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

1. The Relative Morality Excuse.

The fact that shackles had to be used at all proves that the Relative Morality Apology for slavery is nothing but desperate hogwash.
Many people at the time knew slavery was an outrage, from the chartists back through the levellers and beyond saw the parallels and differences betwen their position and that of slaves, and abhorred both. But most of all the shackled slaves themselves, unless of course their version of morality doesn't count, in which case, the people peddling the argument that slavery was acceptable and normal at the time, and impossible to condemn retrospectively, are merely perpetuating the morality of slavery.

The sanctification of Wilberforce does more than restrict the history to the actgions of men, it also covers up the bitter struggle at the heart of the Non-Conformist abolition campaign for control of British religion.
Wilberforce was, as we know, no egalitarian. He did not believe in racial equality or even emancipation. He was a religious fundamentalist who exploited the church's dependence on slavery for propaganda purposes. His campaign was a power struggle between the fading feudalism of the high church aristocracy and the self-made aspirations of the new middle classes as much was it was concerned with any moral principle, let alone the genuine welfare or rights of the slaves themselves.
That the role of the slaves' own resistance, let alone the vital role of women should be forgotten, is not surprising given the wealth of misinformation peddled as history down the years.

The only 'PC' history of slavery is the political orthodoxy peddled for the last 200 years by every government seeking to save face. The one in which the clean white man saves the black race and makes everything better overnight. The one which gave the british nation an inflated sense of its own morality, and entrenched racism in british culture. The one which justified the Empire and all its crimes against humanity, not least those committed on the British working classes - who were the real backbone of the abolitionist cause.

The history finally emerging, amid squeals of protest and denial from the usual suspects, is not 'Politically Correct', merely correct. Or the truth, as it is more properly known.

This is a great step forward, however much it may hurt those determined to continue the whitewash.
Those who would seek to alter the past, and impose a history which has 'stopped', in which, in Orwell's famous words: "Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right." Which is, in effect what is meant by all those poisonous bleating platitudes that 'The Past is past', and that we should 'move on' and that the descendants of slaves should 'pull themselves together'. A little secret - we are all not all descedants of the Atlantic Slaves, but we are descendants the Slave trade. It damaged everyone, and created the ignorance and mean-spiritd denial so apparent on this thread.

The Party has been in control of the past for far too long. Sorry, but the cat is now out of the bag.
The current BBC4 series on Racism is essential viewing. It should surely be available soon as a download. But in the meantime, this should be interesting to the open minded.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/02_february/20/abolition.shtml