h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok, I'm English and I've got red hair - I should therefore be able to sue the Danish and Norwegian Governments for the mental cruely I've suffered due to my Great x 10E42 Grandmother being attacked by a Viking!


Sound stupid?

Yup of course it does....




Then what do you think of this one...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3578863.stm

Lloyds of London is being sued by An american lawyer on behalf of 10 plaintiffs who are saying that because their ancesters were shipped over from Africa as slaves on ships insured by Lloyds then Lloyds themselves are responsible for the "ongoing injuries these people suffer from".

One plaintiff said, "Today I suffer from the injury of not knowing who I am, having no nationality or ethnic group as a result of acts committed by these parties,"

So I presume she's about to be expelled from the US as an illegal immigrant?

What a load of c*** (to say the least) Anyone out there actually brave enough to stand up for the plaintiffs?

well that's just ridiculous! perhaps as a Polish descendent i should sue the German Government for expelling my GrandFather from his own land and forcing him to settle in England, where pollution is higher and levels of stress are higher, and taxes are higher etc etc

Sounds like some others I have heard of in the US. Going international now. The thing is things were done which should not have been done. But what has insuring the ship got to do with owt? Appart from thinking that Lloyds is damn rich and will make a very fair out of court settlement. By no means a foregone conclusion.
But wrong things were done, and people want to find some way of bring to task those who were guilty. The problem is, the people involved are dead. And which ones anyway? The slavers, the ship crew, the insurers, the market place, the government, the slaver tribes in Africa, the buyers. None of the individuals is still alive, and, even behind corporate names, it was individuals that did this.
I would feel different if it was a company that had, say, provided the entire computing power for the Third Reich. But that would still be tempered by a caution that the people employed by and with stakes in the company should not be penalised or harmed in any way for something that they had no part of.

I read this in the Metro this morning. Unfortunately I was distracted by wondering who 'Lloyd's' were.

Only the lawyers will win this one.

hey, i should sue the american government for killing my people and stealing my lands that my people originally had!! i am native american and the only thing that we get to do is open up great big casinos and take all the white mans money!! hey, i guess that we're already getting them back!!
oh well sounded good!
RB68

Who let the Romans in?

What puzzles me is why they are suing a British intuition in an American court. Wouldn't it be better to sue them in a British court?

Being cynical I would say that because the case wouldn't get past the preliminary stages. It's little more than a publicity stunt.

Besides, even if they win, they won't get any money. Lloyds is not a corporation with corporate funds. Lloyd's underwrites risk from insurance companies. The cash to underwrite those risks comes from private individuals. To successfully sue Lloyd's, you would have to sue named individuals.

Donald

What rot, my Dad was an orphan so I have no idea of my ancestry. My mothers parents rowed with their siblings and parents, so I have no idea of that side either. Its annoying, but no big deal really. They should live their life and stop being twats.

I'm suing America for allowing "Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves" to be made, which causes me ongoing stress and mental injury.

I might also sue Britney Spears for singing.

RF

hmm does that mean we can all think of wrongs and then pick companies in Rome, Thebes, Oslo etc

The US government is still the same US government that allowed it in the first place and I'm sure there are still organisations in the US that exist not because of slave labour. Maybe it's that the villian always has to be forign...

hey, good point. does everyone think that the u.s will sue anyone for anything?

that "not" in my last post should not be there

<>
I could join you in that suit, RF...

Here's a nice argument for you......

For me to have been born as "me", every single one of my ancestors right the way back had to survive to reproduce and to reproduce with the person that they did in fact reproduce with within at least one month - and possibly much sooner - of the time at which they did (otherwise a different egg would have been fertilised).

Now, the crime against humanity that was the slave trade had such an effect on its victims that it would have had an effect on who survived, who had children, with whom, and when. It's probably fair to say that anyone who is the descendent of slaves would not have been born if it wasn't for the slave trade. In other words, they owe their existence to it. So as long as their lives are worth living, then they can have no complaint. Because otherwise they wouldn't exist....

This is an example of the philosopher Derek Parfit's "non-identity problem" - the choices we make will affect which people exist...

Otto

I thought something similar to that just after i posted my first post. If it wasn't for the war, my Polish Grandad would never have met my Irish Nan and my English Grandparents probably wouldn't have met either etc etc...

I saw something about this on BBC World yesterday. It seems to be the general thought is that this won't get very far. It does seem ridiculous, should we therefore send the descendants of all the slaves back to their slave ancestor's country of origin?

I wondered about why they were suing an insurance company, but that was kind of explained on the thing I was watching. It goes like this - Lloyds agreed to underwrite the ship and its cargo. If the cargo was damaged (ie the slave got sick) in transit but got to its destination then Lloyds didn't pay out. If the cargo was lost at sea then they did pay out, so that lead to the horrible act of the slavers throwing any sick slaves overboard. It was the way that Lloyds drew up the insurance that led to these terrible acts that caused the slaves to be killed so they should be the ones to be punnished. I don't really see how the descendants of a surviving slave can sue Lloyds for the deaths of other slave who were presumably not their ancestors...

ok, I'll stand up and take the oppposing view... kind of.

I don't actually think the sueing idea is such a great one, but I do understand the sentiment. The issues are twofold:

1. It can be argued that the descendants of slaves are still disadvantaged by the past actions of slave owners etc.

2. It can be argued that the descendants of slave owners are still benefitting from past slavery.

If you don't believe these two things, have a look at Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine'

Where these 2 things are linked I think there is a case for some kind of reconciliation and possibly reparation.


Personally I think the weakness in the case linked is that it is a group of individuals. I think that because of the time lapse involved it's hard to make a case for individuals. I'm also not a fan of the US system that allows such litigation. However there is no doubt that Africanamericans as a group are still hugely disadvantaged and that in general white people as a group are benefiting from this. I have no problem with that being addressed.

I'm more familiar with these issues in terms of indigenous people's, but I think there are paralells.

For those that are opposed this idea I'd be interested to know what you think the statute of limitations should be on this kind of thing. Should the Nazi victims have received anything? What about those affected by apartheid in S.A.?


The Lloyds thing is interesting because if they did lose then it wold be individuals who would end up paying.

Even though I think sueing is not the best answer, I also have little sympathy for the kinds of big corporations that are being gone after in cases like this. If it is true that Lloyds has made sh*tloads of money out of generations of deliberately enforced suffering, then they could have got a conscience by now and addressed this. Not by giving all their money away necessarily, but by acknowledging the hugeness of their involvement.

The western capitalist system is founded on such injustice, and the problem isn't in the past, it's in the present suffering of people alive today. We also seem to be still repeating the same mistakes albeit in other forms. I think issues like this can wake us up to having to look at what is going on currently.


I wish Analiese was here (Redbone, you should check out some of her old posts unless you were being entirely facetious).

"It was the way that Lloyds drew up the insurance that led to these terrible acts that caused the slaves to be killed"

Or was it the slave traders world view that slaves were property and goods, not people, thatr lead to this? Didn't see the proggy but did it mention if this was actually standard terms?

"Should the Nazi victims have received anything? What about those affected by apartheid in S.A.?"

The difference there is that the people involved in those systems are still alive. Admittedly less and less of them as time goes on, but some nonetheless.

Also, I am not up on this area of history, but what reparations or sweetners were given to the ex-slaves in the US when slavery was abolished? Or were the slaves just turned free and left to it with no support?

As for companies, don;t forget iut wasn;t 'the company' that did this. It never is. It's people within the company who did this. And their actions and world views may have nothing in common with those currently in charge, especially after all this time. But I agree those involved should appologise for what others did under the same company name.But if you can;t get companies who profited from the Nazi concentration camps and final solution to come clean, then these people stand little chance.

Ictoan - hey, its not my logic I was paraphrasing there, I would definitely see the slaver at fault here, not the insurance company. Although I suppose you could argue that the company was complicit in the act by allowing the slaves to be viewed as 'property' just like any other cargo.

They were the standard terms that Lloyds used for all cargo ships, the problem was that they allowed people to be defined as cargo.