[WillowTheWhisp]

I've seen the documentary Neil refers to and it's not some childish amateurish video. It's a very thought provoking in depth analysis with interviews with those involved directly.

However, back to the subject of slavery and apologies. I do feel it is quite inappropriate for people who have not been responsible for enslaving anyone to apologise to people who themselves have not been enslaved for actions which people who may or my not have been their ancestors did to other people at the time and for which no living person today can be held responsible.

A Native American whose name I cannot at present recall was once at a 'rally' of Native American's complaining that they had lost their traditions and their culture and demanding compensation. He asked if they would like to give up the modern conveniences and go back to living in tents and grass huts - to which their reply was along the lines of "of course not" and his response to that was to suggest they stop living in the past and start looking to the future instead.

Once when I was in Ireland I was confronted by a very opinionated person who told me that I had caused grief and poverty and starvation in his country. When I pointed out that the famine occurred long before I was born he then said that it was my ancestors who had done it to his ancestors which according to him amounted to the same thing. I pointed out one gaping hole in his logic - although I was born and brought up in Lancashire I too have Irish ancestry. At that point he shut up.

I've got a friend who was born in the West Indies and whose mother and father can both trace their line back to slaves - but she's also got a Scottish landowner and slave owner in her family tree. Should she be apologiser or apologisee?