Racist Bastard!

Now I have your attention. I’m 57……Less than 30 years ago the internet as we know it was born. I clearly recall ADSL modems as recently as 2000. I’d click on the internet and go and make a coffee. If all was good on my return a page had loaded…. Now I’m making complaints to BT because I’m not getting 30mbps download.

I have fond memories of 3 channel TV. Crittal windows, frost on the inside (no double glazing), No central heating. 40% of homes had a phone. My father’s car, rarely used, had drum brakes, no seat belts. There was no M5 or M4. No M25. We spent holidays in a caravan with gas lighting and no running water.

My father was born in 1933. His father was born in 1906. My life is influenced by a man born barely after the death of Queen Victoria. The very first flight took place 3 years before my Grandfather was born. 18 years before that we saw the first cars. In 1881 electrical supply to domestic premises started to become more commonplace.

Born in 1963 I knew my father as a man that could never say he loved me. I knew he did, of course. But such was the world in which he was brought up. Such is how the world has changed in such a very short time.

And the world has changed. Mightily.

Almost 400 years ago a man was born who had no idea of electricity, engines, flight, wireless communication and so many other things we take for granted. He was born into a world that is simply unrecognisable to you & me. He was born into a world that does not recognise the humanities as we know them today. Countries with borders. Countries with people, with languages. A man that simply had no knowledge of Africa and it’s peoples and who never travelled there.

And to understand Africa you MUST travel there. The borders that exist today were imposed on ethnic groups by European settlers. These borders are still not recognised by most ethnic groups. But Africans that have now taken over the government of these countries use these European borders to their advantage. The fact is that most of these countries exist as groups of ethnic groups that remain at war with each other and have done for decades if not hundreds of years with loyalties changing every second day, week or month. But Western governments still try to manage the problems in Africa by using these age old standards.

But back to Calston. The ignorant castigate him, drag down his statue and throw it in the harbour without a seconds thought about who the man is. A slave trader. End of. After all, wasn’t he a “Deputy Governor” of the Royal African Company, a company set up to trade gold, silver & ivory along the African West coast?. The company was set up by King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York (later King James II). Calston was employed here for 12 years, twixt 1680 & 1692. He was a Deputy Governor for one year.

The African slave trade was fed by West Africans. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa, who had been sold by other West Africans to Western European slave traders. This is the part that most Europeans simply cannot grasp or refuse to understand. The African slave trade was formulated by those that thought they were superior  in Africa. Different ethnic groups traded other ethnic groups and used them as their own slaves. This doesn’t absolve Calston. But he was a part of a system that existed and was accepted at the time. It was NORMAL at the time. It was part of the company before he joined and was part of the company after he left. He did not create it.

This was a time when blacks were considered inferior by whites. Europeans had no knowledge of them as a people. Had no knowledge of their language or their ways or history. And they cared less. Blacks were simply seen as inferior. They had no formal education. They were differently dressed. They were simply seen as creatures.

Today, in the West, we know and accept this is wrong. Today we know and accept we are all equal. But this simply was not the case 400 years a go in a world we have no experience or genuine knowledge of. A world we do not and cannot understand but by which we judge of today’s standards.

So how should we judge this “slave trader”. He never went to Africa. He never loaded ships with slaves. I have few doubts he ever knew how many slaves died en-route. He did, however, fund Bristol to the tune of around £20,000,000 in today’s money.

£20,000,000 dedicated to housing, schooling and healthcare. But we judge this man by today’s standards when we should judge him by the standards of 4 centuries ago. But if we judge him by today’s standards then what of the schools, housing and hospitals he funded? Should these be dragged down as well?

Swathes of people now castigate him but remain silent on what goes on in Africa this day. They fail to recognise what China does in Africa on a daily basis. They fail to recognise the child slavery occurring simply to deliver their e-goods. Safely they condemn an occurrence from 400 years ago to assuage their guilt but remain mute about the horrors that continue today.