This relates to the BBC article [www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66596790] which states “the UK should pay $24tn (£18.8tn) for its slavery involvement in 14 countries”.
The UK abolished slavery in 1833. That’s 190 years ago. So nobody alive today has a slave, and nobody alive today was a slave.
Dividing £18tn by the number of UK taxpayers (31.6m) gives £569 each. Why do I, who have never owned a slave, have to give £569 to someone who similarly is not a slave?
When I’ve paid my £569 is that the end of the matter forever or will it just open the floodgates of other similar claims?
Isn’t this just a country that isn’t doing too well, looking at the UK doing reasonably well (cost of living crisis excluded of course), and saying “oh there’s this historical thing that affects nobody alive today but you still have to give us trillions of Sterling”?
Shouldn’t payment of reparations be limited to those who still benefit from the slave trade today, and paid to those who still suffer from it?
(Please don’t flame me. This is NSQ. I genuinely don’t know why this is something I should have to pay. I agree slavery is terrible and condemn it in all its forms, and we were right to abolish it.)
charonn0@startrek.website 1 year ago
Nations that were the source of slaves remain on the whole impoverished and underdeveloped.
Nations that were slavers still remain on the whole wealthy and highly developed.
This is not a coincidence, and there is a reasonable case to be made for reparations on these grounds.
Gsus4@feddit.nl 1 year ago
The UKs position today is arguably due more to the Industrial Revolution and that was the main factor in the decay of slavery, so you need to balance historic grievances with development i.e. “what have the Romans ever done for us?”
Fades@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Dave@lemmy.nz 1 year ago
Have you considered that other factors led to the countries being wealthy or impoverished, and this allowed the wealthy to take the impoverished as slaves?
charonn0@startrek.website 1 year ago
For example?
protist@mander.xyz 1 year ago
Yes, and even accounting for those, wealthy countries that took slaves still hold an enormous amount of responsibility for they did
Natanael@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Guns?
KevonLooney@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Exactly. If anything, this amount of money is way too small.
Occasionally we read a news story about someone who escaped a maniac that kept them locked up for years, forcing them to work and do depraved things for little or no pay. We rightfully think this is terrible and the criminal is inhuman.
Slavery was millions of people in that situation for their entire lives. Whole economies were based on this genocide. We put Nazis to death for genocide. We put other leader on trial for similar crimes. Paying this tiny fine is the least the British (and other European governments) can do. The amount they really owe would bankrupt them.
What amount of money would you exchange for measurably worse lives (education, health, jobs) for you, your family, and everyone who looks like you for generations?
CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
This is so false, slavery was wide practice in Africa already, the “slaving countrys” just bought them for the most part…
JustZ@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah it existed as a practice. The big slave markets and infrastructure was not there until the North American slave trade opened up.
charonn0@startrek.website 1 year ago
Between 1500 and 1865, more than 80% of enslaved Africans were shipped to the Americas by European slave traders.
abies_exarchia@lemm.ee 1 year ago
What do you think an enormous demand for slaves, as the colonial nations building plantations and mines in the americas, does to a the supply of slaves? Supply and demand, friend. It’s not as if all the enslaved people exported to the Americas were already in circulation when the europeans came knocking
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
What’s your point?
“I’m going to take these slaves and exploit them because if I don’t someone else will”
XiELEd@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Nope, they deliberately made it so that the populations of African countries can easily be enslaved.
Mojavee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
charonn0@startrek.website 1 year ago
That the wealth they still enjoy was largely stolen. Especially when you add colonialism.