Aye but my original point, which was jumped all over, was that claiming credit for abolishing your own slavery was like the white South Africans taking credit for abolishing Apartheid.
And have you actually read that wiki article Mick? More slaves than at any other time in history? But the population is higher! I doubt the proportion of world population as slaves is as high as is was in Roman times. Plus "debt slavery", though abhorrent, it's not exactly the same as someone landing on your shores, sticking shackles on you and taking you back to their house to be their slave, is it?
And this takes into account the difference in technology compared to hundreds of years ago? do you think if they had aeroplanes and other transport that we have today back then the slave count wouldn't have been higher? Stupid idea to base your argument on. Just to be clear I've not read any of this pish thread and am just pointing out a clear hole in that statement
Aeroplanes are completely irrelevant, I was simply defining the specific slave trade the British helped to abolish by contrasting it to prehistoric and modern slavery. Some people are taking the credit for abolishing slavery and then bestowing the credit for creating slavery onto the Egyptians - by pointing to the fact that slavery is bigger than ever it is clear it has not been abolished - what was abolished by the British was the strain of slavery it helped to establish - which is supportive of my original point which you probably didn't see as you haven't been following the thread. This is getting a bit tedious now I must say.
I'm not claiming the slave trade is abolished and I'm not claiming the British were pioneers in helping abolish it but you can't use a wikipedia article based on present day levels of slavery and then tell me that it has nothing to do with how much easier it is for people to travel the world these days. But what ever I don't care you all argue about tedious ****e to me anyway and I'll leave you to it
I see what you're getting at, but there's still a big difference. South Africa introduced equal rights AFTER most of the rest of the world, we abolished slavery BEFORE most.
I think it's right that individuals get praise and credit for the abolition of slavery but to say WE (ie. Britain) abolished slavery is a bit of a misnomer.
It pains me to say it, but Britain is almost the Liverpool of countries. We WERE really good at one point, now we're a bit crap. USA is Man United, dominant for a while but now hampered economically. China are Man City
So how about that black cricketer then? He started this whole argument. I'm writing to Fanny Boyle about this.
Stop thinking of it being us vs them. Despite being based in the British Isles most of my company's customers are from the Far East - indeed a lot of the growth and potential growth in British business is in targetting developing markets. When I was on my honeymoon on the tiny island of Samui off the coast of the Thai mainland they had a Tesco... If they are getting wealthier that means we've got an opportunity to sell them ****. Only thing we have to figure out is how we stop them hogging all the oil
Slavery is just a dirty word. I regularly get waited on hand and foot by 'slaves'. I can go to thousands of places and some muggins will get me food and drink, clean my car, iron my clothes, or do all manner of stuff they really don't want to do just for money. Ahem. Once upon a time, "slavery" was a really, really naughty thing because people had to be given a little prod of encouragement to get on ships and come over. Fast forward to the 60's and when an open invitation was there for people to come from the Windies, Africa and beyond to come and drive the buses, man the trains or clean the streets, we then weren't able to close the door again. Today people continue to actively put themselves into servitude. I prefer it now, because all my slaves are temporary, not contracted, so I can just pay for the time they spend serving. Lovely.
