You'll have seen this in most news channels this week - several countries in the Caribbean asked Britain, France and Holland to pay money to them as reparations for the Slave Trade. They requested a sum close to £2 billion, which was the amount compensated to the European Plantation Owners received after the end of slavery in 1838.
In a statement that David Cameron made on his recent visit to Jamaica, he essentially told them to 'move on'. He added: "I do hope that, as friends who have gone through so much together since those darkest of times, we can move on from this painful legacy and continue to build for the future."
Cameron then went on to make proposals about investing some of Britain's future foreign aid money into Jamaica. But is there anything to say that that money couldn't be cut in the future, like the Tories often do?
He also supported his own idea of improving jails in Jamaica, so he can send British convicts to them. The man is essentially using this as away to save Britain some money, and make life easier for him and his government. He was completely overlooked the entire purpose of Jamaica's request altogether.
It's easy for David Cameron to say 'move on'. He's benefited from the 'good' aspects of slavery. Many cities such as Liverpool and Bristol became wealthier from the Slave Trade, and used the profits to build expensive buildings. Large companies such as Barclay's Bank made their fortune from slavery. Individual merchants became wealthy and passed their wealth down the generations to many big figures in British society now. The industrial revolution was essentially fueled by the profits created by slavery in the West Indies, and Britain today would be extremely different without it. It's crucial that every white person in Britain recognises this and take responsibility for our country's past actions, even if 'you personally don't have anything to do with it.' Because, as horrible as this sounds, every British person today has somehow benefitted from the Atlantic Slave Trade.
It's not so easy for Jamaica to 'move on' though. The Caribbean suffers from high levels of poverty. Jamaica itself has roughly 20% of its population in poverty. Although this figure is close to that of the UK's - Jamaican poverty is very different. There is free healthcare, but it suffers from longer waiting lists and poorer services than our NHS. Most of the people in poverty here live in unsubstantial housing or slums, and are more prone to disease. The Caribbean would be a completely different society now if there had been no slave trade. The people living in Jamaica today would be a completely different race of people, as the Caribbean natives were killed off by white men in the early stages of slavery. At the end of the slave trade, the surviving slaves were left with nothing, and had to rebuild their lives from scratch.
Africa also faced major drawbacks from slavery too. The population of Africa at the end of the slave trade would've been much higher than what it was if the trade had never happened. This is because millions and millions of Africans were killed in the trade. Since the fit and capable people were the ones being enslaved - there was no-one left on Africa to farm the land. As a result of this, large areas of Africa were left uncultivated which set back the continent. Africa would be much more prosperous today if slavery had never happened, and wealth would be more balanced out in the world, rather than Europe and the US holding the majority of it. Finally, Atlantic slavery set black people back as a race. Most racist stereotypes are based on slavery, such as the racist idea that black people should have jobs like being a maid.
£20 billion is a lot of money, but every year the UK spends a whopping £2.4 billion on Trident Nuclear Submarines, an unnecessary piece of Britain. It's important that European countries take proper responsibility for their past actions, and pay reparations to the Caribbean and West Africa, so that the countries themselves can decide how they're going to effectively spend the money.
