# Bristol 'should apologise for slave trade'.



## STFC (May 12, 2006)

Surprised nobody has commented on this story yet as far as I can see:



> Bristol should apologise for its role in the slave trade, a high-profile debate in the city has concluded.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4760803.stm

What do people think of this? Is an apology a good thing, or a pointless exercise?


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## fractionMan (May 12, 2006)

pointless.  Anyway, how can a city apologise for anything?


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## Sunspots (May 12, 2006)

I'll not be happy if Bristol City Council decides to apologise on behalf of the city, because by implication that'd include me, and I have nothing to apologise for.

A rich elite profited, not everybody.  If there is to be an apology, let it come from them.

I'd rather the focus was on modern slavery, such as who makes the clothes we wear, etc.  That's far more relevant, because that's happening _now_.


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## zenie (May 12, 2006)

Sunspots said:
			
		

> I'll not be happy if Bristol City Council decides to apologise on behalf of the city, because by implication that'd include me, and I have nothing to apologise for.
> 
> A rich elite profited, not everybody.  If there is to be an apology, let it come from them.
> 
> *I'd rather the focus was on modern slavery, such as who makes the clothes we wear, etc.  That's far more relevant, because that's happening now.*




*Applauds *


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## Zaskar (May 12, 2006)

It is clearly a pointless and daft exercise.  If 'Bristol' was a person who had maintained the slave trade and was alive today it would make some sense.

An apology formulated by a comitee if handwringers on behalf of a non existent imaginary 'person' doesnt seem like something that makes any sense.

Makes about as much sense as waking up angry cos one of your ancestors was a slave.  Given that we are all related after 6 genrations back it seems mad.

What I do understand is the power and symbolism that the genocide of the slave trade has for people today, especially when reacism continues to blight society but I dont think the custard should be over egged or it just looks daft.


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## Zaskar (May 12, 2006)

Just found this clip.  I presume this is one of the main movers behind this fiasco.  Looks like we are not done yet, appears we might be in for a slave tax too.

http://www.zaskarfilms.com/Films/Temp/slaveclip.wmv


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## Donna Ferentes (May 12, 2006)

Zaskar said:
			
		

> It is clearly a pointless and daft exercise.


Well, not "clearly" at any rate. Given that the effects of the slave trade are still felt today, there are many people who think it might be good if the past were properly and squarely faced up to rather than left alone.


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## fractionMan (May 12, 2006)

What you going to be apologising for then donna?


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## djbombscare (May 12, 2006)

I always thought apologies were so much better if you actually meant them. 

As no one around today was around when the slaving that they are apolgising for was happening. I dont see how there can be any meaning behind it. 

Just a kind of "that makes us feel better cos we've apologised so were good people now" And how many descendants of slaves will be wow that has made my life so much better now. 

Nope its a shallow faceless non cost act to make some fucking official feel better and appease probably a load of white christian voters IMO

If they really want to apologise, why not pay the descendants of slaves, the wages that they would have earned if they had been paid. Plus the interest it would have accrued. The money could be claimed from the families that employed the slaves at the time. 

This could keep a dept of local govt in work for fecking years.


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## editor (May 12, 2006)

Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> iven that the effects of the slave trade are still felt today, there are many people who think it might be good if the past were properly and squarely faced up to rather than left alone.


I want an apology from the English for invading Wales, then.


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## Donna Ferentes (May 12, 2006)

Suits me. There must be a Plantagenet Society or something you could ask. Actually it could be the basis for an extremely amusing correspondence.


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## Sunspots (May 12, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> I want an apology from the English for invading Wales, then.



Exactly. Where will all these apologies end!?? 

I want an apology from the Anglo-Saxons, The Vikings, etc...


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## Donna Ferentes (May 12, 2006)

The reason it's a serious issue is that there's the question of restitution: there's a certain amount political activity by people who believe that finanical compensation should be paid by the nations and peoples who benefitted from slavery to those who suffered from it (and continue to suffer from its consequences).

Personaly I don't know what I think about this but I do not think it appropriate to be dismissive of it: otherwise you're in the position of people saying well yes, this happened but it was a long time ago so we're not going to do anything about it. Said to people who, as I say, are still on the wrong end of the relations that slavery produced, and who have strong feelings about this, I think this is at best tactless and conceivably arrogant.

History matters, because its interpretation and its consequences matter.


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## djbombscare (May 12, 2006)

Sunspots said:
			
		

> Exactly. Where will all these apologies end!??
> 
> I want an apology from the Anglo-Saxons, The Vikings, etc...




I aint apolgising for fuck all. You can kiss my axe first. 

Anyway we fought off the Romans for ya so a thank you wouldn't go amiss now would it.  

Without us you'd all be riding mopeds and eating cornettos


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## Sunspots (May 12, 2006)

djbombscare said:
			
		

> I aint apolgising for fuck all. You can kiss my axe first.
> 
> Anyway we fought off the Romans for ya so a thank you wouldn't go amiss now would it.
> 
> Without us you'd all be riding mopeds and eating cornettos



It's like _Asterix_ all over again!   

(My only apology is to STFC, for derailing what was a serious thread.  -Then again, it's in the Bristol & SW forum, where things do tend to get silly quite quickly...  )


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## djbombscare (May 12, 2006)

I'm not apolgising for that either


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## munkeeunit (May 12, 2006)

The problem with politically correct apologies is that they are almost inariably insincere and empty. What does it mean to apolgise? what changes? How do black people benefit?

The additional concern is that when apologies are made they often are often worse than empty gestures, and in fact a smokescreen or apologetic foil for modern day abuses.

In another 200 years people will be clamouring for apologies for the brutal dehumanising defacto slavery of neo-liberal free market economics, and the crushinging inequalities thrown up by the cold breed of globalisation on offer.

Forget about the apologising for slavery past.

Challenge the economic slavery of the present.


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## editor (May 12, 2006)

Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> The reason it's a serious issue is that there's the question of restitution: there's a certain amount political activity by people who believe that finanical compensation should be paid by the nations and peoples who benefitted from slavery to those who suffered from it (and continue to suffer from its consequences).


So will you be advocating that all nations - including African nations - who indulged in slave trading (both black and white) start dishing out the apologies too?

And how far back in history should the 'need' for these apologies go?

1800?
1600?
2,000 years BC?

I'm not proud of some of Britain's past but the world was a totally difference place then and I'll be fucked if I'm going to apologise for anything that happened centuries before I was even born.


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## editor (May 12, 2006)

munkeeunit said:
			
		

> Forget about the apologising for slavery past.
> Challenge the economic slavery of the present.


Spot on.


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## Donna Ferentes (May 12, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> So will you be advocating that all nations - including African nations - who indulged in slave trading (both black and white) start dishing out the apologies too?


It certainly raises the question, doesn't it? And anybody who's acquainted with the question knows that these complications exist and have to be addressed. But I don't thin kwe can always deal with questions by saying "them too!".




			
				editor said:
			
		

> And how far back in history should the 'need' for these apologies go?


As far as seems pertinent to the world we live in now.




			
				editor said:
			
		

> I'm not proud of some of Britain's past but the world was a totally different place then


I think there are many African people - and peeople of African origin - who would dispute that. The balance of power now is in some very obvious ways a consequence of what hapened then.




			
				editor said:
			
		

> and I'll be fucked if I'm going to apologise for anything that happened centuries before I was even born.


Nobody's asking you to. But people are asking that insitututions, collective bodies, do that, and that sems a reasonable request to make.

I do think it's wrong simply to say "fuck off" to people who are the contemporary victims of a deep historical injustice when they say it should be accounted and apologised for. It takes no account of people's position or people's feelings.


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## munkeeunit (May 12, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> And how far back in history should the 'need' for these apologies go?



Living memory seems reasonable, which applies to Ireland.

But apologies for the colonisation of Ireland which it is still (depending on your perspective) in part colonised, and for the stamping out of gaelic (which is something still just within living memory) wouldn't cut much ice with me, and would represent the apologetic foil I mentioned in relation to the abuses being carried out in Iraq for example.

The only thing the English (British?) seemed to have learnt is that to stamp out a language is an inefficient use of resources, and that's about it. Everything else remains much the same, if slightly altered.


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## editor (May 12, 2006)

Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> I do thin kit's wrong simply to say "fuuck off" to people who are the contemporary victims of a deep historical injustice when they say it should be accounted and apologised for. It takes no account of people's position or people's feelings.


As a Welshman, I could work up a fair head of steam about my country being victim to a deep historical injustice and start demanding apologies.

But seeing as it happened way before even my grandfather was born and the people responsible have long since turned to dust, I'd rather focus on the injustices happening _now_.

But if you think an empty, insincere apology coming from people who had absolutely zero to do with the crimes of the past is actually going to achieve anything, that's your call.


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## Idaho (May 12, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> And how far back in history should the 'need' for these apologies go?






			
				Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> As far as seems pertinent to the world we live in now.


That is beyond glib and well into the territory of meaningless. How can you ever determine an absolute historical pertinence? The fate of the beaker folk and the early celtic migrations from central europe is fundamentallly pertinent to the very make-up of the whole continent.

It would be hard to refute the pertinence of Culloden or the English Civil war, but how would we try and all agree who should apologise to whom about what? There were certainly plenty of crimes.

Fishing through history looking for wrongs, and trying to ascribe those wrongs to people who live now is not only pointless, but as an attempt at justice, entirely self-deafeating.


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## Sunspots (May 12, 2006)

Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> But people are asking that insitututions, collective bodies, do that, and that sems a reasonable request to make.



Yeah, but as I stated earlier: as a resident of Bristol, I don't want the City Council offering an apology on my behalf.  I wasn't around at the time, and so have nothing to apologise for.  

If there has to be an apology, I'd rather it came specifically from the organisations set up by the rich elite who profited.  The same unelected organisations that continue to benefit now, by their wielding of unhealthy influence in the city today.

As I also said, and as Munkeeunit and editor have said too: let's concentrate instead on the issue of modern slavery.


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## Donna Ferentes (May 12, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> But if you think an empty, insincere apology coming from people who had absolutely zero to do with the crimes of the past is actually going to achieve anything, that's your call.


Personally, I don't have an clear opinion either way. On the one hand, I think it's a reasonable think to ask for, insofar as it represents something people feel strongly about and have every reason to feel strongly about. On the other hand, I'm aware of the potential emptiness of any apology (I can imagine, for instance, the current Prime Minister doing it very well indeed). My position is simply that's it's a serious issue, to be taken seriously and not dismissed without thought or tact.


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## Donna Ferentes (May 12, 2006)

Idaho said:
			
		

> That is beyond glib and well into the territory of meaningless. How can you ever determine an absolute historical pertinence?


The fact that things cannot be determined absolutely is no reason not to try and do the best one can. It's a very common debating fallacy to suggest otherwise.


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## gentlegreen (May 12, 2006)

This should provide plenty of fodder for the right wing press - "political correctness gone mad blah blah...."

My elderly neighbour used to trot the pointlessness of apologising as an excuse for his own racism.

.


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## Donna Ferentes (May 12, 2006)

Sunspots said:
			
		

> Yeah, but as I stated earlier: as a resident of Bristol, I don't want the City Council offering an apology on my behalf.  I wasn't around at the time, and so have nothing to apologise for.


There's a position - not necessarily mine, but a not unreasonable one - which says that as a citizen of one of the countries which continues to benefit from the relationships slavery created, you too benefit from them and can't just disaossicate yourself from the past just because you were in no sense actually _responsible_.


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## Idaho (May 12, 2006)

Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> The fact that things cannot be determined absolutely is no reason not to try and do the best one can. It's a very common debating fallacy to suggest otherwise.


OK - say we move from an absolute standard to something more lax. Are we going to come up with anything other than a crude approximation of pertinent? Isn't that approximation going to be entirely subjective to the person or group making it?


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## Idaho (May 12, 2006)

Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> There's a position - not necessarily mine, but a not unreasonable one - which says that as a citizen of one of the countries _which continues_ to benefit from the relationships slavery created


Surely this is an arguement to deal with _continuing_ injustice and not dredge looking for people to apologise about things they didn't do?


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## munkeeunit (May 12, 2006)

Certainly from the black people I know I can't ever remember anyone saying they wanted an apology. I know some black people who've said they are very offended whenever a white person apologies for the slave trade, and see it as quite patronising and naive really.

(although it's also often seen as good start, as long as that's not all it is.)

But, then, that's just me and the people I know personally, and people I know personally are likely to have a similar opinion to my own, my own opinions largely being borne out of the historical and modern abuses carried out in Ireland.


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## munkeeunit (May 12, 2006)

gentlegreen said:
			
		

> My elderly neighbour used to trot the pointlessness of apologising as an excuse for his own racism..



Yes, this is a real danger of PC, it delivers on a plate a foil for racist attitudes dressed up in the langage of white cultural equality, and relativism etc, which is, in a nutshell, the entire stragey of the BNP's attempts to 'normalise' itself.


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## editor (May 12, 2006)

Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> There's a position - not necessarily mine, but a not unreasonable one - which says that as a citizen of one of the countries which continues to benefit from the relationships slavery created, you too benefit from them and can't just disaossicate yourself from the past just because you were in no sense actually _responsible_.


What about, for example, slave descendants who settled in the UK many generations ago and, as British citizens, continue to 'benefit from the relationships slavery created?'

Should they apologise too? Aren't they as 'guilty' as their fellow Brits?


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## munkeeunit (May 12, 2006)

Ireland and Africa are similar in that they both remain crushingly underpopulated as a result the legacy of the potato famine and slavery. The difference being that Africa remains crushingly economically underdeveloped, while Ireland has been absorbed into the inner circle of exploiter nations, as has Wales. 

It's this type of modern analysis of modern inequalities which set Africa apart from Wales and Ireland, for example. It is also a reson why to apologise to Africa for what happened 200 years ago is a a denial of it's ongoing underpopulation and underdevelopement, whch also applies to the economically subjugated status of the Carribbean nations in the here and now. 

Our inner-cities may be relatively rundown. But white and black working class alike (no-matter how hard it is to swallow by a left largely still thinking in terms of 19th century cloth cap working class), are highly priviliged in relation to most of the world today, and are, like us all, now part of the inner circle of modern day exploiter nations.

(To echo and expand upon what the Editor has pointed to above.)


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## Sunspots (May 12, 2006)

However genuine, however well-intentioned, I don't see what practical difference an apology would make.

_Then what?_ 

Everybody (-black, white, purple, etc...) would all still get up the next day and shuffle along in the same modern rat race.  _Grrrrreat._   

Apologising for the past is ultimately just a gesture, and a divisive one at that.  We need to concentrate on what's keeping us _all_ screwed down _now_, not yesterday.


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## Zaskar (May 12, 2006)

Sunspots said:
			
		

> However genuine, however well-intentioned, I don't see what practical difference an apology would make.
> 
> _Then what?_
> 
> ...



Nuff said really.

Surely this can only serve those with professional apologising interests?


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## Idaho (May 12, 2006)

munkeeunit said:
			
		

> Ireland and Africa are similar in that they both remain crushingly underpopulated as a result the legacy of the potato famine and slavery.


I don't think the low population density in Africa is really a product of the slave trade. More to do with agricultural problems, malaria and the timing of European colonisation.


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## munkeeunit (May 12, 2006)

Yes, Africa remains underpopulated for a whole host of modern reasons, which an apology for slavery doesn't even begin to touch.


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## bristol_citizen (May 12, 2006)

munkeeunit said:
			
		

> Certainly from the black people I know I can't ever remember anyone saying they wanted an apology. I know some black people who've said they are very offended whenever a white person apologies for the slave trade, and see it as quite patronising and naive really.
> 
> (although it's also often seen as good start, as long as that's not all it is.)
> 
> But, then, that's just me and the people I know personally, and people I know personally are likely to have a similar opinion to my own, my own opinions largely being borne out of the historical and modern abuses carried out in Ireland.


I actually attended the debate at the Empire Museum and I'd estimate at least one third of the audience was black. (How often do you get over 150 black people to a political meeting in Bristol?) Many of them spoke from the floor passionately about the need for an apology and the vote at the meeting was overwhemingly in favour of an apology.
The characterisation of this issue as being forced upon us by a politically correct (whatever that means) white, liberal, hand-wringing minority is neither accurate nor useful. This is a big issue to the black community. And attitudes towards it are clearly falling along race lines.
Also is anyone aware that Bristol's Consortium of Black Groups (who represent a wide range of the city's black people) have already put out a statement saying they intend to boycott the city's bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade celebrations for similar reasons they put forward for wanting an apology?


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## munkeeunit (May 12, 2006)

bristol_citizen said:
			
		

> I actually attended the debate at the Empire Museum and I'd estimate at least one third of the audience was black. (How often do you get over 150 black people to a political meeting in Bristol?)



Rarely ever at all.

Fair enough, and as I said, that's just me and those I know, 

I know there's others who feel deeply passionately that they want an apology, and the same still applies to Irish (usually felt most strongly up to 3rd generation Irish / Black, and so on, I think, and then fades more).

Many people in Ireland are still ready to bear arms again (any time the English / British like), so in that respect an apology for slavery is being very polite, and I wouldn't oppose it. 

It's still not enough, for anyone.


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## Skate (May 12, 2006)

editor said:
			
		

> What about, for example, slave descendants who settled in the UK many generations ago and, as British citizens, continue to 'benefit from the relationships slavery created?'
> 
> Should they apologise too? Aren't they as 'guilty' as their fellow Brits?



Do you mean the benefit of British citizenship alone or the benefit from the relationships slavery created as shared with fellow Brits? I'm particularly interested in the debate as I'm a slave descendant.

I do feel that too many are ignorant of the fact that slavery didn't end when it was "abolished" - people still raise their eyebrows in disbelief when I tell them that my great grandfather was a slave here during the first world war. incidentally legend has it that he may have been so in Bristol, but certainly in South Wales.

I don't feel the need for a city to apologise for that so I think I'm with Anthony Grayling on this one. I personally avoid benefitting from slavery because I've educated myself enough to recognise who and what slavery has  enhanced so I think that raising similar awareness in order to encourage people to manage their own accountability is much more of an effective priority than demanding an apology out of the blue.

Mind you, if it means getting a one way ticket back to the West Indies I'll apologise all you like. It's shit here


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## Sunspots (May 15, 2006)

So, it now appears that an apology was issued back in 1982:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4770141.stm

...and, of course, it sorted everything out, and everybody lived happily ever after.  

Like I already said, what practical difference would an apology make to people's everyday lives?


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## munkeeunit (May 15, 2006)

Maybe there should be a 5 year rolling apology, just so that no-one forgets Bristol has apologised, and yes everyone lives happily ever after, and nobody lives on a $1 a day in sweatshops under armed guard, due to the magic of that routinely reasserted bureaucratic utterance.


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## Sunspots (May 15, 2006)

munkeeunit said:
			
		

> ...and yes everyone lives happily ever after, and nobody lives on a $1 a day in sweatshops under armed guard...



Well, _exactly._


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## RubberBuccaneer (May 15, 2006)

Isn't there a museum in Bristol about this, or a recent exhibition.

I think an apology is OK, but needs to point out the context of slavery over the years, African pirates did it, internal slave traders did it to other tribes and were willing to sell slaves, Muslim traders did it. 
Somali and Yemenies still call each other slaves.

Taking what you wanted was what people did in those days - all over the world.


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## Sunspots (May 15, 2006)

RubberBuccaneer said:
			
		

> Taking what you wanted was what people did in those days - all over the world.



Thankfully, that doesn't happen any more...


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## munkeeunit (May 15, 2006)

RubberBuccaneer said:
			
		

> Taking what you wanted was what people did in those days - all over the world.



People will say exactly the same about today. Structural Adjustment Policies and the Plan For Africa are the new and next big carve ups already here and on it's way. Iraq, Iran. Everyone is back on the take like never before. Once the scale of the criminality of our current period is fully analysed in retropect, I'm certain it will rank alongside slavery as a protracted and inhuman period of history.

Above all else slavery was an economic project, as is neo-liberalism.


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## Maggot (May 15, 2006)

Skate said:
			
		

> I don't feel the need for a city to apologise for that so I think I'm with Anthony Grayling on this one. I personally avoid benefitting from slavery because I've educated myself enough to recognise who and what slavery has  enhanced so I think that raising similar awareness in order to encourage people to manage their own accountability is much more of an effective priority than demanding an apology out of the blue.


 What has slavery enhanced and how do you avoid it?


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## munkeeunit (May 15, 2006)

If it's slavery past I guess you can research the financial evolution of companies and avoid those which are worst. If it's economic slavery present, none of us can realistically detach ourselves from the cheap clothing and food, in particular, we increasingly depend on. We are all complicit in the here and now, as was everyone during slavery past. Time we faced that.

But it would be intersting to hear more from Skate.


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## RubberBuccaneer (May 15, 2006)

munkeeunit said:
			
		

> People will say exactly the same about today. Structural Adjustment Policies and the Plan For Africa are the new and next big carve ups already here and on it's way. Iraq, Iran. Everyone is back on the take like never before. Once the scale of the criminality of our current period is fully analysed in retropect, I'm certain it will rank alongside slavery as a protracted and inhuman period of history.
> 
> Above all else slavery was an economic project, as is neo-liberalism.



True might was right, then as is now.


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## aylee (May 15, 2006)

Sunspots said:
			
		

> Exactly. Where will all these apologies end!??



Stig of the Dump wants an apology from Homo Sapiens for wiping out his mates.


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## munkeeunit (May 15, 2006)

The cell wants an apology for being colonised by the mitochondria.

(now I'm just talking bollocks, couldn't resist, sorry )


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## Skate (May 16, 2006)

Maggot said:
			
		

> What has slavery enhanced and how do you avoid it?



Enhanced was probably the wrong word to use - slavery isn't exactly an enhancement to anything - but I was trying not to use the word "benefit" repeatedly in my post 

One of the more prominent examples of that of Tate and Lyle, particularly regarding the Tate galleries. It may seem obvious to some that one founded the other but yet it isn't to many: I wasn't aware of this until recently.

The plantations from which Tate and Lyle's sugar came from were operated by the Atlantic slave trade. The profits which Sir Henry Tate made from Tate's Cube Sugar (Lyle developed the famous syrups) bought 65 paintings with which he founded the original Tate Gallery in 1897.

I doubt you'll find any of this in any vaguely official history of theirs. So I tend to refer to the Tate Modern as the "Slavery Modern" - a modern spin on an old shame. 

Avoiding non-fair-trade products is a habit I got into long ago, but I haven't gone to the Tate since I discovered their history. Admission is free but that's irrelevant to me: I don't want to be associated with it and I can live without it.

I wouldn't want a city to apologise but I wouldn't mind in the least if a company did although it wouldn't provoke me into having anything to do with them.

Incidentally (or not!):



> Out of the eater came forth food,
> *And out of the strong came forth sweetness*



According to Hebrew, this riddle was apparently told by Samson to the guests at his wedding. 

To cut a long story short, after the Philistines have finished with him, Samson ends up as slave himself.


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## GarveyLives (Jun 7, 2020)

(Source: as stated in image)






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(Source: as stated in image)​
*7 June 2020:   Members of the public decommission and dispose the statue celebrating and honouring Bristol white supremacist, Edward Colston, a member and former deputy governor of the Royal African Company, who was responsible for trafficking thousands of enslaved African people, and made himself a fortune in doing so.*


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## William of Walworth (Jun 10, 2020)

Very good article (IMO) about the Colston statue deposition here. David Olusoga has lived in Bristol for a good while I think :

The toppling of Edward Colston's statue is not an attack on history. It is history

Includes Colston Hall paragraph :



			
				David Olusoga said:
			
		

> Colston Hall, Bristol’s prime concert venue, and one of the many institutions named after the slave trader, announced that it was to change its name. In response, a number of otherwise reasonable decent people announced that they would be boycotting the hall.
> Think about that for a moment. Rational, educated, 21st-century people earnestly concluded that they were taking a moral stance by refusing to listen to music performed within the walls of a concert hall unless that venue was named after a man who bought, sold and killed human beings.


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## Smangus (Jun 12, 2020)

As a Neanderthal I'd like an apology from you Homo Sapiens out there for ruining my hunting grounds. Honestly , coming over here , killing our Mammoths and stealing our Elk, fecking long shank bastards


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## weltweit (Jun 12, 2020)

Apologies can have worth. 

What did Blair apologise for, I forget? 

But he didn't apologise for slavery, perhaps it could have led to calls for compensation?


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## rutabowa (Jun 14, 2020)

Hm in retrospect it looks like Donna ferentes was 100% right in this thread. Dunno if I would have thought that in 2006 though.


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## GarveyLives (Jun 23, 2020)

GarveyLives said:


> (Source: as stated in image)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



An uncomfortable dose of reality soup ...



> _"Contrary to our view of history, *pro-slavery* thinking in the 1820s and 30s *was the norm*, from politicians to monarchs ..."_



Britain's role in slavery was not to end it, but to _thwart abolition at every turn_


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## Dogsauce (Jul 24, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> Hm in retrospect it looks like Donna ferentes was 100% right in this thread. Dunno if I would have thought that in 2006 though.



The 2006 comments all read a bit Daily Mail to me, all whataboutery, ‘black people did it too’, ‘nothing to do with me’. Same arguments fash use now. I guess people have moved on a bit.

I understand an apology costs nothing and doesn’t fix things in a material way, but couldn’t imagine getting cross about it.


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## krtek a houby (Jul 25, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> Hm in retrospect it looks like Donna ferentes was 100% right in this thread. Dunno if I would have thought that in 2006 though.



Just read through it and yes, some of the comments don't sit well, at all, these days.


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## DaveCinzano (Oct 15, 2020)

Okay, so under what username did this prat used to post?









						Tory councillor calls Bristol reporter racist in heated interview
					

"It’s like the Germans dropping bombs on Bristol in World War Two. We’ve got over it, alright?"




					www.bristolpost.co.uk


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## GarveyLives (Jun 3, 2021)

GarveyLives said:


> (Source: as stated in image)
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The local authority has now found somewhere to relocate it:


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## GarveyLives (Jun 6, 2021)

GarveyLives said:


> The local authority has now found somewhere to relocate it:
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> _"The *slave trader’s statue* is back on show in Bristol. There’s something electric about seeing it supine in a museum ..."_



Historian and broadcaster, *David Olusoga*, comments on the relocation of the monument originally built to glorify the trader in enslaved Africans:

A year on, the battered and graffitied Colston is finally a potent memorial to our past


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## GarveyLives (Jul 25, 2021)

This will be available in schools in September 2021 and, hopefully, makes some positive contribution to revealing the truth behind the legacy of Bristol's involvement in the trafficking of enslaved Africans:






(Source: as stated in image)

*The textbook, called Bristol And Transatlantic Slavery - Origins, Impact And Legacy covers the period from 1440 right up until 2020, as well as the legacies of the traffic in enslaved Africans in the city.  It is written for Year 8 students who are aged 12 or 13*​


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## BillRiver (Jul 25, 2021)

GarveyLives said:


> This will be available in schools in September 2021 and, hopefully, makes some positive contribution to revealing the truth behind the legacy of Bristol's involvement in the trafficking of enslaved Africans:
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> 
> ...



I hope they'll be taught about resistance, by those enslaved, to slavery.  I also hope they learn positive facts about African culture and the contributions made by African people to the world.

As a person with Jewish heritage I was only ever taught about Jewish people as passive victims, and it was not helpful to my self-esteem. Nor was it accurate.


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## A380 (Jul 26, 2021)

Interesting program on the radio this evening about this work in Bristol.


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## kalidarkone (Jul 26, 2021)

A380 said:


> Interesting program on the radio this evening about this work in Bristol.


Perhaps a link to the radio programme would be useful?


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## A380 (Jul 26, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> Perhaps a link to the radio programme would be useful?


Perhaps it would have been. Perhaps saying please would have been nice…


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## kalidarkone (Jul 26, 2021)

A380 said:


> Perhaps it would have been. Perhaps saying please would have been nice…


I dont really understand why you would bother to let the thread know that you listened to an interesting radio program about the subject matter but not link to it?  This seems obvious to me.


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## GarveyLives (Mar 28, 2022)

GarveyLives said:


> Historian and broadcaster, *David Olusoga*, comments on the relocation of the monument originally built to glorify the trader in enslaved Africans:
> 
> A year on, the battered and graffitied Colston is finally a potent memorial to our past



Are people really planning to travel to Bristol to glorify the trader in enslaved Africans?


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## gentlegreen (Mar 29, 2022)

The mind boggles ...
Well this is the Internet age so hopefully there will be consequences.....


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## hitmouse (Mar 29, 2022)

GarveyLives said:


> Are people really planning to travel to Bristol to glorify the trader in enslaved Africans?


Yep, discussed a bit over on the Tommy Robinson thread. Local news article about it here.


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## Dogsauce (Mar 30, 2022)

Bit late to the party aren’t they? It’s all over. Colston will stay gone.


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