[News] Reparations

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Wider question....

What is the point of the Commonwealth at all?

I think that some of the nation members see it as a vehicle for leveraging money from the UK.

Did you know that some nations have applied and joined the Commonwealth who were never part of the British Empire.

Anyway, the King loves it, in a very real sense, so it must be good.

 

[maffew]

If an ancestor of McNob’s had committed a murder during the period between 1555 and 1833, and not been caught at the time, does McNob agree that should the murder now be solvable (using DNA testing, or other means) that he himself should be imprisoned for the crime, and owe reparations to the living relatives?

Hmm now you put it like that, I think my positions changed.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

How can there be an apology for people who had no desire to do so while they were here ? History needs to start looking forward and not back. On a personal level I would refuse to apologise for something I have nothing to do with.

Are you a Time Lord?

Can I come with you on an adventure in your Tardis?

 

[vegster]

It's going to be incredibly difficult to calculate reparations for our previous actions. We stripped India bare FFS ...the cash, jewels, bullion and natural resources we stole is in hundreds of Billions...and that's just one country !

 

[Eeyore]

Are you a Time Lord?

Can I come with you on an adventure in your Tardis?

Of course, I need an assistant. I'll show you the day a non 'big six' team wins the title. Although we have to go back for that as the dial can't find one in the future.

 

[Brovion]

Why should we be handing over any money to the descendants of the slave traders..?

why would we pay money to an African nation that didn't exist at the time and where some of it's people were responsible for enslavement? their decendents should be on the hook for paying reparations along with the UK, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands. the suggestion is money going to people in the Carribean and the Americas, and their decendants where ever they end up over 200 years. it wouldn't be the end of it either, there'd be decades of arguing over who is eligiable and for how much.

really it's daft and just to stirs up racial tensions. why not focus on modern day slavery and underpaid workers especially across the Middle East and Asia.

All good points but wouldn't any cheque be handed to Caribbean nations?

Yeah, having thought about it since I made that post I've changed my mind slightly, inasmuch as there are so many variables it would be impossible to implement, and also it's unfair as it ignores the suffering of the British working class. As well as the slave trade the capitalist class got rich on the backs of the British factory workers, miners etc that they exploited. It would be grossly unfair to their descendants (most of us) if we have to pay for the sins of the people who exploited our forefathers.

So for me a great idea on first thought, not that great when you look into it and into the practicalities of implementing it. (A bit like VAR ...)

 

[el punal]

Exactly.

African slavery started before the British were involved and continued after the British stopped, and Britain played a key role in ending it.

People want to rewrite history.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

 

[LamieRobertson]

No.

 

[Bakero]

Yeah, having thought about it since I made that post I've changed my mind slightly, inasmuch as there are so many variables it would be impossible to implement, and also it's unfair as it ignores the suffering of the British working class. As well as the slave trade the capitalist class got rich on the backs of the British factory workers, miners etc that they exploited. It would be grossly unfair to their descendants (most of us) if we have to pay for the sins of the people who exploited our forefathers.

So for me a great idea on first thought, not that great when you look into it and into the practicalities of implementing it. (A bit like VAR ...)

That's where I am. An apology and reparations is the moral thing to do but the practicalities are the stumbling block.

How about a windfall tax on the super rich with provable links to the slave trade? Richard Drax, with his Barbadian plantation, would be a good start. The Duke of Westminster's 10 billion pound fortune surely has some shady origins too- not to mention the fact he managed to dodge inheritance tax on it.

Aside, from the financial reparations, I'd also send the aristos to do some volunteer work on infrastructure projects; trench digging and such like. 25 years hard labour should suffice. Meanwhile, their land and assets could be distributed to the nation as reparation for their crimes against the working people of Britain. Who's with me?

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

Neanderthals may have a claim against Homo Sapiens

 

[METALMICKY]

I heard one maybe two spokespersons interviewed on R5 about the issue yesterday. First of all they gave the interviewer a lecture about reparations. Apparently 'they' (a self-appointed pressure group) don't want 'reparations' because (here began a 2 minute lecture on the meaning of the word reparation and how it doesn't accurately reflect something or other).

The interviewer asked the spokesperson what it was they wanted. The reply was a long statement on colonialism and the semantics of cultural something or other.

The interviewer asked again what the spokesperson wanted. They again launched into a diatribe about what is not widely understood, and that until this is understood, and her organization was given free reign to set out the grievances, and the parameters for 'not' reparation but recognition of the fact (and so on) then, er..... we really have to understand this.

The interviewer then asked what practical things the government should be doing. This threw the spokesperson a bit. But it seems they (her organization) want to be given a blank sheet on which to write the precise wording of the apology and all of the 'not just' money (it is 'not about money') that should be paid in 'not reparation', without any discussion or negotiation as such, because it is their issue and they want to own it.

The interview ended with nobody any the wiser, and this was rinsed and repeated later in the day when the same (or similar) spokesperson was interviewed. I think 'they' want to shape and own the narrative so I guess we will have to wait till they have written it all down. Except I don't think they will, because if they do so this means they have capitulated to the unreasonable colonial expectation that the enslavement community bow down to the demands of the slavers and explain their grievances.

I was minded of the Trotskyite groups in the 70s who had such a precise take on their doctrine that they were not prepared to discuss it, even with other Trotskyite groups (the 'splitters').

And this is how what may perhaps be a legitimate issue can be safely ignored.

I listened to that and all the waffle was simply to avoid the key objective which is cold hard cash! When it was queried as to the practicalities of where does the cash come from and who decides who gets what he just waffled some more.

 

[GT49er]

How much should be paid? I don’t think any money is a realistic resolution.

One corrupt nation paying off another? The people on either side won’t see the benefit, and of the figures being mooted would effectively bankrupt the country. If we thought the riots were bad in the summer, wait and see what our racist isle will do if we pay a few TN in reparations. I don’t think any reparations are actually feasible.

Just hold it right there! So, you're telling us that all of us who do not agree that we should pay reparations (to the descendants of those who were complaisant with the slave trade, and in many cases actively involved in it) are racist, eh?
Well, in that case you can f**k right off with Rancid McNob and his fellow travellers.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

No we shouldn't be paying any reparations.

But the government should give an unreserved apology for out role in the slave trade
Cultural artifacts should be returned as a sign of our good faith on the matter
The Commonwealth should now be disbanded as it's a pointless relic of colonial times

 

[Sussax]

Neanderthals may have a claim against Homo Sapiens

There’s been another reparations claim but for who?!

 

[dsr-burnley]

The way that you hear some people talk you would think that we only established the slave trade so we would be able to feel good about abolishing it and to give teachers a sound patriotic lesson to teach in schools.

Perhaps even worse is that some people (including teachers) do appear to believe that "we" established the slave trade in the first place.

I'm actually quite proud (not that any credit is due to me, of course!) that since Roman times, slavery has been in theory illegal in this country, and since the Black Death has been in practice impossible as well. And that Britain was the leading nation in abolishing the slave trade, even between countries where we had no jurisdiction.

I remember on "Who do you think you are", and I think it was Alex Scott, where they discovered that one of her several-greats-grandfathers was a slave. Poor man. Then he was granted his freedom. Yippee, good for him. Then he bought a couple of slaves. Oops. Does Alex Scott the descendant of a slave owner have to pay compensation to Alex Scott the descendant of a slave?

 

[dsr-burnley]

No we shouldn't be paying any reparations.

But the government should give an unreserved apology for out role in the slave trade
Cultural artifacts should be returned as a sign of our good faith on the matter
The Commonwealth should now be disbanded as it's a pointless relic of colonial times

I'm not sure that dictating whether Barbados can be in the Commonwealth or not, is a good way of demonstrating how anti-colonial we are. Wouldn't it be a better gesture top let them make their own mind up?

 

[sparkie]

If they'd opened the bidding at £18 billion rather than the quoted £18 trillion there may have been a negotiation.

They've greedily priced themselves out of a deal.

 

[Milano]

No we shouldn't be paying any reparations.

But the government should give an unreserved apology for out role in the slave trade
Cultural artifacts should be returned as a sign of our good faith on the matter
The Commonwealth should now be disbanded as it's a pointless relic of colonial times

Why on earth are we apologising for something that happened before even our great-grandfathers were alive? What is the flipping point? In 50 years time do we expect the 2050 generation of Germans to start apologising for WW1?

The problem is that as soon as you apologise for something you're are infering some level of guilt, which then equals 'claims'. No one alive today is guilty in any way for the appalling practices of 150+ years ago. Also no one alive today can claim to be effected because a distant ancester was a slave. Where do you stop? I want an apology and compo from Italy because some distant ancestor was killed by the Romans in an invasion?

So again, what is the point?

 

[Chicken Run]

No we shouldn't be paying any reparations.

But the government should give an unreserved apology for out role in the slave trade

What like the apology Blair gave in 2007?

Tony Blair apologies for Britain's role in the Slave Trade

Anti-Slavery International - Tony Blair apologies for Britain's role in the Slave Trade

www.antislavery.org

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I'm not sure that dictating whether Barbados can be in the Commonwealth or not, is a good way of demonstrating how anti-colonial we are. Wouldn't it be a better gesture top let them make their own mind up?

And as noted elsewhere, there are members of the commonwealth who joined up having never been part of the British empire.

Indeed, if there is to be an organization that nations might use in order to moot the issue of reparations, I suspect the Commonwealth will be the go-to organization.