Apologising for the slave trade

[Pennies]

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the slave trade and there have been calls recently for there to be a formal apology from Tony Blair and / or the Queen.

Will it make any difference?

My personal opinion is that you can't apologise for someone else's actions - it would be a bit like me apologising for Tony Blair's sanctioning of the war in Iraq (and I have never voted for him so I haven't even approvied those actions vicariously IYSWIM). It would be an empty apology, wouldn't it?

I can't see that it would ever change anything, or am I missing something.

I have been boycotting Israeli as well as Nestle produce for years (for different reasons obviously) , I also did not buy South Arican produce at the time of Apartheid, although I was aware that most of the produce I was boycotting was produced by black labour, which I obviously supported.

Probably depended where you lived in the country, too - presumably as Peachy suggests, people around Bristol would have been more likely to. Perhaps Liverpool as well.

Also, John Newton was quite vocal (ex slave trade ship worker who converted and eventually wrote Amazing Grace) in the campiagn, and obv. would have had good first hand, albeit different experiences, to back him up.

good site. especially for talking with kids

As far as I'm aware Yellowrose, Britain hasn't apologised to anyone for the huge number of things it did, hence my idea of having that as someone's full time job.

But I still don't get the point.
HM Queen says what her ministers tell her to say.
Thus if they decide to do apologise, she's a candidate for the work. Over time she visits every Commonwealth country which is a good % of the done-tos.
But most people know the Queen's words aren't her own, so does it mean anything ?
If a politician does it, then one cannot help but suspect that it's for his benefit, rather than any real contrition. I rather suspect "apologies" may "just happen" to coincide with big arms sales.
Indeed the whole thing may become a ritual with no meaning like the way the old Pope used to kiss the airport tarmac when he visited a country.

LOL at the idea of the queen spending the rest of her career apologising.

I reckon Helen Mirren should do it.

DC come one.

If poeple whose cultures have been enslved would feel better with an apology then it WOULD do some good. It would make them feel better. That's damned excellent imo.

You can sit here and frantic semantic anything by saying 'but if X says it then it might just mean...' but really, thats just an excuse.

(Btw less confrontational- thought of you yesterday- teletext had a thread quoting one newspaper as stating aspirin prevents 75% of deaths .

I presume they meant heart attack deaths. they jsut said deaths.

But i though- ooh I 'know' someone would pmsl at that stat!)

Gosh DC - I actually agree with your last post ! Yes, arms sales. It also means that we allow the Saudi's (for example) to get away with one of the worst human rights records in the world, because they have masses of oil and money and they give us jobs.

I am not a monarchist, as you may have guessed so pretty much think the royals are a waste of time, if their only role is to go around apologising to countries and nations previous kings and queens and their gang enslaved, invaded and abused, good luck to them ! I'd rather spend my tax money on the poor than the Queen's bloody airfares !

I think they are a bunch of hypocrites. They love the Saudi royal family don't they ?

Helen Mirren is more sexy than the Queen, so yes may be she should get the job ?

Just received this:

In 2007 we commemorate 200 years of Britain?s abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. But whilst we do not want to compare that horrific episode in history, today there are still millions of people in slavery.

In the UK, women are trafficked into prostitution. In Brazil, men are used as forced labour to clear the Amazon to make way for agricultural estates. In the Philippines girls as young as nine years old are enslaved in domestic work and in Niger entire families are born into a slave class, inherited over generations as property.
200 years on -- see how slavery is going on today

Hugh Quarshie- Leading actor & Anti-Slavery International Supporter

Estimates state that there are 5,000 trafficked people in the UK at any one time.

They are held against their will and forced to work in a range of exploitative labour such areas as agriculture, construction, food processing and domestic work as well as sexual exploitation.
.
A domestic worker interviewed in recent research by Anti-Slavery International recounted her friend's experience: "She managed to escape through a window, from the family that treated her like a slave. She was terrified and had bruises on her body. Her passport was locked in the house. The policeman at the station asked her for her documents. She of course did not have them and wanted to tell him what happened, but he insisted on her documents first and said he must first know who she was."
As a campaign supporter of Anti-Slavery International I, like you, know the immense problems facing those in slavery and how hard Anti-Slavery International and its grassroots partner organisations are working to find practical solutions to free people from slavery and ensure they remain free.

As you know, staying free is not simply a matter of being released.

It is critical that, if people are to live free and independent lives, that the poverty and discrimination which are fundamental to the existence of slavery are addressed.

There have been some huge strides forward over the last few years. After sustained pressure from Anti-Slavery International and its supporters, the UK Government announced that it will sign the Council of Europe Convention on trafficking. This is an important step towards the provision of guaranteed protection to all trafficked people. Also, in 2006, the Government established a UK Human Trafficking Centre, which brings together a range of governmental agencies and police from across the country to work against trafficking for both forced labour as well as sexual exploitation.

These successes have been achieved with your help both by campaigning and making much needed donations to sustain pressure on the issues. That is why I am asking you to make an anniversary donation and help ensure that this won?t continue for 200 more years. Please help us by making an online donation now (using our secure server).

from these peeps should you feel inclined to help

I've heard bigger numbers than the 5,000 quoted, which is awful in this day and age.
Certainly we should find the slavers and make their lives miserable in a really quite profound way.

I think that site deliberately tries to avoid the 'how can you prove those numbers you've set so high' scenario, and only counts those it feels definite about, iyswim.

Thanks for that info. Peachy. I am aware of their work. We should get the Queen & Archbishops to do some charity work for them too

Haven't read the whole thread, but no. It was shameful and it was wrong, but it was of it's time.

Let's look at slavery today and do something aout that.

Message withdrawn

'Governments exist independently of individuals. '

No, they don't. They're elected by individuals in democracies.

'But expat, if the 'baddies' from the oil company are gone but still alive, is there a point in the company still apologising as a company?'

IMO, no. I mean, what the hell good is it for the newbies to come in to clean up the mess to say, 'Oh, sorry for the old guys.'

Yeah, well.

To me, an apology implies that the extender feels remorse for his/her actions or the consequences of his/her actions.

But to apologise for something you didn't do is empty and meaningless.

Under British law, and all the legal systems derived from it (most of them), a company is a person. You can sue a company, it can own things, and be prosecuted for wrongdoing.
Same is not true of animals or machines.

A company that did bad something 200 years ago, is legally and logically the same thing now as then.
Obviously there aren't many, and just because they have the sane name does not mean they are the same company.
If it were not for various statutes of limitations, you could indeed sue a company for harming your ancestors, provided you were able to show that you were administering their estate. Some legal cases over wills have gone on for decades.

However, there is a subtle but important difference between British and US law. Britain does not have "mergers". Your company can buy another company, but your firm does not normally inherit its liabilities.
You may then transfer its assets, and maybe even shut it down, but that's not a merger.
Thus if you can show that a modern large company has bought a former slave owning outfit, all you have is a claim against an entity that quite probably has no assets of its own.

It's made more difficult also because slavery was legal under both British and what we might think of as international law, and you'd have a tough time making it retrospective.

Disclaimer I am not a lawyer, take professional advice before suing Tate & Lyle for 200 billion dollars.

DC - you're not a lawyer. If you buy a company - ie you buy the shares - you do normally acquire the liabilities. On the other hand, if you buy a business, you don't.

But in the instance of apologising for the slave trade, are we talking about companies, businesses or governments?

My understanding was that the company analogy was hypothetical entirely.

Don't care if the government apologises - thought think it is actually all a huge waste of time and energy - but would be pissed off if there was an apology on behalf of the English (ie white) people. Slavery had nothing to do with me, mate!

Message withdrawn

But bloss we are NOT talking about a) a company, which was only used as an analogy b) something that just happened and anyone who engaged in it is still alive.

This is the standpoint that I'm seeing it from.

This was actions from a government of 200 years ago and people who had utter FA to do with it are apologising for something they had no part of.

I fail to see what purpose that serves to anyone.

Like Aloha, I see that as a huge waste of time and energy.

That's honestly my opinion.

'Is it enough for the company just to sack the baddies, and then go on their way saying, ' But no-one who was responsible for that mess works here any more.'

If I work for a company and OK- something that happened to me- am exposed to asbestos, well should I get asbestosis (fortuantley unlikely) in 30 years, and I go back and ask for the compensation which I have been promised already in that event, would the 'Sorry, they all left, we've new peolpe here now' argument wash? Damn right no.

If it was proven that my garndad's exposure to nuclear waste whilst in that industry directly led to the death, and near-death of two of my cousins (they were not brother /s sister but cousins themselves) from the leaukaemia that we were told was extremely rare, would the family ahve right to claim, even though one cousin is no longer here and not currently suffering? I think so. There's a lot of good that cold be done with reparations for that awful tragedy- hosuing for my uncle who has never been well since, for a start.

Just ebcause the direct victims have passed, does not mean that those surviving are not affected.

But how do we calculate that, Peachy?

And this brings up another issue separate from apology, which is compensation.

Well, I have already stated my view that the best way to 'compensate' for the slave trade is to stop it happening now. To me, that is the only useful method. Other scemes such as education etc to rebalnce the injustices balck people face should imo be part of a general social mobility programme- if you single groups out as 'Poor, black, northern, Welsh,' etc it doesnt serve to glue socirty together at all- yes those definitions need to be utilised in understanding social need, but the repair needs to be addressed to those who need it, regardless of any particular culture, and regardless of any notion of it being done as reparation.

I don't believe in individual compensation.