Slaves past and present
JEREMY CORBYN reminds us that slavery is still alive and well 200 years after it was officially abolished.
BRITAIN abolished the slave trade in 1807. Two hundred years later, this act is being celebrated with exhibitions and discussions across the country, including a debate in Parliament on Tuesday.
A major exhibition is also being organised for Westminster Hall. It is designed to reflect parliamentary history of the abolitionist movement, the bravery of those who opposed the slave trade outside and those who perished in the horrors of the Middle Passage and the colonies run by slave owners.
There is a danger, however, that the 200th anniversary will become a rather self-indulgent festival celebrating a heroic British attempt at ending the evils of the slave trade.
While there is no doubt that the leaders of the abolitionist movement were incredibly brave people who did turn the tide of history, we should also be highlighting those who benefited enormously from the slave trade.
As part of his PhD at the London School of Economics, former prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago the late Dr Eric Williams published his seminal work Capitalism and Slavery, which graphically outlined the enormous profits made in the City of London by West Indian sugar, spice and coffee interests.
In fact, the basic wealth of many of Britain's biggest companies and corporations derive directly from the slave trade.
It is clear, when reading the debates initiated by William Wilberforce and others in the House of Commons from the late 18th century onwards, that the moral argument put forward by himself and others was opposed by very powerful and extremely wealthy slave-owning interests, which managed to extract £20m in compensation when the trade was finally abolished in 1807.
The trade itself was an evil thing in which Africans were captured and then shipped in the most appalling conditions to the Caribbean, south America and north America.
Many of them died on the way, with others sold into the most appalling conditions. Slave uprisings, of which there were many, were brutally suppressed and the leaders routinely executed.
It would be appropriate to remember the people who led uprisings throughout the Caribbean and north America this year, even though slavery itself was not abolished until much later than 1807. In Britain, it was outlawed from 1834. In the United States, it was not banned until the end of the civil war in 1865.
But the abolition of the trade and the practice did not prevent other forms of slavery continuing. One example is the movement of indentured workers from India to various British colonies, including Mauritius, South Africa, Trinidad and British Guiana, now know as Guyana. This was a continuation of the slave trade under another name and, again, enormous profits were made by the same interests that had benefited from the slave trade itself.
Slavery still exists in different forms in many parts of the world. Direct slave ownership remains in some countries and, while formally outlawed, it nevertheless thrives. A BBC report at the weekend on slave-owning in Mauritania was a sharp reminder that it still exists.
'The danger is that the 200th anniversary will become a self-indulgent celebration of a heroic British attempt at ending the slave trade.'
Then there is the practice of contracted and indentured workers with few rights, which is commonplace among migrant labour in the Gulf states, where the modern citadels of capitalism are constructed by low-paid migrant contracted workers who live in awful conditions and send most of their money home to families in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
Women are also being enticed from poor societies, mainly in central and eastern Europe and Russia, becoming sex slaves in the wealthy capitals of western Europe.
The biggest single form of mass discrimination, which leads to virtual slave conditions for its victims, is discrimination by caste and descent. It is estimated that there are 200 million victims of this practice.
After intense pressure from the dalit peoples around the world who suffer from this discrimination, the 2000 millennium summit in South Africa was eventually forced to condemn it.
This year, we acknowledge the achievement of the abolition of the trade and the incredible contribution of Thomas Clarkson, who travelled the length and breadth of Britain with his famous box displaying the manacles and torture items that were used against black slaves.
We should also use this year to recognise and understand not just the pain and the tragedy of the slave trade but the enormous contribution made to society in the Americas and Europe by people who came as slaves and their descendants.
But, in all this, it should be remembered that slavery does not exist just because some people have completely evil intentions. It exists because a whole economic system benefits from such gross exploitation, making wealthy those whose hands are theoretically clean of these evil acts in the process.
When international law means nothing WHEN driven into a corner, Tony Blair and George Bush both proclaim their determination to gain a settlement for the Palestinian people. Yet, at every stage, they give Israel unconditional support for its occupation, settlements and aggression towards the Palestinian people.
Even now that the Palestinian people have agreed on a coalition government, Israel is refusing to acknowledge or recognise it. It seems that the colonial mentality towards Palestine is firmly embedded in British and US policy-makers.
We were told that we had to go to war on Iraq in support of a United Nations resolution and, despite the lack of any legal basis for US and British action, it went ahead. Israel has flouted more UN resolutions than any other country in the world and yet remains uncensored.
Two leaders tainted by their war policies ON Tuesday, the Stop the War Coalition People's Assembly in London commemorated the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
Participants came from all over Britain and guests included US Congressman and Democrat leadership contender Dennis Kucinich.
To mark the anniversary of the war, the BBC has launched an enormous opinion poll effort in Iraq. The results indicate that the majority of Iraqis feel less secure and less hopeful for the future than they did four years ago, before the invasion. Back in Britain, support for the war is at an all-time low.
The war has had a dramatic effect on British politics and globally, as well as on the world's perceptions of Britain and the US. It is the reason why Blair is leaving office. And it is the reason why, when George Bush finally leaves office, he'll be remembered in the same tainted way as former presidents Richard Nixon and Lyndon B Johnson.
Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North. He can be contacted at corbynj@parliament.uk
