David Farrar: Harvey vs Wilson on western culture

Simon Wilson, like many on the hard left, sees the West as basically malignant, and that its achievements were based on oppression. This is not an uncommon view from the left.

David Harvey does an excellent lengthy response to Wilson’s assertions.

Read it all, but here are some key aspects:

Ani O'Brien: Slavery - A human crime, not a British one

Rewriting History: The truth about slavery and the British Empire

You’d think from the way some people talk that the British Empire invented slavery, ran it single-handedly, and then quietly slunk away in shame. That’s the cartoon version of history pushed by activists who want every discussion of colonisation to be a morality play with Britain cast as the eternal villain. But here’s the truth they don’t want to admit: slavery has existed in every civilisation in recorded history. The British Empire’s part in it was ugly, but small compared to the vast, bloody scale of human bondage across the world and throughout history. And Britain, unlike most of the civilisations before and after it, actually ended slavery at home and in its empire.

Ani O'Brien: I am proud to be British 🇬🇧

Is it okay to be proud of one's culture?

It has become fashionable all over the world to scoff at being British.

Mention you’re proud of your British heritage, and watch the room shift uncomfortably. Say you admire the culture that gave us Shakespeare, the Magna Carta, and the Industrial Revolution, and someone will interject with “colonialism!” faster than you can say “tea and scones.” Even in Britain, of all places, the Union Jack is more likely to be associated with shame than with shared identity.

Well, I’m not ashamed.

Mike Butler: The British Empire – a force for good

The British Empire – a force for good, a new book, is a refreshing antidote to the current zeal for decolonisation, which encourages us to reimagine history as “a morality play in which white men are the baddies”.

Author John McLean, a writer and publisher, who has a MA in history and a Bachelor of Law from Victoria University in Wellington, and did Bar finals at Grays Inn in London, tells the stories of Britain’s 101 colonies established over 400 years, capturing the boldness and zeal of the pioneers who built the empire.

The story of the British Empire starts during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 29/7/23

Govt is now gunning for modern slavers – but will strong chains (or other protective measures) keep the registry secure?

Not too long after the government was hailing the launch of its gun registry, the newly created Firearms Safety Authority upset gun owners by accidentally leaking information about them.

As Stuff tells it, the email addresses of 147 firearms licence holders were sent to each other in error, after an email was sent with the recipients’ email addresses pasted into the carbon copy (cc) address field, rather than as a blind carbon copy (bcc).

Martin Hanson: Slavery - should we apologise for what our ancestors did?

“We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did.” Thomas Sowell

The toppling of statues of historical figures by Black Lives Matter has brought into focus the issue of slavery.

While nobody questions the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, slavery is presented in schools and media and as an extreme form of racism, with white people enslaving black people. This highly selective, distorted view of history has fostered a sense of guilt among European descendants of the enslavers, leading to calls for apologies and reparations.

Mike Butler: A world with 30-million slaves

There are around 30 million slaves in the world today, according to the first Global Slavery Index Report by the Walk Free Foundation. The 10 countries with the highest number of enslaved or exploited workers are: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russian Federation, Thailand, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Mauritania, with about 150,000 slaves, retains the highest proportion of enslaved people in the world, with aspects of "chattel slavery" that back to the American experience of the institution, where human beings are considered "full property of their masters who exercise total ownership over them and their descendants."