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You don't have to look at everything in terms of individual responsibility. We can clearly see that the injustices caused by transatlantic slavery, and imperialism more broadly, are very much still here. I think it would be nice to try to remedy this.

Of course, it's non-binding, and the countries that should probably be paying reparations just happen to have all abstained (except for the rogue USA of course, voting against) so I don't expect anything will happen. But it's a nice idea.

are the descendants of the enslaved people still suffering from it? are the descendants of the enslavers still benefitting from it? yes?

then reparations should be paid.

black people live in slums in my colonial country and many of the exploited african nations.

start by letting them access to at least 20th century amenities and dignified work instead of finding every moral excuse not to.

this thread is full of sensitive westerners born on slave trader countries still rich on the spoils (and sometimes still benefiting from it).

I agree there are challenges with economic reparations but I do want to point out that the transatlantic slave trade was different from slavery as practiced throughout human history.

It was more cruel than even slavery practiced in ancient Greece and Rome (civilizations which Western nations like to harken back to).

European colonial powers firmly believed in and propagated a global race based caste system. This itself is a crime against humanity but they put into practice the subjugation of people with darker skin, defining them as less human as justification for their enslavement.

Throughout history many civilizations thought other peoples to be inferior or barbaric. But there has not been a global race based caste system based on complexion as colonial era Europeans practiced it.

Entire fields of false science such as phrenology and eugenics sprung from this dogmatic belief in skin tone defining ones worth. The culmination of this vile 'purity' ideology was Nazi Germany and even with the end of that movement, we have not seen the end white supremacist ideology.

This is a very unique problem that still has horrific reverberations to this day. I would not be so quick to absolve European colonial powers and their descendant nation states who still benefit from neocolonialism today. Reparations is a complex issue but I think verbal acknowledgment of accountability and an honest teaching of history would be a start in those nations that have been ongoing beneficiaries of these inhumane institutions.

To summarize, I'll leave you with quotes representative of the worldview of one of the most revered figures in modern colonial/Western history:

​"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

​"I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."

​"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror."

​"I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them... I believe that as the civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations."

Winston Churchill

and 52 abstentions, including the UK and EU member states.

It shouldn't be the average taxpayer in these countries who has to pay for reparations (especially when many were descendants of peasants who were also often exploited in other ways), while the wealthy families who benefited the most evade responsibility, smuggling their blood-earned fortunes to tax havens.

So it's pretty definitionally oppression Olympics,

That is the reason so many countries abstained from the vote.

I don't think Estonia, Poland or Montenegro were very worried about paying reparations. Maybe colonial powers, but those are a minority in Europe.

I think this might miss the point of reparations

I thought the point of reparations is not to "pay off" a historical wrong, but instead is meant to help offset the generational of disadvantage caused by slavery and racism to those who suffer from that legacy today

we need all kinds of changes to end cycles of poverty and generational trauma, and reparations is just one tool among many to help with that - but it's more about fixing the broken thing now than about absolving guilt

I feel like creating an entire system dedicated to mass-murdering people industrially because of their origins or convictions is still the worst thing we've done as a species. Slavery is in the top spots, for sure, but it's not "let's create an industry solely dedicated to murder a specific ethnic group in the most efficient way possible" levels of crime against humanity.

Like, it has no economic benefits, it's not for personal gain, it's not because of lust or any human impulses, there is no reason to it apart from "let's eradicate a part of humanity just because I said so".

In past times, enslaving the populations of entire conquered nations or villages was common. Bringing slaves back to Rome was a regular part of an Army's return. Enslaving one's neighbors has been extremely common across the globe, since the beginning of humanity.

This is true, but not all Slavery is equivalent. All of it is obviously awful, but in the ancient world, conquering your neighbors provided an easy way to acquire more land and agricultural labor to feed a growing population of citizens. Enslaved people were not enslaved forever, and it was more akin to indentured servitude than chattel slavery. Rather, enslaved people would eventually be free, and become citizens of Rome, for instance, with more or less the same rights as any other citizen.

Chattel slavery, on the other hand, was inedibly unique, as far as historic slavery is concerned. People were now being enslaved, for life, based on the color of their skin, shipped off across a continent, and their descendants were also slaves upon birth, and those descendants were bought and sold as commodities on an open market.

Chattel slavery required the invention of modern notions of race to be invented, in order to justify it, which has had ongoing social impacts that extend far beyond the relations of production which birthed it.