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Opposition arguments
"An apology is a meaningless gesture."
Britain may well have been in the wrong, but there is nothing they can do to change that now. An apology cannot undo the past.
It is nonsensical for a current government to apologise for something that happened hundreds of years ago. They had no part in it, and clearly condemned it the act. There is no need to apologise for something they were not part of.
Britain should be proud of the fact that they were the world leaders in bringing in an abolition act. The greatest gesture of regret that could ever be made was the total reversal in policy by bringing in the Abolition Act. The work of those early reformers should be celebrated – a ban was a practical benefit, not just meaningless words 200 years later.
Apologising for the abolition of the slave trade 200 years ago makes people think that slavery is now a thing of the past and draws attention away from the current slavery that still exists.
Apologising draws attention to past division and racism rather than celebrating the fact that we have moved on from that time of oppression. Wealthy black chiefs who rounded up their strongest people and sold them to the white man for a good price made African slavery possible. It needs to be a global sense of shame rather than creating more ‘them’ and ‘us’ dividing lines between black and white.
An apology could mean talking responsibility legally, and would open up the possibility of the government being sued for reparations, and the financial cost could be huge.
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