It’s not often that I agree with President Bush or praise him, but his speech in Senegal about slavery is pretty good.
For 250 years the captives endured an assault on their culture and their dignity. The spirit of Africans in America did not break. Yet the spirit of their captors was corrupted. Small men took on the powers and airs of tyrants and masters. Years of unpunished brutality and bullying and rape produced a dullness and hardness of conscience. Christian men and women became blind to the clearest commands of their faith and added hypocrisy to injustice. A republic founded on equality for all became a prison for millions.
[…]At every turn, the struggle for equality was resisted by many of the powerful. And some have said we should not judge their failures by the standards of a later time. Yet, in every time, there were men and women who clearly saw this sin and called it by name.
We can fairly judge the past by the standards of President John Adams, who called slavery “an evil of callosal magnitude.” We can discern eternal standards in the deeds of William Wilberforce and John Quincy Adams, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln. These men and women, black and white, burned with a zeal for freedom, and they left behind a different and better nation. Their moral vision caused Americans to examine our hearts, to correct our Constitution, and to teach our children the dignity and equality of every person of every race. By a plan known only to Providence, the stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America. The very people traded into slavery helped to set America free.
My nation’s journey toward justice has not been easy and it is not over. The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destination is set: liberty and justice for all.
Go read the whole speech.
I think his idea about judging the conduct of the past is sound since “in every time, there were men and women who clearly saw this sin.” It is not like people at the time did not think slavery was evil; there were plenty of men and women who denounced it and worked for abolishing it. This ties into my own criticism of Islamic law on slavery which I still intend to write about.
POSTSCRIPT: Also read Eric Muller’s post about assessing the wrongdoings of previous generations.
I posted almost the same thing:
Just watched the Bush speech at Goree Island today. It was a good one and he delivered it well. I only heard one stutter. He seemed to believe and care about what he was saying. There were no major surprises, but what impressed me was that he didn’t sugarcoat the history much. And he directly confronted the apologist line “you can’t judge them by the standards of our time”.
At every turn, the struggle for equality was resisted by many of the powerful. And some have said we should not judge their failures by the standards of a later time. Yet, in every time, there were men and women who clearly saw this sin and called it by name.
One weird note: Immediately after Bush was done some upbeat pop house music started pumping out of the PA
talk is cheap
wes: You beat me to it.
gizmogod: Yes, talk is cheap, but it was a good speech and especially the part that wes quoted.