Danny Glover: West should make slavery reparations

Associated Press | February 4, 2005

[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."

[SeaBiscuit]

Pure nonsense. 200 years or so is beyond a reasonable statute of limitations for drawing the line on anything that any SANE human being would expect some present day action to be taken other than to LEARN from it as HISTORY.

Keyword: SANE

If not: Then the whole world can start paying each other for thousands of years of injustices.

[MamaTexan]

Danny Glover: West should make slavery reparations

Mama Texan: Danny Glover should STFU!

[alrea]

This is more BS for a free pay day

Socialists like Glover are the colonists, seeking reparations when their political ideology continues to do destroy incentive that could save those in poverty.

[alrea]

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.

Poverty is caused by tyrants. Tyrants take without producing economic goods. Democrats, Mullahs, terrorists...take your pick, all want to take property without producing for the people.

The US is the only force in the world working against dictators, religious fascists, and socialist totalitarian regimes with their worldwide "oil for food like " scams.

Did any of these pretenders say a word about Mugabe or Iraq? They seek to spread their version of killing to every nation.

[MindBender26]

Ak-tors such as Mr. Glover usually do reasonably well when they recite lines written for them by others.

Whenever most Ak-tors try to fly solo, let alone think.... they crash on a routine basis.

This is simply a demand for more free money.

[shellshocked]

Then Glover had better be prepared to pay those monies. I bet his ancestors made money in the slave trade as many blacks of Africa sold their fellow blacks into slavery.

[Future Snake Eater]

Danny Glover definitely owes moviegoers reparations for "Predator 2" and "Lethal Weapon 4."

[Bommer]

He's right. We should pay reperations. A 1-way ticket out of the US with a signed agreement that they can never ever under any circumstances come back! We need to get rid of these Anti-American pukes! Lets sweeten the pot and give them $10 grand on top of it to encourage them the hell outta here.

[infidel29]

I'm a Christian, I think Italians should give me money for that whole lion incident.

I'm also Croatian in part, after the Franz Ferdinand thing leading up to WWI, some Serbians ought to pay me for assassinating our King, the Germans are culpable in some part too. It wasn't slavery, but my country suffered greatly from it.

Come to think of it, the Moors who sacked Sicily back in the day also did some enslaving of Christians too, I'll need a check from them presently. The Muslims that made us do that crusade thing killed and enslaved a bunch of us... No, I don't accept 'Pay Pal' but a money order or cashier's check will suffice.

Freepmail me for the address. All you reparations are belong to us, sincerely Infidel29.

[P.O.E.]

Should we deduct the lifetime lost income from abolitionists who gave their lives in the Civil War era?

[philetus]

So Danny, ask the black Africans who sold their countrymen and women into slavery to pay it.

[aculeus]

I'm bored by these jackasses ... and I demand reparations for my boredom.

[marajade]

To who? My mother's side of my family has traced my heritage to mulatto slaves on the Lee plantation and I'm as white as they come.

[DelphiUser]

No Reparations without Repatriation!

My .02

[PLMerite]

I'll support reparations on one condition: Whoever takes it renounces their US citizenship and leaves.

[warchild9]

No reparations without repatriation.

[HAL9000]

The only way to end poverty in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter, is the introduction of political and economic freedom.

That is so true - it deserves to be posted again and again.

The only way to end poverty in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter, is the introduction of political and economic freedom.

The only way to end poverty in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter, is the introduction of political and economic freedom.

The only way to end poverty in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter, is the introduction of political and economic freedom.

[Polybius]

Western nations should make reparations for enslaving and colonising Africans and finance a Marshall Plan-type fund for Africa, says US actor Danny Glover.

The Africans remaining in Africa are descendants of the Africans that captured Glover's ancestors and sold them to foreign slave traders. That group already got "compensated" at the time of the sale.

The religious and political power structure of West African states was peculiarly susceptible to corrosive effects of the slave trade. Believing in divine kingship and divided by intense religious loyalties, the forest people of Guinea looked upon one another as contemptible heretics who deserved death or slavery. In addition, since the tribes that captured the most slaves received the most European goods it became a competition in the interior between the Ashanti and Dahomeans, to raise in power as specialist in the art of slavery. The kingdoms eventually pushed toward the sea, extending the zone the terror as their power increased. However, the triumph of the Dahomey had destroyed the orderly fashion of the slave trade. The African that may have been selling slaves on day may be a slave themselves the next.

That leaves the descendants of the Africans that were sold.

In law, there is the legal concept of "being made whole" which means that the remedy should try to return the alleged victim, as far as possible, to the state he would now be in if the objectionable action had never occurred.

So, Mr. Glover, in order to be "made whole", please return the millions of dollars you have earned in America and please find your reparations payment below:

[HAL9000]

No Reparations without Repatriation!

That rhetoric is as useless as Danny Glover's. Pietro's got the right response.

[R. Scott]

Western nations should make reparations for enslaving and colonising Africans and finance a Marshall Plan-type fund for Africa, says US actor Danny Glover.

And then hand a bill to every American of African decent who has a higher standard of living than the tribal distant relatives in Africa.