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But what happens when the descendants of slaves find out they have slave-owners in their ancestry? I still don't understand.
Jamaica seeks reparations from Britain over slavery
- Thread starter Angela Channing
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But what happens when the descendants of slaves find out they have slave-owners in their ancestry? I still don't understand.
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That's not the issue. If those people want to launch a civil case to claim part of their inheritance that's up to them. This is about the UK paying reparations from the profits they made from trading in brutality.
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But who gets those reparations, and how does bloodline impact who pays and who receives?
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As I said in a previous post, the money should go to the affected countries to rebuild their economies and create opportunities for future generations of their people.
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What if some of those countries have slave-owners in their background, too?
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When you say "rebuild" I think of something that existed and then later destroyed, like the European countries after the two world wars.
Did Jamaica have a healthy economy before their people were enslaved? How realistic is the prospect of a thriving and especially fair economy if the slave trade hadn't happened?
I'm not arguing, but with this kind of money involved I think every question deserves to be asked. Just to make sure that everybody understands that the reparation is the right thing to do.
Not that any of this affects me personally, but it's not difficult to imagine that it could. If it works the first time, why not try again.
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Why would that change Jamaica's claim for reparations?
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None of this would affect me personally either, but it's the right thing to do.
I'm sorry but I don’t see why this is relevant to the need for reparations. When the Nazi plundered the art, gold, silver, money and cultural items of great significance, after World War 2, there was general agreement that what was stolen should be returned. This is the same principle. More people were killed in the transatlantic slave trade than were killed in the Nazi Holocaust and it went on for considerably longer. There was no discussion about what the Jews would do with their wealth once it was returned to them. Hypotheticals about what they would have done with their possessions had the Nazis not taken them was never an issue. It shouldn't be for former colonised countries to justify getting what is rightfully theirs.
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Seeing how the bill keeps rising to hundreds of billions - maybe even trillions - I guess the British government is kicking itself for not settling for the relatively meagre £7,6 billion when they had the chance to do so.
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Why wouldn't it? And if goes to the countries and not the individuals, where does it go from there? Who winds up with it?
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In the case of Jamaica, the government would its reparations to fund projects like improving housing, education, transport and healthcare for its people. This would benefit Jamaicans today and for generations in the future.
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There was no justification for compensating slave owners and not the slaves other than racism.
If the UK government committed to giving Jamaica the same amount of money it gives Afghanistan for the next 10 years that would be a good start
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Politicians and career bureaucrats.
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The whole idea seems outrageous although I'm not familiar with the context of the compensation.
There are circumstances where farmers and fishers can ask the government for help, and in that case it's a matter of investing in your own economy (which has now been extended to all of Europe, but that's another topic).
Agriculture is very important, I think.
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Jamaica isn't as corrupt as your country; its leaders have never tried to overthrow the result of a democratic election, for example.
Besides, it's up to Jamaica what it does with its money, it doesn't need corrupt nations with questionable principles telling it how to run its affairs.
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Touché!
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You're right and the UK knew this so when Jamaica was made independent, the UK government committed Jamaica to legacy contracts meaning the country had to continue supplying the UK with farmed goods, such as sugar, in terms that were favourable to to UK and to the detriment of Jamaica. The same was also true of natural resources such as bauxide (aluminum oxide).
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Donald Trump is not a villain, he's a symptom of the rot.
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Well, Trump's not the villain.