I hadnt gotten far when she stopped me cold, pointing out that her best friend, a 15 year old girl knitting beside a window in her house, was machine gunned by an American P-51 pilot. You may concede a point here, a point there. There is an alternative argument that it is their ancestors who were wronged hence deserve compensation and as descendants theyre entitled to an inherited share (so their portion depends on how many slaves at what position in the family tree) plus interest, regardless of how well theyre doing now. . Perhaps Im a bit more culturally relativist these days, but just read it again, still absolutely awful. We aint paying no goddam reparations & no-ones gonna make us. @ Boganboy If more African-Americans started to vote Republican and the Democrats felt they needed something radical to boost their offer, and had enough support from liberal whites and other groups to risk further losses among blue-collar whites, for example. How does importing new labour from West Africa solve the food shortage in the West Indies? He talks about slavery because YOU care. Thats before you get on to the Khoisan and the Zulus, the Carthaginians and Romans, the Vikings versus pretty much anyone else who lived within raiding distance, Theres a fundamental weakness with all theories of universal law or justice, which is that across time and space, the human conception of what is right and just seems to be extremely varied and rarely (to modern Western eyes) pleasant. Roman writers such as Pliny who chronicled or rather fabricated African life shaped perceptions of a continent populated by anthropophagi and other fantastic creatures, half-human, half-animal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxc5ENT8ajg, https://www.history.co.uk/shows/the-real-vikings/articles/eyewitness-to-the-vikings, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestmannaeyjar, https://www.historytoday.com/archive/normans-and-slavery-breaking-bonds, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-of-domesday/order.htm, Apparently Essay Mills Must Be Made Illegal, Why Oxfam Can Go Boil Their Heads Over Vaccine Patents, The real point about climate change is how cheap the solution is, The excellent Tim Worstall- The Register, Tim Worstall is a darn good economist- Don Boudreaux, Tim Worstall, you pendant- Polly Toynbee, .more sensible than most right wing nutjob bloggersBob Piper. Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. And yet Africans and West Indians were banned from the victory parade in 1919. If we went down this route thered be goodness knows how much fun and games to be had with legal claims over the treatment of Irish by Cromwell, the clearing of the Highlands and so on, before you even get on to the globe-spanning imperial stuff. 5 quotes from David Olusoga: 'On a peninsula protruding into one of the great highways of the Atlantic slave trade, a few hundred refugees from British slavery in North America were attempting to recreate the social structures of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages.', 'Time and again events and phenomena that we think we know and understand contain within them lost or camouflaged connections to . Peter completed his award-winning PhD, exploring stress and coping in elite sports coaching, at Sheffield Hallam in 2012. The Celtic version of slavery (which ran to quite a different model) was still going on in the places the Romans didnt reach. Very often shaped by the political, technological and economic forces of the times if the Western way of life had remained utterly dependent on Roman-style slavery, Im not sure wed ever have abolished it even amongst our own inhabitants. My family did nothing. But as someone who is damaged by slavery I have lived in racially mixed communities and I am happy to see Obama and Kamala pay up. No other race / culture was willing and able to do that. Duke University professor, William Darity Jr, and writer, Kirsten Mullen, jointly published a report for The Roosevelt Institute, an American liberal think tank, laying out a case for slavery reparations. It isnt going to happen anyway. But that ignores how the demand of outsiders led inevitably to far more supply being provided, so I dont think the traders can be given a pass on this front either. Pope Nicholas V gave his blessing, so long as the Vatican benefited. "I first read it as a student and it struck me as something that was very different to other things I was reading about the Atlantic slave trade. Your email address will not be published. One of his teachers had a coffee mug bearing a National Front slogan and another attacked him during a school trip, he said. Married an American GI after the war. Thankfully the Woke have gifted us an all purpos3e response to this sort of crap. While I dont think they persuaded anyone, they did shift perspectives a bit. The system he witnessed and wrote about was one in which human beings were worked to death. Its extraordinary success rested upon the foundation of sympathy laid down during the previous 70 years of abolitionist activity in Britain. Now sixteen sounds about okay to me if youre going to stick a limit somewhere, but then being British I suppose Im more likely to think the system Im accustomed to is normal and reasonable. Note, hes a renowned economist. This is because forgetting slavery means forgetting its victims. During the Second World War, thousands of black American soldiers stationed in Britain were befriended by white Britons who opposed efforts by the white military to segregate them. Not good. I know there are posters on here who see stepping into their opponents perspective as a dangerous and pointless endeavour that gives undue worth to a viewpoint they despise, but purely as a mental exercise theres usually something to be said for examining your opponents strongest argument instead of their weakest. Thats fine, BraveFart. Slavery didnt last much longer for various reasons, fizzled out in a century or so, but we have the records to show it was still part of the system after twenty years of Norman rule: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-of-domesday/order.htm. If we look back history is just an unending series of atrocities. But any planter who deliberately starved his slaves to death would quickly go bust. Anglo-Saxons had slaves. The Barbados slave code of 1661 stripped Africans of all human rights, and set out ways in which they were to be punished, to exert control over their labour (mutilation of the face, slitting of nostrils, castration, execution). But Ill tell you what, slavery and human sacrifice, still awful. Wider imperialism reparations that include South Asia, China for the Opium Wars and so on, surely even more prohibitively costly, regardless of how effective the education system gets at making young Brits feel a vague sense of guilt about it all. White people will take it. This is a moral argument. BZZZTT!! "They were barely known even to historians. Like I said before, tolerance is in the gift of the powerful. But you need a different approach if you dont think great-grandkids of the Confederacy are still fair game.) Dr Peter Olusoga is a senior psychology lecturer at Sheffield Hallam university. Later his parents separated from each other when he was just two years old. "The phenomena of which he is iconic is one that we have written out, edited out of our nation. So he calls himself a Geordie. Just means they werent alone in being in the wrong. And, of course, being half white, he is only entitled to half the reparation payment. I brought up paedophilia to demonstrate that there are things not worth my time. Or anything to do with slavery. How could Britain, a civilised and Christian nation, indulge in rape, torture, killing and the forced labour of Africans over two centuries? The stars are out as Dr Pete Olusoga explores the psychology of stage and screen with the wonderful British actor (and Coronation Street veteran), Shobna Gulati. David Olusoga Fired by religious feeling, they embarked on a campaign of public education and political lobbying unprecedented in scale and revolutionary in nature. The argument isnt whether historical slavery was right or wrong or who should accept responsibility for it. I just dont really get what Olusoga is saying. No member of my family ever owned slaves. It was such a brilliantly organised programme of mass protest that slavery was declared abolished in 1833: 46,000 slave owners were given 20m in compensation (17bn in todays money), the largest payout in British history and 40 per cent of all government spending that year. They are pretty much airbrushed from history, whereas the transatlantic slave trade seems to be wall-to-wall on our TV screens and in our school textbooks. In the UK its not white people enslaving blacks anymore, but Asians enslaving other Asians, as in Leicesters clothing sweatshops. Dont know if I would rule it out entirely because the demographics are different but it might need a change in the voting dynamics. June 16, 2020 - 20:29 BST Aisha Nozari. The historian tells Michael Segalov about getting up early, reading George Orwell, taking his dog George for a walk, playing his guitar His rhetoric is to inflame the reader. The Royal African Company, established by Charles II in 1672, eventually enslaved and transported more Africans than any other company in British history. It has been reissued by publishing house Hodder and Prof Olusoga has written the foreword. After all, adult males were all but worthless and demand for women might have been enough to drive the trade anyway. The thing we British are ancestrally responsible for is beginning and continuing to pursue the extinction of the sordid business of slavery. Oh man. First launched in London in 1987, it aims to highlight and celebrate what black people have achieved in Britain throughout history. The many African-American abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, who visited Britain from the 1840s onwards, were well received and, again, thousands of people greeted them and raised money to support their cause. Just how much should Olusoga receive? But its still awful, even on a historical scale.. * the legal institution and pretty much the practice It could not have happened at all unless African traders and kings had offered slaves to the Europeans. The details of difference are fairly minor. Prof Olusoga, the presenter of the A House Through Time TV series, calls it an act of "historical salvage" to bring to the fore the black British figures who had been "lost in the archives, completely forgotten". Various among the societies that were agglomerated into Nigeria were more or less involved in that slave trade from the supply end. Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade is part of the national curriculum, although it is not statutory. Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion. The arguments do you want to get shaken down for several trillion? One of the reasons why the American and Caribbean experiences were very different. MBE: The problem with the UK paying reparations is that people like Olusoga would have to pay their share of the greatly increased taxes. In 1861, the Economist stated that nearly four million people in Britain depended directly and indirectly on the cotton industry; a fifth of the entire population. You lost those two. But a group of 12 disciples of Christ set out to change things. You should know better. Just as how in the 16th century the anti-slavery voices in Europe were overwhelmed, and in the 19th century the abolitionists won out. Thousands of petitions were presented to parliament. Theres no point pretending Europeans who profited from either the transatlantic slave trade or the use of slave labour in the Americas were somehow doing a favour to the slaves involved, even if, as it happens but their owners could not have predicted, their surviving descendants ended up financially better off on average than the counterfactual of remaining in Africa. That was when the Democrats were still Americans. In 1796, a bill was defeated by only four votes: a group of abolitionist MPs went to the opera and missed the vote. Societies have what morals suit them. Good point, I wonder how he squares the obviously comfortable living he has writing, opining and broadcasting about slavery with his principles. Heroes of 2020 What Marcus Rashford's campaign for hungry children tells us about . The book accompanying. Re putting the argument for paedophilia they actually gave Gide the Nobel prize for literature didnt they? Surely the US has already spent much more than that on black Americans. True that unlike certain other examples of slavery, you werent likely to be killed as part of a religious sacrifice or as part of your owners funeral. Moreover its arguably unjust that only victims of still-extant states have a route to compensation whereas people from ethnic groups roughly contemporaneously massacred, enslaved and sacrificed by the Aztec Empire have nobody to sue. What difference has it made? Peter Olusoga. Olusoga poses as an objective historian and says he is not there to bring comfort to people. "He was the voice of somebody who wasn't speaking about the past as a historian, but was living it. And yes, grand scheme of things, forced choice between living in a central Asian city about to be captured by ticked-off Mongols and an African tribal group about to be captured by profit-hungry slavers then fine, I take the latter hands down. Olusoga is of half Nigerian descent. He presented the recent series of A House Through Time on BBC 2, and Black and British: A Forgotten History. If one disproves his assertions would slavery then be okay? If slavery really mattered theyd be campaigning for reparations from the blacks and arabs/moslems who were doing it long before the white man arrived in Africa and was far more devastating. Women, denied a meaningful role in politics, formed their own organisations, writing tracts, pamphlets and poems, gathering signatures for petitions and fundraising: At certain times and in certain places they were the engine room of the movement.. Get back to us when youve developed your historicalguiltometer. You know, entirely ignoring lifetime effects? Arguably wrong in a crimes against humanity way (similar language of natural justice and universal morality indeed being used by the abolitionists and the UK itself when it tried to enforce a ban on the trade) that made it inherently illegal even when governments tried to put it on a legal footing. He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. He has discovered new and exciting research materials in African archives, among them the Register of Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone, which list names, bodily details, ethnicity and origins, thus putting a human face on people otherwise treated as fodder and statistics. Youre right, MBE. I dont think the traders can be given a pass on this front either., Just means they werent alone in being in the wrong.. The evidence of this is that seasoned slaves, those exposed to the environment, sold for up to 50% more than new ones. at scales that were unusual in the long and varied history of slavery, and levels of brutality that stood out too.. Shouldnt matter whether some long-dead relative fought long ago for or against (not at all to disparage your ancestors GC, who all sound very sound) in terms of whether somethings your fault. They arent going to concede anything. Looking at what happened in Haiti or Jamaica or chunks of Latin America, I dont find either well, could have been much worse or what do you expect, Early Modern West Europeans, how could they have known better? to be particularly convincing responses. And the fact youre moved to tears by discovering for the first time a great-great-great-grandmother of yours was a prostitute single-mum with seven kids or a great-x5-uncle you had never heard of was imprisoned for murder, well, your utter lack of knowledge simply reveals how little youve been influenced by them, so youre hardly discovering a new facet of yourself at all. The American and Caribbean experiences were very different writing, opining and broadcasting about slavery with his principles how! Had a coffee mug bearing a National Front slogan and another attacked him during a school trip he. A Forgotten history we British are ancestrally responsible for is beginning and continuing to pursue the extinction the. Approach if you dont think they persuaded anyone, they did shift perspectives a bit more culturally these. Tells us about Britain throughout history, a point here, a point there arguments do you to! 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