Slavery Reparations?

[mushroom25]

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/jamaica-plans-seek-reparations-britain-over-slavery-2021-07-12/

what are the chances of Jamaica getting £7bn out of our government?

[dannyk13]

Pretty slim.

[burlyshirley]

Phew, good job it's not a Labour government !

[ToraToraTora]

perlease! I think they've had their "reparations" x 1000, more woke BS.

[jim360]

As mentioned in the article, and under the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, and the Slave Compensation Act 1837, the former owners of slaves were paid off as compensation for their loss of property, and their descendants for some decades after. The last of these compensation payments was finally made in 2015.

If we chose to compensate the descendants of slave owners for decades, it doesn't seem all that outlandish to consider compensating the descendants of slaves as well.

[Togo]

Perhaps we should offer them passage back home. Have they asked the Spanish, or the Arabs or their former countrymen for compensayshun? Home is where the heart is I'm told.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/dead-south-africa-riots-jailing-leader-zuma-78794324

[jim360]

That said, I'm highlighting the point above mainly for context, rather than out of any passionate support for such reparations.

[ToraToraTora]

...ad infinitum jim? ridiculous!

[Togo]

We did not pay "ancestors" of slave owners for decades. It took decades to pay off the loans we took out to pay the extortion fees.

[jim360]

See my previous. It's perhaps understandable, but certainly shameful, that our predecessors felt the need to compensate those who owned slaves, rather than to apologise to and compensate those who *were* slaves. But they are all dead now. The best we can do is continue to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

[youngmafbog]

The reason that they originally compensated the slave owners was that the British (being the forerunners of Slavery abolition) knew that was the only way they could really stop it. In other words they efectveily bought future slaves their freedom. One has to remember how things were at the time.

[david small]

We should demand reparations from the Norman’s for invading us. Also the Italians for the Roman incursion.

[dannyk13]

Npt forgetting Norway for the Vikings.

[jim360]

There was certainly a raging debate at the time about the correct way forward. Whether it did "buy future slaves their freedom" or not is debatable, too -- at least in the short-term. After being freed from slavery, most (or all? I'm not quite certain on this point) former slaves entered a period of "apprenticeship", which meant unpaid 45-hour working weeks for their former owners. In some ways their treatment in this period was even worse than their treatment as slaves. It did end, mercifully, in the late 1840s, but the sad fact is that it took a long time to go from the state of slavery to anything remotely resembling equal treatment.

I should go further, I guess, and say that it's our duty not just to ensure that it ever happens again but also to be honest about the scale of our historical involvement.

[david small]

Historical involvement! Now there’s a slippery slope if ever there was one.

[jim360]

There's no slippery slope in being honest and accurate about history.

[youngmafbog]

// but also to be honest about the scale of our historical involvement.//

The problem is though it is only the British who seem to get the blame. Other European countries were involved as were African Blacks who went deep into Africa to round up slaves to sell to the slave runners.

The whole thing was a mess, but it should also be remembered Slavery has gone on for many thousands of years and possibly longer. Indeed IMHO it is still going on in the World today and that is the greater travesty that seems to be lost when people bleat on about repatriations from people who had nothing to do with it to pay people who were not slaves.

Indeed it should be remembered that many Black people of today alos benefitted indirectly. Are they going to pay too?

[youngmafbog]

//There's no slippery slope in being honest and accurate about history.//

I agree. But that is not entirely what is happening is it?

[jim360]

// The problem is though it is only the British who seem to get the blame. //

I don't think this is true, so much as, as a British-based site we have a British-based focus. I'd have to trawl the internet for plentiful examples of other States apologising for their role, or being asked for compensation, but they are definitely out there from even a cursory search.

[naomi24]

I don’t really understand how financial compensation will ‘compensate’. Did Jamaica lose out financially?

[youngmafbog]

In the end quite the opposite I suspect Naomi. And certainly there are many black people in Jamaica doing very well out of the wealth generated. Perhaps they should stump up too?