Don't dwell on shameful past, look to future
It seems that in recent years there been a section of the population who have been intent on making this country responsible for all the ills of the world.
It seems that in recent years there been a section of the population who have been intent on making this country responsible for all the ills of the world.
Our politicians have failed seriously to 'fight our corner'. They have fawned over foreign despots while allowing their own country to sink probably to its lowest peacetime level ever. At the same time, through the media, we are encouraged to carry the 'weight of the world on our shoulders' and to which we respond with both voluntary and financial support despite the fact that our means are deteriorating day by day.
This does not only apply to the present day but we are expected to accept responsibility, for wrongs committed centuries ago, the latest 'flavour of the month is the slave trade.'
The thought of apologising for something that happened three or four hundred years ago is both stupid and presumptuous on our part.
We cannot put ourselves back into a timezone when many countries would consider it normal to deal in slaves. The slave trade was very wrong although little if anything is said about the fact that Britain was the first country to realise this and stopped the practice before successfully fighting for its abolition. It does not seem to fit in with agenda of the politically correct who would have us flayed daily for our mis-deeds and those of our ancestors.
We are talking of an era when Britons were deported and transported halfway around the world in slave like conditions.
For stealing a loaf of bread, an offender may be shackled to a prison wall and left to die, or if he was lucky he may be hung, drawn and quartered, his body displayed on public view for months.
Torture and extreme poverty were the order of the day. Even early in the 20th Century, most people lived only one rung above the life of a slave. Do we need to mention the Romans who cruelly enslaved the British and then threw them to the loins or the Vikings who raped and pillaged and enslaved those left. Will it be a matter of official apologies all round?
Like every other country, Britain has done things for which by modern day standards we should be ashamed, but we have also much to be proud of. We must remember and learn the lessons of the past but our real energy should be concentrated on the future that we all want for our grandchildren.
A Johnson, Ampleforth Drive, Stafford.
