Why is a Church group calling for £1bn to right the wrongs of slavery? - Yorkshire Post Letters

I hesitate, as a white middle-class male, to enter the debate about righting the wrongs of slavery. Not least because of a widespread assumption, mistaken in my view, that the only people entitled to talk about slavery are the people who now identify themselves as victims.

As an institution, slavery was acceptable in broad terms to most European people at the time, and is rightly regarded with total abhorrence and disgust today. But those directly affected, with the exception of those who have been subject to what is rather imprecisely defined as ‘modern slavery’, are long gone.

This, I suspect, is what is behind the Church of England’s decision to fund social initiatives rather than provide financial compensation to the actual descendants of those enslaved.

But when I read (in The Yorkshire Post, 5 March) of a campaign group - part of the Church of England itself, no less - declaring that £100m is not enough and that £1bn should be provided, I do begin to wonder about the motivation and the objectives.

After all, if slavery had never happened, we would no longer be speaking of an Afro-Caribbean heritage, but a purely African one. Where would the cultures whose people would not have been enslaved, be now? What would they have achieved?

After all, not for nothing is Africa described as the cradle of civilisation. Is it only because of slavery, that injustices exist? Where is the evidence that the social handicaps currently experienced by some but far from all of the communities affected in the past by slavery, are in fact attributable to that cause?

It seems to me that the Church itself is showing supreme arrogance by believing that it can atone for its embarrassment simply by throwing money about. And that the potential beneficiaries of that largesse are similarly showing supreme arrogance by their cries of ‘me too, more, more’.

I’m sure this thought will prove controversial. Can those who disagree, explain, equally calmly and logically, why they think I’m wrong. Because, only by intelligent debate, are we likely to reach a valid and honourable outcome.