Mankind’s capacity for kindness and mercy is endless and timeless, but sadly so is our capacity for cruelty. There is little more cruel than enslaving a fellow man or women, yet slavery has besmirched all human history. In the ancient world both the Greek and Roman empires made slaves of those they conquered, and before that, the Egyptians enslaved Jews to build their pyramids.
Tragically, slavery is not only a feature of times long passed. Those animated by the sins of our ancestors might devote more time to fighting the modern-day slave trade in Africa and Asia, where an estimated 50 million people remain enslaved – more than in the ancient world or during the peak of the transatlantic slave trade.
As Britons we can feel proud that due to the lifelong campaign of one of my political heroes, the Tory William Wilberforce, we were the first country to end the slave trade. Originally, in 1807, when King George III began to outlaw the slave trade, followed by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 which finally ended the abhorrent sale of people, the British Navy being deployed to enforce the ban.
How many who pronounce on the slave trade these days know that Prince Albert apologised for slavery in 1840, when he confirmed Queen Victoria’s support for the abolitionist movement? Those at home and abroad who distort past events seem ignorantly unaware that France, Holland, the United States and Brazil all banned slavery much later than Britain.
Such ignorance was evident at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa, which was overshadowed by the insulting proposal that Britain should pay reparations to other countries for its historical role in slavery. A communiqué signed by Commonwealth nations called on Britain to apologise and engage in “reparatory justice”. These calls for compensation boil down to the falsehood that Britain’s wealth was created from the slave trade, and so should be repaid to the descendants of slaves today. To get a sense of this detachment from reality, some of those calling for reparations have asked for £19 trillion – a sum around five times higher than the gross domestic product of the entire UK economy!
This palpable nonsense would be farcical if it wasn’t given credence by some liberal left voices who frequently conflate it with a spiteful attack on British history, especially the role of the Empire. The history of British imperialism is, of course, complex, but no honest assessment could fail to conclude that we helped to shape much good in the modern world. As the historian Nigel Biggar has written, in his wonderful book on the history of colonialism, the Christian conviction at the heart of the British Empire is precisely what led us to abolish the slave trade.
To expect Britain to pay reparations for horrific acts committed centuries ago is as ridiculous as expecting today’s North African countries to pay for the crimes of the Barbary pirates who, over hundreds of years, kidnapped Britons from our shores and ships to enslave them, or asking Scandinavians to compensate us for the rape and pillage of the Viking raids.
It is hard to imagine such fantasies being taken seriously just a generation or two ago, when we had a much keener, and so more meaningful, understanding of our country’s history. That was the time before facile identity politics replaced measured discussion.
Instead of indulging peculiar niche preoccupations, we should appreciate our history and be proud of our inheritance by ensuring that schoolchildren are taught properly about our island’s story and the proud legacy left for us by the heroes that made Britain great.
