Helena Kennedy has just produced a program "The Anatomy of Guilt" that makes the repeated assertion that British people should be held responsible for the role of a small and select band of their ancestors who dealt in slavery over 200 years ago.
The thesis of the concluding remarks in the BBC program is that the modern British (ie: the entire race) should be held guilty for the historical crimes that "they" have committed. This thesis signals the rebirth of the racist thinking that led to the persecution of the Jews.
Consider the definition of racism in the dictionary:
"Any incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race"
The racist attack made by Helena Kennedy on the British is that the entire race is responsible for slavery. Those British whose Great Great Great Grandmothers dragged carts out of mines alongside their children are held to be as responsible for slavery as the descendants of merchants and slave dealers. It is only the connection of race that could link the offspring of those women to slavery.
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| Working conditions for British people in 1800 |
The program implied that anyone of British racial origins must share a guilt for slavery whatever the role of their ancestors, no matter how powerless, exploited or even enslaved those ancestors might have been.
Five hundred years ago my own ancestors were probably serfs which effectively made them slaves. Some Oxford and Cambridge colleges were probably built on their labour. Yet the BBC program made no attempt at balanced treatment of the races, the formula was: historical black slavery appalling, British slavery and serfdom - forget it, and this treatment is by its nature racist.
The kingdoms of West Africa continued to make money from slave sales after slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire and other Empires continued to keep slaves but this was all omitted from the program, only the British race, the audience, were assumed to carry the guilt.
Many slaves were acquired during wars between African slaver kingdoms, they were citizens of slaver states, how much guilt should the descendants of these slaves bear for slavery if the British are all guilty? This was not discussed. The BBC was only interested in British guilt and so demonstrated its racist intention.
I am fairly certain that none of my forebears had anything to do with slavery. I am certain that none of my forebears even elected a Member of Parliament over 200 years ago and so had no role in law making and thus not even the slightest responsibility for slavery. I am also sure that two world wars have denuded this country of any general economic benefit from slavery, the current prosperity of the country being the due to the reconstruction efforts of the post-war generation and the following generations. Had there ever been any general pot of gold resulting from slavery that would benefit the country it was spent a very long time ago. I am also certain that I have not benefited indirectly from any wealth that might have been accumulated, my education having been financed from funds that were acquired from the current British economy.
That all British people bear the "guilt" of slavery is an openly racist assertion and it condemns everyone of a particular race for the moral mistakes of a handful of merchants and politicians 200 years and more ago. "Historical Guilt" is clearly labelling every member of a race as criminals and so is racist.
Even the mechanism of using British funds to compensate for racism would, if honestly imposed, entail the most fearful racism as the great, great, great grandchildren of British people in 1800 are contacted globally and the money extracted from them. Even those with a hundredth part British blood would be identified and turned into pariahs.
01/09/2020
Here is a clip from the end of "The Anatomy of Guilt" in which the argument of historical guilt is being expounded. This is the same argument as was used in racist attacks on the Jews and might be regarded as the archetype of racist thinking.
After the Second World War no-one would have dared to advance such blatantly divisive and racist ideas but in the twenty first century the BBC is shameless and has embarked on a policy of polarising the British population into racial camps. This polarisation by race is known to be catastrophic and is the lesson from history that we should have learnt after WWII.
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