The United Nations General Assembly has voted to recognise the enslavement of Africans during the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity”, a move advocates hope will pave the way for healing and justice.
The resolution - proposed by Ghana - called for this designation, while also urging UN member states to consider apologising for the slave trade and contributing to a reparations fund. It does not mention a specific amount of money.
The proposal was adopted with 123 votes in favour and three against - the United States, Israel and Argentina.
Countries like the UK have long rejected calls to pay reparations, saying today’s institutions cannot be held responsible for past wrongs.
The only reason they didn’t have an Atlantic slave trade earlier was that they didn’t have the technology to do so earlier, there was virtually no transatlantic trade beforehand.
I don’t think it was a particularly cruel time. My ancestors didn’t have transatlantic trade, but they were among the cruelest people on Earth of any time. They certainly would have been Atlantic slave traders if they were able to, no doubt.
What worth remembering is that the transatlantic slave trade was uniquely inhumane because of 1) scale 2) mortality during transport 3) classification as chattel (essentially non-human property) 4) basis in a race based caste system. Other systems of slavery throughout human history did not operate in such an inhuman manner.