This relates to the BBC article [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66596790] which states "the UK should pay $24tn (£18.8tn) for its slavery involvement in 14 countries".
The UK abolished slavery in 1833. That's 190 years ago. So nobody alive today has a slave, and nobody alive today was a slave.
Dividing £18tn by the number of UK taxpayers (31.6m) gives £569 each. Why do I, who have never owned a slave, have to give £569 to someone who similarly is not a slave?
When I've paid my £569 is that the end of the matter forever or will it just open the floodgates of other similar claims?
Isn't this just a country that isn't doing too well, looking at the UK doing reasonably well (cost of living crisis excluded of course), and saying "oh there's this historical thing that affects nobody alive today but you still have to give us trillions of Sterling"?
Shouldn't payment of reparations be limited to those who still benefit from the slave trade today, and paid to those who still suffer from it?
(Please don't flame me. This is NSQ. I genuinely don't know why this is something I should have to pay. I agree slavery is terrible and condemn it in all its forms, and we were right to abolish it.)
[–]Gsus4@feddit.nl2 points3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)
(1 child)
Yes, a lucrative market for a hideous crime was created, and the guys who hunted other groups in order to get paid in that market wronged the enslaved too. (I'm not sure it was all like this all over Africa too, but e.g. in the Congo, it seemed to be the case)
PS: and about the 10000£ bounty analogy: if there is proof that some dude killed because of an illegal bounty, they certainly are not going to be compensated for being "tricked" into killing, wtf?