Whitey must be punished for the slave trade.
St Vincent and the Grenadines. A string of islands that stands out in Caribbean holiday brochures as the destination with the most turquoise of waters, the most pristine of white-sand beaches. Home to the ultra-exclusive private island and celebrity hangout Mustique. Yachting paradise. A population of only 110,000.
Now it is becoming the perhaps unexpected centre of a pan-Caribbean move to redress one of the great horrors of the 19th century: the transatlantic slave trade.
“It is the defining matter of our age”, says the prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, as he peers out towards the Atlantic from the veranda of his family’s secluded villa, in the grounds of an old plantation, on the main island, St Vincent.
Oh, really? A wealthy man wants to steal money from the less wealthy of this country to pay for something that they are not responsible for. What a nasty little opportunist. Hopefully the UK government will refuse point-blank to hand over any money to this dreadful little opportunist. Nor should they waste any money defending court cases – simply refuse to acknowledge any judgement they might make and refuse to pay up. After all they have form when it comes to ignoring international court judgements.
Not all on these islands are convinced that seeking compensation for crimes committed more than 200 years ago is realistic or even desirable.
And they are right. The slave trade ended 200 years ago. Everyone who engaged in it and profited from it – along with those who suffered as a consequence of it are all dead. You do not visit the sins of the fathers on the sons – that is deeply immoral.
Britain is opposed to the principle of reparations. A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The UK unreservedly condemns slavery and is committed to eliminating it. We do not see reparations as the answer.”
Yes. Absolutely. The day we give in to these opportunistic charlatans, we open the floodgates to everyone who wants to bully money out of us. Money we don’t have – we are in debt, remember. Besides which, we do not owe them any money.
Gonsalves, who is widely expected to be seeking a fourth term in office next year, insists he does not want to fall out with Britain. “You are not going to see me in front of No 10 Downing Street with a placard,” he says.
“I’ll have a letter delivered to the British prime minister, at the appropriate time, for serious negotiations to begin. We have to right these historic wrongs.”
Those historic wrongs were set right 200 years ago when Britain spent more of its GDP eradicating the slave trade than it gained from its involvement. The debt has been paid. It was paid 200 years ago. Now piss off!
XX one of the great horrors of the 19th century: the transatlantic slave trade.XX
Aye. SO “horrific” that airports can hardly contain the millions of coons just deperate to return to their third world African slums….right?
Tim Worstall once made that point – although less colourfully. The descendants of slaves have done rather better than those left behind in Africa. They were interviewing some black people in St Paul’s in Bristol a few years back about the slave trade and Bristol’s “need” to apologise and the general response from those they interviewed was “WTF?”
Vile opportunism- what else would we expect from a politician?
Well, nothing.
A black politician in the carribean attention whoring for votes hoping that white politicians here attention whoring for votes will respond. I’m sure any “negotiations” will simply be to co-ordinate said attention whoring for their mutual benefit.
He could impose a tax on any white white visitor (from a select group of European countries and probably the US – far from an exhaustive list of those who countries who partook of the Atlantic slave trade and not including countries which practice what effectively is slavery today) and see if he gets any takers.
But what he appears to want is some sort of “development fund” (on top of the aid he already doubtless receives) to build all the basic things – roads, schools etc – that might tediously divert resources from his pocket and his time from the self righteous attention whoring he believes is his destiny.
There really is no reason for countries in the Caribbean to be so dirt poor. That they are is for many complex reasons, none of which I belive are down to us and certainly have nothing to do with what our forebears might have done 200 odd years ago.
I want reparation from one of the Italian governments for the indignities visited upon my ancestors, and the traumas endured by them during the Roman occupation.
I’m not greedy, £5,000.00 will do – plus compound interest @ 5% p.a. calculated since the date when they finally buggered off in 409 ad.
Then once they’ve settled up, I might look at the Danes, Saxons & Normans…
The French will be broke – Napoleon has much to answer for. But I suppose they will argue the 100 years war…
Ah the “white” slave-trade huh?
And where did those slaves come from?
Yeah, that’s right captured & sold by other native Africans, so that they could turn a nice profit.
Even today, I’m told having Nigerians/Ghanaians, especially if form the northern parts & W Indians on the same grid reference can result in very messy fights, at the least ….
And always carefully forgetting the Arab-run slave trade on the East cost, as well … um, err ….