BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.

Subject: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:05 AM

Tony Blair has condemned Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade as a 'crime against humanity' and expressing 'deep sorrow' that it ever happened and is seeking to distance himself from the actions of the British Empire, nearly 200 years after the 1807 legislation that led to slavery's abolition.

The importance of this challenges the deniers who don't admit that the British Empire caused so much social, physical and psychological damage. Britain will now back a United Nations resolution by Caribbean countries to honour those who died at the hands of international slave traders.

Estimates vary that between 10 and 28 million Africans were sent to the Americas and sold into slavery between 1450 and the early 19th century. By then Britain was the dominant trader, transporting more than 300,000 slaves a year in shackles on disease-ridden boats.

John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, is said to be the influence behind Tony Blairs decision along with anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:23 AM

I do not think that Mr Wilberforce exerted much pressure on Blair

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:30 AM

Interesting point made by Labi Sifre (Remember him?) on the radio yesterday. He reckons the apology, while appreciated, is not really enough. He explained the difference between culpable and responsible. To be responsible for a crime you need to have commited it, to be culpable you need to be benefiting from it. While no-one today is responsible for these crimes against humanity an awful lot of people are culpable. To be still benefiting from the profits of the slave trade is wrong and a huge portion of those profits need to go to the poorer nations who suffered most to assuage that culpability.

I think it would be a difficult task to put an exact value on it but all those companies and corporations (think some of the shipping lines and tobacco companies for a start) who were founded on the money from this evil trade need to review how much of their sucess is attributable to monet raised from crimes committed. No-one else can get away with that.

Food for thought? Incidentaly, Mr Sifre did point out his particular dichotomy - He is of African descent but still benefits from this money by living in the UK.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:31 AM

Monet = Money (French impressionist version...)

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:39 AM

Britain deserves a little credit for being the very first nation to outlaw slavery, and for using its navy to forcibly end the transatlantic trade.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:39 AM

Of course we are daily awaiting an apology and generous compensation from the UK government to compensate us for the highland clearances.
The houses burnt and destroyed will be rebuilt, and restored along with their land, to the original owners and tenants, while the owners of the large estates will either be forced to live on them all the year round, or the estate will be confiscated and given to their tenants free of charge.
The highland clearances caused so much social, physical and psychological damage, along with an anti English sentiment among the native Scots population.
This righting of past wrongs will of course immediately restore the Scots love of the English, and all previous slights, and insults like using us as guinea pigs for the Poll Tax will be totally forgotten!


I thought that I'd throw this in while we were in the mood for rewriting history!

Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:44 AM

I thought it was the (Scottish) Clan chiefs and lairds that did that?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:46 AM

Sorry.
"John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, is said to be the influence behind Tony Blairs decision along with Hull Hertiage recalling anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce".

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:52 AM

Amongst others Keith, the Duke of Sutherland one of the worst offenders was also Duke of Bridgewater, and Marquess of Stafford. Many of the landowners were then, as they are today, non Scots absentee landlords, who employed factors to run their estates.

G.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:56 AM

Thanks Giok.
Many were thrown off the land in England too.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 09:13 AM

I've said it on other threads. I'm sure I'll repeat it again. England was Britains first colony. We suffered as much from imperialism as much as anyone else. Only for longer!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 09:15 AM

Yes, England did much to abolish the slave trade.

Of course, after the ban there were a number of British businessmen who, while not engaging in such a trade directly, were silent partners and underwriters for those who WERE still active. And let's not forget good ol' Cecil Rhodes...English to the core, and an SOB of the first water. Ranks right up there with Leopold of Belgium in his care for Africans.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 09:24 AM

The recompense isn't owed for the past suffering, but for the present deprivation and inequality that has its roots in that past suffering.

Horrible things have happened throughout history, but slavery has consequences far beyond the suffering it caused at the time. The Atlantic Slave Trade had a devastating effect on Africa, and on the descendents of slaves, which continues to this day, and it played a significant part in generating the capital that generated the Industrial Revolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Grab
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 09:30 AM

Labi Sifre doesn't also mention that Britain jacked it in and then spent the better part of a century hunting down slave ships (often American) until the slave trade ceased?

Nor that the European angle on the slave trade was just part of a huge network of African slavers - by Africans, for Africans, on Africans? Certainly the Europeans were the major "consumers" on the West coast, but there was a shitload of slavery going on between tribes across the continent, and trading slaves to the Middle East.

I'm not a denier in any shape or form. Slave transports rank alongside the Irish Famine as one of the most dreadful things that Britain was responsible for. But it's long past, so what would "compensation" accomplish? None of those who suffered are alive today. So who gets paid?

The various West African countries whose people were taken? But those countries haven't suffered from slavery. They've certainly suffered from dictators, propped up by imperialism from first the UK, Belgium, France and Germany, and then from the US and USSR. And from a lack of investment brought by civil wars and violence, which has led to underinvestment, low education and corruption. Slavery isn't the cause of their problems.

Or the Caribbean countries where they were shipped to, where British firms ran colonies, and whose descendants still live there? Probably the closest fit. But Britain also invested in schools and government setup in these countries before independence, with the result that I've read reports of Jamaican kids getting better schooling than kids in Britain. France (the other main colonist) OTOH didn't put anything into infrastructure, so for those countries, see "West Africa" for dictators, etc, and add drug cartels.

Or should Britain give the money to the US itself, to be channelled to Afro-American causes? But the US fought a civil war to remove slavery, in which many thousands of whites died so that blacks could be free. And even them, Jim Crow and subsequent oppression by whites kept the inequality going. The primary cause of black Americans' suffering is not the British who transported them, but the white Americans who oppressed them after transportation.

And then there's the question of who does the paying. It's pretty obvious that there's no shipping lines running sailing ships any more. Of the zillion ships of the time, how are you going to tell how much of existing shipping lines' current funds would have come from that? Especially given that most shipping lines went defunct long after slavery was abolished, so it's clearly continued good management and not slave-related funds which have influenced the survival of shipping companies.

In the same vein, it'd also be nice if mining companies paid out to the descendants of miners (not slaves, but unable to leave their jobs) who never reached more than 40 years old due to black lung, coal/fire-damp or simply the dangers of the job. Or clothing companies to the descendants of hatmakers who died from mercury poisoning. Or any country to the soldiers and civilians killed in the various wars across Europe to decide which bunch of murdering bastards got to rule us, or (like WWI) just because some silly bastards wouldn't back down. It ain't ever going to happen though.

At some point, we have to say that life back then was, to use the famous phrase, "nasty, brutish and short". Mostly it ain't so now and we know better, which is why Western countries (the countries themselves and private citizens) pump a ton of aid into Africa and other impoverished nations. We could then get into the problems of the World Bank stifling African development, but that's irrelevant to the slavery issue.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 10:00 AM

Exploitation and despoliation of Africa didn't stop when the slave trade ended, and its consequences haven't ever stopped.

Thinking in terms of compensation in a legalistic sense, with payments to individual descendants and so forth isn't the way to look at it. The point is, we are as a society a lot wealthier what we would have been because of slavery and the rest; and the countries if Africa and elsewhere are a lot poorer than they would have been.

We owe it to ourselves to do what we can to make good the damage and restore the balance.

Once again, it's not the suffering imposed then that should be the issue - it's the consequences of that suffering which continue to this day, in the form of poverty, wealth and inequality.

Yes, and there are past events in our own countries that impose the same kind of moral logic. For example there is a particular debt owed to mining communities which have lost their reason to exist, so that whole populations are stranded in wastelands.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 10:15 AM

At the time of the slave trade, coal miners in Scotland were also legally slaves- the only caveat being that they could not be forcibly moved to another colliery by their owners.

Industrial and agricultural workers in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales were not slaves, oh no- but the choice was starve or work for what you're given. Driven from independence by enclosure and mechanisation, our g-g-g-grandparents had little or no benefit from the capital squeezed out of the bodies of Africans. The prosperity we have was wrung out of the exploiters by the brave actions of our parents and grandparents in their trades unions, helped by the rulers' fear of the rival economic model of Socialism.

So should the descendants of people who were exploited by the merchant pirates of England, Scotland, the American Colonies, Spain, France, Portugal, Holland etc. be expected to compensate other victims of the same thieves?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 10:24 AM

Solidarity of the descendants of slaves would suggest that they should indeed wish to do so, wherever they live.

Rather in the same way that, when there are appeals for famine relief elsewhere in the world, people in Ireland, descendants of those who suffered in the Famines, have been notoriously ready to dip into their pockets.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 10:30 AM

We are all Guilty.
Now, Mr/Ms Busybody activist person, please tell us what we're supposed to be guilty about this week, so you can feel superior.

What a load of utter rubbish. Slavery was terrible. So was the highland cleareances. So was every war going, etc, etc. There is no point in apolgising for things outside of living memory.

If the prime minister wanted to do something meaningful to apologise for suffering we have caused, then he'd do something about the agricultural subsidies in the West, which cause endless poverty and hunger, or make schools in africa free, or a dozen other things. But those would take real action, and money. Blair is only good at pointless platitudes, and starting wars.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 11:16 AM

Apparantly the payments of interest from loans to poorer nations is many times higher than the aid we send so we are in a profit situation. This could, not saying does, but could, stem directly from maltreatment of those poorer nations all those years ago. Agree about the compensation - no point in paying any - but should we really still be profiting from British and European imperialism and slave trading? I don't know the answer - Just asking the question.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 11:27 AM

African debts
G

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: jeffp
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 11:32 AM

Got any information on what actually happened at those meetings 17 months ago?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 11:51 AM

Putting money where your mouth is requires that you do put your mouth in the first place. If the money isn't forthcoming, the mouthing was meaningless.

Abolishing debt burdens on poor people is an obvious duty in itself, as an aspect of common humanity. Linking it to an obligation incurred through slavery, the suffering caused on the one hand and the profit unjustly acquired on the other, is justifiable in itself, and could also help in actually motivating the changes required.

Tying it to individuals on a basis of whether they could prove descent would be a blind alley. It would lead to nonsenses under which, for example, someone who was partially descended from slave-drivers and partly from slaves would be entitled to less than someone who could prove that all their ancestors at the relevant time were slaves.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 02:27 PM

Apropos of "who gained": has anyone ever visited any "Staely Home of England", perhaps administered by the National Trust, where there's any information on just how much of all that stateliness and vulgar display was financed by profits from Jamaican &c sugar plantations worked by slaves?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 02:51 PM

People are queuing up to point at the English, dont forget that the Irish were notorious slavers. A lot of history that people study is so patriotic that it is worthless.
    I am with McGrath completely: disgust at the practise of slavery should not just lead to compensation for people perceived to be descendants of slaves. It should motivate us all to attempt to remedy the defects in modern society which are the results of the horrors of the past.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 02:57 PM

Not many I would guess ABCD. I don't think they were financed mainly from the West Indies. I believe it was primarily home grown slavery of the mills and mines sort. Unless someone can show me otherwise?

I think something along the lines of McG's last post would be more in keeping. Maybe there is something along those lines that the first world can agree to?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 03:42 PM

We owe to all our ancestors a decent life for their descendants -- not because the ancestors were enslaved, exploited, killed by the droves, used and discarded as miners, raped, burned or boiled alive, or whatever, but because to do any less would be less than what it truly means to be human.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: lady penelope
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 04:26 PM

I'm with Rapaire.

The past histories and, indeed many of the current situations, of people and countries in the 'third world' are dreadful. I think the emphasis should be on what the 'west' is now doing to these countries (the IMF, for example, is a major force for evil in this) and what we, as human beings should do for other human beings, because they are in need.

Blamestorming is a pointless activity and produces nothing of any value what so ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 04:32 PM

Apologies are irrelevant, meaningless and self-indulgent. I am not going to apologise for starting the slave-trade, nether do I expect a medal for trying to stop it. I wasn't there, on either occsion. But it would be nice to have a think about what we could all do tomorrow that might be useful.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 04:38 PM

greg stephens "the Irish were notorious slavers" ?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 04:57 PM

The idea of apologies and compensation for actions of our ancestors is complete nonsense, as I think some who posted above try to point out.
We should all apologise for killing off the Neanderthals, erect expensive memorials, and focus science on reconstituting Neanderthals so that we can pay them restitution.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Les from Hull
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 05:05 PM

GUEST - how did Saint Patrick arrive in Ireland?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 05:17 PM

Apologies by themselves are forms of words. But they can be important when they lead on to action.

If an apology for what our predecessors did helps us in doing what we can today for people who are to in many cases still suffering as a consequence of these crimes, that is a justification in itself for the symbolic act of making that apology.

It is good for us to learn about what has been done by people who are part of our history. It is a warning, and a reminder that we have to be on the alert for the same kind of inhumanity breaking through in another form in modern society - as has happened only a few years ago in countries in Europe, in Latin America, in Africa and in Asia.

In addition, an apology has a significant benefit that tends to be negkedted - it enables the recipients of help to recognise it as the payment of a debt of honour, and not as a handout which threatens to turn them in to beggars. And it is a promise that things have changed.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 05:36 PM

The Irish were notorious slavers in the 3rd century they were into using hoovercrafts at the time, although I think St Patrick arrived by Easy-Jet.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST,MarkS
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 05:40 PM

Might I mention that slavery is still ongoing today in some Islamic countries? Perhaps the western nations encouraging present slavers to end this barbaric practice would go a long way to bringing humanitarian progress to the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 05:40 PM

A "hoovercraft" travels by sucking up, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 05:44 PM

There was a lady on BBC TV yesterday morning, shouting about this very subject... she had no argument when the presenter asked her what compensation she was requesting from her African brethren who sold their own people into slavery. She was so busy declaiming the 'white' slavers, she couldn't accept that there were slave traders of all races.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 06:27 PM

Since what is now the US was actually colonies of England when the slave trade was started, shouldn't the US be compensated by England because England got the US "hooked" on the slave trade?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: jacqui.c
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 06:35 PM

But how far back are we going with this? Can the English claim compensation from the French for the fact that the Normans effectively enslaved the English back in 1066? What about the 'damage' bought about by the Romans in their conquests?

I believe that slavers used to raid Cornish villages and sell the people into slavery in North Africa. Has there ever been any apology for that?

I think that our lords and masters would be better occupied putting an end to abominations like the genocide in Darfur than in making mealy mouthed apologies just to make themselves look good in the history books.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 06:48 PM

If it helps them in providing help where it in needed, and in making it easier for people who need that help to get it, and it makes us more aware of the terrible this people like us were doing not long ago, it's well worth doing.

If it's just words it's hypocrisy. But it can and shouldhelp in doing all those things.

Once again, the focus shouldn't be on the suffering in the past, but on the consequences of that in the present. That's where it differs from the kind of historical injustices that jacqui pointed to there. The consequences of those have worked themselves out, in a way that hasn't been true of the Atlantic Slave Trade. It's analogous in that way to the Holocaust - people are still suffering today because of what happened then.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 06:51 PM

f it helps them in providing help where it in needed, and in making it easier for people who need that help to accept it, and it makes us more aware of the terrible things people like us were doing not so long ago, it's well worth doing.

If it's just words it's hypocrisy. But it can and should help in doing all those things.

Once again, the focus shouldn't be on the suffering in the past, but on the consequences of that in the present. That's where it differs from the kind of historical injustices that jacqui pointed to there. The consequences of those have worked themselves out, in a way that hasn't been true of the Atlantic Slave Trade. It's analogous in that way to the Holocaust - people are still suffering today because of what happened then.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: dianavan
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 08:27 PM

Its so easy to be sorry for something that somebody else did in the past. Empty platitudes are without teeth but usually get alot of air time.

How about doing something about the slavery that exists today? I'm sure Britain benefits from all those tiny fingers that weave the lavish carpets from India. Do the British refrain from wearing clothes made by children in China? What about sex slaves? I'm sure Britain has a few of those, too.

Give me a large break. Apologizing for the past does not make up for the ongoing slavery today.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Nov 06 - 11:19 PM

You're dead right, dianavan. The child slaves who harvest chocolate in Africa, the child sex slaves in Thailand and elsewhere, the sex slaves of the Imperial Japanese Army in WW2, the parents who sell their daughters and sons as prostitutes.... Slavery exists today just as much as it has in the past, and we close our eyes to it just as much as our ancestors did.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST,Penguin Egg
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 03:44 AM

How can we apologise for slavery when slavery at the time, and for most of human history, was accepted as the norm. If we could resurrect an old slave trader from the past, like John Hawkins, he would wonder what the fuss was all about. He would point out that at the time no one questioned slavery, maybe not even slaves-although they probably pitied their lot- so what is the point? Europe approved of slavery without question, as did Africans and Arabs, all of whom were active in the trade. We should be wary about projecting modern views and attitudes on past generations. They don't fit. We should also be wary about this whole apology culture that is a product of white middle class people wallowing in guilt-and loving it. For them, it has a curious cathartic effect in exactly the same way some people from minority groups (I refuse to call them communities) wallow in victim status.

Instead, we should try to view history objectively, try and see events from all points of view and by the mindset of the time, and fight against injustice in the here and now.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 05:16 AM

I'm still wondering why Blair went anywhere near this whole can of worms at all. He's normally politically very astute, and won't do or say anything** unless it is popular with the country, or whatever section of his party he needs to placate today.

He must have known that for anyone who actually likes what he said would be greatly outnumbered by those wishing he'd said more, whose wanting him to do something in the here and now, and those just wishing for him to shut up and go to Tuscany for good. I'm leaving out the considerable portion of people who's opinion of him could only get worse if he married George Bush.


** Except Iraq....

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 05:39 AM

Complete and utter meaningless waffle, at best I suppose it serves as a distraction from more important matters.

Britain's shame of Slave Trade? Balanced by the measures that Britain and Britain ALONE took to erradicate that Trade. Ongoing consequences of Britains involvement in the Slave Trade - Nil, Zip, Nada.

The slave trade on the west coast of Africa, like all "good businesses" was very well documented. In all the time it was carried out, there were only ever two instances where European slavers went ashore to capture black slaves. The main source of slaves was from the tribal chiefs who sold either their own subjects or prisoners taken on raids into slavery. Without any doubt the greatest slavers in Africa were, and still are, the Arabs/Muslims, no need for them to be ashamed of anything though is there dianavan?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 05:59 AM

U till um Teribus, The man has found his voice.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST,Sapper at work; being *** about by Bletchly
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 06:10 AM

Exactly Teribus, after the anti-slavery actions initiated by Wilberforce, the UK has nothing to apologise for. Our work to stop the trade wiped the slate clean.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 08:00 AM

"Our work to stop the trade ... " YOUR work?

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: Snuffy
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 08:20 AM

Yes, OUR shameful history of slave trading in the 17th and 18th centuries, and OUR work in the nineteenth century to eradicate it not just from OUR (British) territories, but elsewhere throughout the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Britain's shame of slave trade.
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 08:34 AM

Sorry - I thought all the people involved in that unpleasantness were dead and gone. Silly me.