Now Im trying to imagine just what the strongest case for reparations might be, but even in this thought experiment its hard to see what the eligibility criteria for receiving payment should be, what sum should be due, how much proof is required of eligibility not everyone will have a good set of family records etc. It was the first of the slave narratives that I'd ever read and I found it astonishing.". I know. Both of these need proof. Supported by African authors of slave narratives such as Olaudah Equiano and Ottabah Cugoano, they held meetings all over the country, attracting huge crowds. Cheap ass presentism. Though I dont know where wed get $12 trillion in Confederate currency. The economics of the slave trade may have meant that it was cheaper to work someone to death rather than allowing him a comfortable old age. "The phenomena of which he is iconic is one that we have written out, edited out of our nation. I cant see the point of denying it was all pretty awful. If their ancestors had remained in Africa would they be better off than they are now? Would, say, Huguenot-descended South Africans suing France over the 1572 St. Bartholomews Day massacre, or Cornish people suing HMG for the suppression of the 1497 Rebellion, deserve compensation?. First launched in London in 1987, it aims to highlight and celebrate what black people have achieved in Britain throughout history. And, of course, being half white, he is only entitled to half the reparation payment. Perhaps Im a bit more culturally relativist these days, but just read it again, still absolutely awful. Slavery within West African societies being different again I dont think the places with very high rates of local slavery were anything like the sugar plantations. Cest de la trs bonne dialectique conomique. not at all to disparage your ancestors GC. You might have heard of a Romano-British chap called Patrick, got enslaved and nabbed to Ireland? 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 . "We are on a journey in this country and other countries are on similar journeys to try and reconnect to parts of our history that had traditionally been edited out," adds Prof Olusoga. There is the Push argument and the Pull argument. A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. Should almost go without saying except of course that it doesnt, since clearly not every culture has the same moral gut reaction to it that I do. Davids all done. As it happens, I dont believe in sins of the fathers passing down the generations. Should black history be taught all year round? And yet anti-black race riots broke out in 1948 in Liverpool and in 1958 in Nottingham and Londons Notting Hill. The Benin Dialogue Group announced it had brokered an agreement that will see "some of the most iconic" of the bronzes returned to Benin City, Nigeria, where they will be housed in the soon-to-be-built Benin Royal Museum. He was immersed in it. arguments are pretty weak since relying on a doctrine of virtues of the fathers risks implicitly accepting sins of the fathers.. A weekly newsletter helping you fit together the pieces of the global economic slowdown. The publication in 1852 of Uncle Toms Cabin, by the American abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, swelled national sympathy for the plight of black slaves. Black and British: A Forgotten History 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. In the end, wholl be proven right about the matter practically, in terms of what the outcome is and what the first drafts of history say? But those were in those long-lost days when democrats and republicans could talk to each other and agree to disagree while both leaving the conversation a little the wiser. 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. Needless to say they should pay us reparations for this too. He is the undisputed King of the Internet Pedants and Lord of the Unnecessary Snark. If one disproves his assertions would slavery then be okay? 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. 2023 BBC. Fired by religious feeling, they embarked on a campaign of public education and political lobbying unprecedented in scale and revolutionary in nature. And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? I was uncomfortable using it. "They were barely known even to historians. Those who grew rich on slavery and the slave trade were not neutral and no achievement or act of philanthropy justifies airbrushing their involvement from history. Both groups today, especially the former, could reasonably claim historic persecution has reduced their present income and wealth. A newsletter showcasing the finest writing from the ideas section, covering political ideas, philosophy, criticism and intellectual history - sent every Wednesday. Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion. I can then give him the details of other descendants, he can apologise to and compensate. Or anything to do with slavery. That star stuff wont last. And that still stands even if there really are a bunch of torturing murderers out there too. MyBurningEars August 30, 2020 at 3:31 pm Deliberately shipping that many people that far in order to participate in a newly-created society whose economic system was designed, pretty much from the ground up, around slave labour?, 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., But there have been other societies with slavery where slaves had more autonomy and a greater chance of buying their freedom.. Forbes magazine's extraordinarily arrogant contributor Tim Worstall Jeremy Corbyn. Fuck right off As a winning debating strategy. It built slave forts on the African coast, some such as Bunce Island in Sierra Leone furnished with a rape house. Dont know if I would rule it out entirely because the demographics are different but it might need a change in the voting dynamics. That was at the least unusual, particularly from a West European perspective bearing in mind the practice of slavery had pretty much fizzled out there. The German survivors of Stalingrad were sent to camps and most of them worked to death. Olusoga brilliantly reveals such contradictions in British society. (At least in our society) Get over it. Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. You should know better. Not many remember anything about segregation either. "The small minority whose history had been airbrushed out of the national story recovered that history with the help of their allies and then broadcast it, spread it into our national conversation and they did that within the space of half a century. His rhetoric is to inflame the reader. Even did something positive. It happened. Shouldnt Olusoga be writing in Ubangi bantu-language? This year, return to Neverland. Olusoga patterns his narrative after Fryers, starting with the North African presence in Roman Britain. Its a replay of the ecology nutters & the trannies. You may concede a point here, a point there. Married an American GI after the war. Video, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3: The Meaning of Zong, BBC Bitesize: The Zong 1781-1783 - The triangular trade, during a debate on Black History and Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum, Harry and Meghan told to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, Explosive found in check-in luggage at US airport, Fungus case forces Jack Daniels to halt construction, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Fire knocks out half of Argentina's power grid, Havana Syndrome unlikely to have hostile cause - US, Starbucks illegally fired workers over union - judge. Purely speculatively, and as a matter of prediction rather than judging whats best, its hard to imagine large-scale reparations ever being adopted in Blighty because the ratio of losers to winners with the vote (presuming eg British Asians would be ineligible for compensation) is going to remain unfavourable and the cost of reparations across the relevant parts of the old Empire (if youre compensating British Jamaicans, presumably youre going to compensate all the Jamaicans in Jamaica once youve accepted the principle) would be considerable. More than a million copies were sold in Britain cheap pirated versions reached a mass readership. Dr Peter Olusoga is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology. The South Sea bubble, the greatest financial crash of the 18th century, was intimately connected to Britains dealings with Africa, though this is rarely acknowledged by historians. Like I said, as a mental exercise, if I do my best good faith effort to imagine an argument for reparations, I reckon it would concern harms committed by the state (which unlike the slave traders and owners, is still about today) and an argument that it breached some alleged fundamental/universal doctrine of law so that even the states efforts to put the slave industry on a legal footing were null and void. Well whats the point of pretending it doesnt also induce moral disgust in me, just in case someone mistakes it for guilt, or an admission of liability? For some peculiar reason possibly because theres a section of Western society has become very insecure about its own position its being some credence. BZZZTT!! It has been reissued by publishing house Hodder and Prof Olusoga has written the foreword. I have done nothing. 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). As would Beyonce. Particularly as nowadays anyone who dares even look at someone a few days below the age of consent is believed to be an incorrigible nonce who deserves hanging, castration, or castration by hanging. The point about slave descendants in Georgia being better off than descendants of slave sellers from West Africa is reasonably strong (though look back in everyones ancestry and youre likely to find, far back enough, a mix of slaves, owners and probably traders too). Abolition was the first mass philanthropic movement in Britain, and it ended the slave trade in 1807. I am not so sure about that although it is another argument. Quite possibly slave-raiding Gaels before that. Thy did not try to grow or raise the next generation. They all get it from White people inciting violence. But any planter who deliberately starved his slaves to death would quickly go bust. Hey, we do not even have to go that far. In the system that made Sloane wealthy, black women sought out herbs, plant species that he carefully identified and categorised, and used them to induce abortions, determined as many were not to bring into the world children who would be born items of property and destined to live short, brutalised lives. Deliberately shipping that many people that far in order to participate in a newly-created society whose economic system was designed, pretty much from the ground up, around slave labour? How does it benefit anyone to make an issue about particular events? Even Bill Clinton had affinity for the USA. The historian and producer said he wanted to. If you want to pay more tax, just write a cheque to HMRC and send it off. 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