Originally posted by Lucia:
Do you think they'd want them?!
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quote:Having just gone through the Residential Schools 'Truth and Reconcilliation Commission' in Canada, there is merit I think if something more than money is required.
The Caribbean Community (Caricom) approved a 10-point plan for reparations at a two-day meeting in St Vincent and the Grenadines that was due to wrap up on Tuesday, said Martyn Day, a UK-based lawyer at Leigh Day, who is working on the case.
The Caribbean countries said that European governments in addition to being responsible for conducting slavery and genocide, also imposed 100 years of racial apartheid and suffering on freed slaves and the survivors of genocide.
quote:I was thinking that if one accepts that money is owed for the supposed misdeeds of colonialism, then shouldn't deductions be made for its benefits?
Originally posted by mdijon:
You mean one might be owed 100 billion USD to recompense the wrongs of slavery, but have to give 1 billion back for maintaining the death penalty for longer than Europe and another few billion for promoting homophobia?
quote:Presumably you mean it's supposed benefits - if we are going to be sceptical about everything.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I was thinking that if one accepts that money is owed for the supposed misdeeds of colonialism, then shouldn't deductions be made for its benefits?
quote:So you think that poor countries in Africa should be expected to pay up, and the rich countries in Europe that demonstrably made a lot of money from plantations and the slave trade should just sit back and watch.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Perhaps they could try to get some money out of the West African and Arab countries, the ancestors of whose present inhabitants rounded up the slaves and sold them to the European traders.
Good luck with that.
quote:At the very least it would give a rough measure of culpability. Return of stolen goods is usually considered the bare minimum required for justice in most cases not involving states. Plus it seems unjust for the oppressor to retain "all the wealth piled by the bondsman's . . . years of unrequited toil".
Originally posted by Anglican't:
If slavery is a bad thing for the victim, does it matter whether the oppressor or oppressors made money out of it or how much? The act of oppression is the bad thing, isn't it?
quote:Which countries are you thinking of? The island nations have done far better than the Latin countries surrounding the Caribbean Sea; I'm wondering if you've mixed up who are the member countries.
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
The Caricom countries might have had more credibility were it not for the shocking human rights record of most of them, lasting and delighted in even in the present day.
quote:Large scale oppression usually occurs because someone has something to gain from it. The one who gains the most surely has the most to answer for; and it's been said that Africa lost far more than it gained in the Transatlantic slave trade.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
If slavery is a bad thing for the victim, does it matter whether the oppressor or oppressors made money out of it or how much? The act of oppression is the bad thing, isn't it?
quote:I came across it in another article - it's about the Rastafarians essentially. Apparently many of them have struggled to get citizenship in the African countries they believe to be their origin - Ghana in particular - and they want a means for slave descendants to get a route to citizenship so that they can move "back" to Africa.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I've noticed that 'repatriation' is one of the topics included in CARICOM's agenda. I don't know what exactly they mean by this, but it suggests that there is an African angle to the proceedings.
quote:You mean that the Arab states don't have money?!
Originally posted by seekingsister
But for now, starting with Europe given that they, you know, have money, makes a lot more sense.
quote:Do you really need to suppose?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I suppose so.
quote:You are quite right re: the difficulties inherent to the process-- a logistical nightmare as one attempts to parse out what trans-generational justice looks like.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:Also, what money are you talking about from Europe? Money extracted from innocent taxpayers? Money earmarked for basic services, the lack of which will result in great hardship?
Originally posted by seekingsister
But for now, starting with Europe given that they, you know, have money, makes a lot more sense.
Or don't the needs of innocent Europeans matter in this equation?
quote:So, Germany is owed some money back because the Jews got a homeland out of the deal? Ooh, and even more because by reducing the population, they fit in it more easily.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I was thinking that if one accepts that money is owed for the supposed misdeeds of colonialism, then shouldn't deductions be made for its benefits?
quote:So far as I'm aware, Germany played no formal role in the establishment of the state of Israel. The Israelis did it.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:So, Germany is owed some money back because the Jews got a homeland out of the deal? Ooh, and even more because by reducing the population, they fit in it more easily.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I was thinking that if one accepts that money is owed for the supposed misdeeds of colonialism, then shouldn't deductions be made for its benefits?
quote:Exactly. And most people campaigning for reparations know that and don't expect it. It is a device to negotiate aid budgets, funding for projects, to make a point, to express anger at racism and many other things.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Let's be honest here: no one's going to get any 'reparations money'.
quote:And yet it is a very popular one, arguably the majority reaction I would say.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:Exactly. And most people campaigning for reparations know that and don't expect it. It is a device to negotiate aid budgets, funding for projects, to make a point, to express anger at racism and many other things.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Let's be honest here: no one's going to get any 'reparations money'.
There are many reactions to such claims that might be helpful but derision isn't one of them.
quote:A bit disingenuous an argument perhaps? Do you honestly think Isreal would have been established when it was, and as easily, if the Holocaust had not happened?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
So far as I'm aware, Germany played no formal role in the establishment of the state of Israel. The Israelis did it.
quote:Tell me why it's an unhelpful reaction and I'll entertain you with my account of the motivations of those doing the deriding.
Originally posted by deano:
I wonder why that would be. Why would the overwhelming response to such demands be derision?
quote:Ignorance, selfishness and defensiveness.
Originally posted by deano:
Funny that. I wonder why that would be. Why would the overwhelming response to such demands be derision?
quote:...everyone.... everyone...???
Originally posted by cliffdweller
In the broadest terms, though, the point is that everyone in Europe (and America) has benefitted economically from the legacy of slavery, just as everyone in Africa has been harmed by it.
quote:So this never happened?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
So far as I'm aware, Germany played no formal role in the establishment of the state of Israel.
quote:Better than slavery though. Which was still going on in the nineteenth century.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Hell on earth.
quote:Noone is saying that Europeans didn't oppress each other in the slums of Europe. (Actually, though, the argument could be made that Transatlantic slavery made conditions for working class Europeans worse, in certain respects. The Marxists probably have some theories about that.)
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
There is immense wealth enjoyed by some in Africa, and the ancestors of millions in Europe were enslaved as wage slaves in the Industrial Revolution. Have you read about the conditions of urban slums in the nineteenth century? Hell on earth.
quote:I'm not saying it didn't. But I don't see what that has got to do with the establishment of the state of Israel itself.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:So this never happened?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
So far as I'm aware, Germany played no formal role in the establishment of the state of Israel.
quote:I'm not and I don't.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2
BTW, how are you connecting the wealth of individuals in modern Africa and the Transatlantic slave trade? Are you saying that individual Africans are now wealthy as a result of that? It's an interesting thought. Do you have any refs?
quote:Same argument with the addition of continued colonialism for a long time after and the stripping of assets to this day.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Whether that benefit has flowed down to their descendants is not for me to say, but if it hasn't then the same argument can be put for the benefit of the slave trade to us Europeans. What's good for the goose..., as they say.
quote:I don't think whether a relatively modest cash benefit that might flow across generations to a minority within a nation could at all be equated with an enormous plundering of wealth and labour by one nation on another. There are cities in the UK that were built on the proceeds of slavery. There will be some large houses in West Africa that were built on their share of the proceeds. The scale is different.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Whether that benefit has flowed down to their descendants is not for me to say, but if it hasn't then the same argument can be put for the benefit of the slave trade to us Europeans. What's good for the goose..., as they say.
quote:Well, you seem to know a lot about the benefit to local slave traders in Africa, hence the phrase "relatively modest cash benefit". Do you actually know what that benefit would have been? For all you know, the slave trade could have aggrandised certain ethnic groups to the detriment of others, with appalling consequences right down to the present day.
Originally posted by mdijon
I don't think whether a relatively modest cash benefit that might flow across generations to a minority within a nation could at all be equated with an enormous plundering of wealth and labour by one nation on another. There are cities in the UK that were built on the proceeds of slavery. There will be some large houses in West Africa that were built on their share of the proceeds. The scale is different.
quote:Whilst we're at it, I think there are quite a few countries that will be demanding compensation from Italy for their slave-taking ways... in the decades leading up to 1 AD, at least.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Perhaps they could try to get some money out of the West African and Arab countries, the ancestors of whose present inhabitants rounded up the slaves and sold them to the European traders.
Good luck with that.
quote:The issue is one of societal impacts, not of individuals. Equally, the Transatlantic slave trade has had long-term malign consequences for black people and even for white people - not in terms of the odd individual here and there, but in terms of the wider society.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I was countering the idea that everyone in Africa has been harmed by the slave trade.
quote:Except that it's not at all clear that modern Italy is the successor state of the Roman Empire. That's a distinction not at work when discussing, for example, France*. Today's Fifth Republic maintains (and is largely recognized by others) as the legitimate successor of earlier French regimes, including the ones that (as discussed earlier) established the slave colony of Saint-Domingue and extorted the Haitian indemnity. If "continuity of government" works as an explanation for why the current French government holds sovereignty over Martinique (for example) and could legitimately keep extracting the Haitian indemnity until 1947, then consistency requires it applies in other less convenient areas as well.
Originally posted by Mr Beamish:
Whilst we're at it, I think there are quite a few countries that will be demanding compensation from Italy for their slave-taking ways... in the decades leading up to 1 AD, at least.
quote:The JCPC's reticence over hanging is a large factor in its unpopularity in CARICOM. To which end the JCPC has decided to sit in the Caribbean from time to time, to increase its 'cred' as it were.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:I was thinking that if one accepts that money is owed for the supposed misdeeds of colonialism, then shouldn't deductions be made for its benefits?
Originally posted by mdijon:
You mean one might be owed 100 billion USD to recompense the wrongs of slavery, but have to give 1 billion back for maintaining the death penalty for longer than Europe and another few billion for promoting homophobia?
Caribbean countries were presumably free to abolish the death penalty and decriminialise homosexual acts at any time after indepedence? (In fact, I think bust ups over the death penalty is one of the reasons why former British colonies no longer want to send appeal cases to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.)
quote:I find this a curious argument. It suggests that the Transatlantic slave trade caused no lasting harm. It also ignores the fact that we're only talking about a few generations. Yet in the case of the USA, there were people still alive in the mid-20th century who were actually born into American slavery. The last transported slave apparently died there in the 1930s!
Originally posted by Mr Beamish:
Whilst we're at it, I think there are quite a few countries that will be demanding compensation from Italy for their slave-taking ways... in the decades leading up to 1 AD, at least.
quote:The scale is different, but not as different as you suggest. We're not talking about a handful of traders in West Africa who grew personally wealthy and lived in fortified splendour from their collaboration with the wicked colonial slavers. A number of substantial kingdoms in West Africa flourished for centuries with slaving as a primary enterprise before, during and after the period of the Atlantic slave trade. They certainly sold as many slaves to North Africa and the Gulf (and for a far longer period of time) as they did to the Europeans, and sold rather more than that to each other.
Originally posted by mdijon:
There are cities in the UK that were built on the proceeds of slavery. There will be some large houses in West Africa that were built on their share of the proceeds. The scale is different.
quote:I accept what you say. But I don't understand the logic of it. Isn't it insincere (at least) for these people to campaign for reparations if they know that it is simply not feasible that they will ever be paid? If they already appreciate that the practical objections are overwhelming and insuperable, even if a plausible case could be made out for modern countries to pay compensation for something that was done centuries ago, then what are they really asking for? Do the people in whose name they are claiming reparations know that they don't really mean it?
Originally posted by mdijon:
Exactly. And most people campaigning for reparations know that and don't expect it. It is a device to negotiate aid budgets, funding for projects, to make a point, to express anger at racism and many other things.
There are many reactions to such claims that might be helpful but derision isn't one of them.
quote:Mmm, that's a fair enough point. But surely it suggests the counterpart: is there anyone alive guilty of the crime of perpetrating the Atlantic Slave Trade? And if so, are they specifically being charged?
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:I find this a curious argument. It suggests that the Transatlantic slave trade caused no lasting harm. It also ignores the fact that we're only talking about a few generations. Yet in the case of the USA, there were people still alive in the mid-20th century who were actually born into American slavery. The last transported slave apparently died there in the 1930s!
Originally posted by Mr Beamish:
Whilst we're at it, I think there are quite a few countries that will be demanding compensation from Italy for their slave-taking ways... in the decades leading up to 1 AD, at least.
The British Slavery Abolition act was passed in 1833; forced apprenticeships were abolished at the end of the decade. So there would have been people alive in the 20th c. who had experienced or witnessed it.
quote:Isn't that the way all kinds of negotiations are done? I have never engaged in barter or any other negotiation where the goods in question do not have a set price, but I gather that the seller asks for significantly more than they think they can probably get, and the buyer suggests a price notably too low. Are they dishonest too?
Originally posted by Pottage:
If what they really hope to achieve is something else (presumably something more tangible than expressions of sorrow) isn't it counterproductive to have begun by demonstrating such a capacity for insincerity?
quote:Questions of "culture" are a bit squishy. Questions of statehood and sovereignty are less so, though still not absolute. (This thread is theoretically about reparations between nations, not individuals.) For the U.K. specifically, given the government's very strong feelings that an arrangement established in the eighteenth century was still fully applicable in the twentieth, the upper limit seems to be "at least two centuries".
Originally posted by Mr Beamish:
Is there a quantifiable or qualifiable upper limit of time, or procedure by which we can ascertain that a culture has moved on sufficiently? The examples of France and Rome are probably at opposite ends of any such scale. Where is the UK?
quote:Actually, Charles Krauthammer, an right-winger, penned an essay sincerely arguing for slavery reparations in 1990, even laying out how it could be financed.
If what they really hope to achieve is something else (presumably something more tangible than expressions of sorrow) isn't it counterproductive to have begun by demonstrating such a capacity for insincerity?
quote:I called them insincere rather than dishonest. Although they don't believe the reparations they are claiming are ever going to be paid, they presumably hope to be entrusted with a lot of money and allowed to administer it for the benefit of millions of other people. Does it strengthen their case for being entrusted with that responsibility if the main thing we know about them so far is that what they say is not necessarily what they mean?
Originally posted by Gwai:
Isn't that the way all kinds of negotiations are done? I have never engaged in barter or any other negotiation where the goods in question do not have a set price, but I gather that the seller asks for significantly more than they think they can probably get, and the buyer suggests a price notably too low. Are they dishonest too?
quote:Mm, well that leaves us with two (well, possibly more, but two leap into my mind) possibilities. Either the request for reparations should be granted, or we should return the Falklands.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Questions of "culture" are a bit squishy. Questions of statehood and sovereignty are less so, though still not absolute. (This thread is theoretically about reparations between nations, not individuals.) For the U.K. specifically, given the government's very strong feelings that an arrangement established in the eighteenth century was still fully applicable in the twentieth, the upper limit seems to be "at least two centuries".
Originally posted by Mr Beamish:
Is there a quantifiable or qualifiable upper limit of time, or procedure by which we can ascertain that a culture has moved on sufficiently? The examples of France and Rome are probably at opposite ends of any such scale. Where is the UK?
quote:The arrangement of UK territorial sovereignty over that particular patch of dirt. And yes, it has nothing to do with slavery specifically, it's just an example to illustrate that states will usually consider themselves to be the same entities as states that existed several centuries ago. In this case that "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" that exists today is the same entity as "the United Kingdom of Great Britain" that first established a settlement on the Falklands in the eighteenth century, despite the fact that none of the citizens alive then are alive today. (The U.K. was specifically asked after by Mr Beamish, which is why I used the example I did.)
Originally posted by Anglican't:
What 'arrangements' are we talking about here, specifically? The Falklands War had nothing to do with slavery.
quote:Not necessarily. The other variable at play is that states will usually draw distinctions between actions by the state and actions undertaken by its citizens on their own initiative. States will often (and rightly) be held accountable for the former (e.g. charters establishing slave colonies) but typically not the latter (e.g. slave raids undertaken by private citizens).
Originally posted by Mr Beamish:
Mm, well that leaves us with two (well, possibly more, but two leap into my mind) possibilities. Either the request for reparations should be granted, or we should return the Falklands.
quote:I don't think it's possible to ignore culture, in the sense of culture creating society. The argument for reparations in the Caribbean (and African American) context is frequently predicated upon the cultural and consequently the societal damage that Transatlantic slavery caused.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Questions of "culture" are a bit squishy. Questions of statehood and sovereignty are less so, though still not absolute.
Originally posted by Mr Beamish:
Is there a quantifiable or qualifiable upper limit of time, or procedure by which we can ascertain that a culture has moved on sufficiently? The examples of France and Rome are probably at opposite ends of any such scale. Where is the UK?
quote:The Average citizen of the UK, France or America benefited more than the average citizen of those African countries.
Originally posted by Pottage:
The scale is different, but not as different as you suggest. We're not talking about a handful of traders in West Africa who grew personally wealthy and lived in fortified splendour from their collaboration with the wicked colonial slavers.
quote:Numbers are far from the only consideration.
Originally posted by Pottage:
The number of African slaves transported across the Middle Passage is broadly comparable to the number of European slaves taken by the Ottoman Empire and other North African traders, mainly from what is now Algeria.
quote:Some do, but they are set up mostly to enrich a small group of elites and screw the rest of the population. It's hard to hold Saudi Arabia responsible. Can slavery to the Caribbean be traced to them, or Algeria, Libya, Nigeria. Or maybe some chocolate or diamond money? Same as the countries that are targetted for reparations, except at a larger scale. Screwy also is the cabal between the elites all countries.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Arab countries don't have the money?
quote:I don't get this logic. So Britain (for example) should get saddled with a bill because it's a parliamentary democracy but other supposedly culpable nations get off because they're totalitarian states?
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:Some do, but they are set up mostly to enrich a small group of elites and screw the rest of the population. It's hard to hold Saudi Arabia responsible. Can slavery to the Caribbean be traced to them, or Algeria, Libya, Nigeria. Or maybe some chocolate or diamond money? Same as the countries that are targetted for reparations, except at a larger scale. Screwy also is the cabal between the elites all countries.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Arab countries don't have the money?
quote:Not quite - and that post you were responding to takes us down a bit of a rat-hole in my opinion. It mostly comes down to this:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I don't get this logic. So Britain (for example) should get saddled with a bill because it's a parliamentary democracy but other supposedly culpable nations get off because they're totalitarian states?
quote:Sounds good, when did you become a socialist
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So presumably the descendants of those who endured this "hell on earth" are now economically suffering, and deserve compensation? [/QB]
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quote:The Transatlantic slave trade and the Arab (i.e. North African) slave trade are two different trades, so the Arabs weren't 'responsible' for the European trade in black Africans to the Americas. The Arabs traded black Africans (in huge numbers) from East Africa, and the Europeans from West Africa. However, some say that southern Europeans first became accustomed to black slavery due to seeing it practiced by Arabs around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. As we know, the Portuguese and the Spaniards got involved in the business first, then other Europeans followed.
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:Some do, but they are set up mostly to enrich a small group of elites and screw the rest of the population. It's hard to hold Saudi Arabia responsible. Can slavery to the Caribbean be traced to them, or Algeria, Libya, Nigeria.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Arab countries don't have the money?
quote:You snipped off the line where I explained that. I'm talking about the economies as a whole that those individuals are living in. That the European and American economies are built on "stolen goods" and the African economy is similarly impacted the loss of those stolen goods. In the part you snipped I specifically pointed out that that is true even though often the people you are talking about are not the genetic descendants of the perpetrators, and in some cases stand on both sides-- i.e. African Americans.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:...everyone.... everyone...???
Originally posted by cliffdweller
In the broadest terms, though, the point is that everyone in Europe (and America) has benefitted economically from the legacy of slavery, just as everyone in Africa has been harmed by it.
That simply is not true. There is immense wealth enjoyed by some in Africa, and the ancestors of millions in Europe were enslaved as wage slaves in the Industrial Revolution. Have you read about the conditions of urban slums in the nineteenth century? Hell on earth.
So presumably the descendants of those who endured this "hell on earth" are now economically suffering, and deserve compensation?
quote:Because they represent a piece of transparently unrealistic, opportunistic, moralistic grandstanding which the participating governments hope will distract their people's attention from a lack of genuine, helpful but boring and difficult policies for progress?
Originally posted by deano:
Why would the overwhelming response to such demands be derision?
quote:So is your case that present day Caribbean and/or African economies are worse off than they would have been had Europeans never set foot in those places?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm talking about the economies as a whole that those individuals are living in. That the European and American economies are built on "stolen goods" and the African economy is similarly impacted the loss of those stolen goods.
quote:Again, the part that was quoted (and then I responded to) is really taken out of a broader and much more nuanced context. I'm not in any position to make the kind of determination you're asking, nor was I attempting to in my post which had (before it snipped) acknowledged many of the complexities of trans-generational reparations, which of course include the very point you're making. That got clipped by the respondent, making my point look different than what it actually was.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:So is your case that present day Caribbean and/or African economies are worse off than they would have been had Europeans never set foot in those places?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm talking about the economies as a whole that those individuals are living in. That the European and American economies are built on "stolen goods" and the African economy is similarly impacted the loss of those stolen goods.
Because if you're not, you're just cherry-picking the evil stuff, and I have a claim about the damage suffered by my family as a result of industrialization in the Victorian era...
quote:Well, the current discussion is about reparations between nation-states, not private individuals (check out the thread title), so maybe the British head-of-state can work something out with whoever holds the equivalent post for Wales.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
My ancestors came from Wales, so excuse me now while I go off and prepare a submission which will call on the British parliament to vote compensation to all people of Welsh descent because our forebears suffered under Edward I and Henry IV.
quote:There are probably a mix of motives and I can't of course speak for them all. Many people are angry though. Angry about the colossal scale of a historic racist injustice, about the degree of denial among the present day beneficiaries of an exponential increase in wealth from the days of slavery, and angry about the ongoing inequality that continues to the present.
Originally posted by Pottage:
I called them insincere rather than dishonest. Although they don't believe the reparations they are claiming are ever going to be paid, they presumably hope to be entrusted with a lot of money and allowed to administer it for the benefit of millions of other people. Does it strengthen their case for being entrusted with that responsibility if the main thing we know about them so far is that what they say is not necessarily what they mean?
quote:But surely no-one would really think that the current discontent and ongoing sense of hurt that Africans and black people feel over the recent past of slavery and its current legacy is equivalent to what Welsh descendents might feel over Edward I?
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
My ancestors came from Wales, so excuse me now while I go off and prepare a submission which will call on the British parliament to vote compensation to all people of Welsh descent because our forebears suffered under Edward I and Henry IV.
quote:Unless you tell someone, they would never know. That's one difference.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
My ancestors came from Wales, so excuse me now while I go off and prepare a submission which will call on the British parliament to vote compensation to all people of Welsh descent because our forebears suffered under Edward I and Henry IV.
quote:I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:Because they represent a piece of transparently unrealistic, opportunistic, moralistic grandstanding which the participating governments hope will distract their people's attention from a lack of genuine, helpful but boring and difficult policies for progress?
Originally posted by deano:
Why would the overwhelming response to such demands be derision?
My ancestors came from Wales, so excuse me now while I go off and prepare a submission which will call on the British parliament to vote compensation to all people of Welsh descent because our forebears suffered under Edward I and Henry IV.
quote:Out of interest, are you?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
quote:So African nations are saying that? And Arab nations?
Originally posted by seekingsister
The attitude that underlies this comment is part of the reason they are asking for reparations in the first place. Whenever Africans and Afro-descendants dare say that slavery and colonialism had a negative impact on us, the immediate reaction from the countries that perpetrated these things is "Oh get over it, give it a rest."
quote:Certainly not, but I haven't made any comments regarding their motivations here.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Out of interest, are you?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
quote:The current nations in West Africa, where many of the slaves originated, did not exist in the time of the slave trade.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So African nations are saying that? And Arab nations?
Because they perpetrated the slave trade as much as the "nasty evil eternally racist" European nations (which are actually now multi-racial anyway).
quote:I may have misunderstood you, but weren't you commenting on motivation when you wrote this?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Certainly not, but I haven't made any comments regarding their motivations here.
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
The attitude that underlies this comment is part of the reason they are asking for reparations in the first place. Whenever Africans and Afro-descendants dare say that slavery and colonialism had a negative impact on us, the immediate reaction from the countries that perpetrated these things is "Oh get over it, give it a rest."
quote:I've from time to time speculated about this. As far as I know there aren't significant black or partially black communities of people descended from slaves in the Gulf or anywhere else in the Middle East, where one might expect to find them. One explanation I've heard is that there wasn't an Indian Ocean middle passage and a lot of their slaves ended up working on plantations run by Arabs on the East African coast.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
.... Yet the reason why we hear few demands for 'reparations' from the descendants of the Arab trade in slaves is because it didn't give rise to black communities, languages and cultures. The women were used mostly for sexual and domestic services, and the men either became eunuchs or soldiers. Babies born to the female sex workers were frequently put to death, or else they simply merged into the surrounding society. The slave plantations of the New World, in contrast, housed male and female slaves together, and the owners often encouraged them to 'breed' with each other.
quote:That accusation is appalling and I consider it libellous. If this was the hell board I would say something else about it.
Originally posted by seekingsister
The obsession with African traders and their role in slavery again reads as an indication of a very nasty view on African people.
quote:This is the only difference, I think, between the two wrongs. Arab slaving was certainly no less ruthless and brutal than the Atlantic slave trade (on the contrary, I think). And Arab slaving lasted far longer and had many times more victims. But (in part because it was SO ruthless and brutal) it hasn't left potential claimants. For that you need there to be identifiable groups who can claim some connection to those who were originally taken into slavery and who can make out an argument that their current relative poverty is (at least to some unquantifiable degree) attributable to what happened to their ancestors centuries ago.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Yet the reason why we hear few demands for 'reparations' from the descendants of the Arab trade in slaves is because it didn't give rise to black communities, languages and cultures. The women were used mostly for sexual and domestic services, and the men either became eunuchs or soldiers. Babies born to the female sex workers were frequently put to death, or else they simply merged into the surrounding society. The slave plantations of the New World, in contrast, housed male and female slaves together, and the owners often encouraged them to 'breed' with each other.
quote:You have said that you think African and Arab traders (I don't even get what the Arabs have to do with the Caribbean, but anyway) are, in your own words, as culpable as Britain, France, the United States, and other wealthy, supposedly enlightened nations who built cities and palaces off the backs of slave labor.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
That accusation is appalling and I consider it libellous. If this was the hell board I would say something else about it.
You know nothing about me and my long involvement with Africa, including having a considerable knowledge of an African language and having been involved with an African translation project. I could dig up something from that language to demonstrate something about the indigenous slave trade of what is now Uganda, but I doubt it would make much difference.
You really ought to apologise.
Up to you.
quote:Then seek reparations from "the freaking Earl of whoever" then, if he's the one at fault!!
Originally posted by seekingsister
Why these African traders - who by the way no one who ever brings this up knows the faintest thing about - need to be brought up as being as responsible as the freaking Earl of whoever whose second country home in Somerset was built from his sugar earnings in Jamaica - I honestly cannot understand.
quote:Perhaps not, but for that equivalence to work you have to argue that any African traders were doing their trading out of fear, not for the sake of profit. Is that what you're claiming? In effect, that 'trader' isn't even the correct term?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
No one would ever dare suggest that a German who gave up a Jewish neighbor to the Nazis out of fear for their families, was as culpable as the Nazis who put those neighbors into the gas chamber.
quote:I hope they will. But the city of Liverpool was basically built from the slave trade, so it wasn't just individuals who profited. The states also benefitted directly.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Then seek reparations from "the freaking Earl of whoever" then, if he's the one at fault!![/i]
quote:This is the problem I raised in my first post on this thread. If you can't separate "financially and morally responsible" from "all Europeans are racists" then that's a personal problem. No one is accusing current European individuals of anything.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But no, millions of totally innocent Europeans are to be bled dry, because apparently they are guilty, even though they are not!
quote:Half my family lives in Africa, I have citizenship of an African country, and I was last on the continent in January.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I remember when I was in Ghana and my host took me to visit a prison where slaves were held before being shipped. It was truly appalling. But not once did I detect from my Ghanaian host any accusation against me or my country - or any other European country. It was just a sad aspect of history, and we all recognised that. Every country has blood on its hands, and we generally don't go round with a chip on our shoulders towards later generations. It's like those who think that the current generation of, say, young people in Germany are somehow secret Nazis. It's a completely different country now, and it is a very misguided person indeed who imposes a country's historical evil on later innocent generations.
By the way... have you ever been to Africa?
quote:I will accept point A to some extent (ie responsibility would not be equal), but again I'm going to challenge you to back up point B and ask for the basis of it.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
It was a complicated situation and many people have blame, but it's appalling to argue that the Africans who sold rival ethnic groups or prisoners of war to Europeans
A) are equally responsible for everything that happened after that point, in countries they'd never heard of or been to and;
B) could have possibly imagined what the people they sold were going to endure
quote:You obviously know very little about this subject.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
African and Arab traders (I don't even get what the Arabs have to do with the Caribbean,
Why these African traders
quote:The line hasn't been that they are secret Nazis but that they indirectly benefited in some way from the actions of the Nazi regime. That's the line of thought behind such actions as this:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It's like those who think that the current generation of, say, young people in Germany are somehow secret Nazis. It's a completely different country now, and it is a very misguided person indeed who imposes a country's historical evil on later innocent generations.
quote:I just wasn't born yesterday.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
quote:The descendants of victims of the Turkish genocide against the Armenians got $20m in a lawsuit against insurance companies in 2004, nearly 100 years after they were killed.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
These new claims appear to relate to Holocaust survivors. There's no equivalent when it comes to slavery.
quote:I think what this touches on is that there are difficulties not just with arguing that a national government represents the perpetrators of a wrong, there are even greater difficulties with arguing that a national government actually represents the victims.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
These new claims appear to relate to Holocaust survivors. There's no equivalent when it comes to slavery.
quote:And while I was composing my last post, you've pretty much hit on the same point. Compensating descendants I'm fine with, assuming the evidentiary issues are sorted as to who is entitled. Paying governments as if they are descendants, I see as problematic.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:The descendants of victims of the Turkish genocide against the Armenians got $20m in a lawsuit against insurance companies in 2004, nearly 100 years after they were killed.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
These new claims appear to relate to Holocaust survivors. There's no equivalent when it comes to slavery.
LA Times
There is a precedent of compensating descendants.
However CARICOM is asking for a suite of development programs to be funded out of the money pursued, not for individual cash payments for slave descendants.
quote:Neither was I.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:I just wasn't born yesterday.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
quote:You don't need anyone's permission to start a Hell call. If you are offended by a post and want make a personal issue of it, that's where you do it. Not on this thread, please.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
That accusation is appalling and I consider it libellous. If this was the hell board I would say something else about it.
quote:Actually, that's not necessarily true. According to professor Dick Harrison (article in Swedish at Lund University, citing Inikori (1976), Lovejoy (1983), Curtin 1969 as well as "a hypothetical example, based on witness reports from the time", 25 out of 100 slaves captured in Central Africa die even before reaching major African slave markets, before meeting Afro-Portuguese representatives. Once they reach Loanda or Benguela, taken there by Portuguese as well as by many native tribes that participated, 36 are supposed to have died - "even before the Atlantic Ocean has been spotted". Harrison finally states that after a 3-4 year period in the colonies, 70-72 will have died.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
It was a complicated situation and many people have blame, but it's appalling to argue that the Africans who sold rival ethnic groups or prisoners of war to Europeans
A) are equally responsible for everything that happened after that point, in countries they'd never heard of or been to and;
B) could have possibly imagined what the people they sold were going to endure
quote:The slave trade from the UK was dominated by the biggest ports facing in the right direction, Liverpool and Bristol most of all. Liverpool benefited more than any other port in the UK. For a time, from the 1750s onwards nearly half its trade was in some way connected to the Atlantic slave trade. Many personal fortunes were made there, as they were in ports in other European countries.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I hope they will. But the city of Liverpool was basically built from the slave trade, so it wasn't just individuals who profited. The states also benefitted directly.
quote:Do you feel that all British people personally had blame placed on them and money taken out of their pocket in relation to the Kenyan Mau Mau settlement? I suspect not.
Originally posted by Pottage:
To what extent would it be reasonable to hold people in Liverpool who were making their fortune 200+ years ago responsible for (as you put it in relation to the African traders) "everything that happened after that point, in countries they'd never heard of or been to" to great great grandchildren of those slaves.
quote:I don't like the sound of "well it was just as bad or worse over there" to mitigate wrongdoing.
Originally posted by JFH:
However, my point is that the suffering in the European colonies was indeed terrible, hands down, but there was immense suffering also within Africa at the time. As many died getting to the shore as those from the trip and arrival. Also, the Afro-Portuguese Pombeiros who ran and profited from the slave trade in Congo were of mixed descent. You cannot say that Africans were not consciously involved in the suffering of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The prisons in Loanda were as dark, narrow and infested as those in America, and the slave drivers along the Congo river as brutal if not worse.
quote:Except that we're not talking about actions by descendants or ancestors. One of the conceits of nations is that they're the same entity across time. It seems a little disingenuous to maintain that (to pick one example) the modern UK has an ironclad claim to Gibraltar because of a treaty signed in 1713 while also claiming that the slave-trading concession in the same treaty was granted to a completely different UK than the modern state that owns Gibraltar.
Originally posted by Pottage:
To what extent would it be reasonable to hold people in Liverpool who were making their fortune 200+ years ago responsible for (as you put it in relation to the African traders) "everything that happened after that point, in countries they'd never heard of or been to" to great great grandchildren of those slaves.
quote:I'm not entirely sure how the question follows from the part of my post you've quoted.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:Do you feel that all British people personally had blame placed on them and money taken out of their pocket in relation to the Kenyan Mau Mau settlement? I suspect not.
Originally posted by Pottage:
To what extent would it be reasonable to hold people in Liverpool who were making their fortune 200+ years ago responsible for (as you put it in relation to the African traders) "everything that happened after that point, in countries they'd never heard of or been to" to great great grandchildren of those slaves.
quote:That's the other half of the equation. Were the governments requesting reparations themselves harmed by the actions of the slave-holding or slave-trading government, or are they at least a reasonable proxy for those who were? Given that governments are exactly the kind of social tools we use to solve collective action problems like the aftermath of slavery, it's at least a plausible argument that they are.
Originally posted by Pottage:
That does seem different to expecting the UK Government (representing the UK as a whole) to pay compensation to the current governments of countries where some of the great* grandchildren of people who were victims of slavery live, in relation to the loss and suffering of their long dead ancestors, suffered centuries ago at the hands of private individuals also long dead, some of whom were British nationals though acting entirely personally and for their private benefit.
quote:It was because of your reference to the "people of Liverpool." No, the people in Liverpool today are obviously not responsible for what was done in their city 200 years ago. Restitution for wrongdoing on behalf of a state or government is not the same as blaming individuals born many years after the events.
Originally posted by Pottage:
I'm not entirely sure how the question follows from the part of my post you've quoted.
quote:Well, perhaps if the British had been forced to do that against their will, and if it had imposed a majorly debilitating effect on their economy, you could make the case.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
While we're on the subject of money, and treating slavery as a phenomenon, does the UK get a rebate for the amount of money spent on the Royal Navy squadrons that spent time cracking down on slavery after its abolition in the Empire?
quote:Not at all.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Wait, so now it's possible to replace money with... karma??
quote:Which is what I've been saying all thread - Africans KNOW that they were involved in the slave trade. That has absolutely nothing to do with what Europeans did. And to assume that no one has sought justice or restitution against the people who perpetrated it, without making the barest minimum of effort to actually confirm it, is at best lazy and at worse indication of a pre-existing bias that some people feel does not require evidence to support.
The Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria has written to tribal chiefs saying: "We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans, particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless."
quote:It would almost certainly come right out of the Department for International Development's aid budget, probably reallocated from some other countries. The likelihood of British people facing a higher tax bill as a result of this is extremely unlikely, given that there is already a set amount of funding put aside for foreign aid.
Originally posted by Lucia:
Part of the problem surely is that money doesn't come from nowhere. If for example the UK government were to make a significant financial settlement to the countries requesting it, presumably the people of the UK as a whole, and based on current policies probably the more vulnerable in society in particular, would be the ones to feel some of the effects of that money not being available to spend elsewhere on public services or whatever.
quote:That is a fair point, though I feel that a much stronger argument is the immense compensation paid out by the Crown to British subjects deprived of their "investments" in slaves when owning those slaves was made illegal. That's the argument that I think plays most strongly for the "reparations lobby" (if you pardon the expression, I don't mean it to be offensive). However I don't think it overcomes the huge practical difficulties in actually assessing what reparations might reasonably be due (if any) to the very remote descendants of slaves to compensate them for the harm inflicted on ancestors centuries ago.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
On another note, I question whether things like using government troops to crush slave revolts really qualify as "private individuals . . . acting entirely personally and for their private benefit".
quote:Then I think perhaps you had selected the wrong paragraph from my post for your quote. But thank you for explaining.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:It was because of your reference to the "people of Liverpool." No, the people in Liverpool today are obviously not responsible for what was done in their city 200 years ago. Restitution for wrongdoing on behalf of a state or government is not the same as blaming individuals born many years after the events.
Originally posted by Pottage:
I'm not entirely sure how the question follows from the part of my post you've quoted.
quote:This is, of course, part of the argument as to why reparations are justified in the first place: that a large chunk of the productive capacity of various nations was forcibly and criminally extracted and ended up in the coffers of the governments of various slave-holding and slave-trading nations. In other words, one of the reasons for the poverty of many Caribbean nations is that for so many years their productive capacity was being used to pay for "public services or whatever" in Spain, France, Portugal, etc.
Originally posted by Lucia:
Part of the problem surely is that money doesn't come from nowhere. If for example the UK government were to make a significant financial settlement to the countries requesting it, presumably the people of the UK as a whole, and based on current policies probably the more vulnerable in society in particular, would be the ones to feel some of the effects of that money not being available to spend elsewhere on public services or whatever.
quote:Maybe we should just give them Liverpool and Bristol.
Originally posted by Lucia:
But that money is not simply freely available to be handed back if it has been spent?
quote:As the Haitian Indemnity demonstrates, a series of payments (with interest accruing) is the usual way governments handle such things when they don't have cash on hand.
Originally posted by Lucia:
But that money is not simply freely available to be handed back if it has been spent? And spent a long time ago at that. (I'm really thinking about the practicalities here rather than the question of whether it should be done or not.)
quote:This post signifies a fundamental lack of understanding about how the aid budget works.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
So which aid projects do you think should be cancelled to pay for this claim?
quote:Speaking only for the US, I think this is definitely the issue. Americans have this myth of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" which is, of course, precisely that-- a myth. But a pervasive one that plays itself out in a common narrative, particularly among the wealthy, that whatever they have achieved/ acquired is a result solely of their own hard work, as well as the reverse assumption that the poor are poor only due to their own moral failings. This despite the fact that Lincoln tried (in vain) with great eloquence to demonstrate, for example, how the North had benefitted economically from slavery just as much as the South had. As we have seen here, any discussion of trans-generational reparations is going to have to confront that assumption that our current prosperity has nothing to do with the actions of our ancestors (whether biological or simply geographical).
Originally posted by Lucia:
I think that many people in the UK today would feel very little connection with what was done in the past or recognise the long term effects in all the countries that were involved, both as beneficiaries of the trade, or those whose people were taken and those where they ended up. Maybe that is due to some failure in our teaching of history?
quote:I'm not sure why 'spent' was put in inverted commas, but anyway...
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:This post signifies a fundamental lack of understanding about how the aid budget works.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
So which aid projects do you think should be cancelled to pay for this claim?
Most of the money "spent" on aid is actually allocated and disbursed over many years. A reclassification of aid already set aside for Caribbean nations in the future would have no impact on any current development projects.
quote:And as long as people see no connection there is unlikely to be the political will to do it. Politicians in my experience are unlikely to choose a route which will cost the country money for no perceived good reason or benefit in the eyes of those whom they hope will vote for them.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
As we have seen here, any discussion of trans-generational reparations is going to have to confront that assumption that our current prosperity has nothing to do with the actions of our ancestors (whether biological or simply geographical).
quote:Fascinating. Which African language? Which translation project?
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You know nothing about me and my long involvement with Africa, including having a considerable knowledge of an African language and having been involved with an African translation project.
quote:Give them some Bristolians as slaves.
Originally posted by Lucia:
Do you think they'd want them?!
quote:What if you could show that lasting harm had been done to those countries which still affected the great grandchildren?
Originally posted by Pottage:
right and proper for the UK Government (representing the UK as a whole) to acknowledge that employees and contractors of the UK Government had acted culpably and shamefully in the 1950s, and to pay compensation to the actual victims of that action for their actual loss and suffering.
That does seem different to expecting the UK Government (representing the UK as a whole) to pay compensation to the current governments of countries where some of the great* grandchildren of people who were victims of slavery
quote:Yes. Which is why it's so important to confront that ingrained assumption that our prosperity is all our own as a first step (at least in US. I don't know to what degree this is a factor in Europe). Again, one of those known complexities that I alluded to in my original post.
Originally posted by Lucia:
quote:And as long as people see no connection there is unlikely to be the political will to do it. Politicians in my experience are unlikely to choose a route which will cost the country money for no perceived good reason or benefit in the eyes of those whom they hope will vote for them.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
As we have seen here, any discussion of trans-generational reparations is going to have to confront that assumption that our current prosperity has nothing to do with the actions of our ancestors (whether biological or simply geographical).
quote:Because what DFID says it "spends" in a given year is really "money allocated for the local country office that may be drawn down if we approve the future requests for funding." Actual cash out the door is a fraction of the headline figure each year.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I'm not sure why 'spent' was put in inverted commas, but anyway...
quote:It's pretty obvious that the likelihood of CARICOM getting any sizable payment in regards to this claim is extremely slim. So this is all very hypothetical.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
If money has already been allocated to the Caribbean, then what is the point of the exercise? It would mean that money that was due to be spent in, say, St Lucia ends up being spent in St Lucia, surely?
Either that, or extra resources are allocated to pay for this claim. If the DFID budget remains static that means that projects elsewhere that would have been funded no longer receive that funding.
quote:Yes, which is why I incline to the view that it's unpleasant gesture politics.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
It's pretty obvious that the likelihood of CARICOM getting any sizable payment in regards to this claim is extremely slim. So this is all very hypothetical.
quote:But you accept that, were this to happen, someone somewhere would lose out?
[QB] I just raised the point so that people understand the mechanics of aid. There is already a system in place, the government would not have to charge taxpayers more to pay a settlement like this. They'd use their accountants to reallocate funds that were already approved for future spending so as to avoid it.
quote:People's reactions seem to point to it being unpleasant largely because it is something they'd rather not be reminded about.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Yes, which is why I incline to the view that it's unpleasant gesture politics.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
[qb] It's pretty obvious that the likelihood of CARICOM getting any sizable payment in regards to this claim is extremely slim. So this is all very hypothetical.
quote:The situation as I recall it (wasn't in this diocese, though know people who were), is that it started out with denial that there was really anything bad to compensate for, followed by 'okay things happened but had nothing to do with us', to 'the lawyers and gov't say we have to pay', to 'we have a cultural and spiritual connection through our tradition, so we have to stand up and do it'. In amongst this, the Anglican Church officially apologized nationally (as did the RC and United*).
Originally posted by Lucia:
Interesting. How did the parishioners feel about the situation? Did they resent that they were in effect paying for someone else's mistakes in the past or did they feel a sense of responsibility by virtue of now living in the area where this had happened?
I think that many people in the UK today would feel very little connection with what was done in the past or recognise the long term effects in all the countries that were involved, both as beneficiaries of the trade, or those whose people were taken and those where they ended up. Maybe that is due to some failure in our teaching of history?
quote:By that logic criminals with young children would have a good defense against paying fines.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But you accept that, were this to happen, someone somewhere would lose out?
quote:The more intervening generations there have been, the harder in practice it must become to show that quantifiable aspects of hardship and poverty being suffered by an individual in 2014 in a Caribbean country are attributable to a wrong done to an unknown ancestor some time between 1640 and 1807. I think that for all practical purposes that is an insuperable hurdle and that is why the campaign has seemed to me to be flawed. It can't achieve its stated aim because that is impossible, and knowing that to be the case I think those leading the campaign would do better to state what their real intention is and to campaign honestly for that.
Originally posted by mdijon:
What if you could show that lasting harm had been done to those countries which still affected the great grandchildren?
quote:But it's relatively easy to quantify things like the tax revenue that flowed into government coffers from slave-based Caribbean enterprises, as are tariffs levied on the importation of slaves themselves, if it's the lack of hard-quantity numbers that you see as the primary obstacle. Governments are usually very meticulous about keeping tax records. The question becomes whether such slave-generated revenue was rightfully derived, or if it just makes the state a co-conspirator.
Originally posted by Pottage:
The more intervening generations there have been, the harder in practice it must become to show that quantifiable aspects of hardship and poverty being suffered by an individual in 2014 in a Caribbean country are attributable to a wrong done to an unknown ancestor some time between 1640 and 1807.
quote:Yes, some would have been used for plantation work, although this was just a small minority or them. But I've read that some East African slaves even reached as far as India, and there's speculation that one community of dark skinned Indians with distinctive cultural habits might be descended from some of those slaves. But on the whole, the intention wasn't to create slave societies.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:I've from time to time speculated about this. As far as I know there aren't significant black or partially black communities of people descended from slaves in the Gulf or anywhere else in the Middle East, where one might expect to find them. One explanation I've heard is that there wasn't an Indian Ocean middle passage and a lot of their slaves ended up working on plantations run by Arabs on the East African coast.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
.... Yet the reason why we hear few demands for 'reparations' from the descendants of the Arab trade in slaves is because it didn't give rise to black communities, languages and cultures. The women were used mostly for sexual and domestic services, and the men either became eunuchs or soldiers. Babies born to the female sex workers were frequently put to death, or else they simply merged into the surrounding society. The slave plantations of the New World, in contrast, housed male and female slaves together, and the owners often encouraged them to 'breed' with each other.
quote:The castrations were carried out on boys of around 10 years old. The death rate was extremely high, so I've read.
Svetlana, if your explanation is right, are you suggesting this means that the Arab slavers were better or worse than Transatlantic ones? Being castrated as an adult isn't something I'd like to experience. It also carries quite a high risk of killing the asset. But then, I'm a bloke.
quote:This is a very demanding view of human justice. I'm sure most justice administered is to some extent selective, if only because it's only perpetrators who are actually caught who ever suffer anything.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:That accusation is appalling and I consider it libellous. If this was the hell board I would say something else about it.
Originally posted by seekingsister
The obsession with African traders and their role in slavery again reads as an indication of a very nasty view on African people.
You know nothing about me and my long involvement with Africa, including having a considerable knowledge of an African language and having been involved with an African translation project. I could dig up something from that language to demonstrate something about the indigenous slave trade of what is now Uganda, but I doubt it would make much difference.
You really ought to apologise.
Up to you.
It's patently obvious that this whole reparations nonsense is just yet another cynical act of opportunism to perpetuate the myth of "white people hate black people", and the sheer injustice of ignoring the role of Africans and Arabs in this heinous trade supports this interpretation. If we are going to have justice, then it demands that the guilt of all parties is considered. Selective justice is not justice. But, of course, if we are not selective, then we can't play the race card, can we? Which is really what this is all about!
quote:Actually this - along with the reasons Creosos lays out above, make a very compelling argument that it should be the state that seeks and receives compensation.
Originally posted by Pottage:
The more intervening generations there have been, the harder in practice it must become to show that quantifiable aspects of hardship and poverty being suffered by an individual in 2014 in a Caribbean country are attributable to a wrong done to an unknown ancestor some time between 1640 and 1807. I
quote:I'm quite well acquainted with the constitution of Caricom. I don't think that "They're not as bad as some others" negates what I said. The others aren't the ones demanding recompense for wrongs done to them while they're gleefully doing wrongs to others.
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:Which countries are you thinking of? The island nations have done far better than the Latin countries surrounding the Caribbean Sea; I'm wondering if you've mixed up who are the member countries.
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
The Caricom countries might have had more credibility were it not for the shocking human rights record of most of them, lasting and delighted in even in the present day.
This is the listing of member nations:
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Dominica
Grenada
Guyana
Haiti
Jamaica
Montserrat
St Kitts & Nevis
Saint Lucia
St Vincent & Grenadines
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
quote:When you write "doing wrongs to others", do you mean "other nations"? If so can you think of some recent relevant examples? I don't recall any of the above Caribbean nations mass-enslaving any peoples lately.
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
quote:I'm quite well acquainted with the constitution of Caricom. I don't think that "They're not as bad as some others" negates what I said. The others aren't the ones demanding recompense for wrongs done to them while they're gleefully doing wrongs to others.
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:Which countries are you thinking of? The island nations have done far better than the Latin countries surrounding the Caribbean Sea; I'm wondering if you've mixed up who are the member countries.
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
The Caricom countries might have had more credibility were it not for the shocking human rights record of most of them, lasting and delighted in even in the present day.
This is the listing of member nations:
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Dominica
Grenada
Guyana
Haiti
Jamaica
Montserrat
St Kitts & Nevis
Saint Lucia
St Vincent & Grenadines
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
quote:Whereas I would prefer Erroneous Monk's justification further up the page: that if someone has less than us, we should be doing something about fixing that and not worrying about whose 'fault' it is.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I have always thought, that if a nation is primarily secular, the wrong done by that country in the past is the justification for being involved in a long term aid programme.
quote:A brief pause to give Crœsos a slightly quizzical look in response to this assertion, and then we shall move on.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Governments are usually very meticulous about keeping tax records.
quote:That isn't really my point. The basis of a reparations claim isn't that the UK government received tax income in (say) 1789 or 1806 that derived from the slave trade. It is that identifiable individuals alive now in 2014 are suffering hardship that could be alleviated by a reparations payment and can be attributed to a wrong that was done to an unknown ancestor centuries ago.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:But it's relatively easy to quantify things like the tax revenue that flowed into government coffers from slave-based Caribbean enterprises, as are tariffs levied on the importation of slaves themselves, if it's the lack of hard-quantity numbers that you see as the primary obstacle. Governments are usually very meticulous about keeping tax records. The question becomes whether such slave-generated revenue was rightfully derived, or if it just makes the state a co-conspirator.
Originally posted by Pottage:
The more intervening generations there have been, the harder in practice it must become to show that quantifiable aspects of hardship and poverty being suffered by an individual in 2014 in a Caribbean country are attributable to a wrong done to an unknown ancestor some time between 1640 and 1807.
quote:For the most part, I'd agree that the nations on that list have admirable himan-rights records. Jamaica might be a bit of a blight right now, with the cops apparently turning a blind-eye to anti-gay violence, and Haiti of course has a history of brutal dictatorships(cue jingoistic crowing about the superiority of anglo to franco institutions). Other than that, I'm not really aware of any of them having systemic and extensive human-rights violations.
Originally posted by aunt jane:
quote:When you write "doing wrongs to others", do you mean "other nations"? If so can you think of some recent relevant examples? I don't recall any of the above Caribbean nations mass-enslaving any peoples lately.
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
quote:I'm quite well acquainted with the constitution of Caricom. I don't think that "They're not as bad as some others" negates what I said. The others aren't the ones demanding recompense for wrongs done to them while they're gleefully doing wrongs to others.
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:Which countries are you thinking of? The island nations have done far better than the Latin countries surrounding the Caribbean Sea; I'm wondering if you've mixed up who are the member countries.
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
The Caricom countries might have had more credibility were it not for the shocking human rights record of most of them, lasting and delighted in even in the present day.
This is the listing of member nations:
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Dominica
Grenada
Guyana
Haiti
Jamaica
Montserrat
St Kitts & Nevis
Saint Lucia
St Vincent & Grenadines
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
quote:Have we rather danced around this point? Can we identify, specifically, what hardships are being suffered that can be directly attributed to 18th / early 19th century wrongs?
Originally posted by Pottage:
individuals alive now in 2014 are suffering hardship that could be alleviated by a reparations payment and can be attributed to a wrong that was done to an unknown ancestor centuries ago.
quote:I think we have already acknowledged that under the heading of "practical difficulties" and "known complications". We know in general that the US and European economies are built in part on the excess capital garnered through slave labor, and that the economies of many African nations are further diminished from the loss of prime wage-earners. As has been pointed out already several times, making the exact calculation would be difficult, if not impossible.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Have we rather danced around this point? Can we identify, specifically, what hardships are being suffered that can be directly attributed to 18th / early 19th century wrongs?
Originally posted by Pottage:
individuals alive now in 2014 are suffering hardship that could be alleviated by a reparations payment and can be attributed to a wrong that was done to an unknown ancestor centuries ago.
quote:I'd like to see some specifics. I don't think you have any.
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
I'm quite well acquainted with the constitution of Caricom. I don't think that "They're not as bad as some others" negates what I said. The others aren't the ones demanding recompense for wrongs done to them while they're gleefully doing wrongs to others.
quote:The 2012 Mau Mau settlement is relevant to the themes in this thread in two respects.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Do you feel that all British people personally had blame placed on them and money taken out of their pocket in relation to the Kenyan Mau Mau settlement?
quote:
Contrary to British propaganda and western perceptions of the time, the Mau Mau attacks were mostly well organised and planned.
"...the insurgents' lack of heavy weaponry and the heavily entrenched police and Home Guard positions meant that Mau Mau attacks were restricted to nighttime and where loyalist positions were weak. When attacks did commence they were fast and brutal, as insurgents were easily able to identify loyalists because they were often local to those communities themselves. The Lari massacre was by comparison rather outstanding and in contrast to regular Mau Mau strikes which more often than not targeted only loyalists without such massive civilian casualties. "Even the attack upon Lari, in the view of the rebel commanders was strategic and specific.”
quote:Good grief. A few thousand Kenyans were hanged by the British government and the rebellion was utterly crushed. Many of the hanged might appropriately be labelled "so called" Mau Mau in that they almost certainly weren't - they were guilty by association. Some were found in mau mau camps, caught and hanged, and were likely in the camps because of being imprisoned by Mau Mau.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
because the so-called Mau Mau also perpetrated appalling atrocities, against their own people as well as against a number of Europeans and Asians, but its members have not been identified and prosecuted, nor their victims helped, by the various post-colonial Kenyan governments.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Lari massacre was by comparison rather outstanding and in contrast to regular Mau Mau strikes which more often than not targeted only loyalists without such massive civilian casualties. "Even the attack upon Lari, in the view of the rebel commanders was strategic and specific.”
quote:With you up to this point. The British intentionally divided the Kikuyu from other groups and the Mau Mau from the Kikuyu, thus exacerbating any existing tensions and creating new ones.
Originally posted by mdijon:
long-standing grievances being settled in the context of what was essentially a civil war.
quote:Even in context it wasn't clear that I meant the "both sides" in this paragraph to refer to Mau Mau vs Homeguard. I think it's pretty obvious that the British were way out ahead in terms of the atrocities done to others.
Originally posted by mdijon:
Agreed atrocities were carried out on both sides, but the majority of victims on both sides were innocent. Trying to balance the wrongs and work out which block of people was on balance owed more is completely wrong-headed.
quote:Now that less emotionally worked up about it, I was making reference to the treatment of homosexual people, or people perceived to be gay, both in law and, more importantly, culturally. The positive encouragement of, and pride and delight in homophobia that exists in many of the countries listed above is something I have a hard time with. I think my initial post came from that place.
Originally posted by aunt jane:
When you write "doing wrongs to others", do you mean "other nations"? If so can you think of some recent relevant examples? I don't recall any of the above Caribbean nations mass-enslaving any peoples lately.
quote:That's my difficulty with the current campaign. If what is intended is to achieve a truthful, healing acknowledgement of historic wrongs and a reconciliation between the descendents of those wronged and the descendents of those who committed those wrongs, then why is it couched in terms of "give me all your money".
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think we have already acknowledged that under the heading of "practical difficulties" and "known complications". We know in general that the US and European economies are built in part on the excess capital garnered through slave labor, and that the economies of many African nations are further diminished from the loss of prime wage-earners. As has been pointed out already several times, making the exact calculation would be difficult, if not impossible.
That doesn't change the moral obligation. It simply makes it more difficult, or again potentially impossible, to rectify. That's frustrating for those who understandably wish it to be "over". But the constant diversion from discussions of the moral obligation to the discussion of the practical and political hindrances is, I'm guessing, equally frustrating if not heartbreaking to those who wish to first of all be heard-- to have that moral obligations named & recognized. It changes the conversation significantly, as well as some subsequent conversations (e.g. about aid) if we establish first that moral obligation-- even if we know the "fix" may be difficult or impossible.
quote:Based on your 0% knowledge of the actual campaign, of course.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Yes, which is why I incline to the view that it's unpleasant gesture politics.
quote:I'm sorry, I hadn't realised that I'd stumbled onto a thread full of experts on the subject.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:Based on your 0% knowledge of the actual campaign, of course.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Yes, which is why I incline to the view that it's unpleasant gesture politics.
quote:If one of your great-great-grandfathers had robbed a man of £10,000, would you say that you and all your siblings and cousins (however distant) should be responsible for paying back that money (adjusted for inflation of course) to each and every one of the victim's great-great-grandchildren?
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:By that logic criminals with young children would have a good defense against paying fines.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But you accept that, were this to happen, someone somewhere would lose out?
quote:I think it's all about trying to get rich countries to pay for development and improvements in their countries. They're just using slavery in the argument to make it harder for us to say no.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
The proposal is asking for a lot of things that strongly suggest an interest getting former European slave trading countries to contribute to the economic, scientific, and cultural development of their former colonies
quote:Quite a few people on this thread have exhibited greater knowledge of the Caribbean and the countries involved than you have.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:I'm sorry, I hadn't realised that I'd stumbled onto a thread full of experts on the subject.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:Based on your 0% knowledge of the actual campaign, of course.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Yes, which is why I incline to the view that it's unpleasant gesture politics.
quote:So in your version of reality, it is not possible that they actually feel they have a justified claim?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I think it's all about trying to get rich countries to pay for development and improvements in their countries. They're just using slavery in the argument to make it harder for us to say no.
quote:Don't really understand this point. The 'countries involved' include my own and this isn't a general knowledge competition.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Quite a few people on this thread have exhibited greater knowledge of the Caribbean and the countries involved than you have.
quote:But the (admittedly rather blunt) response to this would be, so what? The transparency of the country doesn't affect whether money is liable to be paid. (Though it might, I concede, have a bearing on who money should be paid to, should liability be established.)
I gave you some background on St Vincent which has lead the charge for some years and that they internationally have a better reputation for transparency than other countries that have received reparations.
quote:Your informed, unbiased comments are noted.
Your uninformed replies indicate that your position is based entirely on bias and not on facts. Repeated them endlessly doesn't make them any more compelling either.
quote:Who said anything about people having to shut up? No one has even suggested that. Most of us know about slavery and the evils of the slave trade - Transatlantic or otherwise.
Originally posted by seekingsister
That slavery should just be left in the past, perhaps. Meaning that you think a certain group should just shut up and be quiet about what happened to them.
quote:So this is what you think about the Caribbean governments - they are vengeful and greedy. Not that they feel a lingering pain and hurt over the past wrongdoing.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Who said anything about people having to shut up? No one has even suggested that. Most of us know about slavery and the evils of the slave trade - Transatlantic or otherwise.
But, it's funny how forgiveness and reconciliation - and an acceptance of the evils of history - go out of the window when filthy lucre is involved, isn't it?
This is not about understanding the past and learning from it, but it's about revenge and financial opportunism. And it's an opportunity for certain incredibly unforgiving people to keep playing the race card when, frankly, the world is moving on from that kind of binary and bitter thinking.
The nations of Europe have pumped billions of pounds of aid into the developing world over the last fifty years, much of which has been embezzled. But, no, that's not enough. "Let's screw 'em for every last penny, and who cares how much suffering is caused to totally innocent people in European countries." After all, it's not the landed earls and lords who will suffer, but the descendants of slaves: wage slaves of the Industrial Revolution.
Those who really care for justice should ensure that the rights and well being of all oppressed people are protected. But what we see here is just naked revenge against those "eternally evil white people" and... "we don't care whether they are rich or poor, ruler or oppressed; we will screw them for everything we can get out of them..."
That's the ugly truth about all this. [/QB]
quote:It's kind of interesting that whenever structural inequalities are raised, people are told to shut up and move on.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
And it's an opportunity for certain incredibly unforgiving people to keep playing the race card when, frankly, the world is moving on from that kind of binary and bitter thinking.
quote:Largely to prop up various dictators during the cold war, or as a roundabout way of financing the European arms industry. I don't think you can pretend that the majority of the Aid given was the result of some kind of altruism.
The nations of Europe have pumped billions of pounds of aid into the developing world over the last fifty years, much of which has been embezzled.
quote:No. Why do you ask? I can't see what link it has with what I said.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If one of your great-great-grandfathers had robbed a man of £10,000, would you say that you and all your siblings and cousins (however distant) should be responsible for paying back that money (adjusted for inflation of course) to each and every one of the victim's great-great-grandchildren?
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You know nothing about me and my long involvement with Africa, including having a considerable knowledge of an African language and having been involved with an African translation project.
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Fascinating. Which African language? Which translation project?
quote:And what's wrong with that?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I think it's all about trying to get rich countries to pay for development and improvements in their countries. They're just using slavery in the argument to make it harder for us to say no.
quote:You've got to understand though that when one is a member of an oppressed minority, bearing a legacy of historic racial injustice, continually reminded of one's lowly place in the world and suffering ongoing inequality of opportunity and wealth that one can get quite emotional... oh, wait, am I getting this the right way round?
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I'm out of this conversation; it's making me depressed. I've seen a lot of ugly in this thread and it's not coming from Caricom.
quote:Also, aid is often tied to purchases from the aid-giving country. I recall extremely clearly in the 1970s, seeing a large group of trucks sitting and rusting near Georgetown, Guyana. Canada had given aid to Guyana to buy the trucks, ostensibly to transport rice. Guyana had dutifully bought the trucks from Canada with the aid money, but the trucks were too heavy for the roads, so they sat and rusted into junk.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:It's kind of interesting that whenever structural inequalities are raised, people are told to shut up and move on.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
And it's an opportunity for certain incredibly unforgiving people to keep playing the race card when, frankly, the world is moving on from that kind of binary and bitter thinking.
quote:Largely to prop up various dictators during the cold war, or as a roundabout way of financing the European arms industry. I don't think you can pretend that the majority of the Aid given was the result of some kind of altruism.
The nations of Europe have pumped billions of pounds of aid into the developing world over the last fifty years, much of which has been embezzled.
quote:I think that when the wrong is hundreds of years in the past and those years have seen extensive attempts to put it right then it is unreasonable to act as if no such rectification has happened.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I just want to know what your position is here. If you don't think it's reasonable to ask for rectification of a past wrong that had an economic impact in general, then that's informing your position.
quote:Just expanding your analogy to make a wider point about the overall thread. My answer is also "no", by the way.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:No. Why do you ask? I can't see what link it has with what I said.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If one of your great-great-grandfathers had robbed a man of £10,000, would you say that you and all your siblings and cousins (however distant) should be responsible for paying back that money (adjusted for inflation of course) to each and every one of the victim's great-great-grandchildren?
quote:The first sentence or the second? The first is just the old socialism v capitalism argument, and I don't intend to rehash it here other than to say the arguments in both directions are no more or less valid regardless of the skin colour or heritage of the various sides. The second is just my strong dislike of people playing the "either you do what I say or you're a racist" card.
Originally posted by ken:
quote:And what's wrong with that?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I think it's all about trying to get rich countries to pay for development and improvements in their countries. They're just using slavery in the argument to make it harder for us to say no.
quote:Ah come on. I agree with you about a lot of things political and economic, but I struggle with the idea that we should leave it to market forces to sort out the kind of global social injustice that means that 1 person in 8 in the world won't eat today.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:The first sentence or the second? The first is just the old socialism v capitalism argument, and I don't intend to rehash it here other than to say the arguments in both directions are no more or less valid regardless of the skin colour or heritage of the various sides.
Originally posted by ken:
quote:And what's wrong with that?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I think it's all about trying to get rich countries to pay for development and improvements in their countries. They're just using slavery in the argument to make it harder for us to say no.
quote:I'm not trying to speculate on the motives of those bringing the action. Perhaps they have a plan for financial compensation in place they think is feasible. I don't know, that's for them to say.
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:That's my difficulty with the current campaign. If what is intended is to achieve a truthful, healing acknowledgement of historic wrongs and a reconciliation between the descendents of those wronged and the descendents of those who committed those wrongs, then why is it couched in terms of "give me all your money".
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think we have already acknowledged that under the heading of "practical difficulties" and "known complications". We know in general that the US and European economies are built in part on the excess capital garnered through slave labor, and that the economies of many African nations are further diminished from the loss of prime wage-earners. As has been pointed out already several times, making the exact calculation would be difficult, if not impossible.
That doesn't change the moral obligation. It simply makes it more difficult, or again potentially impossible, to rectify. That's frustrating for those who understandably wish it to be "over". But the constant diversion from discussions of the moral obligation to the discussion of the practical and political hindrances is, I'm guessing, equally frustrating if not heartbreaking to those who wish to first of all be heard-- to have that moral obligations named & recognized. It changes the conversation significantly, as well as some subsequent conversations (e.g. about aid) if we establish first that moral obligation-- even if we know the "fix" may be difficult or impossible.
quote:What if it *weren't*? Would it then be unreasonable to expect us to try to right the inequalities of the world?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We (Americans and Europeans) caused real, financial (and significantly other) harm to African tribes and nations. Our current prosperity is built to some degree on that. Our relative financial inequity is to some degree built on that.
quote:While a reality, African graft/corruption has been vastly overstated has in recent discussions as a factor. See, for example, Jeffrey Sach's excellent work
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
[QUOTE]
The nations of Europe have pumped billions of pounds of aid into the developing world over the last fifty years, much of which has been embezzled. .
quote:...a statement that does not rely on the skin colour or heritage of those who are starving for its validity. Which is the only point I was making.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:Ah come on. I agree with you about a lot of things political and economic, but I struggle with the idea that we should leave it to market forces to sort out the kind of global social injustice that means that 1 person in 8 in the world won't eat today.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The first is just the old socialism v capitalism argument, and I don't intend to rehash it here other than to say the arguments in both directions are no more or less valid regardless of the skin colour or heritage of the various sides.
quote:Let's say instead of something difficult to trace like cash, the item was a stolen Rembrandt. Would you be required to return the purloined painting? Of course. Similarly, if one would be able to trace the original £10,000 and demonstrate how it was included in an inheritance that was passed down to subsequent generations, you probably would be expected to return it. It's just with cash it's much harder to trace and parse out what came from where, whereas with whole goods like artwork it's much clearer. That's at play here as well, of course, as we constantly return to the logistical difficulty in putting a dollar amount on the actual monetary impact of prior slavery on contemporary economies. But the basic principle is the same, it's just logistically more difficult.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Just expanding your analogy to make a wider point about the overall thread. My answer is also "no", by the way.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:No. Why do you ask? I can't see what link it has with what I said.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If one of your great-great-grandfathers had robbed a man of £10,000, would you say that you and all your siblings and cousins (however distant) should be responsible for paying back that money (adjusted for inflation of course) to each and every one of the victim's great-great-grandchildren?
quote:My God, it's worse than I thought.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
at least not any more so than we waste our public and private funds at home.
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:As has been pointed out already several times, making the exact calculation would be difficult, if not impossible.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Can we identify, specifically, what hardships are being suffered that can be directly attributed to 18th / early 19th century wrongs?
That doesn't change the moral obligation. It simply makes it more difficult, or again potentially impossible, to rectify. That's frustrating for those who understandably wish it to be "over". But the constant diversion from discussions of the moral obligation to the discussion of the practical and political hindrances is, I'm guessing, equally frustrating if not heartbreaking to those who wish to first of all be heard-- to have that moral obligations named & recognized. It changes the conversation significantly, as well as some subsequent conversations (e.g. about aid) if we establish first that moral obligation-- even if we know the "fix" may be difficult or impossible.
quote:I don't understand how these statements can be reconciled. On the one hand you seem to be saying that it's entirely proper for ex-colonies to pursue compensation claims but at the same time acknowledging that the value of such a claim would be impossible to ascertain.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But the fact is, we do have a moral culpability. One that carries with it a financial component. We (Americans and Europeans) caused real, financial (and significantly other) harm to African tribes and nations. Our current prosperity is built to some degree on that. Our relative financial inequity is to some degree built on that.
So it is reasonable and fair for the discussion to be based in part on "give me all [sic] your money". Because, in a very real way, it is their money. And our instinctive response to try and shut down that conversation strikes me as uncomfortably reminiscent of the financial motives of the original slave traders. Are we really in a position to suggest that they are a bunch of money-grubbing opportunists? Really???
Again, the logistical, practical, and political barriers to this are immense, possibly insurmountable. That in and of itself should not be a reason to simply dismiss the discussion out of hand.
quote:Good points.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:What if it *weren't*? Would it then be unreasonable to expect us to try to right the inequalities of the world?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We (Americans and Europeans) caused real, financial (and significantly other) harm to African tribes and nations. Our current prosperity is built to some degree on that. Our relative financial inequity is to some degree built on that.
How much more should we do to try to achieve justice if we think we are to blame for the inequality than if we don't?
Or is your thinking that if slavery hadn't happened, the inequalities in the world would be much less than currently, and therefore while we would still have a responsibility, in justice for sharing with our fellow humans, less generosity would be required, and it becomes a moot point?
quote:Fair enough, and I think that in principle I agree. At least, I don't see any reason for social justice to be a direct result of how culpable I personally feel for the injustice.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:...a statement that does not rely on the skin colour or heritage of those who are starving for its validity. Which is the only point I was making.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:Ah come on. I agree with you about a lot of things political and economic, but I struggle with the idea that we should leave it to market forces to sort out the kind of global social injustice that means that 1 person in 8 in the world won't eat today.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The first is just the old socialism v capitalism argument, and I don't intend to rehash it here other than to say the arguments in both directions are no more or less valid regardless of the skin colour or heritage of the various sides.
quote:I'm not convinced that there have been "extensive attempts to put it right". Speaking only for my country, in the US, the fact that slavery was immediately followed by more than a century of Jim Crow laws, segregation, lynching and other violence specifically directed at suppressing those who were freed doesn't sound much like an "extensive attempt to put it right."
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:I think that when the wrong is hundreds of years in the past and those years have seen extensive attempts to put it right then it is unreasonable to act as if no such rectification has happened.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I just want to know what your position is here. If you don't think it's reasonable to ask for rectification of a past wrong that had an economic impact in general, then that's informing your position.
quote:Would you agree that contrasts with the approach in the British Empire where the Royal Navy cracked down on slavery after its abolition?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm not convinced that there have been "extensive attempts to put it right". Speaking only for my country, in the US, the fact that slavery was immediately followed by more than a century of Jim Crow laws, segregation, lynching and other violence specifically directed at suppressing those who were freed doesn't sound much like an "extensive attempt to put it right."
quote:If we adjust your analogy to fit reality, the old man is still alive and enjoying the fruits of his crime.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:If one of your great-great-grandfathers had robbed a man of £10,000, would you say that you and all your siblings and cousins (however distant) should be responsible for paying back that money (adjusted for inflation of course) to each and every one of the victim's great-great-grandchildren?
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:By that logic criminals with young children would have a good defense against paying fines.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But you accept that, were this to happen, someone somewhere would lose out?
quote:Debatable. And barely relevant, as the only definitively identifiable "items" that were actually stolen were people, and they are all long dead so giving them back is no longer an issue.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Let's say instead of something difficult to trace like cash, the item was a stolen Rembrandt. Would you be required to return the purloined painting? Of course.
quote:After five generations? I very much doubt it.
Similarly, if one would be able to trace the original £10,000 and demonstrate how it was included in an inheritance that was passed down to subsequent generations, you probably would be expected to return it.
quote:I am thus far unconvinced that any contemporary economies (with the excepton of Haiti) are worse off because of slavery than they would have been had slavery never happened. Individuals at the time? Yes, definitely and demonstrably so. Economies in the present? I want to see some evidence.
It's just with cash it's much harder to trace and parse out what came from where, whereas with whole goods like artwork it's much clearer. That's at play here as well, of course, as we constantly return to the logistical difficulty in putting a dollar amount on the actual monetary impact of prior slavery on contemporary economies. But the basic principle is the same, it's just logistically more difficult.
quote:No need to conjecture a purely hypothetical case.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Let's say instead of something difficult to trace like cash, the item was a stolen Rembrandt. Would you be required to return the purloined painting?
quote:So does the same logic apply here? The alleged offense took place in the distant past and the current possessor of the loot is not the original looter (a consideration that doesn't really apply to nation-states). I'm not sure I can see an argument as to why stealing art in 1939 is still actionable today but getting back the payments of the Haitian indemnity, which continued until 1947, is too far in the past to do anything about.
A New York man has gone to court for the return of several Nazi-looted artworks from the controversial collection of Cornelius Gurlitt in Munich.
David Toren, 88, whose father and uncle were art collectors in the prewar German city of Breslau, sued in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., earlier this month to demand the return of the 1901 paintings “Two Riders on the Beach” and “Basket Weavers” by the German-Jewish artist Max Liebermann.
Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand, purchased the ”Riders” painting in 1942 while working for the Nazis, according to news reports. Hildebrand Gurlitt had told postwar American military authorities that it had been in his family since before the Nazis came to power.
Documents show the painting was among those confiscated by the Nazis from Toren’s great-uncle David Friedmann in Breslau — today Wroclaw, Poland — in 1939. Toren, an attorney, is Friedmann’s only surviving heir. The Nazis noted the Liebermann painting in the collection and in recent years it was listed in German’s Lostart database.
While the younger Gurlitt still possesses the “Riders” painting, he sold “Basket Weavers” at auction to an unnamed Israeli collector in 2000 for about $92,300, Haaretz reported.
quote:I think it's quite possible to show that there is some financial impact w/o being able to quantify the exact amount. I think it is pretty easy to demonstrate that if the economy of a country benefitted from several centuries of slave labor, that has a financial impact that continued for many generations after slavery is ended. The original slave owners used their ill-gotten gains to amass property that they passed on to their children, they used their ill-gotten gains to educate those children. Those children then were able to leverage those assets in accumulating wealth that was passed on to their children. And so on. Similarly, you have tribes that were economically decimated by the loss of prime wage-earners-- the workers-- leaving behind the sick, disabled, and elderly. That has a similar generational impact. So there is a very real fiscal harm. BUT... calculating the exact figure, the exact fiscal impact generations later is not something that can be easily measured because to some degree it's measuring a "what if". "What if" there had been no slavery... what would the American economy look like now? What would African economy look like?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
How can there be a financial claim if it is impossible to quantify?
quote:This is what I have been arguing.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
This financial question seems to me to be quite separate to any moral question
quote:It doesn't necessarily result in that, but I think in this specific case it is pretty apparent that it will, for the reasons noted above, even though determining the exact figure may be difficult-to-impossible, and finding an effective and just way to transmit those sums may similarly be fraught with logistical and political obstacles.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
(and any admission of moral culpability does not necessarily result in financial culpability).
quote:Only if you don't consider the entire working output of someone's life to be an "item". It may not be in the strictly grammatical sense, but I'm not sure it's a useful distinction to make in this case.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Debatable. And barely relevant, as the only definitively identifiable "items" that were actually stolen were people, and they are all long dead so giving them back is no longer an issue.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Let's say instead of something difficult to trace like cash, the item was a stolen Rembrandt. Would you be required to return the purloined painting? Of course.
quote:But we're talking morality not legality-- or practicality-- here.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:No need to conjecture a purely hypothetical case.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Let's say instead of something difficult to trace like cash, the item was a stolen Rembrandt. Would you be required to return the purloined painting?
quote:So does the same logic apply here? The alleged offense took place in the distant past and the current possessor of the loot is not the original looter (a consideration that doesn't really apply to nation-states). I'm not sure I can see an argument as to why stealing art in 1939 is still actionable today but getting back the payments of the Haitian indemnity, which continued until 1947, is too far in the past to do anything about.
A New York man has gone to court for the return of several Nazi-looted artworks from the controversial collection of Cornelius Gurlitt in Munich.
David Toren, 88, whose father and uncle were art collectors in the prewar German city of Breslau, sued in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., earlier this month to demand the return of the 1901 paintings “Two Riders on the Beach” and “Basket Weavers” by the German-Jewish artist Max Liebermann.
Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand, purchased the ”Riders” painting in 1942 while working for the Nazis, according to news reports. Hildebrand Gurlitt had told postwar American military authorities that it had been in his family since before the Nazis came to power.
Documents show the painting was among those confiscated by the Nazis from Toren’s great-uncle David Friedmann in Breslau — today Wroclaw, Poland — in 1939. Toren, an attorney, is Friedmann’s only surviving heir. The Nazis noted the Liebermann painting in the collection and in recent years it was listed in German’s Lostart database.
While the younger Gurlitt still possesses the “Riders” painting, he sold “Basket Weavers” at auction to an unnamed Israeli collector in 2000 for about $92,300, Haaretz reported.
quote:Sadly, like most Americans, I don't know enough about those efforts to comment. From your brief statement, it sounds like there was an "extensive attempt" to ensure slavery was well and truly ended, that there was no further suppression of individuals as happened in the American South for a century afterward. Certainly that is commendable, at least compared to our shameful example. What I'm not hearing, though, is any "extensive attempt" to provide financial recompense* for the purloined labor and it's impact both on the direct victims and the indirect victims (African tribes/nations).
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Would you agree that contrasts with the approach in the British Empire where the Royal Navy cracked down on slavery after its abolition?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm not convinced that there have been "extensive attempts to put it right". Speaking only for my country, in the US, the fact that slavery was immediately followed by more than a century of Jim Crow laws, segregation, lynching and other violence specifically directed at suppressing those who were freed doesn't sound much like an "extensive attempt to put it right."
quote:A single generation is not "the distant past". Temporal paradox notwithstanding, if we were having this conversation in the late 1800s then the comparison might be more apt.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The alleged offense took place in the distant past
quote:I'm somewhat open to the idea that France should repay Haiti, for exactly that reason.
I'm not sure I can see an argument as to why stealing art in 1939 is still actionable today but getting back the payments of the Haitian indemnity, which continued until 1947, is too far in the past to do anything about.
quote:Actually, that might provide a way to put a relatively reliable dollarpound figure on how much was stolen. Take the average annual wage for a free person doing similar work at the same time, multiply it by the number of slaves and how many years (on average) they worked, and you have an amount.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Only if you don't consider the entire working output of someone's life to be an "item". It may not be in the strictly grammatical sense, but I'm not sure it's a useful distinction to make in this case.
quote:It is a ridiculous thing to mention, regardless. It is saying a thief should be free from guilt as he prevented anyone else robbing the bank.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:Sadly, like most Americans, I don't know enough about those efforts to comment. From your brief statement, it sounds like there was an "extensive attempt" to ensure slavery was well and truly ended, that there was no further suppression of individuals as happened in the American South for a century afterward. Certainly that is commendable, at least compared to our shameful example. What I'm not hearing, though, is any "extensive attempt" to provide financial recompense* for the purloined labor and it's impact both on the direct victims and the indirect victims (African tribes/nations).
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Would you agree that contrasts with the approach in the British Empire where the Royal Navy cracked down on slavery after its abolition?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm not convinced that there have been "extensive attempts to put it right". Speaking only for my country, in the US, the fact that slavery was immediately followed by more than a century of Jim Crow laws, segregation, lynching and other violence specifically directed at suppressing those who were freed doesn't sound much like an "extensive attempt to put it right."
*the one exception I know of is the Quakers, who did reimburse their slaves when they were freed.
quote:Interestingly enough, the U.S. Navy actually contributed ships to Britain's West Africa Squadron starting in 1820. The northern elites were becoming more anti-slavery and the southern elites supported the effort because they didn't want newly-imported slaves undercutting the value of their existing slaves. The U.S. had banned the importation of slaves in 1808 and for the most part made a moral distinction between capturing new slaves ("man-catching") and maintaining slavery as an institution. To call the early nineteenth century U.S. position on slavery "inconsistent and schizophrenic" would actually be an understatement.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Sadly, like most Americans, I don't know enough about those efforts to comment. From your brief statement, it sounds like there was an "extensive attempt" to ensure slavery was well and truly ended, that there was no further suppression of individuals as happened in the American South for a century afterward. Certainly that is commendable, at least compared to our shameful example.
quote:I believe that is roughly what the Quakers did when they freed their slaves.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Actually, that might provide a way to put a relatively reliable dollarpound figure on how much was stolen. Take the average annual wage for a free person doing similar work at the same time, multiply it by the number of slaves and how many years (on average) they worked, and you have an amount.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Only if you don't consider the entire working output of someone's life to be an "item". It may not be in the strictly grammatical sense, but I'm not sure it's a useful distinction to make in this case.
I'd honestly be interested to see what that amount would be.
quote:I don't. I tried googling "Quaker reparations for slavery" and got a number of interesting looking hits behind paywalls. : ( I would assume it was whatever the going rate for freemen in that line of work (household workers, field laborers, etc) was at the time.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Fair play to them. Do we know how much back pay they decided was owed?
quote:Presumably not ridiculous if one is looking at a pattern of behaviour in the round?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It is a ridiculous thing to mention, regardless. It is saying a thief should be free from guilt as he prevented anyone else robbing the bank.
quote:If not ridiculous, it is at the very least irrelevant.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Presumably not ridiculous if one is looking at a pattern of behaviour in the round?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It is a ridiculous thing to mention, regardless. It is saying a thief should be free from guilt as he prevented anyone else robbing the bank.
quote:I remember reading an analysis of what the monetary value of all U.S. slaves in 1860 would have been. In this case sale price is an approximation of expected lifetime productive value minus the external costs of slave ownership (hiring an overseer, basic food and shelter, flogging instruments, etc.) Short answer: slaves represented the single largest concentration of worth in the U.S. in 1860, worth more than all the manufacturing facilities, or all the railroads, or any other single sector of the economy. The only thing that was worth more was the land comprising the United States.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Actually, that might provide a way to put a relatively reliable dollarpound figure on how much was stolen.
quote:One complicating factor is that, in a lot of cases, there was no equivalent "free person doing similar work at the same time". The Caribbean sugar plantation system, which consumed most of the slaves we're discussing, was so lucrative slaves could (and were) simply worked to death. (e.g. 24/7 work shifts during harvest time.) There was simply no free labor force doing anything like this.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Take the average annual wage for a free person doing similar work at the same time, multiply it by the number of slaves and how many years (on average) they worked, and you have an amount.
quote:Looking at this purely as an intellectual challenge, I'd be happy to start calculating using output, but I think it's fair to say that the providers of risk capital expect some return on their investment, and there would be other costs to take into account (admittedly not as significant as labour) so even if the workforce hadn't been slaves, their earning wouldn't have equaled the sale value of product. They might well have been equal to quite a large chunk of it, though. And we might be able to devise an acceptable methodology for adjusting back from sale value.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
A better measure might be the productive output of the system. How much sugar was produced, what was its sale value at the time, and what does that translate to in present-day currency?
quote:That's one way of looking at it. Another is that extracting the sale value of whatever product was produced from forced labor was the main purpose of enslavement and, as such, the whole value represents "stolen goods".
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Looking at this purely as an intellectual challenge, I'd be happy to start calculating using output, but I think it's fair to say that the providers of risk capital expect some return on their investment, and there would be other costs to take into account (admittedly not as significant as labour) so even if the workforce hadn't been slaves, their earning wouldn't have equaled the sale value of product.
quote:Yes. You could argue that the operation was considered viable because it could be done with next to nil labour costs, and therefore all the income flows from the illegal act.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:That's one way of looking at it. Another is that extracting the sale value of whatever product was produced from forced labor was the main purpose of enslavement and, as such, the whole value represents "stolen goods".
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Looking at this purely as an intellectual challenge, I'd be happy to start calculating using output, but I think it's fair to say that the providers of risk capital expect some return on their investment, and there would be other costs to take into account (admittedly not as significant as labour) so even if the workforce hadn't been slaves, their earning wouldn't have equaled the sale value of product.
quote:Here's the interesting question. West Indian countries owe their nature and existence to slavery. Had slavery not existed, the demographics of countries like Jamaica or Trinidad would be radically different.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
"What if" there had been no slavery... what would the American economy look like now? What would African economy look like?
quote:I wasn't claiming 'benefits of colonialism' (though I believe there were some).
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Again with the benefits of colonialism bullshit.
Same ridiculous reasoning which has been used to justify slavery and theft when it was occurring.
quote:Haiti was also involved in anti-slave-trade naval actions.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Interestingly enough, the U.S. Navy actually contributed ships to Britain's West Africa Squadron starting in 1820. The northern elites were becoming more anti-slavery and the southern elites supported the effort because they didn't want newly-imported slaves undercutting the value of their existing slaves. The U.S. had banned the importation of slaves in 1808 and for the most part made a moral distinction between capturing new slaves ("man-catching") and maintaining slavery as an institution. To call the early nineteenth century U.S. position on slavery "inconsistent and schizophrenic" would actually be an understatement.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Sadly, like most Americans, I don't know enough about those efforts to comment. From your brief statement, it sounds like there was an "extensive attempt" to ensure slavery was well and truly ended, that there was no further suppression of individuals as happened in the American South for a century afterward. Certainly that is commendable, at least compared to our shameful example.
quote:Actually there is a good proxy. Following emancipation the Caribbean islands found they needed to import a considerable amount of labour to work the sugar plantations. Many emancipated slaves either did not want to continue as employees on the plantations or only on terms which (perhaps from spite or stubbornness) the planters wouldn't pay.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
One complicating factor is that, in a lot of cases, there was no equivalent "free person doing similar work at the same time". The Caribbean sugar plantation system, which consumed most of the slaves we're discussing, was so lucrative slaves could (and were) simply worked to death. (e.g. 24/7 work shifts during harvest time.) There was simply no free labor force doing anything like this.
quote:Your argument is rubbish. Can I rape you, then claim your life was likely going to be shit anyway so I go free?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I was simply arguing that if one were to compare (if such a comparison were possible) 1) the West Indies as they exist today and 2) a counter-factual Africa in which there had been no European involvement whatsover, that it's not clear to me one place would be a better place to live over another.
To call that 'bullshit' means that you know for certain that this hypothetical Africa that has never actually existed would undoubtedly enjoy a better standard of living than the present-day West Indies. I don't know how one can claim that (unless one has a time machine and a penchant for creating alternative timelines).
quote:I'll try to imagine a Kenya in which there weren't concentration camps interring hundreds of thusands through the late 50s and early 60s, weren't the tens of thousands of deaths in the state of emergency, wasn't the legacy of having been cleared off the best land, and the subsequent grab for land as independence dawned with the subsequent legacy of inter-ethnic strife.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I wasn't claiming 'benefits of colonialism' (though I believe there were some). ....I was simply arguing that if one were to compare (if such a comparison were possible) 1) the West Indies as they exist today and 2) a counter-factual Africa in which there had been no European involvement whatsover, that it's not clear to me one place would be a better place to live over another.
quote:Well not if one is trying to calculate loss. You've used a lot of colourful criminal law analogies in your posts, but if one were approaching this as a tortious claim, then trying to ascertain what loss has actually been suffered is one of the key factors to consider, presumably?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Your argument is rubbish.
quote:Again, my argument is that the unknown "what ifs" make the pragmatics of the case extremely challenging, if not impossible. But that doesn't change the moral culpability, nor does it alter the direction of the impact, simply the quantification. The reality that there was an enormous net fiscal gain to America and Europe is indisputable-- that ill-gotten gain was passed on to subsequent generations through inheritance and the building of a massive infrastructure. Even the previously mentioned technological gifts to Africa (modern medicine, education, etc.) was made possible through the wealth that financed it-- wealth built on slavery. And, again, African tribes/nations were clearly impacted negatively-- you extract the prime workers from any society and disrupt family structures you're going to have a massive economic impact that will resonate for generations to come.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Here's the interesting question. West Indian countries owe their nature and existence to slavery. Had slavery not existed, the demographics of countries like Jamaica or Trinidad would be radically different.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
"What if" there had been no slavery... what would the American economy look like now? What would African economy look like?
So what would the inhabitants of West Indian countries be compensated for? There doesn't seem to me to be any guarantee that they would enjoy a better standard of living today had they not been moved (indeed, on current economic conditions one might argue that it's better to live in the Caribbean than West Africa).
Or are we comparing life in the Caribbean today compared with how life would have unfolded had Africa remained untouched by Europeans? If it is then, as you say, not only is a comparison almost impossible to make but it doesn't strike me as conclusive that one life is definitely prefereable to the other.
quote:Indeed. We can even look at a few real-world examples to test this hypothesis. For example, if colonial rule is an effective aid in introducing Western medicine and technology, we would expect Thailand (which was never a colony) to lag behind its colonized neighbors (Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Burma) in these areas. The fact that the reverse seems to be the case casts some doubt on the validity of the hypothesis.
Originally posted by mdijon:
However many of the benefits of improved medical care and education have been realized after colonialism rather than during. Which highlights the fact that there's a false dichotomy here.
quote:Well, a lower boundary at least. "Forfeiture of ill-gotten gains" is usually considered the bare minimum required by justice.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Yes. You could argue that the operation was considered viable because it could be done with next to nil labour costs, and therefore all the income flows from the illegal act.
It's a bit like starting a business with dirty money. Even if you then make profits from an "honest" trade, you could argue that the whole of the enterprise is the proceeds of crime (not sure how it actually works under the Proceeds of Crime Act, but I wouldn't be surprised if that position holds).
I think there might be a few technically sustainable arguments as to what should be calculated and how. That might enable you to set the boundaries of the bargaining arena.
quote:This also begs the question of where Africa might be with the positives if Western influence but without all the intervening years of Weatern brought turmoil.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Indeed. We can even look at a few real-world examples to test this hypothesis. For example, if colonial rule is an effective aid in introducing Western medicine and technology, we would expect Thailand (which was never a colony) to lag behind its colonized neighbors (Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Burma) in these areas. The fact that the reverse seems to be the case casts some doubt on the validity of the hypothesis.
Originally posted by mdijon:
However many of the benefits of improved medical care and education have been realized after colonialism rather than during. Which highlights the fact that there's a false dichotomy here.
quote:It wasn't a fashionable view (by the people in charge) then either.
Originally posted by mdijon:
It is worth adding that many Africans would consider European missionary work a great good that was done for Africa. Not a very popular or fashionable view in Europe now, but nevertheless there it is.
quote:Transatlantic slavery created new nations, cultures and psychologies: that's the point. Caribbean history is a history of slavery and there's no way to 'move on' from this history unless we propose that Caribbean people (and the Europeans themselves) engage in a deliberate form of amnesia. The black and mixed-race Caribbean middle classes did try this for a while, but then realised that they were never going to be accepted as honorary Europeans, therefore they needed to begin to learn and accept their own history, and how it had made them. And that process didn't put Europeans in a very good light.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
West Indian countries owe their nature and existence to slavery. Had slavery not existed, the demographics of countries like Jamaica or Trinidad would be radically different.
So what would the inhabitants of West Indian countries be compensated for? There doesn't seem to me to be any guarantee that they would enjoy a better standard of living today had they not been moved (indeed, on current economic conditions one might argue that it's better to live in the Caribbean than West Africa).
Or are we comparing life in the Caribbean today compared with how life would have unfolded had Africa remained untouched by Europeans? If it is then, as you say, not only is a comparison almost impossible to make but it doesn't strike me as conclusive that one life is definitely prefereable to the other.
quote:The effect of the Atlantic slave trade would be one factor. The same exercise has been done for slave trading within Africa. This study suggests that the cost of that alone might equal 71 years of development. Indigenous slavery represented a different model; it was often (though not always) less brutal than external slaving, either the Atlantic or the Islamic trades, but it was more widespread and much more long lasting. The first Portuguese traders in the 1470s found slave markets on the West African coast that were then centuries old and a developed trade spanning the continent. In many cases it was the early 20th century before there was de facto abolition of the slave trade within West Africa.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
We cannot know beyond all doubt how Africa would have developed had Europe not spent centuries raping her.
We can do reasoned studies, with maths and everything.
quote:Malaysia spends more per capita on healthcare than Thailand. As do Singapore and Brunei which you have omitted entirely. The most recent available figures (source - WHO, 2011 data) are:
Indeed. We can even look at a few real-world examples to test this hypothesis. For example, if colonial rule is an effective aid in introducing Western medicine and technology, we would expect Thailand (which was never a colony) to lag behind its colonized neighbors (Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Burma) in these areas. The fact that the reverse seems to be the case casts some doubt on the validity of the hypothesis.
quote:I "omitted" Singapore and Brunei for the largely geographic reason that they don't border Thailand. I didn't include India either, which is actually closer to Thailand than Brunei. If I'd thought of them I'd consider the comparison inapt, since the compact nature of Singapore and Brunei gives an "apples and oranges" feel to the comparison, since neither possesses outlying regions that might be remote from professional healthcare. Geography matters, in that sense.
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Croesos wrote:quote:Malaysia spends more per capita on healthcare than Thailand. As do Singapore and Brunei which you have omitted entirely. The most recent available figures (source - WHO, 2011 data) are:
Indeed. We can even look at a few real-world examples to test this hypothesis. For example, if colonial rule is an effective aid in introducing Western medicine and technology, we would expect Thailand (which was never a colony) to lag behind its colonized neighbors (Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Burma) in these areas. The fact that the reverse seems to be the case casts some doubt on the validity of the hypothesis.
Singapore - 2787
Brunei - 1295
Malaysia - 995
Thailand - 353
Vietnam - 231
Cambodia - 135
Laos - 78
Burma - 28
(all US dollars, corrected for inflation to a 2005 base).
As a matter of fact, I do agree with mdijon, but for the reasons he gives.
quote:If you catch the criminal, yes, and an apology with it. But if all you do is catch up with his great-grandchildren, who are as innocent of wrongdoing as the original victim, then there is nothing to apologise for, and restoration of what is provably 100% stolen property is the maximum intervention that is justified. A Rembrandt would qualify.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
"Forfeiture of ill-gotten gains" is usually considered the bare minimum required by justice.
quote:I understand that Leopold II of Belgium put forward as one of his reasons for setting up the Congo Free State the eradication of the Islamic slave trade. I think the inhabitants of the Congo Free State would have considered the Islamic slave trade preferable.
Originally posted by Pottage:
I haven't seen a similar study for the effect of the Islamic slave trade as an inhibiting factor on African development but that would also be instructive. I have seen studies for the impacts of colonialism on African development, but those are very hard to interpret.
quote:While there are no doubt millions of Westerners who would agree with you, I'm equally certain that there are few displaced people groups around the globe who would have a very different perspective on that.
Originally posted by Russ:
Consider also a different case where what is taken is land. It may be completely identifiable that a particular area of land was unjustly taken a few generations ago. But it seems to me that the evil involved in turning off the land those for whom it is home is greater than the good in giving it to the descendants of the original owner, who have never lived there.
quote:yes and no.
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:If you catch the criminal, yes, and an apology with it. But if all you do is catch up with his great-grandchildren, who are as innocent of wrongdoing as the original victim, then there is nothing to apologise for, and restoration of what is provably 100% stolen property is the maximum intervention that is justified. A Rembrandt would qualify.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
"Forfeiture of ill-gotten gains" is usually considered the bare minimum required by justice.
Russ
quote:The missionaries' record was quite diverse.
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
quote:It wasn't a fashionable view (by the people in charge) then either.
Originally posted by mdijon:
It is worth adding that many Africans would consider European missionary work a great good that was done for Africa. Not a very popular or fashionable view in Europe now, but nevertheless there it is.
quote:Nice try, but if you are going to quote Wikipedia, you run the risk that readers are going to check the source.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Contrary to British propaganda and western perceptions of the time, the Mau Mau attacks were mostly well organised and planned.
"...the insurgents' lack of heavy weaponry and the heavily entrenched police and Home Guard positions meant that Mau Mau attacks were restricted to nighttime and where loyalist positions were weak. When attacks did commence they were fast and brutal, as insurgents were easily able to identify loyalists because they were often local to those communities themselves. The Lari massacre was by comparison rather outstanding and in contrast to regular Mau Mau strikes which more often than not targeted only loyalists without such massive civilian casualties. "Even the attack upon Lari, in the view of the rebel commanders was strategic and specific.”
quote:As I pointed out previously (more than once), when it comes to nation-states and their actions, they are considered to be the same entities as they ones that existed and acted centuries ago.
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:If you catch the criminal, yes, and an apology with it. But if all you do is catch up with his great-grandchildren, who are as innocent of wrongdoing as the original victim, then there is nothing to apologise for, and restoration of what is provably 100% stolen property is the maximum intervention that is justified. A Rembrandt would qualify.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
"Forfeiture of ill-gotten gains" is usually considered the bare minimum required by justice.
quote:About 30 European settlers and 150 soldiers. Against the 10s of thousands of dead Kikuyus (I think 1,800 is an underestimate for the mau mau) and the hundreds of thousands who were interned in concentration camps by the British without trial for years.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
They killed over 1,800 of their fellow Africans (not counting "disappeareds"), as well as a number of European and Asian men, women and children.
quote:Life expectancy does not depend entirely on the quality of health care. It also depends on diet and other lifestyle issues. I believe that the latter are actually more important.
Originally posted by Croesos
At any rate, as the United States demonstrates spending more per capita on healthcare doesn't mean you're necessarily getting better healthcare. So what are Thailand's neighbors getting for their per capita health care spending. Here's a look at some general proxies for healthcare:
Life Expectancy at Birth
Thailand - 74.18 years
Burma - 65.94 years
Cambodia - 63.78 years
Laos - 63.51 years
Malaysia - 74.52 years
quote:I think moral principles are clearest in the case of individuals against individuals; establishing the principles at that level is a worthwhile step before going on to try to apply those principles in the case where the wrong was an action of the state.
Originally posted by mdijon:
it seems to me there are three different groups of scenarios being argued;
i) Individuals have wronged other individuals. ii) States have wronged individuals.
iii) States have wronged other states.
quote:Presumably the idea of wronged states can be seen, for example, in the reparations provisions of the Treaty of Frankfurt, ending the Franco-Prussian War, and the Treaty of Versailles?
Originally posted by mdijon:
International law seems to recognize that states can be wronged - corrective UN resolutions can be made, wars can be denounced, and the Germans can be reparations to Israel.
Which also didn't exist at the time of the holocaust, but is regarded as inheriting the legacy.
quote:The idea obviously can.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Presumably the idea of wronged states can be seen, for example, in the reparations provisions of the Treaty of Frankfurt, ending the Franco-Prussian War, and the Treaty of Versailles?
Originally posted by mdijon:
International law seems to recognize that
quote:So you'd have the Caribbean countries in effect sue the British government for not banning slavery earlier ? Any particular administration ? Or all of them from William the Conqueror onwards ?
Originally posted by mdijon:
Slavery may have involved acts by many individuals, but the argument is that the state ought not to have allowed it. Eventually the state came round to that view and slavery was made illegal.
quote:Neither of those can now be regarded as either a good argument or precedent for the legitimacy or prudence of permitting reparations thereafter either in theory or practice.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Presumably the idea of wronged states can be seen, for example, in the reparations provisions of the Treaty of Frankfurt, ending the Franco-Prussian War, and the Treaty of Versailles?
quote:I think those cases illustrate "agreed" reparations as a condition of a peace treaty, rather than a claim for reparations under international law, or as a disinterested assessment of what compensation the victims (the party that was attacked in the war) were morally entitled to.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Presumably the idea of wronged states can be seen, for example, in the reparations provisions of the Treaty of Frankfurt, ending the Franco-Prussian War, and the Treaty of Versailles?
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Slavery may have involved acts by many individuals, but the argument is that the state ought not to have allowed it. Eventually the state came round to that view and slavery was made illegal.
quote:Not an administration. The state. Just as it was the state of West Germany that agreed to reparations to Israel, rather than a specific administration.
Originally posted by Russ:
So you'd have the Caribbean countries in effect sue the British government for not banning slavery earlier ? Any particular administration ? Or all of them from William the Conqueror onwards ?
quote:I agree with the last paragraph, but with all due respect, the rest is nonsense.
Originally posted by Russ:
I think those cases illustrate "agreed" reparations as a condition of a peace treaty, rather than a claim for reparations under international law, or as a disinterested assessment of what compensation the victims (the party that was attacked in the war) were morally entitled to.
And insofar as they were a claim for the cost to the victors of restoring the status quo, it was specifically from the coffers of the state that that expenditure was made, so in that sense the states were the wronged party.
However, both followed immediately (in historical terms) upon the putting-right of the crime rather than someone coming up with a claim six generations later.
I cannot see it as a Good Thing if it becomes fashionable to rewrite history as one thinks it ought to have turned out, and then launch lawsuits on behalf of those who have lost out relative to that imaginary counterfactual scenario. Are there not enough real injustices being committed right now ?
quote:And that is at the heart of the protestations against reparations. Self-interest, not right or wrong.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Simple question - if a state is made to pay a reparation, where do you think the money comes from?
quote:Ultimately depends on the states (taxation and legal) policies.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Simple question - if a state is made to pay a reparation, where do you think the money comes from?
quote:Because what, seeing slavery as evil is " imaginary" and "counterfactual"? It's just some new "fashionable" idea?
Originally posted by Russ:
I cannot see it as a Good Thing if it becomes fashionable to rewrite history as one thinks it ought to have turned out, and then launch lawsuits on behalf of those who have lost out relative to that imaginary counterfactual scenario. Are there not enough real injustices being committed right now ?
Best wishes,
Russ
quote:I thought you were saying that the state is morally culpable for not preventing (what we now recognise as) wrongs committed by private citizens. Are you saying that, or are you saying that individuals long since dead were morally responsible but the state should pay anyway ?
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:Not an administration. The state. Just as it was the state of West Germany that agreed to reparations to Israel, rather than a specific administration.
Originally posted by Russ:
So you'd have the Caribbean countries in effect sue the British government for not banning slavery earlier ? Any particular administration ? Or all of them from William the Conqueror onwards ?
quote:Apparently our government thinks so.
Originally posted by Russ:
Should the US seek reparations for 9/11 from the government of Pakistan ?
quote:What did Pakistan have to do with 9/11? Al Qaeda was being run from Afghanistan and the hijackers were Arabs (mostly Saudis), not Pakistanis.
Originally posted by Russ:
Should the US seek reparations for 9/11 from the government of Pakistan ? For failing to prevent private individuals committing an atrocity ? Will that still be a valid claim in 150 years time - is it just that innocent Pakistanis in 2164 should foot the bill ?
quote:The US govt certainly acted promptly, demanding that the Afghanistan govt (such as it was) hand over Bin Laden, and then acting with force when that didn't happen. Those actions appear to hold the state of Afghanistan responsible for the actions of an individual within Afghanistan.
Originally posted by Russ:
English law works on the basis that anything is permitted unless specifically prohibited. So to complain that the state didn't prevent something is to complain that no law was passed - that the anti-slavery Acts of the nineteenth century should have been made law sooner. So who exactly are you saying should have enacted this law earlier and didn't, thereby ncurring moral responsibility for the transatlantic slave trade ?
The example of German reparations to Israel for the Holocaust is, like your other examples, concerning recent (in the lifetime of at least some of the perpetrators) reparations for the specific actions of the state under a particular government.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You know nothing about me and my long involvement with Africa, including having a considerable knowledge of an African language and having been involved with an African translation project.
quote:<Sounds of cicadas>
Originally posted by mdijon:
Fascinating. Which African language? Which translation project?
quote:Actually we're talking about direct actions by the state. For example, there were sixteen slave revolts in Jamaica from the time Britain gained control of the island in 1655 until slavery ended there in the 1830s. Virtually all of them were crushed by government troops. Why do you consider this to be the action of "private citizens"? I don't think it unreasonable to conclude that the nearby presence of government troops with the clear mandate to suppress slave rebellion or escape contributed a rather important component to maintaining the slave plantation system.
Originally posted by Russ:
I thought you were saying that the state is morally culpable for not preventing (what we now recognise as) wrongs committed by private citizens. Are you saying that, or are you saying that individuals long since dead were morally responsible but the state should pay anyway?
quote:You're going to have to make up your mind as to whether states can perform actions or whether everything is just the action of "private citizens". After all, the upper leadership echelon of the Third Reich was mostly dead by the time West Germany started paying reparations to Israel. Wouldn't that make such reparations unjust under your reasoning?
Originally posted by Russ:
The example of German reparations to Israel for the Holocaust is, like your other examples, concerning recent (in the lifetime of at least some of the perpetrators) reparations for the specific actions of the state under a particular government.
quote:Seems perfectly fair to describe the governance of those Caribbean islands that were British colonies as actions of the British state.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Actually we're talking about direct actions by the state. For example, there were sixteen slave revolts in Jamaica from the time Britain gained control of the island in 1655 until slavery ended there in the 1830s. Virtually all of them were crushed by government troops. Why do you consider this to be the action of "private citizens"? I don't think it unreasonable to conclude that the nearby presence of government troops with the clear mandate to suppress slave rebellion or escape contributed a rather important component to maintaining the slave plantation system.
quote:Nobody is denying that slavery was evil. That's why it was banned and all the slaves were freed. But apparently banning slavery and freeing all the slaves doesn't count for anything unless there's some cash handed over as well.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But can't we take just like 2 seconds to acknowledge the reality and the actuality (anything but "imaginary"!) of the evil before we rush to just brush it aside as inconvenient?
quote:You say that as if self-interest isn't at the heart of CARICOM's demands.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And that is at the heart of the protestations against reparations. Self-interest, not right or wrong.
quote:Let me stop on that "if". It was 1807 when slavery was outlawed in the UK, not 1655. More importantly "not behaving as we expect" needs some unpacking in terms of the scales of wrongs. It ranges from the genocidal to modern-day niceties of freedom of expression.
Originally posted by Russ:
If the case amounts to governments in 1655 not behaving as we expect governments to in 2014
quote:Which was helped by staying neutral in the war against the Nazis 1939-45 and selling them iron instead.
Originally posted by JFH:
With regards to Sweden, our modern wealth was mainly built on having the world's highest economic development in the years 1870-1970
quote:Norway stayed neutral until invaded. Denmark stayed neutral until invaded. Belgium stayed neutral until invaded. Netherlands stayed neutral until invaded. What's that big blob you've got on the west end of the Atlantic? Another neutralist until invaded. Sweden had to choose sides between Stalin that invaded Finland, or Hitler that invaded Norway. We stayed on the fence there. Tell me, who's that mustachio'd guy from Yalta that your leaders handed Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Eastern Germany to?
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:Which was helped by staying neutral in the war against the Nazis 1939-45 and selling them iron instead.
Originally posted by JFH:
With regards to Sweden, our modern wealth was mainly built on having the world's highest economic development in the years 1870-1970
quote:I don't think one could argue the "solely" in that quote, and I don't believe it is necessary to in order to make the case for reparations. That someone else was as bad isn't much of a defense in itself. This particular claim is coming from the Caribbean and therefore it is easy to see why that would focus on the UK.
Originally posted by JFH:
if Western development is to be deduced to solely "positive" effects of slavery (which I don't agree on), but should have had similarly adverse effects on African society and thus lead to similar reparation claims.
quote:It's inappropriate because it is impossible to identify a cadre of potential claimants though, not because of any other material difference in the nature of the wrongs suffered/inflicted. In relation to the depradations of the Vikings or the Mongols that's primarily because of the passage of time. In the case of the Africans and Europeans taken in slavery to North Africa and the Gulf it's because so few of those taken survived at all. In all cases though we're still talking about historic wrongs perpetrated centuries ago by/against people long dead.
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think Southern Europeans experience the same legacy today as a result of the Vikings that Jamaicans experience today as a result of the Transatlantic slave trade.
It's not a very apt comparison.
quote:Are we not considering claims for reparations for slavery any more?
Originally posted by mdijon:
The other difference is that there was no cohort of Brits desperate for work who stepped off the boat in Copenhagen to see signs saying "No Brits No Irish No Dogs".
quote:That's an interesting question itself. Can the state absolve itself of responsibility by subcontracting out actions of dubious morality? See my previous comments regarding some of the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht for context. In this case, does the crown granting the slave trade concession (extracted as one of the terms of the aforementioned treaty) to Spanish colonies in the New World to a private corporation in exchange for a share of the profits mitigate their responsibility? The U.S. tried that same strategy relatively recently in Iraq, using mercenaries like Blackwater to conduct some of the more morally dubious operations of that war.
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems perfectly fair to describe the governance of those Caribbean islands that were British colonies as actions of the British state.
I thought we were talking about the transatlantic slave trade - merchant adventurers buying slaves in Africa and selling them in the W Indies.
quote:Actually the UK outlawed the slave trade in 1807. Slavery itself was not outlawed until about a quarter century later.
Originally posted by mdijon:
Let me stop on that "if". It was 1807 when slavery was outlawed in the UK, not 1655.
quote:I agree, but this brings me back to my original point that the driver should be the extent of the inequality, not the extent of the culpability. Otherwise we would end up saying reparation had to be made for offences that had resulted in very little inequality, but where the evidence of culpability was very strong. In my view, this isn't the point.
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think Southern Europeans experience the same legacy today as a result of the Vikings that Jamaicans experience today as a result of the Transatlantic slave trade.
It's not a very apt comparison.
quote:So if you stop stealing something, that's all that matters-- no need to pay back your stolen goods?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Nobody is denying that slavery was evil. That's why it was banned and all the slaves were freed. But apparently banning slavery and freeing all the slaves doesn't count for anything unless there's some cash handed over as well.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But can't we take just like 2 seconds to acknowledge the reality and the actuality (anything but "imaginary"!) of the evil before we rush to just brush it aside as inconvenient?
quote:But look in contrast to what is happening in those nations and tribes decimated by slavery. How are you going to have the capital or personnel for either an "industrious" or an industrial revolution when your society has been stripped of all it's prime wage-earners-- the very people you need to be "industrious".
Originally posted by JFH:
As for comparisons, I am honestly not sure whether I see how slavery was the sole driving power behind differences in development. We also have the "industrious revolution" preceding the industrial one, which seems to have depended on some sort of way for people to actually work harder and more efficient in Europe, leading to creating the capital necessary for capitalism to function. The triangular trade may have been wealth inducing, but the biggest markets of European goods would still remain the home markets, and later on India. Whereas colonialism and imperialism definitely played a part in it, some here have seemed to claim that all of it came from the unpaid labour of slaves - and I don't think it necessarily did. Britain, Spain and France may have seen their economies boosted by their efforts, and other nations somewhat as well as bi-effects of Europe's general rise, but Germany and Scandinavia was not completely without development despite having little involvement in the slave trade. Britain was fortunate enough to have access to coal and steel and other tools at the right time and place to spark revolution - something China didn't, despite having much similar economic background.
quote:But if one steals something one is doing something that is already illegal. Owning a slave when slavery hasn't been banned isn't illegal.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:So if you stop stealing something, that's all that matters-- no need to pay back your stolen goods?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Nobody is denying that slavery was evil. That's why it was banned and all the slaves were freed. But apparently banning slavery and freeing all the slaves doesn't count for anything unless there's some cash handed over as well.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But can't we take just like 2 seconds to acknowledge the reality and the actuality (anything but "imaginary"!) of the evil before we rush to just brush it aside as inconvenient?
quote:Whether it was against the law is irrelevant to the issue of whether it constituted taking something off someone with the intention of permanently depriving them of it.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:But if one steals something one is doing something that is already illegal. Owning a slave when slavery hasn't been banned isn't illegal.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:So if you stop stealing something, that's all that matters-- no need to pay back your stolen goods?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Nobody is denying that slavery was evil. That's why it was banned and all the slaves were freed. But apparently banning slavery and freeing all the slaves doesn't count for anything unless there's some cash handed over as well.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But can't we take just like 2 seconds to acknowledge the reality and the actuality (anything but "imaginary"!) of the evil before we rush to just brush it aside as inconvenient?
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
The other difference is that there was no cohort of Brits desperate for work who stepped off the boat in Copenhagen to see signs saying "No Brits No Irish No Dogs".
quote:I think it adds to the feeling that the legacy of slavery is not so completely unrelated to the present day order of the world.
Originally posted by Pottage:
Are we not considering claims for reparations for slavery any more?
quote:Is the circularity of this argument not apparent when we are considering the state's culpability as a legislator?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But if one steals something one is doing something that is already illegal. Owning a slave when slavery hasn't been banned isn't illegal.
quote:Then on what basis would a claim proceed? Six pages in to this discussion and it all still seems rather hairy-fairy.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:Is the circularity of this argument not apparent when we are considering the state's culpability as a legislator?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But if one steals something one is doing something that is already illegal. Owning a slave when slavery hasn't been banned isn't illegal.
quote:It is not Godwining when the comparison is apt.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
[Edited to Godwin myself]
You might as well argue that what the Nazis did was legal in Germany at the time.
quote:Of course they CARICOM are looking after their own self-interest. But from a POV that would not have existed if Europeans had not caused it.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:You say that as if self-interest isn't at the heart of CARICOM's demands.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And that is at the heart of the protestations against reparations. Self-interest, not right or wrong.
quote:Actually, given that, at the time of the Transatlantic Trade, Europeans did not wholesale enslave each other and the massive amount of justifications used, I would disagree.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Separately, why would the ICJ decide on this? The problem with the Nuremburg analogy, it seems to me, is that what the Nazis did was widely considered to be wrong at the time the misdeeds were committed. This is not necessarily the case with slavery.
ETA: This is in reply to mdijon.
quote:If Europeans hadn't done anything, the CARICOM nations wouldn't even exist.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Of course they CARICOM are looking after their own self-interest. But from a POV that would not have existed if Europeans had not caused it.
quote:I think that's a bit thin. In the 1950s and 1960s immigrants came to the UK from all over, and most of them faced bigotry, prejudice and discrimination regardless of their skin colour or whether their great(x5) grandfather had been a slave. Neither is the "No Irish" element to those signs evidence that compensation should be paid to Ireland for English violence there 300 years ago.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
The other difference is that there was no cohort of Brits desperate for work who stepped off the boat in Copenhagen to see signs saying "No Brits No Irish No Dogs".quote:I think it adds to the feeling that the legacy of slavery is not so completely unrelated to the present day order of the world.
Originally posted by Pottage:
Are we not considering claims for reparations for slavery any more?
quote:I think there are numerous arguments against the claim for reparations (as opposed to any claim for a frank acknowlegment of the evil of slavery and a recognition that it was shameful). One is that in practical terms it would be next to impossible to calculate or pay any claim for reparations. I think you have acknowledged that many of those actually seeking reparations are quite aware that this argument alone means they are wasting their time.
Originally posted by mdijon:
What is airy-fairy to me is whether the chief objection is moral, legal, logistic or practical. It's a bit of a whack-a-mole argument at the moment - as soon as one objection is addressed another one pops up, often one of the previous moles dressed in new clothes.
quote:We obviously think that now but you'd accept that that might not have been such a widely-held view in the past?
Originally posted by mdijon:
How can it possibly be a serious argument that most people would think that torture, death in the most degrading conditions, rape and child abuse wasn't wrong?
quote:Immigrants of many colours faced bigotry and prejudice, but to suggest it was regardless of skin colour is not credible. Racism was a massive part of 1950s and 60s attitudes in the UK towards black immigrants and their treatment was worse.
Originally posted by Pottage:
I think that's a bit thin. In the 1950s and 1960s immigrants came to the UK from all over, and most of them faced bigotry, prejudice and discrimination regardless of their skin colour or whether their great(x5) grandfather had been a slave.
quote:So you would have been against West Germany paying reparations to Israel on similar grounds? That was rather unscientific, many victims were already dead etc.
Originally posted by Pottage:
That involves compensating a victim, putting right as far as possible a wrong done to them. But all these victims died generations ago; their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have since died too.
quote:Given that large-scale repatriation of post-war West Indian immigrants never really happened, what bearing does this have on whether money should be paid to CARICOM states?
Originally posted by mdijon:
Immigrants of many colours faced bigotry and prejudice, but to suggest it was regardless of skin colour is not credible. Racism was a massive part of 1950s and 60s attitudes in the UK towards black immigrants and their treatment was worse.
Racism was at the heart of the justification of the Trans-atlantic slave trade and was clearly still present. Black people were still not worth as much as white people in UK society.
quote:A bit like giving a girl a new dolly because you tore the head off the other whilst raping her makes the rape alright.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:If Europeans hadn't done anything, the CARICOM nations wouldn't even exist.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Of course they CARICOM are looking after their own self-interest. But from a POV that would not have existed if Europeans had not caused it.
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
How can it possibly be a serious argument that most people would think that torture, death in the most degrading conditions, rape and child abuse wasn't wrong?
quote:It's one thing to tolerate child labour, another to oversee such callous brutality and violence. The abolitionists could see it was wrong, and campaigned vigorously. Probably much of the population was indifferent, or didn't want to disturb the status quo, and those with vested interests won the day. None of this was genuine ignorance. People knew that rape and torture were wrong in the 18th and 19th centuries, they just prepared to close their eyes to it out of indifference or self-interest.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
We obviously think that now but you'd accept that that might not have been such a widely-held view in the past?
quote:The full-member nations? Some of the Associate members aren't poor.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The poverty enjoyed by the CARICOM nations is of direct result of European slavery.
quote:Well hang on, let's run with this thought for a moment. Why do you suppose that some CARICOM members (if you consider all levels of membership) are better off than others? Do you attribute this entirely to the effects of slavery? And if so, how do you account for the differences?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
A bit like saying Adam Afriyie and Barack Obama nullify racism.
quote:I for one would not agree with that statement. I think it's possible those seeking reparations realize the practical and political complications may mean they will never actually gain any financial compensation. I don't think they believe they are "wasting their time." I doubt they would be raising the issue if they thought it was a "waste of time." I imagine they have real, achievable goals-- whether financial or otherwise-- they hope to gain from this endeavor. I wish them well.
Originally posted by Pottage:
I think there are numerous arguments against the claim for reparations (as opposed to any claim for a frank acknowlegment of the evil of slavery and a recognition that it was shameful). One is that in practical terms it would be next to impossible to calculate or pay any claim for reparations. I think you have acknowledged that many of those actually seeking reparations are quite aware that this argument alone means they are wasting their time.
quote:Not true. As has been noted already, ALL of us who live in the West have profited from slavery-- including those (myself included) whose ancestors did not live here in the time of slavery. But everyone who lives in the West is benefiting from living in an economy built on slavery. We do business in a country with a huge infrastructure-- road, buildings, educational institutions-- that was built, either directly or indirectly-- with slave money. And at the same time, people living in countries that were decimated by slave labor (thru the loss of prime wage earners) are living in a country that was deprived of that exact same infrastructure that could have been built had they had the benefit of those strong, young wage earners. Those realities impact our economies today.
Originally posted by Pottage:
But practicalities aside, there's the argument that something like this can't ever actually be reparation. That involves compensating a victim, putting right as far as possible a wrong done to them. But all these victims died generations ago; their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have since died too. This side of heaven there is nothing to be done to compensate any of them for what they suffered. Paying a sum instead to a fairly unscientific selection of their more remote descendents doesn't compensate the victims. It does though punish millions of taxpayers who had nothing to do with those wrongs but happen to live in the country where, centuries ago, other people lived who did profit from slavery.
Those people have no responsibility for a centuries old wrong. Even their own ancestors might well never have profited from slavery.
quote:I don't think anyone has suggested this. Causation is usually complex, and that is certainly the case here. But it is clearly one, among many, factors.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Do you attribute this entirely to the effects of slavery?
quote:No, let's not run along around a loop of those same tired arguments. Is poverty really a hindrance when we see rags-to-riches stories every day? Is racism really holding anyone back when we consider how many Indian millionaires there are in Britain? Heard it before.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Well hang on, let's run with this thought for a moment. Why do you suppose that some CARICOM members (if you consider all levels of membership) are better off than others? Do you attribute this entirely to the effects of slavery? And if so, how do you account for the differences?
quote:To me, the statement 'The poverty enjoyed by the CARICOM nations is of direct result of European slavery' indicates that someone has suggested this. Unless I've misunderstood, which is why I sought clarification.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:I don't think anyone has suggested this. Causation is usually complex, and that is certainly the case here. But it is clearly one, among many, factors.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Do you attribute this entirely to the effects of slavery?
quote:That's a fair point. There is a cultural element at play in the response. Even with my individualistic Western mindset though I believe there is such a thing as collective responsibility. But I also believe there is perspective and context.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It is interesting to observe that the cultures that are arguing vs. reparations are cultures that are uniquely individualistic-- and the argument is framed (as above) very individualistically-- I didn't do it, therefore I am not responsible. The cultures impacted by slavery are primarily communal cultures-- where there's a greater sense of communal sin-- that we all bear responsibility for the sins of the community, even if we didn't personally participate in them. In some parts of Africa the very way that the anti-reparations argument has been framed would be incomprehensible.
quote:But doesn't that go to the heart of some of the issues at play, if one is to assert that historic slavery is responsible for present-day poverty?
Originally posted by mdijon:
No, let's not run along around a loop of those same tired arguments.
quote:No one has suggested this - there is a difference between 'direct' and 'entire'.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
To me, the statement 'The poverty enjoyed by the CARICOM nations is of direct result of European slavery' indicates that someone has suggested this.
quote:So the famous sign "No Blacks, No Irish" mainly discriminated against the former?
Originally posted by mdijon:
Immigrants of many colours faced bigotry and prejudice, but to suggest it was regardless of skin colour is not credible. Racism was a massive part of 1950s and 60s attitudes in the UK towards black immigrants and their treatment was worse.
quote:I've no doubt racism was a substantial factor in the slave trade, that it was easier for slave traders to convince themselves that what they were doing wasn't SO bad as they were doing it to people who were very different, were uneducated, seemed to them to be "primitive" etc. I'm not sure how that bears on the situation now though.
Originally posted by mdijon:
Racism was at the heart of the justification of the Trans-atlantic slave trade and was clearly still present. Black people were still not worth as much as white people in UK society.
quote:No, but if it had only become possible to engineer a claim for payment five or six generations after the Holocaust it would have been much more difficult to characterise those payments as reparations, and for the same reasons as here.
Originally posted by mdijon:
So you would have been against West Germany paying reparations to Israel on similar grounds? That was rather unscientific, many victims were already dead etc.
quote:Well, as I'm reading it, it's saying that there is a direct relationship between European slavery and Caribbean poverty. I think that's true, for the reasons I mentioned. It does not suggest that slavery is the ONLY cause of poverty. Simply that it is one. I believe that is clearly the case.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:To me, the statement 'The poverty enjoyed by the CARICOM nations is of direct result of European slavery' indicates that someone has suggested this. Unless I've misunderstood, which is why I sought clarification.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:I don't think anyone has suggested this. Causation is usually complex, and that is certainly the case here. But it is clearly one, among many, factors.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Do you attribute this entirely to the effects of slavery?
quote:I would share your perspective-- my instinctual response is very similar to yours, only along more American lines in terms of the specifics. But I'm also skeptic.al of making too much out of my feelings of guilt/responsibility. I don't think they're necessarily the best barometer. We are (all of us humans) fairly disconnected emotionally from our sin, pretty well defended, so our feelings don't always tell us all that much. And our emotive or instinctual response of guilt/responsibility itself is fairly culturally determined I think.
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:That's a fair point. There is a cultural element at play in the response. Even with my individualistic Western mindset though I believe there is such a thing as collective responsibility. But I also believe there is perspective and context.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It is interesting to observe that the cultures that are arguing vs. reparations are cultures that are uniquely individualistic-- and the argument is framed (as above) very individualistically-- I didn't do it, therefore I am not responsible. The cultures impacted by slavery are primarily communal cultures-- where there's a greater sense of communal sin-- that we all bear responsibility for the sins of the community, even if we didn't personally participate in them. In some parts of Africa the very way that the anti-reparations argument has been framed would be incomprehensible.
I feel both guilt and responsibility over the Mau Mau atrocities, although they were committed before I was born in a country I've never been to. I'm glad reparations were paid to people who suffered and I wish more had been paid and sooner. But those atrocities were committed in living memory, in my name as a citizen of the UK, and to people who could be identified and given redress.
I feel neither guilt nor responsibility for Boudicca's slaughter of the 11th Legion and savage despoiling of London though these were terrible massacres carried out in my own country.
I feel guilt for the transatlantic slave trade as a white European, but I don't feel responsible. And it wouldn't make me feel less guilty to seek out someone, somewhere whose distant ancestors had been slaves centuries ago and pay them some money.
I feel much more guilt and responsibility when I read of people starving and know that I am comfortably off and have plenty in the cupboard. I know that I can't help everyone but I try to deal with my sense of guilt and responsibility by paying something to someone who needs it (as people do when they are motivated to give to charity). I've certainly supported actvities in the past in CARICOM countries, but I've done that because individuals or communities there were in need now and that need touched my heart, not because someone else had suffered terribly there 200 years previously.
quote:That's the point. Saying that the British state is morally to blame for "permitting" slavery over those 150+ years is to blame it for not enacting in the 1600s the legislation of the 1800s.
Originally posted by mdijon:
It was 1807 when slavery was outlawed in the UK, not 1655.
quote:No, it's like saying that if my great-great grandfather hadn't raped your great-great-grandmother, you wouldn't have been born. It's a statement that can be true, and recognised to be true, without condoning or excusing the original rape.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
A bit like giving a girl a new dolly because you tore the head off the other whilst raping her makes the rape alright.
quote:If I go to a foreign country and break a law I didn't know about, I'm still held accountable (says the girl who got 2 traffic tickets in Denmark last summer...) Whether our ancestors could have known slavery was evil or not does not change the fact that we, today, are profiting from it. It doesn't change the fact that our economy is built on stolen goods.
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:That's the point. Saying that the British state is morally to blame for "permitting" slavery over those 150+ years is to blame it for not enacting in the 1600s the legislation of the 1800s.
Originally posted by mdijon:
It was 1807 when slavery was outlawed in the UK, not 1655.
As an armchair historian you may conclude that there's no good reason why that shouldn't have happened. But you're still projecting back onto history your twenty-first century ideas. No-one in the eighteenth century would have dreamed of drawing a moral near-equivalence between slavery and genocide. You're trying to hold the past to present-day ideas as a way of trying to get some cash out of your neighbours in the here-and-now, because the past can't pay. And that's not justice.
The Nazis had their day in court before any reparations were paid. How are you going to give the British governments of the 17th century a fair trial, if they can't respond to the charges being brought ?
quote:Analogies have their weak spots. What would you do in the case that the rapist is still alive?
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:No, it's like saying that if my great-great grandfather hadn't raped your great-great-grandmother, you wouldn't have been born. It's a statement that can be true, and recognised to be true, without condoning or excusing the original rape.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
A bit like giving a girl a new dolly because you tore the head off the other whilst raping her makes the rape alright.
Your great-great-grandmother might still have had a great-great-grandchild, of course, but they wouldn't have been you. They might even have had a better life than you as a result of the family trauma caused by the rape never having happened. But it still is not at all obvious to me why I should pay you monetary compensation because you didn't get to be them.
quote:I think you're the one projecting backwards. An eighteenth century person may very well have seen "a moral near-equivalence between slavery and genocide" insofar as they wouldn't have had that much moral compunction about either. You don't have to look much further than the policies applied to the native populations to demonstrate that.
Originally posted by Russ:
As an armchair historian you may conclude that there's no good reason why that shouldn't have happened. But you're still projecting back onto history your twenty-first century ideas. No-one in the eighteenth century would have dreamed of drawing a moral near-equivalence between slavery and genocide.
quote:Then where's the dividing line, temporally speaking? And what happens to treaties and other international agreements that "age out"? As I noted earlier, the treaty that granted the U.K. a slave-trading concession in the Spanish Caribbean is the same one that granted it control of Gibraltar. If the current British government is not responsible for the actions of its seventeenth (or, in this case, eighteenth) century incarnation, why is the current government's territorial claim over Gibraltar still considered valid?
Originally posted by Russ:
How are you going to give the British governments of the 17th century a fair trial, if they can't respond to the charges being brought?
quote:You could be right. When you give someone a fair trial, one of the possible outcomes is that they alienate their would-be supporters, showing by what they say that they are guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
An eighteenth century person may very well have seen "a moral near-equivalence between slavery and genocide" insofar as they wouldn't have had that much moral compunction about either. You don't have to look much further than the policies applied to the native populations to demonstrate that
quote:Yes, more complex than the claimants' case suggests.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Causation is usually complex, and that is certainly the case here...
...it's saying that there is a direct relationship between European slavery and Caribbean poverty. I think that's true,
quote:Not quite. There's some doubt whether slavery was ever lawful in the British Isles. What was odd and inconsistent, was that it was lawful in various colonies. In the eighteenth century, if a slave managed to land on English soil, that emancipated them. I think the same applied if they landed in Scotland. Slave owners went to considerable lengths to make sure that either didn't happen or that their slaves didn't find out.
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:That's the point. Saying that the British state is morally to blame for "permitting" slavery over those 150+ years is to blame it for not enacting in the 1600s the legislation of the 1800s. ...
Originally posted by mdijon:
It was 1807 when slavery was outlawed in the UK, not 1655.
quote:Buying and selling slaves does not necessarily involve rape, terror or insanitary conditions. I would have thought that enlightened self-interest was enough to persuade slave traders to deliver their wares alive and in good condition. But the little I have read confirms your suggestion that conditions were horrible and many died from disease.
Originally posted by mdijon:
I'm more interested in understanding where the moral relativism ends... ...Did the slave traders have sufficient educational advantage to know that kidnapping, raping, and shackling sick and terrified men and women in insanitary conditions for a trans-atlantic voyage was wrong? Let's finish this shit first before we go on to whacking some other mole.
quote:Um, no, no there isn't. Slavery was lawful in the British Isles until 1833 with exceptions for East India Company, Ceylon, and Saint Helena until 1843.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Not quite. There's some doubt whether slavery was ever lawful in the British Isles.
quote:If it is lawful, it is the responsibility of the state.
Originally posted by Russ:
But I suspect that the case you want to make depends on treating the whole as an indivisible crime that can be pinned on the undying state.
quote:Many escaped and served with the Allies, and those that remained set up resistance organisations.
Originally posted by JFH:
Norway stayed neutral until invaded. Denmark stayed neutral until invaded. Belgium stayed neutral until invaded. Netherlands stayed neutral until invaded.
quote:If you're referring to the USA, Roosevelt gave every possible assistance to Britain 1939-41 short of declaring war.
What's that big blob you've got on the west end of the Atlantic? Another neutralist until invaded.
quote:They had little choice after six exhausting years of fighting an enemy which "neutral" Sweden had been supplying with metal for its arms industry.
Tell me, who's that mustachio'd guy from Yalta that your leaders handed Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Eastern Germany to?
quote:So remaining neutral entitles you to sneer at other countries which did the right thing when they encounter a setback?
However, the fact that the German invasion of Norway succeeded is evidence that the Royal Navy could not enforce a blockade of the North Sea.
quote:If by "Russians" you mean the Soviet Union, which included a large number of ethnic and linguistic groupings, then Stalin was Hitler's most enthusiastic ally 1939-41, trusting him in a way he never did the western democracies, and supplying Germany (like Sweden) right up to, and including, 22 June, 1941.
your allies, the Russians.
quote:Perhaps not necessarily rape or unsanitary conditions, but terror is a necessity of a slave system. Slavery is an inherently violent system, wherein the threat of violence has to be both credible and constant.
Originally posted by Russ:
Buying and selling slaves does not necessarily involve rape, terror or insanitary conditions.
quote:Which just shows the dangers of relying on assumptions of enlightened self interest and a set of baseless assumptions. Much like the sugar barons who were their primary customers, slave traders needed to keep their cargo alive, but "in good condition" was subjective. Sick and malnourished slaves are less likely to rebel, and every crate of food packed for the voyage is one or two fewer slaves you can pack in.
Originally posted by Russ:
I would have thought that enlightened self-interest was enough to persuade slave traders to deliver their wares alive and in good condition.
quote:Except the brutality wasn't "unnecessary", it was a necessary part of slaveholding.
Originally posted by Russ:
Having colonies is something that was certainly seen at the time as morally OK, Unnecessary brutality seems obviously wrong then as now.
quote:So in your view the slaves would still count as "no-one".
Originally posted by Russ:
No-one in the eighteenth century would have dreamed of drawing a moral near-equivalence between slavery and genocide.
quote:Considering the history of racism in London from wrongful hangings with prejudicial language tolerated in court through the nigger for a neighbour vote labour campaign and the race riots of the late 50s in Notting Hill and Oswald Mosley ought to afford you the imagination to see beyond that rather facile line of yours.
Originally posted by Pottage:
So the famous sign "No Blacks, No Irish" mainly discriminated against the former?
quote:This is the mole about individual responsibility. The target of reparations is the state. This isn't about saying whether British people are worse than African people, it's about what a state presided over.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If there is no way of justifying British involvement in the slave trade on the basis of moral relativism, then neither can it be used to let Africans off the hook.
quote:No, what goes to the heart of the issue at play is when you think society would be morally culpable for tolerating kidnapping, false imprisonment, rape and torture. 100 years ago? 50 years back?
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But doesn't that go to the heart of some of the issues at play, if one is to assert that historic slavery is responsible for present-day poverty?
quote:Then it seems to me that, at least, we cannot calculate what compensation (if any) ought to be paid.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:No
Originally posted by Anglican't:
But doesn't that go to the heart of some of the issues at play, if one is to assert that historic slavery is responsible for present-day poverty?
quote:As far as I'm concerned, the claim to Gibraltar is valid because the people who live there want to be British. If they wanted to be Spanish then I would fully support moves to transfer the territory to Spain, regardless of any 17th or 18th century dealings.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
If the current British government is not responsible for the actions of its seventeenth (or, in this case, eighteenth) century incarnation, why is the current government's territorial claim over Gibraltar still considered valid?
quote:When the victims are still alive.
Originally posted by mdijon:
No, what goes to the heart of the issue at play is when you think society would be morally culpable for tolerating kidnapping, false imprisonment, rape and torture. 100 years ago? 50 years back?
quote:Not intentionally facile, and I wasn't trying to upset you. I think that broadening the discussion from the culpability of European nations for the atlantic slave trade to modern or recent racist attitudes in European societies is going to turn the modest outbreak of moles you are unhappy about to something more like an epidemic.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:Considering the history of racism in London from wrongful hangings with prejudicial language tolerated in court through the nigger for a neighbour vote labour campaign and the race riots of the late 50s in Notting Hill and Oswald Mosley ought to afford you the imagination to see beyond that rather facile line of yours.
Originally posted by Pottage:
So the famous sign "No Blacks, No Irish" mainly discriminated against the former?
quote:Technically it is correct that slavery was lawful in the British Empire until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, but a number of individuals brought to the British Isles as slaves successfully sued for their freedom. The earliest ruling mentioned in the Wikipedia article was 1569, which held that English law could not recognise slavery; there were several cases in Scotland and the verdict in the case of James Somersett in 1772 was taken to mean that slavery was not allowed under English common law.
Um, no, no there isn't. Slavery was lawful in the British Isles until 1833...
quote:Good point, well made. Revise my suggestion to "still alive, or would be had they not been killed as part of the wrong that was done".
Originally posted by mdijon:
So if the victims are killed after the rape we're all square immediately? No moral culpability?
quote:There are no means of forcing people to work without pay, whether in cash or in investment in the capital growth of the operation, that are not inherently brutal and inhuman.
Originally posted by Russ:
You don't seem very clear whether the moral wrong that you're outraged about is having colonies in the first place, running plantations on slave labour in those colonies, buying transporting and selling slaves to those colonies, or doing it in a brutal and inhuman manner.
quote:It's practically the same question when the whole purpose of defining 17th/18th century society as morally culpable is to force 21st century society to pay reparations.
Originally posted by mdijon:
OK, but I think we're on different questions.
I think you are answering "What is the maximum length of time after which a society's moral culpability is no longer inherited?".
The question I was originally asking was "How close to the present day does one need to get in order to view the society of the day as morally culpable for tolerating slavery including rape, murder and torture?"
quote:Hold on now, that's only a theory.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
... and homo sapiens were wrong to wipe out the neanderthals.
quote:Thank God for that. "Wrong" counts as an understatement of course, but since you apply it to all manner of other genocide and war crime at least that's consistent.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If all you want is a "they were wrong to do it" then I'll happily agree.
quote:What about when their descendants are still negatively impacted by the original crime? That means they, too, are victims. That is the basis of this action.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:When the victims are still alive.
Originally posted by mdijon:
No, what goes to the heart of the issue at play is when you think society would be morally culpable for tolerating kidnapping, false imprisonment, rape and torture. 100 years ago? 50 years back?
quote:There comes a point when the descendents can no longer claim that their lives are being directly and demonstrably affected by something that happened a considerable time ago. With slavery I think that point has long since passed.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What about when their descendants are still negatively impacted by the original crime? That means they, too, are victims. That is the basis of this action.
quote:And I think the evidence is clear that we are nowhere near that point.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:There comes a point when the descendents can no longer claim that their lives are being directly and demonstrably affected by something that happened a considerable time ago. With slavery I think that point has long since passed.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What about when their descendants are still negatively impacted by the original crime? That means they, too, are victims. That is the basis of this action.
quote:If that were the case though, wouldn't it be straightforward to point to the loss that is still being suffered by the remote descendants of slaves that is attributable to the atlantic slave trade? Yet I think we're agreed that in practical terms any such loss is unidentifiable and incapable of calculation.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:And I think the evidence is clear that we are nowhere near that point.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:There comes a point when the descendents can no longer claim that their lives are being directly and demonstrably affected by something that happened a considerable time ago. With slavery I think that point has long since passed.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What about when their descendants are still negatively impacted by the original crime? That means they, too, are victims. That is the basis of this action.
quote:Yeah, life is always simple and straightforward. Besides, I think we have pointed it out and that it is relatively straightforward.
Originally posted by Pottage:
If that were the case though, wouldn't it be straightforward to point to the loss that is still being suffered by the remote descendants of slaves that is attributable to the atlantic slave trade?
quote:No. The loss is identifiable and though it might be difficult to calculate precisely, it does not follow that no effort should be made.
Originally posted by Pottage:
Yet I think we're agreed that in practical terms any such loss is unidentifiable and incapable of calculation.
quote:If it is straightforward, and I have missed that, can you explain to me how it can be identified? Looking at CARICOM members with materially the same history and demographics as each other, some have per capita GDP figures that are comparable to Spain and Italy, others are more comparable to Albania. And then of course there's Haiti which has no comparables outside the poorest parts of Africa.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Yeah, life is always simple and straightforward. Besides, I think we have pointed it out and that it is relatively straightforward.
Originally posted by Pottage:
If that were the case though, wouldn't it be straightforward to point to the loss that is still being suffered by the remote descendants of slaves that is attributable to the atlantic slave trade?
quote:No. The loss is identifiable and though it might be difficult to calculate precisely, it does not follow that no effort should be made.
Originally posted by Pottage:
Yet I think we're agreed that in practical terms any such loss is unidentifiable and incapable of calculation.
quote:I wasn't disputing that: merely attempting to point out that lilbuddha's statement that it was allowed in the British Isles was not strictly correct. And the slaves who sued for their freedom under English and Scottish law were influential in the abolitionist movement, though you couldn't prove it from that film about William Wilberforce... (it didn't mention the Quakers much either).
By the way, British slavery carried on through to the 19th Century.
quote:Ah, but now you've changed the goal posts. "incapable of calculation" is not at all the same as "past the point where lives are being directly and demonstrably affected".
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:If that were the case though, wouldn't it be straightforward to point to the loss that is still being suffered by the remote descendants of slaves that is attributable to the atlantic slave trade? Yet I think we're agreed that in practical terms any such loss is unidentifiable and incapable of calculation.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:And I think the evidence is clear that we are nowhere near that point.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:There comes a point when the descendents can no longer claim that their lives are being directly and demonstrably affected by something that happened a considerable time ago. With slavery I think that point has long since passed.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What about when their descendants are still negatively impacted by the original crime? That means they, too, are victims. That is the basis of this action.
quote:Some of those who are pro-reparations may well believe that, however as a concept it was first brought up (alluded to) by the anti-reparations crowd claiming that slavery was the result of a bunch of private acts with no state support.
Originally posted by Russ:
Without wishing to encourage reckless over-
The claim here seems to be that part of the role of the state is a responsibility (to God ?) to pass legislation banning every conceivable evil that may be committed either within the territory or by residents of the territory
quote:And, again, it's not really about expecting some long-ago state to anticipate 21st c. morality. It's about us, today, in the 21st c., recognizing the way the current fiscal and development inequities present in the world today are built in part on that legacy of slavery. So that those of us in the 21st c., who should, presumably, be expected to have 21st c. understandings of the evil of slavery, should respond to the reality that our wealth is built on slave labor. Its about us, not them.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:Some of those who are pro-reparations may well believe that, however as a concept it was first brought up (alluded to) by the anti-reparations crowd claiming that slavery was the result of a bunch of private acts with no state support.
Originally posted by Russ:
Without wishing to encourage reckless over-
The claim here seems to be that part of the role of the state is a responsibility (to God ?) to pass legislation banning every conceivable evil that may be committed either within the territory or by residents of the territory
In any case, as was pointed out above, it wasn't a case of the state passively allowing a state of affairs to occur - it was complicit in enforcing that state of affairs.
quote:These reasons wouldn't apply to the CARICOM governments themselves, though - do you happen to know of any estimate they're working from? I wasn't able to find it on their website.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
However, I suspect the real problem-- and the reason that we rush so quickly to either "it's too far gone" or "it can't be done" is not because it IS incalculable, but rather because we fear it just might be. Because we greatly fear that if someone (and an economist may be able to do the hard work to just that) were able to accumulate and crunch the #s enough to offer some credible $$number to afix to the financial benefit still enjoyed by members of Western economies due to that investment of slave dollars, that we really, really wouldn't like the answer and what it might imply for our current level of comfort.
quote:Not true.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
However, I suspect the real problem-- and the reason that we rush so quickly to either "it's too far gone" or "it can't be done" is not because it IS incalculable, but rather because we fear it just might be.
quote:Whack. How dare you make me beat you like this. Whack. This is all your fault that I get so angry. Whack.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Eighteen of the world’s twenty poorest nations are in Africa, the continent originally responsible for the slave trade.
quote:I disagree that we are talking about different things. At least I disagree so long as we mean to discuss reparation payments as opposed to acknowledgement and apology for the historical evil.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Ah, but now you've changed the goal posts. "incapable of calculation" is not at all the same as "past the point where lives are being directly and demonstrably affected".
I believe that lives are still being directly and demonstrably affected both positively in the West (e.g. massive investment in infrastructure amassed during the time of slavery, built with slave dollars) and negatively in Africa and the Carribean (lack of infrastructure from the same period, due to the loss of prime wage earners). I would agree that exact calculation of the amount this is true will be difficult if not impossible.
However, I suspect the real problem-- and the reason that we rush so quickly to either "it's too far gone" or "it can't be done" is not because it IS incalculable, but rather because we fear it just might be. Because we greatly fear that if someone (and an economist may be able to do the hard work to just that) were able to accumulate and crunch the #s enough to offer some credible $$number to afix to the financial benefit still enjoyed by members of Western economies due to that investment of slave dollars, that we really, really wouldn't like the answer and what it might imply for our current level of comfort.
quote:OK, let's start there. Can you demonstrate that (a) Western infrastructure developments would not have happened without the slave trade, and (b) infrastructure developments in Africa/the Carribbean would have happened without the slave trade?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I believe that lives are still being directly and demonstrably affected both positively in the West (e.g. massive investment in infrastructure amassed during the time of slavery, built with slave dollars) and negatively in Africa and the Carribean (lack of infrastructure from the same period, due to the loss of prime wage earners).
quote:I'm not sure it would have made much difference either way, to be honest. The industrial revolution would still have happened.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Isn't there an argument that the human race as a whole would be better off (the global economy bigger) if slavery had never happened.
quote:I think the question is not would/would not the industrial revolution have happened-- clearly it would. The question, rather, is whether it would have happened in such an unequal way. If both resources & people had been distributed more evenly, rather than so concentrated in the West as a consequence of slavery, would development/ industrialization have been more widespread?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:I'm not sure it would have made much difference either way, to be honest. The industrial revolution would still have happened.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Isn't there an argument that the human race as a whole would be better off (the global economy bigger) if slavery had never happened.
Of course, if you take the extreme pro-reparations position and assume that the industrial revolution was only made possible in the first place because of slavery, then a good argument can be made that the global economy would have been much smaller now if slavery had never happened. I'm not arguing that point myself because I don't agree with the initial premise.
quote:We're assuming that the mass transportation of slaves didn't happen, that the European powers were united in their condemnation of slavery from the 15th, or at least the 16th century, but that nothing else changed?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If both resources & people had been distributed more evenly, rather than so concentrated in the West as a consequence of slavery, would development/ industrialization have been more widespread?
quote:This is about governments, nations and societies not individuals - and it's certainly not about you. You might be a lovely person to your black friends, but that's not the issue here.
Originally posted by Eliab:
What I hate about the reparations rhetoric is the implication that black and white are two distinct interest groups in competition with one another, that within those groups individuals are morally interchangeable, so that an injustice done to one can be remedied by reparation given to another, and the underlying assumption that there is some sort of inherited moral responsibility* for things that happened centuries before my birth, as a result of my national and racial identity. None of that helps me to see black people as just people. None of that shows up racism for the wicked stupidity that it is.
quote:When it comes to coughing up any money, it's individuals who will have to pay, though.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
This is about governments, nations and societies not individuals - and it's certainly not about you. You might be a lovely person to your black friends, but that's not the issue here.
quote:Probably not, no. The only difference I can see is that we would have had to pay people (probably not much) to grow our cotton/sugar/etc rather than using slaves - as indeed we did once slavery was abolished. There's absolutely no reason to assume that we'd have spread development or industry to other countries any more in the absence of slavery than we actually did in real history.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[qb]I think the question is not would/would not the industrial revolution have happened-- clearly it would. The question, rather, is whether it would have happened in such an unequal way. If both resources & people had been distributed more evenly, rather than so concentrated in the West as a consequence of slavery, would development/ industrialization have been more widespread?
quote:I don't agree with that. I would say that slavery was caused by racism, not the other way around.
Originally posted by Eliab:
If the view expressed on this thread that modern day racism is in part a legacy of slavery is taken as a given*, I would certainly say I am worse off for that.
quote:The question of which came first is an interesting one, but early colonial history is instructive. Many of the first workers on the plantations were poor whites. Some were formally indentured labourers, while some were actually abductees - the verb 'to kidnap' comes from the practice of kidnapping poor white British children and shipping them to the Americas. Poor whites in general were treated very poorly, sometimes no better than the black slaves. (And of course, for the Spanish and Portuguese, the first slaves they had in the Americas weren't black but native Indian. The point it, black people weren't the first choice.)
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:I don't agree with that. I would say that slavery was caused by racism, not the other way around.
Originally posted by Eliab:
If the view expressed on this thread that modern day racism is in part a legacy of slavery is taken as a given*, I would certainly say I am worse off for that.
quote:No, its pretty clear that modern so-called "scientific" racism was the product of mass-market chattel slavery.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:I don't agree with that. I would say that slavery was caused by racism, not the other way around.
Originally posted by Eliab:
If the view expressed on this thread that modern day racism is in part a legacy of slavery is taken as a given*, I would certainly say I am worse off for that.
quote:Well no, but ON Western Christendom....
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I haven't ever seen any stories about slave-raiding within Western Christendom. .
quote:The sentence of mine which you quote contains two facts.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:Whack. How dare you make me beat you like this. Whack. This is all your fault that I get so angry. Whack.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Eighteen of the world’s twenty poorest nations are in Africa, the continent originally responsible for the slave trade.
quote:It's not what we would have done differently-- it's what they would have done differently. To have an industrial revolution, you need to have a middle class. You need individuals who have sufficient leisure time and resources to think creatively about, say, practical uses for that new steam engine someone just invented. Probably a working class person (since they're closer to the work and more likely to see those practical applications) but still able to spend some time in the evenings tinkering, and some resources to buy the raw materials. In a nation or tribe where all of your prime wage earners have been transported elsewhere you're not going to have that happen. If you're spending 20 hours a day just scratching enough food outta the ground to survive, you're not going to have the means at your disposal to harness those new technologies or to come up with your own.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:Probably not, no. The only difference I can see is that we would have had to pay people (probably not much) to grow our cotton/sugar/etc rather than using slaves - as indeed we did once slavery was abolished. There's absolutely no reason to assume that we'd have spread development or industry to other countries any more in the absence of slavery than we actually did in real history.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I think the question is not would/would not the industrial revolution have happened-- clearly it would. The question, rather, is whether it would have happened in such an unequal way. If both resources & people had been distributed more evenly, rather than so concentrated in the West as a consequence of slavery, would development/ industrialization have been more widespread?
quote:You're right that the pro-claim argument only makes sense in the context of a view in which justice is seen as some sort of equity between classes of people.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
This is about governments, nations and societies not individuals.
quote:The government that supported slavery is gone. The society that supported slavery is gone. The nation that supported slavery does so no longer.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
This is about governments, nations and societies not individuals - and it's certainly not about you.
quote:I don't have 'black friends'. I have friends. Some of them have darker skin than others.
You might be a lovely person to your black friends, but that's not the issue here.
quote:Simply, categorically untrue.
Originally posted by Eliab:
I want a world where talking about 'black friends' as a category sounds about as significant as talking about my 'blonde friends'. Someone who thinks that certain nationalities inherit a responsibility for crimes committed by their forebears plainly does not want a world like that.
quote:While black people remain disproportionately disadvantaged on the world stage it's hard to argue convincingly that colour doesn't matter, and that black people should be quiet about their history. Turning a blind eye to the effects of the past on the present won't move things forward.
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:I don't have 'black friends'. I have friends. Some of them have darker skin than others.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
You might be a lovely person to your black friends, but that's not the issue here.
I want a world where talking about 'black friends' as a category sounds about as significant as talking about my 'blonde friends'. Someone who thinks that certain nationalities inherit a responsibility for crimes committed by their forebears plainly does not want a world like that.
quote:Hold on a second. A 5% boost to GDP (which I'm guessing is what you mean with your 5% figure) every year for decades is HUGE! For comparison, the downturn from the recent financial crisis shrank U.S. GDP by about 2.8% (in inflation-adjusted terms) in 2009 relative to 2008. That one year shrinkage nearly toppled the economy. And yet you claim that a decades (or centuries) long boost roughly equivalent to the post-war boom years of the U.S. economy is no big deal.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Furthermore, it is simply untrue to say that every improvement that happened at the time was "built with slave dollars". An estimate of the contribution of the slave trade to the British economy of the time seems to put it at around 5%: Reference link. That's not insignificant, but it's a very far cry from saying that all the benefits we enjoy today are due to slavery.
quote:It seems pretty unlikely that they mean slavery accounted for 5% annual GDP growth; that would imply that without slavery the UK would have been in steady decline from 1700-1831, when average annual growth was only 1.09% (from this BoE publication.)
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Hold on a second. A 5% boost to GDP (which I'm guessing is what you mean with your 5% figure) every year for decades is HUGE!
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Furthermore, it is simply untrue to say that every improvement that happened at the time was "built with slave dollars". An estimate of the contribution of the slave trade to the British economy of the time seems to put it at around 5%: Reference link. That's not insignificant, but it's a very far cry from saying that all the benefits we enjoy today are due to slavery.
quote:What makes you think that? Many countries have experienced far larger declines during the recent crises without coming anywhere near to economic collapse.
For comparison, the downturn from the recent financial crisis shrank U.S. GDP by about 2.8% (in inflation-adjusted terms) in 2009 relative to 2008. That one year shrinkage nearly toppled the economy.
quote:Correlation is not causation. Even when it is potentially an element of causation, there are many others.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Eighteen of the world’s twenty poorest nations are in Africa, the continent originally responsible for the slave trade.
quote:True basically you'd have to account for opportunity cost, i.e. how much GDP they could have earned (and I'm not sure how good GDP is with self sustenance so possibly need to add a correcting factor).
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:It seems pretty unlikely that they mean slavery accounted for 5% annual GDP growth; that would imply that without slavery the UK would have been in steady decline from 1700-1831, when average annual growth was only 1.09% (from this BoE publication.)
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Hold on a second. A 5% boost to GDP (which I'm guessing is what you mean with your 5% figure) every year for decades is HUGE!
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Furthermore, it is simply untrue to say that every improvement that happened at the time was "built with slave dollars". An estimate of the contribution of the slave trade to the British economy of the time seems to put it at around 5%: Reference link. That's not insignificant, but it's a very far cry from saying that all the benefits we enjoy today are due to slavery.
quote:What makes you think that? Many countries have experienced far larger declines during the recent crises without coming anywhere near to economic collapse.
For comparison, the downturn from the recent financial crisis shrank U.S. GDP by about 2.8% (in inflation-adjusted terms) in 2009 relative to 2008. That one year shrinkage nearly toppled the economy.
quote:Is there any reason at all to presume that the African societies of the time - which were largely tribal and undeveloped - would have come anywhere near having an industrial revolution of their own had slavery not happened? It didn't happen in any comparable countries that weren't affected by slavery.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It's not what we would have done differently-- it's what they would have done differently. To have an industrial revolution, you need to have a middle class. You need individuals who have sufficient leisure time and resources to think creatively about, say, practical uses for that new steam engine someone just invented. Probably a working class person (since they're closer to the work and more likely to see those practical applications) but still able to spend some time in the evenings tinkering, and some resources to buy the raw materials. In a nation or tribe where all of your prime wage earners have been transported elsewhere you're not going to have that happen. If you're spending 20 hours a day just scratching enough food outta the ground to survive, you're not going to have the means at your disposal to harness those new technologies or to come up with your own.
quote:5% of the economy as a whole. And if that's huge then the other 95% must be gargantuan, which in itself makes the claim that slavery was the only thing paying for our industrial development incorrect.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Hold on a second. A 5% boost to GDP (which I'm guessing is what you mean with your 5% figure) every year for decades is HUGE!
quote:If you click on the grey bar to the right of the page it takes you to the next one.
BTW, since I can only see the first page of your linked article, does the 5% figure cited as proceeds from "the slave trade" only apply to revenue directly derived from the buying and selling of slaves, or does it also cover the work-product forcibly extracted from slaves?
quote:An alternative analysis, though not quite so brief or easily digestible. But it's interesting because in its treatment of other works it provides a summary of the debate on whether or not the transatlantic slave trade underpinned the industrial revolution so substantially that it wouldn't otherwise have occurred at all or in the same form.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
A brief, easily digestible overview of the importance of the Triangle trade slavery to Europeans and Americans.
I case anyone might miss it, there is a link contained somewhere in the previous sentence.
quote:Someone who wants representatives of one race to pay compensation to representatives of another, by definition does not want a society where race doesn't matter. They want to have certain rights and responsibilities to be assigned contingent on race.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We all long for a society where race truly doesn't matter, just as you affirm.
quote:The thing is, I don't think there is a “they” to whom the history of slavery belongs. I don't see why the paleness of my skin, and the possibility that I might share a small part of my DNA with an eighteenth century bastard, prevents me from having any response to the accounts of historical wickedness that someone with a slightly higher level of melanin (and, possibly, on average a slightly higher chance of counting said eighteenth century bastard as their ancestor) might have.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
While black people remain disproportionately disadvantaged on the world stage it's hard to argue convincingly that colour doesn't matter, and that black people should be quiet about their history.
quote:No, they want compensation for the crime of slavery, not just because they're a different race. One can disagree with the claim, but it doesn't depend on racial identity - slavery would also have been wrong if both slaves and slavers had been the same race.
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:Someone who wants representatives of one race to pay compensation to representatives of another, by definition does not want a society where race doesn't matter. They want to have certain rights and responsibilities to be assigned contingent on race.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We all long for a society where race truly doesn't matter, just as you affirm.
quote:So the tax pounds of working class Black Britons will be paid (perhaps indirectly) to wealthy white Cayman Islanders?
Originally posted by Dave W.:
No, they want compensation for the crime of slavery, not just because they're a different race. One can disagree with the claim, but it doesn't depend on racial identity - slavery would also have been wrong if both slaves and slavers had been the same race.
quote:Well, sometime in the distant past of this thread I made the point that the government of any given Caribbean country is not merely representing people that are descended from slaves. They represent white people who, I'm assuming, do not come from slave families, as well as people of colour whose personal ancestry does not include slavery.
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:No, they want compensation for the crime of slavery, not just because they're a different race. One can disagree with the claim, but it doesn't depend on racial identity - slavery would also have been wrong if both slaves and slavers had been the same race.
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:Someone who wants representatives of one race to pay compensation to representatives of another, by definition does not want a society where race doesn't matter. They want to have certain rights and responsibilities to be assigned contingent on race.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We all long for a society where race truly doesn't matter, just as you affirm.
quote:I an others have already pointed this out, under the heading of "practical difficulties." It's one of a large number of issues under that category. But it doesn't change the underlying moral issue, just makes any resolution more complicated.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:So the tax pounds of working class Black Britons will be paid (perhaps indirectly) to wealthy white Cayman Islanders?
Originally posted by Dave W.:
No, they want compensation for the crime of slavery, not just because they're a different race. One can disagree with the claim, but it doesn't depend on racial identity - slavery would also have been wrong if both slaves and slavers had been the same race.
quote:Obviously that's not true. If industrial revolution didn't happen in any countries that had slavery and also didn't happen in any countries that didn't have slavery, then there would have been no industrial revolution. Your statement hinges on the use of the qualifier "comparable"-- I'm not sure what a "comparable" country would be in this scenario-- a country not affected by colonialism and slavery, one w/ no loss of resources or prime wage-earners, where there was no industrial advancement building on the ones in Europe.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Is there any reason at all to presume that the African societies of the time - which were largely tribal and undeveloped - would have come anywhere near having an industrial revolution of their own had slavery not happened? It didn't happen in any comparable countries that weren't affected by slavery.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It's not what we would have done differently-- it's what they would have done differently. To have an industrial revolution, you need to have a middle class. You need individuals who have sufficient leisure time and resources to think creatively about, say, practical uses for that new steam engine someone just invented. Probably a working class person (since they're closer to the work and more likely to see those practical applications) but still able to spend some time in the evenings tinkering, and some resources to buy the raw materials. In a nation or tribe where all of your prime wage earners have been transported elsewhere you're not going to have that happen. If you're spending 20 hours a day just scratching enough food outta the ground to survive, you're not going to have the means at your disposal to harness those new technologies or to come up with your own.
quote:This is getting close to a hell call.
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:Someone who wants representatives of one race to pay compensation to representatives of another, by definition does not want a society where race doesn't matter. They want to have certain rights and responsibilities to be assigned contingent on race.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We all long for a society where race truly doesn't matter, just as you affirm.
I'm not going to call that 'racist' in the crude sense, because it clearly isn't motivated by prejudice but has some sort of ethic of justice in mind (albeit not one that I share). But it is quite obviously opposed to the agenda I want, which is complete indifference to race. I do not want to have to know, notice or care what colour your skin is.
quote:But, as noted above in the "practical difficulties", this isn't just about race at this point. You have persons of both races living in the Caribbean, Africa, US and Europe. In the US anyway you have a large population of mixed-race persons whose ancestors (for very sad reasons) include both slaveholders and slaves. My own ancestors immigrated to the US around 50 years after emancipation.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Well, sometime in the distant past of this thread I made the point that the government of any given Caribbean country is not merely representing people that are descended from slaves. They represent white people who, I'm assuming, do not come from slave families, as well as people of colour whose personal ancestry does not include slavery.
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:No, they want compensation for the crime of slavery, not just because they're a different race. One can disagree with the claim, but it doesn't depend on racial identity - slavery would also have been wrong if both slaves and slavers had been the same race.
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:Someone who wants representatives of one race to pay compensation to representatives of another, by definition does not want a society where race doesn't matter. They want to have certain rights and responsibilities to be assigned contingent on race.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We all long for a society where race truly doesn't matter, just as you affirm.
There is a definite tendency to just lump large, heterogenous groups of people together. And even the word 'they' that we're using a lot tends to do that - it's amazing how people can get through a conversation (not, I emphasise just this one) without needing to articulate exactly who 'they' are. It's a great all-purpose word for labelling without defining.
quote:Did Nelson Mandela call for reparations from former slave-owning countries to former slave colonies? Did he call for (or enact) any similar scheme of reparations in post-Apartheid South Africa?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Again, we all want a race-blind society. The difference is, can we get there by simply ignoring the past and trying to push a reset button? Or, as Mandela suggested, is the way to get there by naming, acknowledging, and responding to the racial sins of the past?
To suggest that those who agree with Mandela that the way forward is by dealing with the past don't share your desire for a race-blind society is absurdly unfair.
quote:A committee was appointed to consider this and make recommendations to the government
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Did Nelson Mandela call for reparations from former slave-owning countries to former slave colonies? Did he call for (or enact) any similar scheme of reparations in post-Apartheid South Africa?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Again, we all want a race-blind society. The difference is, can we get there by simply ignoring the past and trying to push a reset button? Or, as Mandela suggested, is the way to get there by naming, acknowledging, and responding to the racial sins of the past?
To suggest that those who agree with Mandela that the way forward is by dealing with the past don't share your desire for a race-blind society is absurdly unfair.
quote:See Erroneous' link. The point is that he felt the "truth and reconciliation" councils were essential before moving on.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Did Nelson Mandela call for reparations from former slave-owning countries to former slave colonies? Did he call for (or enact) any similar scheme of reparations in post-Apartheid South Africa?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Again, we all want a race-blind society. The difference is, can we get there by simply ignoring the past and trying to push a reset button? Or, as Mandela suggested, is the way to get there by naming, acknowledging, and responding to the racial sins of the past?
To suggest that those who agree with Mandela that the way forward is by dealing with the past don't share your desire for a race-blind society is absurdly unfair.
quote:
...faith slavery “does not fit the historical master narrative that people in the United States and Europe tend to assume.”
“This narrative holds that from Columbus’ time until the 20th century, history was largely about European colonial expansion, with the imposition of white, European, Christian power on much of the world,”....
“This story of faith slavery does not fit that narrative. The idea that triumphant Europeans were not everywhere inflicting their dominance on others seems counter-intuitive,”... "during this centuries-long struggle between nearly equal empires, millions of European Christians ended up enslaved in Muslim hands.”
quote:We're talking about a decision that would ideally be made by a society and its politicians and intellectuals exploring the issue together and coming to a decision that would be carried out by the government. It wouldn't be based on you and your whiteness, or you and your particular set of ancestors. British citizens, voters, lawmakers and taxpayers come in all colours and have a variety of bloodlines.
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:The thing is, I don't think there is a “they” to whom the history of slavery belongs. I don't see why the paleness of my skin, and the possibility that I might share a small part of my DNA with an eighteenth century bastard, prevents me from having any response to the accounts of historical wickedness that someone with a slightly higher level of melanin (and, possibly, on average a slightly higher chance of counting said eighteenth century bastard as their ancestor) might have.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
While black people remain disproportionately disadvantaged on the world stage it's hard to argue convincingly that colour doesn't matter, and that black people should be quiet about their history.
quote:We've discussed the moral principles, and while it's just to reclaim identifiable stolen goods from those who are not morally culpable, stolen cash can only be reclaimed from the guilty party, because as soon as it is mixed with any of his/her own money it becomes unidentifiable. You can't reclaim cash from descendants, and if when you find the thief he's still alive but bankrupt then you don't have a moral right to reclaim cash he doesn't have from those who are choosing to support him in his bankruptcy.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The basis for reparations would be the inequalities that result from living in a society that has either benefitted from or has been harmed financially by slavery. It's not about punishing you for your ancestor's sins, it's about repaying stolen goods. Everyone living in the US or Europe, regardless of when or how they got there, has benefited from living in the society with a massive infrastructure built with slave money.
Again, all of the above causes immense, possibly insurmountable, practical difficulties. But that doesn't change the underlying moral issues.
quote:You are confusing moral right with legal right here. One can have a moral obligation w/o necessarily having a legal obligation.
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:We've discussed the moral principles, and while it's just to reclaim identifiable stolen goods from those who are not morally culpable, stolen cash can only be reclaimed from the guilty party, because as soon as it is mixed with any of his/her own money it becomes unidentifiable. You can't reclaim cash from descendants, and if when you find the thief he's still alive but bankrupt then you don't have a moral right to reclaim cash he doesn't have from those who are choosing to support him in his bankruptcy...
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The basis for reparations would be the inequalities that result from living in a society that has either benefitted from or has been harmed financially by slavery. It's not about punishing you for your ancestor's sins, it's about repaying stolen goods. Everyone living in the US or Europe, regardless of when or how they got there, has benefited from living in the society with a massive infrastructure built with slave money.
Again, all of the above causes immense, possibly insurmountable, practical difficulties. But that doesn't change the underlying moral issues.
You're right that it's better to try to distinguish arguments of moral principle from problems of practicality, but if there isn't a clear moral argument in the case of simple crimes like theft and assault then there's no point pretending that there's an unequivocal moral case in more complex situations.
Or am I missing something here ?
Best wishes,
Russ
quote:Yes. My point.
Originally posted by Gee D:
Any debt incurred by the deceased is (or at least should be) paid before distribution of the assets. On occasions, the debts may be more than the estate value, and the estate is administered in bankruptcy.
quote:Well, I think there's an element of heterogeneity in the 'society' you're calling the US. There's probably some disparity in Europe as well, but certainly I wouldn't think that the US is all one monolithic 'society', all of which that has benefited from slave history.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:But, as noted above in the "practical difficulties", this isn't just about race at this point. You have persons of both races living in the Caribbean, Africa, US and Europe. In the US anyway you have a large population of mixed-race persons whose ancestors (for very sad reasons) include both slaveholders and slaves. My own ancestors immigrated to the US around 50 years after emancipation.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Well, sometime in the distant past of this thread I made the point that the government of any given Caribbean country is not merely representing people that are descended from slaves. They represent white people who, I'm assuming, do not come from slave families, as well as people of colour whose personal ancestry does not include slavery.
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:No, they want compensation for the crime of slavery, not just because they're a different race. One can disagree with the claim, but it doesn't depend on racial identity - slavery would also have been wrong if both slaves and slavers had been the same race.
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:Someone who wants representatives of one race to pay compensation to representatives of another, by definition does not want a society where race doesn't matter. They want to have certain rights and responsibilities to be assigned contingent on race.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We all long for a society where race truly doesn't matter, just as you affirm.
There is a definite tendency to just lump large, heterogenous groups of people together. And even the word 'they' that we're using a lot tends to do that - it's amazing how people can get through a conversation (not, I emphasise just this one) without needing to articulate exactly who 'they' are. It's a great all-purpose word for labelling without defining.
The basis for reparations would be the inequalities that result from living in a society that has either benefitted from or has been harmed financially by slavery. It's not about punishing you for your ancestor's sins, it's about repaying stolen goods. Everyone living in the US or Europe, regardless of when or how they got there, has benefited from living in the society with a massive infrastructure built with slave money.
Again, all of the above causes immense, possibly insurmountable, practical difficulties. But that doesn't change the underlying moral issues.
quote:The industrial revolution pretty much only happened in Britain, and the technology that resulted from it spread to other similarly-developed countries over the following decades. My assertion is that there's no reason to suppose it would have been spread in any major way to a no-slavery Africa, and as it (rather than slavery) was the primary cause of increased wealth in Europe/America there is therefore no reason to claim that the only reason real-world Africa is poor is because of slavery.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:Obviously that's not true. If industrial revolution didn't happen in any countries that had slavery and also didn't happen in any countries that didn't have slavery, then there would have been no industrial revolution.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Is there any reason at all to presume that the African societies of the time - which were largely tribal and undeveloped - would have come anywhere near having an industrial revolution of their own had slavery not happened? It didn't happen in any comparable countries that weren't affected by slavery.
quote:"Comparable" means "similar to pre-slavery Africa" in the context in which I used it. There are many countries in (the rest of) Africa, the Middle East and Asia that fit the bill.
Your statement hinges on the use of the qualifier "comparable"-- I'm not sure what a "comparable" country would be in this scenario-- a country not affected by colonialism and slavery, one w/ no loss of resources or prime wage-earners, where there was no industrial advancement building on the ones in Europe.
quote:If you follow my argument, the benefit of slavery has nothing to do with bloodlines. It has to do with an economy that has a massive infrastructure (roads, schools, etc) built with slave dollars. I would guess the number of Americans today who can trace their lineage to slaveowners would be less than the majority (as I mentioned, my own ancestors immigrated post-emancipation), and many African Americans would have both slaveowners and slaves in their lineage. But everyone currently living in America benefits economically from living in a country with that massive infrastructure that was built using those slave dollars.
Originally posted by orfeo:
]Well, I think there's an element of heterogeneity in the 'society' you're calling the US. There's probably some disparity in Europe as well, but certainly I wouldn't think that the US is all one monolithic 'society', all of which that has benefited from slave history.
It's not even the case that slavery was applied equally across the United States.
quote:It's like people aren't even reading my posts. I guess having a good soundbite is more important than the truth.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
built with slave dollars.
quote:Is the figure of 5% I quoted earlier in the week as the proportion of the British economy that was made up by revenues from slavery in doubt? Because "built with slave dollars" implies that the things were entirely financed by - and simply would not exist without - slave dollars, rather than the actual case that slave dollars contributed towards a fraction of their overall cost.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ISTM, you have not revealed a TRUTH, but an interpretation.
quote:A distraction? I'd say it's central to any serious discussion of the alleged productivity and economic growth that was 'stolen' from African countries by the slave trade.
And the whole industrial revolution tangent is more a distraction than a case builder, regardless.
quote:Prior posters with more background in economics than I have addressed the impact 5% would have on the overall British economy. I and others have addressed the economic impact of slavery in the American economy (which can be traced to British colonialism, although obviously from 1776 on it's ours alone). Perhaps you'd like to go back to their posts and answer/address their response rather than pout that no one's responding?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Is the figure of 5% I quoted earlier in the week as the proportion of the British economy that was made up by revenues from slavery in doubt? Because "built with slave dollars" implies that the things were entirely financed by - and simply would not exist without - slave dollars, rather than the actual case that slave dollars contributed towards a fraction of their overall cost.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ISTM, you have not revealed a TRUTH, but an interpretation.
quote:So I can surmise then that you have no problem with the notion of 5% of British GNP going to reparations?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
5% is 5%. It leaves 95% as the remainder. Would it have made infrastructure investment a bit easier? Yes. Would it have been the sole driver of infrastructure investment as you are claiming? No.
quote:That applies if the victim catches up with the thief after he dies but before the money is distributed to the heirs. Once the inheritance has happened, you can't undo it. It's not the act of dying that makes a difference, it's the money passing from the guilty person (who has a moral obligation to return it) to somebody innocent (who doesn't).
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I may be mistaken, but I believe that even speaking in terms of legal rights/obligations (at least in US estate law) that if someone dies before having repaid stolen cash, the victims can sue the estate so that the funds will be deducted from the inheritance. There's no moral culpability on the heirs-- they certainly wouldn't be charged with any criminal offense, no matter how heinous the crime their ancestor committed. Yet they still would not be allowed to inherit/benefit from those ill-gotten gains. That would seem to be applicable here.
quote:If you read the bit you've quoted, it says nothing about bloodlines.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:If you follow my argument, the benefit of slavery has nothing to do with bloodlines. It has to do with an economy that has a massive infrastructure (roads, schools, etc) built with slave dollars. I would guess the number of Americans today who can trace their lineage to slaveowners would be less than the majority (as I mentioned, my own ancestors immigrated post-emancipation), and many African Americans would have both slaveowners and slaves in their lineage. But everyone currently living in America benefits economically from living in a country with that massive infrastructure that was built using those slave dollars.
Originally posted by orfeo:
]Well, I think there's an element of heterogeneity in the 'society' you're calling the US. There's probably some disparity in Europe as well, but certainly I wouldn't think that the US is all one monolithic 'society', all of which that has benefited from slave history.
It's not even the case that slavery was applied equally across the United States.
Obviously slavery was not applied equally across the US. But, as Lincoln detailed in one of his speeches (2nd inaugural? Can't remember) the North benefitted economically from slavery as well as the South. Southern economic prosperity meant lower taxes fro the north, lower prices for goods like cotton and tobacco, etc. Lincoln (whose theology veered toward the dark) even feared that God might require the bloody war to continue for more than a century to atone for every year that slavery had existed and benefitted both sides.
quote:What appears to be controversial or difficult for you, again, is the distinction between moral obligation and legal obligation. In every instance above where you use the phrase "moral obligation" it is quite clear that you mean, rather, legal obligation. I am not disputing the legalities here, but would vehemently argue your constant conflating of the two to suggest that our (whether corporate or individual) moral obligation is limited to that which we are obligated to under the law (of any country).
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:That applies if the victim catches up with the thief after he dies but before the money is distributed to the heirs. Once the inheritance has happened, you can't undo it. It's not the act of dying that makes a difference, it's the money passing from the guilty person (who has a moral obligation to return it) to somebody innocent (who doesn't).
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I may be mistaken, but I believe that even speaking in terms of legal rights/obligations (at least in US estate law) that if someone dies before having repaid stolen cash, the victims can sue the estate so that the funds will be deducted from the inheritance. There's no moral culpability on the heirs-- they certainly wouldn't be charged with any criminal offense, no matter how heinous the crime their ancestor committed. Yet they still would not be allowed to inherit/benefit from those ill-gotten gains. That would seem to be applicable here.
If someone steals money from you and runs off to another country, what you can legally recover depends on the laws of that country. What you should be able to recover - what you can morally claim - is the full amount he stole, if the thief or his estate has it, but nothing of what others have. If the thief arrived in that country with your money and a similar amount of his own money, but everything he had is now all in the hands of his bookie, his wine merchant, his mistress, his daughter, and the charity he made a deathbed bequest to, then you don't have right to claim money from any of them. Because you can't show that any of the transactions involved the specific money he stole from you. And if you can't take your pound of flesh without taking one drop of blood that you're not owed, then morally you have to forgo it.
Doesn't seem particularly controversial or difficult.
Best wishes,
Russ
quote:I thought that's what you meant when you reference the "element of heterogeneity". What was your point, then?
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:If you read the bit you've quoted, it says nothing about bloodlines.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by orfeo:
[qb]]Well, I think there's an element of heterogeneity in the 'society' you're calling the US. There's probably some disparity in Europe as well, but certainly I wouldn't think that the US is all one monolithic 'society', all of which that has benefited from slave history.
It's not even the case that slavery was applied equally across the United States.
quote:All of which, once again, seems to belong in the category of practical difficulties rather than moral obligation.
Originally posted by orfeo:
And okay, so you can argue that the north benefitted from the situation in the south. Why stop there? Why not investigate all the other places in the world that benefitted from being able to trade with a more prosperous north? And the benefits that other places got from THOSE places?
It's probably entirely possible to construct an explanation of how my forebears in Australia in the 1840s benefitted from the existence of slavery in America.
quote:agree
Originally posted by orfeo:
Poor countries should be helped because they need help now. Rich countries should help poor countries because there's considerable self-interest in doing so.
quote:Possibly true. The whole field of diplomatic/ international relations and the manifold political aspects of foreign aid is entirely outside my wheelhouse. But I'm not sure it's for us (those of us in the rich country) to say.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Poor countries would be far better advised to show rich countries what's in it for them, rather than trying to engage in a guilt trip.
quote:That I don't think the USA is a uniform society. Especially not after having visited parts of it last year.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What was your point, then?
quote:I don't disagree with any of that (my own state would really be at least 3 very distinct regions), but have no idea how it is relevant to this discussion. What is your point, as pertains to the topic of reparations?
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:That I don't think the USA is a uniform society. Especially not after having visited parts of it last year.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What was your point, then?
And yes, some of the fault lines are along racial lines, but there's a lot more to it than that. A concept like the 'nine nations of North America' divides the USA into a lot of component parts.
quote:The infrastructure is all interrelated though. The whole exploration and settlement of the West, for example, occurred prior to emancipation-- an exploration/settlement aided and in many ways directly or indirectly funded by the federal govt-- which was (as Lincoln noted in the speech I referenced earlier) heavily subsidized by Southern slavery.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, for example, what contribution do you think that slave labour made to the development of the Pacific Northwest's infrastructure, given that most of that area's significant infrastructure postdates slavery by several decades?
quote:You know, I think you are correct.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:A distraction? I'd say it's central to any serious discussion of the alleged productivity and economic growth that was 'stolen' from African countries by the slave trade.
And the whole industrial revolution tangent is more a distraction than a case builder, regardless.
quote:No, not "the whole" exploration/settlement. That's my point. Having recently been to that part of the world, I was struck by how much of its development and growth didn't happen until closer to the year 1900. Look at absolutely crucial things like the transcontinental railways and they postdate slavery.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:The infrastructure is all interrelated though. The whole exploration and settlement of the West, for example, occurred prior to emancipation-- an exploration/settlement aided and in many ways directly or indirectly funded by the federal govt-- which was (as Lincoln noted in the speech I referenced earlier) heavily subsidized by Southern slavery.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, for example, what contribution do you think that slave labour made to the development of the Pacific Northwest's infrastructure, given that most of that area's significant infrastructure postdates slavery by several decades?
quote:I agree with this.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I still think, though, that this whole approach of finding the source of an obligation to help in the existence of past wrongs - either by demonstrating one side's losses or the other side's gains - is a fruitless exercise that's far less effective than pointing out the current situation without trying to attribute it to causes created by long-dead ancestors.
Poor countries should be helped because they need help now. Rich countries should help poor countries because there's considerable self-interest in doing so. Poor countries would be far better advised to show rich countries what's in it for them, rather than trying to engage in a guilt trip.
quote:It depends. If there are living victims of injustice, there'll also be live issues to be addressed (which is the case in South Africa). If we're talking about historic wrongs so far back that you'd struggle to find a old person whose great-grandparents were involved in the slave trade, then concentrating on the present day and (for the purpose of assessing extant moral obligations, not for historical study generally) ignoring the past is not only possible but obvious.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Again, we all want a race-blind society. The difference is, can we get there by simply ignoring the past and trying to push a reset button? Or, as Mandela suggested, is the way to get there by naming, acknowledging, and responding to the racial sins of the past?
quote:I have no problem with you claiming that 5% of the infrastructure that was built at the time can be said to have been built "with slave dollars". Let's start there.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:So I can surmise then that you have no problem with the notion of 5% of British GNP going to reparations?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
5% is 5%. It leaves 95% as the remainder. Would it have made infrastructure investment a bit easier? Yes. Would it have been the sole driver of infrastructure investment as you are claiming? No.
quote:That wasn't the statistic. Not all GDP is spent on infrastructure.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:I have no problem with you claiming that 5% of the infrastructure that was built at the time can be said to have been built "with slave dollars". Let's start there.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So I can surmise then that you have no problem with the notion of 5% of British GNP going to reparations?
quote:I'm glad you visited our fair state. I was born and have lived all my life in California-- which became a state (not a territory, not an isolated outpost) 14 years before the civil war (although that, I'll grant you, was more about gold money than slave dollars).
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:No, not "the whole" exploration/settlement. That's my point. Having recently been to that part of the world, I was struck by how much of its development and growth didn't happen until closer to the year 1900. Look at absolutely crucial things like the transcontinental railways and they postdate slavery.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:The infrastructure is all interrelated though. The whole exploration and settlement of the West, for example, occurred prior to emancipation-- an exploration/settlement aided and in many ways directly or indirectly funded by the federal govt-- which was (as Lincoln noted in the speech I referenced earlier) heavily subsidized by Southern slavery.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, for example, what contribution do you think that slave labour made to the development of the Pacific Northwest's infrastructure, given that most of that area's significant infrastructure postdates slavery by several decades?
quote:Your visit to my state appears to have been faulty. There was waaaay more than just a few wagons in Calfiornia during the first half of the 19th c. If the federal government had not funded exploration there wouldn't have been anyplace to put infrastructure on. And of course, the forced suppression and relocation of the native population was necessary for that settlement-- a suppression funded by the federal government (as well as, of course, yet another opportunity for costly and complicated reparations).
Originally posted by orfeo:
PS And the whole reason I said 'infrastructure' and not 'exploration/settlement' was because a bunch of wagons turning up somewhere isn't 'infrastructure'.
quote:I have a very old grandmother still living who has given me the name and some details of one of her African ancestors who was a slave. Before he died a few years ago, my grandfather told me the name of his European ancestor who arrived in the Americas in the 19th century during the era of slavery. I've confirmed that this man did exist, when he left the British Isles and what he was doing beforehand. Oral accounts are very useful for family history, and they can be used when looking for written documentation.
Originally posted by Eliab:
If there are living victims of injustice, there'll also be live issues to be addressed (which is the case in South Africa). If we're talking about historic wrongs so far back that you'd struggle to find a old person whose great-grandparents were involved in the slave trade, then concentrating on the present day and (for the purpose of assessing extant moral obligations, not for historical study generally) ignoring the past is not only possible but obvious.
I don't see that 'naming and acknowledging' slavery is a big deal. Not only does just about everyone now alive in the UK think that slavery is evil, no one could possibly be under the impression that it were otherwise. This is a case where we can all just move on.
quote:No, I make a clear distinction between the statutes of any particular country and the moral obligation to uphold natural justice. Sure, my idea of natural justice is heavily influenced by English "common law" - nobody's perfect - but so far you've said nothing to make me question that idea of justice.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:What appears to be controversial or difficult for you, again, is the distinction between moral obligation and legal obligation. In every instance above where you use the phrase "moral obligation" it is quite clear that you mean, rather, legal obligation. I am not disputing the legalities here, but would vehemently argue your constant conflating of the two to suggest that our (whether corporate or individual) moral obligation is limited to that which we are obligated to under the law (of any country)...
Originally posted by Russ:
If someone steals money from you and runs off to another country, what you can legally recover depends on the laws of that country. What you should be able to recover - what you can morally claim - is the full amount he stole, if the thief or his estate has it, but nothing of what others have. If the thief arrived in that country with your money and a similar amount of his own money, but everything he had is now all in the hands of his bookie, his wine merchant, his mistress, his daughter, and the charity he made a deathbed bequest to, then you don't have right to claim money from any of them.
..the moral principle we are suggesting here-- that heirs should not profit from the ill-gotten gains of their evil ancestors. The fact that the legal obligation ends once the estate is settled would seem to me to be as much a practical matter as anything-- obviously, as both you and I have pointed out, once the funds are co-mingled it gets very hard to sort out what is what. (All of which has been dealt with on this thread under the substantial discussions of "practical difficulties").
quote:All one long extended strawman argument.
Originally posted by Russ:
Or is it that you think the idea of inheriting anything is immoral because it's "unearned income" and so anyone who inherits anything is fair game ?
In my hypothetical example, suppose that there are no "practical difficulties" in knowing which banknote went where. If some of the stolen money went on crates of champagne, do you really think that the wine merchant becomes morally responsible for repaying the victim ?
Are you saying that if you had a crystal ball that would show you exactly what the world would have been like if the crime had not been committed, then everyone has a moral obligation to make the world as much like that as they can ? And the absence of the crystal ball is a mere practical difficulty that doesn't affect the morality of the action ?
If your crystal ball showed you that I would have been killed in a car accident if the car had not fortuitously been stolen, would that then make it moral to kill me ?
quote:well, now that you ask....
Originally posted by Russ:
You seem to be using the word "moral" to mean something else. A moral obligation not to profit from evil? So all the lawyers in the world are immoral ?
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
quote:First time I've ever heard someone call California part of the Pacific Northwest. I wasn't talking about California, and I've got no idea why you think I was.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:I'm glad you visited our fair state. I was born and have lived all my life in California-- which became a state (not a territory, not an isolated outpost) 14 years before the civil war (although that, I'll grant you, was more about gold money than slave dollars).
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:No, not "the whole" exploration/settlement. That's my point. Having recently been to that part of the world, I was struck by how much of its development and growth didn't happen until closer to the year 1900. Look at absolutely crucial things like the transcontinental railways and they postdate slavery.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:The infrastructure is all interrelated though. The whole exploration and settlement of the West, for example, occurred prior to emancipation-- an exploration/settlement aided and in many ways directly or indirectly funded by the federal govt-- which was (as Lincoln noted in the speech I referenced earlier) heavily subsidized by Southern slavery.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, for example, what contribution do you think that slave labour made to the development of the Pacific Northwest's infrastructure, given that most of that area's significant infrastructure postdates slavery by several decades?
Exploration and settlement of the entire West was ongoing, but quite a the bulk was done prior to the Civl War. The transcontinental railroad was built during (not after) the Civil War-- and has it's own sad story of labor exploitation.
quote:While the gold rush gave California a significant head start, for the most part it was all part of the same westward expansion, financed by government investment in an army (to suppress/forcably remove the native residents) and the transatlantic railroad. I mentioned my 50 yrs living in California simply to indicate that I might have a bit more knowledge of the settlement of the West than you got on a single vacation.
Originally posted by orfeo:
First time I've ever heard someone call California part of the Pacific Northwest. I wasn't talking about California, and I've got no idea why you think I was.
quote:That's not the point of this discussion, though. No one's arguing against your family's right, if it wishes, to preserve the names and stories of the victims of slavery. What their personal histories mean to you really is up to you. I neither get nor want a say in that.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
However, the impression I'm getting is that though you've heard about the awfulness of the Transatlantic slave trade you're never really considered what it might mean to the descendants of those slaves. This is a big gap in your awareness, really, because it makes it difficult for you to understand the resulting spirituality, culture, lifestyles, family structures and other aspects of everyday life that come into play for these people.
quote:If you are reading resentment into my posts, then there is basically nothing I can do about the impression you think I am giving. I don't think there's anything I've written to suggest resentment, because it hadn't even occurred to me that I might feel any. Against whom? For what?
You don't have to be interested in these things, of course, but it makes it hard for your protestations to appear informed if you're not. You end up just sounding resentful towards people, which undermines your claims of wanting to 'move on' - and also leaves a slightly bitter taste in the mouths of those who are following your arguments. You don't have to be in favour of reparations, but stop and think about the impression you're giving.
quote:If I'm arguing against a POV that you don't hold, then maybe that's because you're not stating (clearly enough to cross the gulf of misunderstanding) the moral principles you do hold ?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
one long extended strawman argument.
quote:Resentful of CARICOM and any other black people who haven't 'moved on'? After all, if it wasn't for them you wouldn't have to think about what you find to be an utterly distasteful subject.
Originally posted by Eliab:
If you are reading resentment into my posts, then there is basically nothing I can do about the impression you think I am giving. I don't think there's anything I've written to suggest resentment, because it hadn't even occurred to me that I might feel any. Against whom? For what?
quote:I find that when one is on vacation, one has a tendency to pay rather more attention to museum exhibits and historical buildings and to things like wall plaques on the sides of buildings than when one is just going about daily business... although I will admit the wall plaques part was in Vancouver.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:While the gold rush gave California a significant head start, for the most part it was all part of the same westward expansion, financed by government investment in an army (to suppress/forcably remove the native residents) and the transatlantic railroad. I mentioned my 50 yrs living in California simply to indicate that I might have a bit more knowledge of the settlement of the West than you got on a single vacation.
Originally posted by orfeo:
First time I've ever heard someone call California part of the Pacific Northwest. I wasn't talking about California, and I've got no idea why you think I was.
quote:Not my claim, nor anyone else's here that I can see.
Originally posted by orfeo:
This is all a fairly massive tangent in any case, as I don't really think there's much value in trying to quantify just how much benefit a country like the United States might have gained from slave labour, but if you're going to try and quantify it I think it should be rather more nuanced than "you all benefited everywhere equally across all 50 states".
quote:I think that assessment depends on the rather optimistic assumption that "related racism" is a "legacy" and not an ongoing force in action.
Originally posted by no prophet:
The easy comparison is the oft-cited American statistics about the economic and social prospects of black people which are said to be lower than white, and higher in terms of incarceration, negative police encounters, and health outcomes. Is there a legacy of slavery and related racism to be blamed at all for that?
quote:Italics in original.
Of the 2.3 million people in American jails, 806,000 are black males. African-Americans -- males and females -- make up .6 percent of the entire world's population, but African-American males -- alone -- make up 8 percent of the entire world's prison population. I know there are people who think some kind of demon culture could create a world where a group that makes up roughly one in 200 citizens of the world, comprises one in 12 of its prisoners. But I kind of doubt it.
quote:Seems to me the goals are political. If you're trying to build an alliance among Caribbean nations, it helps to have an external enemy to unite against. Just as the EU may seem more like a worthwhile endeavour when the EU nations as a block are contrasted with and standing against Russia than when the EU is seeking to manage issues between EU countries (which is a zero-sum game at best).
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think it's possible those seeking reparations realize the practical and political complications may mean they will never actually gain any financial compensation. I don't think they believe they are "wasting their time." I doubt they would be raising the issue if they thought it was a "waste of time." I imagine they have real, achievable goals-- whether financial or otherwise-- they hope to gain from this endeavor. I wish them well
quote:The fact that slavery was ended seems like a pretty happy ending to the story to me.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Have you considered the possibility that "the story of slavery" doesn't have a happy ending?
quote:That's the way the narrative gets told-- the white savior (Wilberforce, Woolman, Lincoln) coming in and saving the day. And I'm happy for their stories to be told-- but then again, they have been. But there are other voices out there, with stories to share, that have a much more bitter edge to them. When you begin with the notion that your "slave museum" needs to present a happy ending to the "history" of slavery you've already altered the meaning of the term.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:The fact that slavery was ended seems like a pretty happy ending to the story to me.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Have you considered the possibility that "the story of slavery" doesn't have a happy ending?
quote:The "history" of slavery ended when the last slave was freed, just like the "history" of World War Two ended when the last shot was fired. In both cases, what came after is something else - a different "history".
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
When you begin with the notion that your "slave museum" needs to present a happy ending to the "history" of slavery you've already altered the meaning of the term.
quote:So the history of WW2 has nothing to do with, say, the formation of Israel and all that came from that, the Nuremberg trials and all the fruit of that, formation of NATO and UN, etc.?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:The "history" of slavery ended when the last slave was freed, just like the "history" of World War Two ended when the last shot was fired. In both cases, what came after is something else - a different "history".
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
When you begin with the notion that your "slave museum" needs to present a happy ending to the "history" of slavery you've already altered the meaning of the term.
quote:Well, I wouldn't put any of that into a Museum Of World War Two. And I certainly wouldn't go round blaming the Germans, Italians and Japanese for Israeli land grabs in Palestine on the grounds that they were the "bad guys" of WW2.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So the history of WW2 has nothing to do with, say, the formation of Israel and all that came from that, the Nuremberg trials and all the fruit of that, formation of NATO and UN, etc.?
quote:Which would seem to argue for the compensation idea.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I think that assessment depends on the rather optimistic assumption that "related racism" is a "legacy" and not an ongoing force in action.
Originally posted by no prophet:
The easy comparison is the oft-cited American statistics about the economic and social prospects of black people which are said to be lower than white, and higher in terms of incarceration, negative police encounters, and health outcomes. Is there a legacy of slavery and related racism to be blamed at all for that?
quote:That is not the way historians see it. Rather, they connect the events together. The origins of WW2 are withing WW1, and the roots of the Cold War are within WW2, and the current Russia-Ukraine situation also follows from both of those, cf We haven't listened to the Russians, which is about the age old fear of Russia about western Europe and more recently USA.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The "history" of slavery ended when the last slave was freed, just like the "history" of World War Two ended when the last shot was fired. In both cases, what came after is something else - a different "history".
quote:Nothing wrong with making connections - if seeing the large-scale picture over a historic timescale gives us insight into how best to talk to the Russians, or the Caribbean peoples for that matter, then that can only be good.
Originally posted by no prophet:
The easy comparison is the oft-cited American statistics about the economic and social prospects of black people which are said to be lower than white, and higher in terms of incarceration, negative police encounters, and health outcomes. Is there a legacy of slavery and related racism to be blamed at all for that? ...
....the way historians see it. Rather, they connect the events together. The origins of WW2 are within WW1, and the roots of the Cold War are within WW2, and the current Russia-Ukraine situation also follows from both of those
quote:Wow. Holy strawman, batman!
Originally posted by Russ:
Saying to Vladimir Putin that it's entirely understandable if he goes around annexing his neighbour's territory does not lead to a more secure and peaceful world. Just as saying to a young man whose skin colour proclaims him a descendant of slaves that it's thereby not entirely his fault if he gets caught breaking the law isn't doing him any favours. As well as being an insult to all the honest law-abiding black people in America.
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
quote:No one has said this. Poverty breeds crime. Black people in America, and the UK, are generally put to disadvantage economically. Personal responsibility is a factor, but so is circumstance.
Originally posted by Russ:
Just as saying to a young man whose skin colour proclaims him a descendant of slaves that it's thereby not entirely his fault if he gets caught breaking the law isn't doing him any favours. As well as being an insult to all the honest law-abiding black people in America.
quote:Precisely. Well said.
Originally posted by Russ:
But that historic perspective has to sit alongside and not replace or undermine a moral perspective in which individuals are held fully responsible for their actions.
Saying to Vladimir Putin that it's entirely understandable if he goes around annexing his neighbour's territory does not lead to a more secure and peaceful world. Just as saying to a young man whose skin colour proclaims him a descendant of slaves that it's thereby not entirely his fault if he gets caught breaking the law isn't doing him any favours. As well as being an insult to all the honest law-abiding black people in America.
Understanding in the sense of insight should not lead to understanding in he sense of condoning or excusing. 'Cos that's where the wrongness creeps in.
Best wishes,
Russ
quote:That's not really in dispute. What is in dispute is the assertion that modern-day circumstances can be blamed wholly and solely on a slave trade that ended hundreds of years ago.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
No one has said this. Poverty breeds crime. Black people in America, and the UK, are generally put to disadvantage economically. Personal responsibility is a factor, but so is circumstance.
quote:I don't think anyone is arguing that that they are wholly and solely caused by slavery, but that it is a contributory factor.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
What is in dispute is the assertion that modern-day circumstances can be blamed wholly and solely
quote:Most of the arguments in favour of reparations on this thread are saying exactly that. There's no suggestion that other factors might be in play, it's all "they're poor today because of slavery".
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I don't think anyone is arguing that that they are wholly and solely caused by slavery
quote:No it does not. There really isn't a parallel, but the roughly $3 billion to residential school survivors in Canada shows the disposition of the money in such cases, its positive or negative effects, and any other results are hardly the point.
Originally posted by Moo:
Is there reason to believe that large reparation payments would do away with the poverty in these countries?
The money would have to be used with great care and wisdom, and that very well might not happen.
Moo
quote:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/17/residential-school-payments-unable-to-compensate-for-genocidal-practices-survivor/
Payments to former students of Indian residential schools have reached nearly $2.8 billion, but that amount doesn’t even come close to compensating the tens of thousands of students harmed, says a survivor. “These were genocidal practices... “If your kids were taken from you for 10 or 11 years, is $43,000 enough (compensation)? Is that fair for what it cost me? My family? Of course it’s not fair.”
quote:Simply not true, and you know it. I and others have repeatedly said-- so many times I feared I was becoming monotonous-- that causes are complex and the causes of poverty were complicated. You are completely misrepresenting the argument that has been made.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Most of the arguments in favour of reparations on this thread are saying exactly that. There's no suggestion that other factors might be in play, it's all "they're poor today because of slavery".
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I don't think anyone is arguing that that they are wholly and solely caused by slavery
quote:If the money was paid to individual survivors I would not expect any problems. If reparations are paid to a country, I would expect a fight on how it should be allocated.
Originally posted by no prophet:
No it does not. There really isn't a parallel, but the roughly $3 billion to residential school survivors in Canada shows the disposition of the money in such cases, its positive or negative effects, and any other results are hardly the point.
quote:I agree completely. If reparations are paid they should be handed over to the community without strings. The fact that there are no individuals who can be specifically identified as victims creates a problem for the community. What they do with it is no one else's business. However, community decisions on how to spend the money might very well result in anger and bitterness.
Further, I suspect that if those who eventually might pay out tried to influence at all where the money goes, i.e. its social effects and whether it is squandered etc, would be met with rather negative response along the lines of 'as if it is the right of the oppressor to then decide in an oppressive manner how reparations might be disposed of'.
quote:That sounds like you're saying that the abolition of slavery led to a loss of profitability of the sugar industry which led to a lack of investment in the Caribbean colonies by the colonial powers which contributed to the relative poverty of the region which persists to modern times.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In the British Caribbean, the end of slavery heralded Britain's loss of interest in the region. The boom days of King Sugar were coming to an end
quote:There's no "opposite" here. It's just one of several factors at play: the fact that sugar isn't as profitable w/o slave labor is rather obvious, but doesn't reverse the argument. Indeed, had colonial powers not developed an economic model based on slave-grown sugar, other more profitable crops or economic models might have arisen to take their place. In fact, if you are a fiscal conservative, one of those "magic of the marketplace" laissez-faire capitalists, then it's pretty much a given that the magic marketplace would have ensured that result.
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:That sounds like you're saying that the abolition of slavery led to a loss of profitability of the sugar industry which led to a lack of investment in the Caribbean colonies by the colonial powers which contributed to the relative poverty of the region which persists to modern times.
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In the British Caribbean, the end of slavery heralded Britain's loss of interest in the region. The boom days of King Sugar were coming to an end
That sounds plausible. But it's almost the opposite of the original assertion that the slave trade was the cause of poverty. Maybe it's the descendants of the abolitionists who should be paying reparations...
quote:So let me see-- Western prosperity is "hard won"-- by whose hard work, exactly?
Originally posted by Russ:
[
There's a lot of nonsense talked by some people about the "causes of poverty". Poverty is part of the State of Nature. It's where we all came from. In no country at any time has it ever been fully overcome. Taking the hard-won prosperity that has been generated in the "developed world" since the Industrial Revolution by the application of capital and technology and organisational initiative, and treating this as some sort of right of every people that each tribe would have developed for itself by now if only the evil Westerners had left them alone is a total misunderstanding of economic history. It's a left-wing fantasy.
quote:No, that's not right.
Originally posted by Russ:
That sounds plausible. But it's almost the opposite of the original assertion that the slave trade was the cause of poverty. Maybe it's the descendants of the abolitionists who should be paying reparations...
quote:I think the vagueness of this is indicating that you haven't the slightest idea how the economic history of the world would have been different in the counterfactual case (the alternative history without the transatlantic slave trade). Which rather undermines your suggestion that it's straightforward to calculate how much poorer the Caribbean is as a result of such slavery.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
had colonial powers not developed an economic model based on slave-grown sugar, other more profitable crops or economic models might have arisen to take their place.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
...prosperity that has been generated in the "developed world" since the Industrial Revolution by the application of capital and technology and organisational initiative...
quote:Do you see how you have distorted what I said ? Is that what they call a straw man ? Holy Baloney, batman...
in reply you said:
[/qb]
If prosperity were based on nothing more than "hard work" then the richest people in the world would be a few million women living in central Africa.[/QB]
quote:So it's nothing to do with economics at all ? The real claim has nothing to do with "stolen goods" or "slave dollars" - it is that by not banning slavery sooner than they did, European governments created racism as we know it ?
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Slavery had created a shadist hierarchy...
...This is the ongoing legacy of slavery
quote:This is worthy of a hell call. I have not suggested that calculating the economic impact of slavery is "straightforward", I have said the reverse-- that it is complicated, probably to the point of impossibility. I have said that not once, but probably a dozen times. I'm not the only one. Many, many people have said that-- over and over and over again. Not one person has EVER on this thread suggested that calculating that impact would be "straightforward". Never. We have said the reverse-- so many many times that it is impossible that you would not know that. Which means that, ONCE AGAIN, you are DELIBERATELY misrepresenting what has been argued on this thread. That, my dear, is what a strawman argument looks like. It is a form of deception. Often it's an unintentional act, and for days now I've been willing to assume that is the case with you. No more. It's absolutely, abundantly clear that you have absolutely NO desire to discuss this in a reasonable and reflective way. I have probably by now already passed the limits of what's acceptable for purgatory, so if you want to continue this, I'll see you in hell.
Originally posted by Russ:
Which rather undermines your suggestion that it's straightforward to calculate how much poorer the Caribbean is as a result of such slavery.
quote:Seems I've over-stated the case - my apologies.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:I think it's quite possible to show that there is some financial impact w/o being able to quantify the exact amount. I think it is pretty easy to demonstrate that if the economy of a country benefitted from several centuries of slave labor, that has a financial impact that continued for many generations after slavery is ended...
Originally posted by Anglican't:
How can there be a financial claim if it is impossible to quantify?
...there is a very real fiscal harm. BUT... calculating the exact figure, the exact fiscal impact generations later is not something that can be easily measured because to some degree it's measuring a "what if". "What if" there had been no slavery... what would the American economy look like now?
quote:I find this post a strange one.
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:So it's nothing to do with economics at all ? The real claim has nothing to do with "stolen goods" or "slave dollars" - it is that by not banning slavery sooner than they did, European governments created racism as we know it ?
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Slavery had created a shadist hierarchy...
...This is the ongoing legacy of slavery
Not saying there's no connection, just trying to tease out what you're claiming are the causes and effects involved.
Maybe if, as a speculative "alternative history", the European merchant adventurers of the 17th and 18th centuries had encountered American Indians selling each other as slaves rather than Africans selling each other as slaves, racism would have developed as prejudice against red skins rather than black skins ?
Best wishes,
Russ
