The landmark resolution calls for an apology and contributions to a reparations fund, without specifying an amount.

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.mlOPEnglish
    53·
    1 day ago

    How many people are going to come in here with the same stupid racist take this is getting ridiculous

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/mar/31/epiloguetothedebateonslav

    The single most important - and also, alas, the most overlooked - causative factor is the gun. Once African tribes that formerly fought with bows and arrows or spears were introduced to the devastating nature of the musket, the cannon and the Gatling, all bets were off, so to speak.

    Apart from directly hiring their own mercenary armies to go into the interior of Africa to kidnap slaves and pressgang them into the purpose-built slave forts, the European slavers would go to Tribe A and say to its leaders: “Look, we only came here to buy your gold, as we’ve been doing for years. But Tribe B has sent emissaries to us, asking us to sell guns to it. Now, we know that you are their immediate target, having fought them in terrible wars not so long ago. Because of our friendship for you, we have told them we have no guns. For now.”

        • Tattorack@lemmy.worldEnglish
          41·
          1 day ago

          The thing you posted doesn’t address that slave trade existed in Africa for thousands of years.

          The trans-Saharan slave trade existed long before colonialism, and the major sponsers of this trade were Ghana and then later Mali (the latter of which profited from the trans-Atlantic slave trade when it started).

          That’s just accounting for West Africa, as the red sea slave trade existed during ancient Egypt, and continued until the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

          If you want to present facts you’ll first need to be educated enough to actually learn what facts are.

          • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
            12·
            1 day ago

            None of them industrialized slavery. The entire European economy was only getting ahead in the middle ages by slavery and colonialism

            • Tattorack@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              18 hours ago

              … Right… Egypt totally didn’t… And Mansa Musa famously didn’t have an industrial scale slave kingdom…

              • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
                11·
                17 hours ago

                Egypt didn’t invade other countries to hijack half its population and use it as cattle on their farms. Mansa Musa had slaves as far as the term slavery goes but they had some rights and weren’t used as literal machine cattle. Their children had freedom etc. This is nowhere comparable to how slaves were treated in the trans-atlantic slave except it using the same word which is just confusing.

                • Tattorack@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  16 hours ago

                  Egypt didn’t invade other countries to hijack half its population

                  Oh yes. Yes they did. Oh gods they absolutely did. As well as casual genocide.

                  Mansa Musa had slaves as far as the term slavery goes but they had some rights and weren’t used as literal machine cattle.

                  That depends. Every culture that did slavery had slaves that were worked to death and slaves that were used in the household.

                  Musa’s personal slaves were dressed in silks and wore gold. But a portion of the still had their balls cut off, and all of them still had owners.

                  Thw same cannot be said for the slaves outside the royal palace, or all the ones used in the trans-Saharan slave trade, which, I must remind you once more, was Ghana’s and Mali’s biggest trade for centuries.