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| 'Going Global' for Manchester? |
(This
is a personal comment and not representative of the views of Hulme or
Manchester Green Parties.)
Sunday
June 22nd 2014 is the annual Manchester
Day Parade. The theme this year is ‘Going
Global’, looking at Manchester ‘from Roman fort to Cottonopolis to world class
21C digital city… the original modern city Going Global!’
‘Cottonopolis’ was the
period of time when Manchester became a wealthy and powerful city on the back
of the cotton industry. The same cotton industry that was built on the backs of
slaves and the Transatlantic
Slave Trade.
While
Manchester is proud of many things that can be celebrated as part of a
parade, ‘Cottonopolis’ is NOT one of them. It’s an inappropriate subject for
such an event. On social media there has been several calls for Manchester City
Council to reconsider this part of its festivities but these calls have fallen on stony ground. The lack of response is notable as,
despite the Labour
Council having 100%of the seats and the mix of ethnicities in Manchester,
it has NO councillors of African
Caribbean descent.
The
Manchester Evening News in its article “10 reasons for Mancunians to be proud ahead
of Manchester Day” says that ‘despite the livelihood of the city and its people depending
on cotton, it was Mancunians who campaigned to abolish the trading of slaves
from Africa.’
Well that’s nice but that discounts the nearly 250 years of
English involvement in the slave trade and Manchester was a major beneficiary.
And to be clear, we’re talking about actually real life slavery on an ‘industrial’
scale, not the slightly unsavoury tv version. Millions of people were shipped across the
oceans and its estimated nearly
2 million died during transportation alone, some of whom were thrown
overboard on purpose so slave ship captains could claim on their insurance
for ‘lost property'.
Cottonopolis is
one of the first ways Manchester went ‘global’,
its not the type of thing you celebrate by throwing on a costume (unless its
supplied by Sainsburys) or decorating a ‘float’.
I, for one, will
not be going.
Deyika Nzeribe
(Manchester activists are putting on an alternate event 'Understanding Reparations' Sunday June 22nd 4pm, WIOCC, Manchester).
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