Abolition of Slavery: Apologise or Not Apologise. Discuss.

[Francko]

All of you anti-apologists seem to come across as petty and mean spirited, not to mention selfish

That's why they became contractors.

If they had all of the above charateristic and actually still believe in slave trading, then they would have become agents.

[Denny]

That's why they became contractors.

If they had all of the above charateristic and actually still believe in slave trading, then they would have become agents.

True. There again, contractors on here are not exactly joining forces to form an effective uprising to the recruitment industry either, are they! As Andy White (who formed the PGC) mobilising contractors is a bit like 'herding cats.'

Far from moggies, contractors mainly seem to act like beloved lapdogs, keen to lick their masters boots no matter how badly they are being treated rather than opening their eyes and making some real attempt to shrug off the shackles of recruitment industry's organised and highly effective widescale marketeering efforts.

Fromm would put such denial down to the worship of money and the fear of losing it or else put it down to a fear of alienation and isolation from ones' peers. How right he is.

[dang65]

To those that say "it was nothing to do with me", how about this. The Battle of Britain and the liberation of Europe was nothing to do with you; Magna Carta wasn't; Charles Darwin wasn't; defeating the Spanish Armada wasn't; William Shakespeare wasn't; the struggles of the Welsh Miners' Trade Unions weren't; the 1966 World Cup Final wasn't. And you can stop letting off fucking fireworks on November 5th too - the Gunpowder Plot was foiled in 1605 when the Slave Trade was in full flow. Nothing to do with you. Just forget it; that was 300 years ago.

If you can't feel personal shame and disgrace at Britain's involvement in the Slave Trade (and we were by far and away the biggest perpetrators and the biggest beneficiaries) then I really don't see how you can have any right whatsoever to feel personal pride in Britain's many great achievements either.

[Denny]

To those that say "it was nothing to do with me", how about this. The Battle of Britain and the liberation of Europe was nothing to do with you; Magna Carta wasn't; Charles Darwin wasn't; defeating the Spanish Armada wasn't; William Shakespeare wasn't; the struggles of the Welsh Miners' Trade Unions weren't; the 1966 World Cup Final wasn't. And you can stop letting off ******* fireworks on November 5th too - the Gunpowder Plot was foiled in 1605 when the Slave Trade was in full flow. Nothing to do with you. Just forget it; that was 300 years ago.

If you can't feel personal shame and disgrace at Britain's involvement in the Slave Trade (and we were by far and away the biggest perpetrators and the biggest beneficiaries) then I really don't see how you can have any right whatsoever to feel personal pride in Britain's many great achievements either.

How true and a good answer, even if the Spanish and Portugese did kick the whole thing off with New World slavery.

The whole point of this argument, it seems to me, is to demonstrate that we, as a multi national Britain, is big enough to celebrate our achievements and big enough to admit to our wrongs too.

Humility can pay off big time, and now is the time to show it.

[vetran]

no point

Call me a cynic but I think the minute the British Government apologise the hands will go out for compensation. I haven't heard the Portuguese, French or Spanish apologise. The peace loving religion also seems strangely quiet. The African leaders also seem somewhat reticent.

I wonder if they will be happy to split any compensation with the sailors press ganged onto the slave ships?

The mortality rate during the Middle Passage was high for slaves and crew alike, averaging between 13 and 33 percent. The likelihood of contagion, however was strongest for the Africans.

Powerful African leaders met with European traders and arranged for the exchange of slaves for European goods, such as pewter basins, guns, beads, and cloth.

Soon Africans were rounding up slaves in groups of one, two and three hundred for sale to the increasing number of European vessels arriving in coastal ports.

http://www.melfisher.org/henriettama...ingslavery.htm

Now if they had identified companies and concerns whose fortunes were directly attributable to slavery and pursued them I would have some respect for the current movement.

[dang65]

Call me a cynic but I think the minute the British Government apologise the hands will go out for compensation. I haven't heard the Portuguese, French or Spanish apologise. The peace loving religion also seems strangely quiet. The African leaders also seem somewhat reticent.

Have you actually read any news items during the current anniversary of the British abolition of slavery? The Church of England has apologised and is currently trying to work out a way of giving financial compensation for their part in the trade. Many African leaders have freely acknowledged the African involvement in the trade and apologised also. It wasn't the Africans who tortured, raped, routinely beat, murdered, starved and abused the slaves. That was the British. Other countries were involved, yes, but to a far lesser extent, and it's not their anniversary at the moment anyway.

I'll answer the rest of your post when I get to work.

[The Lone Gunman]

To those that say "it was nothing to do with me", how about this. The Battle of Britain and the liberation of Europe was nothing to do with you; Magna Carta wasn't; Charles Darwin wasn't; defeating the Spanish Armada wasn't; William Shakespeare wasn't; the struggles of the Welsh Miners' Trade Unions weren't; the 1966 World Cup Final wasn't. And you can stop letting off ******* fireworks on November 5th too - the Gunpowder Plot was foiled in 1605 when the Slave Trade was in full flow. Nothing to do with you. Just forget it; that was 300 years ago.

If you can't feel personal shame and disgrace at Britain's involvement in the Slave Trade (and we were by far and away the biggest perpetrators and the biggest beneficiaries) then I really don't see how you can have any right whatsoever to feel personal pride in Britain's many great achievements either.

None of these things had anything to do with me.
However, they are the basis of the freedoms I enjoy today and so I celebrate them as part of my nations proud history.
My nation also has a not so proud history. The colonisation and opression of 2/3rds of the known world at one time or another.
The not so proud stuff shaped the world into what it is in so many ways. At the time it was how it was. Not right, not wrong just how it was.

We as a nation have recognised (or been shown on many occasions) the error of our ways and enshrined freedoms in law that were, at the time, detremental to our own nation.

The changes to our own law at the time were our apology and reparation. They may have been too little, but we have done our bit.

I do not condone slavery, but most of the money made by Britain was in the transportation of slaves, not the use of them. At the time they were a commodity to be shipped, much like any other. Our trading vessels were just shipping the most valuable cargo of its day.

It strikes me that those calling for an apology will soon be calling for reparation. They are not asking the Zulus or the Nomadic arabs or any of the others who captured and sold free men as slaves for an apology because they are not rich western nations.
Is there a racist element to this request?

As was said earlier. We do not here many of these descendants complaining about being where they are today. Perhaps an apology and a few million is worth it if it also includes a few million one way tickets back to the homeland, or are they not quite that keen on an apology?

[threaded]

Have you actually read any news items during the current anniversary of the British abolition of slavery? The Church of England has apologised and is currently trying to work out a way of giving financial compensation for their part in the trade. Many African leaders have freely acknowledged the African involvement in the trade and apologised also. It wasn't the Africans who tortured, raped, routinely beat, murdered, starved and abused the slaves. That was the British. Other countries were involved, yes, but to a far lesser extent, and it's not their anniversary at the moment anyway.

I'll answer the rest of your post when I get to work.

I think you'll find, if you studied a little of this, and not just followed the propaganda, that if an owner did kill a slave they were prosecuted for murder and hanged.

Anyways, I've just asked a Dane if they would apologise for Dublin. "Dublin?" was the reply...

[dang65]

I do not condone slavery, but most of the money made by Britain was in the transportation of slaves, not the use of them. At the time they were a commodity to be shipped, much like any other. Our trading vessels were just shipping the most valuable cargo of its day.

Not true. The big money came from the produce traded for slaves. It was a Golden Triangle, each side making more money - set off from Britain with a ship full of tradeable goods - cloth, gunpowder etc; exchange those goods for human beings, as many as you could cram into your tiny boat to cross the Atlantic; exchange the human beings for valuable goods which had been produced by slave labour - sugar, tobacco, cotton; return to Britain and sell the goods for enormous profit, and for use in this country's new industries - industries which gave our ancestors work and skills and good pay and conditions (for the time) and allowed our society to advance so quickly and wealthily.

The Slave Trade fed the huge development and wealth of this country and funded our expansion into Empire, and we are still reaping the benefits of that to this day.

From what I have read, the only thing being asked for is an apology, an acknowledgement of our Holocaust. Just because it was done around 300 years before the Nazis is irrelevant. We did many things before other countries - had our Civil War, gave rights to the people, created the Industrial Revolution, explored the world etc etc.

It's possible that there are people, activists, who want financial compensation, but I don't think that is a common feeling, and it would be impossible to administrate anyway. Maybe writing off the Third World Debt would be a gesture, but it is the apology which is needed above anything else. Reading forums like this one and the BBC site over the last week, it is blatantly obvious that the vast majority of the British public feel no shame or disgrace whatsoever for this horrific event in our nation's history.

It is easy to argue that so much good came from the wealth generated by the Slave Trade that it was, in fact, not a big problem at all. Sure, yeah. Experiments carried out by Nazi doctors in concentration camps into the human body's resistance to extreme temperatures were used in the development of survival suits for submariners. Well worth a bit of suffering, eh. We can stop making documentaries about that then.

Then there's this argument which says, "That's how it was." What's the phrase? "The Past is another country; they do things differently there."

Only problem is, that wasn't "how it was". It is how we made it. It's like saying, "We've all got mobile phones; that's how it is." Mobile phones didn't just appear here by magic. We created them. And we created the Slave Trade. It did not exist before on anything like the scale or horror created by the European nations, primarily the British. And why do you feel you can celebrate our freedoms and the proud history of our nation? Surely that's just "how it was". What's to celebrate?

I'm really sorry if you don't feel any guilt for this period (some 400 years of it) of our country's past. I do, and I wish that our government would openly and unreservedly apologise. It's not a matter of paying reparations. As people have said, in many ways we are and have been for many years in our resistance to oppression and in the aid we give to poorer countries. But doing that without acknowledging our shame seems to me to massively weaken our moral standing in criticising others.

[BrilloPad]

I'm really sorry if you don't feel any guilt for this period (some 400 years of it) of our country's past. I do, and I wish that our government would openly and unreservedly apologise. It's not a matter of paying reparations. As people have said, in many ways we are and have been for many years in our resistance to oppression and in the aid we give to poorer countries. But doing that without acknowledging our shame seems to me to massively weaken our moral standing in criticising others.

our country? most people want to leave - and those that do leave are replaced by immigrants. I have no idea what it means to be English anymore. I feel I am part of the most repressed minority - white, English, middle-class male hetrosexual. Why can't we whine like all the rest of the excuse mongers?

lets just assume that there is a concept of english - I was not responsible for the slave trade and all this going back in history to try to change things that have already happened is pointless.

If I had a time machine I would go back and change it. But much more of being force fed that I ought to feel guilty and I might change my mind. Well actually I wouldn't change my mind - I am probably too soft.