By Moritz Stifter – [2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=164876271
The United Nations wants the United Kingdom to transform its streets, monuments, and school curricula as part of a ‘reparations’ policy for its historical involvement in the African slave trade.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) adopted its new General Recommendation No. 40 on August 25, devoted to “reparatory justice” for colonialism, the trafficking of enslaved Africans, and racialized slavery.
Among the proposed measures is a reshaping of the monumental landscape of former slave-trading countries.
According to documents reported by The Telegraph, the experts believe that public spaces should “honour the contributions of people of African descent” and acknowledge the abuses committed by those who participated in or benefited from slavery. In practice, this could mean new statues, works of art, memorials, or the dedication of public spaces.
CERD is composed of independent experts, and its recommendations, which are obviously not binding, interpret the obligations arising from the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The committee calls for textbooks and school curricula to be reviewed to ensure what it considers an “accurate” interpretation of the transatlantic slave trade and its consequences, to combat what it describes as misinformation about its present-day effects, and to promote policies against xenophobia, hate speech, and ideologies of racial superiority. It also urges political leaders to explain to the public the importance of reparatory justice.
The recommendation comes five months after the General Assembly approved, by 123 votes in favour, three against, and 52 abstentions, a Ghana-sponsored resolution backed by the African Union that declared the trafficking of Africans and their racialized enslavement “the gravest crime against humanity.” The United Kingdom and every EU member state abstained.
London explained at the time that it did not question the gravity of slavery, but rejected establishing a “hierarchy of historical atrocities” and argued that there is no legal obligation today to pay compensation for actions that did not constitute a violation of the international law in force when they were committed.
A selective historical memory
The problem lies in what the new framework does not address.
CERD’s recommendation is specifically constructed around the enslavement of Africans—both across the Atlantic and through “other routes”—and its consequences for people of African descent. It establishes no equivalent reparatory programme for European populations who were also captured, sold, and enslaved for centuries in North Africa and the Ottoman world.
This was not a marginal episode. Academic historiography extensively documents the enslavement of Europeans in the Barbary states of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli and within the Ottoman system. A study published by Cambridge University Press cites an estimate of around 1.25 million captives, predominantly Europeans, taken by Barbary corsairs between 1530 and 1780.
Oxford University Press has also published a study specifically examining the thousands of Britons captured and enslaved in North Africa between 1580 and 1750, where they were used as labourers, galley slaves, or held until a ransom was paid.