BS: Apologies over slave trade?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 02:55 AM

The Romans depended increasingly on slavery for their economic wealth. However,the slaves in Rome came from all corners of the Empire and beyond its extensive borders.
The Atlantic slave trade was different.Slavery had to be "morally"justified by the slave masters, church leaders and the politicians of the time and the justification came in the that black Africans were supposedly subhuman . Here was the justification for the modern racism which has so poisoned many.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 06:41 AM

"And did you know a trillion bucks is $1,000 per second since the birth of Jesus"

"A trillion is a 1000 billion; and at $1000 a second would only take about 31 years. Since I don't think Christ was born in 1975 that statement is a little misleading."

60 seconds per minute
60 minutes per hour
3600 seconds per hour
86400 seconds per day
31,536,000 seconds per year.
1,000,000,000,000 divided by 31,536,000 = over 31,709 years

That's one dollar a second, not 1000, FP. Oh look, 31 years....

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 07:15 AM

The quote was $1,000 but I think there is also a difference of the usage of trillion, billion and million.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:52 AM

Britain has a proud and disgraceful history of slavery. We used slavery, then we outlawed slavery and travelled the west coast of africa to the riddance of slavery.

No apologies neccessary, my father lives in rhodesia and black on black slavery is rife there.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:04 AM

The French Revolution got rid of slavery in the French Colonies. Napoleon Bonaparte actually re-introduced it!

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:45 AM

Bunnahabhain - 22 Jun 06 - 09:56 AM

"Britian ended the slave trade in British ships and colonies in 1830, and the Royal Navy kept up anti-slavery patrols off African coasts until at least the First World War. We need a similar effort now, for the good of the people involved, and the country."

I believe that Bunnahabhain referred to such actions in another thread about Dreadnoughts. Where it was cited that British Gunboat Diplomacy was worse than that of the United States as the Royal hove into sight bombarded a country overwhelmed it in half and hour added it to the Empire and then charged the local rulers for the shells expended. the incident Bunnahabain was refering to I believe was the destruction of Zanzibar as the main slave trading post on the East Coast of Africa, whose ruler after repeated warnings continued to allow the slave trade to flourish. Rather unfortunate as the populations the Slavers were plundering happened to fall under the protection of that evil British Empire. Not so many did after Zanzibar was taken out of the equation.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Kweku
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:18 AM

My grand-mother once told me how the people of Kromantse(Central Region-Ghana) were deceived into taking drinks by missionaries which later landed them in the carribeans. anyone who knows Jamaica very well should know of Kromantse(they also have a town named like that,obviously by the slaves).

The slave thing is not only about the apology, but about the fact that most Africans themselves know very little about the whole saga. if I were to demand an apology it would be from every so-called christian missionaries that steped their foot into Africa and has ultimately led to our current demise.

I demand an apology from these vampires in sheep's clothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: bobad
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:45 AM

I agree about the missionaries with you Quarcoo, as they did in Africa they also enslaved the native Americans by alienating them from their traditions and cultural beliefs, this was an enslavement of the spirit.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Kweku
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:56 AM

Jerry you a very right there. Maybe in the near future I could organise a trip for people who think slavery was a joke to come down to Cape Coast and Kumasi(armed forces meseum), and feel darkness like cloth hanging to your body. then it can be put to them if they think an apology is necessary.

most people complain about war crimes, but that can NEVER EVER be compared to the slave dungeons.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:05 AM

"Capitalism is still largely dependent on labour that is enslaved or paid poorly. "

That's a very broad statement. Paid poorly, yes. In relation to the owners of the factories and mills, it is increasingly so. But not slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: bobad
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:07 AM

Clifford Stoll refers to it as "wage indentured servitude"

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Kweku
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:15 AM

he who feels it,knows it all

I wouldn't blame a white if he doesn't understand the need for an apology for the crimes committed against Africans. After all we still learn a lot about America and Europe, otherwise the IMF would not give money to our gov't for education. How many Europeans know about the countries in Africa? I can recite the cities in Europe like a CIA agent.

In 2003, I was in Germany and my knowledge and compalin about telephone services shocked the Germans, in 2003 they still thought that we still live on trees. Also in 2002,I heard an American(white) student screaming on the pay-phone mum is not true they are not monkeys,I am calling, using one of their telephone just like what we have back home.

so he who feels it,knows it all

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:19 AM

Apologies only make sense when offered BY the offenders, or by official representatives of institutions with specific history of offensive behavior. It is not easy to determine in many cases who should 'apologize' to whom.

The Pope apologizing for treatment of (or neglect or) Jews by the church during the holocast might be appropriate, for example.

What various groups and governments and people who are direct descendants of offenders can do is express sincere 'regrets' that offenses ever happened, along with promises to be aware and work toward a world where such things never happen again.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Kweku
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:27 AM

Exactly Bill D

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:49 AM

I've mentioned this before. Britain ended her Slave Trade in 1807, thanks to the efforts (among others) of fellow Hull person, William Wilberforce.

On the subject of apologies, I feel that any apology from me would be meaningless. Neither I or nor any of my ancestors were ever involved in the Slave Trade, as far as I know. They were just poor working-class Yorkshire and Irish people. More relevant apologies could come from the descendents of the 'great families' who made their fortunes out of West India etc plantations and are still living in the huge houses that their immoral profits brought them.

But we all have a duty to learn about the evils of slavery and so apologies of this nature are helping, even just in starting a thread like this.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:50 AM

GUEST Penguin Egg said, in part:

The point I am making is that slavery was 400 years ago

Not so. Slavery is going on MANY places in the world, today. Not just "way off in Africa and Asia", but in the "Western World" (like the US, the UK, France, and elsewhere). The UN occasionally gets spastic about it, but little or nothing is done.

And yes, Mr. Hawkins's famous forbear was 400 years ago, but that was not the beginning and certainly not the end of slavery. Sir John Hawkins was a mere incident along the way.

If you care to modify your comment to "State-sanctioned slavery in Europe and the United States was ended about 150 years ago" you'd be close to right. Even then, there are governments today that claim to oppose slavery but turn a blind eye to slavery going on in their own countries.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 12:09 PM

Point well take, Bill...

That is why a larger discussion is long overdue... We need to sort thru a lot various issues, do a lot of research and be prepared to handle the apology in a manner that fits the outcome of the homework...

But sayin' merely that it is difficult as an excuse not to have this discussion is not acceptable...

And not talking about how wealth that is created by the working poor, disporportionatle black, should be divied up is unacceptable...

(BTW, the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, has fallen 42% since 1968...)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 12:17 PM

Quarcoo - Many Americans' beliefs are based on their appalling ignorance of anything outside their national boundaries. A while back in the UK we had a programme on TV in which a visiting American teenager stated that she wouldn't eat our disgusting food because "Can you believe it, they eat chipmunks for breakfast". Apart from the fact that there are no chipmunks in the UK, it's a total fallacy. And that from a member of the nation which inflicted MacDonalds and Burger King on the world.

And for the record, I don't see any point in this 'apology'. The most sincere form of apology is not to grovel in chains, it's to make sure that all slavery is ended and never happens again. Now THAT's an apology.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 05:46 PM

I've never heard that missionaries played a significant part in the African part of the Atlantic Slave trade. I could be wrong about that, but my understanding is that the people running the slave trade, both the European slavers and their African collegues, weren't interested in that kind of stuff, and that it was in the later extension of imperialism and colonialism that the role of missionaries became important.

There are two aspects to "apologies". One is that they are a way of making people today aware of some apalling things that have happened in the past of our civilisation, and of the continuing consequences of those things in the present.

And the other is that they are a way for society to accept responsibility to repair the evil consequences of that past history, insofar as it can be done, and to make use of the resources available largely as a direct result of slavery to do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 06:00 PM

Uncle Dave is right. Slavery still exists. National Geographic ran a good article on the current slave trade not too long ago. Imagine the life of a young child chained to the floor making a rug that you or I get to walk on.

By the way - my understanding is that my great-grandmother - a native American - was sold before she entered the United States. Otherwise I might have ended up a Canadian! So you don't have to be black to be the decendents of slaves.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 06:20 PM

In the 19th c. slavery practiced by the Ottomans put quite a number of white eastern Europeans on the block. Baker, the explorer who found the (one?) source of the Nile, was accompanied on his explorations by his wife, whom he had bought while on a grand tour in eastern Europe. Much later, they may have been married, but details are hard to find. The author of the book detailing their life together found representatives of Baker's family in England uncooperative.
See Richard Seymour Hall, 1980, "Lovers on the Nile, The Incredible Journeys of Sam and Florence Baker."

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,Pelrad
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:00 PM

I live in Rhode Island, where the academians are suddenly hot to correct our whitewashed history. When I was in public school 30 years ago, slavery was something that only involved the southern American states. 20 years ago it was amended and we were taught that while Newport was a port that slavers passed through on their way to the south, there was no slavery in RI. In fact, our proud little state was an important stop on the underground railroad.

That's all well and good, but the full name of our state is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations; the majority of the state was plantation fields at one point. Newport was the busiest slaving port in the country, and when Congress banned slave transport our cunning businessmen found a loophole and Bristol became the new hot slaving port. There are still historic houses with basement cells in both these towns. The truth as the academics are telling it now is that little Rhody was up to its eyeballs in both trading and owning slaves.

Recently, these academics traced the bloodline of a speech pathologist who is descended from a slave documented to have come through the Newport slave market on a ship owned by the Brown family. They invited her (the descendant) to visit the state and had a parade, week-long lecture series, and several state dinners in her honor. Seems kind of weird. Are we going to do this for the many thousand more descendants who must be out there in the world?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: dianavan
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:40 PM

Ebbie -

Are you saying that capitalism only depends on poorly paid workers but not slavery?

I think capitalism needs both.

What do you think happens to the people who are smuggled into North America? Do you think they apply for their social security card and then go to work at WalMart?

I suppose you think that prostitutes are poorly paid by their Johns and not really slaves. Have you ever heard about massage parlours and porn videos? What about child porn? Do you think that's slavery or just poorly paid kids?

Do you think the kids who work in sweatshops are slaves or poorly paid workers? Who do you think makes many of the consumer goods that we rush to purchase? Have you ever looked into the factories of Indonesia, India, China, etc.?

What about the young brides of India? Do you think they have married freely or do you think that maybe the old men that they are married to just might be using them as household slaves. Its my understanding that many of those brides are beaten to death if they don't co-operate.

In fact, in many countries, women are no more than slaves.

I am sorry to tell you, Ebbie, that slavery does exist. Take the time to read some of the posts above. You may be inspired to look a little deeper into modern day slavery instead of rushing to proclaim that I have made "a very broad statement".

Apologies made by dignitaries, many years after the fact, are meaningless. Its just another whitewash. A way to convince people that slavery only happened in the past. Kinda like those folks that keep saying "Never Again" but can't see what is happening in Darfur.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 04:07 AM

dianavan, in all likelihood I read - and comprehend - as much as you.

I never said there is no slavery - are you comfortable creating straw men? I took exception to your saying: "Capitalism is still largely dependent on labour that is enslaved or paid poorly."

If you had said that capitalism depends on workers being paid poorly - in comparison with owners- I would have agreed with you. Or at least "largely". A worker making $40 an hour, which is not uncommon, is miles away from an owner making a million a year. So yes.

Slavery is different. We read of some illegal workers being enslaved but that is NOT what most illegal workers are faced with. Long hours, yes, low pay, yes, lack of recourse, yes- but that is NOT slavery by any standard that I'm familiar with.

So I don't think you can safely say that capitalism depends "largely" on slavery in any sense.

Incidentally, since it is your usual target, I'm assuming that we are discussing conditions in the USA, not in India.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 04:28 AM

Ebbie,

$40 an hour is $ 1600 a week (40 hours) or $76,800 a year (48 weeks). If that's poorly paid, can I be poorly paid please?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 05:26 AM

Years and years ago while the "Roots" saga was being shown on TV in the UK, I don't know whether by accident or design, but you could watch "Roots" on one channel, then switch over and watch a Documentary on the Slave Trade and William Wilberforce on the other channel.

The utter crap that went into the storyline of Roots was clearly shown time and time again. The Slave Trade based on the West coast of Africa was run as a business and was very well documented. As far back as those records go there was only ever two instances where Europeans penetrated the hinterland to capture and take slaves. Normally the slaves were brought to the coast by either Arab slavers, by members of another tribe who were disposing of foes taken in battle, or they were being sold by their own tribal chiefs.

While William Wilberforce, the non-conformist activists and the Society of Friends are credited with much to do with changing the attitude of the British Government to slavery. One significant and import contributer is hardly ever credited with his part in the ending of the slave trade - Arthur Wellesley, The Duke of Wellington.

"Capitalism is still largely dependent on labour that is enslaved or paid poorly."

Another incorrect sweeping generalisation from dianavan. Have a good think about her statement, if it were true capitalism would have foundered centuries ago. It didn't, because that is not how the game works, anyone doubting that compare social statistics relating to "the common man" and you will find, in general, a constant and steady improvement down through the years.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 06:32 AM

so, is that sorry, or basically do you think it was damned decent of us to stop.....?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 08:15 AM

Teribus,

Real spending power by the "common man" in the US has been in decline since 1982...

The minmum wage alone has droped in it spending power 42% since 1969...

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 08:55 AM

Perhaps some of you haven't looked at the site I blickyed to in an earlier post. So here it is again. Please look at it to help answer some of the questions being raised here.

Anti-slavery

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 12:28 PM

Slavery was also a disaster for Africa itself and its many peoples.Millions abducted with enormous misery , anguish and bloodshed.
Whole societies fragmented, destroyed or twisted and progress and stability in the whole regions thrown back.
The Congo was a hell for many Africans with the King of Belgium treating it as his fiefdom to be exploited and ransacked at his command and its people terrorised...and this long after official slavery had ended.
The book The Poisonwood Bible gives a good description of the legacy of colonial rule.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 12:34 PM

I think it's time to think about a definition of "slavery".

Usually we think of "slavery" as referring to a culturally accepted system by which there can be (and probably is, widely) the legal or at least culturally sanctioned ownership of a person and of the person's descendants.

But think about the widespread historical practice of indentured servitude. That is to say, contractual forced servitude for some period of time, to pay off some debt--as, for instance, a criminal fine, the cost of passage (in the context of the US) to the New World, or various debts resulting in bankruptcy, the debts being bought out of the bankruptcy by a creditor and the debtor forced to labor to pay off the debts, with often exorbitant interest, sometimes amounting to a life sentence. Indentured laborers were often subjected to all of the evils we associate with slavery--violence, extreme labor, execrable housing, and so on. The difference, in effect, between this and slavery is academic.

Then in both the US and UK there were what I would call "industrial slavery", where the mills kept the employees impoverished and so underpaid that they were forced to live on so-called "advances", which could never be paid off under the conditions imposed. In theory these workers were not "owned", but they were anything but free agents. Actually, for the mill owners, this was preferable to holding slaves, because when a worker was "used up" the employer would recognize no further responsibility for him or her, and they could starve for all the owner cared. Many did. The system was so set up that the children, while not technically owned by the employer, had no choice but to continue in the labor, nowhere to go, no alternative means of livelihood.

There have been and are today many variants on these themes, worldwide. When talking about "slavery" we need to think beyond the usual, limited words "slave" and "slavery".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 01:19 PM

Perhaps so, Uncle Dave O. However, slavery is a loaded word and the people who use it must be circumspect in its usage.

Indentured Servitude was not slavery in implication or in practice. The person could- and usually did - work off the debt. Many a person got to the US that way. When there is hope - however far off (usually it was for a period of 2 years, 5 years or 7 years) the mindset is very different from that of being enslaved.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 01:35 PM

Ebbie, where did you find that indentured servitude was for a period of 2 years, 5 years or 7 years. Then how would you explain the major numbers of those folks being tracked down by hired "deputies", many times in a more agressive manner than many slaves were.

(Info taken from histories of Virginia families)

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Azizi
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 02:06 PM

When I was in college many years ago, I took a course on African American history. That course's professor was a Jewish woman who as a baby had survived a German concentration camp. During that semester's classes when she presented information from her curriculum, she would invariably interject that Jewish people had it worse than Black people.

I disliked those 'which oppressed people had it worse' exchanges then. And I dislike them now.

Do these exchanges add anything meaningful to these types of discussions? Or do comparing "apples & oranges" get folks bickering with each other while oppression keeps on occuring?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 03:38 PM

Very true. Two things that are wrong shouldn't be ranked in the order of wrongness. It will never make them right.

I am glad that someone has brought up WW2 slave labour, though. Another sickening episode in the story of the human race.

I'm not sure if anyone in the USA has mentioned the role of your 'founding fathers' and slavery, with right wing (and Christian?) apologists still supporting them in spite of the failure of the American Revolution to get freedom and equality for all - well all men. Women still had (are having) a long struggle.

If we can't learn from history, we'll never learn at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,dax
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 04:22 PM

I do not defend the Christian missionaries in Africa but the biggest religious outrage was by the Muslims. It was them who were the buyers in tribal Africa and they left their religious beliefs behind in many areas. The Irony is that many blacks in America embrace this religion thinking that it was that of their ancestors.
Slavery was not and is not always white on black. It is and was dispicable and eradication, not apology is what should be demanded of all humanity. History is history and we can not change that except to learn from it. That we can't seem to do!

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 06:43 PM

I agree with Azizi there about playing games about one atrocity being worse than another. It's a way of diverting attention from the real issues.

It's right to remind people that there are and have been other evils in the world as well as the particular one people focus there attention on, but that shouldn't be used as a way of somehow shifting the blame.

And blame isn't what it shoudl be about. The primary object should be to try to identify what are the characteristics of the the system we live in which have led to these historic crimes by people with whom we share an enormous amount, in societies which in many ways were very similar to ours.

History doesn't repeat itself precisely, but variants on the same theme recur.   Chattel slavery founded on brute force and arbitrary "racial" distinctions probably won't come again in that form, but the the continuing economic and political system which invented it is capable of coming up with more efficient ways of turning people into property and stealing their freedom.

Chattel slavery (only one of a number of different varants of slavery, though arguably the most grotesquely dehumanising for both parties) has a major disadvantage that you can't just lay off workers when you don't need them, and pick them up again when you do, if they have managed to survive. That's a main reason why as a system it is no longer a major player.

But if we tell ourselves that this means that slavery of one sort or another is dead and gone for ever we need a wake up call.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Jun 06 - 11:54 PM

Ebbie you said, "Incidentally, since it is your usual target, I'm assuming that we are discussing conditions in the USA, not in India."

I think you forgot to add, Meowwwwwww.

I'm talking about slavery as a worldwide situation.

There are many forms of slavery and, yes, it is for profit.

In fact, capitalism depends on the exploitation of other human beings. Slavery is an extreme form of exploitation and it is still happening. Anyone who denies this is speaking in platitudes.

Capitalism could not have flourished without a history of slavery and cannot continue to flourish without it.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 01:02 AM

Good grief.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 01:31 AM

For a great book describing how slaves fought back against their masters try "The Black Jacobins "by CLLR James.This book describes the slave revolts on Haiti and is quite inspirational as the slave armies time and time again defeat the professional armies of France,Spain and Britain.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,blakprof
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 05:34 AM

Well the Jews have had their apologies so its quite right that countries not people should apologise for slavery.Listen Europe is what is is today because of slavery,the plantocracy and all the wealth was as a result of slavery.I am black with an English name,why is that?because of slavery for god sake,i dont know my African ancestors all i know is my Englsh names and slave owners heritage from Scotland.Are you saying that an entire generation of blacks robbed of their original identity do not deserve an apology?Remember that there are millions of English people now who don't want to accept the fact that their ancestors were slave owners and that their wealth was as a result.It is time we stop the flimsey excuse of it happened 2 centuries ago,for whites it's dates in their minds but for a black man its as if it happened yesterday.Just do the moral thing and apologise;healing is importnant

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 05:56 AM

Not wanting to understate in any way the evils of slavery, but it should be remembered that during and after Britain's involvement in the slave trade, poor British people were being treated worse than slaves.
Not having any intrinsic value, they could be paid a wage below subsistance and worked to death. There were plenty more paupers to replace them. The orphans were purchased from the parish and put to work for cruelly long hours and again worked to death. Few reached adulthood.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Grab
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 09:05 AM

I wouldn't blame a white if he doesn't understand the need for an apology for the crimes committed against Africans.

But who's going to apologise?

The leaders of post-WWII Germany were in a position to apologise for acts committed by their country, because those leaders had been part of the system that committed those acts. (Even if they were civilians in the war, they were part of the society.) The leaders of Japan, it was a slightly different matter - Japan was still a feudal society, so there was no equivalent situation of the regular people electing a government which would go on to do these terrible things.

Certainly we can AND MUST say that what happened in all these various inhuman times was barbaric, and we must do what we can to make sure it never happens again. In that sense, Tony Blair was right to say that British actions in the Potato Famine were disgraceful, and every sane person (from any country) will equally say that the slave trade was a foul, evil thing. But an apology requires that you say you personally are guilty, and I don't believe in racial guilt inherited through umpteen generations. Most Europeans didn't see a penny of the slave trade money - it all went into the aristocrats' pockets, whilst the average bods were labouring for a pittance.

If every current inhabitant of a country had to apologise for what was done by people hundreds of years ago, we'd never be bloody done with it! Danes apologising to the English for a couple of hundred years of rape and pillage, followed by wholesale invasion; Italians apologising for the acts of the Roman Empire; Germans apologising for the acts of the various tribes which sacked the Western Roman Empire; Europeans of every flag apologising for whatever war happened to kill thousands, etc etc etc. Not forgetting the aristocrats apologising for what they did to the poor. And lest I be considered too Euro-centric, don't forget: genocide and human sacrifice committed by the Aztecs against other tribes in South America; routine kidnapping and slavery by Barbary pirates; and the various acts of the Zulu nation, which were as close to genocide as makes no difference.

In other words, we're looking back on people who really thought it was OK to treat other people like that. Human life was cheap and had no more value than the life of an animal. A quarter of the adult men died in war and a quarter of the women died in childbirth. Half the children born died before adulthood. Death from starvation was a regular occurrence, not to mention the various diseases like typhus, cholera and smallpox. Killing someone for disagreeing with you was a perfectly acceptable option in all societies, and most societies would consider people who didn't respond with violence to be cowards.

I don't think people who want an apology for slavery realise quite how little respect for life there was back then. We've only gained our modern respect for life with the benefit of hindsight *after* all this loss of life.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 10:03 AM

Interesting take on that, Grab, and it brings up a couple of questions in my mind. How do we - present day people - actually know what people felt in those long gone days? I'm not disputing it - I'm being serious here - but how do we know that "Killing someone for disagreeing with you was a perfectly acceptable option in all societies"? Does that mean that death did not bring grief? Does it mean that 'Mommy' or 'Daddy' or 'Son' being killed or 'Daughter' dying in childbirth did not bring tears?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 10:15 AM

Apologies are meaningless unless they actually come from the people involved in carrying out the Act.
Guilt is not inherited. It makes apologies for the 18th century slave trade, or pardons for soldiers shot for cowerdice in 1914-18 pointless gestures, which show that their advocates do not understand that then and now are different.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 11:52 AM

1871 -US President Abraham Lincoln's gold-headed staff was bequeathed by US Consul Dr Smith to John Bright in accordance with the president's wishes.

Despite my hometown prospering with cheap cotton from the Confederate states, we elected a Member of Parliament who was instrumental in swaying the UK support to the North. Lincoln bequeathed his gold headed walking stick to the town to commemorate this fact. Slavery was abolished and we progress in social responsibility.

Bunnahabhain is correct in stating such apology is meaningless. The only people who feel that it is required, dwell in the past, and simply cannot move on in understanding.

Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: GUEST,Grab
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 02:05 PM

how do we know that "Killing someone for disagreeing with you was a perfectly acceptable option in all societies"?

Not many where it wasn't, really. Even in Europe, formal duels were commonly fought until the early 19th century, and it persisted as a minor option for longer than that. Germany kept the Mensur until well into the 20th century, although admittedly that wasn't intended to be a duel to the death.

Does that mean that death did not bring grief?

These days, people say they'll never get over their son/daughter/partner dying. It's often said that no-one should out-live their children. And these days, I think that's a good response - it indicates how much you value those people close to you. But if you were a parent back then, you'd *know* that you're going to have something like 15 children if you live long enough to die of old age, of which probably 3 will die in the first year, another 5 maybe before they reach 16, and another 2 in their 20s and another 3 in their 30s from various diseases, agricultural/industrial accidents or military service. After the first 2-3 kids as a woman, you're probably not going to die in childbirth, but you're going to see most of your kids die before you do. As a man, if you live to 50 then you might have had a half-dozen wives over the course of your life, as previous ones died in childbirth.

The only comparable situation today to parenting in pre-medical days is with medical staff, who know that some proportion of their patients will die. They can get attached to them and be sad/upset when they don't make it, but it's something they get used to. If you imagine an entire society like that, where death of friends and close relatives is so commonplace and something you learn how to deal with in early childhood, then I think they simply *couldn't* have felt the same kind of grief over a death as we do today - or the ones who did would have been exceptions to the rule.

As you say Ebbie, we can't know for sure what anyone felt back then. All we can do is find comparable situations in modern day niches, look at people's reactions to them, and extrapolate it to an entire society filled with people with that attitude. As far as death goes, the medical profession is the only example these days - even soldiers don't have the kind of death-toll that a newborn baby had back then. The one constant in humankind seems to be that people learn to deal with whatever situation they're in by adapting their mindset so that whatever unpleasant thing doesn't bother them as much. In this case, the unpleasant thing is death of close friends and relatives. When that stops bothering you - well, how can death of other people you don't know matter?

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 02:29 PM

Guest ifor states:

>>>
The slave trade from Africa to the Americas was on a gigantic scale involving many millions of captives . Surely it was the scale of the barbarity which distinguished it from other slave societies. <<

yes and.. in Rome a slave could purchase his freedom and earn the wages to do it. Slavery in Rome was awful for certain classes of slaves but for some it was more like indentured servitude. Slavery in the Bible too gets a lot of pointing at but you could not kill a slave and there were other societal constraints on Slavery there as well. Slaves in Judea could also purchase their freedom. That doesn't sound much like what happened in the Atlantic Slave Trade now does it?

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: pdq
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 03:14 PM

About 75% of the Modern Slave Trade was conducted by Portugese. Another 15% or so by Spanish.

These two groups share the Iberian Peninsula which suffered a brutile occupation by Black/Islamic/Moors.

That is 781 years of Black-on-White atrocities.

The turnaround started as soon as the invaders were expelled in 1492.

You don't suppose this was 'payback time', do you?


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE INVASION OF WESTERN EUROPE-
The invasion of Western Europe by a non-White Muslim army after 711 AD, very nearly extinguished modern White Europe - certainly the threat was no less serious than the Hunnish invasion which had earlier created so much chaos. While the Huns were Asiatics, the Moors were a mixed race invasion - part Arabic, part Black and part mixed race, always easily distinguishable from the Visigothic Whites of Spain.

Although the Muslim armies were collectively known as the Moors or Saracens, they were in fact divided up into their own factions. Nonetheless, together they very nearly conquered all of Spain, and were only turned back from occupying all of Western Europe by a desperate White counter attack in France. The story of this seven hundred year long race war is without doubt one of the most arduous ever fought by the Whites in defense of their continent.

WHITE SPAIN INVADED-
In 711 AD, Ceuta fell to the Moors and immediately a Moorish fleet sailed across the strait and seized a beachhead on Andalusia in Spain, their first territory on the European mainland.

The Spanish Gothic king of the time, Roderic, rushed an army south and engaged the Moors in a three day battle at Xeres. The Moors won, and the Gothic Spaniards were forced to retreat, giving the Moors time to land a seemingly inexhaustible supply of soldiers from the population wells of North Africa.

Soon the Moors had assembled a massive army and within a few months had conquered most of Gothic Spain.

THE TRIBUTE OF 100 WHITE VIRGINS PER YEAR-
Only isolated pockets of Gothic resistance held out. In the north an enclave only secured its existence by being forced to enter a treaty with the Moors in terms of which the Goths had to hand over 100 White Gothic virgins a year to the Moorish leaders for use in their harems...

Subject: RE: BS: Apologies over slave trade?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 03:51 PM

oh great - so now we are back to the all of weatern Europe is "white" argument. Sure didn't seemd that way when they emigrated to the united states - there werew varying degrees of white then and no doubt had been back on the continent.

I have a friend whose family is Basque. I can tell you that nobody in spain considers them "white". White and black are arbitrary divisions that have no use any more. let's not perpetuate them.