302
The UN has voted 123-3 in favour to condemn the enslavement of Africans and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Something, something, same map. (lemmy.ml)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
41 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

all 41 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 45 points 7 months ago* (13 children)

And Europe abstaining... Still very far from a reckoning, not to mention reparations

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 13 child comments
    •
  • [+] -20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

    I wouldn't vote in favor of allowing other countries to whack me with a trout baseball bat for something I did 100 years ago.

    Edit: You didn't understand the reference.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 23 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    The problem is that you still benefit from those actions and the people stolen from and enslaved still have generational poverty and underdevelopment.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 20 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    I know its the same ol map but the abstaining countries speaks a lot more to their current relationship with the US.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    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").

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    If anyone can vote right after seeing how shitty it is going for the US, the world is lost

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 20 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago

    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

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago

    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

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    Abstaining is just a soft no. It is shameful that 53 countries did that

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    The only Trans the US Govt approved of

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    US- No to slavery but yes to unpaid overtime or direct unpaid like now.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
    • [–] 7 points 7 months ago

    united states of amerikkka

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 7 points 7 months ago

    🤬 Why am I not surprised?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    let me guess... US Israel Argentina Ukriane

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
    • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    The text was “highly problematic in countless respects,” Ambassador Dan Negrea, US representative to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), said prior to the vote.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    • [–] 5 points 7 months ago*

    I find the title is misleading. Title implies that the vote was wether to condemn or not.

    While I did not read the full PDF (underlaying document for this vote), the title of the document is Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime against Humanity and part of it is about paying reparations.

    PDF: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106588?ln=en&v=pdf
    UN news: https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167199
    US response for voting against: https://usun.usmission.gov/explanation-of-vote-for-unga-resolution/

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [+] -9 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Ummm, and they're tackling this pressing issue now, why?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •