selokichtliHow did your country vote?
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.
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.
Yes, exactly. Your point being?
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 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.
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…
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
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.