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.
I wonder why a colonized country still suffering from neo-colonialism didn’t want to accuse their colonizers.
Not the whole country, just a handful of MPs. But they were senior MPs and well-respected. These guys were genuinely worried about this.
And it was because they thought they’d be on the hook financially for reparations, which Ghana can’t afford. Especially for the groups who were coastal and “let” the Europeans get a foothold there. Basically a financial penalty for not themselves dying to prevent the Portuguese lamdbin Elmina (In before the Brits).
Also, they worried, IMO rightfully, about the Western propensity towards making blanket decisions that affect the developing world and not caring. UN level reparations policy might very well penalize source countries in some zero-nuance fuck up. Look at us. We are a zero nuance fuck up place right now.
Any “senior MP” is guaranteed to have been installed quite a while ago by the West. Ghana certainly wouldn’t be on the hook for reparations. In no way did (what’s currently) Ghana gain any kind of generational wealth from slavery. A few warlord mercenaries backed by European powers certainly did but that’s basically the same as a few corrupt people benefiting from neo-colonialism.