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How did your country vote? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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Yesterday, a Declaration of the trafficking of enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime against Humanity was voted at UNO. As usual, Israel and the USA voted against. How did your country vote? Any thoughts about it?

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[โ€“] 76 points 7 months ago (40 children)

wtf ireland, sweden, ukraine, united kingdom, canada, japan, iceland, hungary?

Abstaining feels like it is just as bad as voting no.

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  • [+] 43 points 7 months ago (11 children)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [โ€“] 11 points 7 months ago* (8 children)

    Yeah in a parliamentarian position I guess abstention is different from saying no, especially when the legislation has the votes.

    But I guess what I was trying to articulate is that it feels like they are respecting? the no votes by abstaining, IE not contradicting.

    This feels like a serious cop out on an issue as absurdly black and white as actual Chattel slavery.

    Edit: Good point though about reservations on the text, we don't know what it said, although that defense can also apply to the No's as well, which is why I shied away from it.

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  • [โ€“] 25 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    What we do know is that the full title includes "as the Gravest Crime against Humanity" and I can fully respect countries having reservations against that when there are other similarly horrible crimes. I don't know why Germany abstained but I figure that some people might be pretty angry at them if they declared the slave trade was worst than the holocaust.

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  • [+] 16 points 7 months ago (3 children)
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  • [โ€“] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I think scale is the issue.

    Basically, it was legal to rape, murder and/or kidnap Africans. It was so profitable that the main slave dealers were African tribes/nations who would sell their prisoners of war to the slave trade - thus encouraging more war and more slavery.

    Estimates of African deaths (on the low side) are double that of the Holocaust.

    This went on for 400 years. (Nazi power lasted only about 12 years by comparison.)

    And even to this day, the African slave trade is responsible for much of the racism and division we see. So, yeah, slave trade shaped our world in many ways.

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  • [โ€“] [S] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    Also, they could rape their slaves, so they could have more slaves to trade and exploit. I'm not sure if that number, twice the Holocaust, is correct for deaths. Wikipedia says that 12 - 12.8 million Africans were successfully trafficked to the Americas, as records show. This is only the recorded number, and it doesn't take into account the descendants of 350 years of surviving.

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  • [โ€“] [S] 3 points 7 months ago

    Absolutely fair for them, I guess. I do think it's objectively the worst thing that ever happened as even some countries in the EU seem to back, and it's not even close. That doesn't mean other terrible things were perpetrated by the same kind of people.

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  • [โ€“] 4 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

    yup, the reason I left them off my initial list of call outs precisely.

    Edit: Curious if any grammar pros have an thoughts on the statement specifically, what is implied by it? Does it mean gravest of all time? Gravest currently occurring? Those are my concerns and things we / (I) don't precisely know from the context of this post.

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  • [โ€“] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I skimmed over the full text earlier, it gives reasons for why it was the gravest crime against humanity, and in general did seem like it meant the gravest that ever happened (that we know of at least).

    It also mentions (and really is about) reparations which I suspect mightve influenced the abstains even more than the assertion that it was the gravest crime. Easier to weasel yourself out of doing anything/keep reparations low if you can say you never really voted yes on that.

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    what do you think is weird about ukraine lol? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkDakZLWAAEnkyy?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 7 months ago (6 children)

    Not sure what a blacked out vote means, but tons of countries voted in ways I don't agree with on this one too, so not sure why anyone should be singled out (my original point, call out collectively the failures).

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 7 months ago (5 children)
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  • [โ€“] 0 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Yeah, thats not a great look, but I also understand that since 2014 Ukraine has been in a war for its very existence with Russia, and that some neo nazi groups have done a lot of the fighting and dying for them.

    I do not condone neo nazis, but I also understand Ukraine's position not to shit on some of their best war fighters during a war for existence.

    Its a complicated issue, and I think I would feel a stark difference had Ukraine been the aggressor, or had a repressive government (both things Russia is).

    I believe that Ukraine will have to reckon with this if they survive the war, just like all countries will have to reckon with the far-right groups gaining traction and power in their countries.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    i did not ask for nazi apologia bro, i dont care. you thought it was weird ukraine voting for this, i showed its a totally expected outcome given recent trends in the country, you can believe all the fairy tales your corporate overlords that form your government tell you to believe

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  • [โ€“] 9 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Everyone should have voted no. The African enslavement was really fucked up, but "the worst human attrocity in history, ever"? The world has done some really, really, fucked up things. I don't really even know why this particular slavery would be picked out from the other slaves over thousands of years except that is was pretty recent and large scale. Why is the world even voting on this shit while on the verge of world war three, while it seems that half the rich elites running the governments are pedophiles?

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 7 months ago

    Yeah no my understanding has evolved based on the skim of the article and the actual wording becoming more clear - didn't think they were going for champions of all time when I initially reacted.

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  • [โ€“] [S] 8 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    It really feels like standing their ground on past "glories" to me.

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    I think it's more about not paying financial compensations for their involvement in slavery and their enrichment with it. One could use the vote "yes" as a legal argument to pursue compensation.

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  • [โ€“] [S] 2 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    They could have acknowledged it at least. Maybe it could be a first step to treat their black population with the respect they deserve for literally building their cities.

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  • [โ€“] 0 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Acknowledged? It's always been acknowledged. This was a vote to say it was the single worst thing ever done by humanity.... Ever.

    This. Not the slave trades that lasted far longer, or any of the wars or rapings or genocides or slaughtering of children or ww2 human experiments or anything else. It was a vote to say that this one thing was the shittiest thing humanity has ever done.

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  • [โ€“] 6 points 7 months ago* (8 children)

    Why is that surprising? Ireland is sometimes better, I would suppose, but Sweden, Ukraine, UK, Canada, Japan, Iceland, and Hungary are all pretty damn right-wing and pro-imperialist.

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  • [โ€“] -1 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Sweden, Ukraine, UK, Canada, Japan, Iceland, and Hungary are all pretty damn right-wing and pro-imperialist.

    What an absolutely preposterous statement.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    How so? All are dictatorships of capital that rely on exploiting the global south, or play a role as a vassal state for imperialist countries.

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  • [โ€“] -3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    How tf do Ukraine and Hungary exploit the global south?

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 7 months ago

    yeah i dont its not like ewwwwrope in general is connected to the usonian war machine, yes you are right if things are not 2 + 2 they must not be real, it's not like there is a complex mechanism designed specifically to mechanize atrocities and commodify them yes you are right im sorry.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 7 months ago

    Ukraine is more of a vassal than one of the bigger imperialists, it's used similarly to how Israel is by the US Empire. It's itself being harvested for rare Earth minerals and shackled with tons of debt while at the same time being used to attack enemies of the west. Hungary is both a NATO and EU member state, it's firmly on the side of the imperialist system.

    Imperialism essentially is monopoly capitalism at its most developed stage, turned international. In the modern day, the US Empire is at the helm of this, with the EU and other NATO countries being used to protect this system of international extraction. By being in NATO, Hungary plays a part in defending this system, and by being in the EU, it benefits from imperialist spoils.

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