Reflections on slavery: past, present and future

This reflection[i] has three main purposes:

• to emphasise the long and diverse history of slavery across the world, and to highlight its differing historical expressions and complexities;
• to recognise that we cannot change the past nor know the future with certainty, and can only act in the immediacy of the present; and
• above all, in the light of the above, to encourage us all to do much more now to eliminate the scourge of modern slavery.

Context

It is easy to say or write that slavery is fundamentally wrong because of the loss of freedoms and violence usually[ii] associated with it.  It is far more difficult, though, actually to do something constructive about eliminating slavery at the only time over which we have any control, the present.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-blm-protesters-acquitted-over-pulling-down-slave-trader-statue-2022-01-05/

The Black Lives Matter and associated anti-slavery protests in the UK in 2020 raised many questions (see image above). I was particularly challenged, for example, by the emphasis of those protesting on the past rather than on contemporary slavery.  The majority of banners likewise seemed to highlight the wrongs of past slavery more than they did the wrongs of present slavery.  My reflections here seek to grapple with why this was, and why it remains so.[iii]  In the years since, there has been much more visible concern in Britain over reparations for past slavery, especially relating to the 18^th and 19^th centuries, than there has been real action to eliminate contemporary slavery: statues of people who had once been slave-owners have been torn down; streets have been renamed; universities, such as Manchester  and Cambridge that have benefitted from donations from people who gained from the  slave trade have undertaken enslavement inquiries; and institutions such as the National Trust have published reports on their links with historic slavery. 

In part this is because of the overlapping interests between the Black Lives Matter movement and those protesting against slavery.[iv]  However, slavery matters in its own right; it is not just a racial matter.  In this piece I therefore seek to disentangle the issues of slavery and racism.[v]  I want to focus primarily on slavery rather than race.  I fully recognise that the two are often intertwined, and there are good reasons why people feel strongly about this intersection, but here I focus on broader issues relating specifically to slavery, and how we respond to the past.  I begin with some personal reflections on the origins of my own interest in slavery, and then provide a short conceptual framework that includes a note on definitions of slavery, before highlighting what I see as some of the most difficult and problematic issues concerning slavery past, present and future.  My purpose is to encourage us to shift our focus from the past about which we can change nothing, to the present where we do have the option to do something.

My interests in slavery

I have long been interested in slavery, from my days as a boy reading the Bible about the unfairness of Joseph being sold into slavery (Genesis 37) and my difficulty in trying to reconcile my own emerging moral views about slavery with some of Paul’s comments on slaves being obedient to their masters (Ephesians 6, Colossians 3, 1 Timothy 6, and Titus 2).  However, I have taken a much more serious and academic interest in slavery since the mid-1970s.  Three factors have been particularly important in helping to shape my current understanding of these issues. 

• First, my doctoral thesis in historical geography written in the second half of the 1970s focused in large part on the changing economic and social structures of medieval Midland England.  I was fascinated to learn that slaves could sometimes have had better lifestyles than villeins within feudal society.  In this I was heavily influenced by the writings of Marc Bloch (both his seminal La Société Féodale first published in 1939, but also in essays that have recently been collated under the title Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages) and in the historical records with which I was working.
• Second, some 20 years ago I encountered modern slavery in England for the first time as I sought to support someone who was trying to rescue a person who had been forced into slavery on their arrival to work in our country.  This opened my eyes to the widespread existence of modern slavery in many parts of the UK, and it continues to haunt me as I continue to see such slavery within the country that I call home. 
• Third, my experiences working in Africa during the last 20 years have inevitably forced me to confront issues of colonial history and slavery, especially in Sierra Leone and Ghana.  Despite its fraught history both as a Crown Colony until 1961 and then as an independent state since, Freetown and Sierra Leone always cause me to think about the potential for freedom in the human mind and the abolition of slavery;[vi] it is also salutary to recall that it is the home of Fourah Bay College which was founded in 1827 as the first western style university built in Sub-Saharan Africa.[vii]  I like to think that there is a connection between freedom and knowledge.

Freetown, 2009

Likewise, I have many fond memories of working in Ghana.  A visit to Cape Coast Castle in 2008, though, remains etched in my mind because of one very specific conversation that I had there while visiting the Castle and Dungeon.  Initially the castle had been established as a small fort by the Swedish Africa Company in the middle of the 17^th century, and it later became one of the most important “slave castles” along the former Gold Coast.  Watching a group of European women who were very upset by what they saw, one of my close Ghanaian friends commented that he never quite understood why many Europeans became so emotionally distressed when visiting the castle.  I was initially perplexed, but he went on to say that, after all, it was the African people living in the surrounding areas who had sold their awkward cousins and uncles, or people captured in conflicts as slaves to the Europeans in return for guns and other items that they wanted. Slavery had long been a way of life in the region, and had most definitely not been introduced by the Europeans.  His matter of fact comments challenged much of what I had previously rather taken for granted about the Triangular trans-Atlantic slave trade.[viii]  This trade was undoubtedly coercive, violent and exploitative, but its transactional character and the collaboration of African communities who were willing to sell other Africans for a price to European slavers needs to be recognised in any discussion of this particular expression of slavery.[ix] 

Cape Coast Castle, 2008 (as rebuilt by the British in the 18^th century)

On concepts and definitions

I have long enjoyed reading Onora O’Neill’s inspirational philosophical writings (see especially the collection of essays published as Justice Across Boundaries, 2016), and have found that many of my own ideas coincide quite closely with hers, especially around obligations, rights and justice (although I have tended to focus on the notion of “responsibilities” rather than “obligations”).  In particular, she highlights the difficulties that arise in discussing the rights to compensation for actions in the distant past that are widely considered to be wrong today. Her work is well worth reading at length on this topic; I frequently return to it for clarity on these difficult issues.  What follows is in part sparked by reflections on slavery in the contexts of these wider philosophical and conceptual debates.  Three challenges seem particularly important.

• First, no individual has any effective power over what her or his distant ancestors did in the past.  If they have no power to change the past, what are their responsibilities? We might have had some influence on our own parents’ actions, and those who have known their grandparents might also have had a little influence on their lives.  However, we cannot have had any actual influence on the lives and actions of those we never knew.  If we have had no such influence, can we have any responsibility for their actions in the past?  If we have no responsibility for those actions, why should we be criticised and condemned by others for the actions of our ancestors (individually and collectively)?  These are real challenges in the context of slavery.  It is not easy to clarify the logical reasons why the descendants of slave owners (and institutions they benefitted) should have received the opprobrium that has been cast on them by many of those today condemning slavery.  This is regardless of how one might “judge” (itself a very problematic notion) those who were children of slave owners, but who argued vehemently for abolition in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, or even those who had owned slaves but then championed abolition.[x]  Even John Locke, widely seen as being one of the founders of liberal democracy, has recently been savaged by historians and others because of his role in administering the British colonies in North America in the 17^th century where slavery was widely practised.[xi]

• Second, there are profound difficulties in “judging” the past by the standards of the present.  As Hartley wrote in The Go-Between (1953), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”.  All societies evolve and change, but they all have mechanisms through which the few rich and/or privileged extract a surplus from the many poor and exploited (Karl Marx’s modes of production remain a powerful theoretical model of such change; for Marx and Engels, slave society was the earliest form of class society).  There are, though, many conundrums within the idea of “criticising” past societies, not least because our present societies have emerged from them, and would be different if they had not existed. There is nothing we can do about changing past societies.  Hopefully our present societies have evolved positively and are better than those of the past, although this is by no means always so!  The key thing is that we need to learn the lessons of history; we need to understand the past so that we do not make the same mistakes our ancestors made then and there (at least as “judged” by our own societies).  “Now” is the only time when we can actually do anything, and the choices we make in the present need to be made in the light of the past so as to help make a better future.  As Tolstoy (1903) wrote in his short essay Three Questions, “Remember then: there is only one time that is important – now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power”.  Such reflections also force us to consider how future generations will perceive our own actions.  How, for example, will they consider our ineffectual efforts to abolish modern slavery?  Might they see our enforced addiction to digital tech as but another, les immediately brutal, form of slavery, and today’s digital barons as equivalent to the slave masters of the past?

• Third, these considerations also make it important to try to define what exactly slavery is.  It is, though, very problematic to provide a clear and all-encompassing definition of slavery, not least because of the ways in which the notion and practices have varied and evolved over time (and may continue to do so in the future).  Two key elements are central to any definition: a lack of “freedom”, and being under the absolute control of another person.  Exactly what types of freedom and control are necessary to be considered as slavery is disputed and have changed over time.  One way of addressing this is to define certain practices as being indicative of slavery, as with chattel slavery (treating someone as the personal property of another), bonded labour (where someone pledges themselves to work for another to pay off a debt), or forced labour or marriage (where someone is forced in some way to work or marry against their will).  Another approach has been to adopt legal definitions agreed by conventions.  The 1926 UN Slavery Convention, thus defines slavery as ”the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching the right of ownership are exercised”.  In practice, it may be best to consider a spectrum of characteristics that comprise slavery, recognising that different people may choose to include some or all of these in their definitions.  “Servitude” is thus considered by some to have many of the characteristics of, but to be less severe than, “slavery”. The European Court of Human Rights (2022), for example, has recently argued that servitude “is a particularly serious form of denial of freedom”, although it should be considered as an aggravated form of forced labour, and therefore although related to slavery it is not to be confused with it. “It includes, in addition to the obligation to provide certain services to another, the obligation on the “serf” to live on the other’s property and the impossibility of changing his status”.[xii]  The relationship between “slavery” and “serfdom” has, though, also evolved over time.  In origin, the words “serf” and “slave” come from the same root, namely the Latin servus (meaning slave; and from which the word servitude is also derived).  However, serfs and slaves have generally been seen, at least from medieval times onwards, to be rather different categories.  For some, the word “serfs” is a generic term to describe the group of people originally known as coloni, or tenant farmers in the late Roman period onwards, and whose status had generally become increasingly degraded.  For others, it is even broader, and is often equated with the word “peasants” to refer to the mass of people at the bottom of the emerging class system in medieval and early-modern times, but above the status of slaves.[xiii]

These three conceptual framings underlie the ensuing sections on slavery in the past, in the present and in the future.

Roman collared slaves (Ashmolean Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_collared_slaves_-_Ashmolean_Museum.jpg)

Slavery: the past

Four important observations about past slavery are all too frequently ignored or downplayed in contemporary public discourse, but I suggest should be considered in any reasoned discussion of slavery:

• First, slavery was a normal and accepted aspect of society in many parts of the world for well over six millennia, whereas the abolitionist movement in Europe only really began in the mid-18^th century, less than three centuries ago.[xiv]  It must have been as unthinkable for the majority of people for most of history (and indeed pre-history) to have challenged slavery as it is now for someone to try to promote slavery.

• Second, slavery was practised at some time in the past in most parts of the world.  Slavery existed in most ancient civilizations as in the Babylonian and Persian Empires.  It was common throughout the Roman world; slaves from what is now the UK were paraded in Rome.  In the early Islamic states in West and North Africa it has been estimated that about one-third of the population were slaves; in East Africa, Zanzibar was the main port for slave trading to the Arabian peninsula.  Slavery was widely practised in the Pre-Columbian cultures of Middle and South America.  It formed a crucial element of the Ottoman Empire; in the 17^th century it is estimated that a fifth of the population of Constantinople was probably slaves. Slaves remained fundamentally important throughout the Ottoman Empire until the 19^th century, notably as the much feared Janissaries (elite infantry soldiers). Slavery was widespread for centuries in China, and was only abolished in 1909.  The Triangular trade between Europe, Western Africa and North America, which features so prominently in current popular discourse on slavery was thus only one example of the very widespread pattern of global slavery.  It is often forgotten that between the 15^th and 18^th centuries white Europeans from Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and England had also been sold into slavery by North Africans. Frequently slaves were captured as a result of warfare, sometimes there were regular expeditions to capture slaves, and often people sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts.  This ubiquitous character of slavery raises interesting questions about the payment of reparations.  Should Italy pay England for taking slaves during the period of Roman occupation?  Should Turkey pay countries in the Balkans for the devşirme (blood tax) through which Christian boys were taken to become Janissaires? Should the rulers of states in the Arabian peninsula pay reparations to the countries of eastern Africa?  Should Israel pay reparations to the surrounding countries from whence their ancestors took Canaanite slaves?  The usual response to such questions is “No”, on the grounds that such reparations only apply to the recent past.  But when is the past recent?[xv] 

• Third, it must be recognised that everyone in societies where slave ownership was practised benefitted to some extent from slavery, and it is not possible just to attribute blame to slave owners or traders and their descendants.[xvi]  The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker all benefitted from the wealth gained by those who invested in estates that used slave labour.  All societies, past and present, have mechanisms and legitimation systems through which the rich can exploit the poor, and can thereby afford to live “better” lives and purchase luxuries.  Slavery is just one mechanism through which such surplus extraction and exploitation occurs. Indeed, life for the poor in 18^th and 19^th century Britain was unbelievably harsh by modern standards.  However, everyone (apart from the slaves) takes a share of the trickle-down financial benefit.  The elite pay architects, artists and jewellers to produce what many societies now cherish as their cultural heritage, but this enabled these craftsmen to afford to buy paints, or beer, or clothing, which in turn benefitted the brewers, merchants and clothiers.  Ultimately, almost everyone in the past, and not just slave owners or institutions that received gifts derived from slave ownership, benefitted in some way from slavery.  It therefore seems highly problematic to pick out certain slave owners or institutions (and their descendants) in certain societies for retribution.

• Fourth, it is likely that in most cases slavery did not generally collapse purely for moral grounds, but rather also for economic ones. The ultimate reason that slavery collapsed was often because it became too expensive to obtain and maintain slaves.  We like to think that it resulted exclusively from some kind of enlightened belief, or a rise of moral virtue in the 19^th century, and this may indeed have helped in some cases (as with the abolitionist movement in Britain), but there is little evidence to support the argument that a sudden rise in moral concern was usually the primary reason that slavery ended.   As conflicts and wars reduced in frequency, it became less easy to capture people and enslave them.  Moreover, the costs of feeding slaves could become prohibitive, especially at times of rising basic staple prices. Forcing slaves to cultivate land to feed themselves was also problematic since it took land and labour away from other forms of production, and yields were in any case often not high.  Most importantly, new more efficient forms of labour exploitation (such as the factory system in the 19^th century) and the mechanisation of agriculture, reduced the economic benefits of slave production.

Slavery: the present

As noted in the quotation from Tolstoy cited above, the present is a very special time, because it is the only time when we have any power.   How we act in the present, though, depends very much on our understanding of the past.  Four problematic issues seem worthy of reflection here about how we are acting in the present with respect to slavery.

• First, it must be recognised and acknowledged that slavery still exists.  It was not eliminated by the abolutionist movement in the 19^th century.  According to the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, there are about 49.6 million people living in modern slavery, mostly in forced labour and forced marriage.[xvii]  Roughly a quarter of these are children.  To be sure, definitions of slavery have changed over time, but these figures compare with best estimates for the number of slaves transported from Africa to the Americas of around 12.5 million.[xviii]  Modern slavery is real and present at a very large scale.  We can choose to do something real and practical about it.  It is as violent and horrendous as are most forms of past slavery.  While much current media attention and political activity focuses on black slavery, colonialism and issues around restitution and reparations, we also need to focus on the reality of modern slavery across the world and do something to bring it to an end.

• Second, the timing of the sudden upswelling of interest in slavery, the recent actions taken by many people and organisations to try to atone for the past, and the vehemence of commitment of many of those campaigning for reparations and against past slavery seem in part to represent a collective failure to understand and appreciate the impact of slavery, both in the past and at present.  Having learnt about slavery as a child, and written and taught about slavery through much of my career,[xix] I find it hard to believe that so many people in Britain seem to have been unaware of the impact of slavery on our economy.[xx]  Why did they not protest before 2020? The apparent sudden discovery of our role in the Triangular Trade, seems in part to reflect a failure in our education system to address the complexity of history, and especially to consider slavery in a global and holistic framework.  In a society increasingly dominated by scientism (science’s belief in itself) it becomes more and more important for young people to study the disciplines of history and geography which play such a crucial role in shaping their sense of time and place.  A good historical understanding of slavery throughout history and across the world would also help people have a much more nuanced and sensitive approach to understanding its complexities, and the reasons why we need to respond urgently to the continued existence of modern slavery. 

• Third, it is always easier to criticise people who cannot respond, especially in the past, than it is to act wisely in the present.  As any political leader knows, it is much easier to criticise others, than it is actually to deliver policies that have positive outcomes.  In the context of slavery, it is easy to stand up and protest, it is easy to adopt slick slogans, it is easy to blame people in the past, and it is easy to post critical comments on social media.  This is especially so when those who lived through those times are completely unable to respond or tell their side of the story.  It is very much more difficult to change existing practices, such as modern slavery, because that takes considerable time and effort, it is tough to do, it is expensive, and it is not easy to understand what really needs to be done.  However, given now is the only time when we can influence things for the better, we should surely concentrate on what we can actually do something about, rather than spend so much time bemoaning something that we can never change.  We can learn from the past to change the present.

• Fourth, it is difficult to justify criticising people in the past, because we were not there and have no way of knowing how we would have behaved ourselves at that time.  We might like to think that we would have acted in the past in accordance with our present moral compasses (if we recognise that we have such things), but the reality is that it is highly unlikely that we would have done so.  We simply have no real way of knowing what we would have done if we had been living during past epochs when slavery was rife.  Perhaps our biggest fear would have been the chance of being captured and sold into slavery ourselves.  If we cannot guarantee that we would have opposed slavery then, it seems difficult to justify the opprobrium that we cast on those who benefitted from slavery in the past, especially if we are doing little to prevent it in the present.

In short, the logic of the above comments seems to point to a conclusion that we should focus our attention more on trying to stop modern slavery, because we can indeed do something about this, rather than spending most of our time criticising the actions of people in the past about which we can do nothing.

Slavery: the future

Such arguments have interesting implications when slavery in the future is considered.  Again, four comments seem appropriate.

• First, we might be able to reduce the extent of slavery in the future if we take action to do so now, and at the very least those who do indeed believe that slavery is wrong would then be acting according to their moral principles.  This in itself raises many further difficult issues.  Given that slavery still exists, and has therefore probably done so ever since human “civilizations” first emerged, is it somehow a “natural” human condition?  Will slavery always exist?  Even if this is the case, though, those of us who believe it is wrong can nevertheless still seek to take action now to reduce its extent in the hope that this will happen in the future. 
• Second, how will those in the future look back and see our actions today with respect to slavery?  Just as we cannot influence the past, we will not be living when those in the future think about us. At one level, this question will not really matter, because we will be long dead and the thoughts of people in the distant future can have no real influence over us.  Nevertheless, many people do wish to be remembered kindly. For those who do care how history will see them, if only the near history of their children and grandchildren, taking action now at a time over which we do have some control or power, would seem to be wise (although of course many people may not wish to be wise). How will our offspring and descendants judge us most positively: for acting to reduce the slavery that does exist and we can do something about, or for merely protesting about a past over which we could never do anything to change.
• Third, if we do nothing about slavery today, there is a chance that those nearest and dearest to us might be forced into slavery in the future.  This may be an unlikely scenario for many reading this post, but it is at least a logical possibility.  Every one of the nearly 50 million people currently in slavery has parents, and possibly grandparents who may still be alive and know them.  At least some, perhaps most, of these relatives will grieve that their offspring are enslaved.  By acting today, we can reduce the chances of our children and further descendants becoming enslaved.
• Finally, it is worth asking what future generations may consider about the nature of freedom and slavery in our societies today?  I have recently spent much time pondering this question, and writing and speaking about digital enslavement as a new mode of production.  Put simply, if we cannot live without using digital tech, have we become enslaved by the owners of the companies and governments who force us to use such technologies?  If we cannot spend a day, let alone a week, without using digital tech, have we not become enslaved by those who make it?[xxi]  Have we not willingly become “unfree”?  The new slave masters expropriate a vast surplus from our data and everything that they know about us, and we seem unable to escape from giving this to them at no charge.  Indeed, we have to pay significant amounts to be connected to the internet, just so as to enable them to exploit us further.   What will future generations think?  Will the likes of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Jeff Bezos also have the work of their foundations and donations castigated, their virtual statues torn down, their reputations smashed, and their children’s children hated for the actions of their ancestors?[xxii]

In conclusion

It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the above reflections, and everyone will have somewhat differing views about them.  They are intended to raise difficult questions and encourage open debate on them.  I have tried to focus on slavery alone, although clearly this intersects, especially at this time in history, with other categories of contemporary interest such as race and colonialism.  However, these reflections are explicitly not intended to address either of these other two categories in any detail.  Slavery has existed between and within many different races; it has transcended most modes of socio-economic, political and cultural formation.  It is not unique to the Triangular Trans-Atlantic slave trade. There has been a considerable amount of research done on the history of slavery and very much more that needs to be done.  However, history alone is not enough.  It is the moral questions that we ask, and how we use them to shape the futures of the societies in which we live that, to me, matter most.

The above arguments suggest to me that it is more important to focus on trying to reduce contemporary slavery (and its possible variants in the future) than it is only to protest about the horrors and injustices of past slavery.  Both are important, and this is not to belittle the value of highlighting the undoubted injustices of slavery in the past.  However, we cannot change what has happened in the past, and it is surely therefore our responsibility to past slaves that we act now, when we can, to prevent slavery continuing into the future.   Protesting is the easy bit; changing the future is when the going gets really tough. Others may well feel differently, and I certainly accept that we need a sound understanding of the past if we are to act wisely in the present.  I began by reflecting on my surprise at how few of the anti-slavery and anti-racism protests that I saw in 2020 and 2021 focused on modern slavery. My hope is that those who read and engage with what I have written here may turn their anger at what they cannot change into energy to reduce the extent of slavery that remains all about us today.  I also hope that they will strive to maintain the perceived freedoms that so many now cherish and take for granted, and yet are in very real danger of being taken away from us through the increasingly all-pervasiveness of digital enslavement. 

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[i] I am immensely grateful to several friends and colleagues who took time to comment on an earlier version of this draft and have undoubtedly helped me to improve it.  I know that the issues it addresses are sensitive, but I hope that this final version strikes an appropriate balance as I seek to encourage us all to refocus our attention on how we eliminate the modern slavery (and especially violence against women) that continues to exist across the world.

[ii] I have deliberately used this word here because I remain struck by the reality that the lives of some slaves in the past were in many ways better than the lives of the poorest agricultural labourers.

[iii] There were indeed some banners relating to modern slavery, but from the protests and images that I saw these were in a minority.

[iv] This was also associated with transfers of ideology and practice from the US to the rather different context of the UK. 

[v] This is not in any way to downplay the horrors of the slave trade between Africa and the Americas between the 17^th and 19^th centuries, but it is to try to explore fundamental principles associated with slavery per se rather than racism.

[vi] See for example, Abraham Farfán and María del Pilar López-Uribe (2020) The British founding of Sierra Leone was never a ‘Province of Freedom, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2020/06/27/british-founding-sierra-leone-slave-trade/. It is also important to note here that it was actually in the UK, a colonial and later imperial power, where the abolutionist movement first gained considerable traction, initially in the late 18th century and then especially from the 1830s onwards.

[vii] The Province of Freedom in what became Sierra Leone was first settled in 1787 by formerly enslaved black people, but this early settlement collapsed, and it was not until 1792 with an influx of more than a thousand former slaves from North America that the settlement of Freetown was firmly established through the agency of the Sierra Leone Company.

[viii] See also Trevor Phillips’ important essay in The Times (18 September 2020 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trevor-phillips-when-you-erase-a-nations-past-you-threaten-its-future-xx9rqzqh9) entitled “When you erase a nation’s past, you threaten its future”, in which he suggests that “Those who have African heritage might do well, before they denounce long-dead British slave owners, to find out which side of the vile transactions in West Africa’s slave ports their own ancestors stood”.  See also his review “Colonialism by Nigel Biggar: don’t be ashamed of empire”, in The Sunday Times, 5^th February 2023, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/colonialism-by-nigel-biggar-dont-be-ashamed-of-empire-lp83ptqtd. More research needs to be done on the origins of slaves from West Africa in the Caribbean and North America, and how they were enslaved.

[ix] This also reminds me of the continuing African slave trade across the Sahara today.  See for example https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/07/africa/un-sanctions-migrant-traffickers-intl/index.html, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/29/african-refugees-bought-sold-and-murdered-in-libya/, and https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/29/african-refugees-bought-sold-and-murdered-in-libya/.

[x] See for example the life of John Newton who had been a slave, a captain of slave ships, and then championed abolitionism, as well as writing the famous hymns Amazing Grace and Glorious things of Thee are spoken. 

[xi] See Brewer, 2018.

[xii] https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/guide_art_4_eng.pdf, p.8.

[xiii] In my own work on medieval society, I found it helpful to avoid the generic word “serf” and stick to the terms actually in use at the time, such as villeins, cottars and bordars.  In very general terms, in 11^th century England there were two broad groups of rural people beneath the level of knights and lords: the free peasantry (freemen and sokemen) who comprised about 12% of the population recorded in Domesday Book of 1066; and the unfree (villeins representing about 40% of the population, alongside the poorer cottars and bordars) who worked the land in return for onerous obligations and services to the Lord.  Beneath them all were the slaves, comprising perhaps 10% of the population, who had no property rights and could be bought and sold.

[xiv] Although Louis X of France published a decree in 1315 declaring that any slave arriving on French soil should be declared free, the widespread rise of abolitionism is usually dated to the emergence of The Enlightenment in the mid-18th century, and the activities of the Quakers in England and North America in the latter part of that century.  Interestingly, although slavery was abolished during the French revolution, Napoleon restored it in 1802 as one means to try to retain sovereignty over France’s colonies.

[xv] Complex legal debates around statutes of limitations are one way on which attempts have been made to answer this question.  See for example the UN’s OHCHR “Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law” https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/basic-principles-and-guidelines-right-remedy-and-reparation.  See also Shelton, D. (2002) Reparations for human rights violations: how far back?, Amicus Curiae, 44, 3-7

[xvi] I have deliberately concentrated here on slavery in a global context, and not just on the current emphasis in European and North American societies on the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  The horrors, misery and death associated with slavery in the context of European colonialism should not be trivialised, but at the same time their needs to be open and honest discussion about the existence of slavery in Africa long before the arrival of white Europeans.

[xvii] See ILO, Walk Free and IOM (2022) Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage, Geneva: ILO, Walk Free and IOM. See also https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/.

[xviii] See https://www.slavevoyages.org/, as well as extensive other research by Franz Binder, Ernst van den Boogart, Henk den Heijer and Johannes Postma, James Pritchard, Andrea Weindl, Antonio de Almeida Mendes, Manuel Barcia Paz, Alexandre Ribeiro, David Wheat and José Capela.

[xix] especially in the context of my teaching of Marxist theory between the mid-1970s and the end of the 1990s.  See also the work of the UCL Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery.

[xx] There has been very substantial research on slavery in the past, and the extent to which British society and the economy were shaped by it in the 18^th and 19^th centuries has long been well known.  See for example the work of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at UCL https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ which emerged from earlier funded research projects in the 2000s and 2010s, and also the useful short  note by John Oldfield (2021) on abolition of the slave trade and slavery in Britain, https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/abolition-of-the-slave-trade-and-slavery-in-britain, which draws heavily on research dating back to the 1930s.

[xxi] Do consider using #1in7offline to promote the practice of having a day a week offline.

[xxii] See my 2022 piece on Freedom, enslavement and the digital barons: a thought experiment.

A differentiated, responsibilities-based approach to living with the Covid-19 pandemic

Rosa Graham Thomas – in UK lockdown

The United Kingdom has among the worst COVID-19 infection and death rates in the world (see Financial Times, 28th May 2020).  This is in part because of very serious errors of judgement made by the UK Government (see my list of questions to which they must answer, 27th April 2020), but it is also a result of the behaviour of substantial numbers of UK citizens during “lockdown” who, for whatever, chose not to self-isolate  (including the Prime Minister’s Senior Advisor, Dominic Cummings).  The UK government at the end of May also made another serious error of judgement, relaxing the restrictions, even for those who had previously been told to shield themselves, when  daily numbers of new infections and deaths were very much higher than they were when other countries had begun to “open up” (BBC, 31st May 2020).  This is despite the advice of many senior scientists who said that it was too early to relax the restrictions (BBC, 30th May 2020).  Estimates by the Office for National Statistics (28th May 2020) suggested that there were then at least 8000 new cases a day in England, excluding those in care homes or hospitals.  The daily average number of deaths from COVID-19 in the UK to the week ending 31st May was 242 (gov.uk, 31st May 2020).

Countries cannot stay locked down for ever, though, and it is essential for people to go back to work; indeed, it may well be that a vaccine or cure for COVID-19 will not be found in the short term, and societies may have to learn to live with this coronavirus for the foreseeable future.  Difficult decisions will therefore need to be made about how to manage daily life and reduce the number of deaths caused by SARS-Cov-2.  These decisions will need to vary depending on the specific contexts of each country, including its demographics (see my post of 7th May 2020) and environmental factors (see my post of 3rd May 2020).  In the UK, the government has used fairly crude measures, trying to ensure that large numbers of people stayed at home (even though most of them would not be seriously ill if they caught COVID-19), rather than varying the strategy according to risk.  Most actions and discussions have also adopted a human rights based approach to considering how decisions should be made (see for example Morley et al.’s paper on the ethics of tracing apps, or Lord Sumpton’s discussion of why lockdown is despotic).  Instead, I suggest here that we need to adopt highly differentiated strategies, based on our responsibilities (or obligations, as Onora O’Neill suggests in her 2016 book Justice Across Boundaries).

Differentiated risks of COVID-19

There is increasingly sophisticated analysis in various parts of the world to suggest that different groups of people have substantially different risk factors.  While anyone can die from COVID-19, the following generalisations about who is most likely to die seem to have widespread support:

• Older people are more at risk of having serious complications or dying from COVID-19.  Public Health England (PHE) in their early June 2020 report on disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19, showed that “Among people with a positive test, when compared with those under 40, those who were 80 or older were seventy times more likely to die”.   Dowd et al. (2020) likewise show that “Currently, COVID-19 mortality risk is highly concentrated at older ages, particularly those aged 80+”.  Case Fatality Rates (CFRs) generally increase significantly with age, especially for those over 60; in Italy 96.9% of deaths by the end of March were for those over 60 (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, 2020).  In South Africa 80% of the COVID-19 deaths reported by 2nd May were for people over 50, with a quarter of deaths being in the 60-69 age group.  There is, though, still uncertainty as to whether there is something specific about age itself, or whether these figures are because older people are more likely to have other comorbidities.  It is also interesting to note that the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) Infection Survey pilot suggested that the highest percentage of those testing positive in the UK between 26th April and 24th May were in the 20-49 year age group.
• Men are more vulnerable than women.  This may well be because women have two X chromosomes (The Guardian, 7th June 2020), although there remains some dispute about the influence of gender on infection and mortality.  The PHE report cited above shows that in England “Working age males diagnosed with COVID-19 were twice as likely to die as females”.  Most surveys seem to suggest that men are more at risk than women, but the ONS survey of those testing positive interestingly indicated that “there is no evidence of differences in the proportions of men or women testing positive for COVID-19”.
• People with comorbidities are much more likely to be seriously ill or die from COVID-19 than are those who are otherwise healthy.  Data for March reported by the US CDC indicates that almost 90% of all patients hospitalised that month had one or more underlying conditions, with 49.7% having hypertension, 48.3% being obese, 34.6% having chronic lung disease,  28.3% having Type 2 diabetes, and 27.8% having cardiovascular disease.  These five health problems are associated with higher death rates in most places where the data have been studied, although precise percentages vary quite considerably between populations (for a review of underlying metabolic health see Lancet, 2020; for a useful South African perspective, see Cullinan, 2020).  The UK authorities have defined clinically vulnerable people as follows:
  • “aged 70 or older (regardless of medical conditions)
  • under 70 with an underlying health condition listed below (that is, anyone instructed to get a flu jab as an adult each year on medical grounds):
    • chronic (long-term) mild to moderate respiratory diseases, such asasthma,chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema orbronchitis○chronic heart disease, such asheart failure
    • chronic kidney disease
    • chronic liver disease, such ashepatitis○chronic neurological conditions, such asParkinson’s disease,motor neurone disease,multiple sclerosis (MS), or cerebral palsy
    • diabetes
    • a weakened immune system as the result of conditions such as HIV and AIDS, or medicines such as steroid tablets
    • being seriously overweight (a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or above)
    • pregnant women
  • As above, there is a further category of people with serious underlying health conditions who are clinically extremely vulnerable, meaning they are at very high risk of severe illness from coronavirus”
• Ethnicity does appear to have an effect on the seriousness of health impacts of COVID-19, even taking other factors into consideration, but the precise reasons for this are not yet known.  In the UK, more people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds have been seriously ill or died from COVID-19 than have people of white ethnicity, but this could be partly explained by deprivation, cultural factors (such as religious and family interactions), and comorbidities (such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes).  England’s PHE report concludes that “An analysis of survival among confirmed COVID-19 cases and using more detailed ethnic groups, shows that after accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region, people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had around twice the risk of death than people of White British ethnicity. People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean and Other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to White British”.  More recently, the ISARIC CCP-UK study has shown convincingly that: (i) “Ethnic Minorities in hospital with COVID-19 were more likely to be admitted to critical care and receive IMV than Whites”, and (ii) “South Asians are at greater risk of dying, due at least in part to a higher prevalence of pre-existing diabetes” (see Harrison and Docherty, 17th June 2020).  Insufficient detailed studies have yet been undertaken in other parts of the world, particularly in Africa and Asia, to see whether ethnicity is indeed also a risk factor there.
• The risk of being infected is higher indoors than out of doors.  This is mainly because there is generally more air movement to disperse SARS-Cov-2 outdoors (although air conditioning systems indoors do spread it in the direction blown by a fan), and people are usually in closer juxtaposition for longer indoors than outside.  It is also easier to maintain sufficient distance between people outdoors than indoors (see inews, 11th May 2020).  However, there is still some uncertainty about this.  Thus, the UK ONS survey claimed in late May 2020 that “Individuals working outside the home show higher rates of positive tests than those who work from home”.  This is, though, probably because those self-isolating and working at home simply don’t come into as much contact with potentially infectious people outside the home.

Much of the research on which these conclusions are drawn is based on early evidence from China, as well as more recent evidence from Europe and the USA where the infection and death rates have been so high.  A particularly interesting issue is therefore whether these generalisations may also apply in other parts of the world, and especially in countries in Africa and South Asia which have yet to experience very serious rates of infection (see my previous post on On ageing populations, “development” and Covid-19).  It may well be that their governments could learn from the mistakes made in the UK and the USA and develop a more nuanced approach as outlined below.

A differentiated risk- and responsibilities-based approach to managing COVID-19

This post makes two core suggestions: states need to adopt nuanced and differentiated responses to living with COVID-19 in the foreseeable future, and that human rights considerations should be balanced by a responsibilities agenda.

A differentiated risk-based approach to COVID-19

Most governments have adopted stringent lockdown policies in response to COVID-19 that have been applied to everyone, regardless of their health risks.  This has caused considerable damage to their economies, as well as other serious health issues.  Many deaths resulting from the existence of COVID-19 are thus not actually being caused by the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus.  Numerous businesses are failing, and fit elderly people have complained vociferously about not being permitted to partake fully in “normal” society.

Now that more is known about the health risks of COVID-19, it makes considerable sense to develop context specific solutions that take into accont the risk factors noted above.  Governments must first ensure that they have an adequate and robust health service capable of dealing with the number of people who are likely to get infected, but wasteful fiascos such as the construction of new Nightingale Hospitals in the UK that were never really needed, or the numerous projects across the world to create novel designs for new venitlators for which not enough nursing staff are available (and when many people on ventilators actually die), must not be repeated.  The hospital services in some countries will come near to being overwhelmed (as in Italy), or may indeed collapse (see recent reports from Brazil, India and Pakistan which seem near this point).  However, even where countries are unable to manage the health requirements of the majority of people affected, it is still vital that what services are available are used to treat those most in need and most likely to survive treatment.  Is is also crucial that a responsibilities approach is inculcated and adopted at all scales from the state to the individual if the impact of the pandemic is to be mitigated.

It would thus seem wise to introduce comprehensive risk-based schemes through which everyone can evaluate their likelihood of being seriously ill from COVID-19 and their risk of infecting other vulnerable people, so that they can take appropriate actions to reduce such risk.  At present, and as noted above, the key risk factors seem to be:

• age,
• gender,
• comorbidities,
• ethnicity, and
• location

Put simply, and based largely on European and North American evidence, elderly men with comorbidities from BAME backgrounds spending all their time indoors would seem to be most at risk, and we should all do what we can to help protect them.  Young, fit, active white women spending most of their time outdoors would seem to be least at risk.

This has implications for work, transport, and social life, and carefully nuanced schemes should be introduced to enable as many people as possible to live the lives that they wish to.  For example, where resources are constrained, working-at-home policies could first be made available to the most at risk, encouraging those least at risk to stay at work, or indeed to return to work as previously.  Tourism, travel and entertainment is much less risky for the fit and young, so they should be allowed to take those risks if they want to, while alternative arrangements are put in place for the most vunerably elderly Bangladeshi men (such as support for online tourism or special take-away meals for celebratory occasions).

Responsibilities- rather than rights-based approaches

For too long, rights-based approaches have dominated global and national policies, and insufficient attention has been paid to the responsibilities that are essential to ensure the extstence of well-functioning societies  (see my Prolegomena on Human Rights and Responsibilities).  All too often when a “right” is claimed, it is uncertain who has the “responsibility” to deliver it.  Many, for example, have commented on the human rights aspects of COVID-19 (see Human Rights Watch, 19th March 2020; Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, 6th May 2020; The Guardian, 29th April 2020) , but rather fewer on the human responsibilities dimension.

This is particularly reflected in the tension between individual privacy rights and communal responsibilities in terms of the imposition and use of tracking apps to identify COVID-19 contacts (Human Rights Watch, 13th May 2020; Privacy International, no date; Morley et al., 2020).  However, it also lies at the heart of discussions about wearing masks: all to often such usage is criticised for not really protecting the individual, which completely misses the point that their main use is to protect the community from infected individuals.  People thus have a responsibility to wear masks so that if they are asymptomatic their chances of infecting many others are reduced (see my Face masks and Covid-19: communal not individual relevance).

Two main implications of a shift to a more responsibilities-based approach are important:

• The first is that governments have a fundamental responsibility to care for their most vulnerable and at risk citizens.  The shocking way in which the UK government placed its focus on “saving the NHS” above “saving vulnerable people” is an all-too-visible example of a failure to adhere to such a principle.  It was a serious injustice for UK policy to have sent elderly people with COVID-19 back into care homes and the community from hospital, as a result of which many of them died, many others were infected, and many more certainly died sooner than they would otherwise have done.  This principle, though, is also of crucial importance in countries where the health services have difficulty, or will have difficulties in the future, in coping with the COVID-19 crisis.  It is absolutely the responsibility of governments to recognise that many low-risk people will survive COVID-19 with little or no lasting health implications, and that they should be allowed to continue if they wish to in the productive economy.  However, at the same time, governments must put in measures whereby those at risk are protected, and given the wherewithall to sustain themselves.
• The second, and closely related principle is that individuals also have fundamentally important responsibilities to others.  Some positive evidence of communal responsibility and action has been visible in countries across the world during COVID-19, but support for at-risk people has been less than many had hoped for or expected.  Moreover, there have also been substantial numbers of explicitly negative communal actions: digital-attacks on health care organisations have proliferated during the pandemic, and doctors and nurses have been victimised for spreading the coronavirus in countries as diverse as Mexico and Pakistan.  Almost always, the emphasis has been on the rights of the individual (to enjoy the beach or to party) rather than on their responsibilites to others (to protect others from the actions of the self).  Put simply, all of us have responsibilities to protect everyone else from being infected, and to enable as many people as possible to continue to live active and fulfilled lives.

Is it too much to hope for that one of the results of COVID-19 may be the creation of societies where we shift the focus more to our responsibilities towards others than attention on ourselves?  In the short term, this would mean that we should all be:

• Thinking that we could be asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19, and take actions to prevent us from infecting others;
• Caring for and serving vulnerable neighbours who cannot benefit from the freedoms that we enjoy; and
• Taking action to self-isolate and get tested immediately we think we might be infected with COVID-19.

Whilst this is written primarily from the perspective of someone living in a country that is now coming out of lockdown, these principles apply globally, and if adopted in countries that have not yet encountered serious outbreaks of COVID-19 might help them escape some of the more serious impacts of economic shutdown.

Masai children learning in Tanzania

[Updated 19th June 2020]

 

On ageing populations, “development” and Covid-19

There is increasingly clear evidence that older people are more likely to die from Covid-19 than are younger people: on 17th February,  the China CDC weekly report showed that among the cases known in China by then, the ≥80 age group had the highest case fatality rate at 14.8% (with the 70-79 age group being 8% and the 60-69% age group being 3.6%); and in early April, the WHO Regional Director for Europe highlighted that over 95% of Covid-19 deaths occurred in those over 60, with more than 50% in those aged 80 years or older.  In the UK, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported in mid-April that mortality from Covid-19 increased consistently with age, with only about 13% of deaths being of people under 65.  Significantly, though it noted that men had a death rate double that of women; more recent ONS reports have also shown that (when taking into account age) Black men and women were more than four times as likely to die from Covid-19 then were those of White ethnicity, and that such differences in mortality were partly a result of socio-economic disadvantage.  These data are stark, and are as yet still not fully explained.  As people grow older, they generally have greater comorbidities, and it may be the impact that Covid-19 has on these other health problems that is more significant than age itself.

However, this is an important reminder that Covid-19 is primarily an old-people’s disease.  It is striking to recall that in 1951 life expectancy at birth in England and Wales was only 66.4 for men and 71.5 for women; in 1901 the figures were 48.5 and 52.4 respectively (ONS, 2015).  Put simply, people born 70 years ago were not expected to live to the age at which most people are now dying from Covid-19.  This has important ramifications, and raises very difficult questions.  Have people, perhaps, become over expectant about longevity?  Will Covid-19 temper our aspirations to live for ever?  Will it be a check on the ambitions of companies such as Novartis, Alphabet and Illumina to extend life well beyond 100 years (CNBC, 2019)?  Is the main problem of Covid-19 that most people living in the richer countires of the world have become too cosy in their expectations of living to a ripe old age?

Implications for Europe and north America: too many old people

Thought experiments can be a helpful means of highlighting challenging issues.  Suppose, for example, that there had been no lockdowns in Europe and North America.  It seems very likely that substantial numbers of elderly people would have died already (see projections by epidemiologists at Imperial College which suggested that without mitigation strategies Covid-19 would have resulted in 40 milllion deaths globally in 2020).  If a vaccine or cure is not found, then it still seems likely that large numbers of elderly people will indeed die in Europe at an age well short of what they and their families have grown accustomed to expecting.

However, think of the impact that this will have on the economy and health services.  Once large numbers of elderly people have died, national pension bills will fall, the burden on health services will be reduced, the percentage of people within the economically productive age range will increase, and the economic vitality of their countries will be revitalised.  If Covid-19 (or its successors) become an everyday part of life, the economic “burden” of older people will be dramatically reduced.  It is scarcely surprising that rumours  circulated about the intentions of UK government policy in early- to mid-March.  As Martin Shaw noted at the time, it had been credibly reported that the “Government’s strategy was ‘herd immunity, protect the economy and if that means that some pensioners die, too bad’; or as summed up even more succinctly by a senior Tory, ‘Herd immunity and let the old people die’”.  Whilst the government strenuosly denied this, there is a realistic logic to the idea that letting large numbers of old people die would have clear economic benefits, and would avoid the very considerable costs that are accruing as a result of economic shutdown.

I should stress that this is definitely not a scenario that I would want to encourage or endorse, but in the early part of May, the balance of popular opinion (or the influence of the business community and mainstream media in the UK) does seem to be swinging towards a view that the costs of lockdown are too high to continue to protect the elderly, especially in those countries where there have already been very high death rates (as in Belgium, the UK, France, Italy, Spain and the USA).  Yet, the 20th and latest Imperial College Covid-19 report  concludes for Italy that “even a 20% return to pre-lockdown mobility could lead to a resurgence in the number of deaths far greater than experienced in the current wave in several regions”.

Implications for Africa and South Asia: youthful countries

The real purpose of this reflection, though, is to consider the implications of the above arguments for some of the economically poorest countries in the world.  Data about Covid-19 infections and deaths in Africa and Asia are likely to be even less reliable than they are in Europe, and the countries in these continents are in any case much earlier in their encounters with Covid-19 than are those of Europe.  Recent reports, for example, suggest that the real number of deaths related to Covid-19 may be many times the number that are currently reported (see The Guardian‘s recent report on Somalia).  Nevertheless, we do have relatively accurate data about the demographic structures of most countries in the world.  The chart below therefore shows the relationships between current density of Covid-19 deaths and the percentage of population aged ≥65 for a sample of countries.[i]

This graph is striking, but difficut to interpret (and can be misleading), mainly because most countries in Africa and Latin America are only at an early stage in their Covid-19 outbreaks.  We simply do not know how many deaths they are likely to witness, and few models have yet been published that predict the likely outcomes.   However, with the very notable exceptions of Japan, Greece and Germany, it re-emphasises that high percentages of Covid-19 deaths are mainly found in those countries that have more than 15% of their populations aged ≥65.  Even Brazil, where the death rate is currently growing rapidly, is still nowhere near at the level of mortality that has occurred in Europe and the USA.  The quite remarkable achievement of Greece, with only 147 deaths by 7th May, is also highly noteworthy because despite a fragile health service and an elderly population it has managed to achieve something that most other European countries have been unable to do.  Most commentators suggest that this is mainly because it imposed a dramatic lockdown even before the first deaths were recorded.

Most countries of the world have intiated lockdowns, and these are having particularly significant impacts on the poorest and most marginalised who can least afford it. An obvious question therefore arises: if Covid-19 mainly affects the elderly, should countries with young populations (such as most of those of Africa, Asia and Latin America) follow the “older” countries in imposing strict lockdowns that will have damaging effects on their economies and the livelihoods of those who can least afford it?  Put another way, are the mitigating actions of European and North American countries, where more than 15% of their populations are ≥65, relevant to economically poorer countries with less than 10% of their populations in this age group?

It is far from easy to answer this.  Perhaps the very small numbers of people reportedly dying in Africa at present is only because the coronavirus has not yet gained a grip, and any loosening of the mitigating measures would unleash the pandemic at a scale similar to that seen in Europe.  The WHO, for example, has warned  that the Covid-19 pandemic might kill as many as 190,000 people in Africa in the year ahead (Al Jazeera, 8th May), with many more dying subsequently.  This may well be true, but there is at least a chance that the youthful populations of Africa will be better able to deal with Covid-19 than have done the older populations of Europe.  It must, though, be emphasised that many younger people who are infected with Covid-19 do indeed have serious illnesses, and some die.  We also do not yet know the long-term health impacts of this coronavirus.  Moreover, the evidence that socially disadvantaged people are also more likely to die than their more affluent neighbours further suggests that the poorest and most marginalised in these countries may well have higher death rates.

As I have illustrated elsewhere, there is some (but by no means conclusive) evidence that environmental factors may also play a role in limiting the spread of Covid-19.  If the environments of Africa and South Asia are indeed not particularly conducive to the spread of Covid-19, then their youthful populations might not need to endure the very tight lockdowns imposed in many European countries. That having been said, the rapidly increasing number of infections and deaths in Brazil (with 121,600 cases and 8,022 deaths as of 7th May), which has physical environments and climates similar to many parts of western and southern Africa, does not bode well for the future spread of Covid-19 in Africa.

Conclusions

In conclusion, there remains much that is unknown about how Covid-19 spreads and who it affects most damagingly.  The evidence from Japan, Greece and Germany shows that even when countries do have a high percentage of elderly people, it is still possible to contain and limit the spread of Covid-19, thereby preventing very large numbers of deaths.  The abject failures of governments in countries such as the UK and Belgium to manage the pandemic and save lives likewise indicate how not to respond to the pandemic.  The governments of African and South Asian countries, with their youthful populations who appear less likely to suffer severe symptoms, may well therefore have an advantage over their European counterparts.  If they can draw lessons about what has worked and what has failed, then they are also in a good position to bounce back swiftly from the economic harm caused by economic and social lockdowns.

 

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[i] The selected countries included the ten most populous countries in the world (in descending order of total population, China, India, USA, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico), a selection of European countries with mixed trajectories (listed alphabetically, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland), and a diverse sample of African (alphabetically, DRC, Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania), and other (alphabetically, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Turkey) countries.

The half-truths and mis-representations that won Brexit

The Electoral Commission has clearly stated (17 July 2018) that the Vote Leave campaign broke electoral law, and it has been referred to the police.  To the chagrin of “remainers”, such illegal activities during the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016 do not seem to be sufficient by themselves to annul the referendum, and justify a new one.

One of the main vehicles through which the leave campaign built support was through an impressive and effective social media campaign.  Much of this was built on half-truths and emotive mis-representations.  Rather than its illegality, the much more remarkable observation is that so many people were influenced by this campaign and apparently believed the claims being made.  In part, this was because it resonated with their own concerns, but exaggerated them, making people much more fearful of remaining in the EU than they need actually have been.  It is also undoubtedly the case that those supporting Remain ran a desperately poor and unimaginative campaign.

In seeking to unravel and understand why so many people accepted these half-truths and mis-representations, I have categorized some of the images used in the Vote Leave Twitter campaign (https://twitter.com/vote_leave) into the following themes, many of which undoubtedly intersect, thus reinforcing each other.   I hope this encourages debate and discussion over the reasons why the UK has embarked on this desperately uninformed and misguided foray into apparent “independence” as its citizens sleepwalk into a Brexit catastrophe.

Immigration

A fear of continued mass immigration was one of the most powerful projections of the campaign, especially from countries such as Turkey which the campaigners implied was imminently about to join the EU.  Such immigration was primarily seen as being damaging to employment and the NHS.

 

Economic factors, including employment and tax

The UK economy was portrayed as being much stronger outside the EU, and the voices of apparently “trusted” senior figures in industry and government who supported Brexit (largely for their own interests) were used to support such arguments.

 

The NHS

The financial savings from Brexit were portrayed as bringing a much needed fillip to the beleaguered National Health Service.  One of the most believed assertions in the campaign was that Brexit would enable the UK to spend an additional £350 million a week, or £50 million a day, on the NHS.

 

Control of our own future

A powerful emotion conjured up by the Brexit campaign was that once the UK leaves the EU its citizens would have much greater control over their own future.

 

Support of the military

The Leave campaign also sought out the opinions of leading military figures who advocated that the UK would have greater political independence, and control over its own future, once it had left.  This was widely supported by the Veterans for Britain campaign as highlighted below.

 

The wastage of EU bureaucracy

This was a favourite theme represented in many images, supporting the suggestion that we would be able to use all of the money that we had previously sent to the EU for our own direct benefit.

 

The Labour factor and Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn was widely cited as being critical of the EU in the hope of bringing out Labour supporters in favour of Brexit.  Corbyn’s continue reticence to be critical of Brexit remains one of the largest factors likely to prevent the success of those demanding a second referendum on the terms of Brexit, and the aspirations of “remainers” that the first referendum will be overthrown.

 

Trustworthy personalities

The use of images of, and statements from, politicians who were considered to be trustworthy, such as Gove, Johnson, and indeed Corbyn above, was also a powerful element of the Leave campaign.

 

Get out and vote!

Finally, the Leave campaign was also active and successful in persuading its followers to get out and vote.