Joined:	Friday February 4th, 2005
Location:
Posts:	735
Photo:	[Download]
Status:	Offline
Mana:

Search for Black Sites

A public debate challenging the British government’s Wilberforce Abolition commemoration plans for 2007 is to be held in Bristol.

Toyin Agbetu from Ligali and Esther Stanford from the Campaign for Reparations will be taking part in a crucial debate in Bristol as part of the Operation Truth 2007 campaign. The event, which is organised by the Consortium of Black Groups (COBG), is a public meeting which will take place on Wednesday 25th October 2006, 6pm - 9pm at the Black Development Agency, Russell Town Avenue (Opposite the City Academy Bristol).

Operation TRUTH 2007 is a Bristol based campaign with national links aiming to put an African perspective on local and national government plans to commemorate 200 years since the slavery Abolition act of 1807.

On March 24th 2007, the Archbishop of Canterbury will make a statement of apology at Lambeth Palace. This will follow a month long, symbolic 200 mile walk from Hull to Westminster by a group of europeans walking in replica yokes and chains alongside participating Africans in an attempt to represent enslaved African ancestors.

There is much opposition to this and other Government plans with widespread community ire directed at African British ministers and community collaborators such as David Lammy who proclaims on his website; “[t]his will mark the bicentenary of Parliament’s decision to abolish the slave trade in Britain after a long campaign spearheaded in debate by William Wilberforce MP�.

A Ligali spokesperson stated; “We must never forget that it was the British who internationalised and proclaimed the act of slavery legal in the first place. The 1807 Act sought only to make the trafficking of captured Africans illegal, the British continued its violation of African human rights through enslavement, rape and murder for several decades before being forced to transform its crumbling system of slavery into one of colonisation which was directed at Mama Africa herself�.

£16m spent pushing Wilberforce Abolition campaign

The government's Wilberforce Abolition campaign has spent over £16 million on the development of new resources which will ensure future generations of school children are miseducated about the entirety of Britain’s true role during the Maafa. To further cement this aim, parliament is seeking to commission a writer-in-residence to help create an exhibition in Westminster Hall from May - September 2007. The writer's role will be to help propagate this revisionist anti-African perspective by communicating the ideas to schools and young audiences and developing learning packs targeted at Key Stages 3 and 4.

The government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has named the Commission for Racial Equality (Trevor Phillips), the cities of Bristol and Hull (Paul Barnett /Mitch Upfold ), National Museums Liverpool (David Fleming), National Maritime Museum (Roy Clare), Museum of London (Jack Lohman), Churches Together in England (Richard Reddie), Heritage Lottery Fund (Julie Cligman), the Church of England, Amnesty International, (Tim Hancock ), Anti-Slavery International (David Ould), Evangelical Alliance (Joel Edwards, David Muir) and the BBC (Michael Hastings) as some of the organisations on its advisory group which has assisted with its revisionist agenda.

In recent weeks the national media has discussed a government announcement which states that whilst Britain will never apologise for its historic and current exploitation of Africa’s human and natural resources, a minister may issue a ‘statement of regret’ if convinced to do so by members of its advisory group.

Last edited on Wednesday October 11th, 2006 10:25 by Judge J