Reparations For UK Role In Historic Slave Trade?

[Psamathe]

Something I really don't know what my view is and it sort of fluctuates as I find more.

So many aspects from apology through financial reparations, who and what, etc.

The other day one legal specialist on TV was saying how "Apology" and "Reparations" are closely linked as once you have made a public apology you have admitted wrong so almost the next automatic step is what reparations.

 

[Pblakeney]

Something I really don't know what my view is and it sort of fluctuates as I find more.

So many aspects from apology through financial reparations, who and what, etc.

The other day one legal specialist on TV was saying how "Apology" and "Reparations" are closely linked as once you have made a public apology you have admitted wrong so almost the next automatic step is what reparations.

I agree with the last sentence. The cynic in me says it is more about the reparations than the apology. Where will it end though?
The empires (all nations)? Normandy? Danes? Romans? Greeks? Ghengis Khan? Egyptians? Etc, etc...

 

[All uphill]

I'm all for apologies, so long as they are sincere. How sincere can they be when we hang on to things like the Elgin marbles?

Economic reparations? I think a good case can be made for the children and grandchildren, maybe, of victims, but beyond that I think the formerly colonising countries should stay out of former colonies business.

If any Commonwealth country wants the Royals I'd be happy for them to take them

 

[Psamathe]

I'm all for apologies, so long as they are sincere. How sincere can they be when we hang on to things like the Elgin marbles?

Also, where I get uncertain, how can we sincerely apologise for something somebody else did? "I'm sorry that they did what they did" - sort of sounds weird and insincere. But then similarly I can't apologise for something I did not do. Or am I missing something, failing to appreciate something as like I say, my views are uncertain.

 

[Psamathe]

How sincere can they be when we hang on to things like the Elgin marbles?

Not just the Elgin marbles eg https://www.jasperfforde.com/swindon/7ws_7.html

But on a more serious note, an interesting series of TV programs I'm working my way through (slowly). "Stuff the British Stole" based on an Austalian podcast series each program about something different. There are actually 3 series (I have them recorded) but Channel 4 seems to have one of the series online https://www.channel4.com/programmes/stuff-the-british-stole.

Maybe broader than slavery is the impact of colonisation and how nationals of colonised countries feel about the UK today. Once travelling in Burma in a lift with some Burmese people and one asked where I was from and when I said UK they responded along the lines of "You completely farked-up our country ..." (I actually had a really good response which I gave). Also travelling India and a broad range of attitudes from being attacked 99% probably because I was British (near the site of a British atrocity I felt I had to visit) through seeing colonisation as a disaster to having people say how India would be a lot worse off today were it not for British Colonisation.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Not sure how we can apologise (sincerel) for the actions of people over 200 years ago.
As said up thread, how far back do you then go?

 

[Pross]

I struggle as to why there should be reparations to countries in the Caribbean. Surely those countries were built on the backs of the slaves that were taken there and it is the West African countries the slaves were taken from who have the main claim for reparations? Also, not everyone in those countries has descended from slavery and some will have descended from those who were / worked for slave masters.

 

[Beebo]

Im boardly happy with a general apology for the role of the UK in the process. But definitely against any money being paid.

I know it’s all whataboutery. But Loads of awful things happen all the time.

And it’s even more nuanced when you consider that the slave traders were souring the supply of slaves from various tribes in west Africa who were complicit in rounding up slaves.

Then you have the slave trade to the Middle East. The terrible things that happened in South America. The Mongol horde causing havoc. The vikings, the Romans, the Persians. Right up to modern day slavery in China and human trafficking.

 

[Ian H]

I struggle as to why there should be reparations to countries in the Caribbean. Surely those countries were built on the backs of the slaves that were taken there and it is the West African countries the slaves were taken from who have the main claim for reparations? Also, not everyone in those countries has descended from slavery and some will have descended from those who were / worked for slave masters.

The countries who sold the slaves should be compensated?

 

[diplodicus]

It is an interesting question with no right answer.
The middle passage was horrific, and enormous wealth was built on their suffering.
If reparation is due, what level is fair?