Caribbean Marxism. What are some general issues of Caribbean Marxism?

What were Caribbean

Marxism’s various phases, proponents and contexts? What is the status and role of Caribbean Marxism

today and into the future? Does a role for it still exist in post-modern Caribbean society?

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 Caribbean Marxism: a discussion

This essay explores Caribbean Marxism; the contributions of its proponents; its continued

relevance or lack thereof to the region and track the social, economic, cultural and political phases

of its existence thus far in the Caribbean. In life, European, Asian, American, Caribbean or

otherwise, everything is contextual and the significance of historical context can never be

underplayed. The doctrines of Marxism evolved at the height of Europe, and spurred the Russian

and German revolutions and other social upheaval and transformations of the early Twentieth

Century. To what extent then do the philosophies espoused during this epochs in these faraway

lands prove relevant for Caribbean reference and analysis? The answer to this question may lie in

the extent to which the embodiment of revolutionary Marxism is shared; that is, the extent to

which the quest to achieve universality of liberty, equality and self-determination is pursued.

Marx’s doctrine was one of dialectic materialism where, as aptly expressed by James (1947),

“these concrete revolutionary stages are the work of the great masses of the people forever

seeking the concretion of universality as the development of the productive forces creates the

objective circumstances and the subjective desires which move them.”

In so far as we are in agreement with James (1947) that “the dialectic is a theory of knowledge…it

is a theory of the nature of man” and his endless search for “some sort of completeness”, then

we accept this essentially universalising doctrine of Marxism, regardless of context. In so far as

we are in agreement with Marx himself, that the great equalizer comes when the masses (the

Proletariats) throw off the cloak of false consciousness placed on them by the ruling and dominant

elite (the Bourgeoisie) and become self-aware and political then we accept Marxism as a universal

political doctrine of any oppressed people. James also cites Hegel, who captures this universality

of man’s struggle as follows:

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 “This is the essence of the Reformation: Man is in his very nature destined to be
free”, and in his own peculiar but profound manner he sums up modern history.
“Time, since that epoch, has had no other work to do than the formal imbuing of
the world with this principle, in bringing the Reconciliation implicit into objective
and explicit realisation.”

James (Ibid) further claims that “the need for universality of the individual man is only part of the

need for universality in the world at large” and Marx in 1846 as follows:

“only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal

intercourse between men established which produces in all nations
simultaneously the phenomenon of the 'propertyless' mass (universal
competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and
finally has put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local
ones.”

How has Marxism changed its form, shape or style to suit the Caribbean? What essentially is Caribbean

Marxism? The inherent politics of the day and the struggles that face the Caribbean region whether one

hundred years ago, yesterday, or today, seem to still live their relevance in Marxism and the many

adaptations that evolved. Whether as a nation, the peoples of the Caribbean are becoming more or less

political or in Marx’s terminology more or less conscious is debatable.

Caribbean Marxism erupted out of the struggles of colonialism and oppression that plagued the region in

the colonial era as the populace became more revolutionary and rebellious of the ill-effects of colonialism

and racism imposed in many ways, by Western capitalism. Marxism offered a relevant dictum of

revolutionary change. Henry (2001) writes that,

“The historic opposition between capitalism and socialism emerged in the early phases
of European modernity. Particularly in its Marxist variant, socialism has always seen
itself as alternative to capitalism. Thus both the theory and praxis of Marxism have

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 been closely associated with popular revolutions and upsurges against the
contradictions and excesses of capitalism.”

Caribbean Marxism flourished in the wake of the fall of the Garvey movement of the 1920s giving rights

to prominent labour movements as the mass working class sought reprieve. In Trinidad and Tobago, labour

activists such as Arthur Cipriani and Tubal Butler, and Trade Union leaders such as Basdeo Panday and

A.N.R. Robinson1 all joined the working class struggle against oppression. Henry (2001) sighted George

Padmore, C.L.R. James and Eric Williams as Marxist revolutionaries at ‘the intellectual level’; to be later

followed by Frantz Fanon. Henry (Ibid) says of Fanon’s Marxism that it “is a highly original mix that

incorporates race theory, existentialism and psychoanalysis”. Caribbean Marxism offered the working

class at the time more than just revolutionary theory; it offered a possible way out. Post political

independence of the region saw a paradigm shift from anti-capitalism to an almost pro-capitalist approach

to development, as economies set themselves on the road to supposed economic growth; as was driven

by the likes of Sir Arthur Lewis. The inherited hardships and failures of a pro-capitalist regime once again

fueled new revolutionary thinking and the second phase of Caribbean Marxism in the form of Caribbean

dependency theory. It and included such Marxist thinkers as Lloyd Best, George Beckford, Norman Girvan

and Clive Thomas. “Caribbean dependency theory offers the radical critique of capitalism and advocated

a social democratic practice that focused on changing the behaviour of multi-national corporations” (Ibid).

Caribbean Dependency theories were all grounded in Conflict Theory (as initially formulated by Marx in

the 1880s) and incorporated Critical theory (as initially formulated by the Frankfurt School during the

1930s). These included such theories as Plantation Theory (Best and Levitt, 1969; Beckford, 1972),

Dependency Theory (Gunder Frank, 1972, Amin 1971, 1976, Dos Santos, 1979), Caribbean Dependency

Theories (Craig, 1995, Green, 1987), and World Systems Theory (Wallerstein, 1973, 1974).

1
Interestingly, both these men, A.N.R. Robinson and Basdeo Panday went on to become the country’s Prime
Minister.

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Dependency Theory, which embodied Marxist’s concept of capitalistic exploitation, was developed in the

late 1950s by Raul Prebisch (1950), troubled by the fact that economic growth in the advanced

industrialized countries did not necessarily lead to growth in the poorer countries. The scales of balance

where profits were concerned were tipped in favour of the advanced developed territories. So the debates

among the liberal reformers (such as Prebisch), the Marxists (such as Andre Gunder Frank), and the world

systems theorists (such as Wallerstein) continued and unearthed major points of discord but also shared

much in common. Dependency can be defined as an explanation of the economic development of a state

in terms of the external influences-political, economic, and cultural-on national development policies

(Sunkel, 1969). Dos Santos (1971) emphasizes the historical dimension of the dependency relationships in

his definition:

“[Dependency is]...an historical condition which shapes a certain structure of the world
economy such that it favors some countries to the detriment of others and limits the
development possibilities of the subordinate economics...a situation in which the
economy of a certain group of countries is conditioned by the development and
expansion of another economy, to which their own is subjected.”

Three common features of most dependency theories include (Bodenheimer, 1971):

1. Dependency comprises of two sets of states, variously described as dominant/dependent,

center/periphery or metropolitan/satellite. The dominant states are the advanced industrial

nations while the dependent states are those states of Latin America, Asia, and Africa which have

low per capita GNPs and which rely heavily on the export of a single commodity for foreign

exchange earnings.

2. External forces are of singular importance to the economic activities within the dependent states.

These external forces include multinational corporations, international commodity markets,

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 foreign assistance, communications, and any other means by which the advanced industrialized

countries can represent their economic interests abroad.

3. The relations between dominant and dependent states are dynamic because the interactions

between the two sets of states tend to not only reinforce but also intensify the unequal patterns.

Moreover, dependency is a very deep-seated historical process, rooted in the internationalization

of capitalism. Dependency is an ongoing process:

Emanating also in response to what became locally known as the ‘crisis of the Lewisian development

model’ was another phase in Caribbean Marxism which contained three variant approaches. These were

identified as:

1. The Leninist approach of Trevor Munroe of Jamaica’s Working Party and Guyana’s Cheddi Jagan of

the People’s Programme Party;

2. The Marxism of Walter Rodney and (Clive Thomas) which attempted to link the problems of class

and race in an attempt to address Indo-Caribbean issues; and

3. The Democratic socialism of Carl Stone which reverted to a more basic needs approach to the

problem of economic development.

Finally, the modern or contemporary phase of Caribbean Marxism includes the Marxist feminism of

writers such as Joycelyn Massiah (1986), Rhoda Reddock (1994), Patricia Mohammed (1998), and Paula

Aymer (1997); and the critical rethinking of the likes of Norman Girvan, Brian Meeks, Trevor Munroe, Clive

Thomas and Hilbourne Watson. What exactly did feminist theories contribute to Caribbean Marxism and

the region as a whole? Mohammed (Ibid:9) says that although feminist teaching is linked to the global

women's movement, it is important to theorise the distinctions and intersections among different

feminisms, and the ways that they ground pedagogical approaches and projects. Examining ‘specific topics

within a national context while also recognizing process, patterns, and categories that transcend the

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boundaries of the nation-state’ (Ewing, 2005:13) helps to illuminate the specific historical legacy of

Caribbean feminist academia, while also charting its dialogue with other histories, locations and politics.

Doing so enables interrogation of how discursive frames and organizational and political practices are

situated as well as how they travel (Hosein, 2008). In this sense Caribbean Marxist feminism broadened

the discourse of Marxism to include the gender dimension in exploitation and also to open itself up as a

discipline to new transformative realms of discourse.

One singular constant and a basic tenet of Marxism is that the practice of class domination is legitimated

through the commodification of labour, and from this central point there exists divergent views of

Marxism. The high level of exploitative commodification that persists in Caribbean agriculture and clothing

industries today establishes Caribbean Marxism as a discourse of relevance for contemporary Caribbean.

The neoliberal turn in Marxism serves to strengthen rather than negate the validity of Caribbean Marxism

and its relevance; however, it is the relevance of Marxist praxis which becomes more problematic as the

neoliberal turn has resulted ipso facto in the increased institutional power for advanced capitalist

societies. In this sense then, of the three variants of Caribbean Marxism identified, only democratic

socialism has a chance at survival in contemporary Caribbean. This is very much the viewpoint espoused

by Henry (2001).

Karl Marx’s (1859), Preface to “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” reads:

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations,
which are independent of their will, namely [the] relations of production appropriate to a
given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these
relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation,
on which arises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite
forms of consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general
process of social, political, and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that

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 determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their
consciousness.2

In Trinidad and Tobago, where the citizens are facing the polls in the near future the essence of political

democracy rings loud and clear on the political platforms of campaigners. To what extent are the dynamics

driven by the relations of production in society? Who are the decision-makers? From which class are they

emerging and whose stories are really being told? Are we witnessing a more conscious masses or is the

populace by and large still a falsely conscious one? To understand the profound nature of these questions

is to understand the relevance of Marxism to the region.

Caribbean scholars Morgan and Youssef (2006, 4) claim that:

‘…few among us appreciate as keenly as we might the ways in which our lives and
circumstances are constrained, not just by the societies in which we live, but by the power
structures which dominate those societies.

Marx’s (1859) dialectic informed much of contemporary social movement analysis in the Caribbean

leading many critics of the world order to center their development theory debates on issues of

dependency, unequal market forces, underdevelopment, de-centering, accumulation and exploitation of

labor. The principal concern has been with the uneven development of capitalism across time and space:

the economic enrichment of some nations and regions at the expense of others, expressed in First/Third

World, and North/South binaries. This has produced a critical structural perspective on capitalist

development, nevertheless still within an economic discourse (McMichael, 2010). Caribbean Marxism

offered ideal political and social lens of analysis during these times as the islands struggled for

independence. The Caribbean region followed on the heels of Asia and Africa in the quest for

2
Marx, Karl (1977). A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Moscow: Progress Publishers: Notes by R.
Rojas

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independence and nation state-building in a post-colonial era to join the family of nations. The

implications of this union meant ‘a superimposed monetized commerce as a stimulus and referent of

modernization, and post-colonial states harnessed populations and natural resources to the task of

economic growth as the guarantor of development (and their legitimacy).3 Rist (199:79) says of these new

states that “their rights to self-determination had been acquired in exchange for the right to self-

definition”. In so much as Marxism has been a struggle of the worker for identity and self-definition so too

has this been the struggle of a colonised masses. The oppression and repression of the Caribbean people

is indeed akin to that of Marx’s proletariat.

The maintenance of hegemony was achieved by what Althusser (1971) refers to as Ideological State

Apparatuses (ISAs) and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) in order to establish the role of institutions

in society. The education system is seen as the ISA responsible for the transmission of the doctrines and

attitudes of submission and compliance and the division of labour responsible for the maintenance of the

status quo. The perpetuation of false consciousness was transmitted via the education system. Mustapha

(2002) notes that “‘at the time of achieving independence in 1962, Trinidad and Tobago was a highly

diverse society reflecting the patterns of domination and subordination inherited from colonialism”. He

acknowledged that “Williams attempted to bring into effect a nationalist education system that would

liberate the population from the shackles of colonial domination’ and that the ‘initial expansion has

probably changed the boundaries of stratification and access to opportunity has shifted away from solely

ascriptive criteria to achievement criteria...However, the society’s inequalities are becoming

institutionalised and are beginning to follow regular patterns from generation to generation.” (Ibid:146).

3
Sugata Bose observed of the Indian state: “Instead of the being used as an instrument of development,
development became an instrument of the state’s legitimacy” (1997, p.153). Cited in McMichael, (2010: 7).

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Chambliss (1996) testifies that colonialism is a political and economic system in which people who are

technologically powerful conquer, then rule and settle in another country. Fanon (1965) says of

colonialism, that it is not just a simple invasion of physical space but also social and psychological. In this

sense then the way pre and postcolonial Caribbean societies took form allowed for similar exploitative

relations and modes of production as identified in Marxism. It was relatively simple to relate to Marxist

discourse on the economic determinism of the substructure and the almost puppet-life creation of the

superstructures. Critics of Marx’s structuralism, such as Weber (1919), proposed a more reciprocal

relationship between the sub and super structure and this also has implications for change dynamics (Scaff,

1984); and may be thought of by many as a softer theory to explain Caribbean societies. Gramsci (1971)

divided Marx’s superstructure into two elements: the political and civil society and claims that the civil

society consists of the consensus-generating elements of society; while the political refers to the police

and military. However, at the same time he says that both elements establish and enforce the value system

(Scaff, 1984). Reich (1970) talks of social ideology as an element in the base and not the superstructure

that self-perpetuates much like the economic system and his analysis of sex-economy cites sexual

repression in the patriarchal family as indicative of support for Fascism. Many theorists critique the clear

division of society that structuralism proposes and proposed differing theories to explain the region that

were more cognisant of the multi-cultural and multi-racial entities that were to make up the Caribbean

region.

Williams (1973) says the following:

“So, we have to say that when we talk of ‘the base’, we are talking of a process, and not
a state…We have to revalue ‘superstructure’ towards a related range of cultural practices,
and away from a reflected, reproduced, or specifically-dependent content. And, crucially,
we have to revalue ‘the base’ away from [the] notion [s] of [either] a fixed economic or
[a] technological abstraction, and towards the specific activities of men in real, social and

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 economic relationships, containing fundamental contradictions and variations, and,
therefore, always in a state of dynamic process.”

To what extent has colonialism created for the Caribbean structures fundamental contradictions and

variations that are always ‘always in a state of dynamic process’? Who are some of the Caribbean Marxists

who developed and spread Caribbean Marxism as a movement in the region?

Le Blanc4 says of CLR James that he “is generally acknowledged to have been one of the most original

Marxist thinkers to emerge from the Western hemisphere”, who “offered penetrating analyses on the

interrelationships of class, race and gender”, and whose ‘discussions of colonialism and anti-colonialism

could be brilliant”. Le Blanc noted that James, who lived in Europe for a large segment of his life, “also

embraced the heritage of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, the working-class and socialist

movements of Europe and North America, and the Bolshevism of Lenin and Trotsky which transformed

Russia and promised to liberate the world from all oppression.” This in many ways strengthens his right

to attribute Marxism as a Caribbean discourse or even an American one. Le Blanc goes on to say that,

"When C.L.R. James came to this country (the US) from Britain, where he was a leader of the Trotskyist

movement, he was welcomed into the Socialist Workers Party and given leadership

responsibilities.” James remained part of the Trotskyist movement until 1951, adopting the party name

‘J.R. Johnson’." Together with a handful of colleagues James later developed “an Americanized Marxism,

and an Americanized Bolshevism, that would involve a dynamic interpenetration of the U.S. and

international revolutionary traditions’. James pushed for a Negro state which he felt was the only thing

that could “shake off the state coercion and ideological domination of the American bourgeois society,

4
Cited in Le Blanc, Paul (?), The Marxism of CLR James See: www.solidarity-us.org/node/775; accessed 16 October,
2013.

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their first step may well be to demand the control, both actual and symbolical, .of their own destiny."

(Ibid).

After his return to the Caribbean in 1958 at the onset of independence during a period rife with political

expressions of upheavals and freedom; James was ready to spread his Marxist doctrine of self-

determination. James was convinced that he was at the forefront of change leading a movement for a

new ‘world society’. Grimshaw (1991) writes that the theme of the struggle between socialism and

barbarism, was the foundation of James’ life’s work.

“In the early Caribbean phase, it was implicit in his depiction of character and society
through fiction and cricket writing; later it became politically focused in his active
engagement with the tradition of revolutionary Marxism; until eventually, as a result of
his experience of the New World, it became the expansive and unifying theme by which
James approached the complexity of the modern world.”

Grimshaw (Ibid: 30) noted that James’ Beyond A Boundary “broke the existing categories which
fragmented the aesthetic experience. Its originality as a study of the game of cricket – and yet
Beyond A Boundary was neither a cricket book nor an autobiography – symbolised a new and
expanded conception of humanity as the black and formerly colonial peoples burst onto the stage
of world history”.

The period of the 50s and 60s of course were defining times in the Caribbean: Trinidad and Tobago were

struggling with their quest for independence as were many of the other islands. In Jamaica, according to

an interview with Trevor Munroe, “1968 was of course a point of almost world historical upsurge in which

students played an integral part. We even had a demonstration against the Proctors to extend democratic

rights at Oxford.” Munroe goes on to state:

“Returning home in January 1969, I found that radicalism and militancy had become more
widespread, not only in Jamaica but throughout the Caribbean. October 1968 had seen
the Rodney riots or demonstrations, as they were called - student marches and protests

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 against the banning from re-entry into Jamaica of Walter Rodney, who had been lecturing
at Mona at that time. This was one manifestation of a regional upsurge. I became one of
the editors of the newspaper, Abeng, which had been founded about that time and
included a number of radical academics like Professor George Beckford, the political
economist; Robert Hill who later became the Garvey Scholar; Horace Levy; Rupert Lewis.
So my activism was linked to the same framework as my university teaching… The 1970s
were the period of Michael Manley's government, a very important experiment in
democratic socialism which lasted until 1980, and at a certain point, I had to make a very
definite decision - whether to work mainly within the People's National Party - the social
democratic party, and government - or, alternatively, to seek to establish and develop a
Marxist-oriented formation.”5

It is evident that Marxism contributed a great deal to Caribbean thought and offered sound lens of analysis

of Caribbean society. However, as Henry (2001) writes, ‘The collapse of socialist experiments in Grenada,

Guyana, and Jamaica, as well as in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have raised serious doubts about

the viability of its praxis.’ How well has it fared in modern Caribbean society and under the onslaught of

poststructuralist and postmodernist critique? While Caribbean Marxism continued to speak of

restructuring the state, expanding global markets and while the debates concerning its relevance centered

on commodity and the significance of technology as a factor of production and further globalizing. The

poststructuralists were speaking of commodity also but in quite a different manner. Baudrillard (1988:22)

speaks of “a new humanism, the semiotic humanism of consumption,” where “the self-acting commodity,

the subject becomes the self-manipulating sign”; and poststructuralists like Foucault, Derrida and Baithes

were exploring concepts of agency and creativity of “enlightenment conceptions of the subject”.

“The subject does not make the epistemes that structure and make possible his or her
textual or knowledge production. On the contrary, it is the subject that is made by the

5
See:
www.bing.com/search?q=interview+trevor+Munroe+1968&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=interview+trevor+munroe+196
8&sc=0-23&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=014449bf64a9402b9a654af297481e7e; accessed 13 October, 2013.

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 dynamic activity of these episteme spaces…From this subtextual perspective, the self
appears radically decentred and its agency severely compromised.”

In general terms, poststructuralism’s subtextual view of the self leads to major differences with the

Marxian labour/productivist model of the self. Poststructuralist critiques can be summed up in three main

points: that of discursive totalities, specular doubling and structural complicity. Poststructuralists view all

universalistic constructions such as the Marxian notion of ‘commodified labour’ as discursively

authoritarian as it suppresses the real identities among workers and transplant them with an imposed

‘false totality’ that negates differences. Lindhal (2001) share François Lyotard’s view that,

“…these are all false totalizations, grand narratives that cannot deliver the alternatives
they promise…As opposed to being real, they are the discursive effects produced by a
masking of semiotic difference. For consciousness can only be known through some
outward expression or manifestation. Without this, it is difficult to imagine the
reinvigorating of Caribbean Socialism.”

I support Henry (2001) in his claim that poststructuralist critique offers a lot to Marxism in terms of

enriching the discourse and allowing it avenues to ‘revise and restructure itself in creative ways that James

and Fanon did’ rather than displacing its import as a grand theory. Marxism may be a grand narrative that

is guilty of ‘discursive totalities’ and ‘universals’ as accused of by the poststructuralists and postmodernists

and it may well mean ‘relocating of revolutionary activity to the domain of language’ if it is to survive in

modern society as a theory of change. Marxism however, has always been a theory of change and a

revolutionary philosophy and it has always espoused ideological change in the form of heightened

consciousness as a means of achieving social change, therefore never negating the profound effect of

culture and by its natural extension, language as expression, on ideological formations. Its survival on the

world’s modern platform may mean adaptations to the more concrete doctrines to suit the abstractions

of modern day theoretical realms but it also well be argued that Marx himself made that great ‘Hegelian

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jump’ so very long ago, that it is sometimes forgotten, only to be revived again a few decades later as a

new synthesis.

Marxists writers such as Franz Fanon take up the banner of Caribbean Marxism and fly it very high. It must

be noted that the Marxist theory is not only a theory that addresses the structural and socio-political

dimensions of society but also the cultural and the ideological; and these aspects are referenced as key

concepts in Marxist dialectic. Colonialism created a paradigm that was not only imperialistic but

Eurocentric in manner; characteristically political, economic, linguistic, social, and culturally domineering.

Frantz Fanon’s masterpiece The Wretched of the Earth (Les Damnés de la Terre, 1961), offers an amazingly

clear psychiatric and psychological account of the dehumanizing effects of colonization on the individual.

It explores the broader social, cultural, and political implications in becoming political and rising up against

the shackles of colonialism. Fanon (1961) saw post- colonial violence by the colonial subject as a means of

natural expression of an oppressed people and draws heavily on the use of language as it applied to the

clear depiction of identities of stark opposites for example, the colonizer and the colonized and the

accompanying inherent power formations and implications. Fanon’s recourse for a way out lay with the

lumpenproleteriat for unlike the urban proletariat (the working class), he found that they are not as caught

in the trappings of dominant ideology, are in possession of enough intelligence to understand their life

situation, are more exposed to its hardships, have less to lose and therefore more willing to revolt.

In conclusion, Caribbean Marxism has proven to be a very suitable framework of analysis of Caribbean

societies in so far as it has afforded the region a platform of expression for the oppression of colonialism

as an exploitative system. In so doing, it has proven to be a malleable theory that constantly changes and

refines its form to enable it to survive as a dominant doctrine in the region. The extent to which it is still

relevant today lies in that chameleonic ability. It survives because it is not locked in to the local only, but

is expansive in its scope and analysis. Kerrigan (2012) acknowledges the extent to which Marxist doctrines

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still penetrate modern day Caribbean societies in a manner that continues to retain the discourse of

unequal power dynamics in their analysis:

“This reproduction of colonial worldviews, replicates the power dynamics of colonialism

maintaining them as forms of symbolic violence and neo-colonialism well into the modern
era … It is an intrinsic part and conduit of the discursive process that relates colonialism
to capitalism – sustaining the relationship of domination and subordination.”

An article in the New York Times, read ‘Caribbean Nations to Seek Reparation: Putting Price on Damage of

Slavery.’ Caribbean nations argue that their brutal past continues, to some extent, to enslave them today.

“Our constant search and struggle for development resources is linked directly to the historical inability

of our nations to accumulate wealth from the efforts of our peoples during slavery and colonialism,” said

Baldwin Spencer, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, in July this year. Reparations, he said, must be

directed toward repairing the damage inflicted by slavery and racism. Fourteen Caribbean countries that

once sustained a slave economy now want Mr. Hague to put his money where his mouth is. Spurred by a

sense of injustice that has lingered for two centuries, the countries plan to compile an inventory of the

lasting damage they believe they suffered and then demand an apology and reparations from the former

colonial powers of Britain, France and the Netherlands (Castle, 2013).

September 2013
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