The United Nations General Assembly has voted to recognise the enslavement of Africans during the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity”, a move advocates hope will pave the way for healing and justice.

The resolution - proposed by Ghana - called for this designation, while also urging UN member states to consider apologising for the slave trade and contributing to a reparations fund. It does not mention a specific amount of money.

The proposal was adopted with 123 votes in favour and three against - the United States, Israel and Argentina.

Countries like the UK have long rejected calls to pay reparations, saying today’s institutions cannot be held responsible for past wrongs.

  • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    21
    ·
    edit-2
    11 hours ago

    They did show up at the shores and took slaves. Then they found out they could sell guns and arm mercenaries to do it for them for even more effective slavery. And they killed anyone who resisted them.

    Just because they armed and hired middle-men to do the dirty work on the shores (and only because it was cheaper for them to do this) doesn’t absolve them from being the cause these people were transported into slavery.

    • Lydon_Feen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      11 hours ago

      Next you’re gonna argue slavery only started in Africa when the first europeans started doing it, completely ignoring the centuries of arab slave trade before that, and centuries after europeans outlawed it, and which likely enslaved as many people.

      The truth is, it was an awful thing with a lot of different parties involved for different reasons, throughout a very long period.

        • Lydon_Feen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          16
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          11 hours ago

          How convenient you chose to ignore the exact paragraph from that link that touched very lightly on what I said:

          “In stark contrast, the trans-Saharan slave trade introduced chattel slavery where enslaved individuals were the property of their enslavers with no rights and their status was inherited by their offspring. This system stripped individuals of any agency and autonomy which reduced them to mere commodities.”

          Arabs enslaved millions for a much longer period of time (all the way up to the late 20th century), raped the women, neutered the men, literally denying milions of a future generation from existing.

          But I don’t see anyone asking them for compensations.

          • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            10
            ·
            edit-2
            10 hours ago

            Strange you stopped reading there.

            Indigenous African slavery was typically localised whereas the trans-Atlantic slave trade functioned on a more industrial scale by forcibly transporting millions of Africans to the Americas to meet labour demands of plantation economies.

        • ceiphas@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          9 hours ago

          You means the egyptians didnt have institutionalized slaving? Really?

          • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            edit-2
            9 hours ago

            Not in the same way. Even ancient Egypt considered slaves human and they had some rights, whereas trans-atlantic slavery fully reduced slaves to the level of animals. Egypt also didn’t start invasions primarily to capture slaves and use them on their plantations.

            While you’re technically correct, trans-atlantic slavery had countries literally running their economies on slaves which is what I meant.

    • crystalmerchant@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      11 hours ago

      Well you’re conflating “how it happened” with “who’s to blame”.

      Obviously the European slave trade was the prime mover for regional African warlords capturing would-be-slaves in the interior and of course this doesn’t absolve the European slavers of anything lol