Every year on July 31, on the site of an 18th-century coffee plantation in the Jamaican village of Woodside, there is a reenactment of Emancipation Day in 1838 when the slaves were freed by Royal Proclamation.
People perform a memorial play, cite the proclamation and debate its meaning. The characters ask, "why should God save the queen and not the people?” and "How come there was no apology for our enslavement?”
That is the dark legacy of the British empire, but there are brighter sides too.