To think we should go right back to the begining of slavery

[noego]

And clear up everything associated with slavery whether it was political, religious, colonial or empirical.
It means going back 11,000 years and destroying everything associated with slavery.
Make a clean break and then make a start on freeing the 40 million plus people enslaved today.
Then onto free the 70 million people displaced by war and the 7 million people on the threshold of starvation.

Just wondering how that could be achieved.

Do you really want to live as we did 11,000 years ago.
I doubt there would be much left tbh, most of Liverpool, London and the ports wouldn't exist.
You'd need to kill millions to get back to the same figures as were on earth then.
I don't think you've thought this through.

You'd like to unbuild the railways, roads, castles? Return the millions from the sugar plantations and the cotton fields? Return thousands of people back to all the countries from which they were bought and give them their lineage back? 'Undefile' thousands of women and return their children back to their wombs?

Just checking that I understand .

Pull down the pyramids and Rome? The Parthenon? What would that actually achieve?

Easier just to not be a knowingly hurtful arsehole today, surely?

Surely it would be more sensible to properly acknowledge those things, acknowledge the work and suffering of slaves in the process, make reparations where due and focus on ensuring a fair and equal society now.

As well as stamping out modern slavery and working to solve world hunger.

I'm guessing that this is a tongue in cheek post by the OP, intended to highlight the futility of trying to eradicate all statues/buildings/structures created by slaves or funded by profits from slave labour. If that is your intention, I'm with you on this OP (but if you're being serious, YANBU, and living in a dreamworld).

Defenbaker

I thought that reading it again after posting.
Humour failing today

What Defenbaker said.

It's what happens from now onwards that matters. Pulling down statues is a distraction from tackling the real problems.

Oh I got it was tongue in cheek.

I just felt it was still ridiculous given that the idea of destroying everything associated with slavery isnt one being seriously pushed.

Failing to see what the actual point would be.

The only people seriously suggesting everything to do with slavery is destroyed are racists and white anarchists.

BLM wanted the odd statue of actual mass rapists, child molesters and murderers slavers removed. Which seemed reasonable really.

OTOH, shall we replace Colston with a lovely Bronze of Saville? He did some marvellous work. Try to look at the nuance of it.

Please stop with the earnest replies everyone. OP is not making a serious point. They are being deliberately hyperbolic because they want to undermine the efforts currently being made by the BLM movement and others to openly address and make reparations for the UK’s exploitative, slave-owning past.

If people would like to engage with this subject in a more meaningful way, here are some resources:

‘The Case For Reparations’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/361631/

www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/29/slavery-abolition-compensation-when-will-britain-face-up-to-its-crimes-against-humanity
www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/10/13/the-case-for-reparations

Ah. Ok.
If it was tongue in cheek, there is benefit in tearing down the statues.

Like someone aptly described, it's like having statues of Jimmy Saville and his likes dotted around town and having to walk by it all the time - especially if your daughter and nieces were his victims. Even sadder would be that some people fighting to keep them up because of the 'good' he's done.

Someone went further and said, it's like having statues of Hitler all around town and people refusing to take them down because of how hard he fought for Germany.

SadSisters

Completely agree, but calling out and making fun of such idiocy is also crucial.

Of course that would be a terrible idea, to put up statues of Jimmy Saville, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein et. al.

It's very important to wait until long after they and their victims, and the families of their victims, are dead and gone.

That way we can create beautiful commemorative statues of these men that contributed to life and the arts.

And then ask anybody precious and stupid enough to be offended why they still care, so many decades later?

Christ almighty the mental exercises people will go to, it’s so embarrassing. You’re not as clever as you think you are, this isn’t a big ‘gotcha’.

We need to learn from history rather than wiping it out.

What?

@cabbageking nobody is talking about wiping out history.

To use the Saville example again - is refusing to honour him with a statue 'wiping out history'? Are people going to forget what he did without a statue?

@cabbageking want one of these in your garden so we can learn from history?