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>It's fairly common for British people to fixate on the fact that the UK was largely single-handedly responsible for abolishing slavery in the west (via the Nav
by vimy 6y ago
>It's fairly common for British people to fixate on the fact that the UK was largely single-handedly responsible for abolishing slavery in the west (via the Navigation Acts in particular), while somewhat discounting the fact that the UK had previously been a huge part of the problem.
The West didn't invent slavery, something that existed on every inhabited continent for thousands of years, but it was responsible for it's abolishment. Don't you think that's something to be proud of?
“What was peculiar about the West was not that it participated in the worldwide evil of slavery, but that it later abolished that evil, not only in Western societies but also in other societies subject to Western control or influence. This was possible only because the anti-slavery movement coincided with an era in which Western power and hegemony were at their zenith, so that it was essentially European imperialism which ended slavery. This idea might seem shocking, not because it does not fit the facts, but because it does not fit the prevailing vision of our time.”
― Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 6y ago> Don't you think that's something to be proud of? Er, I mean, if I was William Wilberforce or someone I suppose I'd be moderately proud of that, yes! As someone who had no involvement in it and was born nearly two centuries after the first steps, I think it'd probably be a little bizarre for me to be proud of it. Seems totally irrelevant to whether the UK had slavery or not, anyway.
- vimy 6y ago> As someone who had no involvement in it and was born nearly two centuries after the first steps, I think it'd probably be a little bizarre for me to be proud of it. It works both ways though. By the same logic, the West shouldn't feel guilty for slavery and stop the self-flagellation. It's relevant to what you said. You implied that people from the UK try to wash their hands of slavery by saying they played a big part in ending it. And I'm saying they are right to use that as an argument against those who ignore history and try to pin slavery soley on the West. Without Western Civilization slavery would still be acceptable today. It took the Middle East until the 1960s! to abolish slavery. And it took Western pressure.