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PROTESTER DISRUPTS SERVICE TO MARK ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
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'A PROTESTER has disrupted a service to mark the abolition of slavery in the UK, demanding an apology from Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Toyin Agbetu ran in front of the altar shouting "you should be ashamed" and "this is an insult to us" The Queen, Mr Blair and other dignitaries were attending the service at Westminster Abbey when a man began shouting during a sermon being given by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. |
Toyin Agbetu ran in front of the altar shouting "you should be ashamed" and "this is an insult to us" to Mr Blair, who has stopped short of saying sorry, instead expressing his regret about slavery. Ushers ran forward to apprehend the 39-year-old, who shouted "let go of me", before being escorted outside several minutes later. He was restrained by police outside.
During his sermon marking 200 years since the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, Dr Williams described slavery as the greatest cause of grief to God's spirit and an offence to human dignity and freedom.
He added that it is not a regional problem in the world, but one that is "hideously persistent" in our nations and cultures. Dr Williams said Britain must face its history as the trade in slaves was "our contribution" to this "universal sinfulness".
He said the famous saying "human beings are born free, yet everywhere they are in chains" - from the writings of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau - is a "great and inspiring" slogan for progressive thinking in the last two centuries.
Dr Williams asked what "greater grieving" of God's Spirit could there be than slavery, whether in the forms denounced 200 years ago or those still around today such as debt slavery, sex-trafficking, forced labour, child abduction and exploitation.
He added that he hoped God's spirit - which spoke to anti-slavery campaigners 200 years ago - would also be at work to combat modern-day slavery.
"Slavery was taken for granted by Christians and non-Christians and irreligious people for centuries if not millennia - humanistic scholars and atheist liberals alike accepted it no less than the majority of religious believers in all faiths.
"Yet the Spirit that spoke in Jesus was a Spirit contemporary and alive for those who, 200 years ago and more, refused to take it for granted because they saw something of the truth about God and about humanity.
"Is that Spirit contemporary and alive for us? If so, we shall indeed have the courage to face the legacies of slavery - the literal degrading slavery of the millions who, then and now, are the victims of the greed of others, and the spiritual slavery of those who oppress and abuse, and so wreck their own humanity as well as that of others.
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