UKC

Other virtue signalling is there a point in apologising for actions that happened a hundred plus years ago - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53087790 ?

I don't think anyone would assume if Greene King had not issued the apology today the present company was somehow in favour of slavery.

While we have to acknowledge and learn from the past is the important issue here in danger of being lost in the talk about what happened in the past?

Dave

It's pointless to apologise for stuff that happened 200+ years ago.

No.

Can society only think about or address one thing at a time? 

By that I mean, why would companies like Greene King saying sorry be a distraction from how racism is a problem today?

I'm of Huguenot ancestory, and I think the Roman Catholic Church owe me not only an apology for the vicious persecution of my forebears after the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685),  but restoration to my rightful position of sipping Jupiler while taking a break from silk weaving somewhere in the Dordogne. 

They received a great deal of tax payers money in compensation for the abolition of slavery. They are going to do something positive.  How is that a bad thing?

Why are you talking about this on a climbing Forum? 

Nobody is. This is the "off belay" forum.

The clue should be in the name...

Why you on a climbing forum when you only climb severe?

(not nice when someone's a knob to you is it?) 

You are 32 years old. 

What a load of bollox... 

Didn’t the French Revolution take care of that for you? 

Are we limiting the forum to those who can onsight 7b now?

We're not those 8a.nu losers!

Are you new?

I see no point in it. Changes nothing. If Greene King have racist practices now then they need sorting out. If I found out one of my ancestors had wronged somebody or some group I couldn’t in good faith apologise for it because I would feel no responsibility for it, making it a hollow, meaningless and insincere gesture. Utterly pointless. 

Indeed. My Grandad used to love murdering small rodents with an air rifle. I don't owe squirrels an apology. 

(Edit: to clarify, the squirrels were unarmed and my Grandfather was brandishing the aforementioned weapon.)

The cynic in me sees that the BLM movement, armed with too much time on its hands and access to the internet, smell blood in every tiny crack and GK are taking a proactive stance to shore up its brand in case of an attack.

They should definitely apologise for the culinary atrocity they subjected me to in the Bagshot Hungry Horse. I'll accept reparations in the form of Beavertown Gamma Ray.

If we demand too many apologies and include those from the distant paths where do we draw the line?

A joint attack by Turkish  & Algerian pirates, one of whom was a Dutchman, raided northern Europe, as far a field as Iceland and took slaves back to places on the North African coast such as Tangiers and sold them into slavery.  

This included English slaves and notably one raid on Baltimore (Eire),  in 1631 resulted in almost all the inhabitants (100+) being taken into slavery in North Africa.

Should we demand an apology?

If we as individuals go far enough back in our respective family histories we will no doubt come across some dubious events/characters/ practices that wouldn't be acceptable today. I feel no compulsion to apologise for their wrong doings no matter how heinous their 'crimes '. Learn from the mistakes of the past, look forward to the future. The avalanche of meaningless trite apologies have no real purpose other than companies wanting to tick the 'dodgy historical past - public apology issued' box✔

And the money?  

Nah, if it's old whitey doing it, then it's evil incarnate and the sins of the father must definitely be visited upon the son's, way beyond the fourth generation. 

If it's anyone less pigmentally challenged whisking boatloads of whitey off to Mediterranean climes, then it's just a very early and slightly misjudged iteration of the modern day all inclusive package holiday.

You’ve lost me. 

Quite. 

The British government did back in the 19th century and received apologies and promises not to do it again. Admittedly it was probably a somewhat reluctant set of apologies as can be seen from the fact they had to ask the ruler of Algiers twice before he agreed.

The French then took things a bit further.

The detail you're ignoring is that the British were demanding apologies for ongoing actions, not stuff from 200 years prior.

I was simply commenting on the fact apologies had already been demanded and, given the French occupation, it isnt like there is any continuity of control and responsibility. So whilst it is nice to see some people have found the history books I feel a bit more reading would be useful (I mean for the UK as a whole you could argue for the cost maintaining the west Africe squadron is a fairly hefty offset against any apologies).

Not to mention the lives of the 15,000 British sailors lost maintaining the blockade.

To right we do.

If you are going to take pride in the good stuff your countrymen did in the past, and claim some of their legacy, then you also own the bad stuff they did.

My take on it is that if we don’t take responsibility for what our ancestor did, then we have no exclusive right whatsoever on what they have left us.

As an aside, is UKC is becoming yet another outlet for this totally nonsensical culture war ? The number of threads on this stuff is just exploding.

There's. Nothing. Else. To. Do.

Nice one, equating slavery and black peoples live to squirrels.

WTF?

What does it cost to say sorry?

As long as you're genuine about your reasons for apologising then how is it virtue signalling
(such a wanky term, almost as pointless as "do gooders")?

Should empires/ companies, be :-

1. proud they were built on slavery
2. Ambivalent
3. disappointed but acknowledge their history
4. Not care at all?

Obviously we can't change the past, but we can accept ALL of the history, that got us to where we are now.

No but if your grandad murdered the neighbours and stole their fortune, which you inherited and enjoyed thereafter, you do owe the descendants of the neighbours at the very least an apology if not reparations.

I thought that as well you know, not about BLM people having too much time on their hands etc, but that they're being cautious and sensible from a business point of view. 

I wouldn't doubt that everybody in Greene King today finds slavery appalling...

I don't take pride in what someone totally unrelated to me did 200 years ago and I have no claim on any legacy. Does that mean I'm let off then?

Do you also require that my kids apologise for their Dad doing a variety of very stupid things 30 years ago? If not, why should they apologise for the actions of someone totally unrelated to them from 200 years prior to that? As for "exclusive rights on what they have left us", what exactly do you mean? cos I've got exclusive rights to precisely nothing from any ancestor of mine (unless a propensity towards male pattern baldness counts- if anybody wants some, you're welcome).

I'd agree it's nonsensical, but in this case, your argument is entirely that there's a point to it.

Although I suspect they differ on the flavour of their own beer.

You've hit the nail on the head. If it costs nothing it means little

You must be a hoot at funerals. "I'm very sorry for your loss. Here's 100 quid"

I’m getting a bit concerned about the effect John Knox has had on sexism and religious intolerance. Should we tear down all his statues and raze all Protestant churches to the ground? Google “monstrous regiment of women” for sexist views.

Someone's taking the internet too seriously again...

Probably me actually.

Please see below some incredibly poor landscape photography.

You are let off if you indeed you renonce tu every advantage that has been given to you through bloodline.

So you give your citizenship and your passport away as well as renounce to use any public infrastructure or other service that was built by  people before us.

Let’s see how you fare.

You have inherited the huge privilege to have the citizenship of a very rich and developed country. This is a pretty exclusive right transmitted through blood lines that we only very rarely grant to others.

Every single day we get to enjoy the fruits of what our ancestors built and we maintain exclusive access to it through various borders and immigration control.

For the most part these advantages are the result of hard work our ancestors did, and we can be proud of it, but sometimes it is the result of stealing/murder/enslavement and we should apologise and pay reparations.

I come from a long line of utter peasants.

Does this go for everyone the world over then? Cos there isn't a society or a people on the face of the planet that hasn't subjugated, oppressed, robbed or wronged someone else in the past. Do you demand that all those West African nations apologise for selling their enemies to European Slavers? Should North African Nations apologise for their much larger role in the international slave trade? Should modern day Italians be apologising for enslaving half the continent? How about the Egyptians? they've earnt billions of tourist dollars from pyramids built by slaves.

Could you answer just one question I asked you? Do you demand that my children should apologise for the bad things I've done in my life? cos one way or another they're benefiting from the mistakes I've made. If you find yourself unable to answer then the rest of your demands for apologies are just so much inconsequential posturing.

Yes, it goes for every nation.

Yes, they should if they get your legacy, they get all of it - the good and the bad. You can’t say i’m going to take all the assets and none of the debt.

You are applying 21st century morals to past centuries.....it is quite clearly ludicrous for Italy or Greece to apologise for what they did thousands of years ago when it was not considered then to be morally wrong.

I would apply the same thought process to events from more recent centuries as well... 

Well, if you can accept that every nations got skeletons in their cupboards then you should be able to see how utterly pointless it is for the living to apologise for the actions of the dead. We've got enough  injustice going on today without wasting time on stuff that happened centuries ago.

You can get stuffed if you think my kids have any responsibility for my actions and you can get stuffed if you think every kid with a parent in prison should go around grovelling to the rest of the community.

Do the Norwegians need to pay reparations for Viking raids on Northumberland?

Ruddy Norwegians... With their skiing and their jumpers and their high quality of life. 

Thanks. 

He did do something we're not proud of in Iran with a power station but we don't talk about that anymore. 

Do I need to apologise to Ali Khamenei?

The descendants of Eve should apologise to the descendants of Adam for stealing his Apple (though it might have been a Samsung).

I don’t know, read hammurabi´s code. Core principles are the same as today.

.

You are right I'll start going to random funerals of people I never met and offer fake condolences and that will make everything better.

Non. It was all very well Marianne with her boobs out banging on about Liberte Egalite and Fraternite 100 years after the event, but what about Culpabilite? 

For any apology to carry meaning it must come from someone with culpability, otherwise it is neither contrite nor genuine no matter how sincerely meant. Neither beast nor fowl, it is a schmuck-spilled platitude to appease our appetite for compliant vacuity in lieu of meaningful action. If everyone currently indulging themselves in hand wringing for past abhorrances thought carefully about their next car wash, choice of cheap garment, sexual services or world cup viewing habits then meaningful progress against slavery might be made. By us. All of us. Now.

Bang on.

I apologise if someone bumps into me in the supermarket (or at least used to before distancing), and people do the same if I do it to them.

It means quite a bit actually, but still doesn't cost anything. You probably don't, but that wouldn't be a surprise.

If you're limiting your apologise by how long ago they occurred, then where do you draw the line?

What's your cut off date?

Do you then also do the same about celebrating things, VE day, American Independence day?

Jacinda Ardern apologised to NZ, because of the mistakes they made during the  CV outbreak, they probably did the best job in the world of acting to protect people, and yet she apologised.

So, to be clear, that's a yes on Scandinavian Viking apology? 

That way of thinking is fine as long as you agree that everybody in the world should be free to come and live to your country with no restriction. Since you accept no responsibility for what your ancestors did, you get no exclusive right of what they left you.

> You can get stuffed if you think my kids have any responsibility for my actions and you can get stuffed if you think every kid with a parent in prison should go around grovelling to the rest of the community.

You haven’t understood anything I’ve said.

So no one should be apologising for anything to do with the holocaust then?

Or allowing Jimmy Saville to carry on doing what he did?

When the wrongs carried out are by systems, what do you do when there isn't an individual with culpability?

Do you just ignore it?

Really?

Don't worry about it. I've got this.

I'll apologise for absolutely everything right now. Everything. All of it. Every single thing. Sorry about that lads 

Sorted.

See? It carries less weight than an eggshell wheelbarrow.

So... Why's it different?

And if you were the child of Jimmy Saville, you'd be quite happy saying "Nowt to do with me".

While it obviously hasn't, you'd come across as a bit of a tw*t, pretending it didn't happen.

People can apologise all they want. It is the meaning behind the words that interests me. The German government can apologise on behalf of the German state, but in what other way would they speak on behalf of the Third Reich?

Corporations such as BASF, Siemens etc likewise. I personally would prefer they acknowledge their part, document it and put effort into countering Holocaust denial and looking at their current practices. Does Mengele Agricultural Equipment need to apologise for carrying the family name?

Perpetrators are now well into their 90's. What weight should we attach to any apology from them now? Far better to endeavour to counter Holocaust denial with education, evidence and preserved testimony as it slips from living memory the time for apology passes and the time for renewed effort to educate begins.

Primo Levi published in the back of (I think - I can't locate my copy now) The Drowned and the Saved, letters exchanged with Germans who wrote to him apologising for the Holocaust. His responses are humane, reasoned and fair. He absolves the blameless but the anger is undimmed, his need to testify and educate compelling. He of course, only speaks for himself, but his words should be remembered.

People are still not only alive but still working who carry culpability for allowing Saville to act with impunity due to their deference, omissions, failures and possibly even collusion. Apology from them would be meaningful and I'm not convinced they have been adequately held to account.

Change the system.

No, you learn from it. You educate yourself, you question yourself and your choices and you take responsibility for those choices. You don't assume a guilt that isn't yours and you don't make apologies for anyone else.

And a major part of that learning might be some apologising for something, that someone else might never have know about.

An apology, might be the start of ALL of the things in your post happening.

No one is suggesting an apology, is the end of it, it's more likely the start of something bigger.

You might not, I was in Greece last year and apologised a lot for the actions of the Brexiteers back in the UK.

People aren't still being disadvantaged because of it, for starters.

Could we argue that deprivation in the North East would atleast, in a tiny tiny tiny part, have a small causation from Viking raids? 

Do the Scandinavians owe modern Christian religious communities reparations for the damage done to monasteries at this time?

Obviously, this is ridiculous but my point is that at this rate we'll all be apologising and making reparations for everything forever. Let's just get on with sorting out what we can control. 

Or else we'll have certain specific parts of Germany trying to pay off the sacking of Rome. 

I suppose you are right in that an apology is whatever the recipient interprets it to be. I apologise if I have suggested otherwise.

Fair comment.

Isn't that the Gorilla that got shot a few years back?  Are you apologising for that?

No, but you might.

In reply to Alyson30:

No, I'm with you and I agree with the rest of you post.

I was being a bit flippant, but it's still how society "works" in some instances, the two people apologising for getting to the door at the same time, isn't about someone wronging the other.

Apology accepted, and I apologise if my post may have come across as forceful.

see how nice that was

This has been fun, thanks! 

I'm off to finish some work and plan a bimble over the Moor Tomorrow. Keen! Have a fab weekend

The sun's even coming out!

BB 

And what sort of tw*t would you be if you took it upon yourself to insist the great great great great great grandkid of Saville should still be apologising 200 years after the last of his victims had died?

It is. I blame those who create profiles and only ever post on this type of thread.....  

It is the wrong analogy, as most likely Saville’s great great grandkids will get no benefits whatsoever from Saville’s actions (they will probably get a downside from it in fact)

We are not responsible for the crimes our ancestors commited, but we are responsible for what they left us. That is if we want to have a claim on it.

You keep banging on about what my ancestors did. My ancestors had nothing to do with the slave trade. Nowt. Nada. Same as 99% of the people around at that time. If you mean I’m somehow culpable 200 years after the event because the U.K. structurally benefited from its century long involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, then you’re also demanding every other British citizen apologises, including every person if Caribbean descent who you’ll be expecting, presumably, to apologise for the enslavement of their own ancestors! 

No, I’ve understood your position, it’s just that I think it’s ridiculous.

So you are after the money not the apology......

We are not asking every single British person to post their apology. It's a collective responsibility of the nations we enjoyed the benefits of, not an individual one.
The state can issue an official apology, and if necessary issue reparations of some sort. This is actually pretty common.

And yet you have been unable to articulate a coherent argument against it.

Sometimes an apology is all you need when reparations are not possible or practical. 

That's a pretty snide argument.

It's not unfair to argue that since there are organisations which owe their existence and to some degree their _continued_ existence to the financial rewards of the slave trade and other unpleasant aspects of colonialism, that they bear some ongoing moral burden for those actions. That's not a redistributive argument.

An Indian lady used to run a place in Sheffield, and occasionally advise people not to order certain dishes, a brother always used to wonder why on earth she still had them on the menu if she didn't think enough of the dishes for people to eat them.

It's interesting timing with their apology, but I don't suppose that has to make a shallow gesture, and investing to help members of the BAME communities is a plus.

UKs current infatuation with a compenstaion culture only really benefits in most cases one sector, the legal profession. The awards and then costs of these claims usually end up in nice high legal fees for the legal teams which come out of the awards.

It is time people woke up to this, accepted an apology for something over which nowadys anybody has had any control over and moved on.

Wishful think of some fat cheque coming your way is no way to live a current life.

So yes I am being snidey.

This is what you've written:

"You are let off if you indeed you renonce tu every advantage that has been given to you through bloodline. So you give your citizenship and your passport away as well as renounce to use any public infrastructure or other service that was built by  people before us. Let’s see how you fare."

 "Since you accept no responsibility for what your ancestors did, you get no exclusive right of what they left you."

Your entire ridiculous argument has been framed in terms of individual responsibility for events which occurred hundreds of years ago.

Seems pretty coherent to me.

Oh, and I wondered how long it'd take you to pop up again after I outed your last persona and you had to retire it. You have posting style and set of idiosyncratic phrases that make you readily identifiable. I reckoned you were running about 6 sock puppets so you're certainly burning through them, Why don't you just go back to posting as Rom?

No, the example above simply illustrated the consequence of ignoring collective responsibility at the individual level. The argument itself is not specific to individual responsibility.

The only reason I had to retire my account is to escape your vile and systematic harassment, bullying, and disparaging reference to my origins and background every time I posted something.
You made my presence on this forum completely unliveable.

It worked for a while and it was very pleasant, but it looks like there is simply no escaping your constant staking.

That's not very pleasant of you.  

You're very endearing in your innocence Timmd but just because someone says something is so doesn't make it true. I've never bullied anyone on here and Rom's actual issue with me is that I'll consistently call him on his bullshit.

It was the perceived 'tone of pernickertyness' more than anything. If somebody is wrong, it's probably easy enough to point it out without pernickertyness.

Most of the time...

That's a shame.

RTB was my second favourite bear themed UKC user. 

PBAB being the king ofcourse.

pernickertyness is one thing, hiding behind multiple personas, running a stable of sock puppets to manipulate likes and dislikes and constantly mischaracterising and denigrating other posters is quite another. 

No, not at all, I have had plenty of heated argument with very capable and fierce debaters on these forums, and many of them have proved me wrong and took me to the cleaners more than once.

It’s never been a problem for me over a decade on UKC, and in fact I actively seek a challenging debate.

What I found intolerable to stomach is your rejection of me and any opinions I may have on the basis of my national origin and background as well as you stalking me on various threads just to post abuse. You even got as far as monitoring my profile almost daily, picking up on any small changes I made. It’s obsessive and creepy.

I’ve confronted you many times on this and you never changed your behaviour, and I don’t expect you will.

I’ve said my piece now time for me to retire from these forums at least until you decide to leave them or eventually get banned.

I think I'm glad to have missed the relevant threads so that it's gone over my head. 

What's obsessive and creepy is running multiple profiles and using them to manipulate the likes and dislikes. I see that you're attempting to frame your behaviour as a response to the entirely imaginary persecution you say you've suffered at my hands. Weird then that most of your false profiles, including 'Alyson30', predate my joining UKC by some years.

I also find it particularly creepy as we have a regular poster called Alyson in real life.  

Will there need to be an apology?

Will there be reparations?

Fire up the popcorn maker!

One of my ancestors was the Black Douglas, should I accept responsibility for all the people he killed? Or acknowledge the respect I deserve At the part he played in Scottish independence? Personally I think what he did has nothing to do with me. With regard to Saville what he did was illegal and against public morals at the time he did it. This is an excellent example of why we should be facing up to the issues of today to stop them happening now. I suspect there are a lot of criminals and slavery today hiding in plain sight in the uk. The “establishment” is good at protecting its own.

In order to apologise you need to first understand you’ve done something wrong and I don’t think he’s even at that stage.

What sort of tw*t would you be, to completely ignore the the post about Jimmy's son and then suggest 200 years later they should still be apologising.

I specifically said son for a reason.

As a company if your company was founded with slavery either as a large part of it, or as a result of slavery, and they've never acknowledged it, then too right they should apologise, 200 or 300 years ago. Why shouldn't they?

Then you're in the clear and you don't have anything to apologise for.

And well done you?

There's only you suggesting people are after money.

Hollow, meaningless and insincere it may well be, but you're ignoring the positives - what about the sheer joy of frantic emotional masturbation?  Especially when it's conducted in the public square, either virtually on Twitter or physically in public, er.... squares.  Imagine the thrill... 

And don't forget, by doing this, you'd be simultaneously rewarded with approval (you are desperate for approval, aren't you?) and taking out insurance against being attacked by the mob.

I don't see how you can lose.  Yeah, yeah, OK, you can lose your honesty and integrity and - eventually - your culture and society, but just think of the wanking.  And the fear....  Go on, don't be shy.  Declare your white guilt and let fly.

I’ll stick with You Porn

Are any of your ancestors French, German, Spanish or Italian?  All those countries have inflicted death and damage on my ancestors.  If you have such ancestry, I want an apology and I want your money.  And I want them NOW.  Not next week, not tomorrow, NOW.  And I don't want to hear any whining, excuse making, or evasion.  Full grovelling apology, and money.  Get on it.

I do hope you've personally apologised for the sinking of the Titanic (and every other loss of life at sea from time immemorial).

After all, you've personally benefitted due to the change in safety rules at sea. No need for you to worry if there'll be a lifejacket or room in the lifeboat - unlike those poor souls.

If that's true, that makes two of you...

Ah, now then....  Who is 'we', exactly?  

No way!  Is that really Rom?  If so, that's a hoot  :-D

Can't blame him for sock puppet accounts, though - if your positions were all hyper-emotional and bat guano mental, you'd want to keep switching accounts, too.  A chap can only take so much embarrassment, you know.

Who indeed. Multiple personality disorder?

Don't worry, Alys....err Rom....errr or whoever, has already stated months ago, he's going to make a mint out of this pandemic.

Already in the clear. I was born centuries after the slave trade ended.

I suppose you're at least consistent in your position. You demand apologies for stuff I've not done and also offer congratulations for stuff I've not done. I bet Hallmark cards make a mint out of you.

Again well done you. you must be great, I wish I was you.

Negative effects from slavery are still around today so why shouldn't a company that directly benefited from it apologise?

Maybe cos kicking up a fuss about company's 200 year old crimes rather detracts from the thousands of companies, from Del Monte to BAE, who's victims blood is still wet on the walls. Save the outrage for the CEOs we've actually got a tiny weeny chance of dragging into court.

In reply to:

As a Briton, shouldn't I be asking for thanks for what my forebears did in eliminating slavery.

After all, it was the work of the Royal Navy in stopping slave ships that really brought it, whilst not to a complete end, at least down to a "local" problem. It certainly wasn't the west African countries, who were still enslaving their neighbours and either using them themselves, or trading them on.

I'm not feeling outrage but I still don't see anything wrong with them apologising. 

I'm sorry we live in a society that doesn't treat black people the same as white people.

I'm sorry that some people I know think this is OK.

I'm sorry that our Secretary of State, doesn't know what taking a knee means, or that it isn't something to do with Game of Thrones.

I'm sorry that nearly 60 years after MLK marched in Selma, people are still marching about the same issues.

I'm sorry that Tony Blair killed more Iraqis that Saddam Hussein.

I'm sorry that Margaret Thatcher decimated jobs in the north of England and destroyed what little "society" we had.

I'm sorry that a massive number of people I know, think BLM = Antifa = People just looking for trouble.

None if this was my fault, and I'm not related to anyone personally involved, but I'm in awe of anybody who fights against the whitewashing of any of the above and can't understand why anyone would think it's OK NOT to be sorry about not just the list above but any number of things. So there's plenty to apologise for, I'm not responsible for any of it, at least not consciously, but  I unreservedly apologise for it. We are all part of society, and if you're keeping quite, because it doesn't suit your agenda, then you are part of the problem.

Why anyone would want to  refuse to acknowledge our past transgressions, is beyond me, apologising is the first step on the road to reconciliation.

What sort of false  "pride" does it take to refuse to apologise for any wrong done to any other group of people?

Again, it costs you nothing personally, yet can be the beginning of healing a rift in our society, so why not?

Siemens and Krupp are two hundred years old are they?

I don't understand why we can't be "outraged" at ALL of it, if outrage is what is needed to apologise. Why is it one or the other?

Dunno mate? You on the right thread? According to the link in the OP we were discussing Greene King (founded 1799) and Lloyd’s (founded 1688).

You’re quite right. I’m sure you’re outraged by all of it, ALL OF IT! ... you seem the type

That's an awful lot of sorry there Bud, and I'm sorry but an enormous, blanket cultural cringe of a sorry means absolutely nothing, solves absolutely nothing and in terms of impacting the people you profess to be apologising to , it's the equivalent of those 15 page legal disclaimers tacked onto the end of stuff like phone contracts, ie. the entity issuing might feel it comprehensively covers their arse, but none of the people it's aimed at read it and none of them really care.

I'm not personally sorry for any of that and wouldn't  dream of 'apologising' for any of it....I think you are riding the 'guilt train' a bit too much.....perhaps get off it and clear your head. 

Hang on, I already apologised for everything up thread. Beat you to it.

In the world of competitive apologising, I am clearly the winner.

I am not sure why everybody seems to throw common sense seems completely go out of the window on these subjects and adopt these absurdly extreme position.

It isn’t s choice between apologising for everything that ever happened and never apologising for anything.

But there is a case that, for example, if my grandfather stole a painting from your grandfather, I then inherited it, and that painting is now worth 10m, you probably will want to get it back, and you would have a pretty good shot at it in the courts, I believe.

If we enjoy past acquired wealth then we must also bear, to an extent, some form of responsibility for how it was acquired. That seems sensible to me.

Nobody is accusing the various Jewish organisations set up to recover assets stolen by Nazis to be demented social justice warrior, but when it’s people of African descent trying to do something along similar lines then suddenly it is. Odd isn’t it.

The second world war is in living memory and the Germans committed war crimes, the 17th century isn't....big difference.

If Jews were trying to get reparations for something that was not considered illegal 300 years ago there would be a different reaction.....

Phwoar!

Siemens and Krupp ?

Seizing Jewish assets wasn’t illegal at the time, so I don’t think that legality « at the time » is always a valid argument.

On time passed, you are correct it does seem that responsibility decays over time (As I’ve pointed out twice before..)

That is fine, we acknowledge that, and move forward by re-evaluating damages in the light of time passed.

So for example, it would unreasonable to ask Britain to repay India the estimated 45 trillion we sucked out of their economy over many decades of colonisation. Or to repay the descendants of slaves. We wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway.

However we can acknowledge a wrong was done, apologise,  and compensate however we can. For example I would suggest offering workers of former colonised countries easier access to the U.K. labour market, something they have been demanding for a long time. It would be probably win-win, and recognise that they also should be able to profit from the opportunities the country their forefathers helped build.

Basically we just need to be sensible and creative, I’m tired of these extremist positions, there is a whole word of possibilities between blindness to any responsibility for what our ancestor did - even when we are visibly profiting from it - and seeking apologies for Viking invasions.

No I wouldn't expect you too.

I think I'd like to live in a society where none of that shit happened.

Perhaps you might like to revisit some of your posts.

You might well be happy living in a world where this just passes you by, and that of course is you prerogative.

If you don't acknowledge it, it's not likely to change, you seem quite happy with the status quo, some people aren't, so who's right and who needs to clear their head.

I don't feel guilty about it, I'm just sad it seem OK with a lot of people.

Actually this is a very good point ! Something I had noticed before, we generally hail as heroes people who save lives after the fact, but never recognise people who prevent death in the first place.

Aren't their much more recent actions to apologise for?

The attack and destruction of the Zulu territory in the 1870s 

and the complete destruction of the Benin empire in 1897   which resulted in their palaces being looted, their city burned to the ground and many killed.

Both of these wars were started by the British.

I find the title of this thread a bit misleading, I think most people are just looking for an acknowledgment of what has happened in the past not an apology (or compensation) and a recognition also that what happened in the past does have an affect on our society now, slavery transitioned into segregation, which led to the KKK, which led to Jim Crow laws, which led to suppression of voters rights, which led to generational poverty which led to the highest prison incarceration rate in the western world, which ultimately led to Floyd George dying in the street.

If we can't acknowledge the past then we f%^&ed about sorting out the future, I'm taking a guess that the Venn diagram of those that argue that we shouldn't acknowledge the past(or "rewrite" history) is exactly the same as those that would argue that extinction rebellion is a waste of time and changing third world labour and western consumerism is a wast of time. 

History will not be kind to the Daily Mail comments page.

Or more recent than that, the Iraq war, started for completely bogus reasons.

It depends, history is always written by the winners, and right now, it’s the kind people you find on the daily mail comments page who are winning.

I knew you'd get there in the end.

it was living memory and yet people who were 5 at the end of the war are now 80 or almost 80 so there can't be many people left who did the terrible harm.  Men of 80 mow will have served in the Bundeswehr within NATO. 

I don't feel the need to apologise for chemical weapons attacks by the UK in the 1930s so the same should apply to the Germans.  Now the Serbs etc ... different matter, though it is beyond apology.

I think there is a case for the UN apologising for failing to prevent genocide though this would have required vastly more resources on the ground and much much earlier.

One of the justifications used by the Israeli government for annexing West Bank land is that it originally belonged to the Israelites but they forced off it.

Anyone think there is any merit in their argument?

Well to be clear I wouldn't expect any German who didn't commit crimes in WW2 to apologise for anything....the point was Jews going after stolen material from the war is more justified than seeking reparations for something that happens centuries ago. 

We won the Second World War and the Daily Mails initial support for Hitler hasn’t aged well.

As for looking back in fifty years time, 99.9 % of scientists agree that climate change will be the winner, but also our modern day neoliberal exploitation of propane planet will be viewed as the shameful thing it is 

Yes, and look at it, we have a WWII myth of great victory of freedom against evil which isn’t at all what happened.

WWII was predominantly a war between two murderous autocracies, one of two won it in the east, with our help in the west, and then went on to enslave half of Europe for decades. And they pretty much got away with it ideologically. 
 

If anything totalitarianism covered more of Europe after the war was « won » than it did before. And yet we celebrate it as a some sort of great victory.

We basically rewrote WWII as a narrative of glorious victory against evil which still haunts public consciousness today. 
And that’s essentially what nations are built on, collective myths and a powerful political rewriting of history.
 

The German taxpayer paid war reparations to various countries well into the 1990s.

Was this wrong ?

It seems to me that they seem a lot more confident, fair and honnest about their past as nation than we are... There might be some value in taking collective responsibility, after all.

Had the Russian, nazi or Japanese empires captured more land or succeeded in their aims, far more people would have suffered since 1945 than did. That's a victory. If you were in a work camp in Germany, Poland, Burma etc. in 1945 and allied forces freed you, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't care about modern day over analysis or simplifications. 

That is actually very questionable. What ifs scenario are always difficult. Fascism was a terribly murderous system, but if it was even appropriate to compare, Stalin and communism were on pretty much every measure you could conceive, worse.

The defeat of Hitler left Stalin to enslave most of Europe for decades thereafter. Was that really victory ? It seems more complex and less black and white than that.

The victory, locally, for us, was to be able to hang on by a thread, until Stalin and the Americans finally defeated Hitler. That was no mean feat in itself, and certainly worth celebration, so is the rest of the liberation of Western Europe and the dismantling of concentration camps.
But the historical complexity is far removed from the national narrative we have today.

And of the Japanese empire expansion? Often forgotten, but equally as brutal and merciless as hitlers armies, or Stalin. The ussr would have likely expanded with or without ww2, it was just good timing. Their intentions were pretty obvious even before ww2 officially started. 

One thing that strikes me as well is the lack of bad blood between Jewish people and today’s Germany.

In many ways it seems that Germany managed to solve most of the problems with its recent past.
 

But it is pretty obvious that in Britain we still haven’t really dealt with our past of colonialism and slavery. Apologies and reparations may well be one part of the healing process. At the end of the day this may actually be cheaper than dragging this weight for another 200 years...

Isn't that because there are very very few descendants, in the space of 5 years the Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of families, all ages; babies, kids, old men... all murdered. If you wipe out entire populations of course there are less people to grumble years later.  

WW2 was a war of survival against a country in the grip of an evil government.

All this means is that if you don’t manage completely exterminate the population you’ve shafted, you may have a big problem down the line.

Precisely. Current Chinese re-education programmes, American Indians, aborigines, sunni Shia, Uganda etc. Etc.. there isn't a population in the world not impacted by oppression at one time or another. 

Sorry, that's BS.

I, you, people living today all over the world cannot be held responsible for the actions of those who came before them.  If they could then, for example, I could reasonably claim that you owe me £50 because your great-grandfather pinched one of my great-grandfather's chickens, the absence of which imposed dietary restrictions on his children at an important stage of their development and meant that they didn't get a better job in a foundry but had to work down the mine.  In view of the consequences of your great-grandfather's actions on my family's development, whilst simultaneously acknowledging the time that has gone by, I think £50 is a more than reasonable compensation and I expect it in crisp new notes by the end the week.

Oh, and next generation of my family will be lodging another claim with your family, and so on forevermore.

Ridiculous, of course; but that appears to be what you're arguing.

I suspect that's because you haven't thought through what you want to say, and it's come out as something else.  

T.

If we are talking reparations can I claim a few quid? My family hails from West Clare in Ireland and they had their house burnt by the black and tans back in 1920. That neck of the woods was hit particularly hard by the Irish famine as well, I'm sure some of my ancestors probably for caught up in that as well and the British did not exactly fall over themselves to help during that time. How much should I get? 

What you have done here is to pick an exaggeratedly mundane example, for which nobody in their right mind would bother seeking litigation, in order to taint the wider argument.

A fairly transparent rethorical gimmick to mask the lack of coherent counter argument. 
 

No only I’ve thought it through, but go figure, many Jewish families have sought reparations and recovered assets stolen from the descendants of those whose stole them, and had pretty good success through the courts doing do.

I guess they must be ridiculous, according to you.

The fact that many drivers will have a car accident at some point doesn’t mean that those responsible for car accident shouldn’t  say sorry or pay reparations, under the pretext that it is common occurrence.

I suspect that the slave trade and colonialism, just like the issues you’ve mentioned, whose effects are still visible today, will keep being brought up as a source of tension as long as we fail to put it right or at least properly acknowledge and truly apologise for them.  (Or wait a 1000 years). They certainly have all of in common that they were never truly put right.

 

Dunno mate? You on the right thread? According to the link in the OP we were discussing Greene King (founded 1799) and Lloyd’s (founded 1688).

Surprisingly this thread isn't about you needing to apologise, or anyone else "needing" to.

Reparations for slave trading. Glasgow Uni has figured out that it benefitted by between £16m and £230m from the largesse of 18th century slavers so it has pledged to contribute £20m for a slavery research centre with the University of the West Indies chiefly in research grants and gifts. Seems like a practical form of reparation.

What worries me more is the assumption that systemic racism isn’t really a thing in Britain. I think we need to listen, properly listen, to the experiences of black folk, rather than the Lawrence Fox interpretation of them. Yes, we will hear some grievance but we’ll hear a lot more genuine injustice. As a manager of a social care service I used to interview black folk regularly and was often unsettled to find African teachers, accountants, nurses, even a senior economist from a major African government, looking for a low paid, low status social care worker job. When asked they said to a man or woman that they couldn’t get interviews, or couldn’t convert their qualifications/registrations for U.K. use. 
 

There was also a sobering conversation on TV earlier today while waiting for the football to come on between 3 of the comments & analysis team (2 of whom were black) about their experiences.
 

Best form reparation could take would be to provide practical steps to remedy systematic discrimination; teach history in a way that helps folk to understand why there are black people in Britain; and to end the practice of sweeping Britain’s role in the slave trade under the carpet.

£20 million for slavery research! Really?! Giving grants for black kids to go to Oxbridge, or using it for projects in inner cities - brilliant. But slavery research? What a complete waste of money. 

Don't you think it's a valid subject?

Might not be q complete waste of money, if you're currently working as a slave for someone.

I made the presumption that it was historical slavery. Sorting out modern-day slavery should very much be a priority, but it seems to play second fiddle to what happened a couple of hundred years ago. 

"and to end the practice of sweeping Britain’s role in the slave trade under the carpet." 

What people or organisations are promoting this 'practice'? Britains role in the slave trade is hardly something that can be easily swept under the carpet or have a positive spin put on it. 

I have no idea what it might be about, but you seem to have already made your mind up.

Maybe it is historical slavery, even if it was why is that such a bad thing? People still study ancient Greek, is that pointless too?

Cool. Does that mean you're done banging on about it?

Thanks for this breath of fresh air.

It’s quite saddening that there is so much aversion to taking these type of simple, inexpensive steps towards healing tensions and reduce discrimination that have plagued us for centuries.

Is there no value in understanding our past ? I think there is. In any case, this may be more about the symbolic of the gesture than anything else. And this counts tremendously too.

There isn’t £20 million of value in understanding something we already know and understand. It’s ridiculous. World’s gone mad. 

If I remember right, you're a finance dude, you play the markets to make your money.
Excuse my ignorance on these matters, which I;m sure you'll put us right, you make your profits from other peoples losses.  Similar to Betfair, that's my level of understanding  of markets/ I've won loads from other peoples' dubious bets. And the other way round!

Does that champagne taste nice as you sip it on the white sands of a Cypriot beach, paid for by investors who don't meet your glorious standards?

You're basically exploiting people for gain as any old slave trader.

You are genuineally, riff raff.

Banging on about what? You seem to be determined to not apologise for something, no one has asked you to. Have you been on the pop?

You're still adamant it's to research historical slavery, then?

Not at all, that’s not how I pay my bills. I actually have probably far less % of my assets invested in the markets than most people, because I consider them totally bullshit.

And here we are, after having totally failed to make a sensible argument, you’re now resorting to the usual weapon of the weak: character assassination tainted with a large amount of prejudice.

This is all very pathetically predictable.

My biggest contract at the moment is all about developing new method of capital allocation that take into account CO2 impact.

How that puts me on par with slave traders, I’m not too sure.

Why should we believe anything said by someone that not only hides behind a new profile, but decides to to do so whilst changing gender on that profile?

 

Changing gender ? Wtf ?

Rom = Male
Alyson = Female

Notice that you haven't denied the new profile though...

It’s neutral, and a last name, but ok, believe what you wish, I am not sure why the gender or profession of the poster matter so much to you.
 

What counts is the arguments.

Try to make one, it would be more interesting than the usual character assassination based on occupation, place of residence or nationality I’ve become accustomed to from you.

The only reason I had to unearth an older profile and close the other one is because of a small minority of toxic posters like yourself who make any sensible debate impossible.

I don’t judge you based on what you gender are, what you do or where you were born, I don’t even care, I don’t even ask, I only care about what you have to say.

I wish you’d give me the same courtesy.

If you disagree with me that is great, construct a proper argument and maybe we will learn something. Make an effort basically.

So, you're basically confirming that you had alternative profiles set up for when you were found out on your old one?

Banging on about what??? When I wrote " Cool. Does that mean you're done banging on about it?", I was replying to you buttonholing me over something I'd written 38 hours previously. You've agreed with me, nothing is impelling me to apologise about anything. Cheers. We'll leave it at that then shall we?

No, it's not just the material, it's the source of the material too.

In your case you've made a series of contradictory statements about yourself, set up multiple profiles to manipulate likes and dislikes, unfairly denigrated other posters, lied about what others have posted in an effort to garner sympathy for yourself and consistently insulted other posters and immediately cried foul when you've been answered in kind.

These aren't the actions of someone who's posts can be taken at face value.

Can you explain why you have a stable of older profiles that you've had hanging about for years but never posted on?

The only reason we have any knowledge of your personal circumstances is because you've brought them up to bolster your position in some argument or other, then when another poster refers to these details to counter an argument of your own, suddenly it's character assassination. If you said it, own it... don't go bleating about others repeating this stuff back to you.

A favourite accusation of yours is "toxic poster", try looking in a mirror, saying that and keeping a straight face.

I think we should all apologise to each other and move on....

:P 

Sorry 

We're not talking about supporting evidence to any arguments, of which the source matters, we are talking arguments based on logic and reason.

Whether it is flawed or not has nothing to do with the gender, nationality, place of residence, or professional background of the poster, no matter how much you love to bring it up.

It has to do with the quality and logical consistency of the reasoning.

Maybe if you focused on the latter, you wouldn't have to stalk me around the forums, constantly trying to compile a "dossier" on my background or origins that you can bring up every time and somehow brand as a badge of shame or discredit.
I know you have a beef with it, just like FactorX seems to have a beef with people working in finance, but please, keep it to yourself and focus on the arguments.

Corrected that for you.

Sure, please explain, what do you mean by excuse ? excuse for what ?

An apology for the persecution of heretics by the Catholic church in western Europe?

I didn't expect that, but noooooobody expects the Catholic contrition. ;0)

Most of the grand Georgian buildings in our cities were built off the profits of the trading triangle - consumer goods to Africa, slaves to Virginia, tobacco back to Britain - but we’ve been brought up to believe it was the British Empire’s intrinsic greatness that made us a rich nation. Or possibly just divine intervention. But never profits from slavery.

Interesting article on the BBC showing how important the slave trade was to the development of the wider infrastructure in Britain:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zc92xnb/revision/1
 

there is a world of difference between expressing regret and apologising for something that has been done and for which you are not responsible in any way.  You can apologise as a parent for something a child of yours has done if it was something you could and should have foreseen and prevented.  Apologising for things done by someone unconnected to you in time or circumstances is fatuous and cheap, verging on insincere.  Expressing regret for the happening is as much as you can reasonably express, other than doing something substantive to correct the harm done.

I would go so far as to apologise for the actions of my country done while I am a voting adult but not for past history when the world was different.  But I can express unhappiness or even anger at things which were done and for which an apology from me is a cheap and meaningless affectation.

Thus it would be stupid for me to apologise for the repatriation by britain of Cossacks to Russia and almost certain execution at the end of WW2 but it is quite correct for me to feel and express a variety of feelings from anger, shame and outrage at these actions.

Say someone murdered your grandfather and stole his Picasso. You then hear that the grandchildren of the murderer have sold the stolen Picasso for 20m bucks.

Would you be OK with this?

According to your own logic, the descendants, having not committed the original crime, would have no responsibility to try to put things right and owe you nothing.

Pursuing with the same analogy, if the descendant of the murderer expressed shame and anger at the way their grandfather acquired the Picasso, but did absolutely nothing towards putting things right with you, wouldn't you feel that they are a tad hypocritical?

There is, I think, a significant distinction to make.
The descendant of the murderer shouldn't indeed have to apologize for the murder. They have nothing to do with it.

However, if they have benefited from it - financially or otherwise -, then you would rightly expect them to put things right, or at the very least apologise for not having done so.

This is quite a meaty ethical pickle if one choses to make it so; one might argue that the grandchildren of the original Picasso owner don't really have any rights to the money the grandchildren of the murderthief made by selling, on the basis that intergenerational responsibility - or the absence thereof - goes both ways. The death and theft wasn't the fault of one set of grandchildren, and the ownership of the painting originally was not through the effort of the other set.

It could be reasoned that they missed out on the chance to sell it themselves, but then that would also be the case if their grandfather has sold it for a pittance - it's the killing and theft that makes the difference, which is more of a legal matter.

I'm pondering all this purely in terms of the hypothetical painting, I should stress - not inference should be taken more broadly to relate to complicated and sensitive social issues

Which tallies with the surprising to me fact that Turkish pirates had a stronghold on Lundy Island in 1625. Only a few years later, 80 Spaniards landed and sacked the place, presumably in part because noone had yet apologised for Drake having raided Cadiz all those years before. What there was to sack I can't imagine. These days it is a much calmer place. 

Very good point. 

My counter to this would be that, although the death or the theft wasn't indeed the fault of the grandchildren, the painting and - and any subsequent financial benefit they may have got out of it -  was never theirs in the first place.

"Apologizing" or "taking responsibility" has generally been cheapened to the point of being meaningless. It is actions that count, not words. Earlier, I would have expected a politician to resign, at the very least, if not retiring to the study with their revolver, had they felt the need to "take responsibility" for some disaster or other.

The same goes for entire societies. "Apologizing" for slavery or whatever is pointless window dressing. I would like to see policies, be that by a government or a company, that actually take responsibility by addressing any continuing effects of historic injustices, including e.g. institutional racism as teh ongoing legacy of colonialism and slavery. Just issuing some statement as a virtue signalling PR exercise is vomit inducing.

On the other hand, being born as a German 23 years after the end of WWII I will certainly not apologize for anything that happened before my birth, but I do accept that my country has loaded me with a special responsibility to get certain things right: Being a neonazi is something that should not be tolerated anywhere, but it is particularly tasteless and inacceptable at home.

Such historic responsibility fades away, though, eventually, but where exactly is difficult to pin down. I do not begrudge the Kazakhs and Mongolians their Genghis Khan statues, after all, it was the one time these guys played on the world stage and we were barely less brutal in these times. In a way, that is just history.

The responsibility of the US and UK for the second Iraq war, and hence IS, or similarly, US help for the Mujaheddin in the '80s and their Taliban offspring and the destabilization of Afghanistan, or the Russian intervention in Syria? The grass has certainly not grown over these crimes, especially as the main actors are still alive and active.

CB

I think we should consider the maths of this 'taking responsibility for your ancestors' thing.

For one generation you have 2 parents

Two generations back you have 4 grandparents

Three hundred years is about 10 generations so you have 2^10 = 1024 ancestors.

You are quite likely to have ancestors on both sides of the slavery issue.  Just because you are white doesn't mean all your ancestors 10 generations back were white.  Similarly if you are black, you could well have white ancestors 10 generations back.  Slave owners didn't hold back on having sex with their slaves.

Also, it wasn't just black slaves.   Large numbers of Scots and Irish were deported into slavery on tobacco plantations although the English don't like to call it that, they prefer 'indentured servitude'. 

https://irishamerica.com/2015/10/the-irish-of-barbados-photos/

Having said that, there are rich/aristocratic families whose wealth can be traced back to the slave and tobacco business and far from having their assets seized they were compensated by the UK government for the loss of their slaves and the payments continued until quite recently.   They should cancel the inherited aristocratic titles for families whose wealth is based on slavery, the same as they take knighthoods away from pedophiles.

rubbish, you've totally distorted what I said

How ? I’m happy to hear where I’ve gone wrong or misinterpreted what you have said, but you need to be specific.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

“It wisnae us – white Scots were slaves first. It wisnae us – it was the English...”

http://sceptical.scot/2016/03/the-myth-of-scottish-slaves/

That's a very positive suggestion.

T.

And whose going to apologise to the Welsh?  St Patrick is known to have been a slave taken by the Irish from what is now Wales.   (The Irish took quite a few.)

St Patrick became a Christian, studied in Rome and then decided he'd go over and  convert his former capturers into Christianity. 

A bit of a long shot, but I think the Irish owe the Welsh an apology.  

But this isn't such a long shot:-

And lets not forget to apologise to the Maori people whom we went to war against in the late 1970s just because they were too mean to give us their land.

And don't we owe the Chinese an apology for the two opium wars, one of which was basically fought for the simple reason they wouldn't trade with us ?

Instead of apologising, what about paying reparations where possible and appropriate ?

Didn't realise there was a time limit, I do apologise.

So the myth is that the Scots Jacobites and Irish weren't slaves they were transported against their will as 'indentured servants'?  And some of them went 'voluntarily' into indentured servitude on tobacco estates because their houses had been burned down and they had nothing to eat.

What about accepting that 99.9% of societies that are now characterised as victims of colonialism were happily victimising their neighbours until a bigger, better armed player turned up? In the instance you're referring to, the Maori had been engaged in centuries of endemic intertribal warfare and campaigns of conquest every bit as brutal as anything Europeans were guilty of, right up until they had Pax Brittanica imposed on them.

...and when the Maori came up against other peoples with a completely distinct cultural heritage and a determinedly pacifist religious doctrine, the resulting massacre, enslavement and cannibalisation made British conquest look the height of restraint.

https://moriorigenocides.weebly.com/the-genocide.html

There appear to be lots of myths discussed in the article - but the author seems quite clear that the indenture process was quite distinct from slavery, as the indented had legal rights whereas the slaves were chattels.

Pathetic Hatemongering is turning this world evil ! 

What model phone or pad are you using? 

I agree, those pesky Romans took all their treasure as they left the UK, during the collapse of the empire. Obviously all the Roman emperors are long dead, so it must be the Italians fault, so their government can make an appropriate financial offering to the UK? 

I expect any Roman statues to be pulled down across Italy and the Colesseum levelled. 

Next. We'll move on to Egypt. 

You obviously don't understand the reality of the situation. You must first completely ignore the fact that every single nation, people and state were formed from the conquest and subjugation of others, right from the moment humans started to stride about on two feet. Next you must take offence on the behalf of people that have been dead a couple of hundred years, preferably people that lived thousands of miles away, spoke a different language and held wildly different values and beliefs from your own. Let that marinate into a hefty sense of righteous indignation and demand that the great great great great great great grandkids of people that, in all probability had nothing to do with the original offence, must now wholeheartedly apologise and pay money to the great great great great great grandkids of the people that, may or may not, have been offended against in the first place.

If this all sounds terribly complicated and hard to navigate, don't worry. The righteously indignant have decided that the offending and offendees can be handily colour coded so that only whitey has to apologise for the entirety of human history. Seems a bit, well... racist to me. But what do I know?

So... we probably owe the Neanderthals a fair bit then? 

We certainly do. Coincidentally a load of their descendents were out "defending" war memorials last Sunday. If I'd thought I'd have certainly shouted a quick "Sorry!" out of the window as I drove past.

Again, who is or what organisations today  are carrying out this practice of sweeping Britain's role in the salve trade under the carpet? I learned about the slave triangle at school 30 years ago. I also learned that the unique raw material make up of Britain, the adoption of Dutch finance banking models, the rule of law that recognised property ownership and invention patents helped create the conditions for the industrial revolution that paid for quite a few of those Georgian houses. As to how much the slave trade contributed to the Britain GDP at the time it is still open to debate, I have read arguments that it was as low as 3%, other papers have pushed that figure upwards of 10%.  What is known is that the salve trade made a small number of people very rich. For the vast majority of the population they were living on poverty wages in slum conditions with little no rights and dying young, quite how their descendants should be on the hook for reparations is beyond me.

The responsibility of nations for damages caused toward others surely decays with time.

Picking ridiculously absurd situations that have nothing to do with the topic isn’t an argument.

There is a long history of nations paying reparations for wars.

How long is too long, when all those involved are dead, or say one generation after, 30 years? 

Even if only a few people benefited at the time, Slave trade and colonialism participated in making Britain the rich place that it is today, at the expense others. A place in which you have the privilege to live in by birth, a privilege that we don’t easily give to people from other countries whose ancestors have been colonised or exploited in slavery.

What I am trying to say is, we are quite happy inheriting the privilege to live in our rich countries and all the huge advantages that come with it, and protect our exclusive access to it fiercely with borders,  but we don’t want to inherit any of the responsibilities or debt we may have towards others. There is an imbalance there.

It depends, but in my view it depends on how much legacy there is left from the misdeed.

So, for example, if a German family became filthy rich 90 years ago by stealing Jewish assets, the descendants still should pay back damages, because they are still clearly enjoying a large benefit from the misdeeds of they’re ancestor.

However, if I take the Roman invasion of Britain, I don’t really see who would still be profiting from it.

My whole point is that we aren’t guilty for the acts our ancestors made, however, if we take the assets, we also take the liabilities.

Well, there's the roads....

Maybe, but its infinitesimal.

If you were to look at things from an economic point of view, the vast, vast majority of the wealth of this country was created starting with industrial revolution.

Before that economic growth was pretty much zero.

I agree that it’s difficult to quantify how much benefit we are still getting today from slavery 300 years ago. But that is exactly why it is right for those large old British companies to look into their archives and understand what responsibility they may have.

For every tourist paying to enter the colusseum, Italy is benefiting from something originally built to see slaves killed for entertainment. 

"but we don’t want to inherit any of the responsibilities or debt we may have towards others. There is an imbalance there."

Plenty of blame can be placed at the feet of the colonial powers of the day, carving up the map of Africa along geometric lines of longitude and latitude with scant regards to the African societies that existed on the ground did not exactly help the modern states that exist today.

Unfortunately for Africa, an awful lot of blame can also be placed on the first generation of post-independence leaders that has set the a pattern that continues to the present day. Without exception leaders like Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Nyerere and so on took power with sound motives only to build regimes that were dysfunctional, corrupt, nepotistic and unfailingly authoritarian. The often socialist systems they built lapsed into gangsterism that obeyed a single directive and that was to retain power at all costs. In many cases this meant exploiting tribal and racial differences, building huge networks of patronage and nepotism, enriching supporters and exploiting the rest of the population.

The following generations of leaders have been, if anything, worse. Seizing and keeping power by force and plundering their countries to boot. It could be argued that the likes of people like Mobutu, Amin, Bokassa and so on, men who bled their countries dry and whose policies led to poverty and war that continues today did way more harm then colonialism ever could have achieved.

Throw in under-development, lack of educational opportunities for Africans, Cold War power politics, ecological disasters, the IMF and Development Bank newly independent states in Africa were always destined to fail.

With the above in mind, what should the debt piechart look like and how big a slice should Britain take?

You are absolutely right that we cannot blame the difference in development between countries solely on colonialism and slavery, and I am certainly not claiming that !

But it’s clear that some of it is. It may well in fact be a small slice.
That’s why you need research to be done to truly understand the impact.

So I think it is right for companies like Lloyds to look at their archives and say, yes, we made that much money from slavery back then, and we’ll attempt to put things right today.

And even if reparations paid are overall small, these could be an important step towards reconciliation. It’s difficult for the collective to forgive and forget if no attempt is made to put things right, even symbolically.

Do we really want to wait another 1000 years before this all get swept under the carpet of distant history ?

One rare example of history where a country was forgiven quickly for its crimes is that of Germany. How did they do it ?

Well they went out of their way to recognise and understand what they had done, understood they had a special responsibility to root out anti-semitism and racism, and where appropriate, paid reparations. But more than reparation, I think it is the sincere and unconditional admission that something wrong was done, that translated into actions, even if only symbolic.

When it comes to slavery and colonialism, let’s face it, there is some admission that it was wrong, but it doesn’t always feel sincere, doesn’t really translate into actions, there is also a lot of dithering, “These were different times” “it wasn’t all that bad”, and also some element of pride in past glory.

In this example, the financial benefit comes from tourism, not from the killing of slaves.

Such as the value of the uk's existing international development fund? 

It's glorifying or making a spectacle of their death. It's benefiting the Italy treasury. 

No. It’s simply a monument of cultural interest. Anyway, pretty irrelevant sidetrack.

You mean something built or erected in a time when societies values were different, but we shouldn't going pulling it down and obliterating it? 

These funds had a different objective than paying reparations. But yes something of the sort could be envisaged.

At this point, when you’re looking at stuff from centuries ago, it’s the genuine intent rather than the amount that probably counts. I mean if, as some estimates say, Britain extracted 45 trillion of wealth from India during its colonisation, let’s face it, we don’t have enough to repay !

But we could, for example say, hey, if you’re from India or any other former British colonies, you get easier access to the U.K., because we recognise that your ancestors participated in building this country, just like ours did, so like us you get to enjoy some of the opportunities it has to offer.

This would cost nothing and I think would be a very significant gesture.

Unfortunately we almost did the opposite, with immigrants from former British colonies often treated like crap by the system. It doesn’t help with the healing and sends the wrong signal, really.

Yes, exactly.

But again be careful to not conflate everything.

There is a difference between taking down culturally important monuments in an attempt to rewrite history, and taking down monuments of minor artistic and cultural value glorifying a violent past.

I see a difference, for example, between ISIS pulling down monuments at palmyra and protesters taking down Lenin statues in Ukraine. They are not the same thing.

I'll presume you have zero personal connection  with either. What gives you the right to decide on others behalf which offends you? Everyone will place different values on historical relics. 

India for decades received the lions share of the uk's overseas aid budget. I think there have also been special measures in place for former colonies applying for visas etc... ? Granted it might not be much, but it's certainly not ignoring India's historical connection to the UK. 

Because a lot of white self-declared 'progressives' are profoundly racist.  They accept without thought that white people are superior to non-white people in the same way that you accept that grass is green and the sky is blue.  You don't reason it out or choose to believe it, you simply observe it.  From this position, they reason that the only decent and humane response to that superiority is an exquisitely painful self-flagellatory 'mea culpa', a self-humiliating abasement in front of the subnormals.

Acknowledging the identical transgressions into slavery and brutality committed by non-white people would negate the masochistic fun, and upset the core belief of 'I am superior to them'.

But who owns Lloyds, and so would be effectively paying the money?   It is shareholders. 

But, if today's shareholders have not continually held their shareholding since the days of slavery, then they would not have benefited from slavery.  That's because they would have paid the market price for their shares (and thus if Lloyds was then a richer company owing to slavery, they would have paid full price for their share of that). 

So your point is only valid about a family that had a shareholding back in the says of slavery, and passed the shareholding down generation after generation.  Which is going to be a tiny fraction of shareholders overall. 

I use my common sense. Taking down  monuments that are thousands of year old and internationally recognised as a cultural jewel in order to erase history and replace it with a violent present, is not the same as taking down  a relatively recent statue of Lenin of no special interest, erected as part of the soviet propaganda machine.

In the wake of WWII, the occupiers of Germany systematically took down every Nazi monument or symbol.

Or I could give you the more recent example of American tanks pulling down Saddam’s statue.

Where they wrong to do so ? Do you really place this on the same level as ISIS destroying Palmyra ?

I’ve said that already, it is probably small. Most of the value created in those companies is fairly recent.

But it’s not only shareholders. We all benefit from having these great companies that are leaders in their field. London becoming a financial hub for the rest of the world has some of its roots in colonialism and slave trade. 

We are still enjoying some benefits, surely we must have some responsibility, even if only symbolic ?

It doesn’t seem right to me to take exclusive access to the benefits of a legacy, but at the sake time refuse to take any of the liabilities. When you accept an inheritance, you have to take both the assets and liabilities, you can’t pick only what suits you !

I just don't see past slavery as having much connection with the wealth of the country today. 

Slavery is cheap labour, and it is not cheap labour that makes countries wealthy. (Instead, it is technological development that makes countries wealthy.)  There are lots of countries around the world with lots of cheap labour, but they are not the rich countries.

Slavery *and* colonialism. You don't see much connection between the sugar, tobacco, cotton and coffee grown in foreign soil claimed via colonialism, harvested by slaves and the wealth that poured into this country as a result? And no connection between the stripping of natural resources from Africa and India for the enrichment of Britain and the British by colonialists like Rhodes? Why did they bother then do you reckon?

I haven't seen so much embarrassing whataboutery in one thread for a long time.

BAME have an ongoing problems in both the UK and America.

That problem has its roots in colonialism and slavery.

So what the f$%k have the Romans and Vikings got to do with anything? As far as I'm aware most people are just calling for acknowledgment of the direct link between the past and ongoing problems so we can deal with the problem, the whole issue of compensation is just a red herring to get peoples backs up. As a country we have benefited from the exploitation of a colonies and that benefit is entwined in the fabric of society and can't be unpicked, I'm sure there are families and companies that are still benefiting directly from trusts set up with the compensation money that was handed out but no one is suggesting we hunt it down as most of these companies and families have benefited from a system that makes their finances so opaque that it would be impossible (see David Cameron and the Panama papers).

It made indiviuals and families wealthy at the time.  But all the commodities you list get quickly used up.    This is not what makes us rich today.  (E.g. European countries that did not exploit slaves nor exploit colonies are just as rich as us today.)

Individual wealth is retained long term, especially land ownership.

CB

Well, that's one point of view. I think that the consensus amongst economic history experts would suggest otherwise.

Of course, it is a difficult question and research would surely be needed to answer all those questions. That is why many of those older companies are looking in their archives and hiring historians to try to understand some of these questions.

In particular, I think it is well established that the policy of Mercantilism + colonialism allowed Britain to become the industrial powerhouse of the world, by creating a huge demand for its products in the colonies, ensuring an infinite supply of raw material, and stopping dead the development of local industry in the colonies.

The huge trade surplus generated kept gold and silver flowing into London, which in turn paid for a super royal navy that could enforce where necessary, and also helped London become a trading and financial hub.

Basically this policy ensured Britain was about a century ahead in term of industrial development and that the colonies were captive market of British industry.

As for technological advances, knowledge was travelling pretty freely and fast at the time anyway, so all these were potentially accessible to anyone anywhere, they were just prevented from using them, pretty much by military force. 

My understanding is that slavery has a much smaller place in Britain economic history, but not insignificant either.

I think this is a very simplistic point of view.

And I hope you don't mind me saying,  but coming from someone of your intelligence, it feels in fact not very genuine and more designed to sweep the issue under the carpet than anything else.

This doesn't mean that we didn't get rich in part (small or large) because of colonialism and slavery.
It just means that other European countries, that didn't have slave nor colonies, got rich by other means.

Isn't this what happened to Jewish victims in Germany, it's not very hard to find real world examples.

August 2016? They've waited along time to "spoil" this thread, haven't they?

How long do you have to have had a profile, before we can begin to believe posts made by them?

So money made from those trades just evaporated rather than in large part being recouped in taxes or reinvested in other enterprises? The relocation of wealth from other countries to this one left us no better off? Literally incredible.

You still haven't said what model mobile phone you have? 

Sorry, must have missed that. It's an iPhone. I know already where this is going to lead, and sorry, to say this, I suspect it will be another whataboutery.

We are trying to learn and debate about the extent of the responsibility we have different levels of society for events that shaped the world in our recent history (specifically slavery and colonialism) and the legacy of discrimination that they potentially left us to deal with.

Instead of engaging with the issue, what we are getting is "what about modern the modern slaves that assembled your iPhone" or "what about the Vikings".

It is just an attempt to discredit someone's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. That's the definition of whataboutism.

Whataboutism, psychologists will tell us, also happens to be one of the most typical forms of evasion of moral responsibility. Is it coincidental that it is being used so much on a topic that engages our collective moral responsibility indeed? Maybe not.

If you're discussing complex historical issues, historical social and moral context is vital. Of course slavery is hideous but unless you place it in historical context, passing judgment on what people got up to centuries ago is utterly meaningless.

At the same time as the transatlantic slave trade was at it's height the British navy was happily kidnapping UK citizens to crew its warships, flogging them, barely paying them and keeping them in conditions so appalling that their deaths rates were comparable with slaves held on Southern state plantations. This isn't 'whataboutery', it's context.

Your position is entirely consistent with 90% of all the positions you espouse on here Rom... "Britain is evil and must be made to pay"

Only it isn't. You have posted dozens of times saying the UK should repay money for things folk did say 200 years. But right now in your hand is product that in multiple points in its production have involved people being oppressed etc. You are causing harm to folk right now, whilst showing more concern for folk who haven't breathed for a 100 years. 

Yes, it's much easier to throw statues in the water than change current practices, but you should at least practice what you preach. 

It's 100% whataboutery. You're answering "these people, and any children they bore, were literally someone's property to do with as they wished" with "well these other people were also very poorly treated". It's not even remotely the same topic.

Indeed.

They were also sending young white British kids up chimneys, or crawling under spinning machines whilst they still ran, or worked down pits as a hauer/hewer - where they dragged coal through passages too small for pit ponies (one of my ancestors jobs). 

The elite of the empire exploited the poor or lower classes of all races and skin colours. 

Georgian work houses weren't that different to many slavery run enterprise elsewhere. 

You are saying that my actions are inconsistent with my argument, therefore my argument is false.

This is the very definition of what we call tu quoque, or whataboutism. And it's a logical fallacy.

You are right, I am probably a huge hypocrite, we probably all are, however, my moral character or actions are pretty irrelevant to the logic of the argument.

No, as I said, slavery was hideous but if you're calling for some form of restitution then context is everything and the modern debate is almost entirely conducted without nuance or historical perspective. For instance, you ever heard any calls for apology or restitution from the African nations who originally captured and sold those people to the European slavers?

You can't just ignore context of even the most evil of actions. If you're responsible for incinerating an orphanage and burning 300 children alive there's not much doubt it's an evil action, but its context that determines whether the perpetrator was an evil man. so what if the the man responsible was a bomb aimer in a Lancaster over Germany in 1943? In the case of the slave trade, most of the slavers, African and European, didn't consider their actions as evil and in the case of the Europeans much was made of Biblical precedent allowing slavery as endorsed by God.

Still, I suppose it's easier not to contextualise this stuff and just get your moral outrage on. Pulled any good statues down recently?

I completely agree historical social and moral context is vital. Nobody really has claimed otherwise as far as I can tell.

Sure it is some very interesting context, but this wasn't what I called whataboutism, so a bit of a strawman.

However, I am not too sure that the fact that other people than black slaves suffered doesn't mean that the slave trade was not a particularly shameful part of our history, which left deep scars.

IMO this leaves us with a special responsibility to root out racism, and a historical responsibility to recognise a wrong was done.  And yes, possibly, there is a case for some reparations to be made, in one way or another.
And to some extent, we made a lot of progress, but clearly, there is still work.

You couldn't help but ruin what started as a sensible counter-argument with the usual ad-hominem and false accusation.

What bothers me isn't even that, really, it's the insinuation that recognising the more shameful, or indeed, evil parts of our past means that I think the country is evil.

I love Britain - and generally speaking Europe - for its culture and history in all its complexity, including the darker times,  but I love it mostly for the values it embraces today. Most of them pretty good, actually.

I don't feel the need the erase or gloss over the sometimes shameful past. I would go as far as to say that doing so is what is unpatriotic because that is against our values.

I don't think we can really compare the actions of a bomb aimer who's doing what he is told during a desperate all-out war for survival, with the deliberate exploitation of humans for greed and profit by rich merchants.
You want to talk about context, that is an excellent idea, most welcome, but it cuts both ways.

Indeed. And I think you'd have to be pretty hard-hearted to argue that this wasn't the morally correct thing to do. But for the decade or so of Nazi rule it was legally okay for companies/individuals to acquire the property of people sent to the gas chambers.
I'm certainly not going to defend the laws of the Third Reich, I'm just pondering the difficulty of balancing what's moral and what's legal when considering historical events, especially when they have a bearing on things happening currently 

and there you go neatly demonstrating my point by redacting a quote and removing all context.

Where have I done that? if you are going make an accusation you need to be specific.

Again, who is erasing or glossing over Britain's role in the slave trade? You have alluded to this in a number of posts as if its a fact. It is taught in schools, there is a slavery museum in Liverpool, films and documentaries have been made and broadcast on the subject You talk is if there is some active conspiracy to hide Britain's role in the slave trade like Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Yes, the British Empire perpetuated and benefited from slavery - as did every empire that came before it. Uniquely, though, among all the empires in the history of the world the British Empire stands alone - not only for outlawing slavery, it also policed the oceans in a (broadly successful) attempt to stop the slave trade, not merely in the territories it controlled but across the globe. Uniquely, it is the one empire in history that the liberal left castigates for its part in the slave trade, not the Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch the Danish or the Africans who played a direct role selling their captives or prisoners of war to European buyers.

No one of any sense defends slavery - owning another person is an abomination - but why is it that the British Empire is held up as though it was the worst - and only - exponent of this shameful practice, when it is was, as a matter of fact, the only one that fought to end it?

I am not sure why it matters so much to you whether the British empire was the "worst" or not. It's not a competition.
It sounds as if you saw how Britain past's is evaluated as a point of national pride.

And where did anybody say Britain was the worst anyway? Can you quote that back because I must have missed it.

I certainly wouldn't have wanted to find myself in one. A choice between that, or being a chattel slave and someone's property, with my children to be their property, to be beaten, whipped, mutilated or killed at a whim? Workhouse please, every single time. You?

If you insist, as you do, we must feel shame for Britain’s involvement in the slave trade, why should we feel no pride in the huge part Britain played in ending it? Personally I feel neither pride nor shame in stuff that happened centuries ago. As for monetary debt, by any objective measure Britain has given at least as much back to the world as we’ve taken.

I can’t recall you mentioning any other nations culpability much, despite other nations being more heavily involved over a much longer time period. Worst by omission is a fair summary 

No, but you see, every single time we try to talk about slavery or its impacts, and the legacy that is left behind, we get a lot of these contrived attempts to diminish the importance of it, there is always a "but". "But other empires did it as well, or "But it was morally ok a the time anyway" or "But it wasn't really that bad", or your latest "but we weren't the worst"

What is so bad about saying: it was wrong and we have now a special responsibility to learn from this and put things right? 

That's pretty much the collective psychological process Germany went through in the decades after WW2, there was an interesting post above by someone who grew up in Germany and described the important responsibility he felt to not tolerate antisemitism or fascism given his country's past. 

I'm not a fan of direct reparations as I think it impossible and not conducive to an actual amicable settlement.

ISIS think their actions are endorsed by God. I wouldn't give them the benefit of absolution now and I don't give it to slavers then. I'm sure the fact the church had money invested in the plantations and even received reparations at the abolition of slavery had no effect on their ecumenical view on the practice. There were plenty of people who objected to slavery at the time. Was your bomb aimer aiming at the orphanage on purpose and was it purely for making profit?

No good ones, no.

It's a bit of a long shot, but I sometimes try and draw comfort from the fact that slave owners had a vested interest in looking after 'their' slaves in a way that, say, employers of indentured labourers or child labourers didn't. If we are going to do some calculus of suffering, I don't think there would be much to choose between the life of an 8 year old girl employed to pull coal trucks a mile underground for 12 hours a day and their black equivalent in a field in Virginia.

That was exactly my argument at 00:13 on Friday.

I quote :

"If you are going to take pride in the good stuff your countrymen did in the past, and claim some of their legacy, then you also own the bad stuff they did."

Good for you, but many people do in fact take pride in their heritage. I know that I do, to an extent.

Interesting, which objective measure would that be?

Well, it's not surprising, given that this is UKc , that the OP was about British companies, that the audience here is primarily
British, that my knowledge about other parts of the world is more limited, that, not unlike pretty much the majority of people who have contributed to this thread,  I've put a particular focus on the British empire.
I am not against broadening the discussion, but British slave trade and colonialism seem to be a big enough topic already to digest and learn about.

And may I say, for someone who claims to have no pride or shame in the past, you seem overly touchy about Britain's past being singled out.
 

Actually, it is a very unfair summary, for the reasons stated above.

Have you seen anything compelling to provide the basis for that comfort, because I'm just thinking whips, spiked manacles to slash the ankles if running, iron bits/gags, rape, beatings, mutilation, castration, execution and the constant fear of the same don't fill me with much, to be honest.

Coal trucks please.

Not at all touchy about Britain’s past, as has been my main thrust on this thread since the start. It’s you that has taken the line that we should be touchy about it.

I know you like to regularly rewrite your own personal history Rom, from your identity to your feelings about Britain to your previous statements about the U.K. but anyone with even a passing acquaintance with your previous posts will know the depths you’ll stoop to in the interests of painting Britain as the very worst country in the whole damn Atlas.

Maybe you should ask rom why he has felt the need to stockpile User Profiles?

And here we go with the usual ad-hominem. Boring and predictable.

 Easier than to contribute positively to the discussion by addressing the points I have made, I guess. That would require an effort.

Not only it is a baseless accusation, but if, as if you claim, you don’t feel pride nor shame about Britain’s past, why would you even care ?

The irony is that a lot of my British friends are SNP voters and I often end up in Facebook debate where I am regularly accused of being an apologist of perfidious Albion. 

There’s never any pleasing anybody when you’re in the middle ground, I guess.

You’re clearly more interested in pursuing your little vendetta against me than having a productive discussion, so goodbye and have nice day.

How do you know this?

I'm genuinely interested because you seem to know stuff that doesn't seem obvious.

It's obviously not a new profile as the date isn't recent.

Of course you object bitterly to being held to account for your own posting history but ardently support the argument that the British people should be held to account for the actions of a few of their ancestors 209 years ago. The irony!😂

You are not, by any stretch of the imagination, 'in the middle ground' on this issue.  'Reparations for (specifically UK and US and absolutely Ottoman or African) slavery' is very much an extremist belief and demand.  It is the view of a shouty minority, mostly on Twitter and in radical fringe groups like BLM.

Not exactly difficult as he's admitted it.

I guess if they have 5 or 6 alter ego profiles there's a slim chance one of them might like some of their posts. 

Another classic case of tu quoque.