The end of slavery?

2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain. Bill Bonnar looks at the role that Britain played in the slave trade. We also look at the slavery that still exists in this country today.
Sometimes a work of historical fiction can describe episodes in human history far more graphically than any non-fiction equivalent. Ann Rice’s novel, The Free People of Colour describes the horrors of the slave trade in Louisiana at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Estates the size of English counties containing anything up to 20,000 slaves.
Breeding farms for the next generation guaranteeing a constant supply of new labour. Life expectancy in the fields of just two years and a level of brutality and barbarism that still has the power to shock today.
Slavery has its origins in class divided societies where one group own and control wealth and production and others have to work for them in order to live.
Slavery or ‘forced labour’ occurs when there is a shortage of people to do the work and people therefore have to be forced to work under threat of violence. Slave systems, like that described by Anne Rice, were the institutionalised form of this production.
For such a system to function it needed three things. A regular supply of slaves either by capture or breeding, a system of mass terror to keep the slaves in line and an ideology to justify the practice.
Most class-based societies have practised slavery but it was the opening up of the America’s for international trade in the 17th and 18th centuries that the system developed into its most grotesque form. Slavery on an unimaginable scale fuelling the rise of international mercantile capitalism.
As this in turn fuelled the rise of industrial capitalism in the 19th century it could reasonably be argued that the wealth and power of the modern western world was built on the back of this system.
In 1607 the English colony of Virginia was founded in North America and quickly became the main area for the arrival and distribution of slaves from Africa.
By the end of the century the practice was widespread along the Eastern Seaboard and the Caribbean where huge profits could be made from the plantations.
Throughout the 18th century the trade was dominated by British companies, protected by the Royal Navy and  absolutely central to the growth in the British Empire in this part of the world.
This was the era of the ‘Triangular Trade’ when ships pick up slaves in Africa and shipped them to ports in the Americas. They would then pick up raw materials and goods and offload them in Britain before setting sale for Africa again.
At its height at the end of the eighteenth century there were anything up 20 million slaves in the Americas and this was central to the emerging world capitalist economy.
Of-course the merchants and capitalists didn’t get it all there own way. Almost from the start there was concerted struggle against this iniquitous trade.
This came from two sources. From slaves themselves; the entire history of slavery is also a history of slave revolts. And from the abolitionist movement particularly in Britain and the Americas.
In 1735/36, Antigua was engulfed in a slave rebellion. This was followed by major rebellions in Jamaica in 1760 and in Surinam in 1793.
Most famous of all a slave uprising begun in 1791 in St Dominique led to the founding of independent Haiti in 1804. From 1795 to 1861 there were recorded slave rebellions in Grenada, St Vincents, Barbados, Demerara, Jamaica, Cuba and the USA.
This is almost certainly an underestimation of what was actually going on. These rebellions and the rising costs involved in securing these slave colonies began to undermine the super profits being made from the slave trade and also fuelled the abolitionist movement.
In Britain the abolitionist movement was founded in 1787 and within a few short years had become a genuinely mass political movement with branches in just about every town  leading to the Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833.
Even then there was an element of self-interest by the ruling capitalist class who increasingly began to see the slave trade as a barrier to international free trade which was dominated by Britain.
Slavery continued in the United States up to the end of the civil war and was only abolished in Cuba in 1886 and Brazil in 1888. Interestingly the World Anti-Slavery League founded by William Wilberforce in 1787 still exists today to campaign against all the modern forms of slavery around the world.
The slave trade represents one of the great crimes against humanity.
It was directed against peoples who were considered barbaric and sub-human though the real barbarians were those who organised and profited from the trade.
Should the British Prime Minister have issued an apology for Britain’s role? Of Course, he should in much the same way as post-war German leaders have apologised in for the holocaust. Should the British Government pay compensation?
This is more problematic for obvious reasons although at the time there didn’t appear to much problem in paying millions of pounds in compensation to the former slave owners.
Marx wrote that capitalism and oppression and exploitation where like two sides of the same coin; you can’t have one without the other.
The slave trade was an extreme form of this and it is no surprise that just as capitalism dominates the world today, slavery is still widespread.

Slavery still in existence

Most people would think of slavery as a thing of the past.
But slavery is alive and flourishing in Britain today - as a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown.
The report - released earlier this year - shows that contemporary slavery in the UK exists in various guises, particularly as a result of trafficking of people.
All forms share elements of the exploitative relationship which have historically constituted slavery: severe economic exploitation; the lack of a human rights framework; and one person’s control over another through the prospect or reality of violence. Slavery is defined and prohibited under international law.
Coercion distinguishes slavery from poor working conditions.
It is important to distinguish poor - or even appalling - working conditions from slavery. Coercion is the key distinction: the enslaved person has no real alternative but to submit to the abusive relationship.
Abuse refers to the treatment of one person by another specific person and is distinct from being forced into dangerous or difficult work by economic circumstances.
Many people trafficked into Britain and forced into slavery enter the country legally from countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.
They are then trafficked by agents into forced labour in such areas as agriculture, construction, cleaning and domestic work, food processing and packaging, care/nursing, hospitality and the restaurant trade, as well as into sexual exploitation.
Once here they usually come under the control of gangmasters, it is  estimated there may be as many as 10,000 gangmasters operating across the various industrial sectors. Many operate legally but some do not.
Some UK-based companies, knowingly or not, rely on people working in slavery to produce goods that they sell: complex sub-contracting and supply chains, managed by agents elsewhere, often obscure this involvement.
The report tells the story of a Latvian woman
“In her early 20s, she arrived in London on her own initiative, leaving her young children behind. She was recruited by an employment agency at £100 fee.
“They moved her to Hull, taking her passport, ostensibly to send to the Home Office for registration. After four months she hadn’t received her passport back (it had not been sent off). This later affected her benefit status and, without it, she felt unable to leave the agency.
“She regularly worked 16-hour shifts in factories, under threat of losing her job and accommodation if she refused. Overtime was never paid. She was transported to work double shifts in Barnsley, sleeping in a car between shifts.
“Spurious deductions for ‘administration charges’ and ‘transport costs’ were the norm and there was evidence of systematic theft through the deliberate miscalculation of wages. Sometimes migrants worked two shifts only to be paid for one.
“Her protestations were met with threats of dismissal. She was placed in a bedroom with two men she did not know. Her general mood was ‘Terrible. Having to live in a room with two men. You can’t dress. You can’t do anything.’ She didn’t know where to go to for advice, her English wasn’t strong and she had no friends. She described herself as ‘trapped.’’
The United Nations defines trafficking for forced labour and other forms of slavery as concerning the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, in order to achieve control over another person.
Trafficed people are different to people who are smuggled into the country.
Smuggling involves explicit consent to be taken illegally across national borders. The relationship between smuggler and migrant typically ends when they arrive in the UK.
Trafficking, on the other hand involves ongoing exploitation: even if the person has at some stage consented, this is meaningless because of the deception and coercion involved. Trafficking occurs within Britain as well as from outside countries.
.Finding out the exact number of people living under slavery in the country is difficult to calculate.
Official agencies, including the police and the Home Office, acknowledge that there are no reliable estimates for the number of trafficked people.
The Solicitor General has suggested that more than 1,000 women were trafficked into the UK for sexual purposes (mainly from Eastern and Central Europe): this is recognised by all as a major underestimate.
Others are trafficked for domestic labour. Perhaps thousands of young people have been trafficked through the UK to work as sex slaves elsewhere in Europe or as domestic labour in the UK.
There are at least 5,000 child sex workers in the UK, most trafficked into the country. Many people trafficked into this country enter legally but then find themselves compelled to work as sexual or domestic slaves.
Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 12 million people may be  slaves. These include at least 360,000 in industrialised countries, of whom at least 270,000 have been trafficked into forced labour.
Of these, approximately 43 per cent are trafficked into sexual exploitation, approximately 32 per cent into labour exploitation and about 25 per cent are exploited for a mix of sexual and labour reasons.
It is estimated that the worldwide traffic in human beings is worth at least (US)$32billion annually, just under half coming from traffic to industrialised countries.
UNICEF suggest that in 2004, 218 million children were trapped in child labour worldwide. Of these, by 2006, some 171 million were engaged in ‘hazardous work’ including in factories, mines and agriculture.
In 2003, an estimated 3-4.5 million people were living in the European Union without legal papers, with an estimated 400,000 people a year being trafficked into member states.
The UK governemt response to this disgusting trade in humans has been slow and inadequate to say the least
There has been recent legislation and a Human Trafficking Centre has been established to co-ordinate responses.
However, migration policy in this country seems to be designed to appease the rabid right wing readership of racist rags like The Daily Mail
This has lead to the  trafficking of humans being treated as law enforcement at the expense of the protection needs of the victim.
The UK government addresses trafficking as an issue of migration control rather than one of human rights.
Victims of traffiking are often deported back to the original country from which they were trafficked: here they may be threatened, assaulted, retrafficked, or face humiliation from their families.
If the UK government really wants to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, then surely the best way is to tackle the modern version of slavery.
However those trafficked and exploited in this country are keeping the capitalist economy ticking over.
It looks as if those down in Westminster are happy to turn a blind eye as long as their toilets and offices are being cleaned and cheap products are available at the local supermarket.
After all what do people matter as long as the pounds keep rolling in.

Political asylum

It’s a Free World directed by Ken Loach.
On Ch4 24 September 9pm

by Liam Young

It’s a Free World is the latest work from Socialist filmmakers Ken Loach and Paul Laverty. By taking us on a journey through the modern labour market and in particular the world of immigrant workers we are forced to examine the reality of the films title.
In a departure from most of Loach’s previous works the main character in this film is the exploiter rather than the exploited. It is from the viewpoint of an employer trying to make a living out of supplying fly by night firms with cheap casual workers that we see the de humanizing effect that capitalism has on employers as well as on workers.
The movie begins in Poland by introducing Angie who is working as a recruitment officer for a staffing agency. Her job doesn’t last long as she gets the sack for not responding to her boss‚s sexual advances. A single mother in her thirties and having just lost her umpteenth job Angie’s future looks bleak. On returning to Britain she decides to go into business for herself with her pal Rosie. The beginning of the film seeks to build up the audience’s sympathy with the main character. The beginning of the story is important as in order to reveal the de humanization of capitalism it is first of all important to reveal the characters humanity. The impossibility of remaining a caring employer while making a profit is one of the main themes of the movie.
Like most people entering into a business venture the best intentions soon begin to give way as the realities of competing in the cutthroat world of capitalism reveal themselves. As the film develops so does the pressure to increase profits and therefore to cut back on costs. We see Angie increasingly putting the need to make profits before the interests of her workers. It is not long before she is employing workers without any papers, as she knows that they are easier to exploit and with little chance of getting caught the risks are worth taking.
An important character is Angie’s father who is of an older generation from another time. He still has the working class morals of the old east end Dockers and allows us to compare the different attitudes of the post and pre globalisation generations. In one scene he visits his daughter while she is selecting which people to give work to that day. He confronts Angie with his disgust and tells her he thought those days were gone and questions whether she is paying the minimum wage. She gets defensive and says that times have changed and that she doesn’t want to work all her days to end up poor like him. It is about looking out for number one. This is an interesting scene as it compares the mindset of someone who grew up in the relatively stable period of the post war boom and spent most of their live in one workplace to someone who has grown since the collapse of the Berlin wall and is faced with constant insecurity and change.
The actual workers are fairly anonymous apart from one or two exceptions where we are introduced to characters in order to emphasis the sheer desperation of their situation. In a particularly powerful scene Angie is confronted with workers that she has failed to pay and is asked if she thinks her child is more important than those of the workers who have been left without wages. There are times when Angie’s humanity comes to the surface but this is only seen as an obstacle to the growth of her business and she constantly has to ignore any thoughts of compassion.
In order to maximize the audience channel four are screening the film at 9pm on Monday 24 September. The controversial subject matter in the film should hopefully generate some much-needed debate on the brutality that the pursuit of profits brings to the lives of families who seek only to obtain a humane standard of living. And in the pursuit of what should be a realistic aim they are put at the mercy of the vultures that hover round the labour market looking to make a quick profit out of others desperation.

C’Mon the Proletariat

Edinburgh People’s Festival Celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution

In conjunction with the Edinburgh May Day Committee and You Scotland website the Edinburgh People’s Festival presents an evening of celebration to mark the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution
October 1917 Revolution : the most important political event of the 20th century where the masses rose up and took power of the Tzarist autocracy and changed the world order forever.
The evening will be introduced by Trevor Griffiths; He co wrote the film Oscar winning Hollywood epic REDS with Warren Beatty based on the book Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed. Trevor is coming up from Manchester especially for our celebrations.
Entertainment thereafter will be provided by Vladimir MacTavish [aka Paul Sneddon] the sensational Scots comedian. With a name like that who else would you have for this occasion?
And music from The Malkies making their Scots debut this new band stars legendary Scots guitarist Alastair Huelett and Brian Whittaker formerly of The Housemartins

n At The Stand, York Place, Edinburgh.
Tuesday 9 October 7.30pm
Tickets are £4 for concessions and in advance
£7 on the door on the night

The Wild Brunch
Keef Tomkinson

Keef casts his eye across life’s more leisurely pursuits in order to put a wee bit of CULTure into our lives.

It’s been pretty dull lately. The grapevine is dry. In fact things are good. And it’s been capped with Scotland glorious defeat of our old friend France in the even more glorious game. A big “I Love You” to the whole squad.
That‚s except for Big Eck McLeish. I ain’t convinced. Look at the previous performance against Lithuania. Yes, a diving Hearts bastard got them a penalty but before then McLeish’s side were throwing the game away.
Even though they were done out of desperation the media predictably gave credit for making the substitutions three million fans had been screaming for. The next morning I slipped past the hangover guarding my bed and got on the net to make truth heard.
And so it came to pass that I made my first entry on an online message board. You know them? Most news-based websites has them. Each user can leave unlimited thoughts on any given story.
I am not proud I left a message but it was on football so it does not matter that much. However, what about those people out there who drift from one site to another leaving a trail of ill informed gesticulation.
Be they armchair socialist’s, fascist’s, tories, labourites, nats or tartan hootsman, the story is the same. Each think they can make the ultimate intervention to the debate of the day. There’s just one problem.
Nobody read’s their messages. Nobody has the time to go through these wastelands and nobody has ever made up their mind on an issue because Emerald Finbar from Fife‚ says bombing Arabs stops Al Qaeda.
The essence of these message boards is a giant room full of office chairs inhabited a variety of socially retarded men and women, shouting their lonely thoughts into the vacuum of Space while the rest of us experience the real world around them.
The worst thing you can do is innocently think you can challenge one of these voices or clarify a fact. Doing so only gives them a link to the real world and energy to continue ranting. Leave them be.
Bizarrely while researching this whenever I came across an SSP discussion (of which there are many) those who hate the party have a disturbing obsession with slagging the Kane, Curran, Leckie axis. Jeez they must have really threatened socialism’s sausage swingers.
Remember John Smeaton?
He is the reason you‚re reading this paper rather than being forced fed deep fried pages of the Koran in an Iranian training camp controlled by that guy with a hook for a hand.
John Smeaton was that guy who battered a sizzling terrorist at Glasgow Airport. Thrown into the limelight his initial humble attitude to what he did made him an old skool as well as cult hero.
However, a column in The Sun, invite to 9/11’s ground zero and one appearance on Richard & Judy later, means can we suggest this humble hero has become a media monkey?
Maybe in some dimension there is abit of me that would be interested in the opinions of a pre-hero John - but now forget about it. Ok, in his first column he made a joke about running over former MSP Tommy Sheridan (we’ve all been there) but really I don‚t care what he‚s got to say.
Column’s are the meeting point for lazy journalism and wannabe hacks trying to pass of ill informed opinion as researched and challenging dialogue with the public.
That is all.