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.
This is just a complete lie what the hell
Which part? That Africans captured other Africans? Definitely not a lie… Europeans didn’t go to the interior. They showed up at the western coast, anchored offshore, and bought captives from mercenaries or tribal warlords who had brought conquered Africans from the interior to the coast specifically because there was a customer (horrible I know) to buy them – the European slavers waiting in their ships. Port towns grew wealthy and powerful as the “portal” to African slaves.
Slave Ship is a good (and brutally dark) book about this.
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.
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.
Slavery had always existed. Institutionalized slavery was an exclusively European invention. Frightening how little people know about it and how much they’re willing to defend it https://review.gale.com/2025/04/08/african-slavery-vs-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/
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.
Strange you stopped reading there.
What is strange is how you wanted to try to pass the narrative that the europeans were the first to do chattel slavery, when they absolutely weren’t, and also were the ones to not only outlaw it, but enforce the outlaw.
But keep trying to change history
Name another
You’re literally the PragerU video https://youtu.be/gg1nBp8Rits
You means the egyptians didnt have institutionalized slaving? Really?
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.
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
I don’t understand why people just knee-jerk reply like this without actually researching what they’re denying. It’s a pretty well-known fact that most of the slaves in the Atlantic slave trade came from African warlords and slavers (or at least I thought it was). I don’t thin that’s a particularly strong argument against reparations though.
Educate yourself
They were armed and trained by the West and acted as Western mercenaries. This is like blaming neo-colonialism on the countries suffering from it because the West installed a puppet government there.
“My source is I made it the fuck up” - you
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/mar/31/epiloguetothedebateonslav
The only part of your original statement that is accurate according to your article was that they were armed by the Europeans. People actually by the European-trained raiders making up a small part of the total slave exports as stated in your provided article.
Europeans slavers being manipulative doesn’t excuse the actions of those who sold them slaves, all it means is that human beings are all capable of great evil. It kind if reminds me of blockbusting in the US during the 20th century. Just because the real estate agents were playing on the racist fears of the white homeowners doesn’t excuse white flight.
I do kind of take issue with the original commentor trying to handwave reparations because of this fact, but we don’t need to try and whitewash (yeah I know) the actions of anyone involved.
The slavery was only possible because they were armed and agitated by the Europeans. Get out of here with your filthy victim blaming revisionism
Uhhhh
I feel like I’m just constantly doing an umm actually here because nuance seems lost on you.
Slavery was only possible because of European agitators? It existed all throughout Africa for thousands if years. In all fairness, it was nowhere near as bad as chattel slavery, and you could probably make an argument that a lot of if the africans selling the slaves didn’t realize what chattel slavery entailed, but it seems like the revisionism is not happening on my side. I’m not trying to excuse European atrocities here, just call out reductionist rhetoric.
What does the article I linked say?
“the West” as a concept didn’t exist in the 17th century.
It’s the truth. Sorry? Do you think the slave traders were parking outside Africa, ranging across the continent, and grabbing people with big nets?
no, it’s even more perverse. they were the ones creating the economical incentive.
They were armed and trained by the West and acted as Western mercenaries. This is like blaming neo-colonialism on the countries suffering from it because the West installed a puppet government there.
Why are you using Cold War propaganda terms to describe something that happened before Marx was even born?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/mar/31/epiloguetothedebateonslav
That has nothing to do with my comment. I’m talking about your use of the word “the West” everywhere. You’re confusing entire centuries. This is back when Russia was a monarchist empire too, for example.
Why?
Why are you spreading racist propaganda over the entire thread to excuse Western slavery? What does the article I linked start with?
Can you please link to the “racist propaganda” you think I’m spreading?
Here you go. Blocked now have fun doing racist trolling elsewhere. https://lemmy.ml/post/45035509/24775207