Anti-Slavery
Published in B&E- 25 January 2007
Sugary serfs & cultural servitude!
Economics of slave trade & new political realities continue to determine 21st century human bondage
Henrietta Marie, a 17th century English slave vessel sank in 1700. “But the story of what the ship represented, continues today. The importance of the Henrietta Marie is that it is an essential part of the recovery process – the process of recovering the black experience – symbolically, metaphorically, and in reality,” said Dr. Colin Palmer the author of Human Cargoes. Why only blacks, the ship wreck bears testimony to whites’ greed, guile and gluttony for lucre, which led them to use humans as commodity to be traded for profits from 15th to 19th century. It is this colonial legacy, which the British Parliament now wants to whitewash by commemorating the 200th anniversary of the 1807 Anti-Slavery Act, from March till December 2007. The cathartic process will run in museums and theatres and will remind the younger generation of their forefathers’ attempts to civilise the world’s transatlantic slavery ills.The trans-shipment of slaves from West Africa to South & North American shores started more than 500 years ago. The modus operandi of the British ‘triangular trade’ was to buy blacks through the complicity of African human merchants in exchange for guns, liquor & other finished goods from Europe. The reluctant slaves were shipped to the Caribbean islands where they were sold by British merchants in exchange for cotton & sugar, which were sold in England for high prices. The slaves on the islands were used on sugar plantations, which again were owned by English entrepreneurs. The ‘Royal African Company’, which had close links with the British royalty, was the global leader in slave trade, even ahead of the Dutch and the French, or even the initial slavish innovators, the never-say-die Portuguese. The British, without doubt, were ruling!But the reality is that this oncoming British intention to glorify the 1807 Anti-Slavery Act is nothing but a brilliant global public relations exercise, quite aptly supported by the Western block led by US, especially given the unbelievably shameful deportment of George Bush in the overall Iraq episode, a deportment looked upon most negatively not only in the US (with the Republicans already having lost the majority in the Senate; and Bush basking in lowest ratings ever), but also globally.
“...Much of British wealth has been amassed due to the misery of millions considered to be ‘children of a lesser God’ by the West,” commented Alam Pervaiz, the world famous former BBC Worldservice London correspondent, to B&E. If at all the 1807 Anti-Slavery Act was worth glorification, perhaps the UK government conveniently forgets that in 1805, when the Act was initially introduced in the UK Parliament, the House of Lords had actually blocked the Act from being passed. In 1807, when the Act was finally passed, the Act in reality was modified to be only a law against the trade (buying or selling) of slaves; and not against the more worrisome usage of slaves per se, which, pathetically so, was still considered legal till 1833, when finally the Slavery Abolition Act was passed. But then, if we were to wait till 2033 for the true Slavery Abolition celebrations, the emotion of the moment would be lost, eh? 2006 is the year that Saddam’s been hanged; and 2006 is the year we all will celebrate a pathetically hollow Act. But what about 2033 then, the true anniversary year? Oh, we’ll all just find some other country to bomb and some other ‘dictator’ to hang... all for world peace, of course!
Henrietta Marie, a 17th century English slave vessel sank in 1700. “But the story of what the ship represented, continues today. The importance of the Henrietta Marie is that it is an essential part of the recovery process – the process of recovering the black experience – symbolically, metaphorically, and in reality,” said Dr. Colin Palmer the author of Human Cargoes. Why only blacks, the ship wreck bears testimony to whites’ greed, guile and gluttony for lucre, which led them to use humans as commodity to be traded for profits from 15th to 19th century. It is this colonial legacy, which the British Parliament now wants to whitewash by commemorating the 200th anniversary of the 1807 Anti-Slavery Act, from March till December 2007. The cathartic process will run in museums and theatres and will remind the younger generation of their forefathers’ attempts to civilise the world’s transatlantic slavery ills.The trans-shipment of slaves from West Africa to South & North American shores started more than 500 years ago. The modus operandi of the British ‘triangular trade’ was to buy blacks through the complicity of African human merchants in exchange for guns, liquor & other finished goods from Europe. The reluctant slaves were shipped to the Caribbean islands where they were sold by British merchants in exchange for cotton & sugar, which were sold in England for high prices. The slaves on the islands were used on sugar plantations, which again were owned by English entrepreneurs. The ‘Royal African Company’, which had close links with the British royalty, was the global leader in slave trade, even ahead of the Dutch and the French, or even the initial slavish innovators, the never-say-die Portuguese. The British, without doubt, were ruling!But the reality is that this oncoming British intention to glorify the 1807 Anti-Slavery Act is nothing but a brilliant global public relations exercise, quite aptly supported by the Western block led by US, especially given the unbelievably shameful deportment of George Bush in the overall Iraq episode, a deportment looked upon most negatively not only in the US (with the Republicans already having lost the majority in the Senate; and Bush basking in lowest ratings ever), but also globally.
“...Much of British wealth has been amassed due to the misery of millions considered to be ‘children of a lesser God’ by the West,” commented Alam Pervaiz, the world famous former BBC Worldservice London correspondent, to B&E. If at all the 1807 Anti-Slavery Act was worth glorification, perhaps the UK government conveniently forgets that in 1805, when the Act was initially introduced in the UK Parliament, the House of Lords had actually blocked the Act from being passed. In 1807, when the Act was finally passed, the Act in reality was modified to be only a law against the trade (buying or selling) of slaves; and not against the more worrisome usage of slaves per se, which, pathetically so, was still considered legal till 1833, when finally the Slavery Abolition Act was passed. But then, if we were to wait till 2033 for the true Slavery Abolition celebrations, the emotion of the moment would be lost, eh? 2006 is the year that Saddam’s been hanged; and 2006 is the year we all will celebrate a pathetically hollow Act. But what about 2033 then, the true anniversary year? Oh, we’ll all just find some other country to bomb and some other ‘dictator’ to hang... all for world peace, of course!
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