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.
It should, because the collective wealth of most of Europe and the United States is built upon slavery.
Any time people profit from infrastructure and education, which isn’t available in the previously enslaved countries, they are benefiting from the fruits of slavery to this day.
So nothing would be sent to Rio de Janeiro because the infrastructure there was built through slavery, and the same could be said for Luanda.
I am Portuguese. My grandparents and the majority of the Portuguese population didn’t even have basic sanitation or education in the 1970s, despite the fact that our country’s elite were among the greatest, if not the biggest, traffickers in the transatlantic slave trade. The electricity grid only reached their neighborhood in the 80s, more than a decade after the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974. Perhaps, our family should receive reparations.
The elite should pay, and the exploited working class must not allow itself to be divided due to petty things like their country of origin. Engaging in any other way is simply falling into yet another “trap” of the universal rent-seeking exploiters, the bourgeoisie. In short, “não se confunda a árvore com a floresta”.