The United Nations—that leechlike relic of the 20th century that still pretends to be important—last week passed a resolution to declare the trans-Atlantic slave trade the “gravest crime against humanity.”
While the resolution will likely have very little real-world effect for now, it’s a clear attempt by some countries to receive monetary reparations from those nations apparently guilty of the worst crime in all of history.
Argentina, Israel, and the United States voted against the resolution, but according to NBC News, “The United Kingdom and all 27 members of the European Union were among those that abstained.”
Frankly, I think it’s shameful that the U.K. abstained and didn’t vote against it.
The reparations effort is being led by Ghana, which is, of course, setting itself up as one of the chief beneficiaries of the U.N. resolution.
“We are demanding compensation—and let us be clear, African leaders are not asking for money for themselves,” Ghana’s foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said to the BBC. “We want justice for the victims and causes to be supported, educational and endowment funds, skills training funds.”
Ah, so Africa’s politicians aren’t trying to enrich themselves personally. That would be brazen and crass. No, they are merely attempting to loot other countries to pay off their constituents. How noble. How heroic.
That’s ultimately what this reparations push is about. It’s an attempt by several African countries to use globalist institutions and the façade of international law to essentially receive a permanent stipend from self-loathing Western suckers, I mean nations. It’s also a tool whereby other antagonists of the West can score some historical points against their rivals while ignoring their own modern crimes and tyranny.
The entire effort is a farce for several reasons.
The first obvious one is that those who directly participated in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and those victimized by it have been dead and gone for a long, long time. There are now no specific parties of transgressors and transgressed to make a clear line of guilt and restitution. This whole thing is about divining the collective guilt and aggrievement of past ages.
Let’s, for the sake of argument, take at face value that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was the worst example of slavery and that it is in particular need of rectification in 2026.
If that’s the case, then surely few nations are more on the hook to pay up than Ghana and neighboring West African countries, right?
Ghana’s statement about reparations very carefully made its condemnation of slavery entirely about the trans-Atlantic slave trade—a small tip of the iceberg of the entire history of that institution.
“Ghana has been precise on one point that admits no misreading: this campaign is not a humanitarian appeal,” read Ghana’s statement. “It is a legal claim, and the law, examined without the selective amnesia that has long served the interests of former colonial powers, is unambiguous.”
If there is selective amnesia, it’s not in the West where there exists now a near pathological obsession with slavery and racism. The amnesia is apparently in Ghana and other nations that would like to portray themselves purely as victims, as if the locals didn’t have a strong, or even the strongest hand in ensuring that human chattels would reach markets to their own enrichment.
What’s notable, if we really want to play this game of past collective guilt, is that West African slaver kingdoms practiced their sordid trade before the Western colonizers showed up and long after it had been abandoned in most Western countries. They often conducted it with relish and with extreme benefits to themselves.
For instance, consider Annamaboe, a major port city located in present-day Ghana.
Annamaboe was part of the Fante confederacy, a series of loosely connected city-states on the West African coast. In the 19th century, it became, according to one author, the “center of shipping and trade for the Gold Coast and one of the largest exporters of enslaved Africans along the West Coast of Africa.”
While the English placed a fort in town, African locals ruled over it. The city received a glut of slaves from the conquests of the militaristic African Asante Empire. The Asante plundered the African interior, brought their conquered slaves to Annamaboe, and elite African merchants sold them to Western slave traders.
The city and West Africa in general became so rich that despite it being on the “Gold Coast,” they became net importers of gold used in acquiring slaves.
So, if we are doing this collective guilt thing shouldn’t the descendants of those who sold millions of people into bondage be on the hook for a payout?
Let’s also consider the fact that these slave ports didn’t cease their operations willingly. No, it was the British Empire and other colonial powers in the 19th century that turned against slavery, that insisted the trade be shut down for good. The British Empire famously enforced its prohibitions on slavery around the globe.
Shouldn’t it be West African nations now paying the U.K. for the expense of operating their navy at great cost to shut down slavery in that region? Shouldn’t they be paying black Americans, British, and others around the globe for what their ancestors did in the past?
If you were to go by the social media chatter, you’d think that the nations that signed onto the reparations resolution were “brave” for demanding they get paid.
It seems to me they would have been braver had they acknowledged their own complicity and agreed to pay up. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen.
Much like the reparations talk in the U.S., the global version has always been based on a faulty philosophical basis. It doesn’t right the wrongs of history; it just creates new wrongs.
Frankly, Western countries need to grow a spine.
Slavery was a terrible, ancient practice, somehow made more horrifying by its contact with the modern world. Few today would deny that. But the West isn’t uniquely on the hook for slavery’s evil. It is uniquely responsible for its extinction around the globe.
Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal. He is also the author of “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.” Send an email to Jarrett.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Jarrett Stepman.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
One important thing to remember about the slave trade — it was the stronger African tribes that sold the weaker tribe captives to traders for money and merchandise. How interesting that this MAIN FACT is being left out by this UN resolution. Again, the UN IS NO LONGER A VIABLE WORLD ORGANISATION — KICK THE UN OUT OF THE STATES and NO MORE SUPPORT!!!
Charlies Krauthammer said the UN is just a sandbox for Dictators.
Reparations for historical events how absurd and when will it ever end? Under that guise, the Jewish nation should demand it from the Germans because of the holocaust, South American Mayas, Aztecs and Incas should go after Spain for the Spanish conquest, the list goes on. It’s always those magnanimous noise makers who never have to ante-up that make these ridiculous gestures. Human history is dark and so are the hearts of evil people. Reparations is a woke ideology based on a guilt complex by people who never experienced the actual atrocities but are somehow called to champion compensation for those who didn’t live in those times.
The UN is a toothless lion, they should concentrate on human trafficking and modern day slavery, instead, they just want reparations. Who then will pay, and more importantly to whom?
Well, first off as long as the Africans are the first ones to pay the bulk of the money since the stronger tribes captured and SOLD their own people for money to the Middle East Region and the Americas. Now how about reparations for the victims of the Barbary Coast Wars of North Africa when they abducted and either used for ransom or enslaved, mainly white people from coastal areas or from ships especially which started in the 1600’s. People need to hear “Facts About Slavery Never Mentioned in School” by Thomas Sowell.
right on point, the victim was really the oppressor, and now tries to shift the blame to others and for grossly improper acts they did themselves in the past, now enrich them selves yet again, at expense of those who corrected the actual wrong. disgusting
This reparations crap has got to stop. Put on your big boy pants and get over it!
Like any trade, there were sellers, buyers and middle men, Spaniards and French were the customers long before Virginians, sort out who was who, did what and have at her, UN may take a peek at the trade now, there is flesh moved and sold aplenty.
Omar, one of America’s most notorious criminal swindlers has been teaching Ghana’s foreign minister, and other deceiving corrupt card sharks, how to screw over other countries and swindle billions of dollars from the ‘systems’ under various scams. If they succeed, their pockets will lined with gold and the true victims (if any), multiplied by millions, will never see a dime.
I’m sick of hearing about something that occurred long before I was born and I had nothing to do with!
So let’s see — the Jews were held in slavery to the Egyptian Pharos for 400 years, MUCH longer than any slaves were kept in the US or the UK. What do you think the chances are that Egypt would make reparations to Israel? Right… NONE! And that is how it should be. This whole reparations gig is a farce.
Ghana, really? Can’t someone just tell them to shut up until they have something intelligent to say? I don’t know a single person who was a slave or a single person who owned a slave. I certainly am not going to pay someone who wasn’t aggrieved money for which I’ve worked and slaved. NATO IS A JOKE THAT NEEDS TO GO AWAY. Yes, I’m yelling.
How about they first pay back ALL the foreign aid dollars that we sent them, and we get reparations for ALL of the Anglo slaves taken by the Barbary states pirates. THEN we can discuss reparations to them.
Like our far-left leeches, these folks want the $$$. Some black tribes sold others and many Muslims participated in rounding up and selling the slaves! Send THEM the bill! Despite how awful slavery WAS, the blacks on today’s America are better off than their African “brothers.”
oh yes ,they want reparations for selling their own people the slave traders.they should be paying reparations to the rest of us for getting rid of slavery in the rest of the world, well, except for middle eastern countries because they still say it’s still ok.
This is absolutely incredible. Well, then they will have to get from the Native Africans that chained them up and delivered them to the slave trader’s on the coast.
“slave trade inside Africa itself was common in Ghana and Nigeria”
“European slave trade started with Portugal”
“all slaves to reach America, only 4.4 percent ended up in North American territory”
West African countries made money by selling their people, and they have the nerve to ask for reparations? Losers always wanting someone else’s money.
Their tribes caught and sold the slaves to the rest of the world. Time to stick the U.N. where the sun don’t shine!
Shove your reparations.
If you’re feeling the need to go after the ones that were involved in slavery, and personally I don’t think any current American has owned any slaves. So, you’ll have to go back in time to get the people who were truly responsible, who actually owned slaves….and just so you know the truth It’s the democrats who owned slaves, it’s the demorats who fought to KEEP OWNING SLAVES!! SO STOP BLAMING WHITE PEOPLE, FOR WHAT THE DEMORATS DID!! And, ON PURPOSE!!
..but it aint over; Africa still has a slave trade.
Perhaps they should de*mand reparations from their own people; those who sold their own people into slavery in the first place.
Reminds of a criminal who blames others for the/his crime he committed!
Virtue seekers. Makes them feel better about themselves.
Yep, they should pay US! We’re the 1st civilization in the World to ban slavery and release all slaves and make them citizens! So many of the African slaves were captured by their own ‘chiefs’ and sold to the slavers!!!