The Transatlantic Slave Trade, famine in India, Social Darwinist programs across the globe (which included racial science influencing policy and creating what were effectively concentration camps for indigenous peoples in Australia and in South Africa during the second Boer War) and the destruction of the city of Benin – the United Kingdom is far from an innocent player on the international stage.
Even in the modern age, our hands are not exactly clean. Churchill openly endorsed eugenics and now-illegal warfare (saying in one letter that he saw no issues with “giving the natives a sniffle”, regarding biological weaponry). We engaged in the War on Terror and this year official government figures have shown that we are the second biggest arms dealer in the world, having sold two-thirds of our weaponry to the destabilised Middle East.
Our history, though sometimes a progressive one, is drenched in human rights abuses across the planet. Of the 196 countries in the world, only 22 have not experienced an invasion led by the British.
Yet a formal apology for most of our historical victims is but a fleeting illusion – in 2015, for example, former Prime Minister David Cameron visited Jamaica, one of the countries founded on British slavery and still in a state of subjugation because of it, where he was pressured by pro-reparation groups to formally apologise for slavery and offer billions in compensation to the communities of those descended from African slaves. Cameron’s response was to tell Jamaica to essentially get over slavery and gave them money for a prison so that the UK can deport Jamaican criminals.
The language used by the politicians of the two biggest parties when talking about our past atrocities is a disturbing one – they express “sorrow” or “regret” for slavery, yet never actually apologise for it. This is a rhetorical trick that is designed to distance the government from poor choices and inhumane actions of the past, while not actually taking responsibility for it. To take responsibility for it would then open up the conversation for reparations, which might result in the UK paying billions to former colonies – billions that the two main parties would rather spend on bail outs for banks, nuclear weapons (though granted, Corbyn is vocally anti-trident), MP wages and expenses and the gentrification of poorer areas of cities.
My proposal is for the LibDems to not only promise a formal apology to all nations who have been hindered by the history of the British Empire, but to also pay the reparations to those whom we are – and will continue to be – morally in debt to.
There are those who say that it can’t be done; that there are other priorities at hand. But we, as a party, have pulled off what others said we couldn’t do in the past. We’ve kept a leash on the Tories, legalised same-sex marriages, blocked the snoopers charter, bounced back in membership after the EU referendum, bought mental health in to mainstream politics, gave the people fairer taxes, created the first national green investment bank, fought against ID cards and won, implemented environmental policies and we eve helped create 190,000 affordable homes in a time of economic crisis.
We are the party of the impossible, and I do not for a second believe that we can be ushered out of doing the right thing simply because consensus is that something can’t be done. If we can do what we have done, there is no real reason to not deliver on this.
* Dean Moore is a student in Salford and has been a member of the Liberal Democrats since February 2016.
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49 Comments
“To take responsibility for it would then open up the conversation for reparations, which might result in the UK paying billions to former colonies ”
we do pay billions to many of our former colonies in the form of Aid. Jamaica for example benefits from the £300m infrastructure fund https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-300-million-fund-for-caribbean-infrastructure
What makes you think the govt spends money on ‘gentrification’ ?
Personally, I’m part Jewish and Romany and from basically peasant stock. I don’t think all of Britain’s citizenry is equally responsible for historical wrongs and rather than involving the whole country in acts of collective remorse about the wrongs of a history that was as much forced on their ancestors here in Britain as anywhere else the apologies should come from those families who most benefited from those wrongs. Or maybe we should all demand an apology from Italy for both the pre Christian Roman and Holy Roman tyrannies across Europe or have everyone united in victimhood because of the tangled web of atrocities committed by the powerful of virtually every belief system, business, nation and empire at some point in history. But, really I think this kind of thing is just emotional grandstanding mingling with a kind uni-debating society cultural embarrassment
Like Glen, I’m from ‘peasant stock’…Perhaps, instead of expecting the nation (mostly made up of those who received no benefit from slavery, conquest, etc. and whose ancestors were treated equally badly by those who did benefit) to apologise and pay reparations, those whose families did benefit should apologise and pay?
Instead, as that will never happen, why not let past sins remain in the past?
This is the kind of hand-wringing I expect to see on Green Party discussion forums, but I’m disappointed to see it on a Lib Dem forum. The history of every nation in the world is the history of the oppression of those that came before it. Even the Benin Empire, mentioned by the author, grew by conquering adjacent lands of the Oyo Empire, which itself grew by…and so on. This was simply the way the world was, until the mid-20th century when the lessons of WW2 showed Humanity that we needed to move beyond this mode of behaviour.
Then of course there is the problem of when to draw the line. Presumably we should demand apologies from the French for Napoleon, the Spanish, the Normans, The Scandinavian Vikings, the Romans, etc; and likewise every country in the world will be demanding apologies from every other country in the world. You’ve got to feel sorry for the Mongols, who will be apologising to everyone and paying reparations for all eternity, despite having very little left now.
And if we’re going to apologise for all the regrettable things that were dot in our name, we should also demand thanks (and perhaps costs?) for all the good things that were done in our name, like doing more than any other nation to terminate the global slave-trade, setting up the UN, holding the line alone against Nazism, spreading knowledge and medicine to every corner of the planet, and so on.
As Glenn mentions, this kind of proposal emerges from the modern craze for chasing victim-hood. This is only an ephemeral trend, so there really isn’t any need to jump to its tune.
Dean , no way , it is not the thing to do, that as a blanket stance, is illiberal. Every situation on a case by case basis must be the way.
Do you not see that it would open up your own country to the chip on their shoulder types, who basically hate this country for its negative policies in the past , but do not love it for the myriad of positive things this country has done and does?!
An analysis , a critique , fine , a mea culpa, no way , no how writ large !
My father grew up as a forced member of the Mussolini Youth, he saluted Il Duce , in person, and then went on to take food to the Partisans in the night ! He joined the British military police in his city of Trieste , after the war , helping to secure the peace , and law and order. He settled here and brought me up to see the best in Britain not the worst.
Get rid of the word Empire from our medals , but do not get rid of our medals.
Apologise for certain historical atrocities but do not make out our whole history is atrocious !
Mark Wright
Great minds think alike , especially about Great Britain !
Glenn
“I don’t think all of Britain’s citizenry is equally responsible for historical wrongs”
Let be clear, none of Britain’s population are responsible for “Historical Wrongs” unless they are recent from their lifetimes and took part in them.
Why are people trying to reinvent Original Sin in politics, can we leave this to the Catholic Church?
expats
“received no benefit from slavery”
We also need to be clear that slavery is not actually an economically beneficial system. It adversely affects the economy as a whole and for the small number of individuals who will benefit from it they will tend to fritter it in a short period after the distorted system is rectified. In a world where slavery hasn’t been irradiated we should be clear it is bad in all ways, not just morally.
Dean, I suggest you watch the opening ceremony to the Rio Olympics and reflect – what is the debt we (the nations who sent slaves at different times in history, to Brazil) owe to Brazil?
Additionally, I think you have a rather narrow view of what ‘reparations’ might be. I suggest digging wells, supplying medicines, education, through to fair trade deals that actually result in trade and so generate wealth to name a few, can all count as reparations; that help people to become comfortable with where they live and gain a respected place in the world.
Dean Moore
“still in a state of subjugation because of it”
Perhaps you could explain who is subjugating this independent country.
“billions that the two main parties would rather spend on bail outs for banks, […] MP wages and expenses and the gentrification of poorer areas of cities.”
If you believe that a government by either party wants to spend money on anything (such as bank bailouts or MPs expenses) that makes them unpopular and does not contribute to their own ability to have “given” the public something, I think you have a warped perspective on governing parties incentives. As for the gentrification issue I think you are certainly confused about trends in house prices.
Mark Wright
“this kind of proposal emerges from the modern craze for chasing victim-hood. This is only an ephemeral trend, so there really isn’t any need to jump to its tune.”
Excellently put.
I’m afraid that history is history and I don’t think an insincere sorry is much compensation for some of the terrible things that certainly happened – so I couldn’t support Dean’s proposal.
However, it is interesting to reflect on recent research conducted by Dr Nick Draper at UCL. Draper found that the British government paid out £20m to compensate some 3,000 families that owned slaves for the loss of their “property” when slave-ownership was abolished in Britain’s colonies in 1833. This figure represented a staggering 40 per cent of the Treasury’s annual spending budget and, in today’s terms, calculated as wage values, equates to around £16.5bn.
Amongst the families compensated were those of David Cameron – and William Ewart Gladstone. Britain’s colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after …
http://www.independent.co.uk › News › UK › Home News 23 Feb 2013 –
If by any magic chance Dean turns it into reality, I’ll be in the queue. My maternal great grandfather died of miner’s lung at the age of 28 leaving a widow and four young children. He worked in the Vane-Tempest-Stewart collieries in County Durham owned by Lord Londonderry…a forbear of Zac Goldsmith MP. The Londonderry’s used their slave money to open collieries in Co. Durham.
Funny how the billionaire toffs always seem to land Sunnyside Up economically and politically.
Thank you all for your replies. It’s always a very humbling and refreshing experience to have those who disagree engage with one’s stance, and to be challenged in my convictions. As my reply in lengthy, I’ll post it as two comments.
Like a few folks who have commented, I too come from “peasant stock’ – born and raised in a council flat in North Hackney and educated in Tottenham – I have seen first hand that it is not just groups historically affected by past atrocities that are hindered by social inequalities. I concur that the burden of reparations should not fall on those who have had 0 economic benefit from things such as slavery. However, being white, I have still benefited from the social legacy of something like slavery, regardless of my socio-economic position at the start of my life. This can be illustrated via media representation of race (game of thrones is a perfect example – a popular TV show that only really depicts darker skinned people as slaves or as the “noble savage” stereotype that had roots in inaccurate historical representations); opportunities that are statistically more accessible for white males than other groups (though, with credit to the UK, we are a leading force in pushing equality laws and affirmative action in the workplace) and institutional racism (which again, though not perfect, we’ve still taken steps in the right way for reformation – police relations with black communities is nowhere near as reproachable as the US’s for example).
The UK is by no means exceptional in it having built itself on a foundation rooted in oppression, that’s true. Australia’a treatment of indigenous people’s is a perfect example – and the Australian government apologised for that in the 00’s.
It is the legacy and generational suffering caused by these atrocities that I am saying we should apologise for. Legacies that are yet to completely fizzle out. I’m not suggesting we apologise for the entirety of our past – as one comment said, we shut down the transatlantic slave trade, produced medicine on an industrial scale and yes, fought Nazi’s singlehandedly (though Adolf Hitler “borrowed” bits and bobs of his ideology from racial science and imperialism that came from here and 1800’s US and according to some sources spoke with admiration for the Empire). I’m not criticising the UK’s past in its entirety, only the bits that have caused disparity for decades or more than a century and a half later. And I think an apology for those still-living legacies is appropriate, as is compensation – in what form those compensations come, would be another matter entirely.
It would be difficult to explain this to the vast number of people in the UK who feel more in common with those “used” than those “using”.
I agree, DJ. The white working class has too suffered from similar legacies of inequality, culminating in widespread mistrust of the two largest parties due and a feeling of being used by the establishment. A large part of that comes from the historic treatment of Irish immigrants and the eugenicist idea of a “criminal class” made up from layabout crooks who don’t want to work for their livelihoods – at least, this is my opinion taken from what sources I’ve found. There are of course other factors too, which I am either unaware of or not clued up on as much as the other factors.
Dean Moore
“I have still benefited from the social legacy of something like slavery”
You seem to have an unrealistically positive view of slavery, what is the benefit you have received?
“This can be illustrated via media representation of race (game of thrones is a perfect example”
Seriously? How do you benefit from the representations of race in a story about magic and dragons?
“legacy and generational suffering caused by these atrocities […] Legacies that are yet to completely fizzle out”
You need to actually explain these claims. I think you may be operating in an environment where certain inaccurate ideas are assumed to be true, as no one is challenging them. If you are benefiting from certain things like slavery then you should be able to say how, you haven’t done this yet.
Dean, I agree with you more than most on here do — I often feel myself conflicted about how institutions from which I have benefitted and built my identity and in which I have a stake have benefitted from great wrong in the past.
I have posted on here my sense of regret and mourning as a Christian regarding the legacy of the Crusades, for example, and been lambasted in the past for it.
But …
A blanket commitment to identifying all wrongs, making formal apologies and offering reparations, does not sound practicable international politics or diplomacy to me (or economics).
Counting the wrongs, considering the costs and the legacy, then committing ourselves to an international approach that will undo any inherited wrongs by commitment to peace, dialogue, and building an open and inclusive society with exchange of ideas and resources with such nations is, however, ‘doable’.
Definitively and finally getting over the fact we haven’t been a great power since Suez and that no British political, cultural or economic legacy since then justifies Britain’s conceited sense of itself on the world stage (no, not even the Beatles), would be a start.
A formal appology sounds like a great idea. One of those good policies that makes the government look nice without actually costing anyting or requiring any changes to the law.
Reparations is a rather different mattter.
This article is fundamentally Illiberal. Liberalism is all about Freedom & Responsibility, they are 2 sides of the same coin. All Responsibility is personal & can be extended to the collective only when an adult takes a decision or allows a decison to be taken on their behalf. Thus, I have some reposibility for The actions of The Libdems, as long as I am a member.
Do I have any resposibility for the actions of The current British Government ? Yes, up to a point, I didnt vote for it but i had a vote, sort of.
Do I have any responsibility for the actions of past British Governments ? Yes again, up to a lesser point, at least as far back as the first Election I could have voted in, 1974 in my case.
I have no resposibility for things that happened 70 years ago ( the last Indian famine, for example) let alone two Centuries ago. The idea behind Reparation is the same one behind “Collective Punishment” as Practised by The Israelis, for example.
To be clear, Private Organisations are a different case, most American Universities for example. There have been recent cases where American Universities which gained money from selling slaves have agreed to waive/subsidise Fees for the descendants of slaves, that seems fair enough because here we have discrete, autonomous bodies that have a status partly based on their historical continuity. “Britain” has no such identity.
I apologise for going on at such weary length & using the word “Resposibility” 211 times but I thought clarity trumped style in this case.
Unworkable. It was a bit eerie reading Glenn’s post as my views and long distance heritage are very similar.
Funny how discussion about these grandstanding apologies never seem to apply to historic crimes against women. Should for example, Tim Farron apologise for a Liberal government force-feeding the suffragettes. No!
Linking to a parallel but semi-related time we had this sort of issue raised… https://www.libdemvoice.org/suffragette-47978.html
Ah, thanks Matt (Bristol). My posts in that thread are applicable to this one as well!
Dean, I’m not about to apologise for the historic slave trade. An ancestor of mine was, I’m proud to say, one of those who actively opposed it in the late 1700s.
I think this country effectively said ‘it’s wrong’ when we abolished it in 1833.
I actually thought Cameron was right not to overdo the ‘sorry’ thing. I think us apologising smacks of the imperialism we’re supposed to be saying sorry for. It implies ex-colonies can’t stand on their own feet, they need us to nanny them.
All this ‘white guilt’ stuff is a bit ‘noble savage’ for me: patronising. It’s one thing I really can’t stand about Labour: their ‘we know what’s best for The Poor’ attitude.
I’ve also seen what happens where other countries pay reparations for old perceived debts. It sparks a compensation culture, where a savvy minority hold out their hands out for large sums of money to line their own pockets. I doubt your well-meaning billions would fare any different.
Dean, It is very easy to pious and ‘holier than thou’ by apologising for something that was nothing to do with one’s self and so no personal blame can attach, but one can still feel good about being so open and honest.
However, whenever people came up with this idea, and trendy lefties in the Labour party were often prime movers, my old dad, who was old enough to have fought in a war and knew what it was like, suggested they start with more recent things they were responsible for (like appeasement and supporting Stalin) and when they had done all those, then ask an outsider for what they should add to the list.
So Dean, if you want to apologise, I suggest you start with what you yourself have personally done wrong and then move on to things the party did wrong, like breaking pledges, supporting the bedroom tax, and destroying 50 years of progress for the Liberals in five years of coalition etc etc. Once you have been successful in that, move onto things your parents’ generation did wrong and so on.
On the other hand you can simply work hard to rebuild a party that the people of this country desperately need.
I support reparations and have done for about a year. The problem is foreign aid is not explicitly about slavery and colonialism and unless we pay a real price it might look like we are not sorry.
It could improve the international standing of our country in places like the Middle East and Africa, reducing terrorism.
Of course, don’t bankrupt our country, but some crimes are so great that sorry isn’t good enough.
Eddie
“some crimes are so great that sorry isn’t good enough”
What price is “enough”?
It’s worth bearing in mind that pretty much every government has a facility where you can pay donations to that country. Anyone who honestly thinks that reparations should be paid to any country is absolutely free to pay whatever sum they feel is deserved right now. A person can even voluntarily give the things they own to citizens of that country – e.g. it wouldn’t be hard to find Jamaican citizens on Facebook and offer any of them your home, car, bank account, etc. But of course, what 99% of people who support such payments mean is that they only support the idea enough to pay them if every one of their fellow citizens is also forced to pay them…
Firstly we cannot apologise for other people. We are not responsible. If someone is convicted of a crime his children or grandchildren are not deemed responsible.
Secondly there is the whole question of reparations.
Thirdly should Norway be compensating us for the Viking raids or the Italians for the Roman invasion?
It’s self-indulgent nonsense.
Agree with most of the comments here. Collective responsibility, especially when much time has elapsed and all the guilty parties are long dead, is probably the single worst idea anybody ever had and should be roundly rejected.
My own ancestors, for what it’s worth, would not even have had a vote at the time so were in no way responsible. In fact American slaveowners during the first half of the 19th century used to defend the institution by claiming they treated their slaves better than English capitalists treated their “free” workers.
I proud to be British, in fact I’ve served over 22 years in the Army. I grew up in a children’s home where I was put after my abusive father decided that talking to the kids with his fistts were better than talking to us with words. The local community kept quiet in fact they castigated us for been bad children . The thing is white teachers at school spotted our bruises , my sister and I were taken into care and that local community drowned us for bringing disrespect onto them.
As I said I love my country of birth ( the UK) and I have served it with pride. So tell me, why should I pay for a country which has given me nothing. I mean as a brown skinned person I can only be a victim.
I expect an apology and compensation from the French for the Norman invasion. I think we should set a 1000 year limit on claims. How far back should we go?
There’s a huge difference between apologies and compensation for actual victims – the survivors of Japanese WW2 atrocities and their spouses for example, and indiscriminate apologies and compensation for historical acts. It gets very complicated… Should we give reparations to Uganda for colonial sins or demand reparations for the treatment of UK settled Ugandan Asians by Idi Amin. Should we give anything to a country that is institutionally homophobic. What about sending some used notes to Mugabe to make up for failing to act against Ian Smith? I thought one lesson of the Treaty of Versailles was that reparations invariably lead to resentment, hatred, and intolerance on a huge scale.
What we should do is show what sort of people we are today by leading the world in fighting modern slavery. That would be a practical and meaningful statement of our position and far more likely to gain universal support.
I could not agree more with a.mockford.
This is complete nonsense.
The African slave trade involved various African tribes waging war with others and selling off the prisoners they captured. So should not those tribes which captured the prisoners and sold them be paying the compensation?
The population of Africa is derived from large scale tribal movements, for example the Akans moved to Ghana and the Zulus to South Africa, conquering and over-powering the previous tribes that were dominant in those places, at about the same time that white Europeans started taking over in America. So should those tribes pay compensation to what is left of the others?
One can go on and on and on and on and on in history like this. Should we Saxons be compensating the Welsh for forcing them out of now England? Except that latest history casts doubt in that and suggests there is much more Celtic ancestry in the English than used to be supposed? Should the Catholic Church in England be compensated for being destroyed in the Reformation and those who remained loyal to it being subject to execution for doing so? Should Muslims pay compensation in India for the Mughal empire? Should the Russians pay compensation to the descendants of the nomadic tribes of Siberia?
Etc.
Just looking at Jamaica..
.. the Arawak and Taíno inhabitants of Jamaica there at the time of its discovery by Europeans suffered far more. Who would pay them? The Spanish?
.. how would we find any? DNA test everyone and pay out according to the results?
.. would we start insisting that the current inhabitants move out, so that the people whose ancestors were there 520 years ago can have a homeland? (There is, of course, precedent for doing that!)
Like you, I benefit from historical crimes against humanity. But the answer is not to reach for the communal cheque book out of liberal guilt.
The problem is ethnic minorities still suffer from slavery and colonialism today, so it’s no use saying “it was our ancestors, not us, who did it”. Or words to that affect.
If I was a Jamaican MP I’d be banging the drums to get reparations from Britain and possibly others. We don’t need to offer a lot, just saying so it doesn’t look like we are saying sorry to get them off our backs.
Eddie
“The problem is ethnic minorities still suffer from slavery and colonialism today”
How? Be specific, this topic is awash with vague statements.
It’s almost as if you actively don’t want to win votes.
As an indicator here is someone discussing reparations in the US context: https://youtu.be/_4TIYKmjGoM
You’ll notice he can’t get a straight answer from those advancing the arguments for it.
Hi Psi, mainly through stolen wealth and the resultant prejudices. I don’t think all of the Empire was bad, but I think some things need to be recognised and sorry is just a word. Doesn’t seem enough. Regards
@Eddie – So you expect the descendants of those who created the mess of Brexit to apologise ad nauseam and give out reparations… Yet in a democracy, today’s government is unable to tie the hands of a future government?
The world has to simply accept slavery happened, yes certain countries took an old and in some parts of the world a well established industry, to a new level. However, it is part of what has shaped the modern world and thus part and parcel of our shared history.
I suggest all this talk about apologies and reparations is more to do with PC stupidity that believes that by saying sorry will somehow expunge this chapter from our history; well it won’t, we only need to look at the history of the Jews to see the total folly in of the PC viewpoint.
Hi Eddie,
The idea that countries become wealthy or poor by wealth being “stolen” is popular among a certain group in politics but doesn’t match up to reality.
If this is what made countries rich or poor then Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland would not be among the wealthiest countries.
I don’t understand the bit about “resultant prejudices”
I agree that “sorry is just a word” but I would go further and say it would be a very hollow word for the reasons a. Mockford states.
Pushing for these countries to have access to export markets (which would be better if we were staying in the EU), and encouraging reforms where required. Thinking that an empty apology from May and some re-branded aid would make a blind bit of difference looks remarkably self indulgent.
Some concrete action that would achieve something would be worth pursuing.
Dean I’m glad you are expressing some Lib Dem empathy and hope you carry on doing so, but I do agree with those who’ve said this idea is impractical. However, what we can do is try to fight injustice as it occurs during our own lifetime and even then situations can be so very muddled that it’s sometimes hard to see what to do or work out who is right, or even who started it. Often it’s better to try to draw a line and say fairness begins now because otherwise conflict just carries on. So we as a party are right to argue for increased overseas aid, for example, but we’ll never get it right when trying to fight historic injustice which can lead to even more conflict and violence. How will the Middle East ever sort out its problems when so many different groups have so many different loyalties and hostilities to each other, based in centuries of history?
Whoever said this was correct. “The past is another country. They do things differently there.”
Dean. Look at Chris Tanner’s post and the comments there. A great example of what I’m talking about.
Most black people today in the USA, Britain and even the West Indies are better off than people in Africa. Are they beneficiaries of slavery?
Black people in Jamaica are beneficiaries of the elimination of the original natives of the island, and therefore under this logic they should pay reparations to the Native American survivors.
“Our history, though sometimes a progressive one, is drenched in human rights abuses across the planet. Of the 196 countries in the world, only 22 have not experienced an invasion led by the British.”
You’ve got that 22/196 presumably from the Telegraph article. Many of the “invasions” consist of a raiding party. Many others are actually liberations. Some are evidence of a military expedition of some kind, e.g. during the Russian Revolution. Are you seriously contending we should compensate Italy and Germany for their defeats in WW2, or to France and Norway for our part in liberating them. The first thing you have to do to gain any credibility is to get your numbers straight.
How many countries have 100% clean records in human rights cases? How many have ongoing atrocities being committed right now? The UK played a small part in Korea so presumably that means apologies to North Korea and here’s some money. Many of the countries you would pay reparations to jail people for being gay, or torture, jail or execute political dissidents, or discriminate against minorities, or suppress women
The Spanish Empire was also very large and had by far the biggest slave involvement in slavery. The Dutch Slave trade was big. France was involved as was Belgium etc.
The thing about Britain is a lot of us have grown up mingling American social history with our own mostly because of pop culture rather than common links. It distorts perception and sometimes over influences policy. Britain is not America. We do not have the same history and really we shouldn’t look at our social issues filtered through the American experience.
Maybe instead of feeling guilty about the wrongs of an elite 100s of years ago we should take pride in the largely Liberal inspired abolition movement and as the nation who did more for emancipation than any other in the world.
I really find this kind of argument to be troubling; it is just cherry picking one small part of history and presenting it in solitude as some kind of truth. There are very few things which are all bad or all good and this guilt politics it is just propaganda meant to get us feeling guilty and ultimately make us susceptible to cultural marxism.
As for the crusades people need to learn that history too. A blank “crusades were bad” really does not understand the history of the era. A huge area of formerly Christian land had fallen to invaders; who over run Spain and even invaded France. Places we think of as Muslim today were formerly a part of Christendom; the holy land, Egypt, north Africa for example. There had been holy wars fought in the Balkans and Rome was raided, in fact corsairs were regularly raiding and taking slaves and gold. I am not an apologist for holy wars but there was like half a century of history before the first crusade and I think a sense of an existential threat could be justified.
This was the first issue debated at Liberal Democrat federal conference. There was a great outpouring of emotion from well-informed delegates. The blank sheet of policy for the new party had something written on it.
Thomas Jefferson writes (SBN 8139-0284-3)
“The first establishment in Virginia which became permanent was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade and continued it until the Revolutionary War. That suspended, ipso facto, their further importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year ’78 when I brought a bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition and stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.”
This, of course, only applied to Virginia.