BornToResistOppresion

Here is another fraudster masquerading as a politician. Why does it so often seem to be the children of immigrants who volunteer for the dirtiest political work of the far right? Imagine arguing that human trafficking is abhorrent, but that apologizing to the victims would be dangerous because they might demand compensation from their traffickers. What kind of moral bankruptcy produces such reasoning? What is the value of acknowledging a crime if you insist that its perpetrators should never be held accountable? This is precisely how these crooked recycled conservatives manipulate public opinion. They deliberately present reparations as an impending financial punishment against ordinary British taxpayers, frightening people into believing that acknowledging historical crimes will somehow bankrupt their country. Yet British taxpayers spent over a century financing compensation for slave owners rather than the enslaved. Why is Braverman not discussing the immense fortunes accumulated by sections of the British aristocracy, merchant families, financial institutions and corporations through slavery and colonial exploitation? Why is she not asking how much of that wealth has survived through inheritance, property, financial assets and institutions that continue to exist today? Why should the descendants of those who accumulated fortunes through human suffering enjoy the protection of historical continuity while the descendants of their victims are told that history is irrelevant? Reparations do not automatically mean increasing taxes on ordinary British workers. They can involve restitution of stolen assets, contributions from institutions that profited from slavery, debt cancellation, fairer trade arrangements and the return of cultural property. And the supreme absurdity is that she invokes Britain’s role in abolishing slavery as though ending a crime somehow extinguishes responsibility for having committed and profited from it. Since when does a criminal deserve compensation or moral absolution for eventually stopping the crime?