Integral to the Marxist vision of History and to variations such as Critical Race Theory, is the assumption that White Western Man, as exemplified by his many colonialist exploits, is the most malevolent force in all of history. Apparently convinced of the unassailable truth of this narrative, the brilliant Don Lemon of CNN recently interviewed “royal commentator” Hillary Fordwich, asking her if she did not think the British Royal Family, given its incredible wealth, did not owe reparations to the various peoples it had enslaved throughout the ages.
Fordwich appears to agree that reparations are perhaps in order but then utterly demolishes Lemon’s world-view by suggesting it was the various Black African rulers who sold their own people into slavery for Centuries that ought to be indited. Can you imagine any contemporary mainstream News Network or indeed University history course so much as suggesting that Blacks themselves were largely responsible for the abomination of slavery? The actual historical facts briefly referenced by Fordwich left Lemon speechless and he immediately terminated the interview.
Britain, she says, was the first nation to officially denounce the practice of slavery even as various non-white regimes throughout Asia and Africa continued to tolerate if not exploit it. Investigate her claim and you will discover that as early as 1772 a British judge had ruled in favor of a Black man suing for his freedom, declaring that slavery was “so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it.” William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, spent his life inveighing against slavery with the support of a substantial percent of the British public. His efforts led to the Slave Trade Act of 1807 which abolished the practice throughout the British West Indies and culminated in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 which, with a few exceptions, abolished it throughout the British Empire. As a result, the British navy was to patrol the coast of Africa for much of the century, rescuing thousands destined for slavery due to the greed of their own Black rulers. Approximately 2000 Brits, Fordwich tells Lemon, lost their lives in that effort. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Navy frequently joined in.
But, as the simplistic contemporary narrative goes, if America was founded upon the Principle of Freedom, why was slavery tolerated by its founding fathers and racial bigotry still a virulent aspect of U.S. society 200 years later. The answer is quite obvious. Longstanding human institutions and biases cannot simply be obliterated by fiat, however progressive the rulers of the domain in question. The Enlightenment values to which I have repeatedly referred having not yet penetrated the Western popular mind in the 16th and 17th Centuries, the age old institution of slavery was naturally incorporated into the early agrarian economy of the U.S. South. The rest of the world is doing it, the farmers there must have thought, so why not us. Yet by the end of the 18th Century most of those responsible for the U.S. Constitution and The Bill of Rights were firmly committed to the elimination of slavery within their newly formed nation. The pragmatic problem before them was that that nation would never have come into existence had they peremptorily demanded the South simply abandon the institution which was the very basis of its economy.
The history of Thomas Jefferson perhaps best exemplifies the complexities confronting those who were in fact Idealists dealing with a world not yet ready to embrace their values. Jefferson inherited slaves from his father most of which he continued to own until his death. While other practical factors were involved, self-interest would seem to have played a role in that decision. Yet his political career was rife with initiatives designed to eliminate the practice of slavery both at home and abroad. In 1807, the very year the Brits passed The Slave Trade Act, he banned international slave traders from coming to America. However imperfect their personal histories, he and the various figures responsible for the country’s founding documents worked assiduously for the abolition of slavery which was ultimately to be achieved by a civil war that would cost the nation over 600,000 lives. Astoundingly, even Lincoln has been vehemently disparaged by those unwilling to see any merit at all in the States’ imperfect yet relentless march towards social justice.
As I have said repeatedly, the brain-dead Neo-Marxist Left reduces History to the dynamics of power, dismissing the concept of an advanced, intelligent Civilization envisioned by the Ancient Greeks and the philosophers of the Enlightenment by declaring it to be just another subjective way of approaching life. Indeed to the Left, it was a false sense of the superiority of their Culture that led Western colonialists to behave abominably in their exploits around the world. But this line of “logic” conflates two entirely separate issues. The World-view which emerged from the Enlightenment is in fact superior to those espoused by most other Civilizations and the colonialists who behaved abominably were betraying the very principles and values they purported to represent. The absurdity at the heart of “progressivism” is that it denigrates the truly progressive achievements of Western Civilization because they enabled its world adventurers to succeed in their conflicts with other peoples. In the simplistic “ethos” that has come to inform our era, success is always tainted while those who have languished are always the innocent victims of oppression. Absurd!
Hence Don Lemon’ seeming ignorance of the fact that it was Black African tyrants selling their own people for profit that was a major factor in early America’s exploitation of slavery. Hence his ignorance of the fact that it was Britain and the U.S., the villains of his misguided world-view, who, more than 200 years ago, actually began the assault on this inhumane practice. Hence his refusal to acknowledge that in various regions of Asia and Africa, according to the U.N., millions continue to live in slave-like oppression.
I had two Asian-Indian professors in my university days who clearly loved the literary/philosophical tradition introduced to their homeland by its English conquerors. Their focus was the richness of the tradition they had inherited rather than the sometimes vile behavior of their rulers. I am in no way attempting to whitewash that behavior but simply asserting the unequivocal fact that Western Civilization, rather than being the worst thing ever to befall the species, entails those Principles and Values most likely to lead us to a truly civilized future. That it was Britain and America who, 200 years ago, began inveighing against the abomination of slavery while various regimes in Asia and Africa continue to indulge it in one form or another to this very day, is all ye need to know.
To the woke Left, my point of view is White Supremacism at its very worst. And so while millions are being treated as animals in many parts of the world, we in the West have been led to the ludicrous point where suggesting that Men and Women are significantly different, is somehow oppressive; suggesting the poor are in many cases the architects of their own poverty, is somehow oppressive; indeed tolerating boards of governors without a statistically appropriate number of minorities is an abomination comparable to what the Chinese Communists are presently doing to the Uyghurs!