Talking about slavery at Christmas? Surely not — unless it’s to bewail the fate of all kitchen slaves, male, female or any of the other 78 genders slaving over that imperial beast, the turkey!
No, I’m talking about how the accusation of “slavery!” has been and is being used to keep us cowed.
A series of three articles appeared on Friday Dec 22nd 2017 in the ‘Daily Mail’, referring to an exhibition at the National Archives, a Government Institution. The first article reports:
The display, titled ‘Empire & Colonialism’, originally sat in the Keeper’s Gallery, which aims to give visitors an overview of key moments covered by the archives’ 11 million records. Tony Adler, 69, complained in 2009 that it was not balanced and presented a ‘distorted’ view of the past which was ‘unremittingly anti-British’. The archives originally rejected his complaint, but this month agreed to reword the display following an appeal to the organisation’s chief executive and an internal review. Bosses admitted it had presented a view of Britain’s colonial history without ‘due impartiality’.
It took eight years (!) for the ‘bosses’ to deal with this complaint — eight years of perpetuating the lie that the British Empire was involved in the slave trade, eight years in which this seminal photo:
East African slaves taken aboard HMS Daphne from a dhow, 1 November 1868. From London’s National Archives
was seen by millions, stayed in their minds, and supported the ‘narrative’ in Academe and the MSM that we Brits were horrible slave dealers and deserve all the bad things coming our way, such as mass immigration from third world countries and subjugation to the EU. After all, we all know, don’t we, that the remaining EU member states never ever had empires or colonies … not Portugal or Spain, not France, not the Netherlands or even Germany.
Tony Adler, who made the original complaint these many years ago had his article also published in the ‘Daily Mail’ (see here). He wrote:
I first noticed the National Archives falling prey to insidious political correctness in 2009 when I visited the Keeper’s Gallery at its Richmond HQ, where a series of displays about British history had been mounted. To my profound irritation, I found that impartiality had regularly given way to political posturing. It was as if some of the entries had been written by a group of earnest but ill-informed Left-wing activists.
Perhaps the most offensive example was the section on slavery, which, ridiculously, failed to give any mention of the great British campaigner William Wilberforce, whose heroic fight in Parliament saw the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.
Just as misleading was an 1868 photograph on the display board of HMS Daphne sailing on the Indian Ocean, its deck full of black slaves. There was nothing, characteristically, to indicate that these unfortunate people had actually just been rescued by the Royal Navy, for the Daphne was one of the key vessels that patrolled the seas in the drive to stamp out the slave trade between East Africa and the Arabian peninsula in the late Victorian age.
It comes as no surprise to me that Wilberforce, in spite of this film from 2006, has been virtually brushed out of the debate about slavery. I wonder if one of the reasons for this is that Wilberforce was a staunch Christian …
There’s one more twist to this whole despicable rewriting of our history which has been going on for years. Take the third article in the series (see here) describing the situation at which the photo was taken:
That British sailor in the bottom left of the photograph was no villain. He was one of the good guys, part of a high-risk Royal Navy operation to curtail a roaring slave trade operating out of East Africa. It was a despicable business involving a network of Arab potentates plus Portuguese, French and American traders.
The British, who had first voted to abolish the slave trade more than 60 years earlier, were trying to stop it — not that it suits the Empire-bashing narrative to say so.
So ponder this:
1) the location (East Africa);
2) the slave traders: ‘Arab Potentates’, helped by Portuguese French and American slavers.
Now ask: where, today, are slaves still being ‘traded’ and by whom?
Not that long ago we heard about ‘Arab Potentates’, i.e. any Arab from the Oil Kingdoms with money, buying under-age Syrian refugee girls from camps in Turkey. We heard of ISIS ‘warriors’ blatantly selling Yazidi girls as sex slaves for their ‘heroes’. There were reports of Indian and Pakistani ‘slaves’ working to build the fabulous stadiums for that footie world cup in Qatar. And then we read that the US State Dept believes ISIS is financing their operations through slave trade … It’s the old ‘plus ça change’: the same locality, the same perpetrators — but no RN today to fight them!
This is the important point: it’s about driving home ‘White Guilt’ — our guilt. It’s used by globalists to make us accept economic migrants from Africa. To achieve this they needed to clobber us with our ‘horrible’ past, our deplorable colonial empire. We must be made to accept our ‘guilt’ and forget about the good our forefathers achieved, both by making slavery illegal (this was one of the items our then Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh inserted into the Vienna Peace Treaties after 1815) and by using our Royal Navy to combat the slave trade. It’s as if our bringing the rule of law to places where it simply didn’t exist before was a truly heinous crime.
Having been so successful in this enterprise of rewriting our history that even a Government exhibition reflects and supports it, these globalists in the form of EU bureaucrats now triumph because our Whitehall Mandarins, our negotiators, have swallowed whole these lies, as well as the one following from it: that we are now too weak and feeble to stand on our own. Atoning for our past history by denying it and ritually confessing our guilt we now must accept our punishment: to stay in thrall to that globalist dream, the EU, and accept the EU’s ‘free movement’ in perpetuity. That’s what the ‘transition period’ is about.
The truly heinous crime however is robbing a people of their national identity by rewriting their history!
As these three articles illustrate: our own ruling classes were and are complicit in that crime. And that’s why we must talk about it, even at Christmas.
Unfortunately also in our schools slavery is a topic high on the agenda in first year of juniors, but the definition of slavery is very narrow, only includes the UK – Colonies – Africa triangle. The fact that slavery has been a feature of so many civilisations and more to the point still continues right now, right in front of us – at brothels, massage parlours, kitchen restaurants, hand car washes – is completely ignored. It isn’t an accident. Need to make them feel guilty and rob them of their confidence as young as possible so they won’t oppose.
I wonder if Henry Bolton has any views on this, or any other subject mildly provocative?
“I wonder if Henry Bolton has any views on this, or any other subject mildly provocative?”
Absolutely not from what I see; indeed I am beginning to think that he is an establishment plant.
What can we do about it?
Well, hats off to Tony Adler and lets hope he inspires others to approach institutions on impartial presentations. Lets face it the Liberals have not so successfully changed society to their liking by being coy. So be as brazen as they are – don’t be intimidated or cowed.
We can boycott companies who are openly engaged in propagating mischief and indeed write to them too. It does work sometimes. As regards the propaganda on TV of which we have to pay to be subjected to this kind of liberal nonsense – write to you MP or support those wanting to revoke the licensing laws.
Keep a close check on what schools and colleges are drip feeding to children and students. The Education Act 1996 requires school governing bodies, head teachers and local education authorities to take all reasonably practical steps to ensure that, where political or controversial issues are brought to pupil’s attention, they are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views.
I think we need many more articles like this Viv.
The disgraceful lies and distortions shamefully taught and propagated about slavery, in this country and worldwide, must be constantly contradicted by powerful and tireless repetitions of the truth.
I think Thomas Sowell has been doing his bit:
“It takes no more research than a trip to almost any public library or college to show the incredibly lopsided coverage of slavery in the United States or in the Western Hemisphere, as compared to the meagre writings on even larger number of Africans enslaved in the Islamic countries of the Middle East and North Africa, not to mention the vast numbers of Europeans also enslaved in centuries past in the Islamic world and within Europe itself. At least a million Europeans were enslaved by North African pirates alone from 1500 to 1800, and some Europeans slaves were still being sold on the auction blocks in Egypt, years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed blacks in the United States.”
― Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks & White Liberals
He also wrote:
“It was the Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans, selling some of these slaves to Europeans or to Arabs and keeping others for themselves. Even at the peak of the transatlantic slave trade, Africans retained more slaves for themselves than they sent to the Western Hemisphere”.
I`m pleased you have written this Howard, as having sailed in the Merchant Navy to West Africa, I have some interest in this subject.
I also stayed in or near Dundee for 20 odd years and have read the history of a Lady missionary who worked for the Scottish missionary society in and around Calabar, there is a book giving her history and if you wish to learn of the effects of Muslim slaved raiders, it is well worth a read!
(Sorry cannot quote the title at the moment -not at home)
There`s also journals by McGregor Laird which are in print and worth a read (1832? expedition with Lander to assess prospects of trade)
Sorry should have said the missionary was Mary Slessor – has a section to herself in Dundee Museum and I would guess could be found on the internet
Howard, most interesting. Sowell is a new name to me.
Via Wiki I found my way to C-span where I watched a video of Sowell being interviewed by Brian Lamb – see https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4542904/thomas-sowell-black-rednecks-white-liberals (I can’t copy as a hyper-link). Questions about the book start at about 37minutes in.
The interview was captivating for several reasons: Sowell has a lot of interesting things to say; he speaks well and convincingly; the interviewer did not interrupt him; short questions and long answers. I watched to the end – an hour well spent.