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Actor Benedict Cumberbatch to account for his family's slave-owning past?

Thursday, January 5th 2023 - 10:07 UTC
Full article 6 comments

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch might be called to account for his family's slaveholding ties to a sugar plantation in Barbados, it was reported. Read full article

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  • Islander1

    When is all this harping on about what happened 2-5 centuries ago? Yes it was indeed awfull and despicable- but it was a very different world back then that operated under very different standards.
    Why pick all the time on UK- which was the first European Power to Outlaw the Slave Trade- decades before some others - and USA kept it up until their civil war in the 1860s.
    Why not ask questions of several of the African Royal Families who made a fortune selling their countrymen and women off to the European Slave Traders? And the MiddleEastern Arab Slave Traders who went into central Africa just to raid and seize slaves for on sale?
    Oh- and don't forget the 5 or 6 African Continent Countries that today -2023- still allow and practice slavery in their own countries?

    Never do we hear of any mention of the British Royal Navy Crews- several thousand who died of tropical disease- often entire crews- whilst trying to patrol and stop and seize the slave ships during the 1830s - to 1860s?

    Really is about time the WOKES woke up and accepted reality and the past is past- despicable thought it was centuries ago. Apologise for what ones ancestors may have done is right, but then you move on into the real world.

    Jan 05th, 2023 - 12:22 pm - Link - Report abuse +2
  • Tænk

    I mostly agree with your above..., Mr. Timlander1...
    (Maybe 'cause we both are pinkish..., not blackish, brownish, reddish or yellowish skinned... ;-)

    - As you say..., is about time the WOKES woke up and accepted REALITY and the past is past- despicable thought it was centuries ago....

    - Let's better concentrate on the current ANGLOSPHERE nasty and porky REALITY..., like the current Ukraine Affair that has costed what...? - 200..., 300.000 lives until today...?

    - A current ANGLOSPHERE provoked conflict that some “bright minds” intend to extend even further by training some Kosovar troops to kill some Serbian troops in some windblown Isles off the Patagonian coast...

    Capisce...?

    Jan 05th, 2023 - 01:46 pm - Link - Report abuse -1
  • Brasileiro

    Two centuries ago, if my family had the money, they would have bought you to be our table foot dog.

    That's why your thought is not valid.

    Or do you think your whiteness would free you from slavery?

    Or does anyone think that two hundred years ago families came to the Isles free, happy and bouncy?

    Jan 05th, 2023 - 04:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Livepeanuts

    United Kingdom should be very proud about its record on slavery and the way it behaved with regard to the slave trade, and Cuberbatch family was obeying the law of the time so there is nothing to complain about.
    Marxists like BLM (Black Lies Marxists) using PRESENTISM try to bring the past out of context in to the present and judge it by the laws of today and even say “give me the money” because your ancestors obeyed the law! Totally childishly Absurd.
    UK was the first super power ever to put an end to slavery and it cost us money even today, the loan was paid off in 2014, we all who paid UK taxes contributed a bit.
    UK applied the budget of a country and lost thousands of men in the fight against slavers or paying to buy their freedom, no country did more to end slavery, no force did more than the Royal Navy to end slavery. The worst enemies of ending the slave trade were black and Moslem rulers!
    Some slavery survives among the blacks and the Moslems in Africa TODAY and in the Communist world in an industrial scale in China. Slavery is LEGAL in Islam!
    If Barbados wants “free money” it can get lost, should work for money if it wants money, if it wantst to fight slavery Africa and China are the places to go!

    Jan 05th, 2023 - 07:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Terence Hill

    “ANGLOSPHERE nasty and porky REALITY..., like the current Ukraine Affair”

    Did I miss something, I thought it was the illegal invasion of the Ukraine by Russia.
    But its nice to know it provokes your mawkish Anglophobic biases.

    “Comissiong last month made it clear that if they are unable to convince families like the Draxes and Cumberbatches to pay reparations of their own free will, it will seek an international arbitration court's judgment to force them.”

    The law that is applicable is the law at that time. Which means since it was legal there is no such valid claim.

    The Acquisition of Territory in International Law
    by Robert Yewdall Jennings
    ”Intertemporal Law
    The rule that the effect of an act is to be determined by the law of the time when it was done, not of the law of the time when the claim is made, is elementary and important. It is merely an aspect of the rule against retroactive laws, and to that extent may be regarded as a general principle of law “

    That’s the problem with ignorant people trying to impose twentieth values on historical situations.
    For example, a number of social scientists condemned the historical practice of executing for the crime of robbery. They mistakenly applied the modern meaning. Not realising that the historical definition was the robber had run his victim through with a sword.

    Jan 06th, 2023 - 01:39 am - Link - Report abuse -1
  • Monkeymagic

    Historical reparations?

    Great, Britain will be owed far more than it owes.

    When someone has drawn up the full set of accounts for every atrocity that one group has inflicted on another, and offset by every time another country has provided aid or assistance, we can begin. Shall we start at Mesopotamia or Ancient Egypt?

    When can I sue the descendants of Olaf the Great for the Viking raids? When can the Patagonian tribes get reparation from El Stink?

    Lots of work for full and fair reparation....

    Jan 06th, 2023 - 08:28 am - Link - Report abuse 0

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