All strate­gies with­out struc­ture or prop­er ex­e­cu­tion will even­tu­al­ly fail but the brave will fall but nev­er yield.

Mur­der and tor­ture. The bru­tal­i­ty of the Mid­dle Pas­sage from West Africa to the Caribbean. In­hu­man­i­ty and wealth ex­trac­tion, drown­ing in blood - the long shad­ow of British Slav­ery and Colo­nial­ism have been the foun­da­tion on which un­der­de­vel­op­ment and per­sis­tent pover­ty have tak­en place in the Caribbean. A con­se­quence of cen­turies of crimes against hu­man­i­ty car­ried out by Eu­ro­pean colo­nial pow­ers on en­slaved and in­den­tured labour.

The lega­cy of Colo­nial era at­ti­tudes lingers in to­day's world. Na­tive geno­cide, racism, en­slave­ment, in­den­ture­ship and ex­ploita­tion were char­ac­ter­is­tics of the British Em­pire.

In the hey­day of im­pe­ri­al­ism and at the height of Britain's im­pe­r­i­al pow­er the British were mer­ci­less. It's a mat­ter of his­tor­i­cal record, the hor­ren­dous im­pact be­tween 1880 - 1920 of British Colo­nial poli­cies in In­dia. There were three mil­lion in­dige­nous peo­ple when the new world was dis­cov­ered.

As glob­al dis­cus­sions take on a sense of ur­gency in re­spect of the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals 2030. There is deep con­cern about the lack of po­lit­i­cal will to achieve the 17 goals. COVID-19, the Cli­mate change cri­sis, the war in Ukraine, the bank­ing cri­sis - The world is in tur­moil. Ques­tions have arisen about the mod­el for small states in the world of change, so­cial, eco­nom­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion.

Can sport con­tribute to a new mod­el of so­cial in­clu­sion and world or­der? Is there a role for sport as a way to im­prove or­di­nary peo­ple's qual­i­ty of life? Is there a path for sport as an es­sen­tial as­pect of so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in a new so­cial con­struct? These are rel­e­vant ques­tions mod­ern world sports lead­ers must now con­front. How can small is­land states' sports lead­ers make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence? What is the vi­sion giv­en the re­al­i­ty of mod­ern-day chal­lenges and is­sues that have a neg­a­tive im­pact? Will sport play its part in the im­por­tant con­ver­sa­tions to find so­lu­tions for some of the world's most ur­gent and press­ing is­sues?

The is­sue of repar­a­tive and restora­tive jus­tice must be con­front­ed now.

An im­por­tant step the Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion (CGF) must take is to es­tab­lish a Repa­ra­tions Fund to as­sist with fund­ing for the de­vel­op­ment of Com­mon­wealth Sport in the Caribbean.

In 1911, the "Fes­ti­val of Em­pire" com­pe­ti­tion was arranged to cel­e­brate the Coro­na­tion of King George V. In Oc­to­ber 1891, John Ast­ley Coop­er sug­gest­ed a fes­ti­val to fos­ter good­will and un­der­stand­ing in the British Em­pire. From 1930 to 1950, the Games were called the British Em­pire Games. The name was changed to the British Em­pire and Com­mon­wealth Games, un­til 1962. From 1966 to 1974 it was the British Com­mon­wealth Games. In 1978, the Games was re­brand­ed as Com­mon­wealth Games.

The Com­mon­wealth is a re­la­tion­ship be­tween Britain and her for­mer colonies. The Com­mon­wealth Games is a sym­bol and lega­cy of British Em­pire Colo­nial­ism.

The Com­mon­wealth Games sport-wash­ing his­to­ry can­not be changed and the crimes of the British Em­pire can­not be erased. How­ev­er, the al­ba­tross of de­lib­er­ate ig­no­rance can­not con­tin­ue to be passed on to fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. It's not about his­tor­i­cal hate, anger or lost op­por­tu­ni­ty. It's about build­ing a bet­ter fu­ture, heal­ing and mov­ing for­ward by un­der­stand­ing the past and how we must re­shape the fu­ture. It's about break­ing down the colo­nial and west­ern im­pe­ri­al­ist lega­cy of racism.

The CGF can't hide, erase or rewrite its his­to­ry it must, how­ev­er, face up to and ac­cept the truth and re­al­i­ty of its his­to­ry and use it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fos­ter growth, de­vel­op­ment, un­der­stand­ing, re­silience, non-racism, in­clu­sion and di­ver­si­ty and to pro­mote a fair, just, safe and sus­tain­able fu­ture for every­one in­volved in the Com­mon­wealth sports move­ment.

Sport is a uni­ver­sal lan­guage that can as­sist the Com­mon­wealth of Na­tions to un­pack and un­bur­den the lega­cies of slav­ery, im­pe­ri­al­ism, colo­nial­ism and em­pire. Will the CGF an­swer the call?

Ed­i­tor’s Note: The views ex­pressed by the writer aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly those of any or­gan­i­sa­tion that he may be as­so­ci­at­ed with.