Heated Debate: Slavery, Reparations & Colonialism with Rafe Heydel-Mankoo and Kehinde Andrews

My family from Jamaica, so I have direct heritage here.

The harm has never actually been addressed. The problem is there are no victims of British Empire slavery today. You can't have intergenerational trauma for eight generations. It's simply absurd.

Every single thing that powered industrial revolution was slavery labor. The contribution of say uh of slavery to the British economy was less than 5%. It's a distortions of white historians that just can't accept that's racist. Now that's racist. It's not racist. True. the psychosis of whiteness. It's this rosy eye view of the world where you can ignore what's happened historically. Ignore the implications which are very clear today. When Europeans came in for they weren't massively techn more technologically advanced. It's eugenics. It's a eugenics dressed up in something else. Cultural racism. Can you explain why the poorest part of the world is black and the richest part of the world is white?

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Welcome to Trigonometry Debates. The subject for today is reparations and slavery. Should Britain and other Western countries pay them? I'm delighted to be joined by former trigonometry guest and historian and broadcaster Ray Helmanu. Welcome. And I will get this your name wrong even though you corrected me and I want to get it right. Kahende Kayendi. K. See, I told you. Kayende Kendra Andrews who is Britain's first professor of black studies, academic and broadcasters. Well, welcome to you both. Really appreciate you coming. I probably don't need to say which side either of you arguing for. You're both well known in these positions. Um, I want both of you to have a chance to set your stall out. So six seven minutes each kind of. Would you like to go first?

Yeah. So yeah, thanks for being thanks for the invitation. I mean I think the key thing with this when we think about reparations for slavery is we have the frame that we're using is just wrong and there's so many because it's wrong we just get the debate wrong. So if you actually think about reparation for slavery correctly, there really is no argument against no good argument. Right? The way I'd put it is I'd use my favorite Malcolm X who says if you stick a knife in my back 9 in and pull it at 6 in, we haven't made any progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, we still haven't made any progress. You actually have to heal the wound. Now, what we think of is slavery as something that was long ago, a distant arm that happened and ended. That is clearly nonsensical. If slavery is a knife going into upbacks, um, and then abolition is probably pulling at 3 in. But on abolition, and particularly, look at Britain. On abolition, the enslaved who Britain, my family from Jamaica, so I have direct heritage here. Um the enslaved who worked for 300 years on the island with no pay in abject poverty when when slavery was abolished got zero nothing. The slave owners got the largest payer in in in British government history 100 billion is actually the number we should have equivalent 40% of income 5% of GDP at the time was given to the slave owners. So what does that do? That entrenches the wealth and that entrenches the poverty. So after slavery ends it's not like this is done and finished. Then we have to live in Jamaica on a colony slave colony still living in the same kind of conditions. There's a reason why 1865, 30 years after slavery is abolished in Jamaica, there's a massive uprising because the conditions are still terrible. Even now, go forward the 100 200 years because the wealth from slavery is still there and the poverty from slavery is still there. The harm has never actually been addressed and it's very clear to trace. So, we shouldn't think of slavery as something which happened a long time ago and therefore we should be past it because the the harm was never addressed and because it then continued with colonialism, with modern-day racism. Why did my family move here in the first place from Jamaica? It wasn't a voluntary thing. It was because they were put in deep poverty and there was no there was no society where they could get jobs. So they had had to come here. And what did they find when they came to the UK? Racism, segregation, etc., etc., etc. So if you're going to look at the black and white wealth gap in in the UK, in the Caribbean, in the world, it is impossible to not trace that directly to slavery. And actually when you think about the arguments of slave uh reparations of slavery which have come from Caribbean countries which have come from American countries which have come from Africa as well another massive misconception here is that Africa doesn't have benefited from slavery. This is completely ridiculous. Africa was destroyed by slavery. Africa's economy was ruined by slavery to the point where in 1999 um there was a Pacific claim from the African continent for $777 trillion dollars to repay the damage in the Caribbean and the damage to Africa. There is no way to explain why black black people today um are at you look at most statistics are at the bottom of the economic poll uh look at statistics around life expectancy at the bottom of that look at and then look at why the poor richest part of the world is is the west where the white people live is is the richest that's directly down to slavery. So if there is literally no doubt that there is a debt owed a large debt that is owed and really reparations usually fall down on how do you do it like what's the practicality of paying reparations which is a different question but on the principle of should there be reparations there really like I said there's no actual good argument there's just a lot of obsiscation what about and mis completely misunderstanding the debate like I said the knife is very difficult to argue the knife is more than 6 in out of the back of black people since slavery if you look global economy today. So until it's out and until the wound is healed, reparations have to be due.

Since you haven't used all your time, can I just ask one followup before Rafe jumps in which is about the practicality of this, which is you say it's a separate issue, but do you have some thoughts on how it might actually be done? Cuz for a lot of people, I think that's actually quite a big question. They might instinctively agree with the idea that clearly some something is owed, but without knowing what the route of doing that is, and that might be the the obstacle for them.

Yes. So I mean I actually I think the worst way to do it would be individual reparations. So like I don't need slave own slave reparations. But look actually no the one bearer I do want my own individual slave uh reparations would be um the the British government took this loan out to pay for uh the slave owner slave owner reparations that was so large it wasn't paid back until 2014. Which means myself, my family, all my family descended from the enslaved actually paid slave owner compensation. I do want that money back. I think that should be an individual payment. I I'll have that money back. But generally speaking, it's about you would set up a fund in the UK and America, you would for the the for the support development of black people. If you look at the caraccom countries, they're asking for two nation states rather than two individuals. I'm not always a big fan of the Caribbean nation states and how they manage their money. I'll be honest, but certainly not individual. It is about how do you how do you set up some kind of fund that can be used to develop black community because this is the problem because of this economic damage that was done and hasn't ever been restored. This is why we're behind in the world. And so you have to have some mechanism, some fund, some tool, some way that can um that we can use the money to address that and to address that balance.

Ra, well thanks for having me and thanks for having this discussion. Uh just to correct you a bit Kahindi, you and your mother or grandmother weren't paying any money. Uh this is a quite an often quoted uh aspect about payment of reparation that it didn't end until 2014, the repayment of the loan. And it's quite you can't it's not your fault. There was a tweet put out by the Treasury which was extremely ill advised and mistaken. What happened was that the the slave owner's debt was actually repaid somewhere between 1835 and 1927. And the confusion arises because the way in which Britain financed its debt. It was using undated guilts. And before 1927, we don't actually have any idea or any record of when those guilts were redeemed. So they was it was probably paid off before 1927. Uh what happened was in 2015 uh the British government modernized its guilt portfolios and redeemed all of its undated guilts. And so therefore they could confirm categorically well it must have been paid by this point because we've covered everything prior to that but actually was at least 100 years older. So I'm afraid that reparations check won't be coming uh over to you.

I hear it from my great grand she definitely plays. Um, but anyway uh oh one yeah and you mentioned you mentioned Malcolm X also and and and the wound. Well it reminds me of uh Nichch's uh genealogy on morality where he spoke about people who claw at a healed wound and when it bleeds and is painful then moan about the pain. And I would argue that slavery is a healed wound in in the west in Britain and the west and essentially we are clawing at a wound that we don't need to claw at any longer and I think the British people understand that. So for example all polling shows that the vast majority of the British public are overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of reparations and they understand you know that the abolition of the slave trade happened more than 200 years ago and Britain was the leading force in the abolition of the slave trade. Uh reparations is a matter of tort law and the whole concept of tort law is to put the victim back into the position they were in before the damage was caused. The problem is there are no victims of British Empire slavery today. We're talking about uh five between five and eight generations ago. Um I would also say that uh for many people well certainly I would hope would understand that for many on the left this issue isn't actually about slavery at all. We talk about reparations and slavery, but quite often for the left, this is actually a weapon with which to attack and undermine Britain and America, and it's rooted in a deep hatred of the West more broadly. In terms of Caribbean politicians, I would say two things. Firstly, it's clearly an avaricious cash grab to uh try to profit and capitalize and exploit uh naive Western guilt. I would also say that it's an attempt to uh deflect attention away from the corruption and the catastrophic mismanagement of the economies of the institutions and the infrastructures of the Caribbean nations by corrupt and uh incompetent and substandard Caribbean politicians. Um, now I am confident in saying all of that because if this were really about slavery, then the people who are most vocal about the plight of black people and the the plight of slavery would surely be just as vocal, I would say even more vocal about the far more pressing issue, which is the plight of modern slaves today. The International Labor Organization says that seven in every 1,000 Africans today is a slave. That's 10 million people today living horrific lives. To put that into context, in the 300, it took 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade to transport 10 million people. And that's a number uh that we have today. It seems to me quite clear that what is more important looking uh speaking out and drawing attention to the plight of 10 million slaves, drawing attention to the Arab slave trade which continues to this day where Africans are still shipped to the Middle East as slaves. Is that more important or is harking back to historical injustices from 200 years ago? I would say that is the key moral question to which there is only one answer. And yet all the people that I've spoken to and debated on this subject who have been very vocal and write lots of articles about slavery, not once did they address the issue of modern slavery in the plight of black slaves today. And not once did they speak about historical slavery in the context of the non-white actors. The af you there were more Africans held in bondage by other Africans than were ever transported outside of the uh outside of Africa. So I think those are the crucial ways to to look at it. And I think therefore you can say that there is an ulterior motive motive here which is politically and ideologically motivated. But to go and look at look at the history of this uh few things to say. Firstly, of course slavery was an abomination. What happened to 19th century slaves was utterly horrific and reprehensible and if they were alive they would be absolutely deserving of reparations. But I cannot see the connection whereby their great great great great great grandchild is a victim. They're clearly not a victim. On the contrary, the lives of the descendants of slaves today in Britain and the Caribbean is incalculably better than if their ancestors had never left West Africa. Uh secondly, Britain has more than paid its debt uh for for slavery. You know, slavery was universal, but Britain was the first country to make itself deliberately poorer, to pursue a moral good, the abolition of the slave trade, expending vast sums in men, in money, in in resources, to enforce an end to the slave trade on the high seas, but also to go into Africa and stop Africans enslaving other Africans. I would also say that actually a form of reparations has already been paid. You know, the black slave descendants are not the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean islands. With independence, they became the legal owners and the rulers of territory they never previously owned. That's a form of reparations. And also, they inherited all the thing the great things that the British Empire created at great expense. Roads, schools, hospitals, power stations, and infrastructure. the police, the civil service, the army, uh the judiciary, uh parliament, democracy and the rule of law, the English language, all the things that were necessary to make sure that the Caribbean countries could become successful middle- inome countries, far richer than their their African comrades. Anyway, that's my opening piece.

Well, I heard a lot of sighing from this side, but before you get into it, may I just ask one follow up with you, Ra, as well, which is, can you really say with a straight face that there are no victims of slavery today? I mean, you you go to America, you travel around British Empire slavery, I say, okay, but but but that's exactly what I'm saying. So if you go to America and you look at the some of the ghettos in the cities in the United States and the way that people live there, is it really so hard to trace that back to a history of real horrific racism legislation that prevented black people from living the same way that their white fellow citizens were and then of course being transported there and used as slave labor without being paid. Wouldn't all those things across generations have exactly the sort of impact that we now see on the ground?

So two things. Firstly, I'm not talking about the American experience. I think racism is a massive issue in America to a degree we don't know or understand in this country here. Race is a huge divide in the United States, which it never was here. I mean, for example, you know, if you look uh from the from the 19th century onwards at black Americans who came to the UK, they were amazed at the warm reception they they received. Look at people like Howling Wolf, Great Blues, Otus Reading, and others who were housed by white people in houses. The experience of of black people in this country was wholly different but they were brought to America by the British Empire. So, so, so, so, so, well, no, the it was the Americans who brought them to, to America, remember? Um, but also let's select that's one point, but secondly, you know, if you look at the decline and and great deal of the poverty that's afflicted uh American black people, it has resulted basically from the destruction of the family post 1960s. That's when you saw a huge massive decline in the security and prosperity of so many families. You look at the decline, you look at the decline of Harlem in the 1920s and all sorts of things on that levels. But I'm not here to debate them the American situation. What I will say, if you're going to talk about intergenerational trauma, we're talking about eight generations in this country, right? 200 years. A generation is 25 years. That's your great great great great grandchildren. My own grandparents had experiences not different to slavery. They were they were uh deported to Siberia by Joseph Stalin. They were poles. They had all their lands confiscated. They ended up going in cattle tracks where they couldn't sit down. Going to the gouags in Siberia and Kazakhstan. My great-grandmother who was blind in her 80s died died there. Others were worked to death. I had the communists murder my family in the Katin massacre. The Nazis murdered my Polish Catholic family uh as well at Avitz and elsewhere. That's within the lifetime of my mother. You could argue that my mother had a bad experience about it all. I'm the grandchild. I don't feel like I'm a victim. I don't experience intergenerational trauma. Fundamentally affected my lives. We lost all of our properties and estates in Poland and I'm living in a very different lifestyle. But I don't feel that I'm a victim anyway. And that's within one generation. That's why I support reparations uh within one or two generations. I think it was right for the Germans to pay reparations to Poland. I think it was right and to the Jews. I think it was right for Japan to pay reparations. But not when we're talking about eight generations. There comes a point where you need to stop playing the victim. And unfortunately that's what that's why I talk about nature and chlor and clawing at a at a wound that's healed. Uh the more you talk about the fact that we are in this position because of other people. We need to actually uh depend on other people for handouts and begging the less you take away your agency and the idea of personal responsibility. And I think a lot of this the trauma that's being talked about has been festered by this constant negativity and focus. Whereas if you look at places like Singapore for example also a backwards colony where they essentially turned it things around created a great industry. We talk about India being an oppressed uh colonized state. They managed to turn things around super well. Poland went 150th poorest richest country in the world to turn things around. So great. Well, we can we can debate India on another occasion because we can have an equally long debate about that. So I think the time comes when you have to start looking within your own community. What is it within our community that is stopping us from progressing and succeeding rather than looking elsewhere? Why why do we have a youth culture that celebrates violence and misogyny and homophobia and that's openly supported? Why do we have single parent families where the fathers aren't involved? No, slavery was explained to but look at those reasons and and why why do AfroCaribbean families not encourage their children enough in education to the same degree that you see with Chinese and Indian and Indian truth.

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I mean, like I said at the start, there's no good arguments. All we've heard here is what what what a bad is complete nonsensical. Like if so, if we just if it was right to give, as far as I understand your argument, it would have been correct to give reparations in 1838. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. So that didn't happen. And because that didn't happen, there is a consequence that the poverty is still there and the wealth is still there. So how can you possibly hold the argument in your head that if it was right to do it and you don't do it, then there's no consequences for not doing it. I mean that's simple. Take you're talking about I don't race doesn't exist here. I'm sorry. Jama like I've heard it very far before about this and tends to focus on Jamaican on Caribbean countries like Barbados, Antigga, small countries, small islands which have had been able to manage colonism a little bit better. Right? Jamaica has a population that is bigger than Barbados, Santgo, most of the Caribbean put together. There are ghettos in Jamaica. The make American ghettos look like like like literally friendly. None of us would walk through them today. And that you can and as you said, we wouldn't even be there. There should be no black people in Jamaica at all. Yeah. 80% of 80 to 90% of the population live there. And most of them live in conditions of poverty that we wouldn't accept. So no, the Caribbean isn't this great wonderful place that people live in. It's all wonderful to be in. Compare the audacity to suggest that because Jamaica is somewhat doing better than the African countries, therefore you are lucky to be in Jamaica. Well, that's nonsense. And again, as I said before, one of the biggest because I don't understand what worry for saying is these people are better off and I'm not saying I mean are they relatively better off? Yes. But again, this is the this is the biggest misconception about slavery is that slavery when we talk about reparations, we're just talking about the descendants of the enslaved. Africa did not benefit from slavery. Africa was devastated by slavery. Slavery utterly destroyed the economy of the African continent. When Europe came into Africa, Europe couldn't colonize like it was not possible. Europe Africa was ahead of Europe. It is centuries of slavery drawing out people, changing the economy. That means that Africa becomes diluted if you like, weakened to the point where in the 19th century uh European countries can take over. There's a reason why most African countries are colonized for less than 100 years. Europe just wasn't able to do it. Slavery completely destroyed the continent which is why there was a claim in 1999 for 777 trillion. So if I was going to explain why is Niger why is the life expectancy in Nigeria 54? Why is the poorest part of the world by GDP per capita so-called subsahar in Africa? It's not coincidental that that is the place the enslaves were taken from. That is the reason for it. So yes, we might be slightly better off in the Caribbean um than than they are in Africa. But both both of those things are about slavery and there's both a harm that needs to be repaired. The other thing I I'll send you my book, New Age of Empire. I am someone who talked deeply about the Islamic slave trade. Of course, the Islamic slave trade. In fact, without the Islamic slave trade, there probably is no European slave trade. Well, Europe doesn't really have new ideas and just tend to copy other ideas. So, the Islamic slave trade was horrendous. Had a massive impact. But the key difference, and this is why the reparations claim is so important, is in the Arab slave trade, um, the it was predominantly about uh servants. So it's mostly women. It was mostly about servants. It was mostly they wasn't wealth producing. Right? There the money in the Arab slave trade was the traders. There's actually stories of Arab slave traders who have so much money and they have nowhere to spend it. So what claim can I make to to a system that does didn't produce money? The difference no but didn't produce produce wealth for the traders but it didn't produce society. The difference between the major difference between well, there's two major differences why again we should never never never ever think that modern day so-called slavery is the same as shadow slavery. It is not. Shadow slavery is a reduction of someone to a horse a cow a and in English law by the way not American law and for 150 years the people was the British Empire taking people to America but the um, there's no comparison of modern day slavery. It's a bad thing. Don't get me wrong. We shouldn't even call it slavery. The difference between the Arab slave trade and the and the um I'm not sure modern day slaves will feel the same way about you. No words trivializing the horror for for one modern day slavery is illegal. It's a crime. Slavery was not it was it was the thing that we all did. No no you can't you can't compare the two. You're not you're not shadow or you're not you're not you're not literally legally defi legally defined as non-human which is what my ancestors were legally defined as a horse and a cow by the English courts which is why America then carried on slavery by the way anyway my point is the difference between the Arab slave trade which didn't build Arabic society was mostly I said mostly servants is terrible I'm not saying Arab slave trade was great it was horrendous but European slavery it turned us into commodities and it powered the industrial revolution I've heard you argue before this isn't true every single thing that powers the industrial revolution. First it's gold, then it's silver, then it's tobacco, then it's indigo, then it's cotton. Every single thing that powered in this revolution was slaves at labor. Name which one of those things did not come from? Which one of those things did not come? We need to very long answers which are making let's stick on this. Let's stick on this. Which one of those five standing things did not revolution the industrial re if you look at the the top five? So the arguments that have been made by you and by professor Beckles are that the industrial revolution was caused by profits from the slave trade that it was caused by profits from the sugar industry and that it's under it's underinvestment and underdevelopment by cotton in the empire. That that that's right cotton was not a British Caribbean commodity that was from America. That wasn't part Yeah. But that was not part of that's not part of the reparations argument. It should be No, it should be. It's a bad argument, is it? So look so there why what gets me is people on the left always look for a bad reason behind any excellence on part of the west it couldn't be because of British genius or because of situations and circumstances in this country that we got the industrial revolution there has to be a nefarious cause of any great western achievement the industrial revolution happened because firstly you had the agricultural revolution in the 17th century which led to a surplus of labor which meant you had an excess labor force that was then available ble to go in to industry. You had abundant natural resources where you could literally pick up coal off the ground and you had iron resources. You had innovation and technology which was far in far in excess of what else happened elsewhere. And the reason you had such engineering and innovation technology if you read Joseph, Professor Joseph Hinrich from Harvard University's book which we discussed on your show on on the weirdest minds in the world, the weird weirdest people in the world, the western mind by the 18th and 19th century was fundamentally different in how it viewed the world to the accidental mind. just doing racism. We're actually just going to say racism is better. Why is that racist different? Come on. Come on. Fundamentally different. I said well different and then it leads to great wealth. That means you're saying better. That's a racist fundamentally different rac and medicine discoveries that came out of Europe versus the rest of the world. If you'd like we can take a science to finish the points here. We also had in Britain we had institutional stability which you didn't have elsewhere especially in Europe at this time as well. So we had political stability. We had the environment that was able to become conducive to the industrial revolutionary. We also had the financial markets which were unparalleled elsewhere. We had the point we had we had the structures through through the stock market where you could actually create these sorts of situations. Uh and so yes of course we had trade routes and we had access to raw materials but you cannot deny you. No. Well, if you look from 179, you got to let them finish. 1798 to 1802 was the 5-year period which saw the most slave ships. All right. During if you look at and if you look at 1792, for example, the peak year for slavery, there were 204 slave ships. British total vessels were 14,000. Slavery accounted for 1.5% of the total British fleet. Uh 3% of tonnage. the contribution of say uh of of slavery to the British economy was less than 5%. It made certain people very rich. That's why you get some great country houses. It made places like Bristol and Liverpool very rich. But the amount of money we're talking about is so small that it didn't have any consequential effect on the on the on the British nation as a whole. If you look at the sugar industry, which is is claimed it was fundamental for the for the industrial revolution, that amounted to 2.5% of net British national income. Coal uh sheep farming, woolen industry, iron were all much higher than that. In 1770, which was the peak year for capital formation for sugar, it only accounted for 3% of capital formation. If sugar was such a hot commodity, such a great investment, you would have had money pouring into it from all other industries, you didn't get that. In fact, if you look at flax and linen from Scotland and Ireland, they became much more of a revenue generator for the British economy, far higher than sugar. Nobody has said that without flax and linen you wouldn't have had the industrial revolution. In fact, the contribution of sugar to the British economy was the same as barley and hops from which you make beer. And I don't recall anyone saying that beer was fundamental for the industrial revolution. Now, let me stick on No, let's stick let's stick on the the topic that we're on. Again, this is what there's a quote this distortions of white historians that just can't accept that's racist. implying that a white historian is incapable of approaching a subject from an impartial perspective which means that you must have an equally biased perspective as a black look at the history of white historians which you're paring right now and it will tell you the truth it's not it's me looking at it and going well I remember I was in A level history I did this I did industrial revolution and a level history got an A because I wrote a paper that said white people are great that's basically the argument that you just made and when I asked my teacher I said what about slavery which at the time I didn't really know much about I was like who knows what happened at the same time is it a coincidence His response was um that's not in the textbook. Let's never talk about it again. And this is the classic nonsense you get from historians like this. How could you possibly say no? Let me let me finish. Let me finish. You talk about the we had financial stability. Talk about the stock market. Gold and silver are the first two things which are so important to European development. Where did gold and silver come from? I don't remember there being any gold and silver just lying around Europe. No, no historian worth their salt would say that what they tend to what how they tend to whitewash is this is they call it the Atlantic system. Going over to the west finding the Americas, no historian worth their salt would not say that that is the fundamental turning point of Western development. It would be un it'd be impossible not to unless you unless you're just going to close your eyes and go no no no D and say it's just things in Europe. Like I said the key commodities not just sugar. I didn't just list sugar. I told you gold, silver, tobacco, indigo, sugar, and cotton. And no, you can't forget cottonless cuz it's American slave produced. Oh, no, no, wait. This is important cuz it's not just Bristol and Liverpool, whole cities that really wouldn't exist. Manchester doesn't exist unless there's a there's a canal that goes from Liverpool to Manchester. It brings all this slave produced cotton. Birmingham, where I'm from, the guns for slavery, the chains for slavery. The whole economy is underpinned by this. You can't just take off the Atlantic system and say it doesn't matter because there weren't that many slave ships. That's again no good arguments. All we're getting is well let's let's discount let's forget a bail let's not let's and if and if and if if your if what you're saying is true why would the British government give the biggest bailout it's ever given cuz the only comparable bailout is to the banks but that was apparently alone right we got that back there's no comparison to the 100 billion 40% of 40% of the government's 40% comparison what you're saying this no it's not because no you asked a question so now you let you said why would they do 40% and that's not you you know that's the truth 40% of government income to bail out slave owners if it wasn't a big deal. So firstly, it wasn't the biggest loan ever given. There was much more money loan. No, it wasn't a loan at all. Hold on. You're right. It wasn't it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't the biggest payment ever given. There was far more done in a single year of the Napoleonic war than it was done. And same thing with the Crimean. The other point to make is of course this is an issue of real politique, right? We don't live in an idealist world. We have to deal with reality on the ground. The House of Commons was not the full functioning democracy it is today. If there was any hope of securing freedom for the slaves, they it had to be done through payment. There was no other means for the British state to get it through parliament. Look, this was if it was a moral I'm not sure if you're aware of rotten bars and how parliament if it's a moral issue wasn't yes sometimes you have abolition but you still have unfortunately corruption in the in the 18th and 19th centuries you still had a degree of corruption in the British parliament still far less than anywhere else but it was still enough there that you had to essentially ensure that people were paid for it is not pleasant but that was the only way so what would you rather done no money would have been paid and the slaves would have remained in bond bondage for the foreseeable future until enough before the abolitionist movement was strong enough to actually convey everybody that needed to be that needed to be done. But the other arguments are so nonsensical. Let me let me address them. For example, by your argument, Portugal and Spain should have been the first countries to industrialize. Spain was getting all of the gold. Portugal had double the number of slaves of Great Britain. Yet, they became economic backwaters. Why was that? France had seven times the amount of coffee. It had 17 times the amount of sugar exported and of indigo exported. So indigo, cotton, uh sugar, far more than Britain Britain got from the Caribbean slave from Caribbean slaves. They weren't the first to industrialize. It was Britain that was the first to industrialize. And as a share of the Portuguese economy, the the Brazilian Portuguese slave trade was far more lucrative for the Portuguese economy from the British economy. They didn't industrialize. Look at the United States of America, the deep south, which was the slave owning states. They didn't industrialize. It was the emancipated north of this of the country that was the first to industrialize. Now, look at all that look at all those examples. And don't get sidetracked here. We're talking about Spain, France, Portugal, all of this. How come how come how come those countries didn't become the first to industrialize when I've clearly given you the real reasons of the agrarian revolution, the political stability, and the glorious institutions of Britain? So for one look unlike you I won't say that there aren't other things which are important. So I'm not saying there aren't other things. Like I said I did a level history. I could can give you a list of other things which are important but it is impossible to discount the how much that slavery meant and the fact that Portugal and Spain don't they do a they do develop. They don't develop at the same pace. So if you're going to compare it's interesting now you don't want to compare compare Portugal and France's economy to Africa and the Caribbean's economy. You'd say there's a massive difference. So yes, I'm not saying look just slavery is the only reason why Britain became Britain had the largest empire in the world. Britain had naval supremacy. There's lots of reasons why Britain developed which but the point is you can't discount slavery and the massive impact that it had and you also can't discount the wealth that very clearly is traceable and exists today from that and the poverty that is very clearly and traceable today. And so reparation is simply saying look there's a debt that was owed then which you actually accept in your argument and was never paid hence it should be paid. I mean it's like I said no good argument. in agreement because I'm not discounting the contribution of slavery. What I'm saying is it's not massive as you are making out. You are saying that it was a massive involvement. It was a precursor cities exist. It was it was a precondition. It was not a major contribution. It was as I said 3% of the national income akin to book to to Harley and to barley and hops. That's my point. It is not. And of course and you and the the people that I've seen you quote before, Beckles and so forth, they predicate the entire thing on the value of the slave trade and on the value of of sugar as being essential. And I'm saying that those are those are Marxist interpretations and later historians David Elton, Stanley Eggerton have all have all disproved it. We at the risk of losing the entire audience with our descent into academia, interesting as it is from both of you and I really appreciate it. But just coming back to sort of the the more practical level uh one question I always had and this is a genuine question right so if I'm totally wrong please correct me but as far as I understand it was so dangerous for European purchases of slaves in Africa to go ashore that almost the entirety of the slaves who were bought in Africa were sold by Africans and that's always to those people who are aware of that which is actually not that many people that's always kind of to me well even if we were to pay like who who should be shouldn't be the people who sold and captured those slaves be paying reparations do do you see what I'm getting at no I don't actually this is again a terrible terrible argument I'm just I'm just genuinely asking because there were Jewish collaborators in the Holocaust does that mean that we should blame Jewish people like it's just a silly argument hold on hold on% if we're going to say no we should go but that's that's not a fair comparison if if the Holocaust had been conducted by the Jews that would a very different conversation but slavery wasn't conducted by Africans they made well they sold all the slaves so it was they captured themselves people well no a again there's a huge difference between slavery so called no it's not no no no I think it's we have definition is really really important what Europe did was a new thing it was not yes it was Seattle slavery slave tree they were involved in mining in agriculture in irrigation they also plantations slavery they also had rights in you're lying to the public though they were they were they were the bilo the person who does the first call for prayer in the in the Quran is an enslaved African they had rights you could become free and in African slavery in terms of what you're talking about what was actually just said was African you Africans had slave African slavery was much more like surfom where you were part of the family you had freedom at a certain time it's actually much more comparable to surfom than it is to shadow slavery shadow slavery is dehumanizing it is literally the taking away of every single right and it's quite likely that the people who sold who didn't actually know what they were doing cuz remember African slavery doesn't actually take is mostly on a continent. They go far away. You're ignoring all the slaves who died being kidnapped and transported to the coast. The point here is of course there is there was huge there was huge rebellions. So yes, there were some Africans 100% who were complicit who there were whole kingdoms that essentially grew out of the idea of we trade enslaved people. But this was because of the conditions that were imposed. Right? I'm not it's not I'm not say they're not blameless. You're not hearing me say they're blameless. But again the if you look at the calculations for reparations they are based largely not on harm. They are based largely on paid labor and the welfare which is there. So there's nobody in Africa who benefited from today. Just so I understand. So your argument is is actually the reparations are owed because the slaves that were taken from Africa by European nations. They were used to produce things and therefore their descendants are owed effectively a chunk of that wealth that was produced using their labor. That's your argument. And plus again and I want to stress here Africa Africa overall yes you can find the minimum I mean there were very like in terms of the population of Africa how many were involved in trading people it that is a minuscule number that is not that was that is a minuscule number. So the the actual impact of slavery in Africa was to impoverish Africa. So I am saying that the basis of reparations claims are one the unpaid labor which is very very simple this hundred years of paid labor two the wealth that was accumulated and the damage that was done economically which is still there you can still see today which is why you don't go to the Arab slave trade you don't go to the few Africans who had where is on that is that not a fair point if we could find some way I know it's probably p the practicalities of this are difficult admittedly but if we could find some way to go well look your great great great-grandfather wasn't slave taken from Africa used as a as a laborer, that labor produced x amount of wealth and we are now, you know, we've developed this magical system to trace that back and to be able to give you x% of his labor. Would that not be a good thing to do? No, not at all. Because you you're talking about sums that are far smaller than what you're

What you're discussing here. Uh, but also, of course, there is no, you know, don't have such a rosy colored picture of what it was like in Africa for slaves. You know, just, just in the, in the kingdom of Deomi, you had annual sacrifices where you had up to 4,000 slaves murdered in human sacrifice rituals that were done there.

What about any? Not at all. You talk about the Islamics. No, but you're trying to paint this picture that somehow slavery, there are different gradations of slavery. Uh, in the Islamic slave trade, you had millions of, of young boys were captured. 60% of those millions of young boys died because they were castrated brutally without anesthetic, of course, and died from that. This idea that somehow they were walking about drinking mint mint tulips or whatever.

Nobody said it. Yes, you did. Actually, I said it was different. I didn't say it was good. To be clear, what I said. I said it was different. I realize that that is what you said. But, but if you're going to create your formula, then who's going to pay for this? Out of a population of, uh, millions of people. There were only a few thousand slave owners. The majority of British people in this country descend from people who lived lives of abject poverty akin to surfdom. Why should their tax money go to paying reparations? You know, over 16% of this country is now foreign born. Why should somebody from who was born in Malaysia or Korea pay reparations? What about Jamaicans living here now? Why should they pay tax money to people in Trinidad for, for reparations? I mean, the, the whole, the whole idea is absurd. As I say, you can't have intergenerational trauma for eight generations. It's simply absurd. You need to take responsibility. And, of course, look to the great success stories of Africa in the past. Look, for example, you know, there are reasons for Africa's poverty right now and it's co, it's, it's corruption. It's a failure to manage the economy well. The two, there are only two countries in Africa which are success stories that rank in the top tier of the human development index. That's Mauritius and the Seychelles. Why is that? Because they've got good government, good democracy. They have institutions that are respected and well supported, and they've allowed immigration into the country. So there are lots of Indians in the economy who are helping the economy. Contrast that to what happened to South Africa. Contrast that to what happened with Zimbabwe. So why is it in Africa with, with the white minority rule in Africa? With Zimbabwe. Look, look at the economies. As soon as you, as soon as you turf out one group of, Oh, black people in Africa is a solution. Black actual racist ideas coming out. Are you denying you Africans? Africa is the wise? What happened to Uganda after the Asian Indians of the Asian Uganda? What happened to, what happened to South Africa? To South Africa in recent years? What's happened to Zimbabwe? A South Africa again, just be, let's not lie. South Africa is not kicking people out. That's not what's happening at all. South Africa is actually still under the control of most of the same African. Let's not, let's not lie. The corruption I'm talking where does the corruption come from? I'm sorry, in the Congo, and you talk about Africa, for example. You know, the life expectancy in Africa, you said it is 60. It doubled because of, of the arrival of the Europeans in the country. Life expectancy for thousands of years had been 24 to 35, up to, up to 18, up to the 1850s, 1860s. It was the same in 1850 as in 1550 as in 1450 since the, since Europeans arrived because of medicine, vaccinations, antibiotics, clean water, sanitation, life expectancy doubled. And the Caribbean was a beneficiary of far more of that. Life expectancy in the Caribbean is up to 15 years longer than in West Africa. The GDP is over 10 times higher. That's because of the inheritance that they got from the British Empire.

But that is, I mean, can I just be really, really clear on this? I think one of the things which gets lost also with reparation for slavery campaigns is the good ones are not just about slavery. It actually says so. America, for example, has a whole slavery campaign, reparations campaign, which recognizes slavery, recognizes Jim Crow, recognizes everything else. As I said, the knife wasn't pulled out. So when you're looking at someone like Africa, slavery happens, then colonialism happens. So col, Africa is literally underdeveloped by Europe. So, anything you say about whether life was bad, it was done. It was underdeveloped.

No, hold on. No, but I want to let you talk for a long time. This is just a definition I'd love to get from you because it's a word we hear a lot now. Colonialism. What does that mean? What is colonialism? So, colonialism is when one country or entity controls another one for its own benefit. And so, Jamaica is a colony from of Britain from what 1655. Everything, everything that happens in Jamaica is, you could still argue today, because we now have neo-colonialism, but colonialism, everything happens in Jamaica, everything happens in Nigeria when it's colonized, it is to the benefit of Britain. And so, therefore, places are underdeveloped. So the truth is, we have no idea what would happen if Europe hadn't come into Africa, did the slave trade, the colonialism. We have no idea what happened. Is Ethiopia and Liberia? Ethiopia and Liberia were never colonized. They were independent. They were independent. They were independent nations. And I'm sorry, but Ethiopia and Liberia still remain in the lowest tier of developed countries in Africa. It's my, it's my mistake. I shouldn't have brought Rafe in. I apologize. You carry on. Liberia is actually made up by America. So, let's not pretend that Liberia has it long history. Ethiopia is the perfect example of being a country surrounded by other colonial countries. So, Ethiopia may well not have been, may well have been independent, but a country can't by itself develop if it's surrounded by, it's basically a colony. And actually, Ethiopia is of the, in terms of what we call neo-colonialism there, which is after formal colonialism ends. Yes, you have governments, but they are puppet governments, in fact, many times installed by the West. And that's where the corruption actually comes from, not us, from puppet governments. And you cannot, I mean, that would be just a lie to pretend that's not the not the case. For example, in the Congo, Joseph Mobutu is literally installed by the CIA and puppets and then literally destroys the country. And he comes to England, comes to England, comes to America, flies around in private jets and steals billions upon billions upon billions with the consent of both the USA and the United Kingdom and Europe, etc. So the neo-colonialism is when is when we have that, that it continues. So I'd argue actually Ethiopia is one of the worst countries for neo-colonialism because it was surrounded by everywhere else. So the point is, don't just look at slavery as separate. Look at that history and tell me anywhere on this line from slavery to colonialism to neo-colonialism or racism, where has this debt that you say and acknowledge should have been paid, where has it been paid? And not only has it not been paid, more things have been piled onto it. Third world debt, for example, piled onto it. All of these things piled onto it. So we actually have a position where it's far worse than just slavery. It's slavery, colonialism, and where we are today because it just piles up, piles up, piles up, piles up. And to pretend that it doesn't, that's what I call psychosis. The psychosis of whiteness. There is you rosy view of the world where you can ignore what's happened historically. Ignore the implications which are very clear today. I know I've got a question for. So I'm, my argument is very clear. White supremacy is what defines the global economy has done since this very clear argument. If you look at a map of, um, global inequality today, GDP per capita, it will show you that the poorest part of the world is where black people live, so-called sub-Saharan Africa. The richest part of the world is where white people live, the West. And there's a hierarchy in between. So we literally have an economy in the mode of white supremacy, which is why I, how I understand the world. Tell me how that can be true if it's not.

Before you do, can I just jump in? Please tell me. Can I just explore this thing because you say the psychosis of why? Look, I, I think you've made some interesting points about, you know, slavery and what's owed. And, you know, I actually said to you before we started that I think there's some really strong arguments on that point that I, I agree with to some extent. When you start talking about whiteness, are you not including a hell of a lot of people who really had nothing to do with any of this? Like my ancestors are Russian. That's where I'm from. I happen to live in this country, but when you say psychosis of whiteness, now I'm part of this somehow. Do you see what I'm saying? I, I want to, is it not a little bit, is it a little bit not too broad? If you're someone who values free inquiry and independent thinking, which let's be honest is why you're probably watching trigonometry, then our sponsor Venice AI is the tool for you. Here's a hot take. AI is exploding right now. 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You'll find the link in the description of this episode or type it in v e n i c e.ai/trigonometry and see what you've been missing. And now back to the show. Whiteness is about idea, not people. So it's not really about people. So I'm not, I didn't say psychosis about people. I said whiteness. Whiteness is a way of viewing the world which is completely irrational, deluded and distorted and leads to arguments like on the other side of the table which all black people, Asian people are just as likely to, to engage as anybody else. It's not about you individually. Wait, so whiteness has nothing to do with skin color? Well, it's white sup, whiteness comes from a system of white supremacy. As I said, the world today is, is it can you explain why the poorest part of the world is black and the richest part of the world is white and there's a hierarchy in between that isn't about race, isn't about colonialism? May, maybe right on the poorest part of the world was African long before Europeans arrived. How do you explain that? Africa was ahead of Europe. Africa was ahead. Sub-Saharan. And look, you had in the, in the Middle Ages, you had the Mali Empire and, you know, and Timbuktu and all of that ahead of you. Yeah. But they didn't develop beyond that. Why is that? Why was slavery? No, I'm sorry. For heaven's sake, we're talking about West African slavery that didn't go into Central Africa. Let him answer now. Yeah. The truth. Well, I'm sorry. And this is the key point, right? Africa is thousands of years old. Uh, Europeans didn't arrive there to settle and colonize until the, the scramble for Africa was when it really took, took place in 1885. As late as 1841, you had a few trading outposts on the coast. Yes, there was a slave trade, but we're talking about when Brit, when Europeans went inland because people inland in Africa didn't have any knowledge or experience of what was happening on the, on the coast and the slave markets, right? Uh, Africa is huge. They got their slaves from West Africa. They weren't getting their, their slaves from, from, from, from Central Africa. Congo. Where's Congo? I'm talking about the, the 1600s and the 16. Come on. I am giving you plenty of time. I know you, I know you're both passionate and I love it and it's great. And just, Rafe, for one sec. I'm glad you're h, we're having this debate. I think it's great. I wanted to be informative for the audience as well. So, it's better if you don't talk over each other. You will get all the time you need, both of you. All right. In 1871, only 10% of Europe, of Africa had been colonized. So why in 1871? Africa had thousands of years. Why was there no equivalent of the cities of this is a landmass larger than Europe, larger than India and China combined? Why wasn't there the economic development? Why was life expectancy still as it was? Why didn't you have any of the scientific advancement elsewhere? Africa had been left to its own devices. It didn't come up with that. The huge leap forwards in for Africa in terms of life expectancy, in terms of the economy, in terms of science and medicine happened when the Europeans were there. And the Europeans were not there for very long. I think people often think that this is centuries of involvement in Africa. We're talking about a period of around 150 years ago was when colonization started. And for most countries, colonization was less than a century. You know, it was from the 1880s up to the 1950s or 1970s. Such, such a short period of time. But during that period, what growth and development happened in, in, in Africa, for example? Now, this is really going to annoy India, but there's nothing that has done more to lift the world out of poverty than capitalism and colonialism. Those have been the two greatest forces for life expectancy, for living standards. As Steven Pinker from Harvard University has said that the life in pre-state societies was incalculably more brutal and harsh than life today. I mean, you, you know, we're talking about cannibalism, awful rituals taking place, every, you, and you needed structured societies to achieve that. That's been achieved. If you look at the successful states that achieve that, they were ones that usually had a British imperial heritage. So wherever you go in the world, of all the empires, those that had a British imperial heritage came out the best of the whole situation. And you talk about Jamaica, for example. Jamaicans disagree with you. And, you know, a few years ago, there was a poll of Jamaicans, 60% of Jamaicans said that they wish the British had never left. They said British rule was far better. It was far less corrupt. Things worked better. And they would prefer the British to be in power. And if you look, and you were asking about, you said I can't say any examples. If you look at the independent countries in the Caribbean, yes, a lot of them aren't doing very well economically. The, the countries in the, in the Caribbean that are doing very well are those which are dependencies of France, of Britain, and of the United States. Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, Martinique, around the same size as Puerto Rico, as, as Barbados. Much more profitable. Why? Because they haven't been, uh, victims of the corruption and of the, the incompetent leadership, the, the substandard and unserious politicians that you have there who are often beating the drum and looking for handouts rather than dealing with the country's problems as they should be dealt with. So you go all the time you want. I literally just explained this, which is why this is why like psychosis, because you give, you give the argument and then just come on. You got to stop throwing in and just make the argument. I want to be clear. It's not an insult. It's not an insult. I tell you, our audience is an insult. Very nuanced and they're open to be persuaded, but you've got to make the argument. But I want to stress this is part of the argument, cuz part of what I'm trying to tell you is it doesn't matter what we say and we talk about debate and you want to come to a, it's not going to happen, right? Because we're just, we're talking. You two are never going to agree. That's why you're here. But, but you, but hold on, hold on. You're coming at this from two very different perspectives. But the reason I brought you together is not 'cause I thought you and Rafe would sit down around the table and eventually agree. That's never going to happen. The reason I brought you together is there's a million and a half people watching potentially, right? And a lot of them haven't made their mind up about this issue at all. They don't know. As I don't know what they think. So, you have an opportunity to persuade them. So, the reason I say the word insult, maybe you don't mean it that way, but if you say to the person watching this, well, you've got psychosis, it's not, it's not that persuasive. Do you know what I mean? And I, I'm just making it plain. Like, I don't know how else to tell you, but to make it plain. Persuade me. Like, explain it to me.

But look, as I, the idea that so Rafe starts up with his point, which I already mentioned, right? Slave, colonialism. The reason that Europe doesn't colonize Africa because it can't, not because it doesn't want to. It's not possible. It doesn't have the capability. But his argument is Africa was poor before the Europeans got. This is where it's not simply not true. When Europe, when Europe turns to Africa, Africa is ahead. There are more books in Timbuktu, one library in Timbuktu than there are in the whole of Europe. This is one of the biggest lies of history. Europe, Africa is not behind. Europe can't actually colonize Africa because it doesn't have the capability to do it. It's not possible. Right. Is that just one example or are you saying the whole continent is more developed? I mean, not every part of the continent, but if you're going to say Africa as a whole is more. We're quite ignorant about African history, I would say. So, can you tell us more about that? Generally, you're talking about the Mali Empire, talking about technologically, in terms of reading, is ahead. There's no doubt. Technologically, technologically is when the. So, the Mo, the Moors go into the Moors go into Europe from, from North Africa. Yeah. And bring in things like, bring in many things, toilet paper, bring in things like hygiene, bring in things like dinner plates, bring, you can talk, there's, and you know, this is true, right? I'm not making this up. There's a whole influence on European culture from the Moors. When the Moors are defeated in 1491, 1492, that opens up European coming to Africa. But Africa as a whole is just not, they're not able to come. Are the Mo? I, I'm not, I'm not a historian, so I don't know. So again, educate me. Are the Moors North Africans or are they coming from sub-Saharan Africa? This is North Africa. This is the North African. North African. So you also have Mali, you have this, you mentioned the empire of Mali, you have Zimbabwe has development overall. The Moors are part of the Islamic world, right? The North Africans part. They also included Africa as well, right? We agree on this. It's not just sub-Saharan Africa because you, Africa's too big. Trade. So, what I think what people hear, or at least what I hear, I may be wrong, when you say Africa was more advanced, I'm trying to think. I mean, I'm not just talking about the Moors. The Moors are one part. So let's say, is the Mo, Malian Empire, Zimbabwe, the Yoruba, there's many, there's, you can go through there. The continent is not like some backwards. There's no, we're not doing anything on. So when you say the more advanced, you talked about, you know, the Moors brought certain things, which, by the way, like a lot of people don't know. I actually studied Islamic history at university. So I know a lot of the things that, that they brought and preserved sometimes from the ancient world, etc. Well, in terms of the sub-Saharan Africa, what would you say were their key scientific, uh, developments and, and other things that we would say, well, that was more advanced than the Europeans at that time? Well, it's actually interesting that when there's actually reports that when Columbus was sailing to America, there were Africans sailing back, not Moors, West African. There's actually a lot of evidence that the West Africans made it to the Americas long before, a thousand years before the Olmec heads. There was a person who did research, I can't, I can't remember the name. Age of Empire is a book where I've did the research on this, but she, she actually found that there were drugs in some of the West African art, um, sorry, there were drugs in the Latin American tombs which came from West Africa, a thousand, a thousand years ago. So this is simply, so they had sailing technology, they could sail, they had the wheel, they could do, there was, there was technology, there was iron, etc. This, remember, we're in the dark ages in Europe. Like, Europe isn't, isn't particularly advanced at all at this point. So the reason why Rafe is correct, 40, like Europe goes to Africa really 1492, 15th century, 16th century. Europe, the reason they're not colonizing isn't because they don't want to colonize, 'cause they can't. You mentioned it earlier, they, who, why was it that it was Africans who had who did the actual capture? Because Europeans couldn't get him. I thought that's disease. It was a disease. Just disease. It wasn't just, it was revolt. It was rebellion. It was the fact that they had to, they had the, so they had this disease. Does not explain why you have these massive castles where heavily fortified and even they, like Elmina Castle in Ghana, what's now Ghana, they even abandon those and have to go at some point they start just having boats where they, the boats are offshore because there's so much resistance. They just start putting people on the boats. So the re, there's a reason why you're, they didn't need, they didn't need to. The slave markets were there on this. I'm not making this up. New age. I said I did the research. So let me, let me, let me, let me, let me explain. So slavery, once Europeans started coming into enslave, and a big part of this whole thing as well, when we say Africans, that is a European idea at the time. At the time, Africans did not see themselves as Africans. That was not the case. There were different ethnicities. And what Europe did very well was they played off these different ethnicities against each other. So it wasn't the case that the Yoruba was selling the Yoruba. The Yoruba might have a war with the Igbo and then when they captured the Igbo, they sell them. So the idea that Africans selling other Africans again is not really true. This is different. Hold on. Hold on. That's what this one group of Africans selling out. We now think of Africans and they now think of Africans. Certainly, at the time, they, if there was a, we are all African identity, slavery probably doesn't happen because again, Europe's not powerful enough. So what happens is slavery starts. It becomes new. It starts to, it slowly starts to become the dominant. It is the dominant force on the African continent. And yes, the enslaved are taken from the interior. There are marches. Congo is one of the main places where enslaved gold from to Brazil. That's firmly in the middle. So the whole continent starts to change, which is why you have the rise of the Ashanti, the Dahomey, you mentioned the, the groups that say, actually, no, we will do this. We'll do the trading on behalf of, will work. They have, and they have the English flag. Some of these. You're saying demand creates supply. Yes, they, they because it was lucrative, right? And so there were people who took advantage. And this completely. And if you look at all of the, um, ethnic groups who become dominant, those are the ones that are enslaving. And they're doing it often times, the English flag, literally for the English flag, enslaving people. So there's a whole period from 15, say, let's say 1500 up to colonization where Africa is being drained of resources, slavery is destroying things, people are moving away from, they're trying to get away from the coast. The whole economy gets shaped completely differently shaped. So we have no idea what happens because slavery becomes a dominant thing on the continent, which is why there's no development. Slavery literally stops African development to the point at which then in the 19th century, places like Nigeria are able to, they can be colonized. And again, just this, the idea that places with British heritage are the ones who do the best. Nigeria is essentially a failed state. Explain that because Nigeria had British, the British, British, British. It's still very British education system and it's one of the, is essentially a failed state today. It's certainly not the case that having British heritage, most regions of the world, places with British heritage are better. South Africa was the golden, golden jewel in Africa. Kenya, Kenya was the great. I know is deeply. I'm sorry. I'm talking about when independence came, not talking about what's happened. You can't blame us now for the bad corruption and bad government of those places. But if you compare African states that were British to those that were French or else. Let's get back to your point. Look, I've already said and you said that the, the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire were great, but don't make it out as if, you know, there was the great Wakanda in Africa at this time. I'm sorry. These are few and far between places. The history of and the reason for their decline was because of internal issues that they had. They were warring with each other. They were incompetently led. That's why you had the collapse of Timbuktu and, and, and of the Mali Empire, for example. And why was it? I mean, you know, the fact is Africa was not developed. Why did Africa not have something equivalent to the enlightenment that we saw and to the, to the Reformation that we saw in the 13th to the 17th century in Italy and Europe? The great cultural awakening of the, of the Reformation. Why didn't it have an equivalent to the Gupta Empire in India? We saw, we saw a great, a great flourishing of arts and culture and science. Why was there no equivalent to the Tang Dynasty in China, the great period there? This was a time when there was no European entry into Africa. This was a time when Africa was on its own, able to do whatever it wanted to. It had the opportunity to develop its own culture. You know, 80% of African languages don't have a written alphabet. It's very difficult, therefore, to create a civilized society when you don't have those necessary precursors for civilizations. Those are the things, of course, which you don't want to address. And, you know, it's, it's very, it's very easy to just suggest that Africa was somehow more, more, more developed. I'm sorry. The point was look. Well, he did say the history of. I said he was saying was born in Europe, Asia, India, China, the Middle East were much more advanced in Europe in the dark ages and elsewhere. Absolutely. What happened? The great genius of the West is what happened from the 1600s onwards when we adopted the scientific method and when, as I said, the western mind fundamentally views the world differently. For example, you know, outside of the West, outside of the West, we're, they're much better at facial recognition because they use both hemispheres of the brain. The western mind only uses the right hemisphere for facial recognition. There are very fundamentally different ways in which these things happen. Eugenics noted in places say, not the West. Let's place with white, 'cause that's what you actually mean. Isn't it real? Why do function differently? Who lives in Western educated industrialized rich and democratic societies like these were born in? They were, these were born in Europe, but they've now been processed in, in China, in Japan, in other industrialized parts of the world. Origin of it was white, correct? Oh, you're very happy to celebrate the African origins of things. Somehow Europe can't celebrate or acknowledge any of its own achievements and accomplishments. I was, you can celebrate the achievements, but not pretend the western mind is different. The white mind is different. There's a clearly racist idea. You clearly haven't done any, but loads of eugenic evidence that tells you there's nothing to do with eugenics. 100%. There are different groups of white people, right? The, the only reason I'm jumping in is because you're talking about something that I personally can, can weigh in on. So I would say having come from Eastern Europe, there's a massive difference between the way Eastern Europeans think and the way Western Europeans think or the way Americans think. In fact, it actually, as I've now discovered, I used to think like Americans and British people basically the same. Speak the same language as you. You've just come back from America, you know, that's not true, right? Like they think about things very differently. So if cultures can be different within, you know, you're focused on ethnicity, okay, let's just take that. White people can have different cultures. Wouldn't it be therefore very logical to say people in Western Europe will have a different way of thinking about things than people in another continent, whether that's in China or in Africa? Isn't that a fair point? Why do you say that's eugenics? It seems like excessive to me. You can certainly make the case that there are different, there's different cultural outlooks. Of course, African beliefs tend to have completely different views about death, etc. But that is a different state. That the western mind is different. Our minds are the same. Our cultures may be different, but our minds are not different. And actually, I really want to fundamentally, when you start to put it, the whole thing of eugenics, craniometry, there's a different kind of site. You can measure the head. You can say which is the right brain. He didn't say this is not biological. Why? So why is it the, so please explain, explain why we pro, what you're saying, this is your, not me. The western mind has different hemispheres. When, explain why spatial awareness, visual, visual reasoning, these are all noticeable differences. So, for example, uh, right corners, we, we are less good at looking at round corners than Africans because they don't have the right angle. So if you look in places now that have, were built when you grow up in, in houses which are square, the eye naturally sees right angles. When they see a flat surface, they don't see that. That's because of how we developed and grew up. This is about cultural anthropology. It's not about biology. This is about the situ, the situation and the dynamics. I'm sorry. Dressed up, dressing up eugenics and as the West developed and as you had colonialism and you exported it, the, the western concepts around the world, you saw the development of these same attributes elsewhere, which is why, of course, you had in Japan and China, there are very few differences now with the originally European mind, which is why it's called, it's called the western mind. This is not something that's controversial. This is accepted by behavioral psychologists and cultural psychologists and anthrop, and anthropologists. It's very well known. This is the science. I have a degree in psychology. So I can tell you they did not actually. There's a lot of evidence. But the point is, it was that moment. And this all goes back to the church's ban on cousin marriage a thousand years ago. This is where it all develops from. The Catholic Church. It was then called the Western Church. Ban marriage between certain degrees of consanguinity that got rid of the, of the kinship clans which are so, which were prevalent all around the world. To this day, the majority of cultures in the world have large kinship-based families with about 40, 50 members, whether you're a first, second, third, fourth cousin, you're treated equally as brothers and sisters. That was done away with in Europe. And so suddenly you had the birth of the nuclear family. And still minority family. Nuclear families are a small minority of global families. And what you had then was you had family units that had to rely on other people for, for support. You got the birth of social trust. Social trust does not, did not exist outside of the West at this time to anywhere near the same degree. When you had social trust, of course, you then were able to enter into contracts and you began to have rival organizations to families developing. You had, uh, charter towns, towns that you would sign an oath to help develop. You had universities, you had guilds, you had confraternities. These were uniquely European things that began to develop in the last thousand years. And then when you had these independent organizations, you then began to have cross-pollination of ideas. They would talk and discuss. They would, they would have the birth of competition. And that's what led to innovation. And social trust and competition are fundamental to innovation. And it's at this point that you see the development of a very different worldview, a very different outlook. And you can see it in all sorts of ways. So, for example, if you look, if you look at ways that we identify ourselves to, for, for western people, and that includes now modern places in Asia, if I said Constantine, who are you? You'd say, I'm a very, very, uh, handsome, uh, stand-up comedian. You're trying to get on my side. I, you know, I've got snazzy jackets and, you know, I collect milk bottle tops or whatever, right? But if you are to ask somebody in a, in a tribe in the, in, in rural Africa, they would say, well, I'm X. I'm the son of Y. I'm the brother of so and so. I'm the father and so and so. It's family and kinship that defines who you are as opposed to what happens in the West. Because in the West, you had the birth of individualism. And that was the key difference. The notion of the individual is a western, primarily Anglosphere concept, which also Protestant helped to create. And it was that notion of the individual and self-improvement and the reliance on, on other people that you had innovation in individualism and competition that led to the uniqueness of the western mind, which wasn't replicated anywhere else till you had an ex, exporting of colonialism. See, the reason I'm getting fr, I don't even know now, I'm starting to be like, this is actually dangerous. Like these are a set of dangerous ideas. So if you think about what justifies slavery in the first place, first you had, there was a religious justification. It was very much the Pope, Christian, if you're not Christian, you're a heathen, you can do what you like, right? After that, it becomes the, if you like, the enlightenment definition, the scientific definition. Actually, we're just not human beings, right? We're just actually like more like, I'm more like an ape than I am a human, therefore you can do X, Y, Z. Again, I would point out this enlightenment we're so proud of was actually brought in the idea that I'm not a human being. So maybe there's some very bad ideas in the enlightenment. Anyway, it becomes that scientific, scientific justification. That's where you get phrenology, eugenics, which I'm saying, why this is eugenic idea. What happens after the Second World War is eugenics becomes a bad thing. We can't do eugenics no more. What do we do? We do cultural racism. So you're explaining the world because you're saying that the West essentially has a better culture and Africa has a backwards culture. And this is why Africa's poor. That is a clear, that is a, you go from church, you go church, science, culture. It's the same line. So when I'm saying it's eugenics, it's just eugenics dressed up in something else, which you can do with some fancy tests and which are not, and I promise you these things are not widely accepted in psychology. I have a degree in psychology. I know it's literature. It is deeply controversial. And it, you, and I would ask your audience to think, which, look, this is a comforting idea to think that the poverty that we have, a world that kills a child every 10 seconds because they haven't got access to food and water, most of those children, probably all of those children are black and brown. Racial capitalism. It's comforting to think it's because we have this great culture. Isn't it wonderful? Etc., etc. But I'm giving you the actual alternative reality to this. There is a reason why Africa's development stops when slavery starts. Because slavery stops the development. There is a reason why under colonialism, where, where the whole economy is dictated to and to draw out resources. So when African countries get independence, a book I would recommend everybody read is, um, H Africa Mushi by Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana. Who's Ghana is actually one of the first countries, 1960, to get independence. Says, I now, I run this country, but there are no hospitals, there are no schools, there are no roads, there are no factories. In fact, the whole of this economy is built on taking all of our resources and processing them in Europe and selling them back to us. That is still the case in somewhere like Ghana, where chocolate companies take the resources, produce it outside, etc., etc. So when you have, in this independence happens, the countries, they can't, how could a country that has no hospitals, no roads, no factories ever succeed? It can't. So what does it do? It falls into poverty, gets these loans, has more poverty, etc., etc. On top of that, one of the key features of neo-colonialism is to install public governments, places like Congo, even in Niger, even in Kruma's attitude, etc. And so when you're looking at African countries, can't succeed, of course, they couldn't succeed. There's no possible way that they could have succeeded, which is why they're still poor today. And again, reparations is not just about slavery. It's about that whole history. So I'm telling you the history, the reason that you have this inequality today is very clearly largely down to Europe exploiting the West, exploiting the underdeveloped world and continuing to do so. And you have a fairy tale and, and frankly racist idea over there. Both of you. Pause. Both of you. Is it possible that there's some truth in what you're both saying? Because like, I think it's undeniable that Western slavery and colonialism would have had a negative impact on Africa, but that doesn't mean that the cultures weren't necessarily the same. So, could it be that you're both right? I mean, Rafe, surely you wouldn't deny that colonialism and slavery was bad for Africa, would you? Yeah. Well, for people alive at the time, it was bad. Absolutely. That's my point. Slavery and colonialism were horrendous for people at the time, but now, generation on, I'm sorry, the benefits of colonialism have, have helped to lift the world out of poverty, have, have increased life, have doubled life expectancy. Same thing in Australia. Life expectancy of Aborigines was 40 years for thousand, thousands of years. Now it's almost doubled. Right? So those are the, the advantages. So yes, slavery was, was horrendous for, for slaves. But for the descendants of slaves today living in Britain and the Caribbean, slavery, they're not victims of slavery. They've actually benefited from the terrible hardship that their ancestors went through.

But do you not think being occupied, having a foreign government that sought to use your country exclusively for its own benefit, which it did? I'm not saying they didn't do certain things. I'm sure they brought schools in and whatever. But nonetheless, they did that so they had a more educated population to do the things that they needed done, right? Don't you think that, you know, 100 years of that would leave a legacy that was detrimental? Detrimental in what way? Yes. Look, the point was, pre the pre-state societies were far more brutal. So yes, I'm not saying that these were wonderful places necessarily to live, but, you know, racism was abhorrent at that time. Look, Britain is now the world's third least racist country. But back in the 19th century, of course, everyone did believe in racial hierarchies. Britain was very racist in the start of the 20th century as well. No one is denying that. No one is denying the atrocities. My father was born in Kenya along with most, all, all his family. What happened to the M, the Mau Mau was was terrible and everything else. The, and the Kikuyu and so forth. But the point was terrible compared to what the conditions that were there before, when you had terrible violence, of course, between rival tribes. You had warfare, you had malnutrition, you had poor water, you had disease, people's life expectancies were so short. You compare that to what happened afterwards. Clearly a huge improvement with the benefit of, of industrialization and development. Um, and of course, once independence came, they were given an inheritance. They had the necessary conditions to thrive. I mean, it's not true. In the 1950s and 60s was, for example, in the Caribbean, that was a key era for the development of, of the Caribbean. You know, in, in Barbados, there's, there's only one main hospital that was built by the British, one main university that was built by the British. Things haven't developed beyond that in Barbados because, of course, there's been economic mismanagement and corruption. And as I've said to you before, the countries on the, in the Caribbean that are still crown dependencies are the ones that are thriving. 60% of Jamaicans understand that and they would prefer Britain never to have left.

Specifically, let me answer that specifically. As I said, this is what this is what we call neo-colonialism. So when Jamaica becomes independent, and actually Jamaica, the reason Jamaica becomes independent is to stop Jamaicans migrating to Britain. That is why they made Jamaica independent, not because some great, great moral thing. It's they want to stop people coming. And it largely works. But after Jamaica becomes independent, is this, is the problem with independence? It's independence in theory, but the economics of Jamaica stay the same. So the same people who owned everything in Jamaica still own it now. So all the money is still being taken out, still being withdrawn, which is why obviously it can't succeed. Jamaica's economy is really collapsing and hasn't and doesn't really show any signs of getting much better. And so, yes, if you ask your average Jamaican, was it better under the British? They might go, yeah, it was, it was a bit better. But that's because they're presented with this neo-colonialism, which is even worse. But the cause of it is still the same. You have to address it. So, for example, no, in Jamaica, apparent, and I know Jamaica works well. I'm from Jamaica. Tourism is the main industry. 70% of the money from tourism goes straight out. There's a, the north shore where my family live in Jamaica, most of it, literally, there's like no public beaches or like little slithe beaches because most of it's owned by foreign companies. So the thing that's supposed to help us doesn't help us. This drains the money straight out. That's the problem with something like Jamaica. It's not actually independent. It's theoretically independent, but economically Jamaica's economy is still completely being rinsed by the West. And not just now, it's not just actually Europe or China. India's getting involved, etc., etc. So Jamaica's economy can't work. And so the people there might say, oh yeah, we, we want it was better then. That's not proof that the Jamaican government has no agency in any of this. It's the same. No, not back in. But this is the problem here that you have. That's why people preferred things when they were run by, by the British. You know, in Barbados, the auditor general in Barbados has said that he can't actually get proper accounts for state-owned industries and, and enterprises. Can you imagine that? The auditor general cannot get accounts on state industries in, in Barbados? That's the level of corruption and dysfunction that is created by having people in power who simply don't deserve to be there. And you can't keep blaming everything on what happened post-independence. It's now been 50, 60, 70 years of independence. That's long. That's long enough to sort your own. Answer this question because the problem, the problem that you stated, what was one of the key things that Britain needed was financial stability, and the former colonies simply don't have it because they can't have it because no, Britain did not leave the colonies in, in a, in a state where they could govern. They did not. They did not. This is, that's effectually untrue. They left the colonies in states with, with roads that went to the airport, with one maybe one hospital, maybe a couple of schools. They did not leave them in places where they could succeed, which is why most of the former colonies, almost all of them, fall into what we call third world debt, IMF, etc., etc., which is just a new form of colonialism. That's the truth. That's that's fundamentally the truth. No country did more to prepare its colonies for, for independence than Britain did. And up to

After up to 2009, you had Britain in the civil service was present, military structures, parliament, uh, courts, judiciary, rule of law. I'm talking about infrastructure, hospitals. No, they didn't. Cuz the evidence is clear on this, of course. You look at the number of schools and well, I mean, for example, even after emancipation. So after after after slavery was abolished in 1833, enforced in 1844, for the next 10 years, from 1835 to 1844, with no obligation, Britain gave grants to the Caribbean for schools, for churches, and for hospitals and so forth, as some equivalent to a billion pounds today.

Right. Sorry, can we say no obligation? This is again a massive problem we think about Britain. Jamaica was a colony of Britain. It had an obligation. When my family, when my dad came from in 1960 to here, he came with a passport. Wait a second. No, no. They came with a passport that said Jamaica. It had every obligation because he owned the place. The idea was, I think, I think you, I think what Ray is saying is the money was given and there was no requirement to repay or to do anything. No, no, no. My point is it was part of the nation. So, of course, it was. There's no difference between Britain funding education in Jamaica and Britain funding education in Birmingham. It's part of benefits because it's a member of the Commonwealth. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK given an an inordinate amount of its foreign aid to former British colonies in the Commonwealth. Right? So, you know, as I said, 2 billion up to 2009, currently is 430 million pounds of British money is earmarked for development there. And that's because, of course, of the ties of the right.

We're back in nerd territory. I want to wrap it up a little bit with uh, but can, can I ask you one thing, uh, before we wrap up, because you, you talked a lot about this kind of psychology of whiteness and whatever. Do you think there was something very particular about Western Europeans that made them do the slave trade? That made them behave in the ways that they did?

That's a good question. Um, I mean, talk about different minds. Yeah. Maybe maybe they're different. Do you have a happy different mind? I would not say different. No, but but I'm asking you, why do you think it happened that way? Because I guess the argument that I'm thinking about is, I mean, I personally, I have to say, I don't know enough about it to really make a judgment, but I'm surprised to hear you say Africa was more developed. I'd always assumed that the reason the Europeans did what they did probably wasn't because they had some different special mind in that way. But actually, it was because they just had the technology, they were more powerful, they were wealthier, so they could do this in a way that actually everyone would have done if they were in a position to. So, I guess what I'm getting at is, would Africans have colonized Western Europe if the, if the shoe was on the other foot? Or do you think there's something special about white Europeans that made them behave in that way?

This is, so I'm so tempted to give a different answer to this question, but I'm really not. I'm going to, I'm going to play nice. Okay. I think that when you, when you look at it, it, this is why the, this is why the West is, when I say the West, when I say the West, it really does mean the going to the West. Europe going to the West and finding the Americas. The Americas is such an, it unlocks so many things. It's not a coincidence that America is the richest part of the world. It's, it's, it's like that's the key that unlocks everything else. Okay. And I think you have to be honest and say, who's, who's the ambassador to the, the f, the first, the guy Columbus, Christopher Columbus, who goes over there is one of the most violent, insidious people in the history of human, human life, right? Who from, and this is midpoint estimates, and, and this is all estimates, but the midpoint estimate of when he goes to what's Hispanola, what's now Haiti, Dominican Republic, the midpoint estimate is he goes there and it's 8 million people, and this is the midpoint, it might be lower, it might be higher, I don't know, but the middle estimate, and that's 1492. When he eventually leaves in 1512, it's estimated that there are 20,000 people left. There's a huge decimation of life when Europeans go to, because and large disease, but it's not just disease. It's man-eating dogs. It's working people to death. The, the genocide in the Americas generally is the largest genocide in human history. Up to 65 million people. And this is, I've read this and I was shocked. Apparently, the, the world actually cooled because so many people died. They were producing less, uh, greenhouse gas emissions and actually reduced the temperature of the earth. So the, if you think about the founding, the founding place for the West is the Americas, and the founding, the how the West took over the Americas was the largest genocide in human history, violence and disregard for life. And then where did they go to find the labor after they worked to death the, the natives? They, oh, we got this African slave, let's go, let's go and enslave Africans, turn them into non-humans. Those are the, so if you say, yep, that barbarity, that anti-blackness, that racism, white supremacy, that's the difference, 100%. And that's what allows everything else to build.

So what I'm asking though, is do you think that if West Africans, let's say, they had the ships, they had the muskets, they had the gunpowder, they had the various different types of technology that enabled, uh, Western Europeans to go over to the Americas and do what you're talking about, right? Do you think that if the, the, the West African tribes, perhaps some of those more aggressive ones that enslaved other Africans, if they had all that technology and they went over to the, the Americas, do you think they would have behaved differently because of their different culture and background, or do you think they would have done the same thing?

I think evidence says they did, did behave differently. Like I said, there's evidence that the Africans were in the Americas thousand, a thousand at least thousand years before Europeans. So I think certainly the case would be that yes, there is a. Look, I'm, and why do you think that is? It's look, I'm, I'm not going to sit here and speculate. It's because there's something better about Africans. Africans have a morality. I don't. Look, there's, but, but you just like you, I mean, you, you, it's just the way that when you talk about whiteness, it's implied the white, the way that white people think or white. So I want, I want to be clear here that I am not. See, I, it'd be very easy, very easy for me to sit here by who's my favorite person back, right? Say, look, this up, the devilish nature of the white man, it just shows. And people say that all the time, right? I'm actually saying that whiteness is not a bad. You don't agree with that? No, I don't. I don't think, I don't think all white people are devils. I have no. I don't. I think that the, we can debate what could have happened, what may have happened, why it was. But the reality is that it was that carnage, that racial exploitation that was necessary to create the society we have. And that, and so that's why we have white. I don't know. I can't tell you why, but I can tell you that is.

But what I'm asking you to think about for the purposes of this guy. I think it's really important to this discussion, right, is you, you, you talk about whiteness, that it's kind of hard to extricate that from white people. It's difficult for most people, at least listening to this, right? And it's sort of implied within that that the way whiteness operates is worse than the way other things operate. Right? And what I'm asking you is, do you think if Africans had the same ability to dominate the native population of the Americas, would they have behaved the same or different?

All right. So, yeah, I'll be clear on this. No, I think when I say whiteness is, is an idea, and it's that, is a, that is a, that is an idea that has come from Western Europe. Yeah. That is an idea that has been used to dominate the world. That was a necessary feature of doing it because Africans went to the new world and didn't do this. So yes, there is something. But they didn't have the same technology, the muskets, and as I said, when Europeans came in, they weren't massively techn, more technology advanced. They weren't. There's a reason why the Portuguese don't have, have slave plantations in Africa. They can't. They, they can't literally do it. So it's not the case that Europe's first impact, Europe just comes into Africa able to control it. It's not the case. It takes a couple, it takes a long time to develop on that. But let me come back. If they, if they had the technology, of course, they would have been the same. I mean, this idea that you didn't have, uh, terrible bloodshed happening and prejudice and the same sort of issues of racism happening within Africa. I mean, of course you did. If you know, if, if you look in, uh, in, in central Africa, you had the, the Bantu were persecuting the Pygmies and killing them. If you look in Ethiopia, you had the Bantu themselves were the victims and being persecuted. In Somalia, the Abyssinians were murdering and hunting the Shankella, who are Nilotic Valley people. And this is not about white supremacy. I mean, when, when African slaves were taken to, to Islam, uh, to, to the Arab world, they were regarded as the, the lowest social stat because the prejudices there. Same thing with, with, with the, the Chinese and the Tang Dynasty, who of course regarded African slaves as the Kun and were frightened by them. This idea that something is unique to the West and unique to white people is simply not true. What is interesting, of course, is the exploration ethic of Europeans, which you don't find as. Again, China had a massive fleet. Its ships were far better than European ships. It never discovered, it never discovered the Americas. You don't see the exploration that you saw within Europe. Again, because of the distinction of the western mind, and that whole concept of exploring and developing was very much fundamentally a European concept. You know, it's amazing. For example, it also goes down to individuality and the Anglosphere. So the first person to walk the length of the Nile was an Englishman. And that happened about 10 years ago. Imagine that. After all the thousands of years, the first person to walk the length of the Nile was an Englishman. First person to walk the length of the, uh, of the Amazon was an, was an Englishman. Also, one second. One second. How do you know this? Well, in recorded history. So you don't know. Well, I'm sorry. It would have been. We do have record. We do have records, but you actually don't know. Well, nobody, nobody, nobody who was African or South American has done it. At least within the last 300 years of recorded history. Um, and that was, and the first person to walk the length of the Yangtze was a Welshman, again, around 10 years ago. Now, that's in China, with an ancient civilization. Why did no one from China think about walking the length of the Yangtze? First person to walk around the world and run around the world, American and English. Same thing with Everest and so forth. There is a uniqueness to the West in in the idea of exploring and discovering, which you don't see elsewhere. And that's part of the reason why you developed.

Your point is the British love a walk. I get it. Uh, I want, I do want to come back because I actually, there is something specific about European nationality which is the problem. Tell me. So there is, when, and I think, and again, you don't believe me here, but you can't really separate whiteness from this. And so Descartes, I think therefore I am, is really, I'm white, therefore I am. In fact, you've given this argument a bit today. There's something different about Europe that we're not the natives. We're not Africans. We're not this and that allows this separation of mind from body, which you actually don't see around most of the parts of the world. So African tends to be, I mean, the Chinese think they're different. The Japanese think, even, even with the Chinese, if you think about the relationship to the earth, you think about, there's, there's something about European nationality, the distancing of it, that allows, not just with people, but with the world, with the earth, with the, look at, look at the actual world is going to be destroyed by Europe, like literally going. Chinese thought they were superior to the whole rest of the world. They stopped developing because they thought they had reached civilization. I'm not saying Chinese, this is not about superiority. Japanese not superior. I'm talking about this, the separation of mind from body. You don't see that in Chinese culture. There's a much more holistic version of what, of what the person is. When you separate mind from body in that way, you, you, you can then distance yourself from certain atrocities in the same, in the way that we do. Like today, 9 million people die from hunger today because of the West, and we kind of go, okay. The exploitation of the earth in a way that is actually going to literally destroy the earth. There is, I agree, there's something unique about that in western rationality, which is deeply problematic, which allows us to kill.

Tom, we were so close to a point of agreement there because you were both agreeing. And actually, maybe, maybe I, actually, there is something to what you're saying in the sense that every, everything has a trade-off, right? So it's possible that a particularly slightly more rationalistic way of thinking about it has some negative trade-offs and a lot of positive things about it. It actually could be very possible that in some ways you're both right on this. And on that bombshell. And on that bombshell, we've actually managed to get the two of you to agree. No, gentlemen, I actually have to say, I really appreciate you both coming. I thought we had a very informative discussion. Uh, these debates often descend into stuff. I thought we strayed away from that as much as we could. Um, we'll wrap up in a second, but perhaps you'd like both to take a couple of minutes just to sum up based on this conversation where, you know, just the core of your argument once again for people as we, as we wrap this up.

I mean, I, I'll finish where I started. There are no good arguments against reparations. It's been an interesting conversation, but the very, the fact of this is clear. The knife in the back is, it wasn't taken out. And if you can acknowledge that there should have been reparatory justice in 1838 or whatever, and that wasn't, didn't take place, I just don't see how you can hold the argument that it should take place. There are clear economic consequences which still reverberate around the world from slavery, but not just slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, etc., etc., etc. There's this huge gap in wealth and experience and and life expect, not just life expectancy, but just life experience in general that needs to be addressed. And if we're serious about racial justice, the only way to do is to one, acknowledge it, and then to address it. And that is going to need reparatory justice.

It, it is, it is time the Caribbean nations and other communities look upon, look, look inwards and see what is it about our culture and our community we need to change. Stop this victimhood. Learn about personal responsibility. Take agency. Improve your lot in life. We in Britain should be celebrating the fact that we were the first power to deliberately make itself poorer to advance a moral good. There are no living victims of British Empire slavery. And I think we need to move on from this chapter and understand that at its core, this is all about undermining Britain, America, and the West more broadly. This is not about slavery. If it, if it was, people would be talking about modern slavery today in Africa with 10 million slaves. That's never spoken about. And surely the lives of people today are far more important. And the fact that that issue isn't even spoken about once in any article on this subject, I think, speaks volumes about the true motivations behind a lot of those who are calling for reparations.

All right. Well, I appreciate you both coming. Thank you for watching and listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure to like, subscribe, and share it with others who you think might find it interesting. See you soon.