• apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.org
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    2 days ago

    Acting like it was “hundreds of years ago” does nobody any good.

    Even if we ignore the existing forced (oft unpaid) prison labour, the British have made strong use of slavery recently enough that people are still alive who may have lived through it.

    I have no doubt that Katy acknowledges the atrocities going on in her own country, we don’t need to engage in whataboutism.

    It is hypocritical and laughable for the UK to lecture other countries on slave labour. It is still, also, right for anyone to call out countries for using slave labour.

    To extend this to a more extreme example, if Russia was to come out and criticise Israel for their disgusting assault on Gaza, it would be both laughable and also correct.

    • frazorth@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      It is hypocritical and laughable for the UK to lecture other countries on slave labour

      Where is the lecture, or is simply not enabling other countries to engage in this “lecturing”?

      I see more lecturing from others about the UK here. That we are not allowed to reject slave labour because of actions in the past.

      It is still, also, right for anyone to call out countries for using slave labour.

      You can’t have it both ways. Either we are allowed to call them out, or we can’t.

      • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.org
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        2 days ago

        Nobody is saying you can’t call them out. They (me) are saying that it is laughable (see: ironic) of the UK to do so, whilst also being the correct thing for the UK to do.

        See my example in my previous reply.

        I don’t think that any further value would come of continued discussion between us - feel free to reply but I’m done here. Have a good one!