This question entered my mind when after Labour MP Bell Ribero-Addy asked the current prime minister whether he would apologise for Britain’s role in slavery and colonialism, to which Rishi Sunak replied that ‘’trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward’’. This is not a criticism of Sunak, as all prime ministers are just puppets to the groups of people who control the economy and politics of the country, but the question does arise, do the governments of these western countries, specifically Britain, regret or feel true sorrow for the greatest collective crime in human history.
The real answer lies in what actions they have taken which show they are regretful for the crimes of their country. Whenever this question was asked to any prime minister, the answer would be that they have only ever expressed sorrow or deep regret, but surely if you regret an act then you would put necessary strategies in place to prevent it from happening again. Yet, in 1883 when the Slavery Abolition Act was passed (not that it meant slaves were totally free, an apprenteship system was then put in place which means they still had to work without pay for a number of years), the British Government took out a loan from two Jewish bankers, Nathen Myers Rothschild and Moses Montefiore who were both relatives as Moses married into the family, for an amount totalling around £20 million, which at the time was 40% of the national budget, using the Bank of England inflation calculator, that would be worth around £1.9 billion today, (there are alternative methods of comparing to today’s currency, such as comparing it to the GDP, which would mean it would be a much larger amount, but for the sake of the currency compared in this article being the same, we will use one source). What was the loan for? Compensating the people at that time who were entitled to the services of slaves, freed slaves did not receive any compensation. That alone should allow us to understand how deep rooted the racism was, and we would be foolish to think that in less than 200 years that this superiority complex has disappeared. How can we confidently know that, because the final payment made to SLAVE OWNERS using taxpayers’ money was in 2015, only 9 years ago the British Government who are so filled with regret and sorrow for their crimes, paid previous slave owners an unknown amount of money because of the money they lost out on from having to give a human being back their God given freedom that was taken away from them through violence, murder, rape, torture and government laws. But, we all know how a contract works, the British Government were in a contract and if they breached the contract then there would be consequences, so lets be fair on the British Government who can invade countries, kill millions of innocent people, have hidden agendas for every war they involve themselves in, but can’t cancel a contract with the heirs of slave owners, lets be fair on them, but what about the individuals who received the money, where is their conscience, where is there so called regret and sorrow, where is their thought that it would be morally and ethically wrong to accept this money. So let us talk about at least two of the individuals that received the largest amounts from the compensation, firstly, John Gladstone, father of the prime minister who had served the most terms, William Gladstone. John Gladstone owned at least 2,508 slaves in Guyana and Jamaica, and received at the time a payment of £106,769, equivalent to around £10 million today. Even after the abolition of slaves, Gladstone obtained free labour from India, subjugating them to the same inhumane conditions as the previous slaves. Willam Gladstone, a prime minister of four terms, opposed plans of immediate abolition of slaves, and advocated for gradual abolition, in 1834 he supported the bill to reimburse slave owners, leading to his father receiving the largest amount of compensation.
Additionally, we have John Erle-Drax, who received £4,293 in compensation for 189 slaves, in comparison to today’s currency, around £400,000. The Drax family who were a central family in the introduction of slavery-based sugar production for the British that took place in the Caribbean, made an unimaginable amount of wealth through slavery-based sugar production in Barbados, at one point owning over 400 acres of land, making them the greatest landowners on the island at the time, the Drax family held these plantations from around 1640 to 1838, and in between 1766 and 1791 British West Indies produced over a million tons of sugar with Barbados sugar amounting to 93 per cent of the islands export, all during a time where sugar had become the most valuable commodity in European trade, this is why it is a common opinion that the transatlantic slave trade was directly linked to the growth of British consumed sugar, with over 5 million Africans taken to the Caribbean for labour of these plantations. The point I am trying to make is it is unimaginable for us to understand how much money the Drax family made during these 200 years, but if we want to get a glimpse, let us look at his heir, Richard Drax, who is the current MP for South Dorset. Richard Drax who has an estimated net worth of around £150 million (but considering he has a history of not publishing accounts for multiple companies) is most definitely a lot more, is the largest individual landowner in Dorset, owning around 13,000 acres, a 2,200-acre farming estate, 125 Dorset properties personally and through family trusts, and the particular estate I wanted to mention is a 617 acre plantation in Barbados, which Richard Drax still owns. This particular estate, named Drax Hall, in which over 30,000 slaves died over 200 years, was inherited by Richard (although he only declared inheritance after official documents named him as the owner), which is worth around £5 million, which is currently being asked by Caricom (Countries in the Caribbean community), to give the Hall back to the Government for which it can be used as a museum and social housing for low-income Bajan families. Richard who surprise surprise, is deeply regrettable of the situation, doesn’t agree to the demands for reparations, another big shock. It is impossible to calculate what percentage of Drax immense wealth today has directly come from the persecution of slaves, but Richard doesn’t even want to give up a plantation on land that wouldn’t even belong to his lineage if it wasn’t for enslavement in the first place. The greed astounds me as it should you, the Drax family as well as future generations have already amassed an amount of wealth which they will never be held accountable for, and the fact you can’t give up £5 million of that as a will of good gesture to the people of Barbados, really does show how deeply regretful the family is.
Additionally in May 2023 we had the Royal coronation, an event in which the Royal family, specifically the King and Queen of the country, wore jewels which the majority if not all have colonial history, such as the Lahore diamond, which was surrendered to the British Empire as part of a treaty, why was it surrendered? To reprimand them for the cost of the war that the British Empire started, that too signed over by a 11-year-old Maharaja (Sikh ruler), imagine, the British initiate the war to take more land, then they charge you for it by forcing you to sign over all your wealth. The reason I wanted to briefly mention stolen belongings, is the recent initiative by the British government to ‘loan back’ items it had stolen during its colonial history, most recently the Crown Jewels of Ghana which it stole 150 years ago, the audacity is outstanding and at the same truly despicable. These jewels which are stolen property are being loaned back to the original people it belonged to, deep that, you steal something from someone, then later, you have the knowledge that your ancestors had stolen these items from someone, and instead of saying these are yours take them back, you say you can borrow them for a little while. Is that the deep regret these Prime Ministers and British patriots talk about?
There is so much more that needs to be said on this topic, but I will finish with this for now, I do not understand why people expect acts of remorse or repatriation, or characteristics which display understanding, good morals, strong principles and good values, or traits of honesty and integrity from those people who with their words speak of unity and building bridges, togetherness, that we are all one, that we are the good guys, yet their actions show that flaunting their victories of war mongering during their colonial history, which came at the expense of innocent lives across the globe, is something that not only brings them joy, but a time in their history which they are proud of, and considering their involvement in recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and so many more, it is a time they are more than willing to repeat. So the question was do Western countries regret their colonial history, the answer is simple, regret would mean to ensure it doesn’t happen again, yet today, they are all supporting a terrorist state whilst it butchers and carries out a genocide on innocent people, truth is their colonial history has not stopped, they just got better at hiding their involvement, and more creative in the way they manipulate the reason for their war mongering to the people, the Iraq war resulted in the loss of nearly a million innocent Iraqis, and the public during that time supported it. Colonialism means the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial control over another country, occupying it with settlers and exploiting it economically, whenever there is anyone in charge of a country that isn’t a puppet of these Western countries then we know what happens, a coincidental civil war, assassination, portrayed as evil or corrupt, then they are replaced with their own settlers i.e. governments, then they can continue to exploit the country economically, so colonialism hasn’t stopped, we’ve just become too engrossed with our own lives, our own hunt for materialism and wealth, social media, gaming, movies, music, new cars, new phones, whatever they can distract us with, but the moment you detach from these things, we might realise we’re content with what’s going on around the world because we’re not on the other side of it. And if you don’t comply, if you speak up against them, then they’ll throw you in jail and make you a slave to their prison system. So, I’ll end with this question, would you rather live a life where you die on your feet than live a life on your knees, lets speak up and do our part, whichever way we can.
