheartedly agree that the Bahamas and Caricom should request, no DEMAND, reparations from Britain, firstly because Britain got rich off of our backs (not just here in the Bahamas but all over the world). Yes, slavery happened a long time ago, but colonialism only just ended; some say it never ended. Slavery has happened and still is happening all over the world, but wherever it is, it is wrong and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

All in all, what Europe has done for the last 500 years is wrong, barbaric, and primitive. There is no delicate way to characterise what has transpired and it is beyond ignorant and cynical to deny the obvious facts of history. As a 31 year old woman, a 'new Bahamian, I still have to deal with ugly legacy of colonialism: it is disgraceful that I must drive on a road called 'Prince Charles' or look at the big Queen Victoria in front of Parliament. It is a grotesque affront; after so much suffering, the Bahamian people deserve at least to be spared the daily engagement with oppressive symbolism leftover from the colonial period. Its presence is impeding our development.

We need Europe to pay for what they have done because people like the author of this article still believe the utter and filthy fallacy that Europe has somehow 'civilised the savages'. Making them pay will help future generations to know that the European savagery displayed for centuries is unacceptable behaviour.

reparations for caribbean nations now!!

...not to mention that the Bahamas was a colony within my lifetime, and my parents existed as second class citizens for most of their lives. Britain took their right to equality away- that was only 50 years ago. It is a myth that slavery ended in 1834.

no, I wasn't born a slave. But, I do not know the language of my ancestors. I have lost my original name. I do not know where to go in Africa to meet my relatives. We lost a great deal during slavery, in the course of erecting magnificent European states. We can't erase the past now but those European states need to compensate me for what they stole from my ancestors (and by extension, what they stole from me). Plus interest.

losin dat focus again. lol. people who are enslaved have every right under the law to sue their enslaver. this point is not in dispute; but what you appear to be disputing is that a particular group, ie Africans, should also be able to sue.

Wow really surprised at the level of racism displayed here, not cool. Black people were 'taken care of' for 300 years? Well by damn what did Africans do without Europeans for the thousands of years before the cultures met? Lol. Third world people are 'dumb'? Come on man, we can do better than that.

Let's focus: The fact is that Europe was built on slave labour in the Caribbean. Africa was not built on this labour actually it was depopulated and underdeveloped by slavery, hence current low population density and widespread poverty- therefore there are no African states to sue. When slavery was abolished, the slave OWNERS were compensated- that was wrong. Reparations are not about hand-outs, its about justice. It says that Africans are equal beings and that it was wrong to treat them like animals. It says that the blood of the ancestors mattered. But, it can't stop at reparations; what is needed is a complete re-make of the global system.