The Transatlantic slave trade. Should we apologize? No.

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#006633" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="001d6c00ddvuru.jpg"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>Walmer Baptist Church</B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#333399" FACE="Arial" >    </FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > |     </FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Walmer Baptist Church"><U><U><IMG SRC="01a581f0.gif" border=0 width="88" height="31" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></U></A></FONT></div> <div>                                                   </div> <div> The Transatlantic slave trade. Should we apologize? No.</div> <div> By Revd Sean Michael Carter<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> © Copyright Revd Sean Michael Carter. This article may not be reproduced without written permission. </div> <bR> <div> Updated Summer 2008</div> <bR> <div> <B><U>The Baptist Union Apology to Jamaica</U></B></div> <bR> <div> Statement by the Minister</div> <bR> <div> At the time of writing there are more slaves in the world than at any other time in human history. 27 million people</div> <div> in forced labour camps, debt bondage, the sex industry, professional beggary, domestic servitude and enforced</div> <div> work without pay under threat of violence. A very large proportion of these slaves are children, many of whom</div> <div> are commercially trafficked.</div> <bR> <div> Those who are ensalved by history - who dwell on past wrongs, who keep ancient conflicts and quarrels alive,</div> <div> who even seek reparations and apologies for the wrongs suffered by their ancestors would do the world a greater</div> <div> service by turning their attention to present-day slavery instead.</div> <bR> <div> This is part of the reason I disagree with the decision of the Baptist Union council who have recently travelled to Jamaica and apologised to the Jamaican people for the slave trade. </div> <bR> <div> The context of this is that a few years ago the Church of England apologised for its role in slavery as Protestant missionaries wrongly owned thousands of slaves. The city of Liverpool, heavily involved in the slave trade apologised in 1999. Shortly after the city of Bristol expressed regret for its role but stopped short of an apology. The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, expressed regret in a high-profile statement but did not apologise. </div> <bR> <div> The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade prompted renewed calls for more apologies for slavery. One year later, the Baptist Union council issued an emotive apology after three days of deliberation on the subject saying with tears that 'God had spoken to them it was the right thing to do.'  This word of God was not affirmed by the churches that make up the Baptist Union and we were not consulted on it so they do not speak for all of us. The council acted independently by themselves without asking for the wider view of the churches they represent, which is quite surprising considering the historical signifigance of the apology. The same disregard for the churches that make up the Union has been shown with this more recent apology. After all, the BU council is supposed to represent us the Baptist churches. Isn't it?  </div> <bR> <div> My own personal view is that the Union should have followed the example of the former Prime Minister in expressing regret for the Transatlantic slave trade but stopping short of an apology. I am aware that it  was suggested that there was a very real possibility that some black Baptist’s were talking about leaving the Baptist Union because they were so hurt over the issue of the Transatlantic slave trade. This would indeed be a very real tragedy if that happened and I remind them of my opening remarks. </div> <bR> <div> Christ unites people of different ethnicities and the Christian family as a whole, including the Baptist’s, should work hard to eliminate the things that divide us and focus on the sources of our unity. We do need to listen to what other people say to us, but equally they should listen to the other point of view that differs from their own.</div> <bR> <div> All communication, especially between Christians should be sensitive as communication involves not just what is said, but what is heard. Therefore  tactful, polite words and phrases should always be used in any debate. It should be rational, as by definition irrationality feeds on superstitiouis taboos, distorted caricatures and plain ignorance. Irrationality is also selective and discriminatory focussing on certain groups for attacks whilst ignoring others. If there is a moral principle or matter of justice at stake then comminication should be consistent and applied across the board. Also, in debate, the idea is not to emerge triumphant but to move the matter forward</div> <div> to enable greater understanding by all.</div> <bR> <div> The trouble is with the whole Transatlantic slave trade issue, I feel, is that there has been a break down in rationality and no wide debate. When it comes to the issue of slavery, there is another side to the coin, another point of view, another history that is not being told. I wonder whether those calling for repeated apologies have considered the wider historical and present issues about slavery in their reaction to the 200th anniversary of abolition and the more recent apology? We serve a God of truth and when reflecting on the issue of slavery we need to see the wider picture and speak the truth about it.</div> <bR> <div> A few years ago the question was asked in wider society whether individuals and various institutions should continue to apologise for the Transatlantic slave trade? Interestingly in a newspaper poll that asked this question 92% of people said no. Saying no to this question is not condoning the slave trade, far from it. Both historical and present day slavery is brutal, evil and a great sin. Saying no to the apology is realising that the oppression of slavery was not restricted to one period of history, neither were one people group the only abusers and the others the only victims.</div> <div> There are four reasons I think and respectively suggest that there should be have been an expression of regret made by the Baptist Union about any past Protestant involvement in the Transatlantic slave-trade during the 200th anniversary, but not an actual apology, and the reasons why I think that yet another apology and any further apologies are an irrational exercise both by those who issue it and those who accept it.  </div> <div> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>1.)</B></FONT>   Firstly, slavery has existed as long as civilisation has and before. Historically world empires, countries and even tribes at war, have  always engaged in the slave trade. It is a truth and fact that all nations, cultures, ethic groups have been both victim and victimizer of this evil practice. </div> <div> During the same period that white Europeans took between 9-12 million black slaves from West Africa to the New world, black Africans themselves were taking white European slaves to North Africa and some to the Middle East. Between 1530 and 1780 one and a quarter million white Christian slaves were taken by African slavers to work as galley slaves or land labourers, and were often worked to death under the same awful and degrading conditions that black slaves taken to the New world experienced. The white women slaves, particularly the beautiful ones, were sold as concubines to North African and Middle Eastern men and forced to submit themselves to obvious uses. In effect these white European female slaves, like many black African female slaves were forcibly raped and often subjected to a life of degradation they could do nothing about. This is an historical fact. </div> <div> It is also an historical fact that numerous villages and towns on the coast of Italy, Spain, Portugal and France were hardest hit but the African raiders also seized people in Britain, Ireland and Iceland. According to one estimate, 7,000 English people were abducted between 1622-1644, many of them ships' crews and passengers. But the corsairs also landed on unguarded beaches, often at night, to snatch away the unwary. Almost all the inhabitants of the village of Baltimore, in Ireland, were captured in 1631, and there were other raids in Devon and Cornwall. Reverend Devereux Spratt recorded being captured by "Algerines" while crossing the Irish sea from Cork to England. In April 1641 and in 1661 Samuel Pepys wrote about two men, Captain Mootham and Mr Dawes, who were also abducted. A few years ago it was announced that one of the richest treasure wrecks found off the coast of Devon was a 16th-century Barbary ship en route to catch English slaves with the aim of transporting them to Africa and the Middle East. The Americans also suffered. Thomas Jefferson wrote to the ambassador of Tripoli in London to ask him why his fellow Barbary potentates were capturing and enslaving American crews and passengers form ships using the Gibraltar straits.     </div> <bR> <div> Three questions that have been ignored because there was no wide debate, and that needed to be answered are. </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> Why have we forgotten or are ignoring the fact that it is not only black people today whose ancestors were the victims of slavery? All races, including white Europeans were victims of this awful trade.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Why are we forgetting that it is not only white Europeans who were guilty of slavery? </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Why do we forget that the Africans themselves were involved in enslaving each other long before European nations joined the trade, and that they continued to enslave each other long after we abolished the practice?</div> <bR> <div> These questions are not asked because it does fit the irrational and emotive doctrine of political correctness that makes our thinking so darkened and selective and therefore by the definitions above, irrational. We are expected to accept the popularist view without questioning it. </div> <div> If apologies are to be issued then it is only rational and logical that they need to travel in various different directions if there are both victims and victimizers on both sides. The trouble is, on this issue morality has become a matter of mathematics and politcal correctness.  The ratio of salves taken to Africa compared to those taken from Europe to Africa is roughly 12-1.  Each of the 9-12 million African slaves were individuals, not just a collective. Each of the one and a quarter million European slaves were individuals. They all suffered the same horrors, fears, and mistreatment.  Slavery is not just a collective wrong and sin, it was a sin against individuals, by individuals. Does the fact that more individuals suffered in one situation than another make the suffering of the lesser numbers unimportant? This is what we are in effect saying if morality becomes a matter of numbers and mathematics. This apology is therefore irrational and illogical in my opinion because there are victims we are ignoring because it is not politically correct to stand up and speak out for them because they are our white European ancestors.</div> <div> All of us probably have an ancestor who was a slave somewhere sometime in history, no matter what ethnicity and geography explains our antecedents, for slavery is an historical universal. We can therefore all demand apologies for humankinds turpitudes. But we poison the present by our self-imposed slavery to unforgiveness over offences of the past and that attitude causes so many conflicts in the present. </div> <div> Will the Baptist Union council, and other organisations who have apologised now ask for an apology in return from the Arab and African nations involved in capturing and enslaving white Europeans? Of course they won't, it does not fit the doctrine of political correctness which has driven this aplogy. It was not the Spirit of God, in my opinion, that led the Baptist Union council. It was the pressure of political correctness. </div> <div> I am sure there are those who may have the knee jerk reaction and think or suggest I am racist for pointing out these things. I am in a mixed race marriage with children of mixed ethnicity so that charge cannot be laid at my door and would be slanderous if it were, a slander I would legally challenge. </div> <bR> <div> <B>2.) </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >The second reason I disagree with an apology is because the historical facts are that the slave trade existed in Africa long before the Europeans participated in it. African slavers captured millions of their fellow country-men from east Africa and sold them to other Africans in North Africa and to Arabs in the Middle East. The slave trade in Africa was well established many hundreds of years before Britain joined in with it and continued for a long time after we rightly abolished it. So, why is the entire focus on just one aspect of that trade? Why have just one people, our British ancestors and Europeans, been singled out as being entirely to blame for the African slave trade? Why are the ancestors of the African people demanding an apology from white Europeans for the actions of our ancestors, when their own ancestors enslaved each other on a scale far great than Europe ever did before a European ship ever landed on their shores? It does not make sense.</FONT></div> <div> In addition, slavery in Africa still goes on today and is widely practiced. Look at what is happening in Darfur where Arab Muslims are killing and enslaving Black Muslims. Slightly off topic but still relevant is that it is ironic that British Muslims are so vocal about the supposed oppression of Muslims by the British armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and that by Israel of Palestinians, but they are so quiet about the genocide in Darfur where Muslim is killing Muslim. Another question that does not get asked in our politically correct society. </div> <div> Back to topic. It is historically wrong and intellectually naive to portray the slave trade as entirely and only a wrong committed by the white European people against black Africans. Black Africans were engaged in enslaving their fellow man a long time before the transatlantic slave trade and continued to do so a long time after Britain abolished slavery. As a country we did not create the African slave trade, nor did we continue it after it was abolished.  In fact Britain used the Royal Navy to enforce anti-slavery patrols in that region to stop Africans enslaving fellow Africans and the Navy did tremendous work in helping repatriate liberated slaves and in so doing creating many of the African states that exist today. Could I now ask that those who wanted an apology to thank our ancestors, my ancestors, who led the way in efforts at abolition. Throughout the trade there were those who fiercely fought and resisted it and they should be acknowledged and thanked.</div> <bR> <div> It is to be regretted that involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade is a part of our British history, but also to be remembered that our ancestors exploited and extended a practice that was already established in Africa over many hundreds of years in various forms, but did not create the trade. It should be equally regretted and remembered that those same ancestors of ours were themselves often victims of the same African trade. It is an unhealthy and dysfunctional state of affairs that the English always seem to accept and want to blame themselves for every evil in the world, and yet overlook the same evil inflicted upon our own ancestors. </div> <div> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>3.)</B></FONT> The third reason I am against an apology is that it is always problematic to enter into judgement of people who lived in a different age and are unable to speak for themselves. During the 18th century, slavery was wrongly considered a respectable and profitable trade described as a genteel occupation. Today, we are rightly horrified at that notion of slavery and at that form of thinking. Yet, men are products of their time and culture. The 18th century was a hard and cruel age in which suffering and death were familiar neighbours to everyone. The treatment of slaves on board a ship was only a little more inhumane than that of the sailors of His majesty’s Royal Navy.  Many British convicts were sent out to Australia on ships under the same conditions as the Africans. Should we therefore apologise to the Australians for this? As we stare down the corridors of history after the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, we are reminded what a great evil we as a nation participated in and how shocking the barbarity of it was, but, it was a product of its time, not ours, and was the reality of life back then. I nor you had nothing personally to do with it. We are all the children of a complicated and diverse history that we had no say or control over. </div> <bR> <div> <B>4.)  </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >It is a good thing that the ethics of our nation have matured in such a way that we now look back at the past and say never again. Yet this is merely an idealistic wish of ours. This leads me to the fourth reason I disagree with the apology. Slavery still exists in the modern world. An estimated 600-800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year adding to the 27 million slaves world-wide. 80% of these are women and young girls, 50% are children. Between 4,000-10,000 of these people are reportedly slaves in modern Britain today. This is where our focus as Christians  should be as we look back on the Transatlantic slave trade, shouldn't it? All the people involved with past slave trades are dead, there suffering is over, it is history, in the past, whereas modern day trafficking of people is not. It is happening today, right now, a present evil and reality even here in our midst in Britain. Modern slavery is just as cruel and barbaric as historical slavery ever was. Young girls are forced into working in brothels as sexual slaves. Pregnant women are kidnapped as their babies are bought and sold for thousands of pounds in the developed world. Some are forced into productive labour, earning fortunes for their owners and nothing for themselves. Others are mutilated in medical operations where their organs are removed and sold to private hospitals who have patients queuing to pay to receive an organ, which they may or may not have any idea where it came from or how it was procured.</FONT></div> <div> These are the social issues I believe the Baptist Union Council and Baptist’s of all ethnicities should be engaging with. I sat at the Baptist Assembly totally bewildered  as a black British born Baptist emotionally cried his way through his assembly sermon repeatedly stating he was so hurt by the Transatlantic slave trade. I thought to myself, why is he not mentioning Darfur or the slavery issues in modern day Britain and elsewhere? I Also wondered what the reaction would be if a white speaker cried their way through a sermon about the past suffering of white European slaves and the sense of hurt and injustice they felt about that?  Or if we told the Germans how upset we were about the second world war, which many of our living relatives are still emotionally or even physically scarred by. Why not ask the Argentinians to apolgise for invading the Falkland islands? How far do we go back with past historical hurts and wrongs. Should we ask the French to apologise for the invasion of William the conqueror which wiped out Saxon England, it’s church, culture and royal dynasty. Where do the apologies stop and why is only one historical event considered worth saying sorry for? This question does not get asked because there has been no wide debate and I am sure if it was the awkward silence that would follow would demonstrate how illogical it is to select one historical episode as the focus of an apology and not others. As I said earlier, we poison the present by our self-imposed slavery to unforgiveness over offences of the past - look at many conflicts around the world from Kashmir to Israel and we see this as a truth.  </div> <div> These matters raise other questions that were not widely asked because there was no wide debate. These are.</div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> Why are we so fixated on this one historical issue and not others?  </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Why are some black Baptist’s so fixated about how hurt they feel about something which happened hundreds of years ago where the people are all dead and now in God's hands? </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Why are White Europeans so ignorant of their own history and apparently uncaring about the suffering of their own ancestors who were also victims of the slave trade? </div> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f000000000.png" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Why did the assembly speaker not cry and campaign for those people who today, right now as you read this are victims of slavery and suffering now?</div> <bR> <div> I believe if Christ had stood on that platform preaching, He would he be more concerned about the present evil and suffering of modern day slavery rather than on an issue that is buried in history that we cannot change. Both white and black could look at the past, express regret, move on and say let’s do something for these people in the here and now instead of wallowing in endless self-pity, accusation and remorse for an historical event we were not directly part of. I am sure the preaching of Christ would focus on the present suffering of modern day slaves. If that is the case, then those who claim to speak for Him should also focus on this, shouldn’t they? After all, did Christ tell the Romans that they had a responsibility to apologise for the mistreatment of the Jewish people and to all the masses of people the Roman empire had enslaved? Did he say to the Jewish people they should apologise for their attitude towards the Samaritans? The answer is no, he did not. His message was about personal transformation bringing about a change of character followed by action, not about righting historical wrongs, because once you open that can of worms sheer reason and logic shows us one thing will always lead to another and every ethnicity, race and nation has things they need to apologise for regarding their history and ancestors.</div> <div> <B>Conclusion</B></div> <div> We would be serving the cause of Christ more if we focused our time, energy and resources on the issues of modern day slavery in Britain and worldwide. We hear the news but often feel helpless as we know there is a problem but we don’t know how we can help. If we want to tackle modern day slavery we need to first realise there is a huge problem with it. We can know and understand this and educate ourselves about what is happening. </div> <div> As a country we need stringent law enforcement. We need to educate vulnerable people in various countries as to the possible risks they face when they accept work abroad. We can help to heal and protect the victims of modern day slavery if we have opportunity to do so. </div> <div> Collectively and individually we can achieve this by supporting both Christian and non-Christian organisations campaigning for the end of the contemporary practice of slavery. These are the things we need to be thinking about and the action we could be taking as we reflect on the end of the Transatlantic slave trade, not endlessly apologising for the deeds of people who lived and died centuries ago. They did what they did and we can reflect on it with regret that white people are associated by race, creed and culture with that trade both as victims and victimizer, and black people can reflect with the same regret that their ancestors were also involved in the same trade as both victims and victimizer. </div> <div> If any apologies are needed, it is to the estimated 4,000-10,000 people enslaved in Britain today and the 27 million worldwide. We as Baptist’s of all ethnicities should apologise to them that we are wallowing around in historical emotionalism rather than actively helping them be free. Shouldn’t we?  It is truly lamentable that slavery is still happening in our country today and the church is focussed on an historical issue raised by an anniversary and promoted by politically correct doctrines. Collectively all of us Baptist’s and the wider British people whatever our ethnicity or religion should think about the current problem, not point at each other with accusations for what happened in the time of our ancestors for which we had no part or no control in and where the guilt goes both ways. </div> <div> These are the reasons I think, to put it quite simply, the following on from the apology after the 200th anniversary the fact that as Baptist’s we have now seen representatives in Jamaica apologising to the Jamaican’s is illogical, irrational and neglectful. The time, money and resources could have been better directed to help those in need right now. </div> <bR> <div> Revd Sean Michael Carter</div> <bR> <div>                       __________________________________________________ </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Inspirational and Spirituality Section"><U><IMG SRC="019581f0.gif" border=0 width="88" height="31" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Walmer Baptist Church"><U><IMG SRC="01a581f0.gif" border=0 width="88" height="31" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>