Categories: uncategorized
Date: 26 March 2007 17:42:05
This year sees the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery in British controlled countries. It is also a great chance for us to increase pressure on governments to stem the tide of slavery that still exists today. It is not as open as it was 200 years ago but it is still as prevelant.
Instead of predominantly black slaves on plantations, we now have East Europeans and Asians in the sex trade and other fields. We have poor families in Africa forced to sell their children in order to reduce the burdens on their families. There are Asians and Africans working in Western countries illegally to make a better life for themselves but imprisoned by those who brought them here. We still need to raise this before the public to engender the same response as that given 200 years ago.
Slavery has been with man since man fell from grace. I can never see it being totally stamped out but everything we do can get us closer to that goal. At the end of the day there are always people willing to oppress and ill treat others weaker, or different, to them. That is part of man's nature and it will never completely change.
However there is something else about slavery that really, really annoys me. That is the constant calls for us to apologise for perpetuating this activity. It is made to sound as though the "white" European nations are solely responsible for slavery throughout history. Yes, we did take advantage of it in settling the American Continent. Yes, we did profit from it. Yes, we did ill treat the slaves and made their lives a misery. However it wasn't just us involved.
There was already a very lucrative trade in slaves going on before we appeared on the African continent. Before us there were the Arabs and they were still plying their trade after we stopped - it took the Royal Navy to put an end to most of their actions.
Yet who were putting these people into slavery. It wasn't just the Arab or European traders who profited or kept it alive. We also have to look at the Africans themselves. It was tribal fighting and conquest that provided the majority of slaves to the traders. The image of Arab or European raiding expeditions is much stronger than this equally true story.
I'm not trying to say that the Africans are solely responsible. If we hadn't bought them then there would still have been a trade in slaves. That is not just true of African slavery but also of slavery throughout time.
Slavery was born when the first group of humans fought another and used the captives to tend their fields, work in their houses or palaces. The Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek and Roman Empires were already trading in slaves. They were seen as a prize of conquest or revolt. It occured in pre-Christian times and continued unabated throughout history until the slave trade was supposedly ended. Remember that Nazi Germany was using conquererd nations as slaves during the last World War; groups such as the Khmer Rouge and The Lords Resistance Army are, or were, using them in the last 30 years.
As far as I am concerned I am happy continue to fight for the abolition of slavery. I will happily apologise for the part that my country played in this until 200 years ago. What I can't understand is why we are called to compensate the modern descendents of the slaves.
My own family, as far as I can see, never took part in the slave trade. We never profited from it either. Yes there were people who did but the vast majority of us did not. How can us paying compensation to others really make amends. Do we ask the same of other country too? Do they ask the Arabs, the Chinese or Japanese? Do they ask the Egpytians, Romans, Assyrians or Greeks?
This just highlights a problem of modern society. Someone always feels the need to punish others for the actions of their forefathers. Maybe they think that what's good enough for God is good enough for them...