I am a Brazilian national living in the UK and am currently going through the citizenship application process. I recently had to take the Life in the UK test and, in my opinion, it is the embodiment of the British people’s resistance to coming to terms with their country’s past (Ex-Tory MP threatens to sue Cambridge University over slavery research, 31 August).
As Alex Renton said in his article (Antoinette Sandbach’s relatives owned slaves – and so did mine. We have to atone for that as best we can, 1 September), it makes people uncomfortable (typically white British people), but the avoidance of dealing with the matter makes the situation way more unbearable for people on the other side of the conversation.
In my preparations for the test, I had to memorise the names of “illustrious” historical figures who, in fact, supported and profited from slavery. I am forced to learn about them as the heroes of Britain, with nothing whatsoever about the bloodshed or the horrors wreaked on the whole world.
Antoinette Sandbach is the tip of the iceberg, and it will not be by getting her or anyone in the same position to accept and recognise their ancestors’ acts as inhumane that we will become a more equal society. The change must happen at the foundations – parliament, schools, and the government, regardless of the party in power.
To this day we see how unfair British society is. I am tired of hearing from the average white Briton that “this country is not called Great Britain for no reason”. Maybe it is time also to acknowledge the great waves of terror and destruction it has spread over the years.
Arthur Cunha
London
• Alex Renton’s arguments in favour of us feeling guilty for the historical phenomenon of slavery are muddled and irrational. Of course we must abhor the crimes that were some of the worst in the history of humanity. However, to suggest that the people of contemporary Britain should feel guilty for wrongs perpetrated 200 years before their birth, and act on that guilt by way of apology or reparations, is morally incoherent.
Unless you are a Christian believing in original sin, the concept of moral responsibility as something that can be inherited is profoundly misjudged. To hold people even in the slightest degree responsible for what their ancestors may have been responsible for at more than 10 generations of distance is absurd.
Stephen Smith
Glasgow
• It is worth noting that Antoinette Sandbach’s ancestor, Samuel Sandbach, and his two sons were not minor players in the slave trade.
The records on the UCL Legacies of British Slavery database show them to have been associated with claims involving 5,082 enslaved people, who were valued at £268,225 12s 10d. That’s worth nearly £28m today.
Moreover, the more she attempts to dissociate herself from the legacy of her ancestors’ involvement in the slave trade, the more attention she draws to it.
Stephanie Offer
Croydon, London
• It is interesting that the upper classes are usually happy to benefit from the wealth of their forebears, and to accept inherited status, but are often less keen to bear any responsibility for the means by which that wealth and status was gained.
Bill Bradbury
Bolton, Greater Manchester
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