Slavery !

[Man of Harveys]

I have to respectfully, if not disagree, then say that that comment is just a shallow, sugar-coated George Bush style homily. Rare for you MoH as I know you're a highly-intelligent poster who thinks deeply about the issues and it's unusual for you to come out with something so trite.

Sorry, I'll just run that through my NSC translator ....

(clunk ..... clunk ...... clunk ....)

Ah, yes, here it comes in more appropriate language:

That's bollocks MoH, bloody hell you don't half talk a load of shite sometimes.

My fellow Americans. Y'know, life's like a box o'chocolates sometimes. I still believe in a place...called hope. Let's ride this one down together.

I know that anything and everything that Blair does gets slated by the right and left these days but I really don't know what harm can come from this. Of COURSE there are other big issues regarding slave labour, Iraq etc. And I do have an issue with the British Empire and the way it gets portrayed so benignly here.

But, before the "ho ho, should we apologise for everything then" Telegraphesque bandwagon gets rolling, this is likely to resonate in modern British society. As I say, if (and maybe it's missing the point - I'm not black so I don't know) one black Briton feels less that they're a member of an long-standingly oppressed minority as a result of someone very senior admitting that their family's path through life was screwed up along the way, how can that really be bad?

Sorry...
*plugs in NSC translator*
You wanna make somefink of this? I blame them Muzzies!!! etc etc.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

I agree with MoH.

Don't you think it is important to set a precedent? Countries like China and India are growing at the rate of knots and they are both set to become economic superpowers. Both with problems of sweatshops/slavery.

It is not just about slavery, it is about giving everyone basic rights to be treated fairly.

 

[surrey jim]

No he wasnt

 

[Simster]

I've thought about this a lot, for some reason.

The conclusion I came to was that it is right to celebrate the anniversary of the abolition of slavery and Blair can apologise if he wants to, but his apology is not in my name.

I've been doing a lot of research into my family history of late and have managed to trace every single line of ancestry I have (all sixteen of my great great grandparents and 28 of my 32 great great great grandparents) back to the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Looking at the occupations and circumstances of every single one of my ancestors who were alive 200 years ago, I see nothing but low status occupations, poor housing and minimal prospects for any sort of upward mobility. I have ancestors who were forced into migration. I have ancestors who were street sweepers. I have ancestors who died in the workhouse.

None of them were members of the affluent classes who made a fortune out of slavery. None of them showed any sign of benefiting from the slave trade. Like millions of ordinary people in Britain, they were down-trodden and exploited.

Blair's class may have been different. He may have something to apologise for, on behalf of his ancestors. But he can keep my family out of this.

Yes, we can all celebrate the end of slavery. And we can celebrate a general escape from exploitation. But to apologise "on behalf of the British people" is to insult those millions of us (including ALL my forebears) who were not implicated in the evils of the time.

A fair conclusion to draw, providing you also feel no pride whatsoever for the hundreds of engineering, scientific or inventing feats that people of our nation have been responsible for.

I've also done a lot of thinking about this, and for me it opened up a can of worms in my mind. I DO feel proud of some of our great achievements and consequently see no harm in apologising for some our great shames.

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

I wonder if anyone in Dresden or Cologne would appreciate Him expressing sorrow because the RAF flattened their cities during the Nazi years?, or if he went grovelling to the Palestinians to express his sorrow that Britain gave their country to the Israelis?

More to the point, while he is at it, why doesn't he apologise for something he actually is responsible for? God knows there is enough material for him to work with there? perhaps he is happier felling sorrow for something that happened so long ago that it is an irrelevance to anyone with half a mind around today.

He is playing to the galleries here, and pandering to the "poor me" generation who feel that the world owes them an apology rather than just getting on with it and moving forward.

Oh, and by the way, can I have an apology from him regarding the Highland Clearances which meant my family losing everything and becoming in effect slaves to English landlords??

It was a while back, but I think it would help me to know that he is unhappy about it.

 

[Man of Harveys]

I wonder if anyone in Dresden or Cologne would appreciate Him expressing sorrow because the RAF flattened their cities during the Nazi years?

That's a comparison which holds not one drop of water though. It's just the latest in a line of takes on WW2 which can't take on board the the fact that there were plenty of Germans at the time who, despite living under totalitarianism, despised the Nazis and saw 1945 as a liberation, not just a defeat. The method of doing it was somewhat questionable, the aim undeniable. There's nothing to apologise for there.

 

[Lokki 7]

I think Blair has got this spot on. He hasn't apologised because (in this instance) he has done nothing wrong. However he has acknowledged the wrong doing of a long gone British establishment.
My own family used to run a profitable little shipping company 200 years ago but I'm not going to apologise for the part they played. It do feel the same "sorrow" that Mr Blair does though. (Also pretty pissed off that my share of the family profits went on fast women and slow horses long before I was born.)

 

[London Calling]

I think Blair has got this spot on. He hasn't apologised because (in this instance) he has done nothing wrong. However he has acknowledged the wrong doing of a long gone British establishment.
My own family used to run a profitable little shipping company 200 years ago but I'm not going to apologise for the part they played. It do feel the same "sorrow" that Mr Blair does though. (Also pretty pissed off that my share of the family profits went on fast women and slow horses long before I was born.)

I assume you prefer slow women (and fast horses)?

LC

 

[Lokki 7]

I assume you prefer slow women (and fast horses)?

LC

I'm not fussy.

 

[jonny.rainbow]

I'm waiting for the apology for Drogheda and the subjugation of Ireland.

 

[NMH]

Hold on a (cotton pickin') minute people.

A lot of people here obviously see this apology by Blair as being 'on behalf of the British' - in otherwords he's apologised for us as British people.

The apoloogy is actually 'for' the people who were enslaved, so does it really matter to us, and should it really matter?

I personally reflect on slavery as a rescuing of many Africans from aggressive neighbours who would otherwise have killed them. Instead, they sold them to mostly-Portuguese traders who distributed them across the world, where they were given a place, work, and they were fed! They had a life that might otherwise have been taken from them mercilessly by warring tribesmen (as has still been taking place as recently as.... yesterday, and the day before that).

Slavery does not fit into today's societal morals, and the allowance of integration, that is long completed, is only slowed by the blame-culture, and the embittered who prefer to ponder on it.

If a few words can put the blame-culture to rest, allow a little more recognition that enables a generation to 'get on with things' without having to do any further lipcurling, or apportion it as an excuse for anything - then why not just say the words so we can move ever onwards and upwards?

The OPPOSITE has been done in religion lately - where several words have been said that could have been left alone, aimed as barbs to the Muslim religion - vilifying and generalising, that only exacerbate conflict that prevents understanding (from both sides).

The Blair stance is something I personally don't see much need for, but if it stops a faction from going on about it then alright. As for the Muslims, a little respect might be accorded for the acknowledgement of those who DO uphold a decent spiritual interpretation of their faith. (imo bush is a 'christian' terrorist)

 

[Meade's Ball]

I'm sorry, but slavery was a gift we historically gave alongside the sword and chain?

 

[Lokki 7]

I personally reflect on slavery as a rescuing of many Africans from aggressive neighbours who would otherwise have killed them. Instead, they sold them to mostly-Portuguese traders who distributed them across the world, where they were given a place, work, and they were fed! They had a life that might otherwise have been taken from them mercilessly by warring tribesmen (as has still been taking place as recently as.... yesterday, and the day before that).

You would rather live a life of slavery than risk your life fighting for your freedom? I guess it's lucky Churchill didn't share your view.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I personally reflect on slavery as a rescuing of many Africans from aggressive neighbours who would otherwise have killed them. Instead, they sold them to mostly-Portuguese traders who distributed them across the world, where they were given a place, work, and they were fed! They had a life that might otherwise have been taken from them mercilessly by warring tribesmen (as has still been taking place as recently as.... yesterday, and the day before that).

That's quite an interesting reinterpretation of the European slavery trade.

Kind of ignores the harsh conditions of the slaves- you know what with so many of them dying on the crossing to the new world and being worked to death on the plantations
Also ignores the fact that much of the warring tribesman activity was down to the demand for slaves from the Europeans, that made slave raiding so profitable and led to the depopulation of West Africa

Still it's worth a wind-up sn't it?

 

[Meade's Ball]

I guess it's lucky Churchill didn't share your view.

He was anti-mong though, innit?

 

[NMH]

I'm sorry, but slavery was a gift we historically gave alongside the sword and chain?

Huh?

As an old friend (African American) once observed; most slaves were treated well, as a happy task force was generally a good task force. It was also safer than looking over your shoulder in case a downtrodden slave with prisoner mentality cast away his cares. These ex-tribes-people were physically and mentally fit, and it behooved their keeper to maintain that equilibrium, generally.

In the USA, The bigger problems actually arose when hundreds of thousands were forced into ghettos where racism catalysed (as it still is to some extent) on both sides, and poverty and hunger took over among those who couldn't (or wouldn't) work with whitey. Crime ensued, and disdain grew on both sides - giving rise, in history, to 'strange fruit' executions, KKK and Black Panther organisations.
The introduction of sharecropping was a clever method to integrate and enable the newly freed to become businessmen and stand among whites as their peers - hopefully with a dissipating racial outlook from both sides.

Going back to your post MB, the swords and chains were mostly how the slaves were subjugated in the first place - beginning with their own African neighbours. The downstairs labour that was utilised by the upstairs wealthy, was unlikely to have been threatened or chained, to make them cook and clean!
In much of the World, chains and swords would have also been used on white prisoners, and I doubt that Blair was speaking for those.

 

[Man of Harveys]

You do realise that the song Sail Away by Randy Newman was actually taking the piss and not a straight forward narrative account of what actually happened?

But no - I'm sure it was like the QE2 and the Love Boat combined down there. Nice and cosy cabins to retire after games of quoits and pink gins in a deck chair. Weird.

 

[NMH]

You would rather live a life of slavery than risk your life fighting for your freedom? I guess it's lucky Churchill didn't share your view.

If it works for you to compare the press-banged working of a man who couldn't walk freely, nor make a trip back to his home (where he probably would've been killed or been in a massacre) with Britain v Germany and Italy (and others), then you certainly have an interesting way of stretching your imagination just to come up with an opposing viewpoint.

It's not worth me even reasoning with unreasonable viewpoints, so do please use your imagination to muster something else up.

 

[NMH]

That's quite an interesting reinterpretation of the European slavery trade.

Kind of ignores the harsh conditions of the slaves- you know what with so many of them dying on the crossing to the new world and being worked to death on the plantations
Also ignores the fact that much of the warring tribesman activity was down to the demand for slaves from the Europeans, that made slave raiding so profitable and led to the depopulation of West Africa

Still it's worth a wind-up sn't it?

What's winding up got to do with anything?
I think I did consider the harsh conditions that got the slaves from Africa to Europe, ..... or Australia, if you would like to ponder the plights of the press-ganged whites, and the prisoners sent there!

With that outlook though, and calling mine a wind-up, I hope you are going around apologising to those slaves. I agree with Blair apologising, for what it is now worth.

 

[Professor P]

I'm waiting for the apology for Drogheda and the subjugation of Ireland.

I'll be the first to apologise to the Irish once they appologise for Graham f***ing Norton.