More than a year after Black Lives Matter protests launched a worldwide reckoning about the centuries of racism that Black people continue to face, the question of reparations emerged \u2014 unevenly \u2014 as a high-profile issue at this year\u2019s largest gathering of world leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the U.N. General Assembly, African and Caribbean countries that stand to benefit from reparations were backed by other nations, though those most responsible for slavery and colonialism said little about what they might owe to African descendants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leaders from Africa (South Africa and Cameroon) to the Caribbean (Saint Kitts & Nevis and Saint Lucia) were joined by representatives of countries that are unlikely to be tapped to pay up \u2014 Cuba and Malaysia among them \u2014 in explicitly endorsing the creation of reparation systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those missing from the renewed global conversation on the topic, though, were noteworthy as well: the United States, Britain and Germany, wealthy and developed nations built from conquests of varying kinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCaribbean countries like ours, which were exploited and underdeveloped to finance the development of Europe, have put forward a case for reparations for slavery and native genocide, and we expect that case to be treated with the seriousness and urgency it deserves,\u201d said Philip J. Pierre, prime minister of Saint Lucia. \u201cThere should be no double standards in the international system in recognizing, acknowledging and compensating victims of crimes against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A look at who is and isn\u2019t talking about the issue this past week is a sign that while the movement supporting literal payback to the African continent and the forced diaspora that ravaged it is growing, the substantive engagement of major powers \u2014 however apologetic \u2014 is limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. President Joe Biden, for example, made no mention of it in his address, though the White House earlier this year said it\u00a0supported studying reparations\u00a0for Black Americans. And the office of its U.N. Ambassador\u00a0Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who is African American, wouldn\u2019t comment on the recent reparations discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Monetary atonement for America\u2019s history of slavery is a seminal question in the world\u2019s attempt to reconcile with what South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called \u201cone of the darkest periods in the history of humankind, and a crime of unparalleled barbarity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIts legacy persists in the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, and in Africa itself,\u201d Ramaphosa said at a meeting on reparations during the General Assembly. \u201cMillions of the descendants of Africans who were sold into slavery remain trapped in lives of underdevelopment, disadvantage, discrimination and poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Slavery in what became the United States began more than 400 years ago with slaves forcibly transported by ship from Africa. The\u00a0debate about reparations\u00a0has been ongoing ever since slavery was abolished in 1865.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent years, the issue has languished in Congress for more than three decades, though reparations have\u00a0gained traction\u00a0in a smattering of cities and local governments as the country continues to grapple with fallout from the death of George Floyd in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carla Ferstman, an international law expert who studies reparations as a professor at the University of Essex, said the U.N. talks this session mark a significant milestone for the global reparations movement that has been brewing for 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What remains to be seen is how it unfolds between individual nations \u2014 and how transformative the results are. While each reparations program would specifically be between the perpetrators and the victims\u2019 descendants, the conversation to rectify wrongs in history has now become universal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s universal,\u201d Ferstman said, \u201cbecause inequity is universal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Valued reparations to address harm could come in the form of direct financial payments for individuals, developmental aid for countries, the return of colonized land, treasured artifacts and cultural items, systemic corrections of policies and laws that may still oppress, and the kind of full-throated apologies and acknowledgements that wipe aside certain historical figures that were once celebrated as national heroes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople perceive their harms in very different ways \u2014 this perception of how the wrongs happened and how they manifested in terms of later generations,\u201d Ferstman said. \u201cOne needs to be sensitive to what is important and how to best rectify.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latest discussions on reparations came as the U.N. commemorated an important but contentious 2001 anti-racism conference in South Africa that resulted in what is known as the\u00a0Durban Declaration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A new resolution adopted at the commemoration meeting last Wednesday acknowledged some progress but deplored what it called a rise in discrimination, violence and intolerance directed at people of African heritage and many other groups \u2014 from the Roma to refugees, the young to the old, people with disabilities to displaced people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was even a discussion devoted to reparations, though it didn\u2019t go unnoticed during that talk that last week\u2019s new declaration stopped short of demanding nations must pay reparations to those their government harmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said only that there should be a way for descendants to seek \u201cjust and adequate reparation or satisfaction for any damage suffered.\u201d That was despite the U.N. Human Rights Council\u2019s\u00a0explicit recommendation\u00a0for reparations in a major milestone report in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile reparations could not compensate or right all the wrongs that had been done against the people of African descent, they could go a long way in addressing systemic racism that still lingers in the society today, in bringing about a level playing field to realize their true potentials,\u201d Syed Mohamad Hasrin Aidid, head of Malaysia\u2019s U.N. mission, said at Wednesday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United States, Britain and Germany were among the dozens of countries that didn\u2019t attend the Durban commemoration last week because of persisting grievances about the conference 20 years ago, when the U.S. boycotted it over references to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said it did not dispute the horrors of slavery and colonialism, but that it was focused on solving today\u2019s problems. It said in a statement: \u201cWhile we acknowledge that the wounds run very deep, we believe that the most effective way for the U.K. today to respond to the cruelty of the past is to ensure that current and future generations do not forget what happened, and to address modern-day slavery and racism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Germany\u2019s president, in his General Assembly address, didn\u2019t mention reparations, though his is one of the few countries that have directed money to make up for its colonial-era actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early this year, Germany\u00a0officially recognized\u00a0the massacre of tens of thousands of people in Namibia as genocide and agreed to provide 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) for projects that are expected to stretch over 30 years to help the communities affected. That announcement pointedly did not label Germany\u2019s initiative as formal reparations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facing journalists this week at the United Nations who sought answers on Namibia, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his country continues to negotiate proposals with the African leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c(T)he results that have been achieved have been achieved with the desire to finally reach an outcome, though not a conclusion, with regard to this truly difficult chapter of German history,\u201d Maas said. \u201cFor in fact, it is only the beginning of a period of very, very intensive cooperation between Germany and Namibia.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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