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.
So it’s pretty definitionally oppression Olympics, but I feel like the slave trade is a decent contender. It lasted centuries; maybe more depending a bunch of history that’s still up in the air. The Holocaust (for example) only went on for a few years.
I’m not sure Ghana has hands as clean as they’re implying, though. The victims of the transatlantic slave trade had to (ahem) leave Africa entirely, and usually it wasn’t the Europeans catching and selling them on their own.
We don’t recognise any non-white responsibility in any form of slavery here
It shouldn’t be the average taxpayer in these countries who has to pay for reparations (especially when many were descendants of peasants who were also often exploited in other ways), while the wealthy families who benefited the most evade responsibility, smuggling their blood-earned fortunes to tax havens.