AU: Pay up for slavery

[bemildred]

Addis Ababa - The African Union plans to relaunch attempts to gain reparations for the countless Africans who were abducted from the continent and sold into slavery over the centuries, the pan-continental body said.

In a statement released late on Friday from its headquarters in Addis Ababa, the African Union said its executive Commission would push the issue, and would also call on African parliaments to do so.

"In the coming months the Commission will relaunch a committee on repairing the damage caused by slavery," said spokesperson Adam Thiam.

He added that the AU was calling on African countries to take measures to outlaw slavery like those adopted by France in May 2001. The new French law classifies both slavery and the slave trade as a crime against humanity.

News24

[GetTheRightVote]

1. It is in the history books and justice will continue but not thru greed

We can not put a value to human beings or their lost lives but we can work for justice in the future. Besides the country is broke anyway, busted. This generation of tax payers does not owe money to any slavery issue of the past but we do owe them a better future and the promises this country has made to them and their children since that historial time. This is the issue/value we must fight for and improve upon.

:kick:

[pop goes the weasel]

2. First Africa has to take the problem seriously

Some African nations continue to look the other way while slavery is practiced within their countries and slaves are even sold to outsiders. Demands for reparations aren't going to get far while African warlords continue to demonstrate how Africans themselves were instrumental in the slave trade as suppliers. I do think reparations are in order, but not while slavers continue to run rampant in Africa. If things stay as they are, I don't think that reparation money will go to those who are victimized, but will instead end up in the hands of those who are continuing the horrible practice.

Maybe there could be a UN-run reparations program that grants small loans and such to the poorest individuals and villages after a nation has been certified as having an effective anti-slavery program in place. That way, countries who have already made enormous strides will not be penalized, and those which are giving cover to slavery (like Sudan) will have more incentive to put the brakes on it. And the money will be going to those who have been hurt the worst by the legacy of slavery and colonialism.

[1monster]

3. And what of the African nations which captured those who became

slaves and sold them to the slave traders in the first place? Slavery existied in Africa long before the "New World" and is still in existance in Africa today.

Clean up your own back yard first.

[forgethell]

4. OK, but

why should Africa get the money? Their people are all still there, so obviously their ancestors were not abducted by the evil white man. Now, the Arabs and other blacks hold, and have held, many black slaves over the centuries. Why not approach them for the reparations? Plenty of oil under those dunes.

[bemildred]

5. A good point.

It is also true that slavery has existed since time immemorial,
it was not invented for the colonization of Africa. But the African
slaves were plentiful and cheap, and their treatment particularly
bad. I would guess the AU is looking for help with decolonization
and modernization efforts, and that would not be a bad idea IMHO.

[forgethell]

6. Then that is what they should

ask for. They should stop trying to play the guilt card. It's about worn out. Besiedes, America had no colonies in Africa, except maybe Liberia. Let the French, the Belgians, the Germans, and the Brits pay.

[bemildred]

7. So, your main concerns are:

1.) That the AU be up front about what it wants instead of asking for "reparations".
2.) That the AU not attempt to make anyone feel guilty.
3.) That America not have to pay anything.

[forgethell]

8. No.

My main concern is that Africa has been on life support ever since they kicked out the colonialists. At some point they have to realize that they must kick the drug of foreign-aid. I don't want to be an enabler.

In other words, what Africa needs is not more money, but improved institutions. Rule of law, respect for private property, etc. Then maybe, the money might be used to improve the lives of ordinary people instead of corrupt leaders.


But, yes, I don't believe that "reparations" are owed. No slaves from America's past are alive today, and only the Liberians are descendants of American slaves. So we owe them nothing, except what common humanity prompts us to give. Somehow, don't know exactly how it is, I resent being extorted.

[bemildred]

9. So foreign aid is like a drug?

We should not give foreign aid to anyone?
Or is it just Africa that can't handle it?

[forgethell]

12. Yes, foreign-aid

is like a drug to the recipients. They grow dependent upon it.

I believe it should be granted where it can be used to grow free institutions, where it does not line corrupt bureaucrats pockets. Emergency aid is different. Tsunami relief, for instance. Acts of God are not caused by mankind.

Africa?? Good question. I don't know.

[bemildred]

13. So then, Israel, Egypt, and Colombia are all addicted it now?

Should we make all three go cold turkey?

[forgethell]

14. Well, not Israel.

They can effectively use theirs to defend themselves.

[bemildred]

15. Ah, well defended addicts. nt

[forgethell]

17. Whatever n/t

[bemildred]

18. Indeed. nt

[forgethell]

19. It strikes me that I may have been

a bit brusk, or even curt, in my previous reply. Sorry about that.

I know your views on Israel, and you know mine, as we have discussed them before. Nevertheless, I don't think you can deny that Israel is in a fight for its very survival. Or perhaps you can, but you have fooled yourself, if so. this is not the venue to discuss this, as we are talking about 'foreign aid', and ultimately 'reparations'.

If not for the war, Israel could feed itself and take care of its citizens. The foreign aid is primarily military, and we are giving it for reasons of our own.

Egypt and Columbia are not the basket cases that some countries are, but while I have not been following Columbia lately, Egypt does depends on US aid. I don't mind giving it, but it is not an eternal obligation. At some point America should say, you're grown up now. go out, boy, and get a job. That's a metaphor, so don't make a big deal of it.

The point is, we have no moral obligation to support the world, especially when the countries we give aid to are not making the effort to develop the institutions needed to enter the modern world. Here we are talking about Africa. Wars, genocide, tribalism, confiscation of private property, slavery, unchecked AIDS, unabashed racism (I'm not talking about the whites here), imperial Islam. It's money down the tubes unless it can be used, not just to feed the hungry but to correct the problems. I'm not saying we shouldn't help the hungry, I'm just saying we should be sure that kleptocrats are not allowed to get their hands on the money. How, I can't say. But if this fascist dictators and their blandly evil bureaucrats get it, well then the hungry don't. No good has been done, and much harm may have been committed.

Other countries that have received aid have done something with it. India springs to mind. Taiwan. What's the difference? I don't know that either, but I assume that at least part of it has to do with letting go of old grievances, getting the chip off their shoulder, and ceasing to think that anyone else thinks as highly of them as they do. That's my opinion, make of it what you will.

Have a good night.


:)

[gottaB]

10. A lot of people have suched a question.

Most of these are in pdf format:

• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, by Walter Rodney.
  
  
• Slavery, Institutional Development, and Long-Run Growth in Africa, 1400–2000, by Nathan Nunn.

  
  Can Africa’s current state of underdevelopment be partially attributed to the large trade in slaves that occurred during the Atlantic, Saharan, Red Sea and Indian Ocean slave trades? To answer this question, I combine shipping data with historical records that report slave ethnicities and construct measures of the number of slaves exported from each country in Africa between 1400 and 1913. I find the number of slaves exported from a country to be an important determinant of economic performance in the second half of the 20th century. To correct for potential biases arising from measurement error and unobservable country characteristics, I instrument slave exports using measures of the distance from each country to the major slave markets around the world. I also find that the importance of the slave trade for contemporary development is a result of its detrimental impact on the formation of domestic institutions, such as the security of private property, the quality of the judicial system, and the overall rule of law. This is the channel through which the slave trade continues to matter today.
  

  
  
  
• The Legacy of Colonialism: A Model of Africa's Underdevelopment, by Nathan Nunn.

  
  Despite the existence of empirical studies linking Africa’s current underdevelopment to its colonial history, a formal theoretical explanation of this link has yet to be made. How could colonialism have had apparently lasting impacts? I provide a game-theoretic model that explains how extraction, taking the form of the slave trade and colonial control, resulted in a permanent increase in rent-seeking behavior and a permanent decrease in the security of private property, both of which have helped foster Africa’s current underdevelopment.
  

  
  
  
• Slave Trade: A Root of Contemporary African Crisis, by Tunde Obadina.
  
  
• The impact of the slave trade on Africa, by Elikia M'bokolo.
  
  
• African and Slavery in Context, keynote address by Toyin Falola.
  
  
• The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change and Economic Growth, by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and and James Robinson.
  
  

There are today a plethora of analyses and critiques of globalization that follow in the footsteps of Walter Rodney. Regardless of one's ideological or theoretical perspective, however, it seems to be a widely acknowledged historical fact that the transatlantic slave trade worked to the economic advantage of European powers while working to the detriment of African powers, such as they were. This of course represents a gross generalization, but as such it should hardly be controversial.

[forgethell]

11. So, then, as

I understand it, Africa would be on an economic par with Europe and America if it wasn't for the legacy of colonialism?

[gottaB]

16. I think it's more reasonable to speak of the Atlantic system as a whole

But, yeah, that's the gist of it. More or less. On the more side you have the panafricanists with their critique of neocolonialism. On the less side you have those who acknowledge the harmful legacies of the transatlantic slave trade and the colonial period, but who believe that the solutions to current economic problems are in the hands of today's leaders. I think you'll see both perspectives coming together around the Abuja Declaration and subsequent calls for the forgiveness of national debts owed to the World Bank and IMF. More or less.

[forgethell]

20. So, then,

before the Europeans landed, Africans were on an economic and technological par with Europe? Africans did not keep slaves? There were no wars in Africa?

I'm just sort of curious as to how you think the Africans were going to compete with the Europeans.

[gottaB]

21. I pointed to reams of evidence on the economic impact of the slave trade

This is textbook stuff. Read Philip Curtin if the topic interests you:

http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/pcurtinbibliography.htm


To answer your essential challenge in a nutshell, it would be a mistake to overemphasize the disparity between African and European achievements prior to the advent of the transatlantic slave trade.

[forgethell]

22. It would also be

a mistake to underemphasize them. I have no doubt at all that the slave trade ruined Africa's economy, such as it was. But slavery has been over for more than a hundred years; colonialism for 40-50.

[gottaB]

23. Your assumptions demonstrate the point made by those you oppose

If we regard it as settled that the transatlantic slave trade had a negative impact on African economic development, then the interesting questions that remain concern the degree to which the present state of underdevelopment can or should be attributed to the legacies of the Atlantic system. One the one hand it would appear to be a matter of historical perspective, which may entail theoretical discriminations such as how much weight one gives to agency vs. structure, the durability of social institutions, the meaning of change, the nature of the relationship between local and global systems, the relative determinative force of different levels of social systems, what kinds of historical evidence make the strongest case, related historiographic and epistemiological concerns, and so on. On the other hand the question is clearly a matter of politics. It is easy enough to see how the adoption of a political stance can lead to the favoring of certain theoretical positions, which might have the consistency of an explicit political ideology, or might be instead relatively amorphous and provisional.

Now, it seems to me, from my admittedly limited point of view, that your political difference with the AU's call for reparations, and what that might represent to you, has led you to a radical naiveté concerning some basic facts of African history, such that even as you acknowledge the deleterious impact of the transatlantic system upon African economies, you undermine that acknowledgement with assertions that, as far as I can tell, can best be understood as springing from an a priori assumption of European superiority. It is just this kind of anachronism, by which I mean the fallacy of viewing the events of the past through the lens of the present, that the critics of neocolonialism cite as evidence of the continued legacy of Europe's historical depredations. A vicious cycle, to be sure.

[forgethell]

24. Let me simplify it for you.

Nothing in Africa is my responsibility, unless I choose to assume it. I have owned or traded no slaves. My Daddy didn't, either. Neither did his dad, nor his. But even if they had, I am responsible only for what I do.

We all have a history,some are born poor, some rich. Some countries are just plain better places to live than others. But we have to work with what we have, without expecting others to help. It's good if they do, for them, adn for us, but if it is expected it corrupts the soul.

People have killed and conquered each other forever. What makes the West particularly reprehensible?

[gottaB]

25. Well, then, you should agree with debt forgiveness

Why should today's generation assume debts incurred by their daddies and granddaddies and great granddaddies?

Case closed.

[forgethell]

26. Well, then.

I see no connection at all. For one reason. If people, nations, that don't pay their debt don't get any more loans. but, hey, if the banks are ready to forgive the loans, who am I to stop them.

Case really closed.

[gottaB]

28. I shouldn't be surprised that you see no connection

But I wouldn't dream of holding you responsible for not seeing any connection you choose to not see. For the sake of others who might be reading, I will attempt to clarify.

The OAU's 1993 Abuja Declaration (aka the Abuja Proclamation), mentioned above in post #16, specifically calls for relief from foreign debt. In fact, the two movements are conjoined, as even the most cursory sketch of recent history will show: Debt and Reparations, NEPAD and Reparations and, reporting from a pro-NEPAD perspective, Slave Trade a "Crime against Humanity" and Africa Preparing its own Recovery Plans. See also the Guateng Declaration, and the Dakar Declaration, which represents a significant evolution in the arguments laid out in the Abuja Declaration.

There was a time when the call for reparations could perhaps be regarded among respectable observers as either purely academic or politically inconsequential. That time has passed. The Abuja Declaration marks its passing. The crisis of foreign debt, which is exceedingly real and abundantly in evidence to any serious student of African affairs, has pushed the issue of reparations to the fore. Until such time as the debt crisis is resolved for the majority of African states, the issue of reparations will continue to be discussed and promoted in international forums.

Additionally, it seems to me that the political sensibilities of the European powers have evolved over the past 50 years. Modern European powers tend more towards egalitarianism and cooperation. The expectation that they might recognize a moral obligation to at the very least apologize for the Atlantic slave trade hardly seems outlandish. That they might also sense a moral obligation to relieve desperately poor nations of the burden of unfavorable and arguably unfair debt is likewise within the realm of imaginable. Indeed, as Britian assumes the presidency of the G8, Tony Blair has put tackling poverty in Africa at the top of the agenda, and included among his proposed remedies the extension of debt relief.

Blair's argument is both moral and pragmatic. On the pragmatic side, I find it difficult to convey just how strongly I disagree with the isolationist viewpoint that some Americans feel the need to express whenever the topic of African development arises. Every foray I make into the world of current events, which is more or less a daily habit of mine, tells me that the world is rapidly growing more, not less, interconnected. When I pause to think about it, and consider the history of global contacts, trade routes and such, I can imagine the connections growing upon previous connections, growing at a geometric rate (powers of 2 in a simple tree model, powers of 6 in a variant of central place theory), and, viewing it as a dynamic system, I can't imagine that a systematic asymmetry is either sustainable or desirable.

Well, perhaps my imagination is too limited. I shall have to give more thought to legacies, persistence and phenomena of psychological denial in group interactions. I will consider it a window into how things fall apart, or at the very least an amusing farce. I pass the jujubes.

[bemildred]

27. Indeed, I think our entire system of hereditary distribution

of wealth and privilege needs to be reconsidered. Each generation
should be free to redistribute wealth and property and privilege according
to the merits of the current crop of citizens. It is very unseemly for
the dead hand the past to try to impose it's will on the living.