Mahogany CoConut Blog

One Caribbean Nation. The Chains That Never Rusted WHAT ARE WE CELEBRATING EMANCIPATION FROM AND WHY IT MATTERS IN 2026?  by Professor Justin Robinson It began with smoke. Our journey to Emancipation began with the journey to slavery by our ancestors. Their journey to slavery in the Caribbean typically began with the smoke of their village afire. Maybe they were engaging in some everyday activity like grinding millet. Maybe they were braiding a sister's hair, or teaching a son to track the river's current, when they saw the smoke. The slave raiders often came at dawn or some other vulnerable time, when they knew people were relaxed and exposed. Some people fought back, some were even able to run away, but many were herded like cattle through the brush, iron collars already around their necks and the chains attached. As they were marched, still in shock, it did not cross their minds that their lives had changed forever, that they would never see their land or ancestors' gr...

One Caribbean Nation. Diaspora Voices Pofessor Justin Robinson Prof. C. Justin Robinson is a national of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, He obtained his PhD in Finance from the University of Manchester, UK. A Professor of Corporate Finance, he is currently Pro Vice Chancellor and Campus Principal, University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus. Professor Robinson also serves as a Director of the Central Bank of Barbados, Member of the Fiscal Responsibility Mechanism, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Director Jamaica Money Market Brokers International and Director WIBISCO.  He also serves as Chair of the Ratings Committee of CARICRIS (the Caribbean’s sole credit rating agency), and President of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. The 2026 Fifa World Cup has ignited animated conversations about race and skin color. Consider Vinícius Júnior, Champions League winner, global icon, a talent commanding the attention of millions. Yet match after match, stadium after stadium, ...

One Caribbean Nation. Sir Ronald Sanders The vulgarity of asking the enslaved to pay Sir Roland Sanders (The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of this publication.) Suella Braverman is a former Conservative Party British government minister who turned coat and is now a vocal member of the far‐right political party, reform. She is the child of Indian parents from Mauritius and Kenya, yet, like many other ultra‐ambitious British politicians, she has consistently distinguished herself by remarks that are unhelpful to immigrants and to developing countries. Her latest claim is that Britain's former colonies should pay reparations to Britain. It is a claim that is historically illiterate, morally offensive and politically revealing. It takes some nerve, in the year 2026, for a British politician to look at the Caribbean's renewed call for reparations for slavery and conclude that the obligation runs in reve...

One Caribbean Nation. UN slavery resolution hailed as reparations campaign watershed By Ricardo Roberts Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong has hailed a United Nations resolution describing the transatlantic slave trade as a "grievous crime against humanity" as a landmark victory for the global quest for reparatory justice, saying it cements the Caribbean's case for reparations on firm legal and historical ground. The resolution, passed by 123 member nations on Wednesday, calls for the return of stolen cultural artefacts, the establishment of a global reparations fund, and increased public education through agencies such as UNESCO. The United States joined with Israel and Argentina to vote against the resolution while 52 other countries, including all of Europe's former colonial powers that captured and enslaved millions of Africans, abstained. In an exclusive interview with Barbados TODAY, Amb Comissiong emphasised that while the journey began in earnest at the ...

One Caribbean Nation. The new pirates of the Caribbean Today’s Editorial The seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker by US President Donald Trump’s administration and the accompanying threats of ground attacks, are ominous signs of a return to a dark era of the Caribbean and Latin America thought long behind us. This latest act of intimidation and outright piracy revives the heavy hand of the United States’ late 19th- and early 20th-century foreign policy, the age of gunboat diplomacy, military occupations, and the casual violation of sovereignty in the name of hemispheric “stability.” This escalation bears chilling resemblance to the early 20th century’s Caribbean interventions, when Marines landed in Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic under the flimsy banner of protecting US interests. Then as now, high-minded talk of “security” masked simpler motives: the control of trade routes, natural resources (this time, oil and gas in the world’s largest reserve), and regime change. Tod...