HebrideanUltraTerfHecate on Nostr: https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/10/30/the-gross-injustice-of-slavery-reparations/ ...
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/10/30/the-gross-injustice-of-slavery-reparations/
The reparations movement has gained so much traction because of the lack of any well-articulated rebuttal, especially from Britain’s political class. This has allowed pro-reparations campaigners to shape the narrative without challenge.
Moreover, Britain was hardly a nation of slave-owners. In fact, only about 40,000 British individuals actually owned slaves during the abolitionist era and only 3,000 received reparations. The vast majority of British people at the time were economically marginalised themselves and did not directly benefit from the slave trade. Asking today’s working and middle classes to ‘compensate’ for the actions of a small elite from two centuries ago is wrong and historically misguided.
Here we come to the nub of the problem. Too often reparations campaigners distort the tragic and painful history of slavery to make their arguments. They overlook inconvenient historical facts, such as the role of the African rulers who actively participated in the slave trade and frequently resisted abolition. African leaders such as King Ghezo of Dahomey (modern-day Benin) directly benefitted from slavery, amassing wealth and power by selling captives from rival tribes to European traders. When the British sought to end the trade, King Ghezo reportedly resisted, declaring that, ‘The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people – it is the source and the glory of their wealth’.
The reparations movement has gained so much traction because of the lack of any well-articulated rebuttal, especially from Britain’s political class. This has allowed pro-reparations campaigners to shape the narrative without challenge.
Moreover, Britain was hardly a nation of slave-owners. In fact, only about 40,000 British individuals actually owned slaves during the abolitionist era and only 3,000 received reparations. The vast majority of British people at the time were economically marginalised themselves and did not directly benefit from the slave trade. Asking today’s working and middle classes to ‘compensate’ for the actions of a small elite from two centuries ago is wrong and historically misguided.
Here we come to the nub of the problem. Too often reparations campaigners distort the tragic and painful history of slavery to make their arguments. They overlook inconvenient historical facts, such as the role of the African rulers who actively participated in the slave trade and frequently resisted abolition. African leaders such as King Ghezo of Dahomey (modern-day Benin) directly benefitted from slavery, amassing wealth and power by selling captives from rival tribes to European traders. When the British sought to end the trade, King Ghezo reportedly resisted, declaring that, ‘The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people – it is the source and the glory of their wealth’.