In the news

Dunno. Something. I don’t know about the UN convention, but I do know that massive wall alongside the A31 and everything within it was built with money made from not just slave labour but the actual slave trade and that doesn’t feel right.

I understand there has to be limits on what we can reclaim as blood money with hindsight but the fact this family are still venerated and power-making in parliament in 2022 is tragic and it’s hard to see how we’ll ever make it as a fair country with such families involved in making the laws.

If I were the current Mr Drax I’d wake every day to shame over what my ancestors did and do at least something to make amends. Acceptance and an apology would be a start.

The stags on the arch bits along that wall are cool though.

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I agree the injustice certainly doesn’t feel right. I’m just not sure what corrective measure there should be given the ancestors have benefited but did not take the action.

The land issue seems equally troubling, islands (I don’t know the history of Barbados) are often contested occupied by various people at various times and who “owns” the right to it.

Acceptance, apology, reparations.
They can give back the land they still own in Barbados, for starters. They're not going to be poor without it. Drax weren't just another wealthy family who benefited from "the ways things were done". They were instrumental to the slavery 'industry'. And I think it's relevant that they're still staggeringly rich.

I don't know anything about the UN conventions etc though so I'm sure I'm missing a great deal, but "starting negotiations" does not seem troubling to me.

Their power station is the largest single source of CO2 in the UK too, so they should also feel bad about that.

But who are they giving it back too?

There’s a proposal to give it to the state for Barbadians to build social housing and to make the big house into a museum I think.

Their power station

Is there a connection? Thought the power station co just shared name through location. (Or are you making a funny.)

I quite liked them in Guardians of the Galaxy though.

Making a funny ;)

I think @TW was too

Five legs.

Drax was also a kind of ultra-eugenicist Elon Musk supervillain in Moonraker, the cheesiest Bond film - it's the one Austin Powers plays on.

But then Fleming did actually name him after a Drax family member.

In a statement, it said it had not received an official explanation or
apology from China, "beyond a claim by the officials who later
released him that they had arrested him for his own good in case he
caught Covid from the crowd"

did lol at authoritarian dystopia

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-63779176

The classic.

'We beat you and arrested you for your protection'

And please be grateful

Musk must be doing something because I've got uBlock Origin and for the first time ever I'm seeing ads on twitter (desktop not mobile).

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Can you imagine this being the least worst option

I read this this morning and just can't imagine how bad their life must have been and be.

Read that last night and it's been haunting me ever since - how did they get on there? How much does that rudder move? How did they sleep? Did they know where they were going and how long it would take?

Worse, were there originally 5 or 6 of them?

It would be a great film. To tell their story to elp people have compassion

I'd be surprised if there wasn't a scramble over the rights already.

when I saw the picture it reminded me of the landing gear stowaways like the poor fellow who fell out of KQ100 from Nairobi a few years back - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/03/man-who-fell-from-plane-could-be-nairobi-airport-employee epic levels of bravery, determination (and altitude sickness) with about a ~80% chance of death.
Paying these stories literally any attention at all can only lead to compassion and admiration of the sort we would expect for great explorers, endurance athletes etc....