As the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in this country approaches, Tony Blair expresses ‘deep sorrow’ for British involvement in the trade.
As the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in this country approaches, Tony Blair expresses ‘deep sorrow’ for British involvement in the trade. Extraordinary that he should feel the need to adopt such a tone when the act commemorated is something to be proud of. But his words are carefully chosen in order to avoid paying ‘reparations’ to descendants of slaves who think they deserve them. It is worth noting one thing about the reparations campaign. The campaign’s spokesman, Esther Cranford, speaks of the ‘so-called slave trade’. The term she uses is ‘the African Holocaust’, and she and her allies speak of the slave trade as ‘genocide’. Presumably, the campaigners prefer these terms because they wish to find a form of white oppression of blacks which is as bad as bad can be. It is a constant source of rage to some militant black groups, to many Arabs and to many Muslims, that the word ‘Holocaust’ belongs in people’s minds uniquely to the suffering of the Jews. The Muslim Council of Britain refuses to take part in Holocaust Memorial Day because it wants the day to commemorate all genocides, and it pretends that what has happened in Palestine over the years qualifies. If the idea of the African Holocaust could be established, campaigners would at last have achieved their hearts’ desire, which is to make Britain and America morally equivalent to the Nazis.
The BBC’s Radio Four on Monday morning: ‘The ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza appears to be holding even after militants fired rockets into Israeli territory.’ So the BBC definition of a ceasefire that holds is one in which Israel does not fire, but Palestinians do.
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