· Call for subject to be put on school curriculum
· Prescott compares slavery to the Holocaust
An annual commemoration day is to be held to recall Britain's role in the slave trade, and the fight against it, John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, has told the Guardian.
He expected the day to be held in common with the rest of Europe in June so that modern day slavery - human trafficking - could also be recalled and combated.
Mr Prescott said the commemoration day would provide a chance for national and local government, as well as schools, to think how they could help modern day Africa. He likened slavery to the Holocaust and expressed his deep personal regret.
The government has refused to make a full apology for Britain's role. Mr Prescott argued that Africa didn't want this, but that it was time Britain faced up to the past. "Like the Holocaust, we are learning to talk about the slave trade openly and more honestly. Tragic and terrible as it was, the slave trade defied anyone to discuss it because it was so horrendous."
He said he believed Britain was about to go through the process of self-examination that the US experienced with the publication of Alex Haley's Roots in the 70s. He said: "The book had an effect on Americans who are now going back to Ghana and turning the slave dungeons in Elmina in Ghana into a shrine.
"I think this anniversary is beginning to make us think again in the same way as the US. There is a sense of shock and horror at what went on in our history, and the sheer brutality of it. It has not yet fed into the schools. Indeed it has been kept out of the curriculum.
"We need to get the proper history told, including the good, the bad and dreadful. For instance we need to recall that parliament for the best part of a century facilitated slavery. It did not just have an overnight intellectual conversion. Public opinion made the change and forced the change on parliament. We have fed it into our minds that a Christian from Hull, William Wilberforce, came along and changed the law in 1807. It was remarkable, but the real change came from working people.
"It is one of the reasons why I would like us to pick a date every year. The legacy of this 200th anniversary should be a permanent date when we ask whether there is more we could do, so that every year, like Holocaust, we remind people of the horrors. Each year we should think about it and commemorate and rededicate ourselves to helping people on which such horrors were inflicted."
Mr Prescott was speaking the day before Britain signs the European convention against human trafficking, publishes an action plan to fight modern day slavery and he hosts the visit of Owen Arthur, the prime minister of Barbados, to Hull, the birthplace of Wilberforce.
Tony Blair is to deliver a pre-recorded address to a ceremony in one of the slave ports in Accra at a ceremony on Sunday. A national memorial service will be held at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday and the former secretary general of the UN Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian, will address both houses of parliament in May .
Critics have suggested the country needs to apologise for slavery, a phrase that has led to legal actions in the US for compensation. The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has apologised and the prime minister has expressed his deep sorrow.
Mr Prescott said the country had to express "more than regret" for its role in the slave trade, but argued the issue of an apology was not being raised in Africa. He has been to Ghana and Sierra Leone in the past few months to visit the jails from which slaves were transported. He said he had met children in Ghana who had told him: "Not every white man was guilty and not every black man was innocent."
"That has started a debate about whether you really want the native chiefs really to apologise for selling their own people. The traders only had to go to the ports and the slaves were delivered from inside Africa. The Ghanaians said 'We don't want apologies. We want people to think what we can do to help us. What our ancestors did was horrific, but everyone feels we need to learn and move on from that experience'."
He said he would never forget how shocked he felt visiting the slave prisons of Elmina in Ghana. "Even 200 years after the slave trade you can still feel the pain the dark stench, the horror, the cold and the hole in the wall, the point of no return."
Mr Prescott said the climate of awareness in Britain was changing, pointing out that black youngsters in St Pauls, Bristol, had demanded that the name of the new shopping centre should not be called Traders or Merchants. "To those black people it meant the language of slavery. A more open debate about this is necessary. We have properly spent a lot of time talking about Muslims, but there are a lot of black people in Britain who feel their history has not been recognised."
He said it was vital that the government went ahead with changing the national education curriculum so that there was a proper presentation of slavery in its true abhorrent sense. He argued that abolition was closely associated with white people, but there were many black heroes.
Guardian
Showing posts with label trafficking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trafficking. Show all posts
March 23, 2007
Cameron calls on churches to fight racism and exploitation
The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, has commended churches for leading the commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade and called on Christians to fight its lasting legacy - racism.
The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, has commended churches for leading the commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade and called on Christians to fight its lasting legacy - racism.
He joined leading African and Caribbean Christian leaders at the Conservative Christian Fellowship’s Wilberforce Address on Tuesday night, dedicated this year to the slave trade abolition.
Speakers at last night’s event spoke extensively on racism as the lasting legacy of the slave trade. In his Wilberforce Address, Mr Cameron praised key abolitionist William Wilberforce for his role in securing the abolition of the slave trade but pointed to the victims of modern day slavery – human trafficking.
Addressing the scourge of racism, Mr Cameron appealed to young black people to “find role models in the history of the abolition movement”.
Rev Katei Kirby, General Manager of the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance, said, meanwhile, that problems in today’s society, including disrespect for human life, disregard for authority, and a “disdain” of belief and faith were modern legacies of the slave trade.
She said that moral and political leadership was needed to overcome the slave trade’s legacy of racism and to ensure that every ethnic group in Britain is embraced. She called for better understanding and government investment “in the present and the future of those disenfranchised by the negative legacies of the slave trade”.
But when asked if an apology for the slave trade was needed, Mr Cameron said, “I don’t actually think that one generation can meaningfully apologise for something that a previous generation did.”
Instead, he said that “true reparation” was actually “to make sure that Africa has a chance for peace, prosperity, stability and all the advantages we have in the West”.
“It is to Britain’s eternal shame that we supported the slave trade but it is to Britain’s eternal pride that we helped to stamp it out,” he said.
Pastor Agu Irukwu of Jesus House, a leading Pentecostal church in London, echoed Mr Cameron’s sentiments, saying that an apology would always be regarded as “hollow” unless African, Caribbean and Caucasian communities were to “come out of their comfort zones and engage with each other”.
Mr Cameron said the way forward lay in helping African nations to develop. “We should be doing all we can to promote indigenous economic development,” he said. “This means producing trade tariffs and helping African nations develop the institutions for economic growth.”
He also committed his party to bringing about the “proper” representation of black men and women in parliamentary life, acknowledging that the Conservative Party had failed to do this effectively in the past.
Mr Cameron called for members of the African and Caribbean community to use the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade to make a change by getting more involved in politics.
Other key speakers and panel members at the event included the Rt Rev Dr James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, and Bishop Wayne Malcolm of Christian Life City.
Christian Today
The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, has commended churches for leading the commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade and called on Christians to fight its lasting legacy - racism.
He joined leading African and Caribbean Christian leaders at the Conservative Christian Fellowship’s Wilberforce Address on Tuesday night, dedicated this year to the slave trade abolition.
Speakers at last night’s event spoke extensively on racism as the lasting legacy of the slave trade. In his Wilberforce Address, Mr Cameron praised key abolitionist William Wilberforce for his role in securing the abolition of the slave trade but pointed to the victims of modern day slavery – human trafficking.
Addressing the scourge of racism, Mr Cameron appealed to young black people to “find role models in the history of the abolition movement”.
Rev Katei Kirby, General Manager of the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance, said, meanwhile, that problems in today’s society, including disrespect for human life, disregard for authority, and a “disdain” of belief and faith were modern legacies of the slave trade.
She said that moral and political leadership was needed to overcome the slave trade’s legacy of racism and to ensure that every ethnic group in Britain is embraced. She called for better understanding and government investment “in the present and the future of those disenfranchised by the negative legacies of the slave trade”.
But when asked if an apology for the slave trade was needed, Mr Cameron said, “I don’t actually think that one generation can meaningfully apologise for something that a previous generation did.”
Instead, he said that “true reparation” was actually “to make sure that Africa has a chance for peace, prosperity, stability and all the advantages we have in the West”.
“It is to Britain’s eternal shame that we supported the slave trade but it is to Britain’s eternal pride that we helped to stamp it out,” he said.
Pastor Agu Irukwu of Jesus House, a leading Pentecostal church in London, echoed Mr Cameron’s sentiments, saying that an apology would always be regarded as “hollow” unless African, Caribbean and Caucasian communities were to “come out of their comfort zones and engage with each other”.
Mr Cameron said the way forward lay in helping African nations to develop. “We should be doing all we can to promote indigenous economic development,” he said. “This means producing trade tariffs and helping African nations develop the institutions for economic growth.”
He also committed his party to bringing about the “proper” representation of black men and women in parliamentary life, acknowledging that the Conservative Party had failed to do this effectively in the past.
Mr Cameron called for members of the African and Caribbean community to use the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade to make a change by getting more involved in politics.
Other key speakers and panel members at the event included the Rt Rev Dr James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, and Bishop Wayne Malcolm of Christian Life City.
Christian Today
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