Esther Stanford, secretary of Rendezvous of Victory, a group pressing for compensation, said that a national commission was needed to examine the “holocaust of slavery”.
I heard the lady on BBC Breakfast news along with an academic historian. The latter was, quite rightly in my view, making the point that we should also be examining the role in this of African and Arab slavers who brought captives from the interior and sold them on to the Atlantic traders. Admittedly, I guess, they catered to a demand, but cater they did. I would hope that pressing Arab governments for compensation might be on the agenda also. Part of the reply was to talk about loss of cultural roots and identity as part of the destructive legacy of the Atlantic trade. I think the implication was meant to be that this was not the case in the interior trade. However, I very much doubt that that implication would stand up to scrutiny.
By all means let us recognise the crime, and the size of it. However, it was not a uniquely European crime. And we should recall that while slavery is illegal now in Europe and has been for some time, the same cannot be said of North Africa and Arabia...
Church Times - Slavery: PM’s guarded words:Filed in: slavery, compensation, UK, Africa, apology, repentance, compensation
No comments:
Post a Comment