why do wee need to apologise for slavery?

Question

when the jews dont apologise for what they did to jesus? or why dont we also celebrate the victories of the british empire, the act of union etc? why should we always downgrade our countries history? I do believe britain was a world leader in the abolition of slavery? and that a lot of other africans countries were involved but arent apologising.

Answer 1

Whats with all the slavery questions today?...The board is full of them..No we shouldnt be made to apologise for something that happened so many years ago..Jeez,people should just let it drop.

Answer 2

The injustices perpetrated by the empire cannot be deemed as lesser just because this one and that one did the same thing, if not worse-that perspective smacks of pettiness and lack of accountability.
Nobody is denying Britain's great history but rather one wishes for her to acknowledge the less glorious bits and if possible make amends.And an apology is not that much especially if it isn't sincere(as you obviously don't see the need to apologise).
You can have some respite in the knowledge that your country is not the only one to have done something not nice-think of the Japanese,Germans and Rwandans etc.Every country has done something in the past that they shouln't be proud of and if the inheritors of that history can do something about it,why not?.
The alternative would be to return all the wealth Britain acquired through the exploitation and brutalising of a people- you probably would not have that computer with which you whine about something that doesn't even cost you or your country a thing.

Answer 3

All great empires were built on slavery. Apologising is pointless. The same goes for the horrors done in the name of religion.

If the apology is to mean anything, we should all stop buying things unless it made with a fair wage. Have the government acted on this? No.

I want an apology on being treated like a second class citizen for being single. Will I get one? No.

Are children let down by social workers apologised to, even after they are murdered? No.

Are our eldery apologised to for being treated so shabbily? No.

The British slave trade was abolished 200 years ago. It was a terrible thing to happen, we all know that. There are matters now which need seeing to. Stop arseholing round with history and concentrate on the problems today.

Answer 4

Because the UK is a sectarian state. The Monarch is the head of state, in some Bishoprics, the Bishop automatically becomes a Lord Bishop and has a seat in the House of Lords, only C of E churches have the right to ring bells and if you marry in the C of E you don't have to go to the registry office, since a C of E priest is automatically a recognised registrar. Slavery was clearly against the teachings of Jesus, so there was a fatal flaw in the concept of Christianity at the time.

Germany apologised for the Holocaust and Turkey is under pressure to acknowledge the killing of Armenians as genocide.

The history of the UK is full of atrocities. The first concentration camps were set up in South Africa during the Boer Wars, when, by incarcerating women and children, many of whom died of cholera and starvation, the Brits thought they could force the men to capitulate.

Why should we not stand up and be counted. Sorry is such a little word. It's quite easy to say. What's the problem?

Answer 5

Did the Romans apologise to all the countries they took slaves from (including England) or the Egyptians! I doubt it!
I doubt there is a Country in the world that can honestly look back at their history and say they are innocent of any wrongdoing! I cant see America Ever apologising for wiping out most of the Native Indians in their bid to build a FREE Country! The whole of Europe apologising for invading other lands It isn't only the British who invaded Africa and forced Christianity and slavery onto others! The Africans themselves took slaves from other tribes and long before we discovered it! Cant see them apologising to each other either!
We should ALL learn from our ancestors mistakes not apologise for things that even our ancestors may not have had control over! Acknowledge it happened and accept it was wrong but you'll not hear an Apology from me!
Most of us are still slaves! We have to work but it's the rich bosses who get richer.

Answer 6

The basic reason is that what the United States did as a nation, over a century ago, was wrong. Slavery is not right and can never be justified. The nation as a whole owes an apology to those who were enslaved, or their direct descendents.

We, as individuals living in 2007, will find it totally innapropriate to apologize for something that we as individuals had no part in. I mean, most of my ancestors were not even here before 1890, let alone here to endorse of tolerate slavery. And those who were here actively fought and suffered in a direct effort to end slavery. However, as a nation, that's a different story.

It can be and should be argued that slavery has had a lasting effect. Slaves worked for decades and even centuries for someone else. What they did was to build wealth for the plantation owners and were denied the wealth to themselves and to their children and grandchildren. We very much believe, as a nation, that wealth can be passed from parents to children. Slaves, and hence the African-Americans of today were denied that, therefore there is an arguement for slave reparations.

Ironically, however, and this is where the whole ball of wax gets really complicated, to give African-Americans tax dollars today is to tax many Americans who had nothing to do with slavery, punishing them for something they neither supported nor condoned, and it is also denying, and here is the real kicker that not many bring up, that some free blacks owned slaves. Should they be compensated for what they took part in? We'd need to do some serious geneological research on this, something that many African-Americans shy away from.

Answer 7

Because we dunnit is why. At the end of slavery, former slave owners were compensated. The Church of England received £9,000.00 for the freedom of it's slaves in Jamaica. Nothing was paid out to the slaves themselves, many of whom were simply left destitute and without paid work and incidentally, nowhere to live either.

Let's just look at this apology thing carefully. The people of England today, who classify themselves as English, may not have ancestors of England of 200 or so years ago. Their ancestry may very well be Dutch, German, Danish etc.

The only 'real' English are the English Aristocracy who can trace their roots back to at least 1066 or even beyond.

My own race are the Brythonic Celts of Britain, the Welsh who have a long history of slave ownership. But it is not necessarily the case that because someone [like me] is Welsh, that their ancestors had anything much if anything, to do with the Slave Trade.

An apology -why? Lots of nations, esp. SA etc have gone through this kind of process and it works well - 'reconsiliation'. In the meantime the British people and their government[s] will continue sending money to Africa and etc. In Kenya almost the entire education of a single generation of children has been financed by UK money. It's a start. Let's just do it.

Answer 8

we don't need to apologise for anything done by those who came before us; and the Jews don't need to apologise either...tho why you'd bring up the Jews in this question is beyond me (feels like a little bit of anti-semitism to me!)

Regarding slavery, most of the slaves were sold onto slavers by Africans who'd captured them in raids on villages.

For centuries, white people were kidnapped and sold in slavery off the coasts of Europe by Barbary pirates ...

Plus Great Britain was the first country to unilaterally abolish slaveryand work to stamp it out.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy was given specific orders to capture slavers and impound the ships - though that might have been a war measure against Spain.

In short, we don't have to apologise ... but I'm sure Tony Blair will find a way of apologising anyway!

Philip

Answer 9

Slavery was a condition of the human race from earliest times. It's only in the last couple of centuries that cultures became evolved enough to consider it inhumane, degrading, and ultimately self-destructive. We have no one to apologise to. ALL races have indulged in slavery, and it is quite likely that enslaving 'blacks' originated in Africa where various tribes raided each other for slaves, and progressed to selling them to whites who saw how lucrative it could be to buy slaves so cheaply and then sell them on at a profit. Thus opening up the trade which was eagerly taken up by Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, etc.
'People' were, and are the problem, all people, be they black, white, brown or yellow! The North African Arab countries played a very big part in the trade, and their cruelty matched or exceeded that of the European nations. As did the Turks, who cotinued it long after it was done away with in the West. The English refined and made the trade highly profitable. That is why we are the main 'target' in the present day. Great shame on our ancestors of course, but no less then on a host of other nations, stretching back in time.
People like Spartacus, and Nanny Maroon were not fighting to end slavery. For the most part they were fighting to free themselves from slavery, and would very likely have had slaves themselves were they able to. Hopefully, in view of their experience, they would have treated their slaves with more compassion.
And the Jews didn't kill Jesus! Always remember that Jesus was a Jew. The Romans killed him. Should they apologise? Should we apologise to the French for the death of Joan Of Arc? Should the French apologise for invading England in 1066? Should the Anglo-Saxons apologise for being among the first illegal immigrants. Gimme a break!

Answer 10

I have heard talk of whether or not the U.S. government should issue an official apology for slavery. This seems rediculous to me. Didn't the Union/North fight against slavery? The North won the war!, remember?

Why would you ask for an apology from the side who fought against slavery? If the Confederacy/South had won the Civil war and slavery had continued for a while longer, then I might understand.

Answer 11

Is it the same guy asking the same questions this week or not. But just in case you have missed the previous five million answers on the subject mate, I wouldn't apologize even if I was personally involved, let alone for what our ancestors did 200 years ago. Don't forget they were grabbing Europeans as slaves long before the infamous 'slave trade'.
But to answer your other questions not all of us Brits do downgrade our countries achievements, i am immensely proud to be British, especially given what our nation has done for the world

Oh and i'd ignore tej above