Posted on 10/01/2011 9:20:40 AM PDT by Iron Munro
The United Nations Friday announced an international competition to design a memorial honoring the victims of slavery. It’s estimated that over 500 years, more than 18 million people were abducted from Africa and forced into slavery in the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe.
The sculpture will be located at U.N. headquarters in New York. Its official name is The Permanent Memorial at the United Nations in Honor of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
“The issue of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade stands out still today as a crime against humanity - one of the first manifestations of man’s inhumanity to man,” said Ambassador Raymond Wolfe of Jamaica, chair of the memorial committee.
The memorial, he said, is not an attempt to dwell on the past.
“It is to bring the international community to acknowledge, to take note of what has been one of the worst chapters in human history is finally being acknowledged and honored here at the United Nations and what better place,” he said.
The memorial is expected to cost around $4.5 million dollars. An urgent appeal is being made to both the public and private sector to raise the needed funds.
Wolfe said, “Now we also understand that we are still experiencing a very severe global economic recession and ability of member states to contribute from government coffers is limited. But there are a number of countries which really have gotten us to where we are in terms of very significant contributions.”
UNESCO, the U.N. educational, scientific and cultural organization, is playing a major role in the creation of the memorial – including an education campaign. Philippe Kridelka, UNESCO’s U.N. representative, says,”In order to build peace in the minds of men and women, it’s important not to forget the tragedies of history,” such as the Holocaust and other events.
“That is why,” he said, “UNESCO has put the cell where Nelson Mandela was detained on Robben Island on the list of World Heritage of Sites mankind. That is now why with partner countries working on school programs on apartheid so that apartheid is never forgotten. That is why we’ve been working Ethiopia, Italy and the African Union so that the Obelisk of Axum in Ethiopia, which had been stolen during the colonial period, has been brought back to Ethiopia.
Efforts now begin to let designers around the world know that the Permanent Memorial Committee on Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is now accepting their ideas.
The current timetable calls for the memorial to be completed by the end of 2013. It is not yet clear where on the U.N. grounds it will be located. The memorial will be erected under the theme: “Acknowledging the Tragedy; Considering the Legacy; Lest We Forget.”
Information about the design competition will be posted at www.unslaverymemorial.org
The U.N. has come up with another way to spit in our faces.
Slavery has only been in existance for 500 years? Who knew? /sarc
No mention of the koranimals involvement with the slave trade or the modern day slavery going on in the ME anywhere in the article?
In keeping with the precedent set by the Flight 93 Memorial in Somerset, Pennsylvania, the UN Slavery Memorial will be in the shape of a noose.
And again we get slapped in the face.
Why dont they devote a monument to slavery today Like what is going on in Muslim countries or China?
I guess they dont have the balls to piss off Muslims or Red Chinese.
If there was a true Conservative running for POTUS who promised that he would pull the US out of the UN if elected, He would get a crap load of support.
And the only slaves worth remembering were the ones taken across the Atlantic. The far greater number taken across the deserts for thousands of years to be slaves of the Arabs just don't count. Their suffering doesn't matter, since it wasn't caused by Evil White Men.
Now, I shall pull on my hair shirt, and begin my self-flagellation.
Isn’t this kind of like building a memorial to AIDS, or the Black Plague?
The UN needs to recognize that slavery still exists in Middle Eastern and African nations but they never will, of course. They are loathe to interfere in tribal matters, you understand. There are many things that the UN needs to deal with in those regions but never will as long as the US is available for criticism. Dealing with the treatment of women would be good for starters.
I honestly don’t mind a slavery memorial or museum. Slavery was a scourge on the World and the United States for years and should be explored and memorialized. Having said that, I’m sure they will find a way to turn this into just another opportunity to attack the US.
Reagan was so right to pull us out of UNESCO- we should have STAYED out.
What about all the other groups throughout history who were forced into slavery? What of the victims NOW? Will there be a distinction between those enslaved in America and those (the greater number) enslaved in the Caribbean and So America?
The UN sux!
Abducted???? The Europeans were not allowed to go inland and capture their own slaves; they were stopped at the coast by the black tribes along the coast who were in the business of capturing and selling slaves. Slaves were abducted or bought from arab-muslim traders by the dominant black tribes and were sold for a handsome profit. Many of the tribes who dealt in slaves including der Fuehrer’s fathers Luo tribe are still in the business today. It was all about empowered black men running successful businesses; that is the real story to be told in any slavery memorial.
As soon as it is erected, that would be a good time to hire some Muslim terrorists (whom the UN are so fond of) to blow the d@mn thing up!
This insult to their American hosts should NOT be allowed to soil our soil!!
After the "sculpture" is destroyed, we can invite the UN to get the h#ll off our property and take their dog and pony show to some third world haven they love so much!!
Once erected, it’ll be a good place to gather to protest slavery being actively conducted in our time.
***I’m sure they will find a way to turn this into just another opportunity to attack the US.***
Wonder if they will honor the half million casulties during 1861-1865 who died getting rid of slavery?
Yes, I know slavery was just ONE issue in this conflict.
Great great Grandaddy fought on the losing side.
There are STILL thousands of slaves in Northwest Africa and in the Sudan.
I suppose those won’t be mentioned.
As well as slaves in many Islamic countries (Yes, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc.)
Nor will the slaves of the forced labor camps of the USSR,
China, East Europe, etc. (who fared generally worse
than the slaves brought across the Atlantic);
Nor will this monument likely mention slavery in Brazil (which was much worse than its North American cousin).
If America had not allowed slavery, think how much worse off the Africans would be if still in Africa. If you look at African Americans GDP, it is higher than any country in Africa, and many western countries as well.
We know Islam still believes in Slavery and killing non-believers.
Just sayin
Isn’t there still slavery in Sudan??
I’m sure this memorial will make that point very clear /s
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