Only 2 weeks until John Anderson speaks at Tattersall's Club

Dear ,

Only two weeks remain until our Emancipation Day breakfast with the Hon John Anderson AC FTSE.

We have had a tremendous response, with more than 100 people already booked. But there is no such thing as too large an audience for John, so if you have not yet secured your place, please click here.

Tickets are just $65 for AIP members, $60 for students and concession holders, and $75 for general admission. That includes a hot breakfast, excellent company and an address from one of Australia’s most thoughtful public figures.

If you are among those already attending, please forward this invitation to friends, family or colleagues. Book a table of ten and everyone at the table receives the member price.

Why celebrate Emancipation Day? It’s a fair question.

There are now remarkably few occasions on which Australians come together to celebrate the achievements and virtues of our civilisation. Christmas and Easter are increasingly treated as little more than public holidays. Australia Day has become an open front in the culture wars. Anzac Day may be the last great national occasion whose stories of courage, service and sacrifice are still overwhelmingly honoured.

We need more celebrations of the good.

Emancipation Day commemorates one of the greatest moral turning points in history. On August 1, 1834, slavery was abolished across the British Empire.

While the European trans-Atlantic Slave trade involved somewhere around 12 million slaves, this is dwarfed by the Romans with 160 million, the Mughal Empire 112 million, Abbasid Caliphate 63 milion and the Mali Empire (enslavement of Africans by Africans) 57 million.

In fact, the African slave trade had been going on in various forms for around 2,500 years before Europeans tapped into it for plantation workers in the Americas.

What made the British achievement exceptional was not merely the decision to abolish slavery within the Empire. Britain then devoted its naval power, diplomacy and national treasure – on one estimate 1.8% of GDP annually - to suppressing the slave trade internationally.

For more than 60 years, the Royal Navy pursued slave ships, liberated captives and pressured other governments to end the trade. It was an extraordinary attempt to apply a moral principle universally, including beyond Britain’s own borders and immediate interests.

That makes Emancipation Day more than a commemoration of a law passed long ago. It marks the emergence of the idea that every human being possesses rights that no ruler, government or owner may legitimately take away.

It is an achievement worth claiming and celebrating, and one that even the most determined culture warrior should find difficult to dispute.

John Anderson is the ideal person to deliver this year’s address. It was through an interview on his podcast that I first grasped the full significance of Britain’s campaign against slavery and decided that Australia should have an annual event to commemorate it.

Please click here to book.

And if you have already booked, forward this email to someone who may not yet know about this magnificent contribution to the modern world.

Kind regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE FOR PROGRESS