They’re different, but in terms of being an appalling stain on humanity I think the West African slave trade is comparable to all of the most dreadful abuses and crimes in history.

The West African slave trade was ‘in their time, nothing out the ordinary’... I mean it is true from their perspective, but that is one of the horrors of it, that it was normalized and institutionalised. That something is legal doesn’t make it right and something isn’t necessarily wrong because it is illegal - if the laws are rotten.

Indeed, just look at apartheid, with was prevalent in many countries and is probable a substantial reason why the treatment of non whites has lasted so long.

I think this is good post - but we need to be careful about how holier than though we expect our heroes to be - make no mistake Mandela was no saint in the early days of the ANC, he was nothing short of a terrorist - so does his name get removed from everywhere. Most of the revered industrialist employed child labour - do they go too? Where do you stop.

On the slaves - who sold the slaves to the likes of Colston?

Other black Africans participated significantly in the trade and were absolutely culpable. However, being black and African it wasn’t founded from their perspective on concepts of race that prevailed among white slave traders and owners, and which we’re still struggling to overcome today, along with negative consequences of the actions back then and the attitudes that persist.

It is time to dismantle the Pyramids, (Built by slaves)
It is Time to dismantle the Taj Mahal (Built by slaves)
It is time to dismantle the Great Wall of China, (Built by slaves)
It time to dismantle the Parthenon (Built by slaves)
It is time to dismantle the Colosseum (Built by slaves)
time to destroy the Roman Roads throughout Europe, (Built by slaves)
Time to dismantle the Sultan Amed Mosque in Istanbul (Built by slaves)
Time to dismantle the Temple on the Mount (Built by slaves)

So many of our most beautiful and iconic buildings were built by Slaves, paid for by money made from trading slaves, running with foundations paid for by "philanthropists"

The list is endless. Should we destroy all of our heritage and history because people are so ignorant and uneducated that they have no real idea of the sacrifices made on their behalf to ensure they are and will remain free.
Henry Ford was an anti semite and one of Hitlers idols, let's ban cars. Perfume, cosmetics, tested on animals, ban them too? Germans, started more wars in Europe than anyone else, let us just shoot every German?

and still none of pur rightepus liberal left will explain to me why we don't start with a mass demolition of churches...

It was founded on worth - the slaves didn't have any worth to their black African owners - perhaps we need to start there when we look at the inferiority complex that black's appear to carry like a huge weight on their shoulders. If their own kind had valued them they wouldn't have been available as slaves?

Look what happened in Rwanda - when the tutsi's were caught up by the Hutus - it is the sheer brutality of it all that is so shocking!!

I'd happily see religion eradicated tomorrow.

Actually they had quite a lot of economic worth, and the end of the trade was met with dismay by some black Africans who profited from it. But I take your point about not valuing their victims’ humanity.

I think this concept of ‘their own kind’ is unhelpful. People with different skin colours are not fundamentally different kinds of people. They likely othered their victims on some sort of different but still spurious distinction, to justify their poophouse behaviour. Different tribe or some such. On Rwanda, it’s not like white Europeans haven’t spent centuries knocking the cack out of each other in various conflicts, is it?



No, I don’t think that would be helpful.

Tribal behaviour is a very interesting area of thought - especially in Africa and perhaps even more so in Arabic countries. Sunni's and the Shia etc perhaps these things are far more deep rooted than black vs white?

Sunni and Shia, not unlike Protestant and Catholic, is a sectarian divide rather than a tribal one.

People are just people, the good and the bad and mostly the mixed, and a lot of things we perceive as being deep-rooted can change and evolve pretty rapidly, on a historical scale.

As i say, start with demolishing all places of worship, it's time that fairy story was brought to an end.

How Communist of you.

rl"Personally, no - I think they were wrong, but they have to be judged by the context of their time," said Prof Richardsonrl

I think she’s right. We do have to understand the historical and cultural context that individuals lived in. Elements of own moral and ethical codes will be outdated one day. It’s kind of interesting to try to guess which.

However, there are some things that, even making allowances, on a basic human level just feel too wrong and can’t be contextualised away. I get, for example, that economic and political failures and injustices paved the way for totalitarian regimes to seize power across much of Europe in the first half of the 20th Century. However, at some point things spilled over from understandable consequences to some sort of sick collective derangement, that should be remembered as such. Where that point lies and exactly who is this or that side of it is a subjective judgement. Similarly for the slave trade and exploitative colonial racism.

Also, while symbols can be important I think there’s a danger of getting bogged down in tokenism and detail, without having achieved enough meaningful change.

And what, for you, would "meaningful change" look like, perhaps not depicting Lancastrians by an avatar of less than intelligent persons with a wooly hat and scalf?

It is always thus, to be SELF righteous, you need an inflated sense of SELF. A lot of the imbecilic left indulge with a heightened opinion of themselves, whilst ignoring the base facts. The biggest, most noteable philanthropists made fortunes before finding their self appointed worthiness, and quietly milked the cow in the shadows whilst peddling the whey as Ambrosia, moulding the curd into cheese for themselves.