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WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 551
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WCL 551 March 2007
Slavery and the arms trade
Sorry? Yes, I am indeed very sorry that an Englishman from Devon started the transatlantic slave trade. I am also most sorry that about 250 years ago my grandfather's French great-grandfather was a slave-trader. But I am not responsible for what they both did, even as I regret their actions. We are to be held responsible for our own actions and failings, but not generally for those of others.
Yet as an English world citizen I am deeply ashamed of a British government that in 2007 excuses, condones and assists the trade in armaments, which is the contemporary moral equivalent of the 18th century slave-trade. I am also sorry that there is no upswelling of protest against this scandal, while mealy-mouthed excuses and hypocrisies disfigure the pronouncements of British and other rulers of the countries that export arms to each and every country, particularly those where fighting and wars are regular and notorious.
Perhaps a few plaudits are in order for Wilberforce and the legion of Quakers, concerned women and democrats who in and before 1807 protested and encouraged a laggard House of Commons to pass a law banning slavery. More will be due when the Commons of today refuses to endorse actions of a government that still encourage and subsidise the arms-trade. We can now officially note the crimes of our ancestors while still ignoring the continuing criminality of our own times. Very convenient.
The centre of global financial and political power, whose wealth and influence were built upon centuries of slavery is now the land that preaches a democracy distributed by weapons of every sort. The United States, once a beacon of freedom for Europeans fleeing their own repressive regimes, has become an imperial consolidator, using its wealth to order the world to its own financial and political advantage, even at the cost of military intervention or war. The slavery that created a society of vast inequality is now downplayed, although its legacy can still be seen in the class-structure of the American armies now encircling the globe.
After the indigenous Indian peoples around the original English and Dutch colonies were subjugated and African slaves were imported into North America the scene was set for the imperial drive to the west. The first modern war in history settled the political question of slavery and once that was accomplished, the whole U.S. territory was developed into the most powerful state the world had ever known. Within a couple of decades the course of explicit imperialism began with the war against Spain.
In some ways the history of the United States is a global tragedy, with the disastrous road to hell then and now being paved with the best of intentions. By and large, the American people dislike the idea of empire and cannot see themselves as imperialists. Not until George W. Bush's presidency was that reality ever officially admitted. Even now the people whose army is being used in an attempt to reform the Middle East imagine that they are only helping others to do things better and more "democratically".
It is no use weeping crocodile tears over a past of slavery that no one can change. But we can choose to make a better world, if we create and strengthen world law, abandon our love of power and weapons, restricting, not selling them. And we can make reparation to the descendants of slaves, not by enlisting them in armies to carry on fighting against foreign powers, but by giving them training in ways of peace and law. That would entail creating a true global democracy instead of a new empire ruled by the rich and military elites.
John Roberts
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