united states of amerikkka
USA and its satellite states - No/Abstained
Everyone else - Yes
Any surprises? No.
let me guess… US Israel Argentina Ukriane
why ukraine
Ukraine holds a position similar to Israel, as a forward outpost for the US Empire’s millitary without getting directly involved. Check Ukraine’s track record on UN voting in the last decade, since 2014.
And Europe abstaining… Still very far from a reckoning, not to mention reparations
France still holds Haitians financially responsible for…refusing to be slaves over 200 years ago. Haiti has such a rough time now because the US and EU continue to punish the country for representing the only successful slave revolt.
And Canada, and Japan, and Australia…
Those three also colonized and brutalized indigenous people
Still do, it’s not past tense.
The vote was about reparation though. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106588?ln=en&v=pdf
I wouldn’t vote in favor of allowing other countries to whack me with a
troutbaseball bat for something I did 100 years ago.Edit: You didn’t understand the reference.
Well, it’s a vote on a historical actuality. Like a vote on water being wet. It’s not about wacking anybody.
The fact that the countries voting against lived history speaks to the truth of it needing to be addressed.
The problem is that you still benefit from those actions and the people stolen from and enslaved still have generational poverty and underdevelopment.
Yeah, it’s just the old classic of choosing between doing the right thing or the self-sustaining thing. Choosing the right thing will probably be extremely unpopular once it catches up and it’s time to pay, and it will destroy a lot of your political capital. But it is the right thing to do.
Choosing political self-preservation over the right thing isn’t meaningfully different from choosing the wrong thing.
I get the instinct to signal that you know the other side of it is evil, unethical, by abstaining, but it’s the same net effect in practice. It will pass, it would’ve passed either way, you chose the wrong side of history, even if you thought you were clever, for… what? When this shit finally after decades and centuries catches up with us and we have to face our actual, real legacy, try to make it right though it never can… you can then say, to your constituents, that you didn’t vote for this?
It’s such a fucking cynical thing, the political landscape of today.
I get that there’s no winning play here, politically, if you are one of the oppressors of the old, but exactly one of the ways this could’ve gone, and could go in future too, is actually ethical and proper. Everything else is just playing for minimal political points for self-preservation that changes nothing other than small, irrelevant local things in this grand scale.
All this to say I get what this is and why it is done, but it’s just so cynical it almost makes it worse than straight out voting no like the US. At least they aren’t being a rat about it, straight up own to their stance that it was all good in their opinion. At least that’s shooting straight, not ratty.
One way to think about it that helps is that reparations now will pay off in the future. Much of the problems of today are due to imperialism, an ongoing process, and the systemic underdevelopment of the global south. Even within countries, like the US, slavery and a lack of reparations has resulted in generational poverty that harms society at large. Decolonization and correcting the record allow us to all move forward into a better world.
First tell the truth and then we’ll deal with the consequences. It’s a bitchy amoral move to deny the truth simply because it would affect you negatively in this world.
i didn’t see the strike-through formatting at first so i read trout baseball bat and i was marveling that they can make baseball bats out of fish now. lol
Damn. That scared of a fish-slap? What a coward.
Why does the “international community” either abstain or vote against? Also nice stance by the gulf states - the Kafala system is obviously not slavery ;)
Oman abstaining:
Abstaining is just a soft no. It is shameful that 53 countries did that
🤬 Why am I not surprised?
I couldn’t find the third country which voted against it, then I found the god’s own people who were freed from slavery by god.
Jewish Holy Scriptures are not against slavery at all. They go in large detail about how to treat the slaves.
Leviticus 25:44-46
“‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+25%3A44-46&version=NIV
Israel. It was Israel. Go figure.
I read 3 voted against so i instantly zoomed on Israel just to make sure.
They aren’t really for or against the African slave trade, but they take umbrage with anyone claiming October 7th and the thousands of beheaded babies wasn’t the worst crime in human history
I know its the same ol map but the abstaining countries speaks a lot more to their current relationship with the US.
Idk, the far right has taken over Italy, Germany and probably France, soon. The people in these countries, whilst not as awful as Americans, are/can still be very uncaring and sociopathically self-centered on average (I’m a well-travelled frog, not just an “external hater”).
If anyone can vote right after seeing how shitty it is going for the US, the world is lost
there’s an old adage out there that goes: 1/3 of people will do nothing but watch as another 1/3 kills the remaining 1/3.
the people who still don’t know what to think about trump despite everything he’s done so far are the first group; the 36% of americans still supporting trump are the second group; and the third group is here on lemmy (and the fediverse) going wtf.
we’re in that minority and, even then, most of us still believe that the same forces that created trump will save us.
That’s why those of us who are able to organize and resist irl must do that
Are we condemning modern slave trades or just ones no one living can be held accountable for?
This is about reparations and thats the reason why the countries responsible abstained or voted against it.
Obviously most countries today condemn the modern slave trade. Doesn’t mean they’ll do anything about it but they do condemn it
Why would Israel vote against this though? I don’t recall them having slave trades
Just that racist
ah, ofc, it’s always racism
They’re a US vassal and a white supremacist colony, the indigenous victims are different but it’s the same shit as what European settlers did in América
I thought Canada was where run-away slaves escaped to. Why abstain in our (Canada’s) case?
Oh, duh, we were part of the guilty af UK at the time…
Canada is also still a settler-colony, like the US and Israel.
True.
Here’s a press release from the resolution. The “Transatlantic Slave Trade” as a proper noun refers to the historical kidnapping and taking of Africans to the New World to be enslaved.
The resolution emphasised “the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity by reason of the definitive break in world history, scale, duration, systemic nature, brutality and enduring consequences that continue to structure the lives of all people through racialized regimes of labour, property and capital.”
It doesn’t enforce reparations, but:
It affirmed the importance of addressing historical wrongs affecting Africans and people of the diaspora in a manner that promotes justice, human rights, dignity and healing, while emphasising that claims for reparations represent a concrete step towards remedy.
The US objected:
Furthermore [per the ambassador], the US “does not recognise a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred.”
I’ll note for thoroughness’ sake that it not having been illegal under international law is basically true but 1000% beside the point (obviously). The US Supreme Court actually heard cases in the early 1800s about how slavery was treated under e.g. the Law of Nations, but evidence was scant that it was prohibited, and the court more or less (oversimplifying) had to make shit up. The important point is that you can’t say “Oh, well the perpetrarors collectively didn’t prohibit it, so there are no grounds for reparations.” It’s obviously ridiculous.
Damn, that’s crazy. Even 200 years after slavery was abolished, the US officially still doesn’t think it’s wrong. Just that it “lost the case”.
Inb4 Roe v. Wae overturning, but for the Emancipation Proclamation. Backwards ass country lol
The problem is that there’s a bunch of people who want to hold living people accountable for what was done by the dead.
Settler-colonialism is still ongoing, and the damages from the slave trade still impact those from slave families and the countries they were taken from, and the gains from slavery have been protected. Imagine if one family stole everything from another, causing generational wealth in one family and generational poverty in the other. Should the generations born into wealth that came from theft not pay reparations to the people born into poverty as a direct consequence of said theft? The answer is yes.
So you suggest ignoring how the current status quo is built on the continuous exploitation of racialized and colonized people?
“The status quo is built on the continuous exploitation of people”
*FTFY
I suggest that there’s no meaningful benefit to be gained by looking backward rather than forward. If you want to move to a different paradigm, that’s fine, but condemnation of the past is performative compared to putting forward laws and resolutions to benefit others. The Bill of Human Rights was forward-looking, this condemnation is backward-looking. Emphasize where we want to go and why we want to be there, rather than where we were and the mistakes we made as a society.
Slavery was evil, so was the destruction of indigenous peoples across the world. But we can’t yet change the past. We should reinforce that we will work to eliminate slavery (chattel and indenture), human trafficking, and the abuses related to it. Focus on what we can improve today and how we can improve things.
Okay then, we’re taking all your stuff. When your kids want it back, we’ll say:
there’s no meaningful benefit to be gained by looking backward rather than forward.
“How long must we atone for the mistakes of the past”, I exclaim, tears dropping down my face, as I close the door at the family whose house I stole.
I suggest that there’s no meaningful benefit to be gained by looking backward rather than forward.
Is your stance in any way informed by a privilege you hold?
Because there are a lot of people today who are still disadvantaged by the historic slave trade, who would meaningfully benefit from reparations.
So when you say “no meaningful benefit”, who exactly are you talking about?
I suggest that there’s no meaningful benefit to be gained by looking backward rather than forward.
Okay, as long as we also take away all the historical family wealth that goes back generations too.
But that’s not how it works, is it? Great great great grandad gets to get rich off having slave plantations and his son gets to get rich off of Jim Crow sharecropping, and his great great great grandson gets to inherit that wealth without any complications.
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punished
When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression
But benefiting from it is okay?
I did not benefit from it. Half my family are refugees. I was born into a shitty life. I do not want to be punished on to of that for something i had zero control over.
God I hate white people
But you benefit from it, and others are punished from that theft. This is a generational problem.
I did not. I think i replied to a comment that was not directed at me
This „punishment“ or rather responsibility would not be something that the average wage earning person has to worry about financially whatsoever. There is however a lot of accumulated wealth, that could be used for much better things than the third luxury Yacht in Monaco. So if this extraordinary luxurious wealth can be traced back to exploitation and slavery, and the government would enforce this money to be used for reparations in forms of community centers, museums, research for those who’s ancestors freedom, cultural heritage and often lives were taken, this would not be a punishment. As a German I think there is good reason to individually act responsibly concerning the crimes of e.g. my great grandfather. It is not my crime, but it’s my responsibility to call it such, to do my best in every day live that something like it will not happen again. Calling that a punishment would be unfair compared to the suffering of the victims and their living relatives.
I see. It sounded like indiscriminate handing out to me. I am fine with actual wealth being redistributed. My personal responsibility measure is political contribution and spreading left leaning reasoning.
Well, duh. Do you think Mother Nature won’t “hold” new generations “accountable” once ours destroy the planet with fossil fuels?
That’s literally .ml’s whole thing.
Communism involves justice and liberation for all, that does include righting past wrongs.
You sound like your family owned slaves.
More likely he still does.
Oh yeah, it’s totally a radical Marxist–Leninist thing and not at all something obvious advocated for now by the UN (voted against or abstained from near-exclusively by its minority of perpetrators) and human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch:
- Who should receive reparations?
In the US, all Black people who are descended from people subjected to enslavement and who inevitably suffer its present-day legacies should be eligible for reparations.
Black people in the US are due reparations as worthy recipients of redress, justice, and reconciliation for atrocities and human rights violations experienced during and since chattel slavery. Although the slave economy built vast generational wealth for whites and propelled the US into global economic leadership, the US government has never adequately accounted for these wrongs, which continue to impact Black people via structural racism and pervasive racial inequality today.
While this text is focused on the idea of reparations for Black people in the US, it bears noting that Indigenous communities have faced centuries of displacement, violence, and cultural erasure due to colonization and US policies. The case for reparations is essential here as well—and appropriate reparations in that context might take a very different form.
The conversation around reparations is ongoing and involves not only consideration of historical injustices, but also current disparities and the potential for reconciliation and healing within society.
If the tankies want to support reparations, then fucking good for them.
Once again driving the point home that the communists are consistently on the right side of history, to the point that when non-communists make the same correct points they get accused of being communists.
Everything I don’t like is tankie.
It is neither our whole thing nor is it wholly our thing. Again, the vote was 123 to 3, with abstentions mostly from imperial core / “always the same map” states. They’re the states that benefited from classical imperialism and are still benefiting from neo-imperialism.
Libs are actually beyond reason sometimes I talked to one the other day who said child slavery in bangladesh was a one time incident
In case it’s too small to see, the third country that voted against is Israel.
I still only see two real countries.
The US Empire is a settler-colony, so it gets lumped in with Israel as such.
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The only Trans the US Govt approved of
The US history of not reckoning with slavery is highly problematic in countless respects.
US- No to slavery but yes to unpaid overtime or direct unpaid like now.
US is afaik the only country which straight up enshrined slavery into its constitution.
And yes to slavery for millions of people imprisoned because cops lied about what they did.
