Though Parliament abolished the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, the law took years to put into effect. In 1833, Parliament spent £20 million compensating former slave owners — 40 percent of government expenditure that year, according to estimates by Nick Draper of University College, London, who estimates the present-day value at about $21 billion. [...] But the prospects for a modern-day legal case for reparations by victims are far from clear. Roger O’Keefe, deputy director of the Lauterpacht Center for International Law at Cambridge University, said that “there is not the slightest chance that this case will get anywhere,” describing it as “an international legal fantasy.” [...] “Reparation may be awarded only for what was internationally unlawful when it was done,” Dr. O’Keefe said, “and slavery and the slave trade were not internationally unlawful at the time the colonial powers engaged in them.” [...] But as foreign secretary, Mr. Hague is opposed to compensation. In a statement, his office said that while Britain “condemns slavery” and is committed to eliminating it where it still exists, “we do not see reparations as the answer.” Of course you dont... As always when I post things like this, my favorite Franz Fanon quote: “So we will not accept aid for the undeveloped countries as ‘charity.’ Such aid must be considered the final stage of a dual consciousness – the consciousness of the colonized that it is their due and the consciousness of the capitalist powers that effectively they must pay up. If through a lack of intelligence – not to mention ingratitude – the capitalist countries refuse to pay up, then the unrelenting dialectic of their own system would see to it that they are asphyxiated.”
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 03:37:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015