The Mayor, Ken Livingstone, has been making a big show of officially apologising for London’s role in the slave trade as the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire approaches this week. He also calls Tony Blair’s refusal to offer a national apology ’squalid’.
In my opinion by all means mark the occasion, have a commemoration if you want, but don’t go around trying to make people nowadays feel collectively guilty for something that happened centuries in the past. If you’re going to start saying sorry for things that went on 300-400 years ago that you had nothing to do with, why not go back a little further and ask the French to apologise for the Norman invasion of England in 1066, the Scandinavians to say sorry for the Vikings raping and pillaging Britain and Ireland, and even the Italians to hold their hands up for Julius Caesar invading Britain. Its nonsense.
Slavery’s been a part of all human cultures and societies at some point since man rubbed two sticks together. In the past shit happened to a lot of people, thankfully most places have moved on from that. This whole apologising business is just a game Ken Livingstone is playing, a manoeuvre to get the idea of paying some sort of reparations to black people on the agenda, you’ve apologised, now you have to make it up to them.
It would be very difficult to do, but the thought of receiving thousands of pounds would appeal to anybody, and remember, Ken Livingstone is up for re-election as Mayor next year and chasing votes.
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