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But it speaks volumes that you refer to people's historical memory of the transatlantic slave trade (what many call the "Maafa" or "the African Holocaust") as "another fucking stupid thing"...perhaps you would not be so blase if you had any comprehension of the scale of this tragedy, the almost unimaginable cruelty involved, and its impact today.
No...theres scope to be sensible here. Its about personal identity, and how you define yourself. And at any rate, there are very few descendants of slaves living in Britain: the vast majority of ethnic minorities are either voluntary immigrants or the descendants of voluntary migrants who arrived in the last 60 years. There are undoubtedly some descendants of slaves, in fact some are white. I remember seeing a documentary in which a white British aristocratic family had an absolute taboo over certain sections of their family history because they were in fact in part descended from a black slave, who had been in a relationship with one of their white ancestors. They were so ashamed that they dared not speak about it! It is what you consider yourself: I am white British (I prefer to say northern European) and therefore accept that I have benefitted from the transatlantic slave trade, and it is more than likely that one or more of my ancestors was involved in it in some way. For that I am deeply sorry.
The British State is a different matter.
I've already been into this at some length - to put it briefly what has that got to do with it? Why should the fact that a (different and usually more benign) form of slavery existed in Africa before the transatlantic slave trade absolve the west/Europeans of any of the blame for escalating and distorting it into an industrialized debasement, neglect, mistreatment, dehumanization and slaughter of millions upon millions of people?
Its this attitude in particular that convinces me of the need to confront this issue and then apologise for what happened. The fact that many people make this utterly, utterly preposterous statement as an excuse points to the fact that people really don't understand the extent of what went on, and are more happy to dismiss the whole thing as something that was a minor extension of what was happening already. I suspect that our attitude is very similar to that of other nations who have something to be ashamed of in terms of teaching, memory, and the ignorance of later generations of what happened and why (see for instance, Japanese treatment of war crimes in China during WW2).
Out of interest how many people here were/are taught about the transatlantic slave trade in any depth at school/college?
Hes not sorry for Iraq because he still thinks it was the right thing to do to invade and occupy that country.
I think theres a lot of confusion here about whats being called for: its not being asked that Tony Blair apologise as a person for slavery, but apologise as a representative of the British state. Tony Blair was not culpable for slavery: the British State was, for a very long time.
No one said thats the only thing getting in the way though budda. But its certainly one thing. The idea that a certain race felt they had the right to forcibly remove and enslave a vast quantity of another race to a different continent and then work them to death, because they were a subhuman race, would certainly play on my mind if I was part of that race. I'd feel very concerned that people still held the same attitude today.
Yes, you should be deeply sad for them, you should be deeply sad about what happened: what is, in absolute numbers, the worst and most inhumane thing that has ever happened in the history of the world. At least in terms of one sided inhumanity, its perhaps possible that the Second World War (or perhaps the creation of the USSR) killed as many people. I would be deeply sad for a Jew today if they had to live with most people (and governments) denying the full horror of what happened to their people, and the Germans saying things like "well actually some Jews had killed each other before the Holocaust so in fact it was alright for us to kill as many as possible, it wasn't just us."
The apology might seem meaningless to you/us, but it doesn't seem meaningless to them: the people who feel so affected an disturbed that they spend considerable time, resources, and emotional effort into asking for an apology today. There is no one left alive today who was involved personally in the transatlantic slave trade, who could be asked to give a "meaningful" apology to those adversely affected by slavery. Those millions of men, women, and children who were enslaved, dehumanized, beaten, underfed, whipped, thrown off ships tied up with chains, had tar forced into their anus to conceal the symptoms of disease so that they could be sold without loss of profit, raped, tortured, worked to death, packed one on top of another, chained into the cargo holds of ships and transported thousands of miles away from their homes, treated as subhuman commodities for the profits of others: these people have never recieved an apology from an institution that was central to facilitating these actions, an institution that still exists today under (almost exactly) the same constitution. That insitution is the British State, and that is why Tony Blair (or some other appropriate representative, preferably the Queen) should apologise for its role in slavery.
So I should feel sorry for someone because one of their great great grandparents was a slave? Why?
One of my great great great grandparents might have been a serf, should I feel sorry for myself?
I'm fully aware that in parts of the Western World blacks and other minorities have a shite time of it, but whether or not their acestors were involved in the slave trade really isnt the important issue we should tackle.
ETA - you keep saying 'them' who are these people and how do the KNOW they are related to a slave?
Because a great many people do feel bad that their ancestors were enslaved. They feel it directly affects their identity today, and the historical memory of it makes them distressed. You are clearly not one of those people so you do not understand their feelings, it doesn't mean it isn't a real problem.
I agree that this is a subsidiary issue in relativity to the real, material problems that face people today, and that we should really be concentrating on them. Which is why the fact that people are arguing against an apology all the more ridiculous, its a waste of time, when there are more important things to be done.
An apology would take five minutes, and cost nothing. It means something to a lot of people. Why not just issue it an move on?
Because apologising suggests we feel guilt, which given no one alive is responsible is farcical.
Plus of course there is the question as to why this? Countries have done nasty things to each other throughout history, should we produce a big list and then apologise for all of them?
Do you have a link to this, or some evidence or writing or something? Its a concept I find very difficult to understand and I would be interested to know a persons justification for this.
Quite cathartic I would imagine.....
The British State is guilty for the slave trade, as an institution.
Why this? Well, primarily because as I described it is the worst atrocity, in terms of scale, in human history, it was one sided (theres no way you can find the slaves themselves culpable) but also because many people are calling for it. If there are other widespread calls for apologies, they should also be considered, although I can't think of any that would have as strong a case as this one.
As for who is calling for it, I believe Baroness Amos (leader of the House of Lords) is the de facto head of the call in Britain. Have a look at www.blackbritain.co.uk for other people calling for an apology.
In general terms I would recommend some post-colonial literature: The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon, or Orientalism by Edward Said, for instance. These deal (amongst others) with issues of historical memory, and the construction of images and identities of non-whites in European/western discourse.
I am of that opinion.
Would you help me understand how slavery has something to do with me ?
I think it would help me if you would start by stating what YOU understand slavery to mean.
Recent replies to points made haven`t addressed the point,merely some personal comment.
I am trying to understand what posters are actually talking about.
(For example Carlito has claimed that there are degrees of slavery)
technically it'd be the queen's job then....
also i'd like to add, this country was the first to make the trade illegal in slaves, and we actually used our navy's might at the time to force other european countries to comply... so technically other than the USA, the UK was the only other country to willingly abolish such a barbaric way of looking at people ie commodities
A very good point.
Thinking about it more, history itself, the testimony of wrongdoing and the regret for the actions of our ancestors that it inspires is sufficient, imo.
And to make this into a race thing seems a tad simplistic. There are British people who have ancestors who were slaves and there are British people who might have ancestors who owned slaves. And both categories can quite plausibly feature people today with such ancestors who are either black or white.
Why distinguish the transatlantic slave trade in Black Africans from slavery more generally.
This is just one example of the use of slaves, slave use has been prevalent in many societies throughout human history. As mentioned, this is not even the most recent example, as it still goes on today, even in this country with the example of (primarily it seems Eastern European) sex slaves...
So why that particular microcosm of the slave trade?
Also your statement is completely subjective. I personally do not regard slavery and the transportation of humans in terrible conditions to be as bad as the industrial genocide of certain sections of society i.e. the holocaust, and I doubt many would.....
Seeker I'm afraid I'm not going to indulge you in a long, futile discussion over the abstract definition of words which invariably comes to the same predictable conclusion: you do not believe that any abstract has a bearing on reality.
I will however say this. You do benefit from past slavery. Slavery contributed heavily to the prosperity of the west (primarily America, Britain and Europe) which you profit from. That is illustrated by the fact that you are typing on a computer, the result of the economic and technological supremacy that owning and trading millions of slaves made a significant contribution to.
Yes...I've already made both of these points.
All slavery should be condemned. We are talking about the transatlantic slave trade firstly because it involved Britain, and was sanctioned by the British government, and secondly because in terms of scale it was the largest enslavement of people in history, with the most casualties.
It is not completely subjective, it is partially subjective. It is subjective in so much as I used the normative word "worst" (replace this with greatest if you wish), it is not subjective because I have provided an objective fact (at least objective in that it is the most accurate empirical evidence we have) that in terms of scale it caused the largest number of casualties of any event/process in history (a one-sided one, at least, as I said it is just possible that WW2 caused more deaths). Even at a very conservative estimate it caused four times the amount of deaths as the Nazi run Holocaust. If you were to extrapolate or estimate the amount of casualties attributable to slavery in terms of the harm it caused to Africa, the number could run into billions. But of course that is impossible to tell: we can only really consider the amount that died during the process of enslavement and transportation as objective historical fact.
At any rate I don't really see that (other than in terms of magnitude) it is very much different: many of the same features are there. Dehumanization, racism, slave labour, execution and murder of millions, confiscation of property etc. Hence why it is often called "the African Holocaust."
Edited to add: I find it surprising that you don't consider the transatlantic slave trade to be "as bad" as "industrialized genocide" (the transatlantic slave trade was also industrialized) such as the Holocaust. It was on a larger scale and killed more people. Why is this?
Which is why the British State is being called to apologise, not the British people.
So we don't have many people to apologise to?
But that beside the point, very few descendants of slaves living outside of Africa have shown much interest in going back there ... Liberia was set up for that purpose but immigration is practically nil.
Really, in what way?
Sorry, no history of slavery?
I'm amazed that you can ask such a stupid question. (Think about the difference in life expectancy and the prosperity of the US compared to Africa then).
Opportunities for their ancestors weren't just limited, they were denied. Today the achievements of African Americans are seen in every field; in academia, the arts, politics and sport for example. (Of course this isn't something new, African American contribution to literature isn't new, although whereas Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglas are now studied and respected they were for so long, ignored). And in politics there seem few promising politicians in Africa of the calibre of Barack Obama or Condoleezza Rice; both of whom have been tipped as future presidents. Which is a shame.
No, the British state should be apologising to all those who were adversely affected by the transatlantic slave trade (i.e. millions around the world), it was an international economy. It doesn't just apply to people in Britain.
No that is beside the point. Africa had already been raped by the slave trade by the time Liberia was founded: and thus not a very attractive place to return to. Here it is quite interesting to note that the transatlantic slave trade was so distressing that the distinction between the New World and the Old World (i.e. Africa) has been turned by some into myth, even religion. See, for instance, Rastafarianism, which considers Jamaica (as a slave destination) as the literal hell, and Ethiopia (the motherland) as a literal heaven, unspoilt by the enslavement of the white man.
And why do you think that Africa is in such a state?
(heres a hint:
Perhaps something to do with centuries of enslavement, suppression, and colonialism?)
by its own slave trade mainly, which never really disappeared theres kids on west african coast who are slaves to cocoa makers
No, not mainly by its own slave trade: a point I've already rebutted if you took the care to read the thread. Here is a brief outline of what you seem to have missed:
Internal African slavery was, in general, much more benign. Slaves were usually paid wages, could own property, marry, and could rise in social and economic position (in many cases becoming administrators, chieftans, and even kings). They remained within Africa, and therefore contributed to the African economy.
The transatlantic slave trade was many, many times larger and considerably more brutal. Rather than intertribal wars resulting in a two-way slave exchange between factions/tribes, European involvement meant slaving on an industrial scale with the slaves being removed from Africa, the vast majority destined for the new world (and the vast majority of these, some 20 - 50 million, dying on the journey). This disrupted the internal power balance, economic structures, and labour force within Africa, totally fucking it up and making the most important industry supplying slaves for white men. To lesser extent, Arab slaving contributed also to this.
.. do you want to talk about the quality of that life? then define what "quality" actually is...?
We think we have it better but do we, really?
Tokenism isn't opportunity.
and if they are not only mixed race but definately decended from enslaved and enslavers? Made me laugh anyway. Perhaps they could be considered to be the apology if they were created in and raised by love and acceptance?
Are you taking cues from Seeker?
Ignorant, patronising and misinformed. Condoleezza Rice is extremely intelligent and very well qualified, Clarence Thomas is an exceptional legal mind - race has nothing to do with it. To ignore someone's skills and imply that they only got where they are because of their race is especially disgusting when it is so untrue.
Top US unis take a lot higher % of minority students than their UK counterparts. To say to the significant number of black students at Ivy League schools; some of who are African American and others from around the world (Ivy League schools are very generous with int'l financial aid) that they are 'token' is disgusting as well as baseless.
Things are not perfect in the US but to say that the massive number of opportunities available to all Americans (which have benefited African Americans as they have benefited other groups) is simply tokenism is just a completely unfair characterisation.
That is overly simplistic though, it would have been the european nations that offered money for slaves, and so tribes would have gone and abducted / attacked other tribes.
And yet you are prepared to debate in abstractions, and it appears very emotionally at that !
Strange (to me) behaviour.
Also strange to me,who has often in type expressed a distaste for coercive behaviour, that my typing is being linked to "slavery".
Perhaps the degrees of separation theory is true.:D
P.S. do YOU have the urge to apologise to all the individuals who have benefitted you through them falling victim to that same coercive behaviour ? :chin:
This is bollocks.
In 1950 the average GDP of sub saharan Africa was higher than that Korea, Vietnam and much of East Asia.
There are numerous reasons why Africa is in a bad way, the slave trade centuries ago is not a major one of these........
But they are all long dead. To blame continuing racism and lack of oportunity for blacks in parts of the Western World purely on slavery is overly simplistic.