Britons are widely ignorant of the scale and legacy of Britain’s involvement in slavery and colonialism, a survey has found, with the vast majority unaware how many people were enslaved, how long the trade went on for, or for how long UK taxpayers were paying off a government loan to “compensate” enslavers after abolition.

The poll, released to coincide with Tuesday’s UN International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, was commissioned by the Repair Campaign, which is working with Caricom to secure reparatory justice for member states through health, education and infrastructure projects.

The sample of more than 2,000 people representative of the UK population found 85% did not know that more than 3 million people had been forcibly shipped from Africa to the Caribbean by British enslavers.

  • BetaBlake@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I feel like most of Europe isn’t, because Europeans get real uppity when slavery in America comes up, but like…y’all started it.

    • aname@lemmy.one
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      5 days ago

      Most of the Europe was not part of the colonization of Africa though. It was like seven countries. Don’t blame all europeans for what those countries did.

    • wewbull@feddit.uk
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      5 days ago

      Nobody started it. It’s ever-present from prehistory to today.