Reckon they found commenters guessing which parts of a hypothetical argument were meant all part of the fun, In many respects youre one of the posters here whose views on morality Im closest to our personal moralities probably being quite far apart, but I recognise mine as very much the product of my upbringing and surrounding society and know enough about other places and times to realise just how contingent that makes them. . But Ill tell you what, slavery and human sacrifice, still awful. Full text must be online somewhere but theres an extract at https://www.history.co.uk/shows/the-real-vikings/articles/eyewitness-to-the-vikings. "This is a richer history as well as a necessary history; this is a more vivid history as well as a history that tells the back stories of more people in this country than the traditional narratives we've had.". But morals are very transient things. Separated from home and family and landed in the West Indies (countless numbers dying of suffocation during the journey, given that the people traffickers were packing the holds to maximise profits), the Africans had no recourse to the law, much less the conscience of their captors. A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. One of the reasons why the American and Caribbean experiences were very different. But maybe they did not. He is the undisputed King of the Internet Pedants and Lord of the Unnecessary Snark. Theres no point pretending Europeans who profited from either the transatlantic slave trade or the use of slave labour in the Americas were somehow doing a favour to the slaves involved. What do you think their stongest argument is? 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. White communities suffer huge losses from Black crime. You can pay all the reparation for historical slavery related wrongs, real or imaginary, you want. is that the extra demand distorted the market, led directly to more armed slave-raiding expeditions against rival tribes and so on.. But Muslims were enslaving white Europeans into Africa long before the Atlantic route, usually castrating the males. It is a political campaign, not a contribution to academic history. They included Josiah Wedgwood (the pottery entrepreneur), Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson. . It died out with the Romans leaving, and its non-legality repeatedly reaffirmed from the reign of the early Normans onwards. White people will take it. Slavery is bad or it isnt. Over 150 years in America. Nobody will stop you, honest. It may have made sense for the SS to starve labourers to death. It doesnt end with the parties saying Well that was pleasantly intellectually stimulating, now lets have a nice game of cricket Youre opponents are not playing by the same rules as you are. And, of course, being half white, he is only entitled to half the reparation payment. Tull played professional football for Northampton but instead of signing up for Glasgow Rangers, he enlisted. I generally reckon cant blame me, my distant relative was on your side arguments are pretty weak since relying on a doctrine of virtues of the fathers risks implicitly accepting sins of the fathers. The novel became the bestselling book of 19th-century Britain; it was adapted for the theatre and generated mass-produced merchandise playing cards, jigsaws, tableware. Peter Olusoga. 7 years was the average working lifespan so it is said. Then the second. His choice of subject and his choice of material make that very clear. I know. 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? Tim says there might be some truth to them for the Caribbean. Nor do I think that sugar is worse than cotton. In 1860, cotton goods accounted for 40 per cent of all British exports. Sure. But any planter who deliberately starved his slaves to death would quickly go bust. Im not even saying thats a convincing argument, it has some very serious weak points, just that I reckon its a stronger one than a general appeal about current inequality. The rest of this looks like the usual white washing (so to speak) of African slavery. Obama had none. Have you ever read the account by Ibn Fadlan of a Viking funeral in Russia? it was cheaper, at times, to starve people and then replace them They organised a boycott of sugar, produced more petitions and hosted meetings. They are stupid false for America. There is no reason to think one system was more or less brutal than the other. He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. It isnt happening now. Even Bill Clinton had affinity for the USA. 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. Even discussing it gives your opponents arguments merit. One person who had a huge impact on Britain was Olaudah Equiano, an enslaved man who bought his freedom and wrote compellingly about his experiences. 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. Even did something positive. Blacks like Mr Olusoga despite endlessly banging on about it seem to overlook the fact that they are in a minority. Very little sugar on the mainland. 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. Welsh slave-raids into England continued until early Norman times. That involved killing the adult men. His rhetoric is to inflame the reader. Olusoga was born in Lagos to a White mother and a Nigerian father - who, I hate to say nautrally, did a runner. Prof Olusoga says statues, such as those of slave traders . A covering letter would be a courtesy but probably not a necessity. Some were sold to other African tribes and the rest kept as slaves. His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. "They look to history not just for inspiration and comfort, not just for heroes and for glorious chapters; they look for history expecting to find challenging stories, painful stories, dark truths, villains as well as heroes. Exactly, bis. 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. He presents a one sided and biased picture of slavery which takes no account of the African participation in it. Youre right, MBE. It died out with the Romans leaving, and its non-legality repeatedly reaffirmed from the reign of the early Normans onwards.. In the UK its not white people enslaving blacks anymore, but Asians enslaving other Asians, as in Leicesters clothing sweatshops. "The phenomena of which he is iconic is one that we have written out, edited out of our nation. Olusogas stated purpose is to argue that black British history is not about migration and settlement, whether of black servants in the 18th century or black workers in the Windrush era. But werent they lucky compared to the other Germans in Stalingrad? And that still stands even if there really are a bunch of torturing murderers out there too. As it happens, I dont believe in sins of the fathers passing down the generations. Heroes of 2020 What Marcus Rashford's campaign for hungry children tells us about . (and white people was pretty much the British). In 1861, the Economist stated that nearly four million people in Britain depended directly and indirectly on the cotton industry; a fifth of the entire population. The world has seen more slavery since its abolition than before. Olusoga unloads all sorts of characterizations. So this race baiter can try his guilt trip on someone else. Thankfully the Woke have gifted us an all purpos3e response to this sort of crap. Your email address will not be published. Which of those societies does Olusogas ancestry come from? David Olusoga, introduces his book Black and British, an exploration of the relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Yet American slave-produced raw cotton continued to feed the 4,500 mills of Lancashire. And Britain worked for the whole of the 19th century to put down slavery in Africa. When I met her, ~1995, I started asking her questions about the war, as I thought she was a fabulous resource of information. Needless to say they should pay us reparations for this too. Olusoga has benefited from and added significantly to the work of Fryer and other historians such as James Walvin. There is the Push argument and the Pull argument. That someone did something 200 years ago means double ought nothing. Re putting the argument for paedophilia they actually gave Gide the Nobel prize for literature didnt they? One of his teachers had a coffee mug bearing a National Front slogan and another attacked him during a school trip, he said. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Black history: Should it be part of the wider curriculum? It began to alter (slightly) the history curriculum at university level: the first undergraduate one-year course on black British history and culture was taught at the University of Warwick in 1984. Thats before you get on to the Khoisan and the Zulus, the Carthaginians and Romans, the Vikings versus pretty much anyone else who lived within raiding distance, Theres a fundamental weakness with all theories of universal law or justice, which is that across time and space, the human conception of what is right and just seems to be extremely varied and rarely (to modern Western eyes) pleasant. Rather that certain western states, still in existence therefore potentially still liable, regulated and indeed encouraged the development of both the transatlantic slave trade and the slave-labour economic systems of the colonies, at scales that were unusual in the long and varied history of slavery, and levels of brutality that stood out too. At the moment it seems to regarded as a good thing. He has discovered new and exciting research materials in African archives, among them the Register of Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone, which list names, bodily details, ethnicity and origins, thus putting a human face on people otherwise treated as fodder and statistics. In 1787, they met in London and set up the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The best and brightest minds in the UK defended Stalins slavery. The arguments do you want to get shaken down for several trillion?. The exception is Tim Worstall, who is truly the Ron Jeremy of blogging. Between that night at the opera and 1807, nearly 800,000 Africans were enslaved. Like Fryers book, Olusogas will inspire and will come to be seen as a major effort to address one of the greatest silences in British historiography. (If the likes of SMFS believe Western society will fall apart without a return to traditional Christian-inspired values, I suggest they either don a pessimists crash-helmet or just cling on and enjoy the ride to Hell in their top-gear handcart. David Olusoga Ive always agreed that the Africans should pay reparations to the rest of us for dumping all those people they wanted to get rid of on us. I cant see this one surviving people being expected to dig into their pockets for a few trillion. TV presenter David Olusoga has told the Edinburgh TV Festival his career had sometimes left him feeling "crushed, isolated," and "disempowered". Not sure theyd do that with modern sensibilities mind you. 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. The following decades were taken up with popular and political rhetoric about immigration and parliamentary acts to limit blacks coming to Britain. That star stuff wont last. Duke University professor, William Darity Jr, and writer, Kirsten Mullen, jointly published a report for The Roosevelt Institute, an American liberal think tank, laying out a case for slavery reparations. If their ancestors had remained in Africa would they be better off than they are now? The masses who once supported black freedom now campaigned for the Deep South. Get back to us when your sin/privilege is expunged. After all, adult males were all but worthless and demand for women might have been enough to drive the trade anyway. It happened. Davids all done. If slavery really mattered theyd be campaigning for reparations from the blacks and arabs/moslems who were doing it long before the white man arrived in Africa and was far more devastating. Olusoga is of half Nigerian descent. There is plenty of slavery about we just do not call it that. This year, return to Neverland. Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? And he might not find the society withdraws it nearly as comfortable for him to live in. Latin America for instance. But that is not the argument I am making. The arguments do you want to get shaken down for several trillion? I was doing some genealogy research when I discovered my great grandfather was a well known member of the 18th Kentucky Infantry. The argument isnt whether historical slavery was right or wrong or who should accept responsibility for it. Video, 00:02:30Should black history be taught all year round? 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. 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. That is a strawman argument at its best. Societies have had a long history of treating minorities harshly. Why are these characterizations needed? Equiano is also mentioned in Incomparable World, a novel by SI Martin, which was selected by Booker award-winning author Bernardine Evaristo for her Black Britain: Writing Back series. (Im just presenting the case here in reality there are obviously some big questions about the logic of Nuremberg etc, just as there are questions about how judges in Common Law occasionally summon up things as if they had always and forever been a part of the Law, albeit previously unrecorded, rather than something the judge just made up.). Britain was happy to force the Bevan Boys down coal mines. 2023 BBC. Guess wed have to print it. Also studied at the opera and 1807, nearly 800,000 Africans were enslaved Caribbean!, what would be the strongest argument for paedophilia they actually gave Gide the Nobel prize literature. Brutal than the other Germans in Stalingrad the slave Trade coffee mug bearing a National Front slogan and another him... 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