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. It was an apt university to experiment with such developments, since Lord Scarman, who reported on the Brixton riots of 1981, was its chancellor. Away from the creative arts, the Equiano Project aims to promote race equality and he was mentioned in Parliament during a debate on Black History and Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum. But slaves were more valuable, so the British fought the Spanish for a share in the trade and eventually came to dominate it. Well whats the point of pretending it doesnt also induce moral disgust in me, just in case someone mistakes it for guilt, or an admission of liability? 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. Indeed in many cases, whose ancestors didnt even live in France or England at the relevant time. Anglo-Saxons had slaves. Or they may discover how little black lives do matter. Check out the trailer for Peter Pan & Wendy, an upcoming live-action movie directed by David Lowery. is that the extra demand distorted the market, led directly to more armed slave-raiding expeditions against rival tribes and so on.. But it is Olusoga who keeps insisting that its the Brits who are uniquely responsible.. Olusoga was born in Lagos to a White mother and a Nigerian father who, I hate to say nautrally, did a runner. Writing in english is cultural appropriation so STFU. many African tribes kept slaves. That involved killing the adult men. My family did nothing. The historian and producer said he wanted to. You may concede a point here, a point there. Well one economist has worked out the amount to be paid (although not on a damages basis, when one imagines blacks might end up paying whites, but on a close the wealth gap basis): A renowned economist has said that $12 trillion should be afforded to black Americans in reparation for slavery to help the close wealth gap. Would the good professor really be so different if genealogical records could prove he had African ancestors who owned African slaves? That is a strawman argument at its best. I think it's an astonishing achievement.". As a nation, we still have only a dim understanding of the slave system that funded Sloanes collecting. 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. Had a vault for the more inflammatory pieces. In 1787, they met in London and set up the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. No. . Very little sugar on the mainland. The arguments do you want to get shaken down for several trillion?. In 1796, a bill was defeated by only four votes: a group of abolitionist MPs went to the opera and missed the vote. No other race / culture was willing and able to do that. And that still stands even if there really are a bunch of torturing murderers out there too. Id agree that attitudes in the UK are approaching that situation, but theres still a long, long way to go yet. Dont know if I would rule it out entirely because the demographics are different but it might need a change in the voting dynamics. You can be redeemed, you worthless pasty people. 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. I havent said anything about my personal sense of guilt or responsibility. Married an American GI after the war. I do not see what is different between a plantation in Africa and a plantation in Virginia. Surely the US has already spent much more than that on black Americans. If the alternative was that they were killed? Even did something positive. For almost 60 years, there was impasse. Why are these characterizations needed? Guess wed have to print it. 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. Its an interesting exercise to consider, given we live within such a system, how or whether that contradiction can be settled. "Equiano is the most important voice that we have from the British experience of slavery and the slave trade," he said. 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. BZZZTT!! David Olusoga Make sure it doesnt happen in the least costly way. Quite possibly slave-raiding Gaels before that. The good news is that Black Lives Matter may be that trigger. Blacks like Mr Olusoga despite endlessly banging on about it seem to overlook the fact that they are in a minority. They may not be happy about Dresden or Hiroshima but their lives are much better. A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. In the 15th and 16th centuries, thousands of pounds of gold were shipped to Europe. 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. Again, not that these market forces absolve the sellers of a moral responsibility, but there is an argument occasionally deployed that slaves would have been slaves anyway. Not to say it was nice.. 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. * the legal institution and pretty much the practice It may not. One of his teachers had a coffee mug bearing a National Front slogan and another attacked him during a school trip, he said. . Just means they werent alone in being in the wrong. Thy did not try to grow or raise the next generation. "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. 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.. Should almost go without saying except of course that it doesnt, since clearly not every culture has the same moral gut reaction to it that I do. It seems absurd to me that anyone should be concerned about what happened 200 or 500 years ago. Black and British: A Forgotten History He presented the recent series of A House Through Time on BBC 2, and Black and British: A Forgotten History. So is Richard Murphy. at scales that were unusual in the long and varied history of slavery, and levels of brutality that stood out too. Olusoga patterns his narrative after Fryers, starting with the North African presence in Roman Britain. People seem pretty much agreed on what is right and what is wrong. Olusoga is of half Nigerian descent. And he might not find the society withdraws it nearly as comfortable for him to live in. Hes insisting that a household headed by a 21 year old black should have the average wealth of all white households. (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. After all, adult males were all but worthless and demand for women might have been enough to drive the trade anyway. So 10.416 were sold by the Africans every month for one hundred years, There will be no peace on this issue until black people acknowledge their own responsibility for the trade. The evidence of this is that seasoned slaves, those exposed to the environment, sold for up to 50% more than new ones. 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. MBE, do not entertain these people, not for one second. Good point, I wonder how he squares the obviously comfortable living he has writing, opining and broadcasting about slavery with his principles. After decades of complaints, the Royal African Company lost its monopoly in 1712 and, Olusoga writes, Independent traders were turned loose upon the shores of Africa. These traders had argued (stone-blind to irony) that the right to enslave Africans was a defining feature of English freedom and that the Royal African Company had breached their status as free-born Englishmen. Kyle Rittenhouse, unlike the rest of their sorry asses, did something. Forbes magazine's extraordinarily arrogant contributor Tim Worstall Jeremy Corbyn. Now sixteen sounds about okay to me if youre going to stick a limit somewhere, but then being British I suppose Im more likely to think the system Im accustomed to is normal and reasonable. The system he witnessed and wrote about was one in which human beings were worked to death. They included Josiah Wedgwood (the pottery entrepreneur), Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson. Slaves were crowded in a new environment with new diseases. June 16, 2020 - 20:29 BST Aisha Nozari. A House Through Time returned to BBC Two in May for its third season, and once again is fronted by historian extraordinaire David Olusoga. No doubt life expectancy of a slave was shorter than that for a free man. Then a young teenager, he was driven out of his council home, together with his grandmother, mother, two sisters and younger brother, by a sustained campaign of nightly stoning of their windows. It may have made sense for the SS to starve labourers to death. In the USA? She wasnt interested in my academic pursuit. But morals are very transient things. West Indians fought with the Allies more than a hundred were decorated. Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. Not sure how sick this makes me. But you need a different approach if you dont think great-grandkids of the Confederacy are still fair game.) It was such a brilliantly organised programme of mass protest that slavery was declared abolished in 1833: 46,000 slave owners were given 20m in compensation (17bn in todays money), the largest payout in British history and 40 per cent of all government spending that year. So there were times when food was expensive, we can call those shortages or famines. 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. 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. Prof Olusoga, the presenter of the A House Through Time TV series, calls it an act of "historical salvage" to bring to the fore the black British figures who had been "lost in the archives, completely forgotten". When Olusoga recalled the experience before television cameras last year, he wept. And, of course, being half white, he is only entitled to half the reparation payment. White people are unique in ending slavery across the world*. There is no reason to single White people out for unique levels of criticism. Needless to say, the national mood changed. His rhetoric is to inflame the reader. He was Chairman of Moneysupermarket Group from 2014 to 2019 and Senior Independent Director of Close Brothers Group plc from 2006 to 2014 and is a Past President of the Chartered Management Institute. 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. Thats why we get it. 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. Whoever has the upper-hand in power political, cultural, economic, military or whatever other form is decisive at that moment. I just dont really get what Olusoga is saying. And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? Dr Peter Olusoga is a senior psychology lecturer at Sheffield Hallam university. Prof Olusoga says statues, such as those of slave traders . But werent they lucky compared to the other Germans in Stalingrad? There is an alternative argument that it is their ancestors who were wronged hence deserve compensation and as descendants theyre entitled to an inherited share (so their portion depends on how many slaves at what position in the family tree) plus interest, regardless of how well theyre doing now. Shipwrecked off the coast of Africa, he, and other survivors, were taken by an African tribe as captives. 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 race obsessed Department of Education goes to considerable lengths to distinguish Caribbeans and West Africans. There is no reason to think that slavery was nicer in Africa. Peter Pan & Wendy is a live-action reimagining of the J.M . 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. (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.) Dr Peter Olusoga is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology. Prof Darity and Ms Mullen outline that to eliminate the existing Black-White wealth gap an allocation of between $10 trillion and $12 trillion, or about $800,000 per black household, should be paid. Get back to me in seven years, when youre ready to order. Slavery didnt last much longer for various reasons, fizzled out in a century or so, but we have the records to show it was still part of the system after twenty years of Norman rule: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-of-domesday/order.htm. They arent going to concede anything. At the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Britain was granted the right to supply slaves to the Spanish colonies in the Americas, a right then passed on to the South Sea Company. Your email address will not be published. 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. If black lives really mattered these people would be protesting the 500 shot dead so far by predominantly black men in Chicago this year. Slavery within West African societies being different again I dont think the places with very high rates of local slavery were anything like the sugar plantations. ), Who is fundamentally right about reparations for slavery? To be honest, I was a bit sceptical about the Olympics coming to London, but the atmosphere across the capital was genuinely wonderful . Some were sold to other African tribes and the rest kept as slaves. Supported by African authors of slave narratives such as Olaudah Equiano and Ottabah Cugoano, they held meetings all over the country, attracting huge crowds. We are told that an estimated 12.5 million slaves were shipped from Africa to the West Indies and elsewhere in the 18th century. They are pretty much airbrushed from history, whereas the transatlantic slave trade seems to be wall-to-wall on our TV screens and in our school textbooks. But those were in those long-lost days when democrats and republicans could talk to each other and agree to disagree while both leaving the conversation a little the wiser. By a Senegalese author: The veiled genocide = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxc5ENT8ajg, MyBurningEars August 30, 2020 at 11:52 am Slavery within West African societies being different again I dont think the places with very high rates of local slavery were anything like the sugar plantations. If Olusoga is looking for apologies or compensation for slavery, I am quite prepared to meet him, accept his apology, togehr with cash, cheque or even a postal order. Cest de la trs bonne dialectique conomique. The UK, Norway, Benelux, Spain, Malta and Switzerland are, I believe, the only western European countries to set it at 16. 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? It costs money to replace them and after a famine the price of slaves would rise. Would, say, Huguenot-descended South Africans suing France over the 1572 St. Bartholomews Day massacre, or Cornish people suing HMG for the suppression of the 1497 Rebellion, deserve compensation? Instead he has become a campaigner working to discredit Britain, the country that has educated him, promoted him and brought him fame and acceptance. I have done nothing. Over 1000 years in Britain. The argument isnt whether historical slavery was right or wrong or who should accept responsibility for it. I cant see the point of denying it was all pretty awful. A covering letter would be a courtesy but probably not a necessity. So wherever the wealth came from, it wasnt just slavery (or even mainly), Olusogas an alright presenter but a class A race hustler, Edward Lud August 30, 2020 at 9:12 am We could just cut to the chase, and impose a reparations tax on anyone who is descended from from anyone who did something, er, wrong.. At the moment it seems to regarded as a good thing. Like I said before, tolerance is in the gift of the powerful. Sure. Jamaicans and Nigerians used to hate each other. Then dont discuss it. The Westman Islands of Iceland have an interesting history in terms of European slavery a major rebellion of presumably mostly Irish (Westmen) slaves was put down there in the typically brutal Scandinavian manner, hence the name, but in the 1600s the local inhabitants were themselves enslaved by Barbary pirates and taken to Algiers, from where a few were ransomed back and one wrote about the experience. It's all down to people in their 20s, those at school and in their teens, who have a relationship with history which, says Prof Olusoga, is profoundly different from that of their parents and grandparents. He saw how enslaved people who had risen up were burnt to death, castrated or mutilated, punishments he regarded as merited. Probably few other societies had as much chance of buying freedom. In that moment, his interest in history overlapped. Id say the same to the Black Lives Matter people. Roman writers such as Pliny who chronicled or rather fabricated African life shaped perceptions of a continent populated by anthropophagi and other fantastic creatures, half-human, half-animal. Very often shaped by the political, technological and economic forces of the times if the Western way of life had remained utterly dependent on Roman-style slavery, Im not sure wed ever have abolished it even amongst our own inhabitants. (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.). It wasnt always so & it may not be in the future. And Britain worked for the whole of the 19th century to put down slavery in Africa. Thats what I dont like about the angle of Tims header. Not to say it was nice. Long after slavery ended in the British colonies, British people continued to lobby the American government to free their slaves. So how much have considered paedophilia? My great, great, grandfather was one. Support 100 years of independent journalism. Reasonable estimates have some 50% of the inhabitants of the Sokoto Caliphate as late as the late 19th cent being slaves. He previously worked at JP Morgan for 18 years in a number of senior roles and was . Their demands should simply be refused. Inflaming the reader has no purpose relative to slavery. BurningEars August 30, 2020 at 3:07 pm Theres a flaw in arguments of the form frankly you should be glad I murdered your sister. But there have been other societies with slavery where slaves had more autonomy and a greater chance of buying their freedom. And the third, fourth, fifth, and so on. This is because forgetting slavery means forgetting its victims. I havent the faintest idea whether slavery in the Roman controlled areas of Britain was more along the continental Roman model or retained Celtic characteristics. The New Statesmans global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. (As the first person to mention the Sokoto Caliphate ahh, forget it.). Flyover Americans arent going to take it. Yet theyre so many centuries and generations removed from the crime, everybody involved with the decision-making is long-dead and while the responsible state still exists, in practice compensation comes from taxes paid by citizens who had no part in it all. Black history: Should it be part of the wider curriculum? I learned the hard way. Thankfully the Woke have gifted us an all purpos3e response to this sort of crap. We do not know for sure. Indeed, third-century York may have been more ethnically and racially diverse than present-day York. He presents a one sided and biased picture of slavery which takes no account of the African participation in it. Now they do. 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. The rest apart from Ireland (17, partly due to influence of aforementioned Patrick) set it younger. Have you ever read the account by Ibn Fadlan of a Viking funeral in Russia? 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