FROM OUR MAN IN HAVANA

IT’S BEEN A LONG time since Norway and Denmark were in the slave trade; even longer for Rome. But the growing demands from peoples affected by slavery for those responsible to make amends, has caused these erstwhile slave giants to feel nervous and more than a little apprehensive.

“The Norwegians in particular are in the sights of those seeking reparations,” according to slavery litigation expert Victor Shyster. “They have a massive sovereign wealth fund which makes them what we lawyers call good mark. And the litigation funding sharks are circling. Believe me, litigation funding is an investment dream. You can make forty percent on a single case.”

Denmark and Norway both find themselves in the frame for the slave trade of the Vikings, and both are insisting that the Vikings in question were the other. Rome is absolving itself completely.

“Rome is insisting that it no longer exists as a state and that the city is not the successor to the empire,” says Shyster. “Romans point to Italy, or even Turkey as the successor to the Byzantine Empire. Some Romans even say that modern Germany is the responsible party, because it was the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, alleged successor to the Western Roman Empire. The paperwork here will be voluminous.”

Ireland, whose capital Dublin was once a slave hub, is pointing the finger at the Scandinavians who founded and owned the city at the time. However, the Irish may not be completely off the hook where slavery is concerned.

“This is a tricky one,” explains Shyster. “The Irish themselves did a great trade in slaves well before the Vikings even turned up. Indeed, it’s Irish Patron Saint Patrick who we actually have to thank for the evidence against the Emerald Isle. He describes his being captured and taken as a slave to Ireland in the late 4th and early 5th century in significant detail. And the weird thing is it would be the British who would have a case against Ireland in any court. That’s one for the books. St Patrick might be considered the island’s first supergrass.”

Academics say that the problem with seeking compensation for enslavement is where does it stop? Just about every country on earth engaged in slavery at some point and just about every country on earth was a victim of slavery, sometimes at the same time.

“Going back to the Irish again,” says Victor Shyster, “in 1632 the entire town of Baltimore was attacked and taken into slavery by pirates from the Barbary Coast of North Africa. Millions of Europeans were taken in that period by Muslim pirates. Just who do you sue there?”