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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Slavery reparations from European nations
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Gwai
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# 11076
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Posted
quote:
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?
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?
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
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?
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".
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
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?
Actually, Charles Krauthammer, an right-winger, penned an essay sincerely arguing for slavery reparations in 1990, even laying out how it could be financed.
Of course, being a right-winger, I think his long-term agenda was getting rid of things like Affirmative Action, which would supposedly become unneccessry after people had been compensated for the economic shackles imposed by slavery. Nevertheless, Krauthammer does seem to have been quite serious, not just "asking for the moon" in order to make a point.
[ 12. March 2014, 19:53: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
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?
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?
Posts: 701 | From: middle England | Registered: May 2005
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Mr Beamish
Apprentice
# 17991
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
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?
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".
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.
I get the impression that neither is considered especially likely.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Jan 2014
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
What 'arrangements' are we talking about here, specifically? The Falklands War had nothing to do with slavery.
[ 12. March 2014, 20:01: Message edited by: Anglican't ]
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
What 'arrangements' are we talking about here, specifically? The Falklands War had nothing to do with slavery.
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.)
quote:
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.
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).
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
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?
Questions of "culture" are a bit squishy. Questions of statehood and sovereignty are less so, though still not absolute.
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.
Transportation followed by the brutalities of the plantation system resulted in the loss of languages, religions and societal structures. It deprived disparate peoples of a knowledge of their history and hence of a sense of identity, thus creating what Bob Marley called 'mental slavery'. Enforced family break-up and fragility served the purposes of Transatlantic slave societies, and left a damaging legacy thereafter because strong families aren't created by magic or by diktat but via the guidance and example of previous generations.
Moreoever, it's been claimed that the Transatlantic slave trade created - or at least contributed to - anti-black racism (structural, personal and global) as we've understood it ever since.
The question as to when all these problems will disappear and we can all stop talking about reparations (in their spiritual and moral dimensions as well as their financial ones) is an understandable one. I suggest that since we're nowhere near that point of healing it's not going to be any time soon. I.e. there's a lot of work to do.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Is there something to simply being wealthy and having the ability to pay? The African and Arab entities don't have the money. European countries do.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
Arab countries don't have the money?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
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.
The Average citizen of the UK, France or America benefited more than the average citizen of those African countries.
quote:
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.
Numbers are far from the only consideration.
White European descendants of slaves are hardly faced with the same issues as the descendants of African slaves. It is because the problems continue that the issue is still raised.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Arab countries don't have the money?
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.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Arab countries don't have the money?
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.
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?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
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?
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:
"Questions of statehood and sovereignty are less so, though still not absolute."
There are important ways in which the British state of today is a continuation of the state which pre abolition profited from slavery whereas Saudi Arabia under the Al-Sauds isn't.
We already recognise this on many levels - including financially - in terms of various debt instruments for example.
[N.B. In fact the financial markets are generally very much in favour of states seeing themselves as a continuation of previous states and taking on the obligations of previous regimes - so much so that there is a entire segment of the industry dedicated to this process]
[ 12. March 2014, 22:36: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So presumably the descendants of those who endured this "hell on earth" are now economically suffering, and deserve compensation? [/QB]
Sounds good, when did you become a socialist ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Other threads aside, however there has been some leakage here, and shifted that the affect is much more diluted.
Once we started getting a decent wage and employee rights we still had the ships.
And the people who'd made money of various forms of stuff were (are) still spending it here, and not pissing in their back yard quite as much.
The trickle down theory isn't total nonsense, it just is countered by various trickle ups that apply abroad.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Arab countries don't have the money?
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.
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.
I've read that at one point, Arab slavers and black middlemen serving the Transatlantic trade started to meet in the middle of the continent. What this means is that the demand for slaves was so high from both sides that the coastal areas had become depopulated. This required slavers to go further and further inland to find the slaves the market required. This really brings home the devastation that was being wreaked in Africa.
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.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
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.
...everyone.... everyone...???
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?
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.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Why would the overwhelming response to such demands be derision?
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?
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.
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
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.
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?
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...
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
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.
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?
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...
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.
My point was simply that there were economic benefits to slavery that continue to accrue to Western nations, and economic liabilities that continue to be impact African nations. Everyone living in those countries, then, experiences to some degree that legacy of costs & benefits, even though many of those people are not descendants of the original slaves or slaveowners, and (as I mentioned before) some lie on both sides of the equation (e.g. some African Americans who are both the descendants of slaves and living in Western economies).
As I mentioned in my post, obviously there are all sorts of other factors at play. Which is why this question is so complicated-- hence the debate.
[ 13. March 2014, 03:56: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
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?
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.
It is perfectly logical to demand a redress, even if in one's heart one knows it won't be given. It is not that people make a claim for reparations that they know is really an unjust but a useful bargaining position, they believe the claim to be completely just, but know practically it is very unlikely to come about. But nevertheless is an expression of how they see the situation and might be a route to something useful coming about.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
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.
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?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
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.
Unless you tell someone, they would never know. That's one difference.
And you are an American, yes? Most Americans don't know where Wales is* much less continue the injustice. Not the same for Black people.
*Not an Anti-American slur, just a statement of reality.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Why would the overwhelming response to such demands be derision?
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?
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.
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
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."
Germany has an ongoing reparations program for the Holocaust, and pays gay people, Roma, Jewish people, and other affected groups. Does hearing that make you compare such a situation to Wales under Edward I? Or is it only ridiculous when Caribbeans and Africans ask for something similar?
NY Times - 60th Year of German Reparations
[ 13. March 2014, 06:23: Message edited by: seekingsister ]
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
Out of interest, are you?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
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."
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).
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
Out of interest, are you?
Certainly not, but I haven't made any comments regarding their motivations here.
If someone is going to accuse the Caribbean governments of "transparently unrealistic, opportunistic, moralistic grandstanding" then I expect them to have a reason for doing so.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
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).
The current nations in West Africa, where many of the slaves originated, did not exist in the time of the slave trade.
If you wish to hold the government of, say, Ghana, which is a nation state that was created out of a British colony, there's still a straight line back to Britain. It didn't exist prior to British colonial rule.
I suppose someone could make a claim against an indigenous community or ethnic group directly. But the governments - sorry that just doesn't make any sense in the slightest.
The obsession with African traders and their role in slavery again reads as an indication of a very nasty view on African people. As if, if we weren't so greedy as to sell off our fellow people, none of this would have happened.
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Certainly not, but I haven't made any comments regarding their motivations here.
I may have misunderstood you, but weren't you commenting on motivation when you wrote this?
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."
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
And as a BTW, to reiterate about Svitlana made earlier, within the black community the role of Africans in the slave trade is a major issue of contention. In fact when I was in university, there was an all-out shouting match at a black student event because an African-American accused African immigrant students of benefitting from the blood shed by the former slaves, as they now come to a US that is more racially tolerant.
If anyone outside of this community thinks they are being clever by raising the point, trust me you are far behind the dialogue that happens in our community groups and family dinners.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
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.
[ 13. March 2014, 08:51: Message edited by: Enoch ]
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
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!
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Pottage
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
That's when it gets difficult of course. There are so many questions. Who is entitled to redress, why, how much, who is liable to pay it? In 1946 it was (relatively) easy to answer those questions in relation to the Holocaust. Not so now, in relation to wrongs committed two or three hundred years in the past (though the Haiti example may bridge the gap).
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seekingsister
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
Given that statement, I cannot apologize. Your perspective is very offensive.
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.
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.
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
quote:
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.
Then seek reparations from "the freaking Earl of whoever" then, if he's the one at fault!!
But no, millions of totally innocent Europeans are to be bled dry, because apparently they are guilty, even though they are not!
To say that I have a nasty view of Africans is just an incredibly ignorant thing to say.
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?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
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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.
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?
If selling human beings is a bad thing, then it's worth remembering that a transaction requires a seller as well as a buyer. Anyone who didn't actually capture a slave themselves purchased that slave from someone. Without going into the vexed question of which nation-states of the 21st century are capable of being traced back to the wrongdoings of previous centuries, in terms of individuals I can't see any inherent reason why an African who sells Africans is in a morally better position than a Caucasian who sells Africans, unless the sale is done under some kind of duress. So what duress are you claiming they were all under?
[ 13. March 2014, 09:37: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Then seek reparations from "the freaking Earl of whoever" then, if he's the one at fault!![/i]
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:
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!
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.
quote:
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?
Half my family lives in Africa, I have citizenship of an African country, and I was last on the continent in January.
I've also been to the Cape Coast and presume you are talking about Elmina Castle. Maybe you had a different tour than I did, because when I went they did a short skit in which Europeans left bottles of liquor around, the Ghanaians got drunk off of it, and then were kidnapped into slavery - which struck me as being wildly inaccurate. Shortly afterwards the tour guide told us a room we were standing in was where the Europeans, inflamed with lust for our African sisters, repeatedly raped them. There was a family with a white husband/black wife and children, I felt extremely uncomfortable for them.
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
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
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
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.
Why couldn't they have imagined it? Are you suggesting that they didn't know what 'slavery' was when actually selling slaves? Are you suggesting that slaves in Africa were actually treated quite nicely and no-one had much of a problem with being a slave? How is any of that consistent with the usual means of acquiring slaves, by force?
[ 13. March 2014, 09:45: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
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
You obviously know very little about this subject.
Do you seriously imagine that the European slave traders went scouring the African interior (where no-one had ever heard of slavery before they arrived)and collected the slaves for themselves?
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chris stiles
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Posted
quote:
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.
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:
Reparations between Israel and West Germany, Further claims in 2009
[Edited to fix scroll lock -Gwai]
[ 13. March 2014, 12:22: Message edited by: Gwai ]
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Anglican't
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# 15292
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Posted
These new claims appear to relate to Holocaust survivors. There's no equivalent when it comes to slavery.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
I just wasn't born yesterday.
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seekingsister
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# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
These new claims appear to relate to Holocaust survivors. There's no equivalent when it comes to slavery.
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.
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.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
How about this for a deal: we'll pay reparations if they will formally agree that that's the end of the matter, that any debt - real or percieved - is paid in full, and to bloody well shut up about the whole thing from now on.
It would be expensive, but if it would put a stop to the endless cycle of assertions that Europeans are directly responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened anywhere else in the world then it would almost be worth paying up.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
These new claims appear to relate to Holocaust survivors. There's no equivalent when it comes to slavery.
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.
I know that Israel tends to take the position that all Jews 'belong' to them, but it makes no sense to me that the Israeli government should get a discount on a German product, as if it's doing that on behalf of Holocaust survivors. What about the Holocaust survivors that live in other countries?
Similarly, even if the United Kingdom government is a natural successor to previous governments that endorsed and encourage slavery, it's far from clear that the governments of Caribbean countries are the natural successors of individuals and families that suffered, or are even still suffering, as a result of slavery.
I would think that Haiti and France is a different case because, as people have pointed out, it was the nation of Haiti that suffered some specific consequences, as a nation not as individuals that live on Haiti.
Assuming for the sake of argument that it can still be demonstrated that individuals in a Caribbean nation, even a large proportion of individuals in a given nation, suffered from slavery, it doesn't follow in my opinion that the nation as a whole is best placed to get compensation for those wrongs. Why should white Caribbeans benefit?
I'm inherently suspicious about equating ANY nation with its predominant racial group as if the two are interchangeable. (Hence, to bring it back to Israel again, my frustration with treating any criticism of the Israeli government as 'anti-Jewish').
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
These new claims appear to relate to Holocaust survivors. There's no equivalent when it comes to slavery.
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.
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.
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.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I didn't realize you were such an expert on the governments of the CARICOM countries and their motivations here.
I just wasn't born yesterday.
Neither was I.
If you actually read anything related to the story you'd know that the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, which is one of the smaller and poorer Caribbean nations, is the one who has led the charge on reparations for several years. I know a bit about this country (and have visited it) and it is not known to have a particular reputation for "unrealistic grandstanding."
According to Transparency International St Vincent has a better score on corruption perception than Israel (which has received reparations from Germany) and Kenya (which has received reparations from Britain).
Transparency International
So maybe you can explain why CARICOM is being so unrealistic in thinking they have a chance at getting financial redress, given who else has gotten it.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
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 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.
Making accusations of libel is, as I'm sure you know, not permitted on the Ship. Stop doing that immediately, and do not do it again.
Eliab
Purgatory Host
[ 13. March 2014, 10:22: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
quote:
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
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.
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.
There are also cases such as that of Yuuba Jalo, a young African slave trader, who in 1731 was captured along the Gambia river, taken to Maryland, but after he sent a letter in Arabic to his father which by a fluke ended up in London in 1734, he was freed and taken to London where he was hired by the Royal African Company as a slave trader/diplomatic representative in the market wars between the French and the British. After a brief period as a French prisoner, he was freed and continued to buy and sell slaves. Yes, an individual case, but knowledge of American conditions did not stop African slave trade. It's possible and possibly even likely that the conditions in America were better than those before getting on board the ships. It takes two to tango, but a whole cluster of crooks to create a slave market.
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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH
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