“Centuries of slave trade”: African leaders demand compensation
The meeting, titled “Next Steps,” followed the approval of a resolution submitted by Ghana at the United Nations, recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity.”
Britain and all member states of the European Union were among the 52 countries that abstained from the vote, intensifying concerns that discussions would be confined to the nations that had suffered from this historic injustice.
The United States, Israel, and Argentina voted against the resolution. French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the gathering via video link from Paris, defending his country’s abstention.
“History cannot be reduced to a simple accounting exercise,” Macron stated. “Under no circumstances can reparations become (…) a cheque that ‘settles the bill’ and closes the matter.”
Over the course of four centuries, an estimated 12.5 million Africans were forcibly loaded onto slave ships, while approximately 2 million died during their transportation to the Americas and the Caribbean. Portugal transported the largest number of enslaved people, followed by the United Kingdom, which by the 1730s had become the world’s leading slave-trading power.
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The debate over slavery reparations is not merely about the past. It concerns the way modern states understand justice, historical responsibility, and equality among peoples. When principles yield to political or economic interests, democracy risks becoming an empty slogan. Historical memory cannot be erased, nor can it be measured solely in financial terms; yet it can serve as a starting point for sincere acknowledgment, dialogue, and restitution.
Democracy echoes as a melodious word, pleasing to the ear. “The people rule” is the etymology of the term from the ancient Greek language. Except that, even back then, it was written only on constitutional shards and papyri. Direct Democracy never truly existed in ancient Athens, the very place that gave birth to it. This term, too, was integrated as an on-stage performance within the Athenians’ favorite spectacle: the Theater.
Just like today. This battered word is featured with excessive pride in constitutional charters, replacing the harsh term “state” as a “fig leaf” to hide its offenses.
Upon the very first simple test, the powerful Democracies of the likes of “Trump” and “Macron” proved to be a rag. They collapsed. Clanging cymbals. The moment Africans stood tall and demanded—rightfully, justly, democratically, and historically—that today’s generations of slaves be compensated for watering the “civilization” of European colonizers with their blood and wealth, and for building America, their criminal victimizers “beat a retreat.”
“History cannot be reduced to a simple accounting exercise,” declared the unspeakable Macron. Yet, when the French and the Axis opponents demanded war reparations from the land of the Nazis, they were in the right. Appealing to the democratic sensitivities of post-Nazi German governments and the rules of International Law was their strongest suit.
Their Democracies are absolute nonsense. To each their own interest. Keeping up appearances. Keeping the masks from falling. Two peas in a pod. Statists and state-dependent. And as such, they swear by nationalism, jingoism, demagoguery, and the theater of the ballot box.
But when it comes to upholding the principles of Justice, values, the legal order, and humanism, everyone—rulers and the ruled alike—cry out in one voice: “For the national interest, damn it!”
You cannot fool us, you clowns in the circus of your “states of law” and your “democracies.”