Posted on 02/05/2005 12:37:40 AM PST by HAL9000
Western nations should make reparations for enslaving and colonising Africans and finance a Marshall Plan-type fund for Africa, says US actor Danny Glover."I believe in reparations for slavery and colonisation as well, in the shape of a Marshall Plan," Glover told the Associated Press on the sidelines of month-long celebrations in Ethiopia of the 60th anniversary of reggae legend Bob Marley who died in 1981.
"Our basic attitude towards Africa is still one of the coloniser," said Glover, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for the UN children's agency that has co-organised the celebrations with the Bob Marley Foundation.
"The mentality is one where these subjects (Africans) do not deserve anything different. They still represent a place where they represent cheap labour - the first labour being slavery," he said.
On January 21, JPMorgan Chase & Co., America's second largest bank, apologised for contributing to slavery and set up a five-year $US5 million ($6.43 million) scholarship fund for African-American students.
The Organisation of African Unity, the predecessor of the African Union, in 1993 formed an Eminent Persons Group to study the issue of reparations for slavery. It never submitted a report and nothing has been heard of it since the AU replaced the Organisation of African Unity in 2002.
According to the African Union, which is backing the Africa Unite celebrations, between 30 million and 100 million Africans were forced overseas during four centuries of colonisation.
The Ethiopia celebrations, dubbed "Africa Unite" in tribute to one of Marley's many famous songs, represent the first time the event is being held outside the singer's native Jamaica.
Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela on Thursday compared widespread poverty in developing countries to human evils such as slavery and apartheid, and urged wealthy nations to do more to fight it.
At a rally in central London's Trafalgar Square, the former South African president and Nobel Peace Prize winner said developed nations must provide more aid to poor countries and lift their crippling debts.
"In this new century, millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free," Mandela said before a crowd of several thousand people.
"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings."
Mandela was speaking on the eve of a London meeting by the finance ministers of the Group of Seven industrialised nations. He is expected to make a separate speech to the ministers with a similar message.
On Wednesday, the 86-year-old statesman met British Treasury chief Gordon Brown, and he planned to meet Prime Minister Tony Blair later on Thursday.
Blair has made doubling development aid to Africa a priority for his chairmanship of the Group of Eight industrialised nations this year.
Brown is expected to use the meeting of G-7 finance ministers to get backing for the International Finance Facility plan, which seeks to raise $US50 billion a year for development aid by selling bonds on the world's capital markets.
In his speech at Trafalgar Square, Mandela endorsed a campaign by Make Poverty History, the British arm of Global Call to Action Against Poverty, a coalition of charities, trade unions, lobby groups, faith communities and high-profile individuals leading efforts to tackle global poverty.
He said developed nations knew what needed to be done to fight the crisis, but they were falling far behind in their promises.
"The first (step) is ensuring trade justice," Mandela said.
"I have said before that trade justice is a truly meaningful way for the developed countries to show commitment to bringing about an end to global poverty. The second is an end to the debt crisis for the poorest countries. The third is to deliver much more aid and make sure it is of the highest quality."
He's dead wrong but I give him credit for actually going to Africa and spending much of his time on this. So he puts his time and money where his mouth is.
I'm sure that some relative of mine was was a slave, somewhere. Yes, they were slaves in Africa, I'm sure of it now. Where 's my money? Perhaps Glover can pay me. /sarcasm
Half of what I produce each year is taken from me at the point of a gun in taxes, and I am allowed to live on the piece of land I occupy only at the pleasure of government. Does that make me a share-cropper, an indentured servant, or a slave?
After you, Glover. Hit up the rest of the rich African-
Americans in Follywood, sports, business in the US where you make much more than the rest of us. The best thing that ever happened to you was that your ancestors were brought here. Otherwise, instead of living in luxury and having some nitwit in the MSM publish your drivel, you could be eating roots in some mud-hut village or dodging gangs of marauding Muslims today.
bump
Danny Glover should make reparations to all the ticket holders for the last 2 Lethal Weapon movies.
I've paid Danny Glover my fair share of slave reprerations, he should share what he got with everyone else.
The check is in the mail
Wrong. Wrong. and Wrong.
The only way to end poverty in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter, is the introduction of political and economic freedom.
No amount of aid, no amount of reparations, no committees nor panels nor NGOs will advance prosperity one iota in the absence of human freedom.
Everything else is a waste of time and money that merely reinforces the crippling status quo.
How can that hypocrit mandela stand in public to lecture the west when mugabe rapes and plunders, murders and steals w/ open disregard for basic legal justice? how can that fraud mandela make demands of the west when slavery continues in the sudan?
ENOUGH. Not one cent to these pissants.
He must have run out of scripts to read again...
Danny has made some big bucks courtesy of former slave masters. He should show us the way by taking his millions and pissing it all away into some African sink hole.
Geeze is Danny boy trying out for the role of Jesse Jackson or better yet that of the grasshopper?
Oh, the world owes me a living, deedle liedle oldeleidle lum.
Danny........ shut up and make a movie!
LOL, I think Danny Glover has done well in Hollywood and should be happy with his success. The guilt he holds will probably eat him alive.
I suppose we should also make reparations for the genocide in Darfur, Sudan?
How about to the Hutsees and Tutsees?
Its all our fault, anyways. What a wretched country the US is [/dark sarcasm].
Africa has been getting billions of dollars in aid for decades. The dictators pocketed just about all of it.
Danny's just another dumb liberal who thinks you can solve poverty by giving people money, instead of removing the root causes, in this case corrupt governments.
Let's all get in line with our hands out. The Jews need to be paid back by virtually everybody, we of Irish descent need the Brits and the Romans to pay up, the Armenians have a balance due from the Turks, Where does it stop?
Dear Danny,
You are part African decent and part European decent. Here’s an idea for you: Your European side gives your African side reparation, and we will call it even.
Regards,
Our first black president, Bill Clinton, and the left made little to do over the tribal millions butchered in Africa during Clinton's 8 years in office. Now they care about Africa?
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