You ever stumble on a tweet so ironic that you have to pause, blink, and read it again just to make sure you’re not hallucinating?
Yep, that happened to me recently.
Scrolling through Twitter (or X, if you’re one of those people who actually calls it that), I came across a tweet by a guy named Ahmed (an Arabic-sounding handle), proudly defending Britain’s role in ending slavery.
He wrote something along the lines of:
“Britain spent half its treasury to free slaves. The loan we took out in 1834 to do so was only fully repaid in 2015. We freed 800,000 slaves, policed the seas, and acted against our own imperial interests. Some historians even call this the world’s first true social justice movement.”
The “we” caught my eye first.
We?
Ahmed?
Possibly An Arab Muslim man talking about “we” as in Britain?
Okay. Cool. Let’s roll with that.
But Twitter being Twitter, someone immediately replied and hit him with the digital equivalent of a reality check:
“We? You’re an Arab Muslim. Your people were the biggest slave traders of all time. You have nothing to do with Britain. You need to go back. There is no ‘we’ in this.”
Boom!
And then, to make things even more absurd, Elon Musk himself jumped in the conversation with his own reply:
“A high price was long since paid.”
Because of course, billionaire-slash-tech-guru-slash-Twitter-owner-slash-random-commentator-on-everything had to weigh in.
At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was reading an actual debate or an unintentional comedy skit.
But let’s break this down, shall we?
The Irony of It All
Ahmed, a man of Arabic heritage, was passionately defending Britain’s financial sacrifices to end slavery.
- The same Britain that colonized and looted many Arab and African lands.
- The same Britain that saw slavery as a profitable business for centuries before they “heroically” decided to stop it.
And then you had the other guy telling Ahmed:
“There is no ‘we’ in this.”
Which, let’s be real, is something a lot of second-generation immigrants in Western countries have probably heard at some point.
You can live in a country, pay taxes, follow the laws, support the national football team, but the moment you try to claim ownership of its history, someone will remind you that you don’t really belong.
And then there’s Elon Musk’s comment, which basically translates to:
“We already paid for our sins, get over it.”
Which, again, raises some questions:
- If Britain had to borrow money to compensate slave owners, doesn’t that mean they were more concerned about protecting the financial interests of the oppressors than actually helping the oppressed?
- If the debt was only fully repaid in 2015, who was really paying for it? Certainly not the original slave traders… most of them were long dead.
- And most importantly, why is an Arab Muslim guy acting like he was in the British Parliament in 1834 signing these agreements?
The Never-Ending Immigration Debate
This whole situation perfectly captures the absurdity of modern immigration debates.
On one side, you have immigrants who feel a strong attachment to the countries they’ve settled in, whether by birth or by choice. They say “we” because they are part of the nation now.
On the other side, you have people who refuse to accept that an immigrant can ever truly be one of them.
And floating somewhere in the middle is Elon Musk, reminding us that money solves everything.
It’s funny, but also not funny.
Because this conversation reflects something way bigger than a Twitter debate.
Who Gets to Say “We”?
The deeper question is: Who gets to claim ownership of history?
- If you move to a country, pay taxes, vote, and contribute, does that give you the right to say “we”?
- Or does your heritage always place you on the outside looking in?
Because let’s face facts, if Ahmed isn’t allowed to say “we” about Britain, then by that logic:
- No White Brit should ever say “we built the UK” without acknowledging that much of the wealth came from exploited colonies.
- No American should ever say “we founded democracy” without remembering that the US was built on stolen land and slavery.
- And definitely, no one should say “we paid the price” if the cost was actually passed down to taxpayers who had nothing to do with the original crime.
Pheww… History is messy. And trying to pick and choose which parts of “we” apply to you is exactly why debates like this will never end.
The Comedy and Tragedy of It All
At the end of the day, this whole situation is hilarious and tragic at the same time.
It’s funny because it exposes the contradictions in immigration debates; how people can live in a country for generations and still be told they don’t belong.
It’s tragic because these arguments aren’t just Twitter banter; they shape real policies, elections, and national attitudes.
So, the next time you see someone online arguing about “we” and who gets to claim history, just remember…
- The British government paid off a slavery debt in 2015 that never should have existed in the first place.
- An Arab Muslim man is arguing on behalf of the British Empire.
- Elon Musk is acting like Britain settled its debt with a one-time PayPal transfer.
And the world just keeps spinning!
