Theres an argument about judging people by the standard of their times, though even in the 1500s moral and religious objections to the slave trade had been made and the rationale of crimes against humanity is that some things are so abhorrent they could never truly be legal no matter what moral code the perpetrators justified themselves with. Their demands should simply be refused. Once insignificant villages, great cities such as Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow sprang up on the profits of slavery. If the alternative was that they were killed? It is a good deed that must not go unpunished. Although the bottom line is that no Black person remembers slavery. So there were times when food was expensive, we can call those shortages or famines. Sloane witnessed and later became part of a system ruled by terror. Do I feel like I had anything to do it? That was a bad experience but he should know that you cannot judge a whole country by what happened when he was young. "I don't know why this generation has a different relationship with the past, goes to the past, expecting and looking for different things to earlier generations, but that's really is my observation about them," he says adding the internet has played a huge part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxc5ENT8ajg, https://www.history.co.uk/shows/the-real-vikings/articles/eyewitness-to-the-vikings, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestmannaeyjar, https://www.historytoday.com/archive/normans-and-slavery-breaking-bonds, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-of-domesday/order.htm, Apparently Essay Mills Must Be Made Illegal, Why Oxfam Can Go Boil Their Heads Over Vaccine Patents, The real point about climate change is how cheap the solution is, The excellent Tim Worstall- The Register, Tim Worstall is a darn good economist- Don Boudreaux, Tim Worstall, you pendant- Polly Toynbee, .more sensible than most right wing nutjob bloggersBob Piper. I doubt that they are now firmly united in a common cause. Their cities, as well as their comfort, will rapidly decay. Anglo-Saxons had slaves. Peter Pan & Wendy is a live-action reimagining of the J.M . The government has said the "flexibility within the history curriculum means that there is the opportunity for teachers to teach about BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) history across a spectrum of themes and eras" so it did "not believe it was necessary to change the curriculum". Olusoga, who is half-Nigerian, traces this focus to his mother telling him when he was a child that Nigerian soldiers served in World War II. Under English law, damages are assessed as being that amount needed to restore them to the position they would have been, had the event claimed against not occurred. If you think 14 is the wrong decision for the boundary, a better argument is a rebuttal of the strongest case for 14 rather than a rebuttal of a straw-man version of it. The following decades were taken up with popular and political rhetoric about immigration and parliamentary acts to limit blacks coming to Britain. In the 15th and 16th centuries, thousands of pounds of gold were shipped to Europe. I learned the hard way. Needless to say they should pay us reparations for this too. See, five years ago I wouldnt have written a crass comment like that, but hey, times achanging and as financially independent with some FU-money, I dont have to worry about cancellation culture, LOL. Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? Its very noticable how nobodys mentioning that the Spanish Empire were doing this for several centuries before the British got involved. He updates Fryer, citing radioisotope analysis of skeletons and craniometrics, which support written documentation of Aurelian Moors guarding Hadrians Wall and settling in places such as Yorkshire. Whoever has the upper-hand in power political, cultural, economic, military or whatever other form is decisive at that moment. TV presenter David Olusoga has told the Edinburgh TV Festival his career had sometimes left him feeling "crushed, isolated," and "disempowered". The agreement is being touted as a . Well the universe has a law of gravity but it doesnt have a law of should there be reparations. If there were African states with legal continuity to those political entities which established and encouraged the African slave markets, they would be on the hook too, but theres a discontinuity due to colonialism and besides, everyone knows to sue the rich guy not the poor guy. 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.. The Coldest Case in Laramie: yet another bleak true crime podcast, From Sophie Mackintosh to Stephen Moss: new books reviewed in short, Universal Credit falls short of covering the bare essentials. And I dont think this is what reparations campaigners are calling for either, as I understand it their argument includes systematic legacy issues not just the period of slavery itself, so the harm relates more directly to them not just their ancestors. This is indeed tu quoque. Not good. "The phenomena of which he is iconic is one that we have written out, edited out of our nation. In the case of slavery the answer is clear. Arguably wrong in a crimes against humanity way (similar language of natural justice and universal morality indeed being used by the abolitionists and the UK itself when it tried to enforce a ban on the trade) that made it inherently illegal even when governments tried to put it on a legal footing. And so many hundreds of thousands of British workers were directly dependent on slavery (from sailors to those who built, rigged and repaired ships) that it was easy to turn a blind eye to the inhumanity. Id say this to Mr Olusoga. It happened. I hadnt gotten far when she stopped me cold, pointing out that her best friend, a 15 year old girl knitting beside a window in her house, was machine gunned by an American P-51 pilot. 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? In dealing with the black contribution to the First World War, for example, he cites popular gratitude and admiration for black Britons among them Walter Tull, who fought on the Western Front. Some other buyer would have taken them if they werent shipped out, and Western (or Arab) traders were just changing the ownership and location, the sins of the slave-raiders being theirs alone to bear. H istorian and broadcaster David Olusoga has been the face of a decolonial turn in British broadcasting that, in recent years, with series including the Bafta-winning Britain's Forgotten Slave. Some were sold to other African tribes and the rest kept as slaves. "He was the voice of somebody who wasn't speaking about the past as a historian, but was living it. But there have been other societies with slavery where slaves had more autonomy and a greater chance of buying their freedom. Inflaming the reader has no purpose relative to slavery. 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. I still find arguing the toss, or watching others doing so, interesting partly because it shows how the viewpoints are divergent, how many arguments are self-interested, what social, cultural and economic forces are at work behind it all. A covering letter would be a courtesy but probably not a necessity. John Mandeville, whose travelogue (circa 1356) was one of the most widely translated books of the later Middle Ages, presented Africans as naked savages living amid heaps of gold to which they gave no value. Video1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. Needless to say, the national mood changed. Anyway, I digress, we did have at some point, a gang of pedos turn up and put their case, reasonably, and were tolerated and conversed with. He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. Thats what I dont like about the angle of Tims header. Olusoga poses as an objective historian and says he is not there to bring comfort to people. No. Married an American GI after the war. The thing we British are ancestrally responsible for is beginning and continuing to pursue the extinction of the sordid business of slavery. Different people can argue the toss from different viewpoints and perspectives but in many ways their arguments pass each other like ships in the night, because they havent all got nobodys got an absolute frame of reference to judge things with respect to. Nobody will stop you, honest. His book is a product of that childhood terror, and partly an exploration of his condition as a black Briton. He saw how enslaved people who had risen up were burnt to death, castrated or mutilated, punishments he regarded as merited. But that ignores how the demand of outsiders led inevitably to far more supply being provided, so I dont think the traders can be given a pass on this front either. In 1787, they met in London and set up the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates. They have a game plan & youre falling for it. His black half can get the half-payment direct from his white half. I had a girlfriend whose mother was a Nazi. This is nothing to do with slavery or as with black lives matter, blacks being shot, and everything to do with a shakedown of the white man. Olusoga patterns his narrative after Fryers, starting with the North African presence in Roman Britain. His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. Shouldnt matter whether some long-dead relative fought long ago for or against (not at all to disparage your ancestors GC, who all sound very sound) in terms of whether somethings your fault. 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. if he wants to be an historian he should present a fair and realistic picture of what happened, Your email address will not be published. This history of the black presence in . As would Beyonce. The masses who once supported black freedom now campaigned for the Deep South. (Britain expended blood and treasure on ending the slave trade, and thereby paid its moral debt already is one way of trying to resolve it, but rather unsatisfactory at righting the wrongs done to those who had already fallen victim to the trade.) I am not so sure about that although it is another argument. No one has said we should not consider someone elses viewpoint. I havent said anything about my personal sense of guilt or responsibility. Definitely didnt die out with the Romans. Olusoga has benefited from and added significantly to the work of Fryer and other historians such as James Walvin. (and white people was pretty much the British). Black and British: A Forgotten History 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.. That hes able to write this article is because hes living in what is, by historical standards, a remarkably tolerant society. In the UK its not white people enslaving blacks anymore, but Asians enslaving other Asians, as in Leicesters clothing sweatshops. And he might not find the society withdraws it nearly as comfortable for him to live in. It was far too real to her. I can then give him the details of other descendants, he can apologise to and compensate. I dont think the traders can be given a pass on this front either., Just means they werent alone in being in the wrong.. "They're not looking to history only to make them feel good and give them comfort, but they're looking to history to tell them things about truths about their society that we have traditionally edited out of British history.". Used to be on a long-dead and much missed forum where the topics of debate ranged far wider than they do here (as did the viewpoints I think it would be useful if us right-wing brexity mob didnt chase off the sensible non-right-wing non-brexity types so much). One of his teachers had a coffee mug bearing a National Front slogan and another attacked him during a school trip, he said. Not to say it was nice. Country Star Kacey Musgraves: Voting for Trump Is an Act of Violence. I assume these were usually killed before Europeans turned up and bought them. Rather the constitution banned the slave trade and so it become economically worth it to make sure slaves lived longer. One in which enslaved people suffered and even died from malnutrition, as the economics of the slave trade meant that it was cheaper, at times, to starve people and then replace them than it was to provide them with food. people like Olusoga would have to pay their share of the greatly increased taxes We are told that an estimated 12.5 million slaves were shipped from Africa to the West Indies and elsewhere in the 18th century. What has he got to say about that? Nevertheless, we live in a society that generally regards slavery as an absolute and eternal wrong, and a grave one at that, yet which has historically (at least certain people and places, and including the state itself) benefited from imposing slavery on others.. David Olusoga, 49, is a television presenter and historian. That someone did something 200 years ago means double ought nothing.. Forbes magazine's extraordinarily arrogant contributor Tim Worstall Jeremy Corbyn. The details of difference are fairly minor. History is just one awful thing after another. He presents a one sided and biased picture of slavery which takes no account of the African participation in it. White people will take it. 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. It isnt going to happen anyway. 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 . Quite possibly slave-raiding Gaels before that. "I first read it as a student and it struck me as something that was very different to other things I was reading about the Atlantic slave trade. Prof Olusoga says statues, such as those of slave traders . His current research focuses on stress, burnout, and wellbeing in sports, with a particular interest in high-performance environments and elite coaching. Why are these characterizations needed? The German survivors of Stalingrad were sent to camps and most of them worked to death. There is the Push argument and the Pull argument. Tull played professional football for Northampton but instead of signing up for Glasgow Rangers, he enlisted. The Celtic version of slavery (which ran to quite a different model) was still going on in the places the Romans didnt reach. Blacks like Mr Olusoga despite endlessly banging on about it seem to overlook the fact that they are in a minority. You know, entirely ignoring lifetime effects? You dont have esoteric discussions with paedophiles any more than you would with serial killers. But as someone who is damaged by slavery I have lived in racially mixed communities and I am happy to see Obama and Kamala pay up. Looking at what happened in Haiti or Jamaica or chunks of Latin America, I dont find either well, could have been much worse or what do you expect, Early Modern West Europeans, how could they have known better? to be particularly convincing responses. David will . Instead he has become a campaigner working to discredit Britain, the country that has educated him, promoted him and brought him fame and acceptance. How does it benefit anyone to make an issue about particular events? Back in the heyday of blogging, perhaps ten years ago or so, there was a blogger calling him/herself The Heresiarch who enjoyed running against received opinions. And this of course neatly addresses MBEs arguments. And they will go looking for parts of the past that aren't on the curriculum, and they evidently do. 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. We aint paying no goddam reparations & no-ones gonna make us. Black and British: A Forgotten History addresses one of the greatest silences in British historiography. Wrong ?!?! You should know better. 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