HTG Posted August 31, 2023 Share Posted August 31, 2023 Given the eagerness to deport children of the Windrush generation, this govt is more likely to seek payment from countries for all the training their ancestors were given back in the day. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inanimate Carbon Rod Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 One side of my family was forced from land in the Highlands during the clearances and plunged into poverty in Cities, another side was driven from Ireland during the famine, im immensely sympathetic to those who feel hurt by the actions of the rich those hundreds of years ago, but the idea that its for us now to pay for it is unfair. Give back the stolen jewels in the crown, give back the plundered art and treasures in museums and collections, ensure our kids are taught about slavery in schools, a state apology for the actions of our ruling classes then and move on from the notions of reparations. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Connolly Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 19 hours ago, Lofarl said: We were all slaves of the Romans at one point. We should all just sue Italy. The Vikings too. I hear the Norwegians have a cracking oil fund they could pay us from 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny Danger Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 20 hours ago, Lofarl said: We were all slaves of the Romans at one point. We should all just sue Italy. Lofarl trying to claim his wedge… 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 I don't think you can compare the Highland clearences to slavery or the slave trade to be honest. Landlords evicting tenants isn't the same as enslaving people and their descendants. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inanimate Carbon Rod Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 45 minutes ago, ICTChris said: I don't think you can compare the Highland clearences to slavery or the slave trade to be honest. Landlords evicting tenants isn't the same as enslaving people and their descendants. No i agree forcing people from their homelands and them having to live in poor areas in poverty and essentially industrial serfdom is in no way similar… Granted the slave trade was worse especially given it was motivated by race (but then again so was the irish famine) but there are comparatives that are fair to be made. We have all been abused by the wealthy essentially, but if there are reparations to be paid it wont come from them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Steele Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 1 hour ago, ICTChris said: I don't think you can compare the Highland clearences to slavery or the slave trade to be honest. Landlords evicting tenants isn't the same as enslaving people and their descendants. Two things, though - landowners who benefitted financially from the slave trade were then able to buy even more land. Then they moved off the 'crop'/people who had been tending the land, to be replaced with another more profitable crop - sheep. So did the removed population, moved to maximise profits, not suffer as well? Fair enough, not indentured and in chains but expendable in the pursuit of profit nonetheless. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alert Mongoose Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 I could get behind reparations on the assumption the money comes from that disgusting lizard family. Anything left of their estate should then go to Chest, Heart and Stroke. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 (edited) 21 hours ago, coprolite said: Most of our ancestors didn't do those abhorrent things though. Most of most people's ancesteors would have been subsistence farmers or manual workers, possibly even indentured themselves, throughout the whole transatlantic slave period. Maybe we've benefitted from the surplus created by slave labour to the extent any of it was spent on philanthropy or to the debatable extent that trickle down benefits the wider economy. But most of the proceeds remain embedded in the ersatz classical columns of crumbling country piles or recycled in offshore trusts for family office investments. How much do you think you owe? Terrible chapter of history... but as a 'practical idea' not an 'intellectual exercise' the proposal is pretty bizarre. Leaving aside figures bandied around representing £250k-£300k per UK citizen. Arguably distracts from more appropriate/realistic actions IMO. Plus surely we can pay with our own reparations from Italy, the Scandinavian and North African countries? Failing that with reparations for the other horrid events in history: how much did we receive from France for the Napoleonic Wars, or from Germany and Japan for WWII? Do we get a discount for having been in the vanguard of abolishing it, plus going around forcing others to? Who do we pay - the African countries whose leaders sold their own people but have the lowest standards of living? the Caribbean countries? or America who carried on decades more and are among the richest nations on earth? Why pay countries not people: but 200-300yr on, how do we discern which people? Will a 3rd generation British Caribbean person pay or receive? Means-tested? "Prosperity"-tested? EDIT: I'm also sceptical everybody's prosperity then or now was "largely" or "wholly" built on it, and doubt my ancestors who toiled on farms (under a bondage system btw), down mines and on whalers would agree. Someday will I receive an (understandably smaller) amount recognising their suffering... or have to pay for their cruelty and environmental damage? Edited September 1, 2023 by HibeeJibee 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btb Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 The history is not that far back in relative terms, especially as it's less than a decade since the UK government finished paying reparations to the slave owners for the emancipation - I'm pretty sure these records could be easily found if there was a will. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTG_03 Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 3 hours ago, Mark Connolly said: The Vikings too. I hear the Norwegians have a cracking oil fund they could pay us from Idiots. They should've given it all to a larger neighbour aswell as making all their decisions for them. It's the best of both worlds. Who needs money anyway...? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sortmeout Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 No. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billy Jean King Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 Who would reparation monies be paid to exactly ? I most certainly would not be handing cash to some of the countries affected present day governments as it would go straight into their back pockets/offshore accounts. It's very difficult to see how any repatriation money would ever get to the ancestors of those slavery directly affected. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 (edited) 44 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said: Who would reparation monies be paid to exactly ? I most certainly would not be handing cash to some of the countries affected present day governments as it would go straight into their back pockets/offshore accounts. It's very difficult to see how any repatriation money would ever get to the ancestors of those slavery directly affected. That is usually what the headline proposals - involving vast sums from entire countries - suggest. Sometimes payments direct to populations (either everybody in the country or ethnic groups) e.g.: San Francisco Board Approves $5 Million Reparation Payments for Black Residents - EBONY Netherlands have pledged €227m: Netherlands slavery: Saying sorry leaves Dutch divided - BBC News Only notable Scottish case to date is Glasgow University funding £20m (over 20yrs):Glasgow University 'benefited from slave trade profits' - BBC NewsGlasgow University is to launch a "reparative justice programme" after discovering it benefited by tens of millions of pounds from racial slavery. In total, the money it received is estimated as having a present day value of between £16.7m and £198m. A study by the university into thousands of donations it received in the 18th and 19th Centuries found some were linked to slave trade profits. It included sums for bursaries and endowments. Donations to the 1866-1880 campaign to build the university's current campus at Gilmorehill found 23 people who gave money had some financial links to the New World slave trade. Glasgow University's 'bold' move to pay back slave trade profits - BBC News Glasgow University has agreed to raise and spend £20m in reparations after discovering it benefited by millions of pounds from the slave trade. It is believed to be the first institution in the UK to implement such a "programme of restorative justice". The money will be raised and spent over the next 20 years on setting up and running the Glasgow-Caribbean Centre for Development Research. Some private individuals have donated £ to organisations e.g. last week descendants of John Gladstone of Leith gave £100k to a Guyana research institute. Edited September 1, 2023 by HibeeJibee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parsforlife Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 Ultimately if the money isn't directly coming out of the rich lords, elgins etc who have an absolute fortune up their sleaves from their scumbag behavior then its utterly pointless. 9 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said: Some private individuals have donated £ to organisations e.g. last week descendants of John Gladstone of Leith gave £100k to a Guyana research institute. Given they received 10 million in compensation alone that's an absolute pittance and barely deserves any respect. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GHF-23 Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 7 hours ago, ICTChris said: I don't think you can compare the Highland clearences to slavery or the slave trade to be honest. Landlords evicting tenants isn't the same as enslaving people and their descendants. Yeah it all gets a bit "yknow the Irish were slaves too" when people start talking about coal miners or the clearances in comparison to chattel slavery, and I say that as someone who agrees with most of the critiques of reparations here 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxRover Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 The real “reparations” should’ve in a form of assisting those whose place in the world/society is one that was dictated by actions taken to unjustly profit others. The easy example here is in the U.S., using generational wealth. The redlining that stopped minority home-ownership and the societal actions that unjustly stripped assets and wealth from minorities, resulted in a handicapped start for more recent generations of those minorities. Finding ways to assist those descendants in more rapidly accruing wealth that can assist themselves and their descendants to compete on an even playing field should be the goal. By the same token, a similar goal should be aimed for In a geopolitical sense, however, political corruption and internal divisions make this a much thornier area. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergeant Wilson Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 6 hours ago, HibeeJibee said: Terrible chapter of history... but as a 'practical idea' not an 'intellectual exercise' the proposal is pretty bizarre. Leaving aside figures bandied around representing £250k-£300k per UK citizen. Can I pay my share up? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binos Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 Shall we recompense the descendants of Edward Jenner with funds for the development of immunisation? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Other Foot Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 2 hours ago, GHF-23 said: Yeah it all gets a bit "yknow the Irish were slaves too" when people start talking about coal miners or the clearances in comparison to chattel slavery, and I say that as someone who agrees with most of the critiques of reparations here To be fair, there's an argument to be made for the UK owning the Irish a shit-ton in reparations. Except... Ireland is loaded right now, and the UK is hurtling towards destitution. So we'll forgive and forget, for now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.