I don’t think anyone in their right mind would deny the barbarity of slavery: the notion that one group of people has a right to rule over and force another group of people to work for them, based simply upon the colour of their skin or anything else, is simply repugnant. The thing is, slavery was ended two centuries ago, so the nagging issue I have now that there’s talk of apologies and reparations in the air is, why now? Why should the current generation be held accountable for the crimes and misdeeds of the generations which came before it? Why should the UK need to pay reparations to countries in the Caribbean at this precise moment, simply because they were previously home to enslaved people? I think I have said here before that I have a problem with the idea that trauma or grievance can somehow be inherited. And what’s stopping people in twenty or fifty years time making the same appeal again? Thus, as much as I know that this issue is a bit of a political minefield, I can’t help thinking the crimes of the past are being exploited by countries currently in need of money; and that people in the UK are now being asked to pay for crimes which we played no part in. Even if such reparations were more figurative than monitory, why should people today be made to feel guilty for crimes which we played no part in, apologising to people who were never themselves slaves?