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Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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It has nothing to do with punishing children for the sins of their fathers, it’s about paying people for the work they did. Living descendants of slave owners still benefit today from the unpaid labour, to pay reparations isn’t a punishment, it’s the smallest possible attempt to make the victims of slavery whole.
Okay, so pay slaves for the work they did. But we can’t, because they’re long dead. So that’s not what you’re asking at all. You’re asking for people who never owned slaves to pay people who were never slaves. Not all British white people are wealthy as a result of historical slavery. In fact, most British were dirt poor and never owned any slaves at all. Today, their ancestors remain dirt poor. You’d ask them to pay recompense for something for which neither they nor their ancestors are guilty.
I’m white and of Irish descent. My ancestors were subject to genocide under the Irish Potato Famine. Am I morally owed restitution? Further back, my ancestors were subject to slavery along the North African coast and Middle East for hundreds of years in the Barbary slave trade. Am I owed reparations from the numerous countries involved in that? To me it quickly becomes apparent that any feigned moral outrage begins and stops at white people. Everyone’s ancestors are guilty of atrocities if we go back far enough. Everyone’s ancestors were subject to atrocities as well.
If someone died today who was owed £100,000 for some work they did, would the debt be written off, or would it become owed to their estate?
Did you forget what thread you were commenting on? This is about the royal family, not some random East Londoner from the 17th century.
I would say so, yes. But it’s not “moral”, this is nothing to do with morals, it’s to do with the reality of the situation - Irish people have historically been victimised for the benefit of others, especially the British, and so I would 100% be in favour of the UK making some sort of payment to try and mitigate that problem. I do have to say that, morally speaking, (but not technically) I think it’s lower on the priority list, because white Irish people have a pretty decent quality of life now, and imo it would be better to try put money where it would be most needed before paying overdue debts to more prosperous people