July 18 (Reuters) - The European Union (EU) said on Tuesday that Europe’s slave-trading past inflicted “untold suffering” on millions of people and hinted at the need for reparations for what it described as a “crime against humanity”.
From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported by mostly European ships and sold into slavery. Almost half were taken by Portugal to Brazil.
The idea of paying reparations or making other amends for slavery has a long history but the movement is gaining momentum worldwide.
Leaders of EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) met in Brussels this week for a two-day summit.
As the event started on Monday, Ralph Gonsalves, premier of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the current holder of CELAC’s presidency, said he wanted the summit’s final statement to include language on the “historical legacies of native genocide and enslavement of African bodies” and “reparatory justice”,
But some European governments were wary of proposed language on reparations, diplomats said.
EU and CELAC agreed on one paragraph that acknowledged and “profoundly” regretted the “untold suffering inflicted on millions of men, women and children as a result of the transatlantic slave trade”.
It said slavery and the transatlantic slave trade were “appalling tragedies … not only because of their abhorrent barbarism but also in terms of their magnitude”. Slavery was a “crime against humanity”, it said.
In the statement, adopted by leaders of both sides, the CELAC referred to a 10-point reparation plan by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which, among other measures, urges European countries to formally apologise for slavery.
The plan demands a repatriation programme that would allow people to relocate to African nations if they want to and support from European nations to tackle public health and economic crises. It also calls for debt cancellation.
The CARICOM reparations commission “sees the persistent racial victimisation of the descendants of slavery and genocide as the root cause of their suffering today”, the plan said.
Earlier this month, Dutch King Willem-Alexander apologised for the Netherlands’ historic involvement in slavery and in April King Charles gave his support to research that would examine the British monarchy’s links to slavery.
In Portugal, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said his country should apologise for its role in the transatlantic slave trade but critics said apologies were not enough and practical measures were essential to address the past.
Apart from the fact that you’re pretending 150 years (with the civil rights legacy still not resolved) is much the same as a whole millennium, you’re also ignoring the substantial differences between the slavery your ancestors endured and the chattel slavery practiced as a result of the transatlantic slave trade.
Chattel slavery meant a lifetime of slavery and children born into slavery, often through rape-for-profit by slaveholders. Enslaved families being ripped apart on a whim if a sale was convenient for their enslaver.
The transatlantic element meant enslaved people were permanently recognisable as slaves.
And the creation of the particular form of racism found in the Americas to prevent poor whites from fraternising with their most natural allies.
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@jocanib I blocked the Slavic and I am moving on.
I’ll read it later, but to your first point: there was a slave trade route with Slavic people, they were lifetime slaves as well, families ripped apart is nothing new. Really, the only difference is how long ago it was. So why do you draw the line at 150 years?
I didn’t draw any lines. Your English is easily good enough to comprehend what I wrote. If you misunderstood, read it again. If you’re being deliberately obtuse, fuck off.
This is the part I was reacting to. Sounds to me like drawing a line. Everything else is the same for both slave trades. Or are you being deliberately obtuse? In that case you should heed your own advice.
You’re going to have to explain how you think I’m drawing a line there.
Not agreeing with them, but it sounds like they’re arguing that 150 years is out of living memory in the same way a millennium is.
There are people alive today whose grandparents were born into slavery. Given that slavery did not actually end with the civil war, and Jim Crow, and mass incarceration, and the current dismantling of civil rights era laws, there are hundreds of millions of people alive today who are still directly suffering the aftermath.
So no, it is nowhere out of living memory and I am astonished that there are two people in one place so ignorant that they are willing to argue that it is.
There are slaves alive today. Slavery is still ongoing.
Frankly whatever the fuck the Americans did in America means very little to the world at whole. Stop acting like your civil war or racist policies are relevant elsewhere or should be bought up as talking point.
I’m British. The slave trade is but one of our many world-fucking sins.
But the direct ripple effects from the transatlantic slave trade are very much not outside of living memory.
Even after being freed, the enslaved demographic was still often seen by others as ‘lesser’, and that got reflected in fewer protections, fewer resources, deferential treatment, fewer opportunities and even outright violence.
For the transatlantic slave trade, those ripples are not only still in living memory, they are actively ongoing in many parts of the western world.