Slavery !

[Tight shorts]

An apology is only a "real apology" if it is sincere. To be meaningful an apology should be made as soon as possible. I don't think a real apology can now be made nor should it be made. No one can now apologise for what happened so long ago. The world has moved on.

As many on here have alluded to, it is good that the issue is raised so that society spends time thinking about the issue. 5 minutes of anyones time reflecting on how to treat more vulnerable people, rather than discussing what happened on celebrity jungle shite, can't be a bad thing.

 

[chip]

I think Mr Blair has many more things that he should feel "deep sorrow" for because he was directly responsible for them: state education; NHS; personal liberty; ill-judged wars; &c. Slavery didn't start 200 years ago and it certainly hasn't ended yet. Portuguese traders took the most slaves and Brazil was the largest recipient in the "European" slave trade. Neither of them see the need for such unctious displays of sycophancy. Its just so shallow. Put me down as a no then.

 

[Biscuit]

It's nothing to do with the country he was raised in and he has never made it an issue, so to apologise for it seems odd in my opinion.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

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.

It's an interesting point but I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. You can feel pride in the achievements of the country of your birth. Likewise you can feel 'sorrow' for the darker(for want of a better word) deeds in the country's past. It doesn't mean you should apologise for them if you or your ancestors had no direct involvement in them. If you claim credit for our past achievements then you should apologise for our mpast misdeeds.

Reading that back I'm not entirely sure it makes complete sense...I hope it's at least partly understandable!

 

[Strike]

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.

My thoughts on this issue as well.

 

[Man of Harveys]

See? We wouldn't even be having this discussion on this neglected and dark aspect of British history if this apology hadn't happened. So that's positive already.

 

[Buzzer]

I think Mr Blair has many more things that he should feel "deep sorrow" for because he was directly responsible for them: state education; NHS; personal liberty; ill-judged wars; &c. Slavery didn't start 200 years ago and it certainly hasn't ended yet. Portuguese traders took the most slaves and Brazil was the largest recipient in the "European" slave trade. Neither of them see the need for such unctious displays of sycophancy. Its just so shallow. Put me down as a no then.

what he said.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

See? We wouldn't even be having this discussion on this neglected and dark aspect of British history if this apology hadn't happened. So that's positive already.

Added bonusses are it's an intersting topic where several interesting points have been made, everyone's being civil to each other, and it's not moaning about how crap the boards become.

Ace!

Now do one you cokejuggling thundervendingmachine.

 

[Tony Towner's Fridge]

My ancestors were French who were hounded out of France in the middle ages for being Protestants. Therefore may I sincerely apologise on behalf of the French nation for invading this country in 1066. It fills me with deep shame that my ancestors under Generals Townsend and Thorensen did invade Hastings and rape and pillage this 'sceptered isle', whilst never really flatening South London as it truly deserved and deserves.

As far as Tonyw@nk and his Slavery statement go, we all know that he is a lapdog apologist and history will mark him down as the most lilymlivered spineless and incompetent Prime Minister ever. World standing never lower, hanging onto the coat-tails of a Christian Fundementalist lunatic and the purpetrator of a civil service state with all it's incumbent money wasting paper pushers, that Soviet Russia would be proud of. Responsibility starts and ends with the individual and not the state,apologies likewise. His arm twirling gestures and vacuous spoutings are useless political noise that impress very few.


IMPEACH HIM NOW!!!

Oh and **** the Pal@rse!!

TNBA

TTF

 

[DJ Leon]

Let's have a governmental summit, let's open the history books and let's all of us do some serious apologising.

I'm still livid about the Roman invasion.

 

[Mark Ormerod's Gloves]

erm, lets stic to the footie on nsc... this is all far too lofty. we beat the millwall scum la la la ala la