OT Apologising for the Slave trade

Colombus and

Can I have an apology from the Romans for enslaving my ancestors please ? Can we have an apology from the (black) African slave traders who caught and sold the slaves to white traders, and as far as I can see still are doing so in parts of Africa? Can we have an apology from the Vikings for all their miss deeds, and more recently from the Germans for supporting Adolf.

Where would it all end?

AWEM

Curious how that part of the "Triangular Trade" is conveniently ignored isn't it ? Steve

How about from

Germany for starting the wars Japan ditto Japan for taking all our good ideas and making them work Modern LR for making vehicles that dont have bits falling off My wife for forcing me to work My children for emptying my wallet every weekend

Blah Blah

FFS

Swanning about a écrit :

I want someone to apologise to me for the conditions my ancestors had to put up with when they were children during the industrial revolution, which allows us to live in relative luxury now - terrible conditions in the factories, down the mines etc. etc. all for peanuts and living in poverty. Seems like a fairly close analogy to me.

Slavery was obviously a pretty terrible thing, but there are plenty of other pretty awful things that have gone on in history, and the decedents of those people don't feel the need to get an apology, or feel the need to make the people of the present feel like they have done something wrong. The expression "chip on the shoulder" comes to mind. Surely the very act of making slavery illegal was an acknowledgment that it was wrong - why that can't be accepted I just don't understand. I do suspect that, like many things, it is just a few squeaky wheels getting all the publicity however.

Matt

Not to mention that American Indians (or Native Americans, whatever they want to be called today) also had black slaves, and recently (as in last few months) voted to deny the descendants of black slaves held by them a place on their reservations, which until now was a right they've held. This is thought to be because of competition for gambling rights. This means all the blacks who this affects have to get the f*ck out. Charming!

"Matthew Maddock" wrote

Personally I feel an apology is absurd, having traced my family back to 1500 I cannot see where the Slave Trade benefitted any of them, they were all farm labourers in Sussex and probably some not treated much better than slaves.

It's quite simple, I have no doubt some of the African politicians see a gravy train in the shape of reparation. One word of apology from Tony et al and they would be demanding millions for their Swiss Bank Accounts. No reparation should go to Africa anyway as they made money out of the trade just like Europeans, indeed they taught the trade to us, it's not a European thing, slavery.

Why no mention of the African Slavers in all this? There would be no money reparation available from the African Slavers, who actually turned these free people into slaves and sold them, so there is no point in the African politicians going after them. They also have their tourist industry to think about, in some quarters the truth about that end of the trade would damage it.

And "handout".

FFS, I know we (Brits) were part of the slave trade, but we were the first to end it by law in our own country, and then used our own Navy to enforce it in the Atlantic until the other countries stopped it too.

Funny how people are queueing up to ask that we apologise, whereas no-one seems to be interested in thanking us for bringing such an evil to an end. I suppose "thank you Britain" doesn't have any money attached.

If wikipedia is right, we were something like third to abolish it in our own country, we didn't use the navy to enforce it until 1807, and didn't abolish it across the whole of the british empire until 1834. Still many years ahead of the "Land of the free" on all counts though. The majority of slaves used by Brits were sent around the empire though, so in reality "we" didn't really stop slavery until after

Well, it doesn't seem to be justifiable to say that Britain ended it. It seems to have sort of petered out in various countries at various times, and is apparently still legal in some.

To be honest, given that it all happened a fair few generations ago, I don't think the whole thing has any point to it. Germany and the jews is already done to death, and that was much more recent.

Theres a thought I haven't heard the Israeli's apologise for the murders of the peace keeping force prior to independance or come to that the IRA apologiseing for acts of violence Argentina for the deaths of British seaman in the Falklands all much more recent. Why on earth do we have to keep apologising for history do the spin doctors think its a quiet week so Tone should apologise to keep his name in the papers?

Derek

Don't start me. The way the maoris are carrying on at the moment NZ is likely to descend into some form of civil war in the next few years.

They've had apologies, settlements, race-targeted govt handouts.... the list is bloody long. They've squandered most of what they've been given and just keep coming back looking for more. Their latest is to try and claim all the fresh water in NZ - an idea that seems to have generated a public reaction worthy of Nige.

My sister is married to a Kiwi, he said to me that he feels the Maoris are totally ruining NZ, and it has ruined his view of the country he loves.

They lived there for 18 months and the stories my sister told me about the preferential treatment they got in the workplace were unbelievable.

Matt

That's a big if, sometimes.

DaveP

Nige on a national scale - now that would be impressive.

DaveP

It's as good as the rest, and it gets corrected and updated daily, which the printed ones don't!