Two anniversaries

Today marks two significant anniversaries in history, and I want to comment a bit on each.

First, it was 200 years ago today that the UK abolished the slave trade. Not slavery, mind you, just the trafficking of slaves on the high seas. There is no question that the kidnapping and forced movement of people against their will is a truly shameful part of world history. The fact is, it remains today in less obvious ways; such as dictators in countries like Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea who plunder their countries' resources and leave their people on the edge of starvation -- with the full cooperation of Fortune 500 companies. Women who are slaughtered in "honour killings" or because their husbands get four other men to lie under oath that they "witnessed" the woman committing adultery. Children who work in sweat shops for pennies a day, making Air Jordans that cost $150 and up.

There has been talk over the years that there should be a formal apology for slavery where it was eliminated and reparations paid out. Unfortunately there wouldn't be much point. After all, the people who engaged in the trade or were the direct victims are all dead. We can't really be held responsible for the actions of our forebears. This isn't like the head tax on the Chinese or the internment of the Japanese during World War II. In those cases and others, those who were responsible could still be held to account and it was within living memory so that governments could apologize and make payments -- token as they were -- to make up for it in some small way.

Moreover, if such reparations were to be paid out they could run into the trillions, crippling the economies of even the most developed states, perhaps permanently. The only real way to make up for the legacy is to fight to eliminate it where it still exists in the rest of the world and to treat people as people and not commodities.

The other anniversary today is the 50th year since the Treaty of Rome was signed, which created what we now call the European Union. There truly is nothing like it in the world -- countries willingly giving up large degrees of their sovereignty to promote the free movement of goods, services, capital and people; with common policies on agriculture, the environment, product safety standards, copyright and so forth. Not to mention that many EU states also have a common currency -- and / or no borders. In other words, sovereignty - association. With peace and co-operation has come relative prosperity. That's not to say there haven't been problems -- Brussels can often come off as a bully to the member states; and the annual "rebates" larger states are entitled to are always a bone of contention in much the same way the "fiscal imbalance" and equalization bedevils Canada. Moreover with open borders, illegal immigration is a problem -- once one gets into Spain or Italy there are no customs agents impeding the way to the states with the most generous welfare systems -- Norway, Sweden and Finland. Every country becomes a "safe third country," in other words; with the UK and Ireland the notable exceptions.

Some in the religious right have claimed repeatedly the EU is nothing but the 7th and final revival of the Roman Empire and that the head of the EU is the Antichrist. This is nonsense. However secular Western Europe may be on the surface it is still an inherently Christian Europe and by my count every EU President has been a Christian as well. One who associates himself with the Christ cannot by definition be the Antichrist, period.

Be that as it may, the EU seems to be acting as an inspiration for the current conservative regimes in North America who want to create a North American Union without any legislative debates. This is just plain wrong. Free and secure trade is something I support. Open borders -- I find that problematic. Furthermore, it simply wouldn't make sense unless the trade area was expanded to include all of the Americas -- including Cuba and the European possessions in the Caribbean and South America. The EU works because the largest states -- the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy -- are counterbalanced by the remaining states with substantially less population levels but similar levels of economic development.

What does the Americas have? The United States which is a Juggernaut, Canada which is an economic power but with substantially few people -- and "the rest." Only Argentina, Brazil and Chile have similar levels of economic development but the gap between the rich and the poor is way higher. Mexico has improved substantially since NAFTA but still acts as a corridor for illegal immigration -- and Americans on both sides of the aisle think that's a bigger threat than Latin America's fear of US hegemony. The Americas are not Europe. Closer ties would be welcome in exchange for solving the migration problem, but not a EU-style arrangement and certainly not dollarization.

So, there's something to celebrate on both counts for the promise that was offered. As for the results that were yielded -- squat on slavery, somewhat mixed on the EU.

UPDATE (4:33 PM EDT, 2033 GMT): Just to clarify, Norway is not an EU member state, but is a signatory to the Schengen Convention which provides for open borders on the Continent.

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