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How did your country vote?
(lemmy.ml)
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?
wtf ireland, sweden, ukraine, united kingdom, canada, japan, iceland, hungary?
Abstaining feels like it is just as bad as voting no.
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.
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 worse than the holocaust.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
See this is the meat of it, great points, thanks for doing the hard work!
Lemmy doesn't understand three states. You're either with us or you're a literal Nazi paedophile.
Good insight. That is more to consider than initial thoughts.
Europe in general just abstaining. Mostly.
It really feels like standing their ground on past "glories" to me.
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.
Or how exactly paying those financial compensations would work.
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.
Europe kind of had its own grave "crime against humanity" thanks to Mr Hitler, so perhaps that has a bearing?
Or perhaps not - I'm not sure what scoring such things really achieves.
what do you think is weird about ukraine lol? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkDakZLWAAEnkyy?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
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).
sorry, lemmy was giving me issues uploading the image so i copied the wrong link, this is the one
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn1.miragenews.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F12%2Fun-vote-nazi-genassembly.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f6277bcd9b022f2959d9155f2c5d927e5c23460ea47f2654a8d2b3ed501a5ba0
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.
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
ok bud, enjoy the echo chamber you live in. One day I hope you can look back at your crazy posts and laugh about it.
as always the gringos existence is based on projection, that's what keeps your mental sanity and enables the fascist logic to permeate and rot your brain