I'm not saying they are stupid as was suggested. They are being gaslit on an epic scale by their media. But Biden DID win the election. Massively. Fairly. Demonstrably. That they still don't believe it is bonkers.
So I think the film got it pitch perfect. Here is something undeniably true. Just look at it. No, its a fake, don't look at it.
57% of Americans think a repeat attempted coup is likely to occur again. Perhaps the Canadian professor was right and the land of the Maple leaf needs to start preparing for refugees fleeing Gilead...
Trump may actually win the election fair and square and even win the popular vote in 2024.
Latest poll is Trump 44% Biden 38% with 8% of Biden 2020 voters now backing Trump
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
We could get into this all day Kamski but I have cannot think of where I have been personally rude to you - or anyone - unless they have been rude to me. You have been rude to me proactively on a number of occasions, especially when it comes to the US elections, because you don't like my beliefs. In fact the reason you stick in my mind so make is that of all the posters on here, you have been the most consistently sneering and rude (I'll overlook Roger - he gets away with it for being a champagne socialist)
Mr. kamski, Stalin and Mao are very suitable for comparison with Hitler.
Also, Hitler was far more associated, by design, with the concept of Germany (at the time) then slavery was with any individual country ever.
Go ahead and add up how "evil" each of them were and let me know.
Like I said, I didn't start making analogies with Hitler - take it up with JosiasJessop.
Yeah yeah, we all know Kamski - Stalin and Mao were not evil, they were doing it for the right cause.
You want to believe that, fine. Just don't preaching to the rest of us how you are essentially a good person. You actually are not
Ummm now you are saying that I have said "Stalin and Mao were not evil".
Nor have I ever preached to you that I am "essentially a good person" (although it is perhaps telling that you have imagined that - maybe you have doubts about whether you are a good person).
I am happy that you ridiculously claim that I am not a good person, I'll take it as a sign that I'm not so bad, given how much of a liar you are.
You are simply making things up, again.
You have a long history of attributing quotes to me (and others) that I have not only not said, but that I not said anything that could even be remotely misinterpreted to mean anything similar, and that I totally disagree with.
I have said this before, you are easily the most dishonest poster on this site. You just lie and lie and lie.
Not as much as you lied in that post Kamski. And you twist my words - I didn't say you said Stalin and Mao were not evil, I was referring to your seeming inability to admit that Stalin, Mao and Hitler were all evil and equally so. If you wanted to go solely by numbers, Mao would win it with Stalin second.
However, say - in direct quotes - where I have attributed things to you and others to back up your point.
As for being the most dishonest poster etc etc, I'll take it as a compliment coming from your good self.
"Yeah yeah, we all know Kamski - Stalin and Mao were not evil, they were doing it for the right cause.
You want to believe that, fine. Just don't preaching to the rest of us how you are essentially a good person. You actually are not"
Just perusing the details of the year’s first poll, by Redfield and Wilton.
The Tories are failing to retain a huge chunk of people who voted for them in 2019. So are the Lib Dems, but presumably that is mostly folk who refused to back Corbyn now willing to vote tactically for Starmer’s party to get rid of the Sleaze Party.
The SNP has fantastic retention (I cannot recall ever seeing any party retaining 96% before). And those 2% LD-voters and 1% Lab-voters planning on voting SNP next time round might look tiny in a UK context, but are huge chunks of the SLD and SLab vote.
Retention of 2019 voters:
SNP 96% (Grn 3%, LD 2%) Lab 86% (Grn 4%, Con 4%, LD 3%, SNP 1%, Refuk 1%) Con 79% (Lab 11%, Refuk 5%, LD 3%) LD 70% (Lab 17%, Con 8%, Grn 3%, SNP 2%)
Yet still a 2.5% swing from SNP to SCon on that poll in the Scottish subsample
The reason being that the sub-sample is totally unweighted.
Only YouGov correctly weight the geographical sub-samples.
This is an outstandingly good poll from an SNP viewpoint.
Losing 2 seats to the SCons based on it is hardly outstandingly good whatever quibbles about the weightings of the subsample
Are you genuinely predicting SCon gains in Gordon and Ayr? Based on one Scottish sub-sample??
You said it once a couple of days ago. Which was silly but understandable. Then you repeated it a couple of times, which was gobsmacking. Now you are just behaving like a clown. How appropriate.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
While I agree that what MrEd wrote was textbook whataboutery, I don't have a clue why "Christianity" makes it "even shittier".
What makes the holocaust even shittier is that Hitler was (sometimes) a vegetarian!
When I first heard Hitler was vegetarian, I was not in the least surprised. I just shrugged. In fact another piece of the jigsaw falls into place.
Really, care to explain? Otherwise your comment comes across as pretty obnoxious.
Yes happy to explain. I am not normally obnoxious, perhaps towards my brother, but it’s fair of you to say I can come across as obnoxious when showing my strong dislike for vegetarians and vegans. I have no time for them. I’m not even ambivalent - in fact if they are forcing that insane diet on their children, making them all wan and sickly, they should be locked up.
🥓🍔🥩🍗🍖🥘🍤🍳
PS if I am talking to a vegetarian, Hitler was vegetarian: suck it down.
Thanks for clearing it up. Is it just "vegetarians and vegans" you have a "strong dislike for", or is it anyone who follows any kind of diet? People who don't drink? People who don't put milk in their tea? People who have any kind of religious belief? People who wear their hair long?
Don't feed the troll - even if it's only a vegan sausage roll.
Did you mean to sound so poetic? 🙂
It was an accidental rhyme, though I noticed it at the time.
Government in danger of losing some of their last remaining supporters in the press over the VAT on fuel issue and NI rise.
It appears that Mr Rees-Mogg - who, for someone so wealthy is clearly in tune with cost of living issues - had a row with the Chancellor on the subject in Cabinet yesterday.
“Yet this last great opportunity is about to be squandered: like his hero Winston Churchill, Johnson appears intent on winning the war – in Boris’s case, the double conflict of Brexit and Covid – but losing the peace. Inflation is out of control, taxes are being increased to their highest levels since Attlee, real wages are collapsing, migration and crime are not fixed, the schools are a mess, the NHS and social care are a bottomless, dysfunctional pit and yet Johnson seems the picture of insouciance, focusing on radical green policies that will make us even poorer.
“He seems stuck in a parallel, Labour-lite universe when it comes to the economy, tax, energy, public spending and the environment. His attitude to VAT cuts on energy is the perfect vignette of all that has gone wrong.”
Someone needs to tell the PM, that the problem is lying in bed next to him. Or else the backbenchers, and possibly a few frontbenchers, are going to be telling Sir Graham Brady.
Mr Bush of the Statesman has this in his email about the Tory leadership hopefuls:
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
We could get into this all day Kamski but I have cannot think of where I have been personally rude to you - or anyone - unless they have been rude to me. You have been rude to me proactively on a number of occasions, especially when it comes to the US elections, because you don't like my beliefs. In fact the reason you stick in my mind so make is that of all the posters on here, you have been the most consistently sneering and rude (I'll overlook Roger - he gets away with it for being a champagne socialist)
"Yeah yeah, we all know Kamski - Stalin and Mao were not evil, they were doing it for the right cause.
You want to believe that, fine. Just don't preaching to the rest of us how you are essentially a good person. You actually are not"
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
No, love. You made an argument which looked at first sight like morally rock bottom. I pointed out that it was actually worse than that.
here's an idea: Campaign for Trump. get him reelected. then campaign for the Negro Disenfranchisement Act, and make sure it has aGeorge Floyd Had It Coming clause in it.
So now it is morally wrong to say that something is evil, regardless of who commits the act, and support Universal Human Rights? Wow, ok duckie. You really should live in Saudi Arabia.
PS you haven't answered the question of whether you believe in Universal Human Rights.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
Arguably more slaves were enslaved by Barbary Islamists in North Africa than by Christians in the rest of Africa
Oh goody, we can put more statues of slave traders up then? Also: Islamists? And "arguably" but in reality nowhere near.
Why are the victims of our past aggressions and misdeeds more worthy of note and remembrance than those of the Barbary pirates and other non-western slavers?
(Incidentally, the Barbary pirates raided more than just Africa: large swathes of coastal Europe were raided up to Cornwall and Ireland, leading many people to live inland away from the coast.)
This matters. The vast over-simplification of slavery into we-were-uniquely-evil leads to an over-simplification of modern evils.
Umm, are there any statues of Barbary slave traders in the UK?
Not as far as I'm aware. But your comment rather proves the point.
OK you seem to be saying that by pointing out the lack of statues of Barbary slave traders in the UK I am saying "we-were-uniquely-evil". This is just so unbelievably illogical that I am sure you must mean something else, so - what is your point? I am trying to establish exactly what this argument is about. I kind of thought it was about statues of slave traders in the UK.
Your comments seem to be just pure whataboutery, but maybe I'm missing something.
No. I'm saying by concentrating just on the statue of slavers in the UK is wrong. Slavery was - and sadly is - an international trade, and whilst we and some other countries industrialised it, it needs to be looked at in a totality. Especially if we are to learn lessons from it.
It's like saying that because Hitler was evil, the evils of Stalin and Mao should not be mentioned. Or because Israel is doing wrong in the Middle East, the other actors doing wrong in the region get a free pass.
Sorry, but the correct analogy for what you are saying is "you can't be in Germany and criticise Hitler without also criticising Stalin and Mao"
So, do you think Stalin and Mao were on a par with Hitler for evil or less so. I'm genuinely interested and though you make so many assumptions about me, I will wait for your answer to decide what assumptions I make about you.
The main difference between Hitler and Stalin/Mao was that Hitler was more aggressively expansionist and reckless, and so was a more direct and immediate threat to people outside Germany's borders.
Stalin/Mao were perhaps more cautious and paranoid, and so a policy of containment/spheres of influence could limit their malign influence to within their own borders (and those of client states) without having to fight a general war of survival.
But I think the main point of the discussion is that it becomes very difficult to talk about specific issues if you introduce a requirement that someone had to give a general overview of evil in all its forms in order to talk about a specific manifestation of evil.
If you weren't able to talk about lung cancer without also talking about all other forms of cancer, or all other potentially life-threatening illnesses, then it would be difficult to talk about lung cancer. Sometimes it makes sense to talk about the general, but using it to avoid talking about the specific is rightly derided as whataboutery.
Stalin not expansionist? The countries of Eastern Europe post-1945 might find that comment a little strange...
I made a relative assessment not an absolute one.
You talked bollox.
No I didn't. You misinterpreted one small part of what I said in an attempt to belittle me and win yourself internet points.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
I'm not saying they are stupid as was suggested. They are being gaslit on an epic scale by their media. But Biden DID win the election. Massively. Fairly. Demonstrably. That they still don't believe it is bonkers.
So I think the film got it pitch perfect. Here is something undeniably true. Just look at it. No, its a fake, don't look at it.
57% of Americans think a repeat attempted coup is likely to occur again. Perhaps the Canadian professor was right and the land of the Maple leaf needs to start preparing for refugees fleeing Gilead...
Trump may actually win the election fair and square and even win the popular vote in 2024.
Latest poll is Trump 44% Biden 38% with 8% of Biden 2020 voters now backing Trump
Government in danger of losing some of their last remaining supporters in the press over the VAT on fuel issue and NI rise.
It appears that Mr Rees-Mogg - who, for someone so wealthy is clearly in tune with cost of living issues - had a row with the Chancellor on the subject in Cabinet yesterday.
“Yet this last great opportunity is about to be squandered: like his hero Winston Churchill, Johnson appears intent on winning the war – in Boris’s case, the double conflict of Brexit and Covid – but losing the peace. Inflation is out of control, taxes are being increased to their highest levels since Attlee, real wages are collapsing, migration and crime are not fixed, the schools are a mess, the NHS and social care are a bottomless, dysfunctional pit and yet Johnson seems the picture of insouciance, focusing on radical green policies that will make us even poorer.
“He seems stuck in a parallel, Labour-lite universe when it comes to the economy, tax, energy, public spending and the environment. His attitude to VAT cuts on energy is the perfect vignette of all that has gone wrong.”
Someone needs to tell the PM, that the problem is lying in bed next to him. Or else the backbenchers, and possibly a few frontbenchers, are going to be telling Sir Graham Brady.
Mr Bush of the Statesman has this in his email about the Tory leadership hopefuls:
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
Patel took a harder line than Truss on immigration from India in any new India trade deal however.
Patel and Rees Mogg would lead the traditional right post Boris, Truss would lead the libertarian right and Sunak and Javid and Hunt the centrists
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
We could get into this all day Kamski but I have cannot think of where I have been personally rude to you - or anyone - unless they have been rude to me. You have been rude to me proactively on a number of occasions, especially when it comes to the US elections, because you don't like my beliefs. In fact the reason you stick in my mind so make is that of all the posters on here, you have been the most consistently sneering and rude (I'll overlook Roger - he gets away with it for being a champagne socialist)
"Yeah yeah, we all know Kamski - Stalin and Mao were not evil, they were doing it for the right cause.
You want to believe that, fine. Just don't preaching to the rest of us how you are essentially a good person. You actually are not"
As I said, Kamski, you have been proactively rude to me, I think you will find I was even agreeing with you on a point earlier. You reap what you sow. And you have a history of being rude to me.
Anyway, we only have a limited amount of time on Earth and this is certainly not the way to spend it.
I'm not saying they are stupid as was suggested. They are being gaslit on an epic scale by their media. But Biden DID win the election. Massively. Fairly. Demonstrably. That they still don't believe it is bonkers.
So I think the film got it pitch perfect. Here is something undeniably true. Just look at it. No, its a fake, don't look at it.
57% of Americans think a repeat attempted coup is likely to occur again. Perhaps the Canadian professor was right and the land of the Maple leaf needs to start preparing for refugees fleeing Gilead...
Trump may actually win the election fair and square and even win the popular vote in 2024.
Latest poll is Trump 44% Biden 38% with 8% of Biden 2020 voters now backing Trump
I'm not saying they are stupid as was suggested. They are being gaslit on an epic scale by their media. But Biden DID win the election. Massively. Fairly. Demonstrably. That they still don't believe it is bonkers.
So I think the film got it pitch perfect. Here is something undeniably true. Just look at it. No, its a fake, don't look at it.
57% of Americans think a repeat attempted coup is likely to occur again. Perhaps the Canadian professor was right and the land of the Maple leaf needs to start preparing for refugees fleeing Gilead...
Trump may actually win the election fair and square and even win the popular vote in 2024.
Latest poll is Trump 44% Biden 38% with 8% of Biden 2020 voters now backing Trump
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
Government in danger of losing some of their last remaining supporters in the press over the VAT on fuel issue and NI rise.
It appears that Mr Rees-Mogg - who, for someone so wealthy is clearly in tune with cost of living issues - had a row with the Chancellor on the subject in Cabinet yesterday.
“Yet this last great opportunity is about to be squandered: like his hero Winston Churchill, Johnson appears intent on winning the war – in Boris’s case, the double conflict of Brexit and Covid – but losing the peace. Inflation is out of control, taxes are being increased to their highest levels since Attlee, real wages are collapsing, migration and crime are not fixed, the schools are a mess, the NHS and social care are a bottomless, dysfunctional pit and yet Johnson seems the picture of insouciance, focusing on radical green policies that will make us even poorer.
“He seems stuck in a parallel, Labour-lite universe when it comes to the economy, tax, energy, public spending and the environment. His attitude to VAT cuts on energy is the perfect vignette of all that has gone wrong.”
Someone needs to tell the PM, that the problem is lying in bed next to him. Or else the backbenchers, and possibly a few frontbenchers, are going to be telling Sir Graham Brady.
Mr Bush of the Statesman has this in his email about the Tory leadership hopefuls:
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
Patel took a harder line than Truss on immigration from India in any new India trade deal however.
Patel and Rees Mogg would lead the traditional right post Boris, Truss would lead the libertarian right and Sunak and Javid and Hunt the centrists
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
“ To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions. “
What’s wrong with that? We Christian’s should know and do better to set the world an example.
Government in danger of losing some of their last remaining supporters in the press over the VAT on fuel issue and NI rise.
It appears that Mr Rees-Mogg - who, for someone so wealthy is clearly in tune with cost of living issues - had a row with the Chancellor on the subject in Cabinet yesterday.
“Yet this last great opportunity is about to be squandered: like his hero Winston Churchill, Johnson appears intent on winning the war – in Boris’s case, the double conflict of Brexit and Covid – but losing the peace. Inflation is out of control, taxes are being increased to their highest levels since Attlee, real wages are collapsing, migration and crime are not fixed, the schools are a mess, the NHS and social care are a bottomless, dysfunctional pit and yet Johnson seems the picture of insouciance, focusing on radical green policies that will make us even poorer.
“He seems stuck in a parallel, Labour-lite universe when it comes to the economy, tax, energy, public spending and the environment. His attitude to VAT cuts on energy is the perfect vignette of all that has gone wrong.”
Someone needs to tell the PM, that the problem is lying in bed next to him. Or else the backbenchers, and possibly a few frontbenchers, are going to be telling Sir Graham Brady.
Mr Bush of the Statesman has this in his email about the Tory leadership hopefuls:
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
Patel took a harder line than Truss on immigration from India in any new India trade deal however.
Patel and Rees Mogg would lead the traditional right post Boris, Truss would lead the libertarian right and Sunak and Javid and Hunt the centrists
Rees-Mogg is a busted flush.
People thought the same about Corbyn in 2010 no doubt
@rwjdingwall Replying to @leoniedelt and @lensiseethrough I admire the professional integrity of the statisticians for putting such weak data in plain sight knowing that anyone with basic skills will then pull it apart, despite the accompanying narrative spinning in line with the policy preferred by their customers.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Hmm, imagine a counterfactual where the British abolished their slave trade earlier than they did (perhaps partly because they never got iunvolved in the Caribbean and had the sense to retain all their North American colonies so that slavery did not take off in the USA).
(a) much less demand for slaves (b) much earlier intervention by the Royal Navy, partly as an instrument of economic war against the continental European slave colonies, but also acting to suppress the Barbary trade
(but this would be relevant mainly to West Africa)
Neither would have had an effect.
Selling slaves was a means for African rulers to get rid of their "excess" problem. Money was of course an important issue but not the primary one. So, if there was less demand from the US, it would not have solved their problem, what to do with the captured people. Hence the death / sold to Arabs issue.
Neither would the diversion of RN ships have made a difference or much of one. The routes would have gone inland in some cases and there is a question of whether 17th / 18th Century ships could have had the ability to patrol as effectively as the West Indian Squadron.
Ishmael hit on an important point, though he didn't realise it - Islam has no theological problem with slavery, whilst Christianity does, hence why the growth of the abolitionist movement was in European (and mainly English-speaking) countries
Routes inland? Given the jungle and deserts? Surely not.
And the RN was preying perfectly easily on French and Dutdch trade in the Caribbean from the mid-C18 onwards, even if the Bight of Benin would have been lethal. Indeed, not trading to W. Africa would have helped keep up the British nautical proletariat of sailors who shifted between commerce and the RN as required.
Actually, on reflection. that is sa very fair point.
I'm not saying they are stupid as was suggested. They are being gaslit on an epic scale by their media. But Biden DID win the election. Massively. Fairly. Demonstrably. That they still don't believe it is bonkers.
So I think the film got it pitch perfect. Here is something undeniably true. Just look at it. No, its a fake, don't look at it.
57% of Americans think a repeat attempted coup is likely to occur again. Perhaps the Canadian professor was right and the land of the Maple leaf needs to start preparing for refugees fleeing Gilead...
Trump may actually win the election fair and square and even win the popular vote in 2024.
Latest poll is Trump 44% Biden 38% with 8% of Biden 2020 voters now backing Trump
But all the polls show that both Biden and Trump are unpopular, and three quarters of Americans don't want another match between them.
By the way, the last line of the header has an unintentional double negative.
Yes, I think it would be better if neither ran – and so do Americans by the looks of that survey!
Believe it or not, I would agree with that. I don't think Trump should run. I suspect he will.
My longshot prediction is also that neither will run and 2024 will be Buttigieg v Pence
I do think that's an interesting prediction and a credible longshot (albeit clearly a longshot).
Pence quite clearly feels Trump-mania will and perhaps is dampening down - and he isn't a fool...
In that belief, I think he is. Little chance of any such thing this side of 2024.
(As far a Buttigieg is concerned, my 60/1 book means I am in total agreement with you. )
Pence isn't some kind of "Never Trump" cheerleader, though. He isn't Liz Cheney or Larry Hogan. He was Trump's VP and they even kind of kissed and made up after the whole "trying to get Mike hanged" misunderstanding.
What he's relying on is not that Trump fades into irrelevance or that he becomes actively disliked in the Republican Party. It's that minds move away from "stolen" elections and towards the future. Perhaps the elderly and obese Trump isn't personally able to run in 2024. Perhaps Cohen is right and it's all a cash-scam - he has no intention of going again. Perhaps the "thanks for your service, Donald, but let's get someone who can serve two terms" tendency grows a bit (clearly a minority now but not a negligible one).
As suggested, a long shot. But not craziness, I think.
As Trump won in 2020 surely he is barred from standing in 2024 anyway.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
Arguably more slaves were enslaved by Barbary Islamists in North Africa than by Christians in the rest of Africa
Oh goody, we can put more statues of slave traders up then? Also: Islamists? And "arguably" but in reality nowhere near.
Why are the victims of our past aggressions and misdeeds more worthy of note and remembrance than those of the Barbary pirates and other non-western slavers?
(Incidentally, the Barbary pirates raided more than just Africa: large swathes of coastal Europe were raided up to Cornwall and Ireland, leading many people to live inland away from the coast.)
This matters. The vast over-simplification of slavery into we-were-uniquely-evil leads to an over-simplification of modern evils.
Umm, are there any statues of Barbary slave traders in the UK?
Not as far as I'm aware. But your comment rather proves the point.
OK you seem to be saying that by pointing out the lack of statues of Barbary slave traders in the UK I am saying "we-were-uniquely-evil". This is just so unbelievably illogical that I am sure you must mean something else, so - what is your point? I am trying to establish exactly what this argument is about. I kind of thought it was about statues of slave traders in the UK.
Your comments seem to be just pure whataboutery, but maybe I'm missing something.
No. I'm saying by concentrating just on the statue of slavers in the UK is wrong. Slavery was - and sadly is - an international trade, and whilst we and some other countries industrialised it, it needs to be looked at in a totality. Especially if we are to learn lessons from it.
It's like saying that because Hitler was evil, the evils of Stalin and Mao should not be mentioned. Or because Israel is doing wrong in the Middle East, the other actors doing wrong in the region get a free pass.
Which is pretty much what the left do - there is a definite hierarchy at work - the gays get forgotten when Al-Quaeda start hurling them off buildings .... Not sure of their view on trans issues ..but one might guess.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
We could get into this all day Kamski but I have cannot think of where I have been personally rude to you - or anyone - unless they have been rude to me. You have been rude to me proactively on a number of occasions, especially when it comes to the US elections, because you don't like my beliefs. In fact the reason you stick in my mind so make is that of all the posters on here, you have been the most consistently sneering and rude (I'll overlook Roger - he gets away with it for being a champagne socialist)
"Yeah yeah, we all know Kamski - Stalin and Mao were not evil, they were doing it for the right cause.
You want to believe that, fine. Just don't preaching to the rest of us how you are essentially a good person. You actually are not"
As I said, Kamski, you have been proactively rude to me, I think you will find I was even agreeing with you on a point earlier. You reap what you sow. And you have a history of being rude to me.
Anyway, we only have a limited amount of time on Earth and this is certainly not the way to spend it.
Pence is astonishingly unpopular amongst Republicans.
Pence is tainted for Tumpsters by failing to enact a coup attempt and tainted for #nevertumpers by being so enmeshed in Trump that he needed Dan Quayle to talk him out of enacting a coup.
The path to a Pence nomination is astonishingly slim and convoluted that I jsut can't see it.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
While I agree that what MrEd wrote was textbook whataboutery, I don't have a clue why "Christianity" makes it "even shittier".
What makes the holocaust even shittier is that Hitler was (sometimes) a vegetarian!
When I first heard Hitler was vegetarian, I was not in the least surprised. I just shrugged. In fact another piece of the jigsaw falls into place.
Really, care to explain? Otherwise your comment comes across as pretty obnoxious.
Yes happy to explain. I am not normally obnoxious, perhaps towards my brother, but it’s fair of you to say I can come across as obnoxious when showing my strong dislike for vegetarians and vegans. I have no time for them. I’m not even ambivalent - in fact if they are forcing that insane diet on their children, making them all wan and sickly, they should be locked up.
🥓🍔🥩🍗🍖🥘🍤🍳
PS if I am talking to a vegetarian, Hitler was vegetarian: suck it down.
Thanks for clearing it up. Is it just "vegetarians and vegans" you have a "strong dislike for", or is it anyone who follows any kind of diet? People who don't drink? People who don't put milk in their tea? People who have any kind of religious belief? People who wear their hair long?
Don't feed the troll - even if it's only a vegan sausage roll.
Did you mean to sound so poetic? 🙂
It was an accidental rhyme, though I noticed it at the time.
Anyway I must fly, bacon in a pan I must fry.
I'm a vegetarian, like that famous Aryan - so I will find my niche, and finish off the quiche.
I see Twitter has decided to deliberately annoy anyone who tries to use the site without being logged in, by continually sticking up a "log in / sign in" notification box in front of whichever page you're trying to look at when you go from one twitter page to another. If you get rid of it, it automatically takes you back to the previous page you were on. You can get round it by opening a new window or copying/pasting the address into another window, but it's irritating. The obviously don't really like people using the site without being logged in, but haven't decided to completely prevent people from doing it yet.
I'm having a fun* morning dealing with our latest import of fresh products. Haulier can't get onto the boat as paperwork missing / misunderstood despite everything having been submitted by the right people at the right time.
Have spoken to both our logistics partners in turn who have said that the border is practically not functioning at the moment - "far worse" than it was a year ago. Have seen on Twitter that there are minimal vehicles making the crossing into Dover and that a substantial percentage of those are being called for checks. Happily there are a minimal number of vehicles (because border not functioning) so no queues on our side.
Here is out problem. We knew from the start that the ancient CHIEF customs computer would handle even a percentage of traffic. So started work on a replacement called CDS. Which despite the 1 year delay is still not ready.
So even if you spend the time and money doing all the paperwork, and your customs agent manages to lodge it on the system on time, the computer system can't cope with even minimal traffic. And CDS isn't taking over on imports until the end of Q3 at the earliest.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
Do you know anything about what happened with Cromwell in Ireland in the 1650s?
They were deported and split from their families.
"French priest Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados in 1654 and lamented how poorly the servants were treated. He commented that some of the families who were forcibly deported to the colony were split up and purposely sold to different planters as part of their punishment. If servants left the plantation without permission from their master, this unaccounted-for time was added to their term of indenture. Enslaved Africans, who were owned for life, were beaten for similar infractions. If indentured servants assaulted another servant or a slave it was treated as a misdemeanour and they were fined. If they assaulted their master, they were whipped. Their indenture was legal property, and therefore a servant’s remaining time could be left in wills, traded for commodities and sold. Since one’s labour is inseparable from one’s person, indentured servants in Barbados were temporarily treated as a sort of commodity."
They were essentially slaves.
Your argument shows just how much down the rabbit hole the woke-ist view has gone. You can't admit the suffering or evil done to other people or seek to downplay it because that takes away from the overriding theme. It really is nuts.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
“ To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions. “
What’s wrong with that? We Christian’s should know and do better to set the world an example.
Top 5 countries with most slaves today - India, China, Pakistan, North Korea and Nigeria.
I see Twitter has decided to deliberately annoy anyone who tries to use the site without being logged in, by continually sticking up a "log in / sign in" notification box in front of whichever page you're trying to look at when you go from one twitter page to another. If you get rid of it, it automatically takes you back to the previous page you were on. You can get round it by opening a new window or copying/pasting the address into another window, but it's irritating. The obviously don't really like people using the site without being logged in, but haven't decided to completely prevent people from doing it yet.
I'm having a fun* morning dealing with our latest import of fresh products. Haulier can't get onto the boat as paperwork missing / misunderstood despite everything having been submitted by the right people at the right time.
Have spoken to both our logistics partners in turn who have said that the border is practically not functioning at the moment - "far worse" than it was a year ago. Have seen on Twitter that there are minimal vehicles making the crossing into Dover and that a substantial percentage of those are being called for checks. Happily there are a minimal number of vehicles (because border not functioning) so no queues on our side.
Here is out problem. We knew from the start that the ancient CHIEF customs computer would handle even a percentage of traffic. So started work on a replacement called CDS. Which despite the 1 year delay is still not ready.
So even if you spend the time and money doing all the paperwork, and your customs agent manages to lodge it on the system on time, the computer system can't cope with even minimal traffic. And CDS isn't taking over on imports until the end of Q3 at the earliest.
Apart from arguing with various posters, the great thing on here is the amount of detailed knowledge you get from people on the ground.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
Arguably more slaves were enslaved by Barbary Islamists in North Africa than by Christians in the rest of Africa
Oh goody, we can put more statues of slave traders up then? Also: Islamists? And "arguably" but in reality nowhere near.
Why are the victims of our past aggressions and misdeeds more worthy of note and remembrance than those of the Barbary pirates and other non-western slavers?
(Incidentally, the Barbary pirates raided more than just Africa: large swathes of coastal Europe were raided up to Cornwall and Ireland, leading many people to live inland away from the coast.)
This matters. The vast over-simplification of slavery into we-were-uniquely-evil leads to an over-simplification of modern evils.
Umm, are there any statues of Barbary slave traders in the UK?
Not as far as I'm aware. But your comment rather proves the point.
OK you seem to be saying that by pointing out the lack of statues of Barbary slave traders in the UK I am saying "we-were-uniquely-evil". This is just so unbelievably illogical that I am sure you must mean something else, so - what is your point? I am trying to establish exactly what this argument is about. I kind of thought it was about statues of slave traders in the UK.
Your comments seem to be just pure whataboutery, but maybe I'm missing something.
No. I'm saying by concentrating just on the statue of slavers in the UK is wrong. Slavery was - and sadly is - an international trade, and whilst we and some other countries industrialised it, it needs to be looked at in a totality. Especially if we are to learn lessons from it.
It's like saying that because Hitler was evil, the evils of Stalin and Mao should not be mentioned. Or because Israel is doing wrong in the Middle East, the other actors doing wrong in the region get a free pass.
Sorry, but the correct analogy for what you are saying is "you can't be in Germany and criticise Hitler without also criticising Stalin and Mao"
So, do you think Stalin and Mao were on a par with Hitler for evil or less so. I'm genuinely interested and though you make so many assumptions about me, I will wait for your answer to decide what assumptions I make about you.
The main difference between Hitler and Stalin/Mao was that Hitler was more aggressively expansionist and reckless, and so was a more direct and immediate threat to people outside Germany's borders.
Stalin/Mao were perhaps more cautious and paranoid, and so a policy of containment/spheres of influence could limit their malign influence to within their own borders (and those of client states) without having to fight a general war of survival.
But I think the main point of the discussion is that it becomes very difficult to talk about specific issues if you introduce a requirement that someone had to give a general overview of evil in all its forms in order to talk about a specific manifestation of evil.
If you weren't able to talk about lung cancer without also talking about all other forms of cancer, or all other potentially life-threatening illnesses, then it would be difficult to talk about lung cancer. Sometimes it makes sense to talk about the general, but using it to avoid talking about the specific is rightly derided as whataboutery.
Stalin not expansionist? The countries of Eastern Europe post-1945 might find that comment a little strange...
I made a relative assessment not an absolute one.
You talked bollox.
No I didn't. You misinterpreted one small part of what I said in an attempt to belittle me and win yourself internet points.
It's boring and lame behaviour.
Okay, I'll bite. In what way did I misinterpret what you wrote? The idea that Stalin was less expansionist than Hitler is an odd argument to make given their histories. This is actually the sort of thing I'm getting at wrt history and the way it echoes back on the modern world. Stalin's desire for a "containment/spheres of influence" echoes directly Putin's desires for Russia today. It was wrong under the British Empire; it was wrong under Stalin; and it will be wrong under Putin.
You also call those eastern European countries 'client states'. Which they were - but that does not excuse the evil of that status. Vichy France was treated as a 'client state' by Hitler, for instance. Albania as well, I think.
One reason that we should consider the whole structure of the slave trade is that we might better understand consequences of actions.
There was a New Yorker article a little while back.
EU money is being sent to the warlords in Libya to stop the migrant boats. The warlords diligently formed a "coast guard", armed to the teeth, and capture lots of the migrant boating attempts.
They lock the would be migrants up in rather dire conditions - not much space. The picture in the magazine of one such prison was interesting in the context of the history....
So they have large numbers of mostly black Africans, on hand. Costing them money to feed. So they take them down to the local market place and sell their labour for the day to the highest bidder.
Interesting, ins't it?
I wonder how long before agriculture and other businesses in Libya are dependent on super cheap labour?
Pence is astonishingly unpopular amongst Republicans.
Pence is tainted for Tumpsters by failing to enact a coup attempt and tainted for #nevertumpers by being so enmeshed in Trump that he needed Dan Quayle to talk him out of enacting a coup.
The path to a Pence nomination is astonishingly slim and convoluted that I jsut can't see it.
Pence still polls highest for the GOP nomination after Trump and DeSantis amongst Republicans.
If Trump does not run again and DeSantis loses the Florida governorship in November to Crist, then Pence will likely be nominee
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
“ To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions. “
What’s wrong with that? We Christian’s should know and do better to set the world an example.
I think if you are a Christian yourself then it's OK to believe that you should be setting a good example as a christian. OK to believe that your Christian faith teaches that slavery is wrong (though clearly other Christians have had different interpretations) But as a historian (or looking at history), for example, it doesn't seem to make any sense to me at all. It's not as if "Christians", on the whole, have been much less bloodthirsty than anyone else over the last 1700 years.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
“ To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions. “
What’s wrong with that? We Christian’s should know and do better to set the world an example.
Top 5 countries with most slaves today - India, China, Pakistan, North Korea and Nigeria.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
No, love. You made an argument which looked at first sight like morally rock bottom. I pointed out that it was actually worse than that.
here's an idea: Campaign for Trump. get him reelected. then campaign for the Negro Disenfranchisement Act, and make sure it has aGeorge Floyd Had It Coming clause in it.
So now it is morally wrong to say that something is evil, regardless of who commits the act, and support Universal Human Rights? Wow, ok duckie. You really should live in Saudi Arabia.
PS you haven't answered the question of whether you believe in Universal Human Rights.
yes of course I do? Who doesn't? Why would you think I didn't? Why is it a good question? You are the one whose reaction to an absolute atrocity, the European slave trade, was to seek to trivialise it with whataboutery. You are simply confused.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
Do you know anything about what happened with Cromwell in Ireland in the 1650s?
They were deported and split from their families.
"French priest Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados in 1654 and lamented how poorly the servants were treated. He commented that some of the families who were forcibly deported to the colony were split up and purposely sold to different planters as part of their punishment. If servants left the plantation without permission from their master, this unaccounted-for time was added to their term of indenture. Enslaved Africans, who were owned for life, were beaten for similar infractions. If indentured servants assaulted another servant or a slave it was treated as a misdemeanour and they were fined. If they assaulted their master, they were whipped. Their indenture was legal property, and therefore a servant’s remaining time could be left in wills, traded for commodities and sold. Since one’s labour is inseparable from one’s person, indentured servants in Barbados were temporarily treated as a sort of commodity."
They were essentially slaves.
Your argument shows just how much down the rabbit hole the woke-ist view has gone. You can't admit the suffering or evil done to other people or seek to downplay it because that takes away from the overriding theme. It really is nuts.
No. I said that their treatment was frequently very similar to that of slaves, but that it was nevertheless innacurate to describe them as slaves. That's not being woke, it's being precise, and it is also the view of respected historians in the field.
"Both sides"ism doesnt work when only one side instigated a coup.
A forward briefly putting his hand on the defenders shoulder may be a foul. The defender in return punching the attacker to the floor is also a foul. It would not be a case of half a dozen of one and half a dozen of the other.
Yes, the disproportionate nature of the reaction is pretty critical, even if for sake of argument there was genunine provocation (where there wasn't with the riot/coup).
I see Twitter has decided to deliberately annoy anyone who tries to use the site without being logged in, by continually sticking up a "log in / sign in" notification box in front of whichever page you're trying to look at when you go from one twitter page to another. If you get rid of it, it automatically takes you back to the previous page you were on. You can get round it by opening a new window or copying/pasting the address into another window, but it's irritating. The obviously don't really like people using the site without being logged in, but haven't decided to completely prevent people from doing it yet.
Yes, it’s very annoying. The workaround is to delete the Twitter cookies - which makes it go away for a few days - or to browse Twitter in a private window.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
"mental gymnastics"?
maybe start by reading the article that YOU linked to:
"The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of people were bought or captured from West Africa and taken to the Americas.[239] The increase of demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers to the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative to the West African powers, leading to the establishment of a number of actual West African empires thriving on slave trade.[240] These included the Bono State, Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Imamate of Futa Jallon, Imamate of Futa Toro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey.[241] These kingdoms relied on a militaristic culture of constant warfare to generate the great numbers of human captives required for trade with the Europeans.[4][242] It is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."[243] The gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the 19th century again led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.[244] When European powers began to stop the Atlantic slave trade, this caused a further change in that large holders of slaves in Africa began to exploit enslaved people on plantations and other agricultural products.[245]"
You are laughable.
"You are laughable." - Mmmm, talk about noting the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a plank in your own. You are turning into the parody of Harry Enfield's Jurgen the German.
Read your own words. You highlight mental gymnastics when I said this was a white's only issue. You obviously read the article in detail so I fail to see how you didn't notice the following:
"With the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and the economies of gold in the western Sahel, a number of the major states became organized around the slave trade, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State and Songhai Empire.["
Where do you think those slaves were going Kamski on the Trans-Saharan route? Taking a detour up to Western Europe? How about the trade on the Indian Ocean?
And then we get to the point re wars:
"Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade,[47] around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.[48] Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents,[49] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."[48]"
So, granted, wars were started but - to go to my central point along this - presenting this as an European only issue is laughable and a distortion of history.
I'd be careful about moral judgement on others. I have seen your type before - the earnest, no doubt educated left-winger who doesn't actually care about Black people but just cares about pontificating about how righteous they are.
Look you are the one who said "laughable" I just repeated your own insult to me. I'll ignore your latest insults.
The rest of what you say is completely irrelevant because I have never said, implied or thought that slavery is/was a "European only issue"
You were completely wrong to say that the slaves the Europeans bought were saved from either being slaves anyway or being killed, at least you admit that now.
Don't pontificate Kamski - you've been rude to me in the past when I have made points and not criticised you personally. You reap what you sow.
To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions.
Still, if only we could get you to admit that Stalin and Mao were evil bastards and deserve to rot in Hell along with Hitler...
1. I regard continually putting words into my mouth that I never said (nor said anything remotely similar) despite me repeatedly asking you not to as being personally rude to me - that is what happened before I was rude to you in the past, and it is also what you are doing today.
2. If I believed hell I would be quite happy to agree that Stalin and Mao deserve to rot there alongside Hitler, as I suspect you already know. Or have I ever give even the slightest indication that I admire Stalin or Mao?
“ To be fair though. you are not as bad as Ishmael who thinks that slavery is more evil when it's practiced by Christians rather than other religions. “
What’s wrong with that? We Christian’s should know and do better to set the world an example.
I think if you are a Christian yourself then it's OK to believe that you should be setting a good example as a christian. OK to believe that your Christian faith teaches that slavery is wrong (though clearly other Christians have had different interpretations) But as a historian (or looking at history), for example, it doesn't seem to make any sense to me at all. It's not as if "Christians", on the whole, have been much less bloodthirsty than anyone else over the last 1700 years.
Oh dear Kamski. Not your best work this morning.
It’s getting worse for you, Kamski. This is on topic. Take a look at the header. Unvaxxed today - carrot munchers tomorrow. After your attempts to destroy our economy and way of life with vegetarianisms, You won’t be able to get into any pubs or clubs without a valid PorkPass. When out in public you will have to display a carrot so we know who you are.
If you thought it was only a matter of time before all you carrot guts took over, you are going to MEAT resistance. vegaphobia is a thing now.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
PS
"According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. "
You are actually wrong. The Irish have talked about it for decades and the first main root of this is Sean O'Callaghan's "To Hell or Barbados" in the early 2000s. It had nothing to do with trying to counteract BLM so please stop trying to infer I am using white supremacist sources.
Government in danger of losing some of their last remaining supporters in the press over the VAT on fuel issue and NI rise.
It appears that Mr Rees-Mogg - who, for someone so wealthy is clearly in tune with cost of living issues - had a row with the Chancellor on the subject in Cabinet yesterday.
“Yet this last great opportunity is about to be squandered: like his hero Winston Churchill, Johnson appears intent on winning the war – in Boris’s case, the double conflict of Brexit and Covid – but losing the peace. Inflation is out of control, taxes are being increased to their highest levels since Attlee, real wages are collapsing, migration and crime are not fixed, the schools are a mess, the NHS and social care are a bottomless, dysfunctional pit and yet Johnson seems the picture of insouciance, focusing on radical green policies that will make us even poorer.
“He seems stuck in a parallel, Labour-lite universe when it comes to the economy, tax, energy, public spending and the environment. His attitude to VAT cuts on energy is the perfect vignette of all that has gone wrong.”
Someone needs to tell the PM, that the problem is lying in bed next to him. Or else the backbenchers, and possibly a few frontbenchers, are going to be telling Sir Graham Brady.
Mr Bush of the Statesman has this in his email about the Tory leadership hopefuls:
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
Patel took a harder line than Truss on immigration from India in any new India trade deal however.
Patel and Rees Mogg would lead the traditional right post Boris, Truss would lead the libertarian right and Sunak and Javid and Hunt the centrists
Rees-Mogg is a busted flush.
The parliamentary standards investigation suggest he is pretty flush and far from busted.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
While I agree that what MrEd wrote was textbook whataboutery, I don't have a clue why "Christianity" makes it "even shittier".
What makes the holocaust even shittier is that Hitler was (sometimes) a vegetarian!
When I first heard Hitler was vegetarian, I was not in the least surprised. I just shrugged. In fact another piece of the jigsaw falls into place.
Really, care to explain? Otherwise your comment comes across as pretty obnoxious.
Yes happy to explain. I am not normally obnoxious, perhaps towards my brother, but it’s fair of you to say I can come across as obnoxious when showing my strong dislike for vegetarians and vegans. I have no time for them. I’m not even ambivalent - in fact if they are forcing that insane diet on their children, making them all wan and sickly, they should be locked up.
🥓🍔🥩🍗🍖🥘🍤🍳
PS if I am talking to a vegetarian, Hitler was vegetarian: suck it down.
Thanks for clearing it up. Is it just "vegetarians and vegans" you have a "strong dislike for", or is it anyone who follows any kind of diet? People who don't drink? People who don't put milk in their tea? People who have any kind of religious belief? People who wear their hair long?
Don't feed the troll - even if it's only a vegan sausage roll.
Did you mean to sound so poetic? 🙂
It was an accidental rhyme, though I noticed it at the time.
Anyway I must fly, bacon in a pan I must fry.
I'm a vegetarian, like that famous Aryan - so I will find my niche, and finish off the quiche.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
Do you know anything about what happened with Cromwell in Ireland in the 1650s?
They were deported and split from their families.
"French priest Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados in 1654 and lamented how poorly the servants were treated. He commented that some of the families who were forcibly deported to the colony were split up and purposely sold to different planters as part of their punishment. If servants left the plantation without permission from their master, this unaccounted-for time was added to their term of indenture. Enslaved Africans, who were owned for life, were beaten for similar infractions. If indentured servants assaulted another servant or a slave it was treated as a misdemeanour and they were fined. If they assaulted their master, they were whipped. Their indenture was legal property, and therefore a servant’s remaining time could be left in wills, traded for commodities and sold. Since one’s labour is inseparable from one’s person, indentured servants in Barbados were temporarily treated as a sort of commodity."
They were essentially slaves.
Your argument shows just how much down the rabbit hole the woke-ist view has gone. You can't admit the suffering or evil done to other people or seek to downplay it because that takes away from the overriding theme. It really is nuts.
No. I said that their treatment was frequently very similar to that of slaves, but that it was nevertheless innacurate to describe them as slaves. That's not being woke, it's being precise, and it is also the view of respected historians in the field.
It's being legalistic. They suffered horribly and were deported against their will and, unlike in Australia, treated as personal property.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
PS
"According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. "
You are actually wrong. The Irish have talked about it for decades and the first main root of this is Sean O'Callaghan's "To Hell or Barbados" in the early 2000s. It had nothing to do with trying to counteract BLM so please stop trying to infer I am using white supremacist sources.
I'm just saying you should be careful that you don't unwittingly cite someone with a dubious agenda. From Wiki:
"Since the books were published, white supremacist and white nationalist groups have adopted the notion of Irish slavery, often as a means of countering the historical burden of African slavery and black Americans' demands for redress, or of undermining and attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.[26][27]
This prompted scholars and writers such as Liam Hogan, Laura McAtackney and Matthew C. Reilly to speak out against the "myth of Irish slavery".[28]"
Government in danger of losing some of their last remaining supporters in the press over the VAT on fuel issue and NI rise.
It appears that Mr Rees-Mogg - who, for someone so wealthy is clearly in tune with cost of living issues - had a row with the Chancellor on the subject in Cabinet yesterday.
“Yet this last great opportunity is about to be squandered: like his hero Winston Churchill, Johnson appears intent on winning the war – in Boris’s case, the double conflict of Brexit and Covid – but losing the peace. Inflation is out of control, taxes are being increased to their highest levels since Attlee, real wages are collapsing, migration and crime are not fixed, the schools are a mess, the NHS and social care are a bottomless, dysfunctional pit and yet Johnson seems the picture of insouciance, focusing on radical green policies that will make us even poorer.
“He seems stuck in a parallel, Labour-lite universe when it comes to the economy, tax, energy, public spending and the environment. His attitude to VAT cuts on energy is the perfect vignette of all that has gone wrong.”
Someone needs to tell the PM, that the problem is lying in bed next to him. Or else the backbenchers, and possibly a few frontbenchers, are going to be telling Sir Graham Brady.
Mr Bush of the Statesman has this in his email about the Tory leadership hopefuls:
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
Patel took a harder line than Truss on immigration from India in any new India trade deal however.
Patel and Rees Mogg would lead the traditional right post Boris, Truss would lead the libertarian right and Sunak and Javid and Hunt the centrists
Rees-Mogg is a busted flush.
People thought the same about Corbyn in 2010 no doubt
I'm having a fun* morning dealing with our latest import of fresh products. Haulier can't get onto the boat as paperwork missing / misunderstood despite everything having been submitted by the right people at the right time.
Have spoken to both our logistics partners in turn who have said that the border is practically not functioning at the moment - "far worse" than it was a year ago. Have seen on Twitter that there are minimal vehicles making the crossing into Dover and that a substantial percentage of those are being called for checks. Happily there are a minimal number of vehicles (because border not functioning) so no queues on our side.
Here is out problem. We knew from the start that the ancient CHIEF customs computer would handle even a percentage of traffic. So started work on a replacement called CDS. Which despite the 1 year delay is still not ready.
So even if you spend the time and money doing all the paperwork, and your customs agent manages to lodge it on the system on time, the computer system can't cope with even minimal traffic. And CDS isn't taking over on imports until the end of Q3 at the earliest.
Apart from arguing with various posters, the great thing on here is the amount of detailed knowledge you get from people on the ground.
Problem is what we do about it? We can't delay import checks any longer as in breach of WTO rules. We can't implement import checks because of the functional incompetence of HMRC in building the system / facilities / teams to do the checks. Its on its knees this week with minimal traffic as companies use poor sods like us as guinea pigs to understand just how bad it is.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
Do you know anything about what happened with Cromwell in Ireland in the 1650s?
They were deported and split from their families.
"French priest Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados in 1654 and lamented how poorly the servants were treated. He commented that some of the families who were forcibly deported to the colony were split up and purposely sold to different planters as part of their punishment. If servants left the plantation without permission from their master, this unaccounted-for time was added to their term of indenture. Enslaved Africans, who were owned for life, were beaten for similar infractions. If indentured servants assaulted another servant or a slave it was treated as a misdemeanour and they were fined. If they assaulted their master, they were whipped. Their indenture was legal property, and therefore a servant’s remaining time could be left in wills, traded for commodities and sold. Since one’s labour is inseparable from one’s person, indentured servants in Barbados were temporarily treated as a sort of commodity."
They were essentially slaves.
Your argument shows just how much down the rabbit hole the woke-ist view has gone. You can't admit the suffering or evil done to other people or seek to downplay it because that takes away from the overriding theme. It really is nuts.
No. I said that their treatment was frequently very similar to that of slaves, but that it was nevertheless innacurate to describe them as slaves. That's not being woke, it's being precise, and it is also the view of respected historians in the field.
The modern ant-slavery NGOs class (and fight against) various forms of servitude as slavery, and have done for many many years. See debt-peonage etc.
They would certainly class the indenture system as a form of slavery.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
No, love. You made an argument which looked at first sight like morally rock bottom. I pointed out that it was actually worse than that.
here's an idea: Campaign for Trump. get him reelected. then campaign for the Negro Disenfranchisement Act, and make sure it has aGeorge Floyd Had It Coming clause in it.
So now it is morally wrong to say that something is evil, regardless of who commits the act, and support Universal Human Rights? Wow, ok duckie. You really should live in Saudi Arabia.
PS you haven't answered the question of whether you believe in Universal Human Rights.
yes of course I do? Who doesn't? Why would you think I didn't? Why is it a good question? You are the one whose reaction to an absolute atrocity, the European slave trade, was to seek to trivialise it with whataboutery. You are simply confused.
Nope, wrong love. I have never sought to trivalise it. I think it was hugely evil and abhorrent. I was pointing out that it wasn't an uniquely European phenomenon and, in relation to you, that slavery is evil whoever practices it. There's no "it's worse because they are Christians".
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
While I agree that what MrEd wrote was textbook whataboutery, I don't have a clue why "Christianity" makes it "even shittier".
What makes the holocaust even shittier is that Hitler was (sometimes) a vegetarian!
When I first heard Hitler was vegetarian, I was not in the least surprised. I just shrugged. In fact another piece of the jigsaw falls into place.
Really, care to explain? Otherwise your comment comes across as pretty obnoxious.
Yes happy to explain. I am not normally obnoxious, perhaps towards my brother, but it’s fair of you to say I can come across as obnoxious when showing my strong dislike for vegetarians and vegans. I have no time for them. I’m not even ambivalent - in fact if they are forcing that insane diet on their children, making them all wan and sickly, they should be locked up.
🥓🍔🥩🍗🍖🥘🍤🍳
PS if I am talking to a vegetarian, Hitler was vegetarian: suck it down.
Thanks for clearing it up. Is it just "vegetarians and vegans" you have a "strong dislike for", or is it anyone who follows any kind of diet? People who don't drink? People who don't put milk in their tea? People who have any kind of religious belief? People who wear their hair long?
Don't feed the troll - even if it's only a vegan sausage roll.
Did you mean to sound so poetic? 🙂
It was an accidental rhyme, though I noticed it at the time.
Anyway I must fly, bacon in a pan I must fry.
I'm a vegetarian, like that famous Aryan - so I will find my niche, and finish off the quiche.
I thought you were on my side! Your one of THEM 🙁
Ha ha, no, sorry, I have been one of THEM for almost 35 years but I have a sense of humour. 😜
I see Twitter has decided to deliberately annoy anyone who tries to use the site without being logged in, by continually sticking up a "log in / sign in" notification box in front of whichever page you're trying to look at when you go from one twitter page to another. If you get rid of it, it automatically takes you back to the previous page you were on. You can get round it by opening a new window or copying/pasting the address into another window, but it's irritating. The obviously don't really like people using the site without being logged in, but haven't decided to completely prevent people from doing it yet.
Yes, it’s very annoying. The workaround is to delete the Twitter cookies - which makes it go away for a few days - or to browse Twitter in a private window.
It’s happening more and more - companies taking the piss with cookies.
You can read the vast majority of ft.com articles for free by tricking the site into thinking you’re anew user - in a private window, copy the link into a Google search and then click through.
The business model is to allow friction-free access to the first-time clicker - then aggressively monetising casual/regular readers.
I much prefer a more honest business model where they either have a paywall for all, or none.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
Do you know anything about what happened with Cromwell in Ireland in the 1650s?
They were deported and split from their families.
"French priest Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados in 1654 and lamented how poorly the servants were treated. He commented that some of the families who were forcibly deported to the colony were split up and purposely sold to different planters as part of their punishment. If servants left the plantation without permission from their master, this unaccounted-for time was added to their term of indenture. Enslaved Africans, who were owned for life, were beaten for similar infractions. If indentured servants assaulted another servant or a slave it was treated as a misdemeanour and they were fined. If they assaulted their master, they were whipped. Their indenture was legal property, and therefore a servant’s remaining time could be left in wills, traded for commodities and sold. Since one’s labour is inseparable from one’s person, indentured servants in Barbados were temporarily treated as a sort of commodity."
They were essentially slaves.
Your argument shows just how much down the rabbit hole the woke-ist view has gone. You can't admit the suffering or evil done to other people or seek to downplay it because that takes away from the overriding theme. It really is nuts.
No. I said that their treatment was frequently very similar to that of slaves, but that it was nevertheless innacurate to describe them as slaves. That's not being woke, it's being precise, and it is also the view of respected historians in the field.
It's being legalistic. They suffered horribly and were deported against their will and, unlike in Australia, treated as personal property.
Please try to understand what is meant by the word "whataboutery."
I'm having a fun* morning dealing with our latest import of fresh products. Haulier can't get onto the boat as paperwork missing / misunderstood despite everything having been submitted by the right people at the right time.
Have spoken to both our logistics partners in turn who have said that the border is practically not functioning at the moment - "far worse" than it was a year ago. Have seen on Twitter that there are minimal vehicles making the crossing into Dover and that a substantial percentage of those are being called for checks. Happily there are a minimal number of vehicles (because border not functioning) so no queues on our side.
Here is out problem. We knew from the start that the ancient CHIEF customs computer would handle even a percentage of traffic. So started work on a replacement called CDS. Which despite the 1 year delay is still not ready.
So even if you spend the time and money doing all the paperwork, and your customs agent manages to lodge it on the system on time, the computer system can't cope with even minimal traffic. And CDS isn't taking over on imports until the end of Q3 at the earliest.
Apart from arguing with various posters, the great thing on here is the amount of detailed knowledge you get from people on the ground.
Problem is what we do about it? We can't delay import checks any longer as in breach of WTO rules. We can't implement import checks because of the functional incompetence of HMRC in building the system / facilities / teams to do the checks. Its on its knees this week with minimal traffic as companies use poor sods like us as guinea pigs to understand just how bad it is.
I don't know is the honest answer but I appreciate this sort of view because it puts a lot of things in context
The removal of the statue was a good thing - we shouldn't be celebrating that shameful aspect of our history - and my natural reluctance to second-guess jury verdicts goes unchallenged here.
And now to burnish this opinion of mine with the balance, moral gravitas and historical context it is so clearly crying out for. Here we go:
I condemn Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and all other leftist tyrants. In fact I condemn tyrants of any ilk. I have no time for them - tyrants.
There is a goodly long list of people & civilizations throughout history who were both not British and have profited from the enslaving of others. I'll just mention the Romans but gosh one could go on.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
PS
"According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. "
You are actually wrong. The Irish have talked about it for decades and the first main root of this is Sean O'Callaghan's "To Hell or Barbados" in the early 2000s. It had nothing to do with trying to counteract BLM so please stop trying to infer I am using white supremacist sources.
I'm just saying you should be careful that you don't unwittingly cite someone with a dubious agenda. From Wiki:
"Since the books were published, white supremacist and white nationalist groups have adopted the notion of Irish slavery, often as a means of countering the historical burden of African slavery and black Americans' demands for redress, or of undermining and attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.[26][27]
This prompted scholars and writers such as Liam Hogan, Laura McAtackney and Matthew C. Reilly to speak out against the "myth of Irish slavery".[28]"
Don't worry I won't. Believe it or not, in their eyes I would be worse than you, in that I would be a traitor as a white man marrying a black woman.
The removal of the statue was a good thing - we shouldn't be celebrating that shameful aspect of our history - and my natural reluctance to second-guess jury verdicts goes unchallenged here.
And now to burnish this opinion of mine with the balance, moral gravitas and historical context it is so clearly crying out for. Here we go:
I condemn Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and all other leftist tyrants. In fact I condemn tyrants of any ilk. I have no time for them - tyrants.
There is a goodly long list of people & civilizations throughout history who were both not British and have profited from the enslaving of others. I'll just mention the Romans but gosh one could go on.
Is that ok?
Spot on.
Ps it still was criminal damage by the definition of the law but you have to accept all jury verdicts if you believe in the system
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
No, love. You made an argument which looked at first sight like morally rock bottom. I pointed out that it was actually worse than that.
here's an idea: Campaign for Trump. get him reelected. then campaign for the Negro Disenfranchisement Act, and make sure it has aGeorge Floyd Had It Coming clause in it.
So now it is morally wrong to say that something is evil, regardless of who commits the act, and support Universal Human Rights? Wow, ok duckie. You really should live in Saudi Arabia.
PS you haven't answered the question of whether you believe in Universal Human Rights.
yes of course I do? Who doesn't? Why would you think I didn't? Why is it a good question? You are the one whose reaction to an absolute atrocity, the European slave trade, was to seek to trivialise it with whataboutery. You are simply confused.
Nope, wrong love. I have never sought to trivalise it. I think it was hugely evil and abhorrent. I was pointing out that it wasn't an uniquely European phenomenon and, in relation to you, that slavery is evil whoever practices it. There's no "it's worse because they are Christians".
You just arent very bright. Take the crime of murder, for instance. Do you think that in all murders that have ever been committed the moral culpability is exactly equal, or that some cases are worse than others? Which?
The removal of the statue was a good thing - we shouldn't be celebrating that shameful aspect of our history - and my natural reluctance to second-guess jury verdicts goes unchallenged here.
And now to burnish this opinion of mine with the balance, moral gravitas and historical context it is so clearly crying out for. Here we go:
I condemn Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and all other leftist tyrants. In fact I condemn tyrants of any ilk. I have no time for them - tyrants.
There is a goodly long list of people & civilizations throughout history who were both not British and have profited from the enslaving of others. I'll just mention the Romans but gosh one could go on.
Is that ok?
There is no doubt we British were major participants in the global slave trade from the 16th to early 19th century. We were guilty of that.
In the global all time slaveowners ranking though the Arabs, Romans and Portuguese in Brazil were ahead of us
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
Do you know anything about what happened with Cromwell in Ireland in the 1650s?
They were deported and split from their families.
"French priest Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados in 1654 and lamented how poorly the servants were treated. He commented that some of the families who were forcibly deported to the colony were split up and purposely sold to different planters as part of their punishment. If servants left the plantation without permission from their master, this unaccounted-for time was added to their term of indenture. Enslaved Africans, who were owned for life, were beaten for similar infractions. If indentured servants assaulted another servant or a slave it was treated as a misdemeanour and they were fined. If they assaulted their master, they were whipped. Their indenture was legal property, and therefore a servant’s remaining time could be left in wills, traded for commodities and sold. Since one’s labour is inseparable from one’s person, indentured servants in Barbados were temporarily treated as a sort of commodity."
They were essentially slaves.
Your argument shows just how much down the rabbit hole the woke-ist view has gone. You can't admit the suffering or evil done to other people or seek to downplay it because that takes away from the overriding theme. It really is nuts.
No. I said that their treatment was frequently very similar to that of slaves, but that it was nevertheless innacurate to describe them as slaves. That's not being woke, it's being precise, and it is also the view of respected historians in the field.
It's being legalistic. They suffered horribly and were deported against their will and, unlike in Australia, treated as personal property.
Please try to understand what is meant by the word "whataboutery."
Oh I do.
I think the Oxford definition says "very useful term for those on the left to defend a position which is logically inconsistent with their loudly proclaimed beliefs. For example, if one is asked "why are you not protesting outside the Saudi Embassy if you are campaigning for gay rights", you shout "whataboutery"
It is why I respect a lot people like Peter Thatchell a lot - he's not scared to be accused of being racist, Islamophobic etc etc in the support of his cause.
Nope, wrong love. I have never sought to trivalise it. I think it was hugely evil and abhorrent. I was pointing out that it wasn't an uniquely European phenomenon and, in relation to you, that slavery is evil whoever practices it. There's no "it's worse because they are Christians".
Absolutely no one: IT WAS A UNIQUELY EUROPEAN PHENOMENON
Someone: I'm pointing out it was not a uniquely European phenomenon
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
While I agree that what MrEd wrote was textbook whataboutery, I don't have a clue why "Christianity" makes it "even shittier".
What makes the holocaust even shittier is that Hitler was (sometimes) a vegetarian!
When I first heard Hitler was vegetarian, I was not in the least surprised. I just shrugged. In fact another piece of the jigsaw falls into place.
Really, care to explain? Otherwise your comment comes across as pretty obnoxious.
Yes happy to explain. I am not normally obnoxious, perhaps towards my brother, but it’s fair of you to say I can come across as obnoxious when showing my strong dislike for vegetarians and vegans. I have no time for them. I’m not even ambivalent - in fact if they are forcing that insane diet on their children, making them all wan and sickly, they should be locked up.
🥓🍔🥩🍗🍖🥘🍤🍳
PS if I am talking to a vegetarian, Hitler was vegetarian: suck it down.
Thanks for clearing it up. Is it just "vegetarians and vegans" you have a "strong dislike for", or is it anyone who follows any kind of diet? People who don't drink? People who don't put milk in their tea? People who have any kind of religious belief? People who wear their hair long?
Don't feed the troll - even if it's only a vegan sausage roll.
Did you mean to sound so poetic? 🙂
It was an accidental rhyme, though I noticed it at the time.
Anyway I must fly, bacon in a pan I must fry.
I'm a vegetarian, like that famous Aryan - so I will find my niche, and finish off the quiche.
I thought you were on my side! Your one of THEM 🙁
Ha ha, no, sorry, I have been one of THEM for almost 35 years but I have a sense of humour. 😜
Can you not smell this bacon I have frying, calling you like a religious calling?
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
Do you know anything about what happened with Cromwell in Ireland in the 1650s?
They were deported and split from their families.
"French priest Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados in 1654 and lamented how poorly the servants were treated. He commented that some of the families who were forcibly deported to the colony were split up and purposely sold to different planters as part of their punishment. If servants left the plantation without permission from their master, this unaccounted-for time was added to their term of indenture. Enslaved Africans, who were owned for life, were beaten for similar infractions. If indentured servants assaulted another servant or a slave it was treated as a misdemeanour and they were fined. If they assaulted their master, they were whipped. Their indenture was legal property, and therefore a servant’s remaining time could be left in wills, traded for commodities and sold. Since one’s labour is inseparable from one’s person, indentured servants in Barbados were temporarily treated as a sort of commodity."
They were essentially slaves.
Your argument shows just how much down the rabbit hole the woke-ist view has gone. You can't admit the suffering or evil done to other people or seek to downplay it because that takes away from the overriding theme. It really is nuts.
No. I said that their treatment was frequently very similar to that of slaves, but that it was nevertheless innacurate to describe them as slaves. That's not being woke, it's being precise, and it is also the view of respected historians in the field.
The modern ant-slavery NGOs class (and fight against) various forms of servitude as slavery, and have done for many many years. See debt-peonage etc.
They would certainly class the indenture system as a form of slavery.
The indenture system Great - if you survived 8 years a slave you got some new teeth. And pocket money.
Government in danger of losing some of their last remaining supporters in the press over the VAT on fuel issue and NI rise.
It appears that Mr Rees-Mogg - who, for someone so wealthy is clearly in tune with cost of living issues - had a row with the Chancellor on the subject in Cabinet yesterday.
“Yet this last great opportunity is about to be squandered: like his hero Winston Churchill, Johnson appears intent on winning the war – in Boris’s case, the double conflict of Brexit and Covid – but losing the peace. Inflation is out of control, taxes are being increased to their highest levels since Attlee, real wages are collapsing, migration and crime are not fixed, the schools are a mess, the NHS and social care are a bottomless, dysfunctional pit and yet Johnson seems the picture of insouciance, focusing on radical green policies that will make us even poorer.
“He seems stuck in a parallel, Labour-lite universe when it comes to the economy, tax, energy, public spending and the environment. His attitude to VAT cuts on energy is the perfect vignette of all that has gone wrong.”
Someone needs to tell the PM, that the problem is lying in bed next to him. Or else the backbenchers, and possibly a few frontbenchers, are going to be telling Sir Graham Brady.
Mr Bush of the Statesman has this in his email about the Tory leadership hopefuls:
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
Patel took a harder line than Truss on immigration from India in any new India trade deal however.
Patel and Rees Mogg would lead the traditional right post Boris, Truss would lead the libertarian right and Sunak and Javid and Hunt the centrists
Rees-Mogg is a busted flush.
People thought the same about Corbyn in 2010 no doubt
Like the 3 quid Tories voting for Corbyn, Rees Mogg would be our £3 selection as non-Conservatives. I'd pay my three quid, if that were an option, to see the Conservative Party fall down the same rabbit hole as Labour did under Corbyn.
The removal of the statue was a good thing - we shouldn't be celebrating that shameful aspect of our history - and my natural reluctance to second-guess jury verdicts goes unchallenged here.
And now to burnish this opinion of mine with the balance, moral gravitas and historical context it is so clearly crying out for. Here we go:
I condemn Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and all other leftist tyrants. In fact I condemn tyrants of any ilk. I have no time for them - tyrants.
There is a goodly long list of people & civilizations throughout history who were both not British and have profited from the enslaving of others. I'll just mention the Romans but gosh one could go on.
Is that ok?
Spot on.
Ps it still was criminal damage by the definition of the law but you have to accept all jury verdicts if you believe in the system
Yes, it’s part of the system of trial by jury, that occasionally the twelve good men might choose to do their own thing, contrary to the evidence in front of them. It’s an important part of the system, that they have that option.
I'm having a fun* morning dealing with our latest import of fresh products. Haulier can't get onto the boat as paperwork missing / misunderstood despite everything having been submitted by the right people at the right time.
Have spoken to both our logistics partners in turn who have said that the border is practically not functioning at the moment - "far worse" than it was a year ago. Have seen on Twitter that there are minimal vehicles making the crossing into Dover and that a substantial percentage of those are being called for checks. Happily there are a minimal number of vehicles (because border not functioning) so no queues on our side.
Here is out problem. We knew from the start that the ancient CHIEF customs computer would handle even a percentage of traffic. So started work on a replacement called CDS. Which despite the 1 year delay is still not ready.
So even if you spend the time and money doing all the paperwork, and your customs agent manages to lodge it on the system on time, the computer system can't cope with even minimal traffic. And CDS isn't taking over on imports until the end of Q3 at the earliest.
Apart from arguing with various posters, the great thing on here is the amount of detailed knowledge you get from people on the ground.
Problem is what we do about it? We can't delay import checks any longer as in breach of WTO rules. We can't implement import checks because of the functional incompetence of HMRC in building the system / facilities / teams to do the checks. Its on its knees this week with minimal traffic as companies use poor sods like us as guinea pigs to understand just how bad it is.
I don't know is the honest answer but I appreciate this sort of view because it puts a lot of things in context
Thanks. I am not making a remainer case or a brexiteer case - the border process simply does not work. That we have chosen this specific border model and had an additional year to prepare for it makes it worse. Had it been imposed by the counterparty to their (short) timetable then I could forgive.
Instead we have chosen this fiasco of a system and have failed to prepare for it. And when I say we I mean the government. As with so many other things it is on record that they were told in detail by the people who know that CHIEF was not fit for purpose. And yet here we are trying to use CHIEF and it not working.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
PS
"According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. "
You are actually wrong. The Irish have talked about it for decades and the first main root of this is Sean O'Callaghan's "To Hell or Barbados" in the early 2000s. It had nothing to do with trying to counteract BLM so please stop trying to infer I am using white supremacist sources.
I'm just saying you should be careful that you don't unwittingly cite someone with a dubious agenda. From Wiki:
"Since the books were published, white supremacist and white nationalist groups have adopted the notion of Irish slavery, often as a means of countering the historical burden of African slavery and black Americans' demands for redress, or of undermining and attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.[26][27]
This prompted scholars and writers such as Liam Hogan, Laura McAtackney and Matthew C. Reilly to speak out against the "myth of Irish slavery".[28]"
Don't worry I won't. Believe it or not, in their eyes I would be worse than you, in that I would be a traitor as a white man marrying a black woman.
Well I'm married to a Sri Lankan woman so I'm not sure I would be considered much better in the race traitor stakes.
Anyway, I’ll try sprit away this slave stuff as I thought of something important.
If we get rid of PCR tests, what happens to all the good sequencing work?
In fact, surely all the stats about how much covid is in community would just become meaningless guesswork. The Malmesbury Monoliths will have to be pulled down and dumped in the Bristol Channel. 😩
Government in danger of losing some of their last remaining supporters in the press over the VAT on fuel issue and NI rise.
It appears that Mr Rees-Mogg - who, for someone so wealthy is clearly in tune with cost of living issues - had a row with the Chancellor on the subject in Cabinet yesterday.
“Yet this last great opportunity is about to be squandered: like his hero Winston Churchill, Johnson appears intent on winning the war – in Boris’s case, the double conflict of Brexit and Covid – but losing the peace. Inflation is out of control, taxes are being increased to their highest levels since Attlee, real wages are collapsing, migration and crime are not fixed, the schools are a mess, the NHS and social care are a bottomless, dysfunctional pit and yet Johnson seems the picture of insouciance, focusing on radical green policies that will make us even poorer.
“He seems stuck in a parallel, Labour-lite universe when it comes to the economy, tax, energy, public spending and the environment. His attitude to VAT cuts on energy is the perfect vignette of all that has gone wrong.”
Someone needs to tell the PM, that the problem is lying in bed next to him. Or else the backbenchers, and possibly a few frontbenchers, are going to be telling Sir Graham Brady.
Mr Bush of the Statesman has this in his email about the Tory leadership hopefuls:
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
Patel took a harder line than Truss on immigration from India in any new India trade deal however.
Patel and Rees Mogg would lead the traditional right post Boris, Truss would lead the libertarian right and Sunak and Javid and Hunt the centrists
Rees-Mogg is a busted flush.
People thought the same about Corbyn in 2010 no doubt
Like the 3 quid Tories voting for Corbyn, Rees Mogg would be our £3 selection as non-Conservatives. I'd pay my three quid, if that were an option, to see the Conservative Party fall down the same rabbit hole as Labour did under Corbyn.
That worked for 3 quid Tories in 2019, less so in 2017.
Labour supporters joining the Tories a few months before a leadership election to vote for Rees Mogg would take the same risk
The removal of the statue was a good thing - we shouldn't be celebrating that shameful aspect of our history - and my natural reluctance to second-guess jury verdicts goes unchallenged here.
And now to burnish this opinion of mine with the balance, moral gravitas and historical context it is so clearly crying out for. Here we go:
I condemn Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and all other leftist tyrants. In fact I condemn tyrants of any ilk. I have no time for them - tyrants.
There is a goodly long list of people & civilizations throughout history who were both not British and have profited from the enslaving of others. I'll just mention the Romans but gosh one could go on.
Is that ok?
There is no doubt we British were major participants in the global slave trade from the 16th to early 19th century. We were guilty of that.
In the global all time slaveowners ranking though the Arabs, Romans and Portuguese in Brazil were ahead of us
I am not sure the all time slaveowners rankings should be considered official until we have polling on it.
There are patches of this everywhere! Each with its own largely unique issue. The UK's unique issue is the inability to have a functional border for imports - and photos of the same result caused by an entirely different issue in another country doesn't change what is happening to the UK and why.
No matter how many times people post similar images to "prove" all is fine.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
While I agree that what MrEd wrote was textbook whataboutery, I don't have a clue why "Christianity" makes it "even shittier".
What makes the holocaust even shittier is that Hitler was (sometimes) a vegetarian!
When I first heard Hitler was vegetarian, I was not in the least surprised. I just shrugged. In fact another piece of the jigsaw falls into place.
Really, care to explain? Otherwise your comment comes across as pretty obnoxious.
Yes happy to explain. I am not normally obnoxious, perhaps towards my brother, but it’s fair of you to say I can come across as obnoxious when showing my strong dislike for vegetarians and vegans. I have no time for them. I’m not even ambivalent - in fact if they are forcing that insane diet on their children, making them all wan and sickly, they should be locked up.
🥓🍔🥩🍗🍖🥘🍤🍳
PS if I am talking to a vegetarian, Hitler was vegetarian: suck it down.
Thanks for clearing it up. Is it just "vegetarians and vegans" you have a "strong dislike for", or is it anyone who follows any kind of diet? People who don't drink? People who don't put milk in their tea? People who have any kind of religious belief? People who wear their hair long?
Don't feed the troll - even if it's only a vegan sausage roll.
Did you mean to sound so poetic? 🙂
It was an accidental rhyme, though I noticed it at the time.
Anyway I must fly, bacon in a pan I must fry.
I'm a vegetarian, like that famous Aryan - so I will find my niche, and finish off the quiche.
I thought you were on my side! Your one of THEM 🙁
Ha ha, no, sorry, I have been one of THEM for almost 35 years but I have a sense of humour. 😜
Can you not smell this bacon I have frying, calling you like a religious calling?
Anointed now with Daddies Sauce
Come back to the light. It says.
Bacon is the toughest, but I am strong. I can even fry it for my kids without eating it.
"We fully support the signing of the national anthem, Her Majesty the Queen and other expressions of patriotism – including the flying of the Union Jack" (emphasis mine)
I'm not sure whether that refers to ensuring there are BSL signers every time the anthem is sung or whether it also encompasses encouraging people to scribble their signatures on HMQ.
I assume the 'Union Jack' to be flown more is Alister Jack or Maybe Jackson Carlaw?
When you set up an account, or move your account to a new device on the same number, it sends you an SMS to verify.
No, people shouldn’t be using any service operated by Facebook for government business. It should be on Teams, Slack or such business platform with recording functionality.
The removal of the statue was a good thing - we shouldn't be celebrating that shameful aspect of our history - and my natural reluctance to second-guess jury verdicts goes unchallenged here.
And now to burnish this opinion of mine with the balance, moral gravitas and historical context it is so clearly crying out for. Here we go:
I condemn Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and all other leftist tyrants. In fact I condemn tyrants of any ilk. I have no time for them - tyrants.
There is a goodly long list of people & civilizations throughout history who were both not British and have profited from the enslaving of others. I'll just mention the Romans but gosh one could go on.
Is that ok?
There is no doubt we British were major participants in the global slave trade from the 16th to early 19th century. We were guilty of that.
In the global all time slaveowners ranking though the Arabs, Romans and Portuguese in Brazil were ahead of us
@HYUFD That is an excellent, concise and clear post. I have no idea about the ranking but happy to assume you are right for the point I want to make, which is that some wish to muddy the water by focusing on those that were worse than us.
a) Although some were worse, it does not excuse what we did.
b) We focus on what we did and less on what others did because that is our history.
Our only defence is that it wasn't our atrocities but our ancestors and that times were different then.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
There were societies on the West Coast of Africa up to at least the 19th century which believed that the Gods not only smiled on slavery, but demanded the sacrifice of slaves on a regular basis. What difficulty do you have with thinking that slavery by self-advertised Christians is morally worse than slavery by people who genuinely held those beliefs?
Do you believe in Universal Human Rights or not?
Your argument essentially allows someone to claim "yes, I killed a gay man but I'm not as bad as him because he's Christian but I'm Muslim / Hindu / worship trees etc."
Sure, the person doing the act should feel guilty because he has committed a sin according to the morals of his religion but that does not stop the act itself being in some ways, worse. It's an evil act.
Your line is that used by those who don't criticise the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighur or condemn Middle Eastern societies for how they treat women. It's a cop out and it is mainly used because the people saying it is far more scared about being accused of being racist / Islamophobic than they care about actual people.
No, love. You made an argument which looked at first sight like morally rock bottom. I pointed out that it was actually worse than that.
here's an idea: Campaign for Trump. get him reelected. then campaign for the Negro Disenfranchisement Act, and make sure it has aGeorge Floyd Had It Coming clause in it.
So now it is morally wrong to say that something is evil, regardless of who commits the act, and support Universal Human Rights? Wow, ok duckie. You really should live in Saudi Arabia.
PS you haven't answered the question of whether you believe in Universal Human Rights.
yes of course I do? Who doesn't? Why would you think I didn't? Why is it a good question? You are the one whose reaction to an absolute atrocity, the European slave trade, was to seek to trivialise it with whataboutery. You are simply confused.
Nope, wrong love. I have never sought to trivalise it. I think it was hugely evil and abhorrent. I was pointing out that it wasn't an uniquely European phenomenon and, in relation to you, that slavery is evil whoever practices it. There's no "it's worse because they are Christians".
You just arent very bright. Take the crime of murder, for instance. Do you think that in all murders that have ever been committed the moral culpability is exactly equal, or that some cases are worse than others? Which?
You are a bit sensitive this morning, Dr Moriarty. My point - which you inexplicably have failed to grasp despite handing it to you on a plate - is that an act is evil, regardless of who has done it. Simple as that.
You are beginning to sound like all the very rabid BLM allies who proclaim their hatred for "all forms of racism" but have been woefully silent on the Waukesha affair where a Black man with a public record of making anti-white, racist comments deliberately ploughed his car into a group of old people and children. Reverse the victims and the perp and it would have been proclaimed as evil.
You are one of those people who are actually quite dangerous to society because you believe people should be judged not on the crimes they commit but who they are. And that is where trust in society breaks down.
Anyway, I’ll try sprit away this slave stuff as I thought of something important.
If we get rid of PCR tests, what happens to all the good sequencing work?
In fact, surely all the stats about how much covid is in community would just become meaningless guesswork. The Malmesbury Monoliths will have to be pulled down and dumped in the Bristol Channel. 😩
We are not getting rid of PCR tests. Doing tens of thousands a day will be enough to track variants through sequencing, we don't need hundreds of thousands per day to do that.
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
Arguably more slaves were enslaved by Barbary Islamists in North Africa than by Christians in the rest of Africa
Oh goody, we can put more statues of slave traders up then? Also: Islamists? And "arguably" but in reality nowhere near.
Why are the victims of our past aggressions and misdeeds more worthy of note and remembrance than those of the Barbary pirates and other non-western slavers?
(Incidentally, the Barbary pirates raided more than just Africa: large swathes of coastal Europe were raided up to Cornwall and Ireland, leading many people to live inland away from the coast.)
This matters. The vast over-simplification of slavery into we-were-uniquely-evil leads to an over-simplification of modern evils.
Umm, are there any statues of Barbary slave traders in the UK?
Not as far as I'm aware. But your comment rather proves the point.
OK you seem to be saying that by pointing out the lack of statues of Barbary slave traders in the UK I am saying "we-were-uniquely-evil". This is just so unbelievably illogical that I am sure you must mean something else, so - what is your point? I am trying to establish exactly what this argument is about. I kind of thought it was about statues of slave traders in the UK.
Your comments seem to be just pure whataboutery, but maybe I'm missing something.
No. I'm saying by concentrating just on the statue of slavers in the UK is wrong. Slavery was - and sadly is - an international trade, and whilst we and some other countries industrialised it, it needs to be looked at in a totality. Especially if we are to learn lessons from it.
It's like saying that because Hitler was evil, the evils of Stalin and Mao should not be mentioned. Or because Israel is doing wrong in the Middle East, the other actors doing wrong in the region get a free pass.
Sorry, but the correct analogy for what you are saying is "you can't be in Germany and criticise Hitler without also criticising Stalin and Mao"
So, do you think Stalin and Mao were on a par with Hitler for evil or less so. I'm genuinely interested and though you make so many assumptions about me, I will wait for your answer to decide what assumptions I make about you.
The main difference between Hitler and Stalin/Mao was that Hitler was more aggressively expansionist and reckless, and so was a more direct and immediate threat to people outside Germany's borders.
Stalin/Mao were perhaps more cautious and paranoid, and so a policy of containment/spheres of influence could limit their malign influence to within their own borders (and those of client states) without having to fight a general war of survival.
But I think the main point of the discussion is that it becomes very difficult to talk about specific issues if you introduce a requirement that someone had to give a general overview of evil in all its forms in order to talk about a specific manifestation of evil.
If you weren't able to talk about lung cancer without also talking about all other forms of cancer, or all other potentially life-threatening illnesses, then it would be difficult to talk about lung cancer. Sometimes it makes sense to talk about the general, but using it to avoid talking about the specific is rightly derided as whataboutery.
Stalin not expansionist? The countries of Eastern Europe post-1945 might find that comment a little strange...
I made a relative assessment not an absolute one.
You talked bollox.
No I didn't. You misinterpreted one small part of what I said in an attempt to belittle me and win yourself internet points.
It's boring and lame behaviour.
Okay, I'll bite. In what way did I misinterpret what you wrote? The idea that Stalin was less expansionist than Hitler is an odd argument to make given their histories. This is actually the sort of thing I'm getting at wrt history and the way it echoes back on the modern world. Stalin's desire for a "containment/spheres of influence" echoes directly Putin's desires for Russia today. It was wrong under the British Empire; it was wrong under Stalin; and it will be wrong under Putin.
You also call those eastern European countries 'client states'. Which they were - but that does not excuse the evil of that status. Vichy France was treated as a 'client state' by Hitler, for instance. Albania as well, I think.
'Expansionist' is an odd word to use for someone who was maniacally determined to prosecute a world-wide race war - and was prepared to see his entire nation exterminated in the attempt, should they fail.
Asking anyone to determine which of the two monsters was more evil seems morally fruitless. But they were monsters of different types.
@rwjdingwall Replying to @leoniedelt and @lensiseethrough I admire the professional integrity of the statisticians for putting such weak data in plain sight knowing that anyone with basic skills will then pull it apart, despite the accompanying narrative spinning in line with the policy preferred by their customers.
Dingwall, huh?
The Robert Dingwall seen by the HART antivaxxer conspiracy theorists as "friendly" and "on the inside"?
When you set up an account, or move your account to a new device on the same number, it sends you an SMS to verify.
Actually, I had a problem a few months back. I changed to a new phone with the same number, and whilst WhatsApp registered correctly, numerous attempts to backup WhatsApp data off the old phone onto the new have failed. Fortunately I only have a couple of little-used groups on WhatsApp, but I did lose all the data and those groups.
No idea what went wrong, or whether I did anything wrong.
On the subject of juries, can someone explain why jurors in the US talk to the press after a case? Do they get good money for doing so? I can't recall ever seeing something like that here. Is that because it is a criminal offence here when it is not in the US?
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
PS
"According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. "
You are actually wrong. The Irish have talked about it for decades and the first main root of this is Sean O'Callaghan's "To Hell or Barbados" in the early 2000s. It had nothing to do with trying to counteract BLM so please stop trying to infer I am using white supremacist sources.
I'm just saying you should be careful that you don't unwittingly cite someone with a dubious agenda. From Wiki:
"Since the books were published, white supremacist and white nationalist groups have adopted the notion of Irish slavery, often as a means of countering the historical burden of African slavery and black Americans' demands for redress, or of undermining and attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.[26][27]
This prompted scholars and writers such as Liam Hogan, Laura McAtackney and Matthew C. Reilly to speak out against the "myth of Irish slavery".[28]"
Don't worry I won't. Believe it or not, in their eyes I would be worse than you, in that I would be a traitor as a white man marrying a black woman.
Well I'm married to a Sri Lankan woman so I'm not sure I would be considered much better in the race traitor stakes.
Tough call. I might edge it because they would probably mistake her for being Hispanic and therefore think she might turn Republican in the future (that's a joke on the white supremacists by the way).
On the subject of juries, can someone explain why jurors in the US talk to the press after a case? Do they get good money for doing so? I can't recall ever seeing something like that here. Is that because it is a criminal offence here when it is not in the US?
Reflecting further on yesterdays discussions. The harsh and difficult reality is that both slavery and colonialism are features of human civilisation. The fact that a lot of people cannot come to terms with the fact that Britain both partook in and, eventually, abolished these institutions is really sad. It is actually laughable and pathetic; a failure of education.
Britain is not perfect but remains one of the most progressive, least racist, countries in the world. Anyone who is truly concerned about racism or slavery need only to look to the developing world, where both are prevalent and expanding. Look no further than China.
The abolition of slavery and colonialism are major achievements. But Britain is in a death spiral caused by a loss of confidence in itself and what it has achieved over its history. The people who continually do it down and seek to relitigate historic sins have no coherant vision of the future. They are just parasites destroying the host.
No. The role of historians is to look at the past and reinterpret it. It always has been.
The crimes of Empire are not centuries old, there are still survivors of British torture in Kenyan concentration camps alive for example.
But you cannot reinterpret history without first studying it.
Our current lot of aspirational iconoclasts do not want to study history; they want to use it as a quarry to pick out bits and pieces to justify the things they want to do, or have done.
Those talking about 'slavery' want to ignore the black tribes who sold captives from other black tribes to the white man and the Islamic man in order to make money; they want to ignore black on black slavery in Africa (both still within contemporary memory);
They want to forget about the Barbary Trade enslaving European people; they want to ignore the role of Empire in stopping slavery; and they (and perhaps we) want to ignore the wider historical compass, such as the role of slavery as foundational for the ancient societies we say we admire.
They (and we) also need to think about the historic practice of selling-off of war captives.
And they want to destroy history, without studying it in the round.
That imo is why the unthinking anti-colonialist, BLM movements etc have to be questioned strongly enough to remove such deliberate biases.
I would enthusiastically remove any statues to Barbary slavers on British High streets if you can direct me to them.
A silly response to a serious point. It is not excusing slavery, or belittling its tragedy and the suffering it caused, to talk about the context of slavery contemporaneously around the world.
If anything, ignoring the wider topic of slavery is excusing and belittling the suffering of millions of people, including down to the current day.
My (perhaps contentious and at risk of being heavily criticised for obvious reasons) view is that race is usually the wrong prism for studying slavery, as sex is the wrong prism for studying rape.
Both are about power, and its abuse.
What is interesting about a lot of the talk in recent years around slavery is that so much of the focus has been on the Slave Trade i.e. the transporting of slaves, rather than Slavery, the actual nature of slavery per se.
At first sight, that seems odd. Why focus on the logistics (cruel and demonic as they were)? Well, because it allows the issue to be presented as an European sin. Many cultures have practiced slavery and, when it came to the African slave trade (a) Arabs were responsible for most of it and (b) it was African rulers who sold people of their skin colour over to the white man. So, you focus on slavery per se, you quickly realise many parties were involved. However, if you focus on the transportation aspect, it allows the problem to be presented as a European one.
Now, there are other factors. The abolitionists, for example, popularised the conditions in the slave ships and that led to outrage. Still, if the Europeans had not of conducted the trade, would the slaves have been released? The answer is No, because African rulers were selling their enemies - they would have been killed or sold to the Arabs.
This "yebbut Africans enslaved other Africans" stuff really is whataboutery in its purest form. Just one answer to it is, the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions.
You attack the logistics because that is where you get most bang for your anti slavery buck. As a slightly salient current parallel, you go after the procuring and transportation of children for purposes of abuse, harder than you go after the end users.
the Africans didn't claim to have the benefit of Christianity and the Enlightenment to guide their actions
Doesn't that translate as "it doesn't matter what the Africans did, and sometimes still do, to other Africans as they do not have our beliefs" ?
A rather racist view perhaps ?
And wasn't it part of the reasoning of the enlightenment slave owner that they were ultimately lifting up their slaves to a higher level of civilisation ? While taking the current profit from so doing
Given that the number of descendants of slavery who have migrated to Africa, whether from the USA, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica or even Haiti is approximately zero they would doubtless say that 'lifting up' was achieved.
Jesus Christ, you seem to have caught whatever MrEd is ailing from.
"It is OK for me to do things to black men because other black men did similar things to a third set of black men" is about the most sht argument ever advanced, and the person advancing it in this case is MrEd. The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. For A to enslave B is always and everywhere a terribly, terribly wrong thing to do, colour and creed notwithstanding. Clear now?
This whole "but Africans were already enslaving each other, we just turned up to take them off their hands" argument ignores how the fact that European ships were turning up off the Gold Coast offering to buy slaves for huge amounts of money or its equivalent changed the incentives on offer, in effect distorting the entire African economy and society as warfare and slavery became the most profitable activities available.
Yeah, but you also ignore the fact that the reason why African rulers sold off slaves was because they wanted to get rid of their enemies - the slaves were from conquered people. Do you think if the European ships had not turned up, those rulers would have been like "oh well, let's just release them back to their villages"? No, they would have been killed or sold to other traders, namely the Arabs.
Wars were started in order to create slaves in West Africa to sell to European slave traders.
No, they were not. And look at where the main slave routes developed:
Essentially North African and along the Eastern part. Away from European influence for the most part.
You talk about whataboutery but the amount of mental gymnastics you and Ishmael do to try and claim this is a whites-only policy is totally laughable.
I never said or suggested it was a whites only problem. The whataboutery in this conversation is all from you. The aspect of the problem that your utterly dysfunctional nation has to address is, however, whites only. The number of poor American blacks whose plight is the direct result of horrific greed and cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine, is about 46 million, and the number whose plight arises from black on black slave trading is approximately nil.
First, I'm not American but my wife is.
Actually, Ishmael, technically you didn't say it was a whites only problem but what you did say was:
"The relevance of Christianity etc etc is only that, almost unbelievably, it makes it even shitter than it was in the first place. "
So what you said was "slavery is bad but it's even badder if it is done by Chrstians"
Just quoting your own words.
As for "cruelty on the part of your white ancestors and mine", I'm actually mainly Irish. And guess what? The Irish were sold into slavery. In fact, the Irish were the first slaves in several of the islands such as Barbados - 50,000 of them
And the reason why African slaves were brought over to the West Indies? Because the Irish slaves were dying because of heat and / or post-the end of Cromwell, there was not the same supply of slaves.
But, hey, those sorts of slaves don't count. You and Kamski ought to organise the annual "let's whip ourselves because we are white" annual party.
They weren't slaves, they were indentured labourers (ie they were tied to a specific employer to pay for their passage; some were transported involuntarily for perceived crimes, ie resisting Cromwell). They were harshly treated and many died and for some their experience was likely closer to slavery than to free labour. But their period of indenture was finite, their children were not born into slavery, they were given shoes and generally didn't do the same work as the African slaves. Slavery itself was a varied condition, of course, some slaves were skilled engineers who helped to build the windmills who still dot the island. Others were worked to death in the fields. Anyone who resisted was punished brutally. According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans. Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
PS
"According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. "
You are actually wrong. The Irish have talked about it for decades and the first main root of this is Sean O'Callaghan's "To Hell or Barbados" in the early 2000s. It had nothing to do with trying to counteract BLM so please stop trying to infer I am using white supremacist sources.
I'm just saying you should be careful that you don't unwittingly cite someone with a dubious agenda. From Wiki:
"Since the books were published, white supremacist and white nationalist groups have adopted the notion of Irish slavery, often as a means of countering the historical burden of African slavery and black Americans' demands for redress, or of undermining and attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.[26][27]
This prompted scholars and writers such as Liam Hogan, Laura McAtackney and Matthew C. Reilly to speak out against the "myth of Irish slavery".[28]"
Don't worry I won't. Believe it or not, in their eyes I would be worse than you, in that I would be a traitor as a white man marrying a black woman.
Well I'm married to a Sri Lankan woman so I'm not sure I would be considered much better in the race traitor stakes.
Tough call. I might edge it because they would probably mistake her for being Hispanic and therefore think she might turn Republican in the future (that's a joke on the white supremacists by the way).
When we lived in the US people tended to assume she was the nanny, not helped by our eldest daughter looking white - my celtic genes are apparently very strong.
On the subject of juries, can someone explain why jurors in the US talk to the press after a case? Do they get good money for doing so? I can't recall ever seeing something like that here. Is that because it is a criminal offence here when it is not in the US?
Comments
"The PM has told Geidt that he did not see the WhatsApp messages because he changed his phone number"
https://www.ft.com/content/0e07461f-6d19-4831-9cbe-bb7588351f56
You want to believe that, fine. Just don't preaching to the rest of us how you are essentially a good person. You actually are not"
You said it once a couple of days ago. Which was silly but understandable. Then you repeated it a couple of times, which was gobsmacking. Now you are just behaving like a clown. How appropriate.
"Truss is using the Equalities brief to signal to the right of the party that she is not just an economic liberal like them, but she is aligned with them on (some) social issues too. Given Priti Patel’s well-advertised difficulties at the Home Office, there isn’t really an alternative candidate on the right of the party at the moment.
Except, of course, if Rees-Mogg’s willingness to intervene on difficult issues like tax-and-spend means that he emerges as the most authentic hope for the party’s right flank. And that’s another looming problem for Boris Johnson: his political weakness means that everyone in the Cabinet will, increasingly, be thinking not of how best to advance under him, but after him."
You want to believe that, fine. Just don't preaching to the rest of us how you are essentially a good person. You actually are not"
PS you haven't answered the question of whether you believe in Universal Human Rights.
It's boring and lame behaviour.
Patel and Rees Mogg would lead the traditional right post Boris, Truss would lead the libertarian right and Sunak and Javid and Hunt the centrists
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19828343.god-save-queen-minister-chris-philip-calls-national-anthem-sung/?ref=ebbn
Anyway, we only have a limited amount of time on Earth and this is certainly not the way to spend it.
According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources.
They do form an interesting community in Barbados, known as "Bajan whites" as opposed to "White Bajans" who are the descendents of the wealthy planter class. They had the most inpenetrable of all Bajan accents I found when I lived there. People said that some of them living in inland parishes had never been to the coast, which I found a little hard to believe on an island that small but may have been true I suppose. Arithmetically, in-breeding must have been a problem, and they have increasingly inter-married with their black neighbours (who are in reality mostly mixed race anyway). Rihanna has Bajan White roots, I think. The black community had generally good things to say about the Bajan Whites, more so than the White Bajans.
Barbados is a fascinating country as well as a great place to go on holiday. The museum at the Garrison outside of Bridgetown has some interesting stuff in it, especially on slavery, and there has been a lot of good research on Caribbean history done at UWI.
What’s wrong with that? We Christian’s should know and do better to set the world an example.
@rwjdingwall
Replying to
@leoniedelt
and
@lensiseethrough
I admire the professional integrity of the statisticians for putting such weak data in plain sight knowing that anyone with basic skills will then pull it apart, despite the accompanying narrative spinning in line with the policy preferred by their customers.
Pence is tainted for Tumpsters by failing to enact a coup attempt and tainted for #nevertumpers by being so enmeshed in Trump that he needed Dan Quayle to talk him out of enacting a coup.
The path to a Pence nomination is astonishingly slim and convoluted that I jsut can't see it.
Have spoken to both our logistics partners in turn who have said that the border is practically not functioning at the moment - "far worse" than it was a year ago. Have seen on Twitter that there are minimal vehicles making the crossing into Dover and that a substantial percentage of those are being called for checks. Happily there are a minimal number of vehicles (because border not functioning) so no queues on our side.
Here is out problem. We knew from the start that the ancient CHIEF customs computer would handle even a percentage of traffic. So started work on a replacement called CDS. Which despite the 1 year delay is still not ready.
So even if you spend the time and money doing all the paperwork, and your customs agent manages to lodge it on the system on time, the computer system can't cope with even minimal traffic. And CDS isn't taking over on imports until the end of Q3 at the earliest.
They were deported and split from their families.
"French priest Father Antoine Biet visited Barbados in 1654 and lamented how poorly the servants were treated. He commented that some of the families who were forcibly deported to the colony were split up and purposely sold to different planters as part of their punishment. If servants left the plantation without permission from their master, this unaccounted-for time was added to their term of indenture. Enslaved Africans, who were owned for life, were beaten for similar infractions. If indentured servants assaulted another servant or a slave it was treated as a misdemeanour and they were fined. If they assaulted their master, they were whipped. Their indenture was legal property, and therefore a servant’s remaining time could be left in wills, traded for commodities and sold. Since one’s labour is inseparable from one’s person, indentured servants in Barbados were temporarily treated as a sort of commodity."
They were essentially slaves.
Your argument shows just how much down the rabbit hole the woke-ist view has gone. You can't admit the suffering or evil done to other people or seek to downplay it because that takes away from the overriding theme. It really is nuts.
None of them majority Christian
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/which-countries-have-highest-rates-modern-slavery-and-most-victims
You also call those eastern European countries 'client states'. Which they were - but that does not excuse the evil of that status. Vichy France was treated as a 'client state' by Hitler, for instance. Albania as well, I think.
There was a New Yorker article a little while back.
EU money is being sent to the warlords in Libya to stop the migrant boats. The warlords diligently formed a "coast guard", armed to the teeth, and capture lots of the migrant boating attempts.
They lock the would be migrants up in rather dire conditions - not much space. The picture in the magazine of one such prison was interesting in the context of the history....
So they have large numbers of mostly black Africans, on hand. Costing them money to feed. So they take them down to the local market place and sell their labour for the day to the highest bidder.
Interesting, ins't it?
I wonder how long before agriculture and other businesses in Libya are dependent on super cheap labour?
If Trump does not run again and DeSantis loses the Florida governorship in November to Crist, then Pence will likely be nominee
All are sinners, but not all sins are equal.
It’s getting worse for you, Kamski. This is on topic. Take a look at the header. Unvaxxed today - carrot munchers tomorrow. After your attempts to destroy our economy and way of life with vegetarianisms, You won’t be able to get into any pubs or clubs without a valid PorkPass. When out in public you will have to display a carrot so we know who you are.
If you thought it was only a matter of time before all you carrot guts took over, you are going to MEAT resistance. vegaphobia is a thing now.
Signed Jade aka Miss Obnoxious
"According to Wikipedia, efforts to label indentured whites as slaves generally come from white supremacists and others seeking to discredit the BLM movement, and have been discredited by historians, so I would be careful with your sources. "
You are actually wrong. The Irish have talked about it for decades and the first main root of this is Sean O'Callaghan's "To Hell or Barbados" in the early 2000s. It had nothing to do with trying to counteract BLM so please stop trying to infer I am using white supremacist sources.
I am a bit baffled here, given that I am the one asserting the right of people not to be enmslaved by other people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/59880405
Not sure how much Wee Niki has been influenced by the threat of Scotland playing their home games at St James' Park.
"Since the books were published, white supremacist and white nationalist groups have adopted the notion of Irish slavery, often as a means of countering the historical burden of African slavery and black Americans' demands for redress, or of undermining and attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.[26][27]
This prompted scholars and writers such as Liam Hogan, Laura McAtackney and Matthew C. Reilly to speak out against the "myth of Irish slavery".[28]"
They would certainly class the indenture system as a form of slavery.
You can read the vast majority of ft.com articles for free by tricking the site into thinking you’re anew user - in a private window, copy the link into a Google search and then click through.
The business model is to allow friction-free access to the first-time clicker - then aggressively monetising casual/regular readers.
I much prefer a more honest business model where they either have a paywall for all, or none.
The removal of the statue was a good thing - we shouldn't be celebrating that shameful aspect of our history - and my natural reluctance to second-guess jury verdicts goes unchallenged here.
And now to burnish this opinion of mine with the balance, moral gravitas and historical context it is so clearly crying out for. Here we go:
I condemn Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and all other leftist tyrants. In fact I condemn tyrants of any ilk. I have no time for them - tyrants.
There is a goodly long list of people & civilizations throughout history who were both not British and have profited from the enslaving of others. I'll just mention the Romans but gosh one could go on.
Is that ok?
In Australia: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-06/supermarket-shortage-supply-chain-truck-driver-covid/100741392
Ps it still was criminal damage by the definition of the law but you have to accept all jury verdicts if you believe in the system
In the global all time slaveowners ranking though the Arabs, Romans and Portuguese in Brazil were ahead of us
I think the Oxford definition says "very useful term for those on the left to defend a position which is logically inconsistent with their loudly proclaimed beliefs. For example, if one is asked "why are you not protesting outside the Saudi Embassy if you are campaigning for gay rights", you shout "whataboutery"
It is why I respect a lot people like Peter Thatchell a lot - he's not scared to be accused of being racist, Islamophobic etc etc in the support of his cause.
Someone: I'm pointing out it was not a uniquely European phenomenon
Agreement of sorts, I guess.
Anointed now with Daddies Sauce
Come back to the light. It says.
my three quid, if that were an option, to see the Conservative Party fall down the same rabbit hole as Labour did under Corbyn.
Instead we have chosen this fiasco of a system and have failed to prepare for it. And when I say we I mean the government. As with so many other things it is on record that they were told in detail by the people who know that CHIEF was not fit for purpose. And yet here we are trying to use CHIEF and it not working.
If we get rid of PCR tests, what happens to all the good sequencing work?
In fact, surely all the stats about how much covid is in community would just become meaningless guesswork. The Malmesbury Monoliths will have to be pulled down and dumped in the Bristol Channel. 😩
Labour supporters joining the Tories a few months before a leadership election to vote for Rees Mogg would take the same risk
No matter how many times people post similar images to "prove" all is fine.
I'm not sure whether that refers to ensuring there are BSL signers every time the anthem is sung or whether it also encompasses encouraging people to scribble their signatures on HMQ.
I assume the 'Union Jack' to be flown more is Alister Jack or Maybe Jackson Carlaw?
No, people shouldn’t be using any service operated by Facebook for government business. It should be on Teams, Slack or such business platform with recording functionality.
a) Although some were worse, it does not excuse what we did.
b) We focus on what we did and less on what others did because that is our history.
Our only defence is that it wasn't our atrocities but our ancestors and that times were different then.
You are beginning to sound like all the very rabid BLM allies who proclaim their hatred for "all forms of racism" but have been woefully silent on the Waukesha affair where a Black man with a public record of making anti-white, racist comments deliberately ploughed his car into a group of old people and children. Reverse the victims and the perp and it would have been proclaimed as evil.
You are one of those people who are actually quite dangerous to society because you believe people should be judged not on the crimes they commit but who they are. And that is where trust in society breaks down.
Asking anyone to determine which of the two monsters was more evil seems morally fruitless. But they were monsters of different types.
The Robert Dingwall seen by the HART antivaxxer conspiracy theorists as "friendly" and "on the inside"?
No idea what went wrong, or whether I did anything wrong.