SHS’s Reparations Standard: From Historical Acknowledgement to Permanent Responsibility
SHS does not see reparations as one payment for something that happened in the past.
That is far too small a way of understanding responsibility.
The proposal is not:
Something happened centuries ago. Here is a cheque. Now let’s forget about it.
No.
The proposal is:
Something happened. It created consequences. Those consequences continued. Some were never acknowledged. Some were never repaired. Some developed into new consequences. The relationship remained unbalanced. Therefore, the account remains open.
And if SHS is going to propose a humanitarian standard for governance, then historical responsibility has to be included within that standard.
Especially where countries have built wealth, political power, infrastructure, institutions, international influence or other continuing advantages through histories that significantly affected other peoples and territories.
This is particularly important when looking at the United Kingdom and the countries and peoples affected by the rise and period of British colonisation.
The starting point is not guilt.
The starting point is accountability.
There is a difference.
SHS would not approach this by demanding that every person alive today personally carry the guilt of something they did not do.
That is not the point.
The point is continuity.
Countries continue.
Institutions continue.
Wealth continues.
Land continues.
Museums continue.
Archives continue.
Political structures continue.
Economic relationships continue.
Benefits can continue.
And consequences can continue.
So if a country is willing to inherit and celebrate the achievements, wealth, influence and institutions of its history, it cannot selectively disconnect itself from the responsibilities created by that same history.
You do not get to inherit the benefits and disown the account.
That is the principle.
And that is why SHS proposes that reparations must be understood as a living responsibility, not a historical transaction.
THE FIRST STEP: PUBLIC ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The first part of any serious reparational relationship is acknowledgement.
Not a vague statement.
Not a carefully constructed paragraph that says everybody regrets everything while nobody actually says what happened.
A proper public acknowledgement would need to recognise the historical faults, the historical harms, the people and countries affected, the mechanisms through which those harms occurred, the resources and value extracted, and the consequences that continued after formal colonial rule ended.
It would also need to acknowledge something that is almost always left out:
the amount of time that passed without adequate acknowledgement.
That matters.
If an injury occurred in one century and meaningful acknowledgement does not happen until another, then the years of silence are not irrelevant.
Time does not automatically become reparation.
Silence does not become reparation.
The passing of generations does not become reparation.
And forgetting does not become reparation.
The delay is part of the account.
So SHS proposes that acknowledgement itself should contain a historical timeline.
Not just:
This happened.
But:
This happened → these were the consequences → these consequences continued → this was not adequately addressed → this created further consequences → this is where the relationship stands now.
That creates accountability that can actually be followed.
THE SECOND STEP: FIND OUT HOW DEEP THE ACCOUNT ACTUALLY GOES
Nobody should pretend that the full scale of historical harm can be reduced to one simple number.
The first responsibility is to investigate.
And that investigation has to include both sides of the relationship.
The affected country or people must have a voice in establishing what was lost, what was damaged, what was taken, what changed and what remains unresolved.
Britain should tell its history.
But Britain should not be the only one telling it.
The countries affected should tell theirs too.
Because when the history is told from only one side, you can create a very polished version of an event without actually understanding its consequences.
SHS would therefore support a process of shared historical reconstruction.
The objective would be to understand the depth of the relationship.
What was Britain trying to achieve?
What was happening in the country affected?
What resources were involved?
What people were displaced?
What cultural material was removed?
What systems changed?
What economic consequences followed?
What political consequences followed?
What environmental consequences followed?
What happened after formal colonial control ended?
What consequences remained?
What consequences developed later?
What was acknowledged?
What was not acknowledged?
What was repaired?
What was never repaired?
And where evidence remains incomplete, the answer should simply be:
We do not know yet.
That is not failure.
Pretending to know when we have not investigated properly is failure.
THE RIGHT TO ASK FOR YOUR HISTORY BACK
One of SHS’s proposed principles is simple:
Countries should be able to request the return of their cultural property without unnecessary obstruction.
If artefacts, remains, archives or other culturally significant objects held in British museums are legitimately claimed by their countries or communities of origin, there should be a transparent process for establishing provenance and determining restitution.
No endless institutional holding patterns.
No manipulation.
No arbitrary obstruction.
No pretending that ownership becomes British merely because something has been sitting in a British institution for long enough.
Where rightful restitution is established, it should be returned.
And where an object cannot immediately be returned because provenance is disputed or complicated, the dispute should be investigated openly rather than hidden behind bureaucracy.
The principle is that historical material should not simply become permanently detached from the people and places from which it came.
THE COLONISERS’ MUSEUM
At the same time, there is a second principle that matters just as much:
people must not be allowed to forget.
Because the moment history disappears from collective understanding, responsibility disappears with it.
If people forget what happened, they forget why relationships are unequal.
They forget why certain countries are carrying certain consequences.
They forget how wealth and power moved.
They forget how systems were built.
They forget what happened to other people.
And eventually they start asking:
“Why are they here?”
without ever asking:
“What happened there?”
SHS therefore proposes the development of a permanent historical institution that could be known as a Colonisers’ Museum or Colonisers’ World.
Not a museum celebrating colonisation.
Not a museum designed to humiliate British people.
And not a propaganda museum.
A museum designed to tell the truth.
A place where Britain can tell its own story honestly and where the countries affected by British expansion can tell theirs within the exact same historical context.
The museum would not isolate British actions from their consequences.
It would follow the history.
Beginning with the development of the British state and then moving through its expansion, relationships, conflicts, trade, colonisation, extraction and political development.
And every time another country enters the British story, that country’s story enters the exhibition too.
Not in a separate room three corridors away.
Right beside it.
The same moment.
The same event.
The same visual context.
The same conversation.
Britain’s perspective.
The affected country’s perspective.
The evidence.
The consequences.
The human experience.
Together.
Because you do not understand the whole of something by understanding only one side of it.
You need the depth of both sides.
And this institution should remain permanently open to revision as new evidence, testimony, research and understanding emerge.
History should not be frozen.
The historical record should be alive.
BRITAIN SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO TELL ITS OWN STORY
There is another important part of this.
Accountability does not require the disappearance of the British perspective.
Quite the opposite.
British people should be able to tell their own history too.
They should be able to talk about how their society understood itself.
Why people participated.
What people believed.
What they did not know.
What they did know.
What they resisted.
What they supported.
What they benefited from.
What they lost.
What they inherited.
What they were taught.
What was hidden from them.
What was glorified.
What was normalised.
And what changed.
But telling your own story honestly does not mean being allowed to edit out the consequences for somebody else.
A truthful history can hold both.
That is precisely why the museum has to be safe enough for difficult truths to be told and strong enough that those truths cannot simply be softened away.
THIS IS NOT ONE PAYMENT
This is perhaps the most important part of the entire SHS proposal.
Reparations are not one payment for the past.
They are an accumulation of multiple forms of repayment and rebalancing for the past, the present and everything in between that affects what exists now.
That means there can be no artificial moment where a government says:
“We have paid. Therefore responsibility is finished.”
What exactly has been repaired?
That is the question.
Financial consequences may require financial reparations.
Cultural damage may require restitution.
Environmental damage may require restoration.
Educational inequality may require educational investment.
Infrastructure deficits may require infrastructure investment.
Economic imbalance may require economic restructuring.
Lost opportunities may require new opportunities.
Broken relationships may require long-term relationship building.
And historical silence may require acknowledgement and permanent remembrance.
One problem can require several forms of repair.
Several historical harms can require several different solutions.
The payment method needs to match the responsibility.
THE SHS REPARATION LEDGER
For that reason, SHS proposes a permanent Reparation Ledger for participating countries.
This would not simply be a financial ledger.
It would be a responsibility ledger.
It would record, where evidence allows:
Historical harm.
Material extraction.
Cultural loss.
Environmental impact.
Economic consequences.
Institutional consequences.
Current consequences.
Years without acknowledgement.
Reparations already delivered.
Reparations still outstanding.
Current programmes of restoration.
Outstanding areas requiring investigation.
And importantly:
what the affected country says it still needs.
The account would be updated.
Not closed.
That creates a mechanism by which responsibility can actually be measured over time.
THE YEARLY REPARATIONAL STANDARD
SHS would also introduce an annual Reparational Standard.
Every year, the relationship is assessed.
Not just:
“How much money did the government spend?”
But:
How much has actually been repaired?
Has cultural property been returned?
Has historical acknowledgement improved?
Have financial commitments been delivered?
Have projects reached the people they were intended to reach?
Have new historical findings changed the understanding of the relationship?
Have unresolved claims been investigated?
Has the economic relationship become more balanced?
Have local communities gained ownership rather than simply receiving another externally designed project?
Has the relationship improved?
What remains unresolved?
And what has gone backwards?
This creates something incredibly important:
continuity.
Because responsibility disappears very easily when it is only discussed once.
A yearly standard makes it impossible to simply have a large announcement, hold a ceremony, take photographs and then move on.
The account gets reviewed every year.
The relationship gets reviewed every year.
The responsibility gets reviewed every year.
And if the country has not repaired enough, the account remains open.
WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM?
This is where SHS proposes another uncomfortable conversation.
The answer does not have to be:
“Raise more taxes on ordinary people.”
SHS proposes looking first at money and resources currently allocated towards defence.
Because there is a historical contradiction sitting directly in front of us.
Defence exists to defend.
But historically, the machinery described as defence has also been part of military expansion, warfare and external force.
So SHS proposes asking:
What would happen if a greater proportion of today’s defence resources were redirected toward repairing the historical consequences created by the use of force?
Instead of endlessly spending on the tools of conflict, invest in the tools of repair.
Education.
Infrastructure.
Health.
Water.
Housing.
Economic capacity.
Cultural restoration.
Environmental restoration.
Research.
Technology.
Reconnection.
Peacebuilding.
Relationship building.
Actual things that heal.
And this does not mean that every defence function disappears overnight.
It means humanity should question whether resources should continue to be heavily invested in the capacity to destroy when they could be invested in the conditions that make destruction less necessary.
That is a fundamentally different use of national resources.
REPARATION SHOULD NOT BECOME ANOTHER FORM OF EXTRACTION
There is another rule that has to be built into this.
Britain cannot claim to be repairing historical extraction while designing reparations in a way that creates another extractive relationship.
That would be absurd.
If an infrastructure project is funded but the majority of the value immediately leaves the country again, what exactly has been repaired?
If a major investment is made but local communities have no meaningful ownership, what has actually changed?
If British institutions dictate what another country needs without listening to the country itself, what has actually been learned?
So SHS would favour co-designed reparations.
The country affected decides its priorities.
Local people are involved.
Local institutions are involved.
Local knowledge matters.
Local ownership matters.
The objective is not:
“Britain knows what you need.”
The objective is:
“What do you say needs repairing, and how do we help repair it properly?”
That is a completely different relationship.
FINANCIAL REPARATION
Where financial reparation is appropriate, it should not automatically mean a one-off payment.
It could mean long-term funds.
Intergenerational funds.
Infrastructure funds.
Education funds.
Restoration funds.
Economic development funds.
Research funds.
Cultural funds.
And these can operate over decades.
Because if the consequences took generations to accumulate, there is no reason to assume they can be repaired within one government budget cycle.
A government should not be allowed to say:
“We have done enough because this year’s budget is finished.”
The responsibility existed before the budget.
The responsibility remains after the budget.
CULTURAL REPARATION
Cultural repair can include:
the return of artefacts;
the return of human remains;
the return of archives;
the return of records;
digital access to collections;
support for museums in countries of origin;
funding for cultural preservation;
language preservation;
historical research;
archaeological collaboration;
and the restoration of cultural ownership.
The point is not simply to move objects physically.
It is to repair the relationship between people and their heritage.
EDUCATIONAL REPARATION
Education can become another major form of repair.
Long-term partnerships.
Scholarships.
University collaboration.
Research programmes.
Teacher training.
Scientific exchange.
Technology programmes.
Medical training.
Engineering programmes.
Joint institutions.
Shared research infrastructure.
And knowledge should move in both directions.
The relationship should not be:
Britain teaches the world.
The relationship should be:
humanity learns from humanity.
INFRASTRUCTURE REPARATION
Where material conditions have been shaped by long-term historical extraction or instability, reparations could include investment into:
hospitals;
schools;
water systems;
energy;
transport;
housing;
digital infrastructure;
agriculture;
research facilities;
universities;
and other locally determined priorities.
But again, this is not charity.
That distinction matters.
Charity says:
“We have something and we have decided to give you some.”
Reparation says:
“Something happened, consequences followed, responsibility remained unresolved, and therefore something is owed.”
Those are entirely different relationships.
ECONOMIC REBALANCING
SHS would also investigate the structure of modern economic relationships.
Because it is entirely possible to give somebody money while preserving the same relationship that keeps value flowing away from them.
That is not enough.
So reparational relationships could include:
preferential trade arrangements;
investment partnerships;
local manufacturing;
technology transfer;
skills transfer;
joint ventures;
local ownership;
long-term procurement;
and economic relationships designed so that more value remains where the work is actually being done.
The objective is not simply to inject money into another country’s economy.
It is to help create the conditions for that economy to retain and multiply its own value.
That is a fundamentally different form of repair.
ENVIRONMENTAL REPARATION
Where historical extraction damaged land, forests, waterways, agriculture, biodiversity, ecosystems or other environments, environmental restoration must be considered part of the account.
Because environmental damage does not disappear when political control ends.
The land continues.
The water continues.
The consequences continue.
So restoration can become part of the reparational obligation.
And once again, local people must determine what restoration actually means.
KNOWLEDGE REPARATION
Knowledge matters too.
Historical records.
Maps.
Archives.
Scientific collections.
Botanical collections.
Traditional knowledge.
Archaeological information.
Technological knowledge.
Cultural knowledge.
SHS would support programmes to identify knowledge that was removed, appropriated, commercialised or separated from its communities of origin.
Where appropriate, that knowledge should be restored, shared and made accessible to the communities from which it came.
And where commercial value was created from knowledge taken from particular communities, the relationship should include consideration of how those communities participate in the benefits.
Knowledge cannot simply become detached from the people who created it and then permanently reappear somewhere else as though it came from nowhere.
DIASPORA AND RETURN
There is another consequence of history that cannot be ignored:
people themselves.
Millions of people across generations have moved because of economics, politics, conflict, opportunity and historical conditions.
Reparation cannot simply mean:
“Everyone go back.”
Human beings are more complicated than that.
But SHS could create voluntary reconnection and return programmes.
Travel.
Family-history access.
Cultural reconnection.
Educational exchange.
Business investment.
Temporary return.
Permanent return.
Citizenship assistance where relevant.
Community partnerships.
And opportunities for people in the diaspora to build relationships with countries of origin without pretending that identity has only one location.
Because historical migration is itself part of the account.
BEFORE WE GO AND “SAVE” OTHER COUNTRIES
This is another principle SHS would put forward.
Before a country that has a history of harming, extracting from or destabilising other countries rushes to present itself as their saviour, it should first look at its own unresolved relationships.
Britain has to heal its own historical scars too.
Before attempting to help repair somebody else’s wounds, it needs to demonstrate that it is willing to examine the wounds connected to its own history.
Otherwise there is a risk of continuously reproducing the same relationship:
Britain decides what another country needs.
Britain controls the resources.
Britain designs the intervention.
Britain determines when the intervention is finished.
SHS does not want that.
Because that can become the old relationship with a humanitarian vocabulary placed over it.
The relationship needs to change at the foundation.
And that means looking inward first.
WHY THIS NEEDS TO BE YEARLY
Because responsibility grows when it is ignored.
Every year that passes without addressing unresolved consequences is another year in which the relationship remains incomplete.
That is why the SHS Reparational Standard would be reviewed annually.
And the measurement should not only ask:
“What did we pay this year?”
It should ask:
“What did we repair this year?”
There is a difference.
A government can spend enormous amounts of money and repair very little.
A smaller programme can sometimes create substantial change.
The objective is not expenditure.
The objective is restoration.
And if the restoration is not sufficient, then the account continues.
REPARATION AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO WAR
This is where the proposal becomes even bigger.
Because humanity has become incredibly comfortable spending resources preparing for destruction while struggling to fund restoration.
SHS wants to challenge that priority.
Money and resources should be directed toward things that make war less necessary.
Education.
Opportunity.
Infrastructure.
Economic stability.
Relationship building.
Conflict prevention.
Historical repair.
Mutual understanding.
And long-term cooperation.
Because when attention is continuously withdrawn from war and redirected towards healing, the incentives begin to change.
War becomes less attractive.
Peace becomes more productive.
Repair becomes more valuable.
Relationship becomes more valuable.
And there is a deeper principle here.
Having powerful tools and choosing not to use them destructively is a form of maturity.
The most mature actor in the room is not necessarily the one with the biggest weapon.
It may be the one that fully understands what the weapon can do and therefore chooses responsibility over destruction.
If humanity has developed tools capable of killing enormous numbers of people, then maturity should not be measured by our ability to use them.
It should be measured by our ability not to use them.
That is what responsibility looks like when power is real.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT PUNISHING BRITAIN
SHS is not proposing an endless punishment programme for British people.
That would miss the point entirely.
The objective is to establish a better relationship.
A stronger relationship.
A more honest relationship.
A relationship where history can finally be discussed without pretending that discussing it is itself the problem.
A relationship where Britain can say:
This happened.
This caused harm.
This benefited us in these ways.
These consequences continued.
These things were not repaired.
This is what we are doing now.
And where the countries affected can respond:
This is what we remember.
This is what evidence shows.
This is what remains unresolved.
This is what we need repaired.
This is what genuine partnership would look like.
That is not humiliation.
That is maturity.
AND THE ACCOUNT MUST REMAIN OPEN
This is ultimately the foundation of the proposal.
There should never be a point where historical responsibility is declared finished simply because enough political pressure has disappeared.
The account remains open.
New evidence can emerge.
New consequences can be identified.
New reparations can become appropriate.
New relationships can develop.
Progress can be measured.
Failures can be acknowledged.
And every year the standard gets revisited.
That means the UK would no longer be asked simply:
“Have you apologised?”
The question becomes:
“What have you done?”
And then:
“What remains?”
And then:
“What will happen next year?”
That is accountability.
Not performance.
Not symbolism.
Not a public-relations exercise.
Accountability.
THE SHS PRINCIPLE
The wider SHS principle is simple.
History matters because history creates the present.
The past does not remain in the past when its consequences continue living in people’s economies, cultures, institutions, relationships and opportunities.
And therefore responsibility cannot be limited to the moment when the original action occurred.
Responsibility has continuity too.
SHS would therefore propose a model in which countries can build better relationships through:
acknowledgement, investigation, restitution, financial reparation, cultural restoration, educational partnership, infrastructure investment, economic rebalancing, environmental restoration, knowledge restoration, diaspora reconnection, annual measurement and permanent accountability.
Not one payment.
Not one apology.
Not one museum.
Not one ceremony.
An entire system of repair.
Because the scales have been unbalanced for a very long time.
And the purpose is not to pretend that one day everything can be made as though nothing happened.
The purpose is to begin balancing them.
Properly.
Honestly.
Continuously.
And with enough humility to recognise that some things cannot be undone, but many things can still be repaired.
That is what SHS means by responsibility.
The account remains open until the relationship is genuinely better than it was.
And perhaps that should have been the principle all along.
Not:
“How quickly can we close the chapter?”
But:
“Have we actually repaired what the chapter created?”
Because until the answer is yes, the chapter is not closed.
Humans first.
Systems second.
History remembered.
Responsibility carried.
Relationships repaired.
The account remains open.
….
Okay, now let’s navigate the first pair of reparation plans that SHS would lead. Especially when it comes to the UK, we want to provide and create better relationships with the countries that have been affected by the rise and the period of colonization of the United Kingdom. And one of the ideas that I had was, well, firstly, obviously, public acknowledgement of historical faults, of historical harm, acknowledgement for the amount of years without any sort of acknowledgement, and the repercussions that also that would have had, the ownership towards the ways in which the system has gone by and still extracted without actually paying their dues, I guess, or rebalancing the scales, because the scales have been unbalanced ever since the colonization, and they’ve never made to be really balanced. And we need to learn the depth of both parties to understand how far that actually goes. We would keep it open for any country that wants their own artifacts sitting in British museums. They would have the right to request them back without any hold-up, without any manipulation, without any block, as it’s rightfully theirs. Probably work with some different teams to create a colonizers museum, because it’s important that people do not forget their history, and the reason why is because the moment people forget, they forget that it still has an impact and a responsibility and something to be accountable for for the now. And it also gives a chance for the British to say their own story themselves in the most honest possible, knowing that it will be a safe space. But at the same time, we have to recognize that there’s going to be a lot that comes out from that, and the people need to see the truth, need to see the back end, because if you don’t gain understanding of each part, you don’t actually engulf or cover the whole part, you know? So for that as well, we want to make sure that we intertwine it. So let’s say it’s colonizers world, colonizers museum, but throughout the history. So we will start, for example, from the beginning of the history of the United Kingdom and follow every step of the way, and at any given moment in time that another country is brought into conversation or they went to another country, then we also put and make space for that as well, right next to it. So it’s in the same context, in the same conversation, in the same visual. But what other ideas could you think of? These two are just, obviously, the most basic ones. One is for remembrance, so to create something that will cover infinity, let’s say, everything going well, and the other one is to stop the lack of accountability of a country and its inhabitants. And because no politician wants to put their face to it, I am more than happy to put the face to it, knowing that both my countries were affected by both Britain and France, and knowing that Britain and France are like pals. They’re basically the same force.
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