Should Britain pay reparations to former African colonies?

I presume the Quid Pro Quo is that Italy gets access to libyan oil reserves for Agip and Enil.

You cannot put a price on moral self-satisfaction.

US$5 billion compensation package involving construction projects, student grants and pensions for Libyan soldiers who served with the Italians during World War II.
Seems like just a public relations move, as the aid money will go to multinationals via those constructions projects, who will exploit the country(ala John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hit Man), and this will probably not benefit Libyans.

what is Libya's national debt like? is Gadhafi still building that insane pipeline?

Britain's equivalent colonial compensation bill (for many more countries than Italy) would probably bankrupt this island even more than it's heading for.

I think some countries probably have more reason to demand it than others (Nigeria?).

How about reparations to its former North American colonies?

Certainly comparable.

lol roxy

A nice cake and a card would do me fine. (COD not accepted.)

the british burned down the white house, just like in ID4

Is "billion" usually abbreviated with a full stop?

I noticed Al Jazeera's scrolling news text bar this afternoon and I thought Italy was rather cheaply offering a five dollar bill: "Italy agrees $5 bill reparation to Libya"

haha!

i usually see it written as "bil" with no space between it and the numeral

someone should do a Gadhafi montage with 'A Milli'

!

Seems like it would be necessary to stop (or at least make an effort to stop) our current exploitation before we can begin to apologise for our past.

the british burned down the white house, just like in ID4

-- velko, Sunday, August 31, 2008 5:44 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I thought it was a Canadian commando that burned down the White House.

that would make an awesome movie

dudley doright noooooo

dunno I saw this socialist folk singer once and he intro'd this barnburner banjo tune by saying it was "an ode to the Canadian commando that burned down the white house during the War of 1812"

British people should be paid reparations for spending all that time shouldering the white man's burden. we should at least get early retirement on medical grounds.

i'm now waiting for 5bn to be paid to Britain by the Italians for that whole Roman Empire deal. probably some other countries out there that deserve a slice of that cheddar too - that empire was big for a while, i hear.

You're retarded.

the war of 1812 never even fucking happened it was a myth begun & propogated by jacksons predidential campaign

andrew jackson is the #1 slimiest american to have cursed our soil

roxy i assume spiralli is joeks

What this thread really needs is input from Tuomas.

the "canadians burned down the white house" is supposedly not true, just british army guys, but since canada was very much a happy colony of the british empire at that point not much of a difference. don't want to take away what is probably a cherished myth up north.

fucking dumb socialist folk singer

http://www.britishreparations.org/commercial.php

i had a friend in college who wanted the British to give him back the house and land they took from his family during the persecution of Catholics.

I'm living in a former British colony that was only recently repatriated (Hong Kong) and it's tempting to blame lol Brits for a lot of this place's problems

yall really missed on mao's cultural revolution in hong kong. SO SORRY.

well my family certainly didn't miss out on it (both mother and father's sides publicly shamed, fortunes stripped, etc. etc.)

HK is a paradise, quit moaning.

Jesus, I feel a bit bad after watching that. Way to guilt trip, International Coalition for British Reparations! Sorry, entire rest of the world!

Hey, the British plead guilty but it was all a long time ago and they've made some good films since then.

i had a friend in college who wanted the British to give him back the house and land they took from his family during the persecution of Catholics.

― somewhere a poll is missing its wacky write-in vote (sarahel), 05 October 2009 04:12 (4 hours ago)

hey, have you seen the spike in land value since 1603?

i told him that it was a national landmark or something like that. he said it was the principle of the thing.

the principle and 406 year's worth of interest

he might be amenable to that.

Hey, the British plead guilty but it was all a long time ago and they've made some good films since then.

Good point, think they'll settle for some Withnail & I DVDs?

rubbish film. try again.

don't come back without a hammer horror boxset, for a starting position.

Britain should pay reparations for Withnail & I tbh.

They're only colonials, we don't want to give them the good stuff.

I guess Zulu is out of the question.

xp - is that why America had to suffer through Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones' Diary?

<3 this post

I noticed Al Jazeera's scrolling news text bar this afternoon and I thought Italy was rather cheaply offering a five dollar bill.
― StanM, Sunday, August 31, 2008 1:52 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

america has a 'special relationship' with britain, which is why they bother to make films for them using an approximately similar language.

haha bother, like they have so much other shit to do

they've gots lots to do, it's coming up on century since they had a good war with us for a start (occupied territories aside etc)

we're busy making exciting new musical genres like grindie.

surely a country that was colonised by England for EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS should get way more compo than any country that was only colonised for ten minutes.

that's certainly what i'm softening them up for.

mind you, certain thread starters on ILX still having trouble with the concept of colonial independence IMO

Colonised initially by Normans imo.

you were taken over yourselves as a going concern, man up and pay

you're welcome to my share honest, but I've got a claim pending for a couple of hundred years' worth of feudal slavery plus an ongoing "fucked over by bloated capitalist exploiters" case on the go so if y'all could hang on while that's sorted

we don't get involved in domestics, sorry that's policy.

You might want to cut out the middleman and go directly to the French, Danes and Italians.

xpost

Yeah, I heard y'all had a long noble tradition of not getting involved in domestics.

racial stereotyping is extra bucko, you should probably know that up front

we're holding the french/italian option in reserve, hence a nice strong 'yes' vote in the referendum

we're not fucking with the danes again, are you CRAZY?

you're welcome to my share honest

checked with my solicitor, apparently this alone is enough to send the bailiffs round on.

Danes a spent force nowadays imo, Kasper Schmeichel isn't a patch on his father.

not kidding, if you have a couch in any sort of resaleable condition that's roscommon covered straight away.

yeah i asked a scribe friend of mine about the danes and now he won't come down from his round tower.

We've had it the best part of 10 years and what with the kids and all I'm not sure our couch wd cover much more than say Offaly.

hell, if you can come and pick it up you can have roscommon, who am i kidding.

i've made my feelings pretty clear on this

What is the most rubbish Irish county?

lucky Spain, they have really slipped under the radar on this front

oh don't worry, once we've finished our game of bowls we'll be after them. Although they've handily avoided claims from the Aztecs and Incas.

I think it's just the mestizo thing that diminishes the clarity of resentments -- intermarry and become inextricably part of a new mixed culture and the dynamic is awfully different later.

there's a bottle opener joke somewhere in this

Should Britain pay reparations to former North American colonies?

No, because they were beaten in that war.

The Yanks haven't paid us for all that tea they threw overboard yet

let's leave the specifics alone until we come to some sort of agreement over methods of payment. cash, as always, suffices.

http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4659723/Screen_Shot_2014-06-23_at_5.07.38_PM2.png

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/24/5835320/map-in-the-whole-world-only-these-five-countries-escaped-european

i mean yea doesn't come as a surprise really but maps can highlight things in special ways

I'm disputing Ireland as Europe tbph

map needs a time frame

Ireland from before any Regan's left imo

"partial european control or influence" is a cop out. ethiopia was only controlled for a few years in the war similar to france or w/e, seems weird to bracket it in w/ mexico &c. & leave japan & thailand out entirely

would influence spheres

i'm most amazed that a tiny country like Portugal could colonize as much of the world as they did. and that they were the last of the european countries to hold out from decolonizing. there were portuguese troops in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau as late as the early 1970s!

and Macao devolved to China even later than Hong Kong did.

Not any more surprising than England imo

Jamaica's at it now! Bleedin' 'eck, everyone wants a slice of the Queen's cash!

As ever, I'm waiting on ILX's resident Trinidadian for the definitive line on this

i had a friend in college who wanted the British to give him back the house and land they took from his family during the persecution of Catholics.

― somewhere a poll is missing its wacky write-in vote (sarahel), 05 October 2009 04:12 (4 hours ago)

hey, have you seen the spike in land value since 1603?

― Brewer's Bitch (darraghmac), Monday, October 5, 2009 9:09 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i told him that it was a national landmark or something like that. he said it was the principle of the thing.

― somewhere a poll is missing its wacky write-in vote (sarahel), Monday, October 5, 2009 9:38 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the principle and 406 year's worth of interest

― Brewer's Bitch (darraghmac), Monday, October 5, 2009 9:43 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

solid effort imo

you and NV upthread gave me a chuckle

idk how they would work it out but i'm broadly in favour.

You never know with this Corbyn chap.

does anyone have a more credible pro-reparations link than http://www.britishreparations.org

Because the 50th anniversary of Stonewall is approaching, I encourage every Black and Brown trans person to demand reparations.

I, personally, demand $50,000. Plus interest.

— venus di’khadijah selenite (@venusselenite) May 6, 2019