[yunohn]

Great Britain literally enslaved innumerable colonies. Global activism pressured them to declare their own slavery illegal, though they could’ve also just listened to the people they enslaved. And you say that the slaves should be praising their slavers for deciding to stop slaving them? Amazing.

[Veen]

They couldn't have given two-hoots for "global activism". It was the most powerful empire in the world and it made considerable money from slavery. They were pressured into it by British people, many of whom had moral objections to slavery. They didn't just "stop slaving people". They forced much of the world to "stop slaving people" too.

Furthermore, they didn't "enslave colonies". They established colonies. They conquered nations and territories. And they shipped slaves, a minority of whom were captured by British slavers, but most of whom they bought from Arab and African slavers.

[webmobdev]

> Furthermore, they didn't "enslave colonies". They established colonies.

They established two kind of colonies - one which exploited man power and natural resources, and the other was territorial and treated as a natural extension of their own kingdom (after they conquered and replaced the orginal habitants with their own citizens). All the Asian and African colonies fall into the former category where as all the "white mans land" - Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA - falls into the latter category. (I know some Americans would debate that they were in the exploitive category too, but as an indian I'd disagree).

[yunohn]

By that logic, an alternative history where Hitler committed Jewish genocide and then stopped in the middle of it and decided not to, would also be praiseworthy?

I don’t know where your argument is going, other than that hey they stopped doing this bad thing. My original comment was about how colonies got nothing in return from the colonizer. You chose to state a tangential point, that the slavers stopped slaving.

[Veen]

No, because Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust. What you are doing is equivalent to condemning Germany, the nation, including the people who had nothing to do with the Holocaust and fought against it.

Some people in the British Empire took part in the slave trade, and those people should be condemned. Some other people didn't. They fought against it and when they were in power they stopped it and expended considerable resources stopping others from doing it. Those people are praiseworthy, even though they were part of the British Empire.

[yunohn]

No, I think oddly you’re the one making that argument.

I’m saying Nazis+Hitler should be condemned, never mentioned Germany. Similarly, I said Great Britain, both the monarchy and their colonial companies and the government resulting, which is what the article talks about as well. Never mentioned the citizens that fought back shouldn’t be acknowledged.

[Veen]

But it wasn’t just ordinary citizens who fought slavery. It was Members of Parliament and the aristocracy. It was Prime Ministers and military leaders. The Royal Navy lost 5000 men fighting slavers. Their West Africa Squadron captured over a thousand slaver ships and freed hundreds of thousands of slaves. They spent a significant portion of Britain’s national income fighting slavery every year for 6 decades. No country in modern history has spent as much on a purely moral venture that was against its national self interest.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2601305?seq=1

[yunohn]

Your replies are a classic case of “moving goalposts”, which only aim to further the notion that Britain must be praised for their anti-slavery efforts. Simultaneously downplaying slavery and modern colonialism, you are pursuing this argument without acknowledging the concept that the enslaved see the world differently than their /glorious/ enslavers. Anyways, since you fail to address the original discussion, I’ll end this thread as it will gain me nothing.