Africa revives push for colonial-era reparations

Deutsche Welle ^ | August 6, 2022 | By Isaac Kaledzi

[Oldeconomybuyer]

In a joint initiative, African countries are renewing their efforts to obtain reparations from European countries for the transatlantic slave trade and other colonial-era wrongs committed centuries ago.

The slave trade — which affected millions of Africans — was the largest forced migration in history and one of the most inhumane.

Over 400 years, Africans were transported to many areas of the world, yet no reparations have as yet been paid. The process is proving much slower than many Africans expected.

This week Ghana's president, Nana Akufo-Addo, revived the push for slavery and colonial retribution.

"No amount of money can restore the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade — and its consequences — which has spanned many centuries, but nevertheless, it is now time to revive and intensify the discussions about reparation for Africa," Akufo-Addo said at a summit on reparations and racial healing in Accra, Ghana.

Ghana was one of the points of departure for many of those enslaved in West Africa and, for the Ghanaian leader, the time for reparations for colonial crimes and slavery is "long overdue."

[Spktyr]

I’m in favor of reparations. (Wait for it...)

Reparations must be paired with mandatory repatriation of the descendants of those ‘wrongfully removed’ from Africa. After all, if they hadn’t been taken to America, they would have been in Africa. We should return those people demanding reparations to where they should be - Africa.

It’d likely be a lot cheaper than welfare...

[doorgunner69]

They can have all the dependents of ours back for free, they are not worth the trouble they cause.

[Verginius Rufus]

The first black Africans captured and enslaved by the Portuguese explorers seems to have been in 1441. The first Portuguese to reach Brazil was in 1500 (accidentally) and it wasn't until later that the Portuguese began to colonize Brazil (which fell to them by virtue of the pope's line in 1493 and the treaty the Portuguese and Spanish made in 1494).

There may have been some black slaves in Portugal and Spain before 1441, but if so, purchased from Muslim slave traders. Slavery had been practiced in the Mediterranean area forever--in the late Middle Ages you had Muslims enslaving Christians and Christians enslaving Muslims, pagans, and even Christians who were the wrong kind of Christian.

[Verginius Rufus]

For most of Africa, the colonial era began only after 1870--before that there were only small bits of territory under European control. Then there was the "scramble for Africa" which resulted in most of the continent being divided up between European powers by the 1890s, with only Ethiopia and Liberia remaining independent in sub-Saharan Africa.

Probably the European countries owe reparations to their former colonies for introducing electricity, roads, modern medicine, and schools.

[aquila48]

The west, and whites generally, is the pinata that keeps on giving. Why not keep whacking away?

[aquila48]

[CatHerd]

The Barbary pirates made slave raids all over: Italy, France, Spain, the British Isles, even Holland. The entire northern coastline of the Mediterranean from Italy to southernmost Spain was once almost completely depopulated because the inhabitants had either been captured or had fled. In places along the corniche road between Nice and Menton, are (or once were) markers where inhabitants from the coastline below hid in little caverns to escape the raids -- if they were able to scramble up the steep slope in time. Most didn't make it. No wonder the French Riviera was their fave slaving destination.

Too bad they "overfished" the northern Mediterranean and had to go further afield, especially too bad for the Irish, English, Scots, Welsh, etc.

And no wonder the we have the word "slave". The Slavic peoples fell prey to Vikings, Tatars, the Ottomans and on and on. The Vikings shipped slaves to the Muslims via the Volga. Then a!ing came the Tatars. Crimean Tatar raiders enslaved between 1 and 2 million Slavs from Russia and Poland–Lithuania over the period 1500–1700. No wonder Catherine the Great whooped up them and annexed Crimea.

Maybe India should sue for reparations, too:

"Historian Will Durant wrote: “The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history” (The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental History). So massive was the export of slaves from India through the mountains, that they were named Hindu Kush, which according to Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta (d. 1368/69) means “Killer of Hindus” in Persian, because of the vast number of Hindus who died from cold and hardships while transported."

More here: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/12/16/the-forgotten-history-of-christian-slavery-under-islam/

We never hear about the dreaded overland Trans-Saharan slave trade routes, a brutal trek along which many died:

"During the Trans-Saharan slave trade, slaves were transported across the Sahara desert. Most were moved from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the other direction. Estimates of the total number of black slaves moved from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Muslim world range from 11-17 million, and the trans-Saharan trade routes conveyed a significant number of this total, with one estimate tallying around 7.2 million slaves crossing the Sahara from the mid-7th century until the 20th century."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_slave_trade

This does wipe out the stain of slavery in our own history, of course. But getting singled out as if only the British Colonies and the young United States had slaves is getting old and goes against the facts. If anyone is responsible for putting an end to slave trading, it's the British. And yet they are maligned nearly as badly as we are. None of this is taught in our schools, of course. The way we teach it leaves the impression we were the only country ever to have slavery and only sub-Saharan Africans ever became slaves.

[beancounter13]

I’m implying nothing.

I am downright stating fact: if you don’t like it here, then leave!

There is no such thing as a free lunch, yet we have been giving black people lots of free stuff since the 60s. It is time for all of that to end.

Meanwhile, everyone who benefits from the greatest society ever should give back to that society through hard work and helping others that are less fortunate.

[Jim Noble]

Africa owes the colonial powers trillions for infrastructure, medical care, law enforcement and military protection, all now wasted.

[dfwgator]

“Ok, but apart from the infrastructure, medical care, law enforcement and military protection, what have the colonial powers ever done for us?”

[cymbeline]

“I’m implying nothing.”

I thought you were implying that they owe us rather than we owe them.

Ok, you didn’t imply that in that particular post.

But in your new post you say “we have been giving black people lots of free stuff since the 60s. It is time for all of that to end”

So I’d say in your latest post you explicitly state what I wondered whether you were implying.

[CatHerd]

The Spanish had no colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. They did have a few in northeastern Africa, established in the late 19th century. They mainly purchased slaves from the Portuguese, who had set up slave trading posts along the western coast of Africa and had a monopoly on the slave trade, having displaced the Arabs and native slave traders on the coast.

The Portuguese were the first to explore the African coast, and set up colonies there beginning with islands off the coast. Later on, they acquired the colonies of Angola and Mozambique on the mainland. In addition to their coastal and island trading posts, they sent agents into the continent’s interior to act as intermediaries in the slave trade. It’s likely the more adventurous ones participated in slave raids along with the locals of the villages where they stayed.

Maybe you had the Spanish and Portuguese confused?

[frank ballenger]

Idea: Get the Dems to go all in on this. Reparations from hard working taxpayers are so attractive as campaign promises. Unless they want to win.

[CatHerd]

Maybe not. Once caught by slavers, their ancestors would more likely have been sent to the Muslim world, if they survived the trip there. And once there, if this is true, no reproducing was allowed for sub-Saharan Africans:

---

As to the Arab-Muslim slave trade, Ghanaian professor and minister John Azumah helped set the record straight in “The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa.” In an interview about his book, Azumah said the following:

“It is estimated that possibly as many as 11 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic, 95% of which went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions; only 5% of the slaves ended up in what we call the United States today. However, a minimum of 28 million Africans were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. Since at least 80% of those captured by the Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave markets, it is believed that the death toll from 1,400 years of Arab and Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been as high as 112 million.”

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/elder-why-dont-they-teach-about-the-arab-muslim-slave-trade

---

Now, his estimate of the numbers enslaved by Muslims is far higher than the usual, so I wonder...

But you don’t see blacks and mixed-race folks in Arab countries, do you? Aside from mixed-race people in Sudan, you don’t see them in most North African countries, either (Morocco, etc.) So yeah, I wonder ...

Anyway, if true,the descendants of slaves here likely would have never been born.

[ronnie raygun]

Any which way to get some cash

[Spktyr]

It doesn’t have to be that factually accurate - I just want to be rid of people demanding reparations by kicking them back to Africa with a permanent family ban.

[dfwgator]

I just want to be rid of people demanding reparations by kicking them back to Africa with a permanent family ban.

Why punish Africans like that, haven't they suffered enough?

[Impala64ssa]

Do they really want to go there? Many activists and poverty pimps claim the ancient Egyptians, who enslaved the Hebrews were BLACK, as Al Sharpton stated when he made that largely ignored Greek homo remark. That's a 5000+ year old debt that not a single payment was made on. Any reparations we "owe" is chump change compared to the just accrued interest the descendants of the"Black" Egyptians owe

[M Kehoe]

Okay Africans, prosecute all Black Africans and Arab smugglers who sent slave everywhere first and then we’ll talk.

5.56mm

[CatHerd]

I just meant that maybe those asking for reparations might consider they would never have been born had their ancestors not come here. Not that I think it was a good thing their ancestors were brought here as slaves. It certainly wasn’t.