If the UK has to pay reparations, will other countries?

[Controversialname]

If the UK is made to pay reparations where will that leave other nations who were or indeed still are involved in slavery?

I can't imagine they'd want to go the the former slave colony countries like Liberia.

Black Americans who head of to live in Africa often find it's not what they expected at all.

@DeeCeeCherry
Any non-white who takes UK as their promised land must be mad. Get the money, use it to make life elsewhere. That's it.

This is such an upsetting attitude. The UK is my home, my country. So horrible to hear someone talk of it as simply a cashpoint. If you don't like it, don't live here. It's disgusting to stay here putting pressure on housing and services just because you see it as a way to make money.

Shame we can't easily sort our immigration policy to exclude people like this, in exchange for more of the people who actually want to live here.

Actually fiscally it’s a good thing. You tend to get relatively cheap labour that pays tax, the financial burden of education has been paid somewhere else. Then they aren’t depending on the state for long term health/ social care in old age. People are expensive when they are old or young or sick or due to disability. None of which tends to apply to a transient labour market.

So yeah, there will be no "reparations" from the UK, of course, and anyone who's not a raving, foaming lunatic and understands reality will be glad of that.

After the UK abolished the slave trade in the UK hundreds of years ago at the cost of millions of pounds and thousands of British lives, and led the way for other western countries, it's a shame that several non western countries continued to enslave their own citizens and refused to take the lead offered by the UK.

So the next step is stopping slavery in other countries around the world where it is still, horrifyingly, the norm. For example, here is a list of 10 African countries where slavery is still practiced.

https://360mozambique.com/world/africa/10-african-countries-with-the-highest-levels-of-modern-day-slavery/

And freeing slaves also includes freeing Afghan women who are now literally not even allowed to talk to other women and are absolutely definitively and in every way slaves in hideously cruel circumstances.

So, good people will continue to fight for the freedom of all the slaves around the world in countries which are not the UK.

https://t.co/POGc6zTrAk

The uk did not abolish slavery . They passed laws against slavery but continued to use proxy companies which did use the slave trade.

The uk did take out one of the largest ever loans in history to compensate slave traders and owners . That loan was paid by uk citizens . So there was reparation for those who benefited financially from the slave trade when it was finally brought to an end, but not for those who suffered .

Yes, I see your point! That certainly helps sweeten dealing with the PPs attitude!

It's just that most migrants I've met who have just planned to work here for a few years (as well as the ones who settle) are more pleasant about the country they've chosen to live in.

Oh and perhaps and some might still be unaware that the word slave has its etymology in the Slavic nations, due to the historical enslavement of Slavic people.

From the 9th century onwards, the Slavs, who lived across Eastern Europe, were frequently taken as slaves, especially by Muslim traders in regions like Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain), the Middle East, and North Africa. This association led to the term "slavus" in Medieval Latin, which eventually became "slave" in English and similar terms in other European languages.

"In 1807 the British abolished the slave trade with their colonies. In the Caribbean, slavery was abolished by British Parliamentary fiat, effective July 31, 1834, when 776,000 slaves in the British plantation colonies were freed. The British imperial emancipation can be attributed to the growing power of the philanthropic movement and a double switch in the focus of the British Empire, geographically from west (the Caribbean) to east (India) and economically from protectionism to laissez-faire." https://www.britannica.com/topic/slave-trade

So yep, after the UK abolished the slave trade (more links included in my original post proving my factual statements) the British spent millions and lost thousands of British lives freeing African slaves, and continued to do so for 50 years.

These are verifiable facts, can't be ignored, can't be argued with.

And since "<a class="break-all" href="//"www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Slavery has existed throughout the world since ancient times, and trading in slaves has been equally universal" it would be absolutely lunacy to imagine that any kind of reparations could be owed to anyone for historical events. This would mean that literally every country and human being in the entire world would owe every other country and human being in the world "reparations" because your ancestors may have done bad things.

This is, of course, batshit crazy.

Not to mention many would owe their own citizens "reparations" - for example in the UK the Scots and the Irish were also enslaved by the English, booted and starved off their land, raped, beaten and murdered by their English masters.

So, sane people can easily see that the notion of "reparations" or apologising for something your ancestors may have done is as dumb as dogshit at best, and actually insane at worst.

Sometimes racists, idealogues and the very ill educated want us to ignore facts.
But that won't be happening, any more than "reparations" will.

https://www.hametours.scot/blog/highland-clearances/

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/englands-irish-slaves-10927

And it is my sincere hope that perhaps once the grifters realise there is no money forthcoming, those demanding "reparations" who seem to be so concerned with slavery will do something productive instead and try to assist the good people in the world who are currently fighting slavery in many countries.

Although, thankfully, not in the UK.

And that's all she wrote :)

https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studies/afghanistan/

https://360mozambique.com/world/africa/10-african-countries-with-the-highest-levels-of-modern-day-slavery/

Charles can’t even apologise

Why should he? He played no part in it; and it happened well before he was born!

My ancestors were very poor Londoners. they would not have benefited in any way from slaves or had any input or involvement in the slave trade. So I dont see why i have to apologise or pay money for something that didnt involve me or my relatives and that we had no way of stopping.

Yes

This is the same for many of us

My dgps were poor immigrants who had to flee difficult circumstances.

That is without taking into account the Harrowing of the North

Charles and his family continue to directly benefit from the riches obtained via the slave trade . If you continue to reap benefits then yes you are accountable to some degree .
I agree that there are many suffering financially at the moment which is why I reiterate that the Windsors should pay something. They can spare it .

Thanks for that very interesting article, @dontbedaft2000; specifically I hadn't realised things were quite so bad in Eritrea - the use of indefinite conscription to control the population is a particular horror - but at least that's one where British influence was only brief

I rather doubt that'll stop it being deemed "everyone else's fault" though, since it's so much easier to blame someone else ... especially if there's money to be had ... than to ask the harder questions closer to home

There is an organisation called ‘ Heirs of slavery’ these individuals are the descendants of people who were enriched by their part in the slave trade . They support the Caricom group of nations in their call for apologies and reparations

https://www.heirsofslavery.org/about-us

If you continue to reap benefits then yes you are accountable to some degree .
I agree that there are many suffering financially at the moment which is why I reiterate that the Windsors should pay something. They can spare it .

The royal family have a very long list of reparations to make then, going back to 1066. I don’t think Caribbean nations would get a look in! What would they pay and to whom?

The whole idea is ludicrous - it’s the history of mankind all over the world, going back to ancient times. Why was the Great Wall of China built? Look at Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the Romans, the tribes who over-ran Europe in the 4th century; the Moors, North and South America; the USSR, China, WW2…..Accept it and move on; we all have.

The royals do have a long list of possible reparations to make I agree .
Who else is asking ?

@WeWillGetThereInTheEnd

If you look at the link I posted above you will find some answers to your questions but here is one c&p:

Isn’t slavery just a regrettable part of all human history?

It is. But the enslavement by European nations of more than 14 million Africans, and their descendants, is of a different order. For a start, it was entirely legal, promoted by governments such as Britain’s, which made vast amounts through taxation – in 1800, 11% of British GDP was generated through slavery-related industries.

Furthermore, it was for the purpose of upholding the institution of slavery, and to ‘other’ the enslaved Africans, that Europeans invented racism, developing a divisive social system based around skin colour that was zealously upheld by the colonial authorities.

Most importantly of all – the deep inequities deriving from transatlantic slavery to this day continue in the societies of all countries involved, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Are you for real? The economy is in the toilet this would ruin the country for good

Charles Windsor can put his hand in his pocket for once

You clearly have not heard of the Ottoman Empire.

Educate yourself, maybe?

@Whoelectedhim what you've posted in just the opinion of a few wealthy poshos though, who are welcome to pay their own reparations (and tbf I understand that Trevelyan has chosen to do so).

What they don't get to do is speak on behalf of the ordinary people whose ancestors didn't amass tremendous wealth, and they certainly don't get to the demand that the badly-needed tax money of those ordinary people gets handed over so that they get to feel a bit better about their ancestors.

Which is why I argue that the Windsors can pay

Call me a cynic, but I think that's the whole point. "We suffered 200 years ago so now you should".

But unless they are over 200 years old there is no 'we'.

“We” as a black race. No one can afford this. It’s a non starter.