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Mango2149@reddit

Sure recognize it but reparations are a ridiculous notion. Will Russia and other Slavic countries receive reparations from Turkey and the Arab states for their enslavement?

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Reparations is too hard to work out. I mean the UK government paid Reparations to the slave owners rather than the slaves and that cost an insane amount. If reparations are owed then who should pay, the families of those slave owners or governments?

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Illustrious-Run3591@reddit

Right so because it's "too hard" you get to profit and live under their success while all of Africa suffers forever directly due to your actions. That you still profit off. 🤔

Europe would still be a backwater mud hole if they hadn't colonised half the planet

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Monterenbas@reddit

How did half of the planet got colonized, by a back water mud hole tho?

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Illustrious-Run3591@reddit

Savages with guns vs savages without guns. Easy to build a country like Belgium when you enslave 15 million people and use their hands as currency

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Monterenbas@reddit

So you’re saying that the backwater mud hole had more advanced technology than the rest of the world?

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People often bring up the UK paying compensation (not reparations) to slave owners as a bad thing. However, the government was transitioning slavery from something legal to something illegal across a global empire. That payment helped the UK avoid widespread revolt, because it gave those financially invested in slavery a way out either accept compensation or face enforcement by the Royal Navy. Most chose the practical option. Could the US have avoided the Civil War with a similar kind of payment?

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PuntiffSupreme@reddit

Likely not as the Southern States were more politically invested in slavery as an insitution and way of life. I can't say the math for sure, but I suspect the US would struggle to finance something like that as their economy was likely more attached to slavery than the British was and their ability to finance something like that was much more limited.

The mere threat of Lincoln winning the election and potenitally working to stop the expansion of slavery was enough to trigger rebellion, an offer of payment would have forced the issue the same way his election did.

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Monterenbas@reddit

Financing the war was exponentialy more costly that any payment they could have made to the slavers.

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PuntiffSupreme@reddit

Yes but getting the finances to pay the slavers is a very different proposition than paying for an army during a civil war.

Particularly when they are just as likely to take the money and try to keep slavery given that it's their political existence as well.

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123yes1@reddit

The US could not have avoided a civil war with a payment as the US South was much more heavily invested in slavery at the time than the UK was. It worked for the UK to avoid strife, but it would not have worked in the Antebellum South.

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JustChillin3456@reddit

Also if a persons heritage is only 50% from that of a slave do they only get 50% of reparations ?

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seejur@reddit

I would think there are plenty of people in the south half black and half white. So I would also wonder if those have a ~50% heritage from slaves, and the other ~50% from slaveowners. Do they pay themselves?

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Bastard_of_Brunswick@reddit

No one should be held accountable for the heinous crimes of their neighbours' ancestors' overlords. But institutions like banks and organized religions were very complicit in such crimes against Humanity back then and a bunch of them are still around today with immense wealth and real estate holdings. A democracy shouldn't have to face the consequences of the absolute monarchies and militant aristocracies from centuries ago in perpetuity either, but some have been paying off reparations and associated debts regardless. But some people knowingly give their money to churches who have very sordid histories of crimes against Humanity like the slave trades so those people complicit in financing those religions should be held accountable far more than peoples not of that creed.

CRoss1999@reddit

Yes the castration was worse. You don’t have to defend Atlantic slavery to admit the Arab slave trade was more cruel

I’m sure some forms of rape are worse than others it’s still a moot point.

The irony is that I’m not the one saying that chattel slavery is worse with ZERO evidence

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Gexm13@reddit

It is not an opinion. It is an objective fact.

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JustChillin3456@reddit

$10 Cash App if you can prove it right now

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Pollos1958@reddit

He is literally speaking facts if you bothered to actually read history.

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JustChillin3456@reddit

History such as what ? Like you keep saying “its worse 😭” explain how

How is Muslims taking more slaves over a longer period, engaging in castration , murder of their slaves etc not as bad ?

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Bitchcuits_and_Gayvy@reddit

I don't think you're confused at all, I think you're just an asshole.

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DeadFishCRO@reddit

Yes because the Americans didn't castrate all the men so you have African Americans now. And the Americans and other European empires did have internal anti slavery movements which afaik the Muslims never did.

Africans only had issues with slavery when they were the ones enslaved, don't remember any African slave owning empire being sorry about it.

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Bitchcuits_and_Gayvy@reddit

Yes because the Americans didn't castrate all the men so you have African Americans now. And the Americans and other European empires did have internal anti slavery movements which afaik the Muslims never did.

Well, the mortality rate for American slaves was much higher especially in places like Haiti and the Caribbean in general and you have to cross the Atlantic Ocean to get new ones so...

Also there were many anti slavery Muslim scholars, Tunisia banned slavery in 1846, and the castration of slaves was deemed unlawful in Islam before that.

The prophet Muhammad grew up in pre Islamic Arabia, which had slavery, there are many hadiths (which means that Muhammad himself said it, if you believe that sort of thing) that say you are to treat slaves with respect and that no free man in a Muslim country shall be enslaved regardless of their religion.

It's more complicated than you're making it out to be and I'm pretty sure you know that.

Just because one thing is worse than the other doesn't make the other thing okay, I know that's a tough concept for some people, especially when some people think that one of them wasn't really that bad at all and everyone should just stop bringing it up (slavery in the Americas, I mean.)

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BayBreezy17@reddit

You’re joking , right? Owning another human for physical and sexual purposes ( as was and is in the Arab/Muslim trades) is abhorrent. One is not somehow “less bad” than the other.

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HoidToTheMoon@reddit

One is somehow less bad than the other, and you believe that too!

Let's take two examples. Let's say that there's a grown man, taken prisoner while fighting a war and forced to build housing as a slave. Now let's say there's an infant girl, taken from her slain mother and raised as a sex slave.

I think I can easily say one is worse than the other. I would hope you can as well.

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BayBreezy17@reddit

Interesting example you offer. Where, exactly, do you think African slave traders procured their slaves from? Many of the slaves sold in Western Africa were technically POWs captured during internecine conflicts amongst warring kingdoms. So by your own standard, this wound make this practice “less bad.”

Buddy, slavery in any form is cruelty and you cannot refine it.

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HoidToTheMoon@reddit

Wait... are you telling me that you cannot say one of the hypotheticals I listed is worse than the other? What is wrong with you?

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BayBreezy17@reddit

It’s not that I can’t; it’s that I won’t.

You are raising a false choice fallacy to defend the indefensible and I reject the premise. The institution of human bond age, long and broad in its violent history, is a stain upon the soul of humanity. To categorize it along a gradient is to implicitly condone or excuse one end of a dark spectrum.

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HoidToTheMoon@reddit

It’s not that I can’t; it’s that I won’t.

From

One is not somehow “less bad” than the other.

So you admit that one is "less bad" than the other, you just refuse to answer because you know doing so is bad for your argument. Fucking lmao

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BayBreezy17@reddit

I admit I’m not going to argue from a fallacious premise. You’re setting up bad faith arguments to “win.” I reject this and stand firm on my assertion that ALL slavery is wrong. Full stop. Period.

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HoidToTheMoon@reddit

I admit I’m not going to argue from a fallacious premise.

The only one who has come up with a "fallacious" premise is you. You seem insistent on claiming that all bad things are equal. Following your logic, slapping a man for speaking ill about your mother is the same as slapping an infant for existing.

You seem insistent on "all lives matter"ing slavery. It's amusing, but you're completely aware that you're arguing in bad faith.

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BayBreezy17@reddit

So by this logic, the genocide inflicted upon Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge was less bad than that inflicted upon the Jews at the hands of the Nazis, which in turn was less bad than the death meted out writ large by the Mongols upon those living on the asiatic steppes?

What about modern instances? Are you saying the current pain felt by the Palestinians is less bad than any of these examples because the scale and timeline is smaller?

So you commented on a conversation with a non-sequitur, got asked about your thoughts on the conversation you replied to, and then started whinging about fallacies you cannot actually point out.

Are you sure you're "an adult"?

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deucedeucerims@reddit

In the early americas slaves quite literally worked in death camps where they were forced to do back breaking labor until they died and were replaced

They were not seen as human and were seen as livestock. This is a completely different type of slavery you’re just uninformed

Just look up chattel slavery and read about it for 30 minutes

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hot_sauce_in_coffee@reddit

what do you think is the working condition of ''active today kidnapped based cobalt miner slavery camp in central africa'' cause I can tell you they work until they die.

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somethingbrite@reddit

chattel slavery still exists today in the Arab world (black Africans being openly sold in Libyan slave markets and chattel slavery still being practiced in Mauritania)

The middle eastern attitude to slavery is what it is today because in fact it wasn't until the second half of the 20th century that the practice was abolished because of pressure from international community.

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UnGauchoCualquiera@reddit

My friend you need to check your history. Arab-African slave trade was used for the same purpose as in the Americas, as cheap labor for farms and mines.

The Zanj rebellion is a well known rebellion where an industrial scale of enslaved black labourers where used to clear marshland for farms in the Mesopotamia.

Zanzibar is another where there were full scale plantations, very similar to the american ones.

In fact the slave markets where well established long before Europeans reached those shores. When the Portuguese first reached the East African coast in the 15th and 16th centuries, they initially purchased enslaved people for their own gold mines in West Africa (the Akan region) and for sugar plantations on São Tomé long before the triangle trade fully expanded to the Americas.

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HoidToTheMoon@reddit

So do you acknowledge that we can state that one bad thing is worse than another?

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I was correcting that you seem to believe Arab slave trade was on a smaller domestic scale which was not.

"You didn't do that at all, in any way"

Yes exactly

Are you trolling?

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Bitchcuits_and_Gayvy@reddit

It's a matter of scale, for one.

In the same way that Jeffery Dahmer is "less bad" than Mengele or Amon Göth.

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BayBreezy17@reddit

Lol and the viewpoint is somehow the one without an agenda. Ok, dude.

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WiseBelt8935@reddit

I think castration of the Islamic slave trade would top the transatlantic slave trade.

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Legitimate-Type4387@reddit

You believe that’s somehow worse than being bred like livestock, having no control over your children or partner being sold to other slavers, and for all your future descendants to be owned, and passed down like literal chattel in perpetuity?

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Prestigious_Task7175@reddit

I mean that's.. pretty much exactly as the Arab slave trade, minus the castration of males or the mass use of women for harems.

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somethingbrite@reddit

all your future descendants to be owned, and passed down like chattel in perpetuity?

Which also happened in the Arab world.

In fact that EXACT form of chattel slavery still exists in Mauritania today.

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MrIrishman1212@reddit

On top of that, people and countries are still directly being affected by it today.

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the-southern-snek@reddit

And the countries effected by the Arab slave trade day are not affected by it today?

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astalia-v@reddit

No, no don’t worry. People in Arab countries aren’t really people or something

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Level_Hour6480@reddit

It's all bad, but versions like "You do X years and then you're free, and during those X years you have legal protections" are probably the least bad version.

Then there's situations like "Working conditions on Haiti were so bad that the enslaved population needed constant replacement by importing more slaves due to dying from said conditions."

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hot_sauce_in_coffee@reddit

oh, but today, there is still ''you get kidnap, enslaved and work in a cobalt mine until you die'' type of slavery. It is happening right now as we speak, in central africa. And that kind of slavery for mining has been happening for over 1k years.

Or the arabic slave trade or the korean slave trade known for being the longest uninterupted generational pernanant slavery system in the history of mankind.

Or the genocides of ethnic population.

Calling the slave trade of the 1500 a crime against humanity is 1 thing. Calling it the worst is virtue signaling.

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somethingbrite@reddit

Chattel slavery is awful regardless of where it takes place and Arab slavery was chattel slavery. In fact chattel slavery continues in the Arab world even today. (in the slave markets of Libya and in Mauritania for example)

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I was shocked to learn that most of the textbooks in the US are sourced from Texas publishers, where they print different textbooks, with sometimes very different facts, for different regions of the country. Most famously, The US Civil War is referred to as “the war of northern aggression” in history textbooks for children in the South. The ignorance begins early with systematic disinformation in elementary schools (not that people from other regions aren’t ignorant due to deliberately misleading education too).

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DizzyDentist22@reddit

It’s not referred to as that in any modern textbook I’ve ever heard of. The only people in the South who ever call the Civil War that are saying it tongue-in-cheek or are rural backwater yokels. It is certainly not a mainstream thing in any capacity

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GravelPepper@reddit

Yeah I am not sure where that guy is getting his information 😂

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Acct0424@reddit

I’m not sure about what’s written in their textbooks, especially today, but there was definitely something different about the education in some areas of the South in the past. 25 years ago I moved from the New England area to the South and it became very apparent that I had learned vastly different information about the civil war growing up. Not just a different viewpoint, but even the amount of information taught in general seemed incomplete. As if they were learning from a book where half the pages were ripped out and the ones left behind were heavily marked up. It was kind of wild.

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wexfordavenue@reddit

Yeah, I teach at a university in the South, and the people claiming otherwise in this post are lying their asses off, about both the past and the present: history textbooks in Florida are notoriously nonfactual now and purposefully so. They champion the Lost Cause and it was all over the damned news about how Trey now teach that slavery was beneficial for black Americans.

Second, I'm offended by the racist connotations to what is in general a historical human rights problem. How is it racist that black Africans sold black slaves to various slave traders of different ethnicities to them sell in the Americas to different ethnicities. By definition that isn't a issue of race being tied to slavery than it is like most slavery a strong vs weak issue.

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HoidToTheMoon@reddit

How is it racist that black Africans sold black slaves to various slave traders of different ethnicities to them sell in the Americas to different ethnicities.

Because they took a person, and said, because of your race it is okay for me to enslave you. I literally do not know how much clearer you want it to be. If slavery justified by skin color isn't racism to you, I don't know what would be.

You would probably stand behind Uncle Tom as a model worker.

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MuffinOfSorrows@reddit

African slavers didn't exactly have other ethnicities around to enslave. You might argue that the demand side encouraged an increase in capture of slaves that otherwise would have been far less, but slavers weren't giving themselves race based moral tests by the camp fire.

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HoidToTheMoon@reddit

African slavers didn't exactly have other ethnicities around to enslave.

...lmao

You might argue that the demand side encouraged an increase in capture of slaves that otherwise would have been far less, but slavers weren't giving themselves race based moral tests by the camp fire.

By the demand side, you mean people who explicitly said "These people are less than human because of their race, so I can own and work them like animals." Are you completely operating in bad faith, or can you acknowledge that?

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MuffinOfSorrows@reddit

I largely agree. To nit pick your wording, some of them certainly considered them human. They excused themselves by pretending slavery was a way to teach them about Christianity instead of remaining heathens in Africa. You don't teach animals your religion. Or they were just trying to appease the Church with bullshit they didn't believe.

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RollinThundaga@reddit

The US also banned import alongside the brits and sent out anti-slavery patrols alongside the Royal Navy.

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nanoman92@reddit

The US Civil war was in fact one of the LATEST actions to abolish the slave trade

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Otto_Von_Waffle@reddit

There is two things to speak of here : Slavery as an institution and the slave trade.

The slave trade was pretty much ended by the british. The royal navy came to africa shores, said the slave trade was over and started sinking slave ships and destroy slave trading forts one by one.

This was a heavy blow to the institution of slavery in South America and the Caribbean. But the US, for exemple, really didn't cared much, it's slave population was self sustaining and growing. Sure it bothered southern plantation landowners that wanted to expend the institution of slavery, but slavery could still expend and sustain itself without the slave trade.

The Caribbean and Brazil were other stories, sugar plantation were horrible places compared to cotton plantations, the slave population wasn't growing there, rather slaves were dying, from malaria and or worked to death. 40% of all slaves ended up in brazil while only 10% landed in the US, now compare the afro American population to the afro Brazilian population. These sugar producing colonies/countries relied on the slave trade to simply be able to function, and the end of the slave trade completely changed their internal structure.

The institution of slavery wasn't ended by the british, even when britain ended the slave trade, slavery as an institution still continued in the british empire for a bit, slaves were only freed in 1833, and even then, they were forced to work for their former masters for a while afterward. Even then tons of Indians were shipped off to plantations as indentured workers, thay while not technically slave, the end result was almost the same. In British india you had to wait until the 1860s for slavery to be officially abolished, but even then slavery still existed into the 20th century.

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Ok_Currency_617@reddit

No one really discusses the East/South East Asians that were kidnapped and enslaved (sometimes they were called workers as slavery became illegal but they were just slaves with extra steps) on the West coast of North America. No one discusses the caucasians captured and enslaved from europe by Africans/the Middle East. No one mentions that Arabs/Muslims enslaved more Africans than Europeans/Americans and that the Ottoman empire had caucasian slaves.

Key Numbers on African Slavery (Well-Documented Trades)

Transatlantic slave trade (European-led, \~1501–1866): \~12.5 million Africans embarked from Africa; \~10.7 million survived to arrive in the Americas. About 450,000 went to what became the United States.
Arab/Muslim slave trade (trans-Saharan, Red Sea, Indian Ocean; \~7th–20th centuries, over 1,300 years): Estimates range from 10–18 million Africans trafficked to North Africa, the Middle East, and beyond. This trade was longer-lasting and often more brutal (high castration rates for males, etc.).
Total for these external trades alone: Easily 22–30+ million Africans. Plus massive internal African slavery (kingdoms raiding neighbors), which historians say added millions more but is harder to tally.

Key Numbers on Caucasian/European Slavery

Barbary/North African slave trade (Muslim corsairs, \~1530–1780): \~1–1.25 million Europeans captured and enslaved in North Africa. This is the most-cited figure (historian Robert Davis) and is real—but smaller than the transatlantic trade alone.
Crimean Tatar/Ottoman raids on Eastern Europe (\~15th–18th centuries): \~1–3 million Slavs, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, etc., taken (raids targeted the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russian lands; Black Sea trade added \~2.5 million slave imports to Istanbul 1450–1700).
Other periods: Ancient Rome enslaved millions from European conquests (Gauls, Germans, Britons, etc.—estimates for Italy alone run 1–5 million over centuries). Ottoman devshirme system took hundreds of thousands of Christian boys. Viking raids, Mongol invasions, and medieval wars added more, but numbers are fragmentary.
One broader compilation (sourcing historians like Davis, Fisher, Harper): \~10–15 million Europeans in forced labor/enslavement across all eras since 300 BC (including some debatable categories like WWI POW labor or convicts). Even this upper-end figure is still below the African external trades.

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HappyBergkamper@reddit

First was the US civil war which destroyed the market for trans Atlantic slaves. Second was the British Empire and it's Navy policing the oceans & seas to hunt slavers.

That would be the other way round.

Slavery was abolished in the UK in 1807, the British Empire in 1833 and the US 13th amendment in 1865.

The West Africa squadron was intercepting slaver ships heading to US ports.

Also the French actually abolished it in 1794 but then reestablished it in 1802 because their colonies threatened to join the UK (which still had slavery) if they didn't under the Whitehall Accord

Every South American country would abolish slavery by the 1850's (bar Brazil) but with France abolishing it again in 1848, the death knell of European slavery was signed.

The only countries that took longer to abolish slavery than the US were Cuba, Puerto Rico and Brazil.

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L_viathan@reddit

I'll believe there isn't an agenda when the UN votes on what the second through tenth gravest atrocities are.

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As regards to what, the Musa in the horn of Africa where exporting tens of thousands of slaves per year. The trans Arab slave trade dwarfed the Trans Atlantic slave trade by magnitude of dozens. Do you know why, it was so large, it was due to the castration of the African males. Millions died ,but the profit was so high it was worth it. Then there was the ummayyad caliphate. So brutal that the slaves revolted against the men they thought was the representative of the prophet.

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blueNgoldWarrior@reddit

Finally I see someone call it out! I’ve been seeing this agenda across the comments on articles like this in all the news subs. You’re the first I’ve seen bring attention to it.

It’s so blatant. They try to deflect from the unique horror of chattel slavery being focused on here in order to try to whatabout with something that serves their pro-war agenda.

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JimmyRecard@reddit

Yes, what your culture went through is more valid than what my culture went through because I have the same skin colour as your oppressor.

Can I remind you that the leading theory is that the English word 'slave' comes from the same etymological origin as the name for my people, Slavs?

Showcasing the Trans Atlantic slave trade as uniquely awful doesn't help their case though. The main aspect of the Trans Atlantic slave trade was that, as the name suggests, slaves were traded across the Atlantic Ocean. And thus, aside from the small group that migrated to Liberia, the descendents of the victims of chattel slavery live in the Americas, not in Africa. Why should Africa receive the reparations then? If the US has to pay reparations, a part of that will be paid by actual descendents of slaves.

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tomtomtom7@reddit

Because if you kidnap 12 million of the strongest people and kill about the same amount, surely this has had a rather destructive impact on those left behind, which still bleeds through today.

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Levitz@reddit

If the US has to pay reparations, a part of that will be paid by actual descendents of slaves.

And, funny enough, to descendants of slave owners as well.

If you think that raping slaves doesn't yield children you've got another think coming.

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Bastard_of_Brunswick@reddit

Have you read much about the Islamic invasions of Hindustan and how the Hindus were butchered and enslaved over the course of centuries? I doubt it would be very different from the Islamic enslavement of Africans and selling them as slaves to western European aristocrats and merchant princes.

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BarneyShitmin@reddit

I must state that i always find it interesting it's always either European or Muslim slavery that's brought up and never the eastern asian ones.

At the same time, you didn’t have anything like Roman style slavery. For example, people could sell their own children into slavery up to three times, and there was a well established used slave market where you could even buy skilled workers like accountants.

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Vassago81@reddit

random instances of slavery

Millions enslaved, murdered, raped, castrated by the turks, and you call that "random instance of slavery"

https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studies/united-arab-emirates/

https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/modern-day-slavery-in-the-united-arab-emirates

The most recent study into modern slavery was conducted in 2023, but the situation still continues into 2026.

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big_cock_lach@reddit

It’s fairly common knowledge that the Arab states, China, and North Korea have forced labour slaves. The US even blurs the line a little bit with their prison system, but it’s not an outright slavery like the others have.

Yeah. I get what they are saying here but explicitly saying 'of Africans ' is a weird take.

How would this even work?

Who would pay it, who would receive it and who would adjudicate this?

I have so many questions.

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

I think you don't understand the argument for reparations.

It is not: My grandparents were hurt by your grandparents, therefore need to make compensations.

It is: The effects of previous generations' crimes have created structural dynamics that keep the descendents of the victims in an inescapable poverty-trap, while the descendents of the perpetraitors live in excess. For the descendents of the victims to escape their structural poverty they need assistance, so that the legacy of past crimes can be put to rest.

So in your comparisons, the East-european countries are firmly among the international top-rankers of Human Development Index. The claim for reparations would be Weregild, not to resolve structural poverty. Looking the Arabs and their current predicaments it's easier to argue the opposite.

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Mango2149@reddit

What if I disagree with the premise and don't think they're currently struggling because of being victims in the past (not sure I believe an inescapable poverty trap is a thing that exists)? What if reparations just go into government coffers and are embezzled anyway?

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

What if reparations just go into government coffers and are embezzled anyway?

That's a question of implementation and not premise or ethics.

What if I disagree with the premise and don't think they're currently struggling because of being victims in the past (not sure I believe an inescapable poverty trap is a thing that exists)?

The economics are pretty much indisputable.

In the case of the world-system one only has to look at Haiti. The diplomatic isolation and debt they were placed under are the core issues with the nation's underdevelopment. Same goes for other countries in the developed south who are exploited by the international trade-regime that allows the Global North to import raw materials from them and then refine them and sell it back at a mark-up.

In the case of national dynamics... The very argument for reparations comes from an investigation into the structural poverty that African-Americans were placed during the reconstruction era.

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Mango2149@reddit

Is it a coincidence that Africa has generally always been a poor place throughout history? I think there are structural problems but they aren't fully captured by European actions. Rwanda is playing the West well, and they are booming.

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FrostiBoi78@reddit

Is it a coincidence that practically every country that has been colonised is currently impoverished? Aside from settler colonies of course. European actions mightn't be the only contributing factor, but it is certainly the most signifigant by far. Look at India for example, it was one of the most developed places on earth before colonisation. There is a direct link between how long the British have been in a part of India and how poor that area is. For instance, Bengal was the richest part of India, it was also the first to be colonised and it is now the poorest part of India by far.

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drink_bleach_and_die@reddit

How poor is Ireland? Wasn't it colonized?

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FrostiBoi78@reddit

I said aside from settler colonies, and yes, Ireland still has its setbacks due to colonialiam. Up until the 90s it was poor for a European country.

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drink_bleach_and_die@reddit

I said aside from settler colonies Not to worry, I wasn't talking about northern ireland.

And what's the deal with that "for a european country"? Would you say Ireland was particularly well treated by its overlords compared to Egypt, Nigeria, etc.? If anything, Ireland had less autonomy than those places during colonial times, so why was it poor only "for a european country", instead of being as poor as most countries? And why did it stop being poor? Did it just get dozens of times more money in aid from rich countries than other poor countries?

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FrostiBoi78@reddit

I don't think you know very much about Irish history. The Brits settled and colonised the whole island, not just Ulster.

so why was it poor only "for a european country", instead of being as poor as most countries? And why did it stop being poor?

For a few reasons: 1. Its proximity to the wealthiest nations in the world. 2. The fact that it was a settler colony, not just a resource extraction colony. 3. The fact that it was not just an off-shore territory, but an integrated part of the UK since 1801, thus leading to more development than a typical colony.

How did it stop being poor? Mainly due to help from the European Union, low corporate tax and ideal conditions for computer manufacturing. Our nation is still signifigantly behind where it would've been without colonisation – our population still hasn't recovered from the famine, for instance – but we still had a better base to build our newly independant nation than most previous colonies do.

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drink_bleach_and_die@reddit

To use population size as an example of being "behind" in a discussion about development is somewhat strange. Does having more people make a country "richer", in your view? If you meant that Ireland still carries the psychological scars of the famine, that seems reasonable (though I admit I don't know enough about the country to tell either way). All I'll say is that the fact that Ireland went from a poor country to a very rich one in the span of a handful of decades is enough to dispute the notion that countries remain poor due to events that happened more than a generation ago. The steps to wealth are well known and it is within the power of political elites anywhere to take them, except for places where the state lacks control over its territory. If they don't take those steps, then the responsability for the ongoing poverty of their countries is on them, not on who oppressed their people 50 years ago.

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Reasonable-Ad4770@reddit

Look at India for example, it was one of the most developed places on earth before colonisation.

India is the 4th world economy, 139 per capital yes, but if you adjust it for purchasing parity, they are third. It's not the best country in the world, but not as poor as try to paint it.

There is also China who were bullied by 5 countries at once at some point, now a second large economy and contestant to the top.

Only African countries are impoverished, but just of this are largely due to the continent politics, but yes, those are direct result of colonisation.

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FrostiBoi78@reddit

Just because it has a large economy does not mean that it doesn't have intense poverty. The vast majority of its wealth is in the hands of a very small few, that being the result of the administrative system the British forced onto India. They just have a large economy because it's the most highly populated country in the world.

China was never fully colonised, yet it still took until the 90's for it to escape the poverty that was the result of the semi-colonisation they suffered from. Again, the size of their economy is mostly due to their population size.

Only African countries are impoverished, but just of this are largely due to the continent politics, but yes, those are direct result of colonisation.

Bullshit. It may be the most impoverished continent, but the majority of the world is also impoverished. About a third of the world's population is food insecure. Africa's population makes up 18% of the world population, and not all of them are food insecure of course.

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

Is it a coincidence that Africa has generally always been a poor place throughout history?

My friend, we've all been poor. And despite that West Africa has been one of the wealthiest places in the world, I'm sure you're familiar with Mansa Musa.

Rwanda is playing the West well, and they are booming

I believe Rwanda's history might complicate that image.

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drink_bleach_and_die@reddit

Mentioning Mansa Musa in this context is hilarious. Woul you say North Korea is very wealthy because Kim Jong Un is richer than the average western leader?

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

And how much do you know about social stratification in the Mali Empire?

In addition to that, wealth is a relative thing. The abundance of gold made it a poor commodity, instead the Mali valued salt (which they imported through the Sahara trade networks). But you knew these things, right?

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drink_bleach_and_die@reddit

Of course. I also recall slavery being quite widespread and economically important in the Mali empire, and that the prevalence of slavery in a society is directly correlated with its prospects for long term economic development, standard of living, and social welfare. After all, what good is wealth if only a small minority enjoys it while others are deprived of even basic rights and treated as property?

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seejur@reddit

Africa problems are Geographical in nature (No navigable rivers except the Nile, and in fact Egypt has been very rich for most of its history), isolated by desert, very few deep water ports, and so on.

But that does not exclude the exploitation. Once they lagged behind, they got preyed upon by the rest of the world.

I don't think European are particularly more evil as well, because history is choke-full of episodes where the stronger absolutely abused the weak, so if it was not Europe, it would have been another nation once the logistic got to the point where navigation could take you around the globe. But the exploitation is not debatable

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SowingSalt@reddit

I'm all for solving the structural dynamics that exists. I don't think making those solutions reparations is the correct way to do that.

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Reasonable-Ad4770@reddit

the East-european countries are firmly among the international top-rankers of the Human Development Index.

Huh, Turkey definitely scores more than countries like Albania or Serbia, or most of the Balkan countries. The majority of the source for the region's conflict is Osman conquest and oppression.

All this just reeks of agenda pushing, somehow one peoples issues are result of systemic oppression, while other's nothing burger.

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

somehow one peoples issues are result of systemic oppression, while other's nothing burger.

In the cases where there is undeniable systemic oppression: yes, and the argument for reparations is good and rigorous ethical logic (it's the one core principle that both Nozick and Rawls agree upon).

I can pick plenty of wacky examples too where it's a poor fit. And, well, they are wacky and poor examples? What in the world is that meant to prove about the core argument?

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Levitz@reddit

Why would the descendants of the perpetrators doing well matter? The "legacy of past crimes" either is or is not there.

The logical consequences of the whole idea are also staggering. for example if one is to presume that afroamericans are victims of "structural dynamics that keep the descendents of the victims in an inescapable poverty-trap", then what's the argument for helping them in the first place? What are these reparations supposed to do that normal care from the state cannot? If reparations, whatever they are, are performed and they are still overwhelmingly poor, are we back to square one?

For that matter, why would they get help from the state in any other way? It's an inescapable poverty-trap, why even try then?

The families of slave owners who lost a great deal of capital after the US civil war, surely under this logic those people should get reparations if they are in a state of poverty?

Say a guy migrated into the country a century ago, his descendants are now well off. These people have very evidently partaken in the wealth of the state, must they pay reparations to descendants of slaves who are poor?

The problem with the concept of reparations is that the idea that some people got screwed over and that may still affect the present has moral weight, but that's also about everything it has going for it. If examined, the idea seems unworkable, its moral workings very convoluted and definitely questionable, and a proper implementation all but impossible.

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

Why would the descendants of the perpetrators doing well matter? The "legacy of past crimes" either is or is not there.

Because they have the capacity to share without it ruining their own quality of life.

The logical consequences of the whole idea are also staggering. for example if one is to presume that afroamericans are victims of "structural dynamics that keep the descendents of the victims in an inescapable poverty-trap", then what's the argument for helping them in the first place? What are these reparations supposed to do that normal care from the state cannot? If reparations, whatever they are, are performed and they are still overwhelmingly poor, are we back to square one?

Why would they still be overwhelmingly poor if they were given the same chances and opportunities as non-structurally disadvantaged people?

For that matter, why would they get help from the state in any other way? It's an inescapable poverty-trap, why even try then?

Because the state created these structures. If it did it can also undo them. For example urban planning, access to child- and healthcare. Education.

The poverty trap is pretty well figured out and the fact of the matter is that it's just a general lack of resources that keeps people from developing their own skills and abilities that ties them down. There are ways to escape the trap, but they need assistance from outside - once you're in the trap you can't get out on your own (except the occasional lottery winner).

The families of slave owners who lost a great deal of capital after the US civil war, surely under this logic those people should get reparations if they are in a state of poverty?

Yes, the implication would also be that white people locked in the poverty trap due to labor exploitation would also be entitled to assistance.

Say a guy migrated into the country a century ago, his descendants are now well off. These people have very evidently partaken in the wealth of the state, must they pay reparations to descendants of slaves who are poor?

Well, that would depend on the details on how they became well off. Did they go to exclusive schools? Become part of the right networks? Welcomed to exclusive circles?

If so, then they willingly became part of a community that has been given their advantages through historical wrongs.

The problem with the concept of reparations is that the idea that some people got screwed over and that may still affect the present has moral weight, but that's also about everything it has going for it. If examined, the idea seems unworkable, its moral workings very convoluted and definitely questionable, and a proper implementation all but impossible.

My friend, it's basic fucking social democracy with active redistribution of resources. It's pretty much the one system that has been proven to be stable and functional.

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Levitz@reddit

I'm thoroughly sorry I took your previous post seriously and it won't happen again.

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

If you're not going to discuss in good faith then you can leave the sub and not look behind you.

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somethingbrite@reddit

It is: The effects of previous generations' crimes have created structural dynamics that keep the descendents of the victims in an inescapable poverty-trap, while the descendents of the perpetraitors live in excess

Indeed. Much of north and east Africa still bears the scars of the Arab slave trade. The ongoing genocide in Sudan is one such scar.

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RandomMexicanDude@reddit

Will africans pay reparations to fellow africans?

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MaestroRozen@reddit

No, imperialism, mistreatment of natives and slavery are only bad when white Christians are doing it. When it comes to Muslim empires, that's righteous conquest and generosity in allowing those conquered to live as third class citizens or worse.

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Carvemynameinstone@reddit

Not just Muslims, stop that, it doesn't help your point when it can be made stronger and more broadly.

They also don't care about Africa's very own slavery problem, or China's. Your first point is true, it's just "whitey" whose slavery is bad according to them. And those are recent, more recent than the TA-slave trade.

If you want to go further back, Ottomans, Roman's, Greek, Chinese, Indian, Mayans, etc. etc.

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IWantMyYandere@reddit

Majority of cultures around the world has slavery built into them even before inter cultural interactions.

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seejur@reddit

100% Agreed. But I think we also need to highlight that current slavery exists and is a lot more developed in Arab countries

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1jf0@reddit

Why would you be against reparations? Are you amongst those who currently benefit from generational wealth of slaveowning ancestors?

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PrimeusOrion@reddit

No because they excluded everything but the Atlantic slave trade. And only the things done by European and American powers. Nothing bad Africans did in the matter count either. Nor does the slavery that went into the modern age.

It's litteraly just political points to dig on western nations.

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JustJustinInTime@reddit

Yeah where do people think the word slave came from (hint: remove the e from slave)

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12bEngie@reddit

Will arab states receive reparation for the century long israeli invasion?

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Dire_Wolf45@reddit

Is Egypt going to have to pay reparations to Israel?

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Leshawkcomics@reddit

Reparations happened before, post WW2 for the jewish people.

Dont say its ridiculous and use whataboutism as an excuse to not help people your nation directly underdeveloped you can clearly see they need it.

On top of that, the western mindset of ignoring systemic issues they themselves put in place is a big issue.

Theres a reason African nations say “When china comes, we receive a hospital. When Britain comes we receive a lecture”

Im seeing a lot of lecture minded responses, and every excuse and deflection of responsibility under the sun, by people who then go around to say “Just stop being poor, Africa “

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drink_bleach_and_die@reddit

Thinking that poverty can be solved, or even meaningfully reduced, through reparations, subsidies, charity, etc. (anything that sends money without purchasing goods and services in return) in the 21th century is nonsense. Countries that are poor today remain so due to their own parasytic elites not investing in developing their economy, and shipping them free money will just fatten those elites up a little more while life remains the same for the average person. Ironically, such a move would benefit the descendants of slave owners and sellers more than most, since they're disproportionately represented among the elites in most of sub saharan africa, precisely the ones who'll use the reparations to buy another mansion.

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Leshawkcomics@reddit

Oh look, a lecture.

Wow, that's a lot of words. Hope someone will enjoy reading all of them.

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I will laugh myself silly if we hold the Moroccans or Nordics accountable to pay the Irish reparations for what they did 😆 I am pretty sure not many people will have a good enough grasp on history to see the bigger picture and why reparations cannot work. Barbary pirates took my ancestors... Which is why I am not ginger

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jacksonelhage@reddit

reparations were promised and never given. "a ridiculous notion". pay what was promised.

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CptPicard@reddit

How about all the nations and countries that have suffered from Russian imperialism?

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seejur@reddit

Reminds me of this movie. Supposed to be an empowerment movie for women... turns out it props up a slave trader

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Silver_Middle_7240@reddit

Particularly ridiculous since it would be America, inhabitanted by descendants of those who were victims of the slave trade, paying reparations to African countries, inhabited by the descendants of those who enslaved them.

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Firecracker048@reddit

Will the northern african states pay reparations for the barbary slave trade?

Will Italy pay reparations to france for the celtic slave trade?

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MaintenanceInternal@reddit

Yea reparations are ridiculous.

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Kuhelikaa@reddit

They should, symbolic at the very least

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McAlpineFusiliers@reddit

A lot of things "should" happen.

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guylovesleep@reddit

Doesn't really mean we should stop it from happening or be negative that it is happening

Many West and Central African kingdoms were not passive victims but active participants and commercial partners in the trade.

Powerful states like Dahomey (modern Benin), Ashanti (modern Ghana), the Kingdom of Kongo, and the Oyo Empire regularly raided neighboring peoples, took captives in warfare, and sold them to European traders at coastal ports.

For some kingdoms, slave trading became a central pillar of their economy and state revenue.

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NNKarma@reddit

I don't see an issue, the crime is described as the enslavement of Africans, not the enslavememt by Europeans.

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Tarianor@reddit

Which begs the 2nd question, is it those enslaving people or those buying the slaves that needs to pay out then?

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At a fundamental level my response is that life isn't fair nor should we over correct to make it fair.

People have all sorts of advantages and disadvantages for all sorts of reasons.

I believe in providing for citizens to be able to overcome their situation and prove themselves, but in no world will it ever be the case that a poor person will have equal opportunity as a rich person. Obviously wealth of the parents is the greatest determinant of success.

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effurshadowban@reddit

What an insanely privileged take. Americans and the rest of us in the Global North will have hell to pay when the Global South is finally able to rise up and stop this system of exploitation. That's what this whole crisis in Iran is about -- the global capitalist system, currently led by the US, is trying to stop China from upending the current system.

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PushforlibertyAlways@reddit

China is capitalist and exploits the "global south" as much as anyone.

Actually comical you think they are your saviors lol. Good luck with that!

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effurshadowban@reddit

China is capitalist

When did I say they weren't? Rival capitalist hegemons have duked it out like this before - that's literally the point of World War 1. Britain, France, and Russia allied with each other, which severely hurt the potential of Germany, who was only recently unified and joined the capitalist rat race. Despite that, they were already a burgeoning superpower that was threatening the power of Britain, France, and Russia in key places.

and exploits the "global south" as much as anyone.

When did I say they weren't? You're quite presumptuous. China is engaging in Wilsonian logic. Woodrow Wilson wanted to dismantle the old colonial empires of Britain and France, despite those same empires being his allies. In one fell swoop, he wanted all the capitalist rivals of the US to fall - Germany and Russia taken out by the war, and Britain and France's influence to wane as the subjects in their colonies demanded their right to self-determination. Self-determination is a wonderful idea, but it only gained traction, because Wilson wanted to dismantle the source of his capitalists rivals' wealth.

Similarly, China wants to end the neo-colonial power structure that keeps the US and the West on top. It is building a parallel system and wants to take the top spot in the hierarchy, and they're doing it by trying to hit the source of the West's wealth: wealth extraction through the global financial system without building any positive infrastructure in the Global South.

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Tarianor@reddit

Let's say, for example, we are in a race. Before the race, I bash both of your knees to pieces. Then the race starts and I take a commanding lead, while no one stops the race or gets you the assistance you now need to get back into the race. In fact, more people continue to hold you down at the starting line for another minute. Finally, after a full minute of being held back, and with broken knees, you are allowed to enter the race. Do you think you should get some help or something should be done about what was done to you?

Thats not a good comparison considering that'll be stuff that happened to me, not someone else hundreds of years ago.

the Irish are still recovering their population from before the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s and 1850s, a scar that is still visible to this day. That happened before the American Civil War in the 1860s. Yet, somehow, you can't wrap your head around the fact that those descendants of slaves still suffer from the effects of slavery?

Yet the Irish still turned it around and are doing well as a society, also the defendants of the slave trade are living in the Americas, not in Africa.

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effurshadowban@reddit

Thats not a good comparison considering that'll be stuff that happened to me, not someone else hundreds of years ago.

Clearly. The point of the thought experiment is to personalize the experience so that you, a soulless husk, can actually grapple with the reality of the situation. Since you struggle understanding this, let me put it this way: In reality, people aren't born devoid of any context. They have biological constraints, but are also affected by their socioeconomic environment, which affects their ability for upward mobility. It's easier for someone who already has wealth to continue to accrue more wealth than it is for someone with NO wealth to build and accrue wealth.

For example, Elon Musk didn't start from the bottom. Neither did a lot of wealthy people. Musk's father owned an emerald mine in South Africa. Why the fuck is this white man in South Africa? And why does he partially own an emerald mine, instead of some native Black South African? Well, because apartheid and colonialism stretching back hundreds of years ago. A continuous system to keep certain people down and uplift other people, aka wealth extraction.

Yet the Irish still turned it around and are doing well as a society

Most likely because they became a part of the colonial empire that originally oppressed them which ended up benefitting them. As usual, colonial imperialism always relies on bribing certain peoples and classes in order to get away with their oppression. Nevertheless, their population STILL hasn't met previous levels.

also the defendants of the slave trade are living in the Americas, not in Africa.

Did anyone say differently?

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PushforlibertyAlways@reddit

Yes that is true.

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The article. And to a more extreme extent, the user I responded to.

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effurshadowban@reddit

I ask again, said who? You seem to struggle with reading comprehension. It says to consider apologizing for the slave trade and contributing to a reparations fund. Doesn't say who and doesn't say how much.

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seeeee@reddit

The. User. I. Respond. To.

That is why I included BOTH Ghana quoted in the article, where it is unclear regarding the subject of who pays who, and the commenter above.

I believe I’m reading this just fine. I wasn’t arguing slavery isn’t a crime against humanity, it absolutely is.

I was responding to a thread. A thread which raised a fair question. The first commenter raised the question. The second one answered confidently that “everyone involved must pay.” The answer to who exactly“everyone involved” is and how this should be defined remains unanswered. Hence, having a discussion about it…

Are you sure I am the one misunderstanding something?

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effurshadowban@reddit

The second one answered confidently that “everyone involved” must pay reparations.

That is me, dude.

The answer to who exactly“everyone involved” is and how this should be defined remains unanswered. Hence, having a discussion about it…

It's a pretty simple definition. The victimizers. The kidnappers and slave masters. In lieu of the actual victimizers pay reparations to the actual victims, then the descendants of the victimizers (or the nations involved), who still prosper from the extracted wealth, shall pay reparations to those descendants of the victims who still suffer socioeconomically. African Americans were slaves for hundreds of years and were then kept as second class citizens for another 100 years. Slavery also didn't go away - it is still legal as long as you're a "criminal". So, African Americans faced several bullshit laws that were meant to entrap them in the penal system and continue to extract wealth from them. There are millions of people still alive that were born second class citizens. And that's just in the US.

Are you sure I am the one misunderstanding something?

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seeeee@reddit

Ok so who is owed who? African Americans are owed reparations is what you’re saying, but who pays this?

“Everyone involved” isn’t answering the question. You were asked a fair question and instead of answering it, you’re insulting my reading comprehension. Who is “everyone?” Does Reverend Al Sharpton owe reparations as well?

Who pays? To whom? How much is fair? Do reparations actually solve the problem given the problem is still occurring on a global scale. Is Ghana offering reparations to African Americans or is the article insinuating that Ghana has just proposed SOMEONE pay reparations?

Who pays? To whom? How much is fair?

You’re also saying it wasn’t fair for Haiti, and making an extremely valid case against the prospect of paying reparations. The real victims are just as likely to receive monetary justice as a modern day class action lawsuit.

I’m agreeing with you for the most part, dude. Perhaps it’s my poor reading comprehension, but I think I’m just not following your point.

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effurshadowban@reddit

Who is “everyone?”

Nations who participated in the slave trade. Collective responsibility, just like Germans had collective responsibility for the Holocaust. Better yet, why did every British citizen and subject bear collective responsibility for the abolition of slaves and have to pay reparations to the slave owners? Those payments didn't finish until 2015. 2015!!!! Why is it only when people demand Black victims get paid reparations that there is a problem?

Does Reverend Al Sharpton owe reparations as well?

How did Haiti pay reparations? How did Germany pay reparations to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust (because most of the other groups weren't paid)? Not every German was a perpetrator, and some were even victims, but the state, the government, uses their tax revenue to pay money directly to victims. Did you know America paid reparations to Japanese Americans for their internment during WW2?

You’re also saying it wasn’t fair for Haiti, and making an extremely valid case against the prospect of paying reparations.

Haiti wasn't fair, because they were paying for fighting off the oppressive boot of slavery. They were literally forced, at gunpoint, to pay reparations for winning their freedom. That is a reversal of justice, which is the point of reparations. You can't use Haiti being forced to pay reparations as an argument against reparations as a whole. If you reversed the roles in many situations, then justice turns to injustice many times. Like when theocracies execute a woman who was raped, rather than the rapist. That is an reversal of justice that perpetuates more injustice. Executing the rapist? More just. Likewise, forcing Haiti to pay reparations is a reversal of justice. Forcing the (then) slave owners to pay reparations to Haiti? That's justice. On that topic, France, America, and Britain owe Haiti reparations for forcing them to pay that reparations, on top of the enslavement. That shit ended in 1947 and there are still millions of people who this affected, so spare me the bullshit.

Like, ok, let's take your position seriously for a second -- slavery is too far away. What about colonialism, Jim Crow, apartheid, forced reparations, etc? All that ended within the lifetimes of hundreds of millions of people. Let's get reparations for that, then. Is that cool with you?

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seeeee@reddit

Totally cool with me, at least with the concept. That’s been my position this entire time, as I said before, I absolutely do believe, strongly, the enslavement of African people is a crime against humanity.

What is cool with me on a personal level doesn’t decide or define how one’s government is to properly execute reparations.

I am an American citizen. My position is not against justice for black Americans, my position is that I do not trust my government (honestly any nation’s government) to act in good faith to provide any real justice to black Americans. The entire modern system is rigged against them.

The tax system is rigged to only benefit the rich. The insurance system is rigged to only benefit the rich, not to mention there are STILL medical textbooks in circulation stating as fact black people do not experience pain as severely as others.

The prison system is modern slavery all over again.

I would love it if our “for profit” prison system was abolished, but only those receiving the profits get a real say on the matter. Their profits buy lobbyists, who are interested only in more profit.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, in fact I’ve been reading about both Haiti and Germany now, and I appreciate the discourse!

I’m saying it does matter how exactly we (or rather, the UN) determines the specific conditions for reparations, the nations involved, and the victims owed. There must be a well-structured plan in place to prevent the potential of “reparations” being leveraged by the rich and elite just to essentially steal from the victims and produce more profits for themselves.

If America owes reparations to Ghana (hypothetically speaking), I do not trust my government officials to implement a reasonable tax plan that could impact them personally. I believe they will both raise taxes on the lower/middle classes (steal the money from the victims) and continue to wrongfully imprison black people (steal the lives and freedoms of the victims) to pay the bill just like they do today.

I honestly don’t have any great ideas on how to fix these problems, either. I just strongly believe that there has to be a clearly defined process, including structural changes, else I fear it’s more or less Jim Crow era all over again. Just more convoluted systems of stealing from black people, and only returning a small fraction back to an even smaller percentage of the black population.

For example, convicted felons in America do not have the same rights as others, they often don’t even have the right to vote. I personally don’t believe black felons should be excluded from reparations (or voting for that matter.)

My personal beliefs are not relevant to the matter though.

My point is in the absence of explicitly defined conditions, the US government isn’t going to simply do the right thing and act in good faith. Governments in general are historically bad at honor systems. They’re just going to find legal loopholes and make more excuses to continue the for profit modern slavery system.

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Tarianor@reddit

What kind of fucking question? Everyone involved.

Near enough every culture on the planet has partake in slavery. Even in the Atlantic slavery stuff had a large participation of African nations. Yet none of us here today has been involved.

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effurshadowban@reddit

Many countries participated in the Holocaust, but Germany is the one to pay reparations.

Yet none of us here today has been involved.

This is what makes the least sense to me. The descendants of the victims of the Atlantic Slave Trade don't live in Africa, the vast majority of them live in America. Some of the countries responsible for the Atlantic Slave Trade are European, but others are American and African. Does Ghana want to pay reparations to Brazilian, Cuban, Haitian and US citizens?

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jrgkgb@reddit

Gosh, why don’t the descendants of African slaves in North African countries still live there?

Do you think it might be because of the castration?

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PushforlibertyAlways@reddit

American countries should absolutely do this.

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polaroid_kidd@reddit

I'm guessing they're saying "well we wouldn't have sold humans if you wouldn't have bought humans!"

On the other hand, did they realistically have any other option than to lean into it?

I have no idea, I'm not a history buff so maybe Reddit can do it's thing and summon the one PhD who's entire doctorate focused on that specific subject.

🤞🤞🤞

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His point is that people who never owned slaves paying money to those who never were enslaved

If I steal all the wealth that you have ever gained, and then used my new wealth to further keep you down until after we both died, what do you think should happen for the future generations of our families? After all, your children and grandchildren were never stolen from, and my children and grandchildren didn't still from them, either. I did it to you, and now we're both dead. By your logic, my estate does not owe your family a dime. All the wealth I extracted from you continues to benefit my people, but your people aren't owed any of it?

Do you get the point? By the way, Haiti paid reparations to the French from 1825 to 1883, but had to continue paying off loans (and interest on those loans) until 1947. Haiti's independence was in 1804. France came with warships to Haiti's coast and forced them to pay reparations for the lost "property" (which included Haitian slaves). Haitians in the 1900s were still paying for reparations to France for the Haitian Revolution that ENDED IN 1804. The world never operated on your logic until the victims of colonialism, slavery, and genocide demanded reparations for the wrongs done to them. It was cool for Haiti to pay reparations over a century after the end of them gaining their own independence from slavery, but now it is a problem that people are saying all the victims of the slave trade and slavery deserve reparations?

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JustChillin3456@reddit

“The extracted wealth only benefits my people not your people” except in actuality America and the UK alone have given over a trillion dollars to Africa and saved 40+ African lives. Even the UK went into debt to abolish slavery.

“Victims of colonialism -“ it’s funny how Muslims took more slaves and land from Africans going back 1000+ years and they have yet to lift a single finger to right any of there wrongs. How / why is that ok?

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effurshadowban@reddit

“The extracted wealth only benefits my people not your people” except in actuality America and the UK alone have given over a trillion dollars to Africa and saved 40+ million African lives.

Most of that is foreign aid, which is a geopolitical tool - not simple charity. A lot of aid are loans, which puts Africa in a debt trap, just like Haiti experienced.

Also, who the fuck is talking about Africa? We're talking about reparations to the descendants of SLAVES! You do know where the victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade ended up, right? They aren't in Africa, they're in the Americas.

Even the UK went into debt to abolish slavery.

In debt to whom? The slaves? Ohhh, that's right. To the slave owners. Because to free the slaves, who were considered chattel, they had to pay the slave owners for the economic damage that it would cause. And what did the slaves get? They get anything in return for their suffering? Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Reparations for the rotten evil fucks holding HUMAN BEINGS in bondage, but not to those actually held in bondage. "Here, you poor rich slave master. I'm so sorry you're losing the free labor that brought you wealth. Here, take this money to make yourself even richer." The UK was already paying reparations, but instead of going to the people actually hurt by slavery, it went to the enslavers.

“Victims of colonialism -“ it’s funny how Muslims took more slaves and land from Africans going back 1000+ years and they have yet to lift a single finger to right any of there wrongs. How / why is that ok? When will they bother with reparations ?

So, do you think people should pay for historical injustices or not? Fuck this whataboutism shit. The response is "Yes, and?" Let's walk and chew bubblegum - both of them should.

But anyway, when is France going to pay reparations to Haiti? Haitians were enslaved, fought a colonial empire for their freedom, and then were forced to pay reparations for daring to free themselves from bondage. They didn't stop paying this debt until 1947. That's 143 years after independence and they were the victims. By your logic, why don't those people deserve reparations?

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moonlandings@reddit

I believe the point is that it was the west Africans selling the other Africans into chattel slavery. Ergo the west African countries must shoulder their portion of the blame. Whether that means paying reparations as well or whatnot remains to be seen.

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adoreroda@reddit

There is only one country I can see doing this, and it's Benin. Decades ago they apologised for their participation in the slave trade. Ghana has yet to do anything like that. Same with Nigeria, Angola, etc.

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AlludedNuance@reddit

Perhaps! I don't tend to think people really care much about a fair burden in these cases, because the vast majority of the trade's "crimes"(shorthand) were committed over centuries by everyone other than those Africans.

If the UN does anything beyond that its a bonus.

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TheCursedMonk@reddit

^ Country that is an active recipient of United Nations help.

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Opening-Cheetah467@reddit

As if people see a nickel of the said help lol.

Who installed this regime against people well?

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Steampunk007@reddit

This is often said to reduce the blow on Europeans. It’s a really bad point. The way the transatlantic slave trade revolutionised slavery is leagues above in insanity compared to the act of capturing war prisoners and selling them off.

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misterfistyersister@reddit

You’re also missing the Barbary states, which took far more slaves than the sub-Saharan African trade.

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ThatHeckinFox@reddit

Yes, but they were not white, and only white people can do wrong things, didn't you know?

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

It's almost like it's an effect of the economic structures created and sustained by European maritime capitalism?

In my mind it's like saying that communities that are exposed to addictive drugs have to blame themselves when it generates pushers and others who benefit from the crime. One should look at the root issue and what caused it, and not stop when one finds it suitable.

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adoreroda@reddit

This is a mere excuse and a bad one at that.

"They couldn't help but kill and enslave people because they were enchanted by the power of capitalism"

Your same logic also applies to many settlers in the Americas who owned slaves. They were caught up in a system of capitalism and slavery was one of the primary ways to climb the economic ladder. Therefore what they did is justified just like it was to the Africans

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

To begin with, I made no claim about anything being justified. I believe that simply reveals your own mindset when discussing the topic.

"They couldn't help but kill and enslave people because they were enchanted by the power of capitalism"

That is very much not my argument.

My claim is that the Europeans had discovered the fact that capital can generate more capital, and thereby discovered the triangular trade. Part of that trade system was that it brought massive benefits to the African Kingdoms who became part of it and could benefit from the status and practical goods they could purchase from the Europeans.

Such as advanced weapons... And if your neighbour suddenly gets high-tech military gear you also need access to it, and thereby become part of the crime.

Not because they were "enchanted by the power of capitalism" but the fact that the European traders became the providers of the goods necessary for rulership and preservation of your spot in the heirarchy.

Your same logic also applies to many settlers in the Americas who owned slaves. They were caught up in a system of capitalism and slavery was one of the primary ways to climb the economic ladder. Therefore what they did is justified just like it was to the Africans

You joke, but why do you think so many poor whites in the Ante-bellum south became attached to a system that was against their own interests? Because the economic system was what it was and overthrowing it is so much more difficult than aspiring to end up as one of the winners in it.

By analog - if the Antebellum slave owners were Europeans who could at any moment stop the entire system then we would have a comparable situation to the West African kingdoms.

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adoreroda@reddit

I will try and give the BOTD but I have seen your argument used many times by people disregarding and even justifying African participation in the slave trade. Basically saying that Europeans made them "hooked" on capitalism and they were forced to it as Europeans made them reliant on this trade, in which no one forced them to do anything and they would've been still making slaves without European contact, as they were already doing. it's not really a relevant context in this sub-topic, in my opinion

Also other arguments to justify it such as "it was different, it was never racialised slavery like the Europeans did" as if there was any ethical way to own people as property to begin with and saying only the party who did it "worse" has it counted as slavery

You joke, but why do you think so many poor whites in the Ante-bellum south became attached to a system that was against their own interests? Because the economic system was what it was and overthrowing it is so much more difficult than aspiring to end up as one of the winners in it.

I didn't exactly say it as a joke but more of like a thought experiment. I do believe capitalism in that instance heavily blindsided many of those settlers into what they were doing, as well as the propaganda from their own countries regarding black people. However most people still would say those settlers and their descendants who owned slaves were still responsible and had the capacity to know better, and I think the same of those African slave traders and kingdoms that participated in it too.

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

Basically saying that Europeans made them "hooked" on capitalism and they were forced to it as Europeans made them reliant on this trade, in which no one forced them to do anything and they would've been still making slaves without European contact, as they were already doing. it's not really a relevant context in this sub-topic, in my opinion

Slavery under a monarchical ruler and chattel trans-atlantic slavery are quite different things.

Also other arguments to justify it such as "it was different, it was never racialised slavery like the Europeans did" as if there was any ethical way to own people as property to begin with and saying only the party who did it "worse" has it counted as slavery

There have been plenty of arguments for slavery, based on biology (USA/Nazi Germany), politics (Aristotle), power (Melian dialogue), theology (Great Chain of Being). Some of these still recognize the humanity of the slaves, just that they're placed in a subserviant position... Hegel and all that.

Chattel slavery reduced the people into a commodity.

I didn't exactly say it as a joke but more of like a thought experiment. I do believe capitalism in that instance heavily blindsided many of those settlers into what they were doing, as well as the propaganda from their own countries regarding black people. However most people still would say those settlers and their descendants who owned slaves were still responsible and had the capacity to know better, and I think the same of those African slave traders and kingdoms that participated in it too.

Ought demands Can. We both know that climate change is the biggest betrayal of humanity in humanity's history -- yet what are you and I doing against it?

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adoreroda@reddit

Slavery under a monarchical ruler and chattel trans-atlantic slavery are quite different things.

No one ever said it was the same though, or that they did the same thing. They are still equally to blame though. Just like Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein did two very different things in their sex trafficking and yet they are still both heavily responsible, not just Epstein.

Chattel slavery reduced the people into a commodity.

All slavery is inherently reducing people to a commodity when you own people as property

Ought demands Can. We both know that climate change is the biggest betrayal of humanity in humanity's history -- yet what are you and I doing against it?

I am interpreting this in a bunch of ways. Are you saying in that scenario both are affected by capitalism and couldn't do anything about it?

To a degree, I agree with you in that they were both indoctrinated into that system for gain. However I just don't agree with the popular notion of infantalising the Africans and making them beyond reproach but only blaming European participation

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

All slavery is inherently reducing people to a commodity when you own people as property

Not necessarily. Some servitude-cultures is more symbolic than economic, like in North American indian slavery.

To a degree, I agree with you in that they were both indoctrinated into that system for gain. However I just don't agree with the popular notion of infantalising the Africans and making them beyond reproach but only blaming European participation

I'm not. My point is that when faced with the options between joining an oppressive system and finding moderate comfort in it, or fighting a highly uncertain battle to abolish the system for something better... History show that most humans decide to compromise themselves and join.

To argue that many West Africans are guilty of the same is hypocracy if we somehow believe we're not doing the same thing right here and right now.

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Blarg_III@reddit

My claim is that the Europeans had discovered the fact that capital can generate more capital, and thereby discovered the triangular trade. Part of that trade system was that it brought massive benefits to the African Kingdoms who became part of it and could benefit from the status and practical goods they could purchase from the Europeans.

Such as advanced weapons... And if your neighbour suddenly gets high-tech military gear you also need access to it, and thereby become part of the crime.

Not because they were "enchanted by the power of capitalism" but the fact that the European traders became the providers of the goods necessary for rulership and preservation of your spot in the heirarchy.

Surely this argument can be used to excuse everyone but the first two countries to participate in the trade? If your rivals in Europe have discovered a way to make huge amounts of money, they are put at a serious military and economic advantage, obliging you to do the same for fear of falling behind.

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

Yes, exactly. It's the reason we're in the global pickle that we are. Once a state discovers a new source of power everyone else needs to figure out a way to replicate it or risk being dominated... Same goes for corporations today.

Colonialization, militarism, industrialization, imperialism. Nuclear arms race... carbon emission based societies, nuclear arms race, AI...

It all follows the same principle and is the tragedy of our ways of organizing the global community. The core issue of the transatlantic slave trade is that the European traders accidentally (or not...?) created the same join-or-lose incentive structure that produced the "gravest crime against humanity".

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Levitz@reddit

I must've missed the part in which Europeans had to convince different societies to enslave others in order to purchase them.

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NewAccountEachYear@reddit

The invisible hand is quite persuasive.

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effurshadowban@reddit

Then they would have to criticize capitalism, and we know they can't do that.

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Leshawkcomics@reddit

Being active participants is different than having an actual choice in the matter. Europe historically does not take no for an answer. There’s countless examples of them coercing weaker nations into “Being active participants” of their own destruction that looks like said weaker people were happy to help, and the moment historians look deeper they realize that they weren’t and were forced into it by sham contracts, threats, hostages, and the like. One of the most well documented is how amercan settlers say they got their land from native Americans, vs how they actually got their land.

You should never take it as an indisputable and self evident fact when people from nations that did this kind of thing say “Well the victim agreed to it” cause chances are they didn’t, and that nations own government at the time went out of its way to reassure its people that all its atrocities are by the book.

Its also relevant when people blame African states and say “Well they benefited” to notice that None of those states exist. They were torn down or dismantled by European nations and borders placed with zero regard for the already existing people. They only benefited as long as they were useful, and only in ways that didn’t give them the power to actually decide their own future.

Its like if someone sold their kid to Epstein knowing that if they said no, Epstein has the money and influence to make their whole family disappear. Then Epstein makes their family disappear anyway to tie up loose ends, and people insisting its the victim’s family whos is to blame. Not Epstein.

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Levitz@reddit

The UK has taken more responsibility for their actions than Ghana has and it's not even close.

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dJunka@reddit

Ghana didn't build itself up to be one of the richest countries in the world through chattel slavery though. They didn't build the entire worldwide market system around chattel slavery, and they as a whole did not benefit from it at all.

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Prestigious_Task7175@reddit

They actually were an active participant in the slave trade, as the kingdom of the land their are sitting on profitted from raiding neighbour lands and taking people, wich would then be sold to the Europeans at trading ports.

That's how many kingdoms in Africa at the time got many riches, it was a very lucrative business.

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dJunka@reddit

They didn't become a rich country from the slave trade though did they? Because it was a system built and purposed to benefit Europeans at the expense of Africans. To suggest Africa was actually benefitting from chattel slavery is a completely insensible idea.

What you're talking about is textbook colonialism. Divide and rule. Financially incentivising groups to exploit, attack, and sell out their own people.

In Ghana we exploited existing rivalries, creating an unstoppable arms race to the bottom, by offering guns for slaves. We ensured that those willing to sell slaves to Europe were the ones ruling the continent by design.

Literally textbook imperialism and colonialism, same Divide and Rule strategy was employed across Asia and South America too. The main objective being to prevent any unified rule that could fight back and set its own terms. Let's not be obtuse about this.

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Czart@reddit

They didn't become a rich country from the slave trade though did they?

And how is that relevant? They had zero problems providing and profiting from slaves. They got paid for the slaves and now they want to get paid because they didn't get rich enough of off it?

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dJunka@reddit

It's relevant as the ones who created chattel slavery are the beneficaries of it, whereas the colonised were impoverished by it. It's not difficult to understand, it's literally how colonialism and imperialism work.

They had zero problems providing and profiting from slaves.

Because if they had a problem with it they were massacred and/or replaced by a more willing partner. They didn't have the means to defend their country from blackmail and bribery.

This isn't a theory, this is history you can read for yourself. Rinsed and repeated over centuries.

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Czart@reddit

They were literally getting rich of selling the people they capture. They were the slave suppliers not slaves.

Because if they had a problem with it they were massacred and/or replaced by a more willing partner.

Dude, they were complaining when the brits were trying to shut it down. They weren't "forced to be slavers" lmao. They were very eager participants.

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dJunka@reddit

A minority of British backed elites got rich, don’t misrepresent the history for the sake of your prejudices.

They got rich at the expense of Ghanas prosperity. Meanwhile slave money built the UK up, places, roads, rail, sail and industry. Slavery and other exploitations made Europe and the US the richest countries in the world.

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Czart@reddit

You can't in one breath go "well akshually thoshe ver only few elites" and the go "ENTIRE EUROPE IS MADE ON SLAVERY" in second sentence.

I'll tell you what, you are free to give Ghana all the money you want to, sell your house, every possession and send it to them because they have sellers remorse 300 years later. Your life, your choice, but keep your stupid inherited guilt from the rest of us.

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dJunka@reddit

Well that's a wilful misunderstanding on your part then.

In Europe, countries that didn't even own slaves or colonies still benefitted massively from the atlantic slave trade. Sure it served wealthy europeans first and foremost, but it was a huge economic boost, and foundational to modern capitalism and world trade.

For countries like Ghana it was a devastating and econonically fatal exploitation. The pittance made by those who sold slaves to Europe had virtually no impact on the long-term structural, social, and economic consequences of slavery.

Listen my comment wasn't addressed to people like you, who talk about blame and guilt. The idea is about taking responsiblity out of compassionate, and not out guilt. Because you want to do the right thing.

So don't worry about it.

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Czart@reddit

You know that Brits formed the West Africa Squadron to blockade and intercept slave carrying ships in 1808 right? And the Ashanti Empire was formed around 1701? So yes approximately 300 years ago. Talk about history eh?

In Europe, countries that didn't even own slaves or colonies still benefitted massively from the atlantic slave trade.

Oh of course, we didn't own slave but we sure benefited more than those that literally sold slaves. If a frenchman buys coffee in guatemala i'm profiting too right? Again with this inherited guild. I don't care if your great-great-great grandpa was maybe (and all things being equal they were probably not) a slave owning asshole and be blamed for that shit because i share skin colour with him. I'm not going to screech for reparations out of Mongolia because of Genghis Khan because that would be utterly moronic.

Listen my comment wasn't addressed to people like you, who talk about blame and guilt. The idea is about taking responsiblity out of compassion, because you want to do the right thing regardless of whose fault it is.

Responsibility out of compassion. Compassion for who? The slaver kindgoms? Yeah, i'm just running to take responsibility for slavery because some dude decided to sell their neighbour they conquered.

And of course it is about blame and guilt, because if you didn't try to guilt people about it no one would fucking pay. I mean, no one will pay most likely because it's a stupid idea, but some are clearly trying to guilt people over it.

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dJunka@reddit

It went on into the late 1800s actually.

Britain realised it was more expedient exploit countries like India with a puppet colonial goverment, than to continue with the slave trade which saw diminishing returns versus modern industry.

Again with this inherited guild. I don't care if your great-great-great grandpa was maybe (and all things being equal they were probably not) a slave owning asshole

Nope, that is a strawman. You tried to imply Ghanaians benefitted from chattel slavery the same way Europeans did, that was false for the reasons I said.

And of course it is about blame and guilt, because if you didn't try to guilt people about it no one would fucking pay. I mean, no one will pay most likely because it's a stupid idea, but some are clearly trying to guilt people over it.

Listen, I'm actually telling you... It has to come from a willingness to take responsibility. Not from guilt. That's literally the point I'm making to you. Good grief.

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Czart@reddit

It went on into the late 1800s actually.

Yeah, took Brits a while to convince and "convince" the region to stop enslaving people. They were rather uncooperative with this entire idea of "stop making profits on slaves" thing.

Nope, that is a strawman. You tried to imply Ghanaians benefitted from chattel slavery the same way Europeans did, that was false for the reasons I said.

Right, entire Europe profits from actions of "our" rich, but in Africa actions of "their" rich have no effect on them.

It has to come from a willingness to take responsibility.

And no one is willing to take responsibility over things that have been done generations ago. This entire exercise is pointless and the resolution nothing more than attempt to cash in on guilt. Everyone would fare better if we spent that energy on actual modern day slavery instead of this little begging circus.

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dJunka@reddit

Great, but let's make sure we remember in future how recent some this history is.

Right, entire Europe profits from actions of "our" rich, but in Africa actions of "their" rich have no effect on them.

"Their rich" was backed and controlled our "Our rich" if they resisted, they were dealt with by the British.

They did not profit, they suffered long and painful consequences. Europe literally did profit, it might upset your sensibilities, but the fact that modern trading and capitalism was built off the slave trade, is just a fact. It was just that impactful.

I don't think we're going to make great headway on modern slavery when people are still doing apologia for chattel slavery, but I digress.

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Czart@reddit

They did not profit

Literally denied by them complaining that this is what they're kingdoms are built on. But go on champ, tell me how they were too stupid to realise they're being exploited...

I don't think we're going to make great headway on modern slavery when people are still doing apologia for chattel slavery,

No, you're not going to make it because you don't actually give a shit. You're here to try and fleece a bunch of people out of money for things they didn't do.

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dJunka@reddit

Not really a question of "stupidity" is it? If they refused, the British massacred or replaced them.

Nah it's pointless asking people like you, that was the point of my first comment that was maybe missed.

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Czart@reddit

Brits. didn't. have. to. do. anything. Slavery was common almost everywhere at that time. Islamic countries on the other side of the continent were trading slaves just like europeans.

Brother, slavery was bad, is bad, will be bad. There is no denial here. But this thins is just "europeans should pay" while everyone else did the same or is in fact doing the same right now.

And i'm sorry, but your entire white guilt that permeated anglosphere is just not a thing here. I'm simply not going to be convinced that i somehow share racial responsibility. Ghanaians aren't responsible for the crimes committed in Sudan because of the colour of their skin, and neither am i over some white dipshit centuries ago.

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dJunka@reddit

Again it's just the history, you can read all about British Divide and Rule in Ghana.

We're talking about chattel slavery.

Only you're talking about white guilt, fixated on it. I'm talking about taking responsibility because I think it's the right thing to do, and bulding a consensus on that. Zero interest in guilt tripping people, least of all someone with your views.

It doesn't work, and even mild criticism on European conduct garners responses like yours, so as I said in my first comment, attitudes need to change first.

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Czart@reddit

"Trade in slaves was a major tradition in pre-colonial Asante culture. Slaves were typically taken as captives from enemies in warfare."

Huh. Fascinating isn't it?

I'm talking about taking responsibility because

I'm not taking responsibility for shit i didn't do. I'm not taking responsibility for something even my ancestors didn't do. Because precisely what is the connection between my polish 21st century ass and british 18th century slave trader?

even mild criticism on European conduct garners responses like yours

Yeah, no one ever criticised european conduct.... It's just not a thing. Nope.

attitudes need to change first.

Yeah, and this is precisely why i don't think you actually give a shit about slavery. You're more occupied with trying to "fix" something that happened centuries ago, instead of the problem that are happening right now.

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dJunka@reddit

Chattel slavery was not the same as pre-existing forms of slavery. Please look up why.

There’s not much for us to talk about. Your whole angle is minimising the impact of Atlantic slave trade, that it was something from 300 years ago, everyone was doing it anyway, that Ghanaians role in the slave trade was not meaningfully different from Britain’s.

Nevermind the guilt or ethics of it, you’re just factually wrong on these points.

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Czart@reddit

Chattel slavery was not the same as pre-existing forms of slavery. Please look up why.

No, inform me why.

Your whole angle is minimising the impact of Atlantic slave trade

I'm not.

that it was something from 300 years ago

It was.

everyone was doing it anyway

Yes.

that Ghanaians role in the slave trade was not meaningfully different from Britain’s

Meaningfully? Sure, Brits were the customers, Ghanaians were the suppliers.

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Monterenbas@reddit

They didn't become a rich country from the slave trade though did they?

They did tho, it’s the abolition of slavery that impovrished them, Ghana was thriving during the slavery days.

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Monterenbas@reddit

Please take a look around, the world have not changed.

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Acceptable_Deal_4662@reddit

Idk about reparations, there isn’t enough to straight up give that would make it right.

Investment and planning a better future through trade deals and relations work would be the best course of action imo. We need to get these counties that have been taken advantage of up to speed with the rest of the world so that they can have a stake in the world economy.

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dJunka@reddit

Well reparations aren't strictly just about handing over money, it's about lending assistance where possible and sharing some of the wealth that was taken from them essentially. No one can put a figure on it, like we pay X amount, and then we are guilt. I feel a lot of people in this thread miss the point.

It's not about debt or guilt, it's about being compassionate and acknowledging a terrible wrong has been done, and been poorly accounted for. Anything that can be done to alleviate that is good for the world, and it's good for our humanity.

The issue with trade deals is that they are almost always exploitative. It has to be support and investment without the kickbacks.

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Acceptable_Deal_4662@reddit

I think a O interest investment in machinery for civic work and food preservation manufacturing would be the best

Precisely. Yet here we are, everyone just claims reparations for atrocities of days long gone.

Moreover, claims for “systemic disadvantage” appear, which are complete nonsense, as it’s not even possible to calculate subjective losses.

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EternalAngst23@reddit

Moreover, claims for “systemic disadvantage” appear, which are complete nonsense, as it’s not even possible to calculate subjective losses.

Reminds me of Indians who continue to blame the British Empire for their contemporary economic problems. I mean, a few decades after decolonisation, sure. But there are many parts of the country that have gone backwards since independence. I remember watching a video of an Indian nationalist (living abroad, mind you) who sought to attribute Ganges pollution to British colonialism. It’s as absurd as it sounds.

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Alexwolfdog@reddit

The Indian case is different, they don't demand money but artifacts, jewels and ancient Indian items which are in british vaults and museums.

Which is a fair ask.

Also indian politics don't ask for votes against these demands they are no political campaigns or rallies, it's just people on internet.

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redpandaeater@reddit

I just see it as the same opportunistic greed that was central to the slave trade in the first place.

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Nahcep@reddit

Not even eligible for polish citizenship because he was born just over the border of what became modern day Ukraine.

If he had Polish citizenship and nobody between you two denounced it, then you are a Polish citizen by descent and all you need is proof of your relation

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It's not woke. It's biased, ignorant and follows the money, but not woke lol.

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BDOKlem@reddit

you don't think this moral pedestal is influenced by identity politics?

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again, yes. but that doesn't explain the relevance here.

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AlludedNuance@reddit

"follows the money"

What money?

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Vassago81@reddit

If you read the article before commenting you know they're asking "reparation"

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SlyRoundaboutWay@reddit

The money Ghana thinks it will be entitled to should the resolution pass and reparations paid out.

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VaderVihs@reddit

Why would Ghana receive those payments? Wouldn't it make more sense for the nations built by the black slave diaspora to receive those reparations if they were ever introduced

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SlyRoundaboutWay@reddit

It makes far more sense for Ghana to be one of the reparations paying countries. Ashanti (modern Ghana) regularly raided neighboring peoples, took captives in warfare, and sold them to European traders at coastal ports.

The government of Ghana is not the government that sold slaves, and most of the people there did suffer from it. The focus of it is on the descendants of slaves.

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moonlandings@reddit

By that logic the government and people of the west are not the ones who bought slaves and most of the people here did not benefit from it. So what’s the point of the resolution then?

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mnmkdc@reddit

Well no, by that logic a lot of the western governments are the same. Ghana wasn’t even close to the same state as today. But either way I’m not saying reparations are needed internationally. I do think the US should give reparations due to Jim Crow still being recent, but that doesn’t have anything to do with this UN vote.

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historicusXIII@reddit

But how do the reparations make any sense? Afro-American tax payers, for a large part descendents of slaves, having to pay Africans whose descendents for a large part were not victims of chattel slavery (because otherwise they wouldn't live in Africa, Liberia aside), or whose ancestors were even active participants in the slave trade. While the Arab slave trade, which rivaled the Transatlantic trade in size, is completely ignored.

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mnmkdc@reddit

I didnt say they made sense. I’m more addressing the “gravest of crimes”. I do think the US owes reparations especially due to Jim Crow being within the lifetimes of many Americans including every single president we’ve ever had, but on an international scale I dont know how it would work at all.

Also, does the vote exclude the Arab slave trade? It sounds like it’s just about chattel slavery in general, but maybe I’m missing something.

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So the countries that captured and sold the slaves should pay reparations too. Wait but that means Ghana has to recognize that it sold its own brothers and sisters into slavery.

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NeoRockSlime@reddit

I see no issue with that

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Hot_Raccoon_565@reddit

So Ghana can lead the way and show everyone what % of their gdp is owed as reparations to their countrymen.

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lu5ty@reddit

Oppression Olympics lmao. Thats like a daily target for most redditors

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I think integrating them more with the current economic climate would be more beneficial than just handing out money.

Reparations did happen, but very little money actually went directly to any victims of their families. Over a third of Holocaust survivors are elderly, and having no income live off of government aid below the poverty line. It's a national and international embarrassment.

Dozens of my relatives were killed. Adults, parents, children who did not live to see their seventh birthday. We never received a dime from anyone. And what would that have done to help the fact that the vast majority of out family is gone? People take big families for granted. But for us, having a cousin is a rarity.

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flossdaily@reddit

I'm some very limited cases, yes. But it covered only the smallest fraction of the losses.

In addition to losing at least a third of their extended family, my grandparents lost houses, property, businesses, factories, all their possessions, and even the foreign banks holding their money refused to pay up after the Holocaust.

I think my grandmother got some financial payments from either Austria or Germany, but it was some sad fraction of what the family lost.

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mnmkdc@reddit

Honestly I think it’s bad when anyone acts like one atrocity is worse than another when talking about atrocities of this scale. Millions were starved, people were tortured, experimented on, and were exterminated in both situations. I do think it’s fair to say that the survivors of the Holocaust have been treated WAY better than the survivors and descendants of slavery. I can understand the frustration of seeing the lasting effects of slavery be ignored while other atrocities are given more attention.

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flossdaily@reddit

I do think it’s fair to say that the survivors of the Holocaust have been treated WAY better than the survivors and descendants of slavery

Sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you over the global calls for the destruction of Israel.

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mnmkdc@reddit

A state isn’t a people, and the existence of Israel kinda proves my point anyway. Survivors of the Holocaust were pretty much immediately given a chance for equality and many got reparations. Descendants of slaves in the US lived as second class citizens for 100 years and got no reparations for slavery or Jim Crow. There’s a pretty clear difference. Obviously some of it is due to the holocaust being more modern, but the effects persist regardless.

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flossdaily@reddit

A state isn’t a people, and the existence of Israel kinda proves my point anyway.

In the case of the Jews, it pretty much is. Half of all the Jews in the entire world live there. Of the Jews who don't, the overwhelming majority of us believe that our continued existence depends on Israel's continued existence.

So, when people call for the destruction of the only Jewish state in the world, it's personal to all of us.

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mnmkdc@reddit

Not even close. Israel losing statehood would not just kill the people of Israel. The idea that continued existence of Jews requires the existence of Israel is legitimately just mindless propaganda for Israel. Jewish people live in the US above the median American and are properly represented in positions of power. That’s the 2nd biggest Jewish population in the world. If anything Israel losing statehood would lead to less stupid people blaming Jewish people as a whole for the crimes committed by the state of Israel. It’s just a genuinely

Israel regularly targets the only Palestinian nation. Do you feel the same way? The whole issue with the existence state of Israel is that has a self proclaimed priority toward one ethnicity despite being founded on land that was not only diverse, but was primarily populated by a different ethnicity.

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flossdaily@reddit

Not even close. Israel losing statehood would not just kill the people of Israel.

What do you think would happen to them? The Palestinians firmly believe that the Jews either be killed or sent back to wherever the Palestinians think they came from ... places like Germany, Poland, Austria, etc. In other words, the Palestinian plan is to send Jews back to the places that ethnically cleansed the Jews. Regardless of history, no one is going to be taking in seven million Jewish refugees. So that leaves the other option ... death.

And no, I wouldn't expect anyone to step up and stop it. They didn't during the first holocaust. Why would they do it during the second?

Israel regularly targets the only Palestinian nation. Do you feel the same way?

Palestinians are Arab. There are 22 or so Arab nations.
Israel doesn't target them. Israel has offered them peaceful coexistence from day one. But Israel does frequently have to defend itself from Arab and Palestinian genocidal aggression.

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mnmkdc@reddit

Depends on the situation. If the apartheid was ended and both sides worked toward a real solution, then an actual solution could be made. You can’t really base it off the current situation. Most Palestinians statistically know someone who has been killed by Israel, and Israel claims to represent the Jewish people. Israel has a lot of work to do to make up for their past crimes, and only then can we really get a good grasp on if a single state solution is possible. Groups like the PFLP have supported a unified single state for decades, and while I’m not saying you need to support them specifically, it does indicate that it is possible.

This is just an imagined scenario by you, but you live in America and you don’t think America would invade in this scenario? We’re living in a nation that supports Israel to a fault despite the majority of Americans not supporting them.

But they’re Palestinians with genetic roots in the region. This is just a purely arbitrary distinction where you’ve decided Jewish people are their own thing, but Palestinians are not.
Oh yeah totally. And the European settlers offered peaceful coexistence to the native Americans too… Israel has aggressed several wars, and the conflict in general began when a declaration of intent to colonize the land from the Palestinians was made. That is inherently violent. There’s literally an article put out today of an Israeli MK saying there are no innocent children in Jenin and he supports every IDF action even if they kill children. There’s an Israeli movie called Tantura about how Israeli forces massacred a civilian population intentionally and then covered it up with evidence than Ben-Gurion knew about it and supported the cover up. There has been a history of terrorism and racist violence in Israel since its creation and going back way further than that.

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flossdaily@reddit

If the apartheid was ended

There is no apartheid. Israel has equal rights for all of its citizens. Palestinians are not Israeli citizens. They are self-governed ^by ^the ^terrorists ^they ^elected.

and both sides worked toward a real solution

Israel offered them the most generous peace deal in human history, and they turned it down. The only side in this conflict that doesn't want peace is the Palestinians.

Israel has a lot of work to do to make up for their past crimes

I'd say the opposite is true.

and only then can we really get a good grasp on if a single state solution is possible

Not a chance. Too large a portion of the Palestinian population has been radicalized. Let's be serious. A two-state solution is the only viable option.

This is just an imagined scenario by you, but you live in America and you don’t think America would invade in this scenario?

America REDUCED its European immigrant quotas during the holocaust. Yeah, they'll let the Jews die. They've done it before.

We’re living in a nation that supports Israel to a fault

No, we're living in a nation that supports Israel appropriately, given the extremely high return on investment we get from Israel. And the minute we stop, China would take our place.

despite the majority of Americans not supporting them

Eh, that's a temporary dip below 50% due to a very successful anti-Jewish campaign by Qatar. They've been poisoning college middle east curriculums by bribing schools with an ungodly amount of money.

But they’re Palestinians with genetic roots in the region. This is just a purely arbitrary distinction where you’ve decided Jewish people are their own thing, but Palestinians are not.

Jews are an ethnicity, Arabs are an ethnicity. Palestinians are a nationality (that was invented in the 1960s, btw).

And the European settlers offered peaceful coexistence to the native Americans too

Not the same thing in the slightest.

Israel has aggressed several wars

Nah. I think Israel might fairly have been said to have been the aggressor in exactly ONE of its wars in its entire history.

and the conflict in general began when a declaration of intent to colonize the land from the Palestinians was made

Israel is actually the world's greatest decolonization project. Jews were there first. The Muslims (and many others) were the colonizers. The original kingdom of Judea is back, baby!

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mnmkdc@reddit

The West Bank exists. Area c is fully governed by Israel with a separate system of law for Palestinians. It’s apartheid objectively. Israelis also elect terrorists and yet there’s 0 chance you’ve criticize Israelis as a whole for this.

Which one is that? It’s always interesting to see which peace deal pro-Israel people think was good.

Saying Palestinians have to make up for their past crimes is genuinely on par with saying black South Africans needed to make up for their crimes during apartheid.

Radicalized by Israel’s actions. To link this back to the topic of the thread, Israel making serious reparations could deradicalize people. Israelis are extremely radicalized as well, and yet you seem convinced that they want peace. If it’s possible for them then it’s possible for the people as a whole. A 2 state solution became unviable when Israel started settling the West Bank. That was like the whole point of them settling there after all.

America during ww2 had a wildly different attitude toward Jewish people and Israel than it did even just 20 years later. Nowadays like I said, Jewish people live above the median American and are well represented in positions of power. The majority of Jewish people here benefit from white privilege. Completely different situation.

Lol. Russia and Israel would be allies if we stopped, but I don’t think that’s a good reason to keep supporting them. We stayed allied with South Africa for a long time for that reason and it was a terrible decision. We should not be supporting apartheids.

You’re delusional genuinely. Qatar puts a lot of money in but it’s primarily for fossil fuels. Look at the schools they donate to, they almost all have top petroleum engineering programs. That was probably conveniently ignored from the propaganda pieces you read. Israel is not supported anymore because people were educated on the apartheid and the human rights abuses Israel was committing. Please try to ignore your preconceived biases and understand that there’s way Qatar could overpower Americas vastly pro Israel media. That’s just insane.

Palestinians are more Arab culturally than genetically. Genetically they have strong link to the same ancient Canaanite populations that Jewish people are related to. The popularity of the name “Palestinian” is completely irrelevant to any conversation about this. I’m not sure why Israel-tankies are so obsessed with this.

It’s not the same thing because I wasn’t being serious. Neither group offered peace to the other. Israel offered peace on the condition that they could take most of their land. That’s not peace.

“Exactly one” is just objectively wrong. Two off the top of my head are this war against Iran and the Gaza war in 2008.

Palestinians didn’t just spawn in with Islam. They’re native and pretty much everyone understands this except the pro Israel radicals. You should read a book. They have had a continuous presence in the land for longer than Judaism has existed. Both groups can claim nativity in that regard, but Palestinians lived their prior to the current colonization.

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flossdaily@reddit

The West Bank exists. Area c is fully governed by Israel with a separate system of law for Palestinians.

Nope. The Palestinian Authority still has jurisdiction of the Palestinian people there. And what's more, this is still a temporary occupation, which could end any time that the Palestinians agree to peaceful coexistence.

And Israel tried to unilaterally give the Palestinians their own state, even with no guarantee of peace. That was Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians immediately elected a terrorist government, and launched continuous rocket attacks at Israel all the way up until the Oct 7th atrocities.

The Palestinians have earned these restrictions with their terrorism, and could end them at any time by committing to peace. They aren't the victims. They are the antagonists.

Saying Palestinians have to make up for their past crimes is genuinely on par with saying black South Africans needed to make up for their crimes during apartheid.

Not even a little bit. The Arabs attempted a genocidal war against Israel in 1967. Israel won that war and conquered land from all the aggressive Arab states around it. Israel then traded that land back for peace for those who would take it.

Israel tried to trade back Gaza and the West Bank to Egypt and Jordan. Neither country wanted this territory back. So Israel was stuck occupying the territory of a hostile population that had just tried to destroy Israel.

If you want to go back further in time to the late 40s, you'll see that the reason many of those people got there in the first place was from a previous attempt to start a genocidal war against Israel.

The Arabs who were willing to live peacefully with Israel are still in the country today, and make up 1 in every 5 Israelis. They have full and equal rights.

The Palestinians? They are what remains of the people who wanted Israel destroyed from day one.

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mnmkdc@reddit

Nope. The Palestinian Authority still has jurisdiction of the Palestinian people there. And what's more, this is still a temporary occupation, which could end any time that the Palestinians agree to peaceful coexistence.

That's interesting. So you're saying Israel is breaking the law every time they try them in their courts, arrest them with their police, or restrict their access to water? You're also saying its an occupation, so you acknowledge that no Israelis can legally live there?

And Israel tried to unilaterally give the Palestinians their own state, even with no guarantee of peace. That was Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians immediately elected a terrorist government, and launched continuous rocket attacks at Israel all the way up until the Oct 7th atrocities.

Who told you that? The explicit public statement by authors of the Gaza disengagement plan was that it was done to stop the peace process and take the possibility of a Palestinian state off the table. Here's the quote:

"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. "

The Palestinians have earned these restrictions with their terrorism, and could end them at any time by committing to peace. They aren't the victims. They are the antagonists.

And you're an extremist yourself.

Not even a little bit. The Arabs attempted a genocidal war against Israel in 1967. Israel won that war and conquered land from all the aggressive Arab states around it. Israel then traded that land back for peace for those who would take it.

The Israelis launched a genocidal war against Palestinians in 2023. They also launched a colonization effort with backing from the UK in 1917, marking the start of the conflict.

Israel tried to trade back Gaza and the West Bank to Egypt and Jordan. Neither country wanted this territory back. So Israel was stuck occupying the territory of a hostile population that had just tried to destroy Israel.

Lol this is always such a dumn narrative. Poor israel HAD to occupy them. Please ignore the fact that they got 60% of the Palestinian's land in 1948 and that's what led to the hostilities.

If you want to go back further in time to the late 40s, you'll see that the reason many of those people got there in the first place was from a previous attempt to start a genocidal war against Israel.

Good luck finding a single comment from me saying Jewish people shouldn't be allowed to live there.

The Arabs who were willing to live peacefully with Israel are still in the country today, and make up 1 in every 5 Israelis. They have full and equal rights.

This is just a lie and an extremely vile one at that. For one, the zionist militant groups ethnically cleansed hundreds of the thousands of civilians and murdered thousands of others. Two, the one's who stayed were ruled under military law until 1966 where they lived under an objective apartheid regime (I'm guessing you didn't even know about this and won't reply to it because its an inconvenient fact that help cause the wars Israel was a part of). Three, Israel is legally a "Jewish state" meaning it has a priority toward Jewish people. Four, there's widespread discrimination against arab people in Israel. The average person in Israel is radically anti-arab to the point where Israel, a state that is both extremely prosperous and safe compared to any of its neighbors, elects undeniable terrorists to the highest position of its government. The founder of Likud for example was well known as a terrorist.

The Palestinians? They are what remains of the people who wanted Israel destroyed from day one.

I hope one day you're able to look back at words like this and see why people compare pro-israel people to nazis and other fascists. I'm sure to you that seems like a crazy statement, but replace "palestinians" with "Jews" and "Israel" with whatever nation you want and you have the standard nazi conspiracy theorist.

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flossdaily@reddit

That's interesting. So you're saying Israel is breaking the law every time they try them in their courts, arrest them with their police, or restrict their access to water?

I'm saying it's not that simple. PA controls civil courts. Israel is responsible for security on account of the Palestinians can't be trusted to police their own terrorists.

You're also saying its an occupation, so you acknowledge that no Israelis can legally live there?

Your logic track. I don't support the settlers, by the way, but there's nothing inherently illegal about Jews settling in Judea.

The explicit public statement by authors of the Gaza disengagement plan was that it was done to stop the peace process and take the possibility of a Palestinian state off the table.

Fine. Call it a "de facto state" if you want. They were entirely unoccupied, and entirely self-governed. Instead of building a strong economy, they spent all the world's aid money building terror tunnels.

The Israelis launched a genocidal war against Palestinians in 2023.

Nope. The Palestinians launched the war on Oct 7th, 2023. The Palestinian intent was genocidal. Israel responded with the world's most compassionate fighting force, and avoided civilian casualties where possible. In the end, the non-combatant death ratio was historically low (2:1), compared to any other combat where air strikes were necessary in urban areas (9:1).

They also launched a colonization effort with backing from the UK in 1917, marking the start of the conflict.

Nope. It was a decolonization effort. The Jews were the only native kingdom to Judea. Everyone who came since was a colonist.

Please ignore the fact that they got 60% of the Palestinian's land in 1948 and that's what led to the hostilities.

Nope. The Palestinian mandate was promised to the Jews. Trans-Jordan Arabs got more than half the pie. Israel got slightly more than half of what was left. And the Jews didn't complain. They were willing to share their ancient homeland with the Arab colonizers.

For one, the zionist militant groups ethnically cleansed hundreds of the thousands of civilians and murdered thousands of others.

Nope. Only ~400 people died in "the Nakba." Also, not much of an "ethnic cleansing" if 1 in 5 people in Israel was still Arab. The Palestinians themselves will tell you that they left because the Arab League told them to clear out.

the one's who stayed were ruled under military law until 1966 where they lived under an objective apartheid regime

You're correct about military law, but incorrect about apartheid. From year one Arab members sat in the Knesset, they had citizenship and could vote. So, yeah, briefly a two-tiered system, but not at all comparable to Black South Africans under actual Apartheid. And it was 100% justified and necessary. Israel was literally surrounded by hostile Arab nations that had just tried to destroy it. And here it had a population of hover a hundred thousand Arabs with close family ties to people across hostile borders.

Israel is legally a "Jewish state" meaning it has a priority toward Jewish people.

It's a secular, liberal democracy with freedom of religion for all, but with a Jewish identity. The only tangible place there is priority towards Jewish people is immigration policy. Not preference once you're in.

The average person in Israel is radically anti-arab

One in five Israelis are Arab. I think we can pretty safely assume none of them are anti-themselves. And you might be confusing being "anti-Arab" for "not trusting Arabs" which is a different thing, indeed.

elects undeniable terrorists to the highest position of its government

Please point me to the most recent example you have of an elected terrorist?

I hope one day you're able to look back at words like this and see why people compare pro-israel people to nazis and other fascists.

People compare pro-Israeli people to fascists because of propaganda, and profound misunderstandings of history, like that you've displayed so nicely during this conversation.

I'm sure to you that seems like a crazy statement, but replace "palestinians" with "Jews" and "Israel"

Palestinian isn't an ethnicity. It's a nationality. And it's a nationality with very little cultural identity or legacy beyond its hatred for Israel. Its buildings are named for those who died in the cause of attacking Israel. Gaza's only major infrastructure project in the past 20 years was terror tunnels. Their public television stations feature children's shows that teach hatred of Jews.

And still, I wish nothing for them but peaceful coexistence.

While they wish for death to me and my children.

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mnmkdc@reddit

Lol okay so that kills your entire argument. Israel permanent has governance over hundreds of thousands of people who have less rights and are barred from becoming citizens. Some of these people have been on the land longer than Israel.

It’s illegal under international law, but I would argue that your defense of the apartheid is just support for the settlers.

“Entirely unoccupied” and yet they have no control of their borders on any side including the sea and cannot build an airport or seaport or create certain infrastructure. You know what Israel would call this if it were happening to them? A genocidal act of war.

The “Most moral army in the world” thing doesnt deserve a response, but to be clear the 2:1 ratio thing isn’t backed by any facts. The idf claimed the death toll was significantly lower until the war ended, then they acknowledged that the Gaza heath ministry’s numbers were more accurate than theirs. Israel is not a reliable source on anything related to the war. Most sources put the ratio around 4:1. It’s worse than the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, and the US also is not the most moral military.

There is literally no argument you can make for it being decolonization. The Palestinians were native objectively. You cannot argue against this without lying. Not to mention the Yishuv themselves considered it to be a colonization effort openly.

Yeah there was no way creating a Jewish state in the land could happen morally if the vast majority of the people on the land didn’t want it. Israel got 60% of the land lived on by the Palestinians and the Palestinians were called the aggressors for not being okay way that. Of course the Jews didn’t complain (some did anyway, but that’s not the point) they got a deal that was HEAVILY biased in their favor. They got to take land from the natives and the natives had to have their land taken. Any partition whatsoever would be biased in their favor.

Ah, so you’re the equivalent of a holocaust denier. Makes sense. No reputable sources put the death toll of the Nakba around 400. And no, the Palestinians and most Israeli historians are in complete agreement that they were ethnically cleansed. It’s an objective fact. Youre just a Nazi.

You don’t know what apartheid is. The existence of a two tiered system is apartheid. Jim Crow was an apartheid and the justice system wasn’t even legally two tiered. You’re pro apartheid, pro ethnic cleansing, pro genocide.

Not according to the state of Israel. There’s also laws that allow discrimination based on culture. Those laws always benefit the majority.

And the average Arab Israeli thinks Israel is unjust in their treatment of Palestinians. Many of them view it as an apartheid. You only care what they think when it’s beneficial to you.

Smotrich was arrested in the process of committing a terrorist attack in 2005. Ben gvir associates with terrorists on a regular basis. The Likud party was also founded by a know terrorist.

Yeah I think you’ve thoroughly proven your similarities to Nazis and fascists just in this comment. Lying about the ethnic cleansing is about as clear of a red flag as can be.

Again, you’re a Nazi reciting stereotypes that you heard from your ethnosupremacist peers.

If you wanted their peaceful coexistence, you wouldn’t be lying about atrocities committed against them if you do. It reads like someone doing holocaust denial and then claiming they actually aren’t an antisemite. If you viewed Palestinians as human beings you’d understand how vile the words you say are.

And I get it, you think Golda Meir’s quote is true and good. The rest of the world recognizes her as a vile racist. I genuinely don’t think you have a single bit of morality and this explains exactly why this conversation started. You do not care about atrocities being committed unless they’re against the ethnicity you like. Nazi.

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flossdaily@reddit

You've given me a lot to laugh about, thank you.

My favorite part is that while you drip with venom in every word about the world's only Jewish state, in the Jew's ancient homeland—a liberal democracy with equal rights for all, and with 20% Arab citizens.

Meanwhile, you're doing all this in support of a Palestinian population which has ethnically cleansed away all of their Jews, has elected actual genocidal terrorists, supported the genocidal atrocities of those terrorists, and have designs on ethnically cleansing all the Jews from Israel. All so they can replace it with an Islamic extremist nation from the river to the sea.

But now, I'm going to bed. And while you're tossing and turning tonight, full of impotent rage at the Jews, I get to sleep well, knowing there's not a thing in the world you can say or do to change the fact that Israel has won.

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mnmkdc@reddit

You're about as literally aligned with 1944 Nazi ideology as anyone I've seen.

And yet the only person doing genocide/ethnic cleansing denial is you. The only person pushing hateful stereotypes and nationalistic narratives is you. The only person defending the denial of rights to an ethnicity is you. The only one pushing fake history about the origins of an ethnicity is you. But yeah totally, I don't support an apartheid state so I must totally share a nazi ideology.

Meanwhile, you're doing all this in support of a Palestinian population

I support their right to equality in the land their from. That means I want them to have the same right as Jewish people to the land.

which has ethnically cleansed away all of their Jews

I don't support or defend any ethnic cleansing. You did in your last comment.

has elected actual genocidal terrorists

I don't support any of the genocidal terrorists. You have been the only person to deny terrorists being elected.

and have designs on ethnically cleansing all the Jews from Israel

My whole point was that they are radicalized by atrocities committed against them. You are saying the atrocities are "justified" or didn't happen, and I am saying that they are wrong.

All so they can replace it with an Islamic extremist nation from the river to the sea.

And the current Israeli PM is the head of the political party that helped popularize that phrase except in favor of Israel. A political party founded by a terrorist as I've already said and currently controlled by a extremist. I bet you totally don't support Netanyahu, but you'll sure have a lot to say about how I'm mischaracterizing him or his party.

full of impotent rage at the Jews,

Calling something “the gravest offense” means putting it in the very highest category of moral horror, not making a literal point-by-point ranking, just like saying murdering children is the gravest offense does not lead normal people to ask “what about torturing them first?”

There is nothing wrong with putting slavery in that same top category of human evil as the Holocaust and other worst atrocities.

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steve-o1234@reddit

this is an interesting take on 'gravest offense'. i dont think i agree with you. i do think it is an attempt at an ranking. but maybe the wording in the resolution is more clear.

how ever I believe the EU abstained in the end because they wanted to avoid creating a 'heirarchy of historical suffering'

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okmanchillax@reddit

Good Goy

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Mr1ntexxx@reddit

And their families received reparations, have memorials in every single Western country, and now their descendants live in relative comfort in the modern world. Also somehow doing something out of "pure hatred and evil" makes it worse than doing it for economic gain? Not only is that a bizarre thought process. But also to think that chattel slavery wasn't done out of hatred and evil either is just a baffling take. I see the agenda you're trying to push but it doesn't work.

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adoreroda@reddit

The issue I have with this proposal is that at least on the surface, it seems to be pointing fingers at Europe and not giving the full scope of responsibility to how many African nations spearheaded and were foundational in the Trans Atlantic slave trade

Slavery was already practised on the continent for centuries before European contact and they created the supply out of greed after contact. There are museums in Nigeria showing how African slave traders would trade dozens of people to Europeans for something insignificant like one umbrella. Imagine trading like 40 human beings for one fucking umbrella and probably a shitty one at that. How cruel

They deserve just as much responsibility assigned to them for the trade as Europeans. Even after the British banned it you had African slave traders who still tried selling slaves internationally. And in parts of Africa those slave traders are idolised, such as Tinubu Square in Lagos. This should be interpreted like a confederate statue, but it's seen in a positive light.

Benin is the only African country so far that has apologised for their country's participation in the slave trade. Ghana, the one who actually proposed this vote, likely won't do the same, as well as many other West and Central African nations

I always like giving an analogy that in this context, African countries were Ghislaine Maxwell and Europeans were Jeffrey Epstein. Both were responsible

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Hyndis@reddit

The other thing is that the slave trade in Africa isn't ancient history. Mauritania only made slavery illegal in 2007, but doesn't enforce this law very much so there's slavery still today in Northern Africa.

8Bitsblu@reddit

the former is ridiculous

A total of 10 million Africans were kidnapped and sent to the French colony of Martinique to work on sugar plantations. The total population of the island when enslavement was abolished (1848) was around 125,000. What do you think happened to those other ~9.87 million Africans? Now think of how many sugar colonies France alone controlled with similar conditions (particularly Saint-Domingue/Haiti). Now think of how abysmal even "good" conditions were in chattel slavery.

Labelling this the gravest crime against humanity is far from ridiculous.

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LXXXVI@reddit

Go google how many Slavs died just in world war 2 because of the Germans.

Then learn about the origin of the word "Slave".

Then try to do the math on slavery and genocide attempts that took place for almoat 1.5 millennia.

And then learn that you're not the centre of the world and that ranking atrocities is incredibly distasteful.

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Trollimperator@reddit

Maybe the UN should be more keen about currents events.

Its like with genocide. Its always declared 100years after the fact. So noone is legally compulsed to do something about it.

This is just another bullshit act and one of the reasons noone takes the UN serious. Because they dont take themselfs serious.

Good luck with finding the actual gravest crime against humanity.

Like if we pick genocide, is it worse than slavery? How do you measure it? Does it depend on the "size", the "numbers" of the genocide vs slavery?

Dunno, i don't understand how one should decide on this.

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TheCursedMonk@reddit

I want reparations for what the Romans did to my people.

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AkagamiBarto@reddit

Yes

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Whenever slavery or colonialism gets mentioned, unless the Subreddit leans very left, all comments sections turns into "Whataboutism" quickly.

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PRC_Spy@reddit

The Barbary Pirates were still slave taking in the Bristol Channel as late as the 17th Century. Can the SW of England have reparations for that?

Also, Ireland would like some of that nice Scandinavian oil money in reparation for all the monasteries attacked by Norse raiders ...

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ThatHeckinFox@reddit

I'm so glad I manage to give less and less of a fuck about this.

The center of the universe is America. Let it revolve around it, i live comfortably far away, geographically, opportunitywise, etc.

Yeah, putting only select oppressed groups on a piedestal will not backfire at all.

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BabylonianWeeb@reddit

Bullshit excuse to ignore modern genocides and slavery happening in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, Pakistan and "Israel"

Do better UN and focused on modern atrocities commited your current UN members instead of something that ended over 100 years ago.

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CRoss1999@reddit

Recognizing crimes against humanity is a core function of the UN, it does concern me that they specified trans Atlantic slave trade, slightly more African where traded in the Arab slave trade Turing the same period and any recognitions should be of both at the same time and should be asking for reparations from both Europe and middle eastern slave trading nations.

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SeaBass1690@reddit

More identity politics nonsense from the UN. They are trying to make human suffering a ranked competition, and of course they will only highlight atrocities committed by Europeans while ignoring equally if not worse crimes committed by other racial groups.

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kirosayshowdy@reddit

excerpts:

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.

Fifty-two countries abstained, including the United Kingdom and European Union member states.

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

Unlike UN Security Council resolutions, those from the General Assembly are not legally binding, though they carry the weight of global opinion.

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space253@reddit

For once the US voted on the right side of history in the UN, and in 2026 no less.

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SlyRoundaboutWay@reddit

Are the descendants of the Africans that captured and sold people into slavery also going to pay reparations?

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SongFeisty8759@reddit

Nope, because "today's institutions cannot be held responsible for past wrongs."

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SongFeisty8759@reddit

Does Ghana have to apologize too?

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Morgn_Ladimore@reddit

It's always a bad idea to rank these kinds of things. However, based on the number of victims it made, and the lasting economic, political and generational effects that are very much felt to this day, it's hard to argue against it. Every single horrifying thing you can imagine and worse happened to these slaves. Things that would make you puke and would make you think it's fake because it's so exaggerated.

So if anything would have to be chosen as the worst crime against humanity, I can't really argue with it being the transatlantic slave trade.

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azure_beauty@reddit

Why do you feel the need to add transatlantic? Expand that to all of slavery.

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Morgn_Ladimore@reddit

Not all slavery is the same in the way it is executed and how the slaves are treated, or the motivating factors. There have been societies were slaves had rights and were treated as still being human. Not so in the transatlantic slave trade. It was unprecedented in it's sheer industrialized scale and brutality. African slaves had no rights whatsoever. They weren't even considered human. There was also the generational element that "breeded" slaves, meaning generations of the same family were born as slaves and died as slaves. Racism being a primary motivating factor was also key to the transatlantic slave trade, meaning that even after slavery was abolished the inferiority of black people was still codified in law in those nations.

I would recommend reading Soul by Soul and Slavery at Sea, two books that capture just how horrifying the transatlantic slave trade was.

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azure_beauty@reddit

there was also the generational element that "breeded" slaves.

I see what you are saying, but this is an economic consequences of slaves being either expensive, or outright impossible to obtain. From a moral perspective, I don't think this is all that much worse than seeing slaves ad disposable and working them to the death like happened in so many other places, including if I am not mistaken, transatlantic colonies focused on growing sugarcane, was it Haiti that had such staggering death rates? I'm ashamed to say, but I don't remember.

If we look at all this morality, do we also balance in actions taken to abolish slavery? The British were responsible for a lot of the trade, but they were also responsible for abolishing it. Does that make them morally better?

What about the Viking or Muslim slave trades? Slaves were sterilized and never meant to reproduce, meaning a lot of their memory has been entirely erased. Is it fair to their name to rank their lives as slaves as somehow more moral than anyone else's?

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Agasthenes@reddit

So, Africans need to pay reparations to themselves?

Because last I heard it was Africans selling other Africans to Europeans in the port...

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upstartpantymerchant@reddit

Oh Jesus Christ we're really ranking crimes against humanity now. People have absolutely lost their minds

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GoldustRapedMyDad@reddit

Y A W N

Ghana should take it up to the Russians and Chinese who are whipping the shit out of their poster boys - the west is on its death bed while its Autocrats are squeezing the dried up udders wheezing nothing but the remnants of air in their economies while pushing draconian guard rails to keep its population in check (oh so coincidental mandatory ID and a whole bunch of speech curbing laws are being enacted around the same time)