selokichtliHow did your country vote?
Linkeni sometimes wonder how the us will develop in some future where the petrodollar is no longer the world’s currency; would it be like the uk/netherlands/belgium still clinging to colonialism or will it be spain/portrugal still trying to cling onto colonialism despite not being part of the club anymore.
It’s hard to imagine, because it is even more useless and corrupt than those other countries. And that’s hard to imagine.
Why am I even surprised by the US being the US anymore.
“Hey you know this thing thats super bad?”
“Of course we’ve known it’s bad for many years now”
“Well we should officially condemn it.”
“Whoa whoa let’s hold up and think about that for a second.”
Just think of all the money the US could make though! There must be a way to profit from it.
KoboldCoterieI don’t know the wording on the declaration itself, but it’s distinctly possible that the US prison system is in direct opposition to it.
leojwtf ireland, sweden, ukraine, united kingdom, canada, japan, iceland, hungary?
Abstaining feels like it is just as bad as voting no.
ordnance_qf_17_pounderEurope in general just abstaining. Mostly.
It really feels like standing their ground on past “glories” to me.
flangoI 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.
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.
I was surprised to see all the nordics abstaining from voting (really, almost all of Europe). I would say that abstaining is a long-shot from voting “no”, especially if you see it as overwhelmingly likely that this will go through without your vote. Voting no is explicitly stating that you’re against the formulation, while voting yes is saying that you’re explicitly for it. Abstaining can indicate that you are (for example) for the intent, but have reservations about the specific wording. In that case, you may not want to stop the declaration from going through, but still want to signal that you have reservations and don’t want to unequivocally support it.
Good insight. That is more to consider than initial thoughts.
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.
dfyxWhat 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.
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.
ageedizzleYeah the wording there seems odd. Why do we have to specify that its the greatest? There are plenty of terrible crimes to go around, and it seems a bit off to make it a competition as to which one was the worst. Plus, we probably don’t even know about most crimes against humanity because they happened in e.g. ancient Mesopotamia wheres no records were kept
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.
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 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.
mannycalaveraLemmy doesn’t understand three states. You’re either with us or you’re a literal Nazi paedophile.
Cowbee [he/they]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.
Checks out.
Sweden, Ukraine, UK, Canada, Japan, Iceland, and Hungary are all pretty damn right-wing and pro-imperialist.
What an absolutely preposterous statement.
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.
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.
ghost_laptopyeah 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.
gringo otroletravaladna
eeas.europa.eu/…/eu-explanation-vote-–-un-general…
EU voted as a block on this issue.
EU Explanation of Vote – UN General Assembly: Action on A/80/L.48 - Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity
25 March 2026, New York – European Union Explanation of Vote (before the vote) delivered by Ms. Gabriella Michaelidou, Deputy Permanent Representative of Cyprus to the United Nations, at the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly: Action on A/80/L.48 - Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity
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.
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?
what do you think is weird about ukraine lol? pbs.twimg.com/media/FkDakZLWAAEnkyy?format=jpg&na…
You only posted half of the title.
Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime against Humanity
Fixed.
The “Gravest Crime against Humanity” part honestly explains why so many countries abstained.
The slave trade was an absolute atrocity and certainly one of the gravest crimes against humanity but should we label it as the gravest crime? Do we really need to introduce a ranking between slavery, the holocaust and dozens of other genocides instead of agreeing that they are/were all bad without picking one as the worst?
Yeah, exactly. Why make it a competition? The wording is honestly just bizarre
imaqtpie
TipponComparing to the Holocaust, yeah. And it is true. One of these atrocities was way bigger.
the holocaust wasn’t the biggest in numbers during WWII
mercSadly, I would bet that it’s the jewish lobby that pushed a lot of countries to oppose this. They have this need to make the holocaust be the worst thing that has ever happened to any people in the history of time.
The holocaust certainly bad, it’s among the worst mass killings of all time, and the fact that it happened in relatively modern times makes it worse because the world generally isn’t as brutal as it once was. Is it worse than the Mongol invasions, which may have killed more than 10% of the entire world’s population at the time? Worse than historical wars in China which killed tens of millions at a time when the entire world’s population was under 200 million? Where would you rank African slavery in that? Is it less bad because fewer people died, or worse because there are things worth than death? I don’t really think it should be something you rank at all. And, I’d also oppose any attempt to rank any of them as “the gravest crime against humanity”, because what’s the point of that?
Your comment is a bit weird. The second section describes exactly why it makes no sense to be ranking crimes against humanity, which would include this resolution picking one winner.
Why then lead with the first section?
The abstaining countries mostly has a Problem with “the gravest crime against humanity”, because there should be no ranking in crimes against humanity.
Where do you place the Holocaust, the holodomor, the crusades? The conquest of the americas?
acargitzSide thing, but I don’t see the Crusades as at the same level of the Holocaust or the Holodomor. They were religious wars of conquest not campaigns of extermination. They were brutal, sure, but if you add them, then you have to start piling a bunch of other wars in there too, like the Mongol conquests, the Arab conquests, the Ottoman conquests etc. Which kind of dilutes the point of “grave crimes”.
There is nothing particularly unique about the Crusades, and at the time, the Roman Empire that invited them and tried to sanction them actually had a legitimate claim of them being reconquests of Roman territory.
Yes, obviously.
That’s why I prefaced my whole comment with «Side thing,…». I’m doing an «um ackchyually» about the history of the Crusades, nothing more.
The crusades involved kicking muslims and jews out of the land. It was definitely a genocide and there is some genocide that are worse than others
The Reconquista in Spain, yes. In the Levant/Outremer? That’s just not what happened.
The transatlantic slavery trade lasted 400 years there was definitely more death caused by it than the Holocust .
For sure, for sure. 15 million humans forcibly relocated and an estimated 30-60 million deaths over 400 years is certainly among the gravest human tragedies.
On the other hand could you imagine if tragedies like the holocaust or holodomor or the Chinese three years famine were extended to even a fraction of those 400 years? Or if a handful more cities had been nuked? Or if we let the 50 million people living in modern slavery die in bondage? What about the billions of people that have died from preventable diseases over centuries of neglect?
…Why are you even bothering to argue about this? There’s no objectivity in these conversations, and yet you insist that everyone but you is wrong.