Tony Blair Pulls a Clinton

In 1807 one of the largest slave holding empires in the world outlawed the slave trade. No, it wasn’t the Ottoman Empire. It was, of course, Great Britain. England outlawed the slave trade because, as a result of the Enlightenment, it was judged as a moral abomination. At a ceremony commemorated the 200 anniversary of this epic changing act, British Prime Minister Tony Blair really had nothing to say on this historic change in moral perspective. Nor did he comment that England’s and the West’s subsequent abandonment of slavery was virtually without historic precedent or that at the time no other civilization was at all concerned with the morality of slavery and/or forced labor.

Instead, Tony Blair decided to use the opportunity to spit upon his ancestors and display an appalling ignorance of his nation’s own history:

The Prime Minister plans to go further than any previous leader in seeking to distance himself from the actions of the British Empire, nearly 200 years after the 1807 legislation that led to slavery's abolition. However, he will stop short of making an explicit apology despite years of pressure from some black campaigners and community leaders.

“It is hard to believe that what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time,' the Prime Minister will say. "Personally I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was - how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition, but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever happened, that it ever could have happened and to rejoice at the different and better times we live in today.” [Emphasis added]

Funny, I haven’t read any praise of the British subjects who fought to end the slave trade and slavery or any statements on this subject, nor of the Parliament that passed the law, however contrary to British economic interests. I have also not read of anyone holding a commemoration in thanks to the Royal Navy. It was the RN that ended the Atlantic slave trade; this is simply a matter of historical record.

As is typical in this sort of thing no mention is made of the Arab slave trade. By many estimates this trade rivaled the Atlantic slave trade in numbers, albeit over a longer period of time. Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962, but don’t expect any apologies from that quarter. While Western leaders engage in moral exhibitionism and self-flagellation on a practice that had existed since the dawn of history, these same leaders ignore the ongoing slavery that still thrives in many places in the world. So while Tony Blair indulges in disgusting self-abasement actually existing slavery is ignored:

In Sudan, slavery is making a comeback as the result of a war waged over the past twelve years by the Muslim north against the Christians and Animists in the south. Sudan means "land of the blacks" in Arabic, and for centuries black Africans were abducted in Sudan as part of the Arabian slave trade. Anti-Slavery Group researchers have described a revival of a racially-based slave trade, where armed northern militias raid the southern civilian villages for slaves. Reports to the UN Commission on Human Rights have underscored the racial aspect of such practices: victims are exclusively persons belonging to the indigenous tribes of the Nuba Mountains (darker-skinned Africans). Government-armed Arab militias are known to kill the men and enslave the women and children as personal property or to march them north to be auctioned off and sold.

The question is why Western leaders such as Tony Blair are motivated by such unearned guilt. One has to wonder at the grotesque double standards in operation on the relentless attack on the history of the West. In 1998 President Clinton went to Africa in order to apologize to any and all who would listen to his revolting performance. This is the same Clinton who ignored current human rights atrocities being committed on that continent:

Dr. George B.N. Ayittey, a Ghanaian who teaches economics at American University, estimates that since the 1960s at least 5 million Africans have been killed in civil wars, purges and inter-tribal massacres, including 1 million Nigerians, 800,000 Rwandans (in a three-month period), 400,000 in Burundi since 1993, over 1 million during Angola's 20-year civil war and 800,000 in Mozambique.

According to some sources Iran has put 4,000 men to death for the “crime” of being homosexual. Don’t hold your breath for any apologies from the Mad Mullahs of that theocracy. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, we live in an age of militant, self-righteous evil and cowardly, compromising good. It is only evil that can benefit from such a state of affairs. That’s something to think about as some people continue to whine for “reparations” for crimes committed long ago, while they either ignore or abet atrocities that occur in many places around the world on a daily basis.

Crossposted at The Dougout