Post by Keema's Nantoday’s Liberals can have no responsibility for; and yet they seem to turn
a blind eye to modern slavery (which they conveniently label
‘people-trafficking’ because it sounds less horrific) under their noses.
Maybe because historic slaves were mostly black, and black people have been
elevated to ‘must never be criticised’ status; whilst most modern slaves
tend to be Asian, who now rank in the ’serves them right for breeding like
rabbits’ category.
Depends how far back you want to go.
Throughout recorded history there have always been slaves of all creeds and colours.
The Roman galleys were manned by slaves who rowed alongside criminals' It was customary for conquered peoples to be carted off against their will or captured women to be turned into reluctant wives or concubines. It was accepted that people who today we would regard as POWs were mutilated to make them unfit for military service or even put to the sword.
What else was a military commander to do? Deplete his own sparse resources by feeding and guarding them? In those days armies lived of the land. There were no lines of logistics and it was the conquerors who had the first of oten already inadequate pickings.
One must at least try to see the practices of our forbears through the same eyes to make sense of the world as they did. Yes to today's socially progressed and most importantly wealthier societies slavery is an anathema to all decent people. There are alternatives, and as a system, slavery is not very efficient anyway.
However, in a society where life was cheap and death acceptable and invitable Where a sizeable minority of children never saw adulthood, where a man was old at age 40 and beggars and thieves inhabited the streets, it is quite easy to see things differently.
Yes white men did go to Africa, bought humans from their own kind and transported them across the seas ne'er to see their loved ones again so that their labour could be used to enrich others.
Today we would find that abhorrent but not so then. Some slaves would not complete the journey but neither would some of the sailor crew that carried them and together they would be put over the side together So long as sufficient numbers did to make the venture viable the practice would continue.
Moral codes would be adjusted so as to justify what to us is an evil practice. After all weren't many of these unfortunates introduce to christianity? Much more imperative then! Didn't we not engage in infrastructure projects in the countries we took by force?
We cannot go on beating ourselves up for the sins of our forebears now long dead even if the were sins from their perspective.
Sins die with their perpetrators. Their successors are innocent of them.