A few weeks ago the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity and called for reparations as a step towards remedying its historical impact.
There was a lot of thunder, including the usual chatter about racism and inequality. The unequal distribution of wealth as well as societal instability common in some parts of the world is blamed on the distant slave trade. Britain in particular was called out as the main culprit with the United States also thoroughly condemned.
A majority voted in favour of financial reparations with most European nations abstaining since their leadership are in tacit agreement but can’t quite say so out loud. Such are the times we live in.
This is mirrored by calls within Britain and America to pay reparations to some citizens for a slavery they have never experienced. Numerous figures are suggested. One, produced by researchers at MIT, calculated that Britain owed Africans $50 trillion.
The transatlantic slave trade seems almost unique as it keeps coming up for discussion unlike other historical events. It is the grift that keeps on giving.
Why this happens
The African nations present reparations as cosmic justice. The righting of historical wrongs.
No one calling for this has ever been enslaved. No one in Britain or America has ever owned slaves. The entire Western world is unified in its hostility towards the very concept of human slavery.
As a result the narrative has to focus on perceived historical exploitation. We are wealthy today thanks to slavery and colonization.
This has been debunked multiple times. Britain has comparable wealth to European nations like Poland that not only did not have an empire but were invaded and frequently abused. Where is this wealth?
Even worse, the poorest African nations were those no one colonized; the wealthiest were ran by Britain or France. Empire brings a lot with it. When the Romans conquered Britain they introduced advanced engineering, wine and writing systems all of which helped the country advance faster than regions outside the empire.
Like most comparable countries, Britain didn’t become rich by having a global empire, it gained an empire because it was already rich. Its initial wealth came from technological innovation and effort, just as it tends to now.
It is easier to see with the USA. America did not become wealthy sending its people across the world. Americans made their home country rich and powerful through effort and innovation at home. Only then, in the twentieth century, did it build up its military resources to achieve global reach. Slavery was concentrated in the South and ultimately held them back. The USA is not rich because a relative handful picked cotton.
The calls for reparations then are not based on exploitation. We are not richer and they are not poorer as a result of historical events.
Europeans are targeted because we are the only ones who care, the only people potentially receptive to such things.
There are no attempts to persuade wealthy Arab nations to pay reparations for their much bigger slave trade of Africans.
We were the only people to abolish slavery and then expend resources to stamp it out. First Britain, then France, then the United States of America.
The mentality that drove us to care about the fate of African slaves is still present within us, so we are naturally sensitive to claims about injustice.
This is a farce, but it teaches us something important about today.
Not everyone understands principles
The drive to end slavery was based on principle. Human beings had souls and could not be owned as property. The drive to seek reparations is based on the opposite. It is unprincipled. It seeks to exploit the goodwill of strangers for financial gain.
Even today, with all the modernity the West has given the world, many exist who cannot grasp there is a principle involved at all. Slavery was based on exploitation and now the shoe is on the other foot it is their turn to exploit. That is about as far as the thinking goes.
Those calling for reparations are still stuck at the opportunistic stage of social dynamics. People at this lower level of moral and civilizational development assume everyone is like them as they cannot imagine an alternative.
Our prisons are full of characters like this, those who cannot escape a dog-eat-dog mentality. Those who see the UN as a way to exploit the sensitive West are no better.
The entire situation serves to show many are unable to appreciate the seriousness of slavery both within and outside Europe or North America. Its abolition was not done for practical reasons as it was extremely impractical.
Modern calls for reparations reduce it to economic activity, the very mentality Europeans rejected on a point of principle. There was much more at stake than just money. The reparations grifters lack this sensibility and it shows.
Uneven distribution
The recent reparations claims were presented by Ghana on behalf of the African Union. The country is said to be home to some 91,000 slaves today which no one at the UN discusses. What are they doing about their plight? What actions are being taken to abolish their own domestic slave trade? Aren’t we to believe they care about slavery?
Across the continent of Africa the number may be as high as 27 million slaves. Many millions also exist in the Arab world.
Are we to get moral lectures from those who care nothing for their own people?
But there is also an opportunity to learn a valuable lesson. Slavery was not invented by Europeans, it was ended by us. That mentality is still unique to our people. No one else seems to care.
This is the real takeaway from calls for reparations. The urge to profit from perceived weakness reflects the values of the slave traders they claim to be disgusted by. The world has not managed to move on from previous eras. They are no further forward than they were centuries ago. They condemn themselves even as they moralize.
We are learning a lesson our abolitionist ancestors knew well, the world doesn’t respond to moral crusades. It responds to shows of strength. Become weak and opportunists emerge to fleece you no matter how nice you were to their ancestors. And they will demand everything from you.
We must remind ourselves of this before it is too late.
Spot on.
I'd add, if there are reparations to be paid, they should be paid to the White people.
White people, by any reasonable measure, are the greatest benefactors mankind has ever known. They benevolently spread civilization all over the World and subsidize the existence of much of it to this day. Without Whites, most of the world would still be hunting&gathering, cultivating grains or raising cattle, and dying of basic infections.
If I was PM of my nation, what I would do after that resolution would be:
a) Stop all funding of and payments to any UN organisation, UN itself, and any NGO working on behalf of the UN until such a time the resolution is revoked in toto
b) Immediately end all aid to any African nation (I'd do that anyway), to any NGO working there, and immediately enforce VISA for anyone travelling from any African nation, ante-dated to 1990
c) Immediately revoke all citizenships and residency/labour-permits awarded to any person from Africa, and give them 72 hours to leave or face imprisonment in an internment camp
That's for starters.
Now, imagine if you will all of the EU doing the above in response. No talks, no threats, no handwaving or offer of negotiation or anything - just the decisions delivered as fait accompli to the respective recipients, and no acknowledgement of any complaints or noises from them in response.
Only a single message sent to all major MSM:
"The only thing to be discussed, after all the leaders of all the African nations backing this apologises on their knees, in public, at the UN building, is how much said nations owe Europe for the investments done during colonisation and how a full audit of how the trillions in aid given African nations has been spent"
When they act up, start stopping any vessel carrying an African flag entering European waters and conduct full inspections that vessel, cargo and crew is on the up and up, and confiscate all vessels and cargo found in violation of statutes.
That would shut them up right quick.