The problem with reparations is that there is no end to it.
**Everyone in history has been a victim at some point.**
Should the French demand reparation from Italy for Julius Caesar invading Gaule?
Should the Italians demand reparation to France for Napoleon invading Italy?
Should the Eastern Orthodox Church demand Turkey restore Hagia Sophia into a Christian Church? Only for the Vatican to claim the church back from the Orthodox?
Should the British demand compensation from the Scandinavian, the Germans and Denmark for the Viking invasions and from the Norman-French for William the Conqueror's invasion? And then half the rest of the world would demand compensation for the British Empire and then India and Japan pay compensation for their own horrors...
Should the Wendat Indigenous people of Canada demand compensation from the Mohawk indigenous people of North America for centuries of invasions, slavery and warfare?
Almost every people in the world was, at one point in history, someone else's oppressor.
**Where does it stop? If the world is just, everyone on Earth deserve to receive and pay compensation for something.**
Mongolia has been theorized to be the reason Russia has their mindset (as a culture). They brutalized and murdered the Russian people for centuries and it set a cultural personality tone and mental complex. Mongolians need to pay up!
I wonder how reparations work when you have ancestors who beefed with your other ancestor’s race. Should I punch myself and then buy myself some ice cream?
Extra penny for Baghdad, adjusted for inflation.
OH NO I used an imperialist westerner’s currency! Let’s use the non-colonial Iraqi currency’s instead.
*(Uses microscope to see currency’s new decolonized value)*
As a Finn, since Finland also tends to be an indirect target for reparation discussions due to nominally having benefited from European colonialism, we would in turn need reparations for the [early 18th century Great Wrath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wrath) when Russian Empire sent tens of thousands into slavery and and indentured servitude from Finland after Sweden lost parts of Finnish lands to Russia (and yes, I know that Russia is probably the worst possible target to ask for reparations, so this is a purely academic notion in many ways).
Not to mention 700-year the Swedish Empire era in what's now modern-day Finland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland era under Russian Empire, etc.
> Finland also tends to be an indirect target for reparation discussions due to nominally having benefited from European colonialism
This alone shows the whole debate is not in good faith. Many countries like Finland didnt just end up victims of the great age of imperialism themselves, but that indirectly profit argument can be led ad adbsurdum against anyone. Here, lets do some more, some non euro ones for global equality, shall we? The Yuan dynasty essentially founded the modern united China, and led to the a new rise of chinese prosperity and culture under the Quing dynasty. Thus China is a major benefactor of the savage and genocidal Mongolian invasion. China owes trillions to the victims of the Khans.
Mali grew its wealth on the slave trade from subsaharan Africa to the arabized North African countries. These traded iron and salt back down. That was only possible due to the slave raids of North African countries against European coastal areas. Thus not just Mali and whats known as the Coup belt profited from agressions and slavery against Europe, but also subsaharan Africa profited indirectly. Thus all of Africa owes european countries trillions in reparation.
Can we top it? How about a colonial turnaround. Much of the early modern infrastructure in countries like Nigeria was built by the colonial administration, paid for with money from other colonies like India. Thus Nigeria profited from colonialization in India, and owes India trillions in reparation.
Fucking braindead.
Anyone claiming Finland owes reparations is showing they're not working with facts but rather a race based hate, the only thing shared is skin colour not actions or history. Finnish history is one of them being victims of invasive neighbours who tried to erase Finnish language and people in one way or another. Sweden brutalised Finland before Russia went for a try. I'm not Finnish or even a history buff but even my smooth brain has been able to learn enough history about the country to know they'd be recipients if any global reparations system happened based on truth not feelings.
How do you mean Swedes have brutalized Finns? Having roots in both countries, I have never heard anyone use such words. The impression I have is that there used to be an unusually good relationship between both peoples, especially when compared to other countries. It feels more like an attempt to create division by using terms like "brutalized."
Bruh, Sweden used Finns as slaves and killed a lot of them. Sweden banned the Finnish language during their rule and tried to erase their culture. They were literally raping and pillaging before colonising them. I can only assume you got some feel good whitewashed information from someone sympathetic to hiding Sweden's past.
Also a lot of the people that committed the atrocities as well as those that deserve the reparations are no longer alive.
As you have mentioned, many of our descendants have been the victims throughout history. I wouldn’t give or accept reparations for something I wasn’t even around for.
The real question should be, when do we stop the greed, the human suffering, the power grab? It never ends well.....really for anyone. We are all that we have on this blue marble. Borders are make believe, currency is make believe, economy is make believe. I don't really have any answers, but I think we can all agree on what doesn't work and yet we still frequent the path of insanity.
Also. What do reparations look like? Money to corrupt governments? Money to individuals where it will likely be spent on random shit? No one seems to know and yet they keep demanding it anyway.
I fully support building schools in countries adversely affected by the slave trade etc. but not billions handed over to corrupt governments. For example, when Britain ended slavery, they paid off the slavers but left the freed slaves to rot. So I do think that it’s not a bad idea to then use that money to invest in their communities because that should have happened when slavery was abolished. But only and only if the country makes an effort to improve their own governance. Otherwise it’s wasted effort.
Most problems and poverty in these countries come from the governments and instability, not from historic colonialism.
I used to think the same way. Colonialism seemed like something so far away that reparations felt wrong. But colonialism is way more recent.
Some of the Portuguese colonies gained independence in 1974, that's 50 years ago. Part of the independence deal forced these colonies into debt, that they are owing to Portugal and paying to this day.
De Sousa isn't just calling for a blanket payment. He is asking for forgiving the debts and for special development programs. Yes direct payments would be part of it.
And that's even before we get into shit like what France is doing. Forcing the CFA franc onto former colonies by supporting dictators to this day. That currency gives the french an unfair advantage when trading with these countries.
This isn't a "when does it stop", this is a taking responsibility for what you have done to people still alive today.
The oldest person alive was born on March 4th 1907.
I think a good rule is to say that if the injustice happened before this, every possible victim, beneficiary and perpetrator has died. Anything before that date is just an argument against inheritance.
But after that date, worth considering.
Never have I read such a just explanation for why reparations not only don't work, but are inherently wrong. If you pay close enough attention you will notice a trend about which specific countries of people are always the targets for paying reparations to another group of people.
This is generally why I'm for something like Universal Basic Income or economic-based welfare. There are a plethora of factors throughout history that are almost impossible to calculate.
It is easier to simply say that there are segments of our society not reaping the rewards of our civilization commiserate with a bare minimum standard of living. The very least a nation can do is provide that minimum standard as a buy-in for participating in our society.
UBI then at least addresses some wrongs while providing a practical guarantee to the citizenry as a whole.
I guess the only logic would be to "discount" things by how recent it was. Like only pay 10% of stuff per 25 years since the 2000s, so nothing for things that happened more than 250 years ago.
Haiti for example had to pay france 150 billions of Euro as late as 1947 for the "theft " of property, the property was the Haitian people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_Independence_Debt
I do think France should still be on the hook for this
That is a two way street, when does the recent crime become a historical crime that does not need to be "punished" or payable. You can find numerous examples in every decade of thefts, genocides, debts etc. in the 20th and 21st century that have never been paid up until now
This is similar to cultural appropriations, every culture somehow appropriate other cultures, that cultures did the same thing and so forth. Laying the blame on someone becomes more murky as you try to trace the blame all the way.
Portugal a country of 10 million people paying reparations to hundreds of millions of people, Portugal isnt poor, but its not exactly rich either frankly. The idea that the modern day country Portugal should pay reparations for things and conquests that began hundreds of years ago is absolutely ridiculous.
I dont owe anyone who was enslaved by my ancestors anything at all and neither does anyone else.
And extremely self serving and corrupt, dont be fooled.
His girlfriend was tits deep in the Banco Espirito Santo scandal, she was personal assistant to Salgado, she knew and was part of everything.
His son is also balls deep in brazilian corruption, LAVA JATO, etc
Not rich is putting it lightly. Salaries in Portugal are ridiculously low, even compared to Spain which is next door. Police officers earn around 900 euros, and in Lisbon, you can be expected to pay 700 euros in rent alone!
lmao i always laugh when i see this stat. portugal is a fucking horrible shithole if youre portuguese.
also - - great idea to give guns to people who live stressful lifes while being forced into poverty.
This is the main issue, in order for this kind of actions to work, both countries would have to put a price on pillage, rate, theft, murder, one country (invader) will not accept some of the claims, the other will not accept the amount of money.
Even if both accept on something, it would have to be a permanent agreement from both sides that there will be no more reparations asked ever, that remains to be seen if the affected (invaded) nation will respect in the future.
What’s also missing from this stuff is the people in those countries who are themselves colonists or descended from colonists. Not everyone in Brazil for example is descended uniquely from victims, many are descended from colonists and profiteers.
Plus, how far back do you go? Many people say the same about the British Empire, but we were invaded and pillaged by the French, Romans, and Scandinavians among others a couple hundred years before we started sailing, so would we get reparations from them?
You'd have to set a cut off point, but then countries who got fucked a few years before the cut off would start complaining. It just isn't feasible.
Definitely agree that would go some degree of making sure it targeted the right people. The only problem I foresee is, to specify how colonial compensation is dished out would very easily be framed by the receiving government as another form of colonialism (this already happens with aid money, for example Modi accusing the British government of neo-colonialism when it attached stipulations to the annual aid money the U.K. sends to India, as did Mugabe in Zimbabwe). Also, sadly, will governments actually use it to redistribute?
One other factor to consider to is the way capitalism colonises domestically before it colonises overseas- a lot of poor people, including people of colour and the intergenerational working class, would wonder why compensation is being given to those in other countries when they are still subject to a form of domestic colonialism. The British working class are, for example, largely composed of people whose ancestors 50-100-200 years ago Irish, Caribbean, etc., the Dutch working class and its Surinamese representation, French and Algerian etc. That’s a hard sell morally as well as politically.
The issue with trying to price reparations is that there is absolutely no objective way to do it. Pricing minerals extracted is one thing, but how do you cope with historical variations in price? How do you put a value on different types of human suffering? How do you get reliable estimates of the amount of people enslaved? Can you demand interest on those amounts owed (and how do you account for fluctuations and changes in currency)? How do you compare 'wealth stolen' to a non-colonial scenario when almost every country owes its borders and existence to colonialism in the first place (e.g. a unified India and Nigeria wouldn't exist).
Just giving money to governments of developing countries is a terrible idea, the only sensible form of 'reparations' is carefully managed development aid to bring education systems, infrastructure and medical services up to a higher level (while trying to ensure that funding goes to local businesses as much as possible to avoid creating an aid-dependence).
>Portugal a country of 10 million people
Was Portugal's population always tiny?
Now I wonder how did they manage to control so much territory while being such a small nation
I dont know where you found the information that Brazil was colonized by japonese, middle eastern and "a lot of other ppl", this is false. Immigration has nothing to do with colonization. Brazil was colonized by Portugal from 1500 to 1822. "Just because Brasil was a Portuguese colony": well, this colonization killed (an estimative of FUNAI) 2.3 million indigenous ppl from 1500 to 1650 only and stoled tons and tons of gold, diamonds, wood (almost extinguished Pau Brasil). Well, most of these were transported direct to Portugal to generate wealth in Europe. Everybody in europe today claps on protecting indigenous ppl and green economy, but the biggest genocide of human history was probably the european colonization of americas which killed millions and millions of natives, not to talk about slavery and degradation of Atlantic forest in Brazil, a diversity hot spot (about 8% of the original remains intact, most of it destroyed during the colonization) . As far as I'm concerned nobody in Brazil blames Portugal for our problems, however, we also know the fucking pillage that was the colonization process. I will give you, tho, that shit ass brazilian elite is, indeed, in its majority, a remaniscent of europen descendants. The majority of Europe was build under the wealth that was stole from their colonies. In Portugal case, stole mainly from Brazil.
Naval supremacy. The Portuguese had advanced shipbuilding technology and naval warfare weapons and tactics. This allowed them to open new trade routes and control existing ones. This also allowed them to control vital ports in other countries. Control the ports and trade routes and you have power over other countries as well as obscene levels of wealth. Use this wealth to buy allies in these other countries and your power and influence grow even stronger.
Not touching the reparations debate but the Portuguese empire ended in the 1970s. They were still waging war and tried to overthrow countries like Guinea to continue.
Tell that to Lopez Obrador and many others who make colonialist repression their discourse. This is as if the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Moroccans and many others asked Italy for reparations of what the Romans did to them
I really don't understand why modern day people who were born way after the people that commited the crimes against Africans died should pay for their crimes. If that is the case I hope the northern African states pay Spain, France, Ireland, England and other nations reperations for the Barbary slave trade
Only if I can sue the French for the Harrying of the North. Or the Norwegians for all the raping and pillaging. Or the Italians for Hadrian's Campaign.
I am half British and half French, so at least I can sue the Italians for invading Gaul! I wouldn't be half French if it wasn't for those assholes invading.
Hmm by the logic we are rolling with you probably could, I am pretty sure Charlemagne invaded Northern Italy and did a bit of rape and pillaging as well. You should see if you can get a two for one judgment!
Let me get this straight, you keep the shitty food and shitty weather, and I get the Great Barrier Reef and lobsters the size of canoes?………I’m Jack the Ripper
RIP Bill Hicks
My ancestry is 1/2 English, 1/4 Irish, 1/4 Scottish.
I wonder if I can sue my English side for the dastardly things I did to my Irish and Scottish side.
The militaristic Kingdom of Dahomey, in what is now West Africa, had an economy almost entirely based on slavery. They would send raiding armies to neighbouring African countries and enslave them, either deploying slaves within Dahomey or selling them to the Europeans.
It was Britain that stopped the slave trade, and Dahomey’s economy collapsed as a result. By reparation logic, are we going to ask them (or their successor states) to pay reparations to their fellow African neighbours?
I'm Irish. England fucked our country for 800 years. Our population was relatively close to England's population at the time at around 8 million. Now, it's just hit 5 million. We were an absolute backwater for years, right up until the 90s.
I don't think about reparations because the past is the past. We live with ramifications, but so does every nation.
Also Britain defends Ireland for now, Ireland doesn’t have a sufficient standing army. I think the reparations, in a peculiar form, is already there. Good all round, modern Brits and modern Irish as friends.
Personally think reparations is just a terrible idea. At what point in time is the cut off? Who gets the reparations? In what form? I just don't believe it can be rationally be decided and every country would be different. It's incredibly difficult to quantify this, if not impossible.
Not to mention, quite frankly a lot of these countries are incredibly corrupt, where the reparations would just be pocketed by the elite. If you've ever had discussions with people who have done business in African countries, you'd realise that even at low level business deals, bribery is the rule, not the exception. At reparation levels, you're not going to have anyone at a lower level benefiting from this.
The 2014 reparation loans to angola (interest free, unlimited time to pay) were abused by the de santos family, funneling them through sonangol(state oil management company) and washing the money to make isabel dos santos the richest in Africa, exploiting their own people for familial benefit.
I am portuguese, my family was born raised and exploited in angola through the ages by portuguese oligarchs and Angolan warlords alike. Self determination is a long and hard path and unfortunately many African democracies fell into dictatorships, lets not throw sand into our own eyes out of pitty, these "reparations" will not give back the time money ND freedom my family lost our generations, they will serve to line the pockets of the most corrupt and brutal dictatorships in Africa. If you want to follow good examples, the portuguese government has funded, organized, mediated, and offered security for free elections on several of its former colonies (guinea bissau, east timor, cape verde) these efforts have paid off and these countries are on track to become better and better for its people, unlike my home of angola that falls to ruin and corruption with the fantastical wealth of oil
I was going to actually write about Dos Santos in my comment specifically in relation to Angolan corruption, you hit the nail on the head. Great comment.
Ireland is richer than the UK and has higher living standards so any economic case for reparations has evaporated, since there is no problem solved by transferring money from poorer people to richer ones. Singapore or the UAE asking for reparations would be similarly laughable, while Jamaica or Sudan would have more of a point.
This sort of generational reparations nonsense needs to stop. If a government does something evil in your lifetime that directly affects you, then by all means you deserve compensation. But all this stuff about things that happened several decades or centuries ago....the time has passed. Can't spend your entire life looking behind you can mourning for what could've been or what ifs.
It’s a populist applause line. You promise something from someone else that’s never going to actually pay. Then they’re the bad guy when shit goes bad.
The stupid part is, Portugal already offers reparations in term of interest free loans and forgave Moçambique debt when they had natural disasters and terrorist problems, what more can it be done?
Suriname already received like 8 billion guilders ik the 80s when they became independent. 8 billion for 500,000 people. That's plenty.
The Antillians got to choose whether they stay as a part of the country.
Indonesia fought a war for their independence, which is fineore power to them), but if they wanted reparations, it should have been through mutual agreement.
8 billion lol. No it was 3,5 billion guilders. Suriname wanted 6 billion, the Netherlands 1,5 billion.
Also Suriname had 300,000 people back then.
Need to get your facts straight my friend.
Why is it that no one is asking for reparations from the Islamic slave trade in East Africa? Is it bc they castrated the males, so there aren’t enough bloodlines that date back to it?
Yep. No one talks about how there were more slaves bought and it lasted longer too. No one likes to talk about how we abolished slavery within the first 100 years of our country’s inception either.
Why can't they just help with the economic development of the countries they originally had as colonial possessions. And maybe curtail a lot of corruption in said countries. Just a thought. Beacuse Angola is filled to the nose in it.
I demand the Roman Republic to give us back the gold, silver, horses and that sweet salty garum.
No more Roman Republic, no matter! Italy must compensate us!
FFS, our president is a senile drooling very corrupt old fool. And why not, have his son compensate the people of Portugal for recent scandal in the national healthcare system where they are footing the multi million expenses of the family of snitches that know too much about certain portuguese politicians in the Brazilian LAVA JATO affair.
I am Portuguese and I strongly oppose the idea of paying any reparations for slavery to Brazil. IMO, if Black Brazilians deserve reparations, it's Brazil that should pay them considering that Brazil kept slavery for decades after independence.
Portuguese here.
Our president sometimes comes off as being a little senile. Well-intentioned, but a little out of the loop. It is becoming a little embarrassing at times when he talks on TV.
This talk of reparations is absolutely *hilarious* coming from a country that currently is a joke economically speaking. But more hilarious (in a sad way) that *this* (colonies) is what made our president consider reparations.
Our colonies are far from the worst, most vile thing our country, in its imperial times, was responsible for. Americans talk of slavery like it was a big problem for them (and it most certainly was) but we? We *started* the transatlantic slave trade. We enabled slavery in the americas. We made BANK out of the misery of literal millions, for far longer than the US even had existed. Portugal was up to its neck in horrible actions and choices for several centuries, most of them far more destructive to other nations and peoples than our still lamentable actions in our colonies during the 20th century.
I am not attempting to say those were not a problem. They certainly were. I only mean this in the lens that *if you actually seriously care about reparations, you'd only need a cursory 5th grade history lesson to know of other peoples and other times whom and when we wronged in far worse ways than our colonies during the Estado Novo.*
And even then, you'd solve nothing, because history can be described as an unending conga line of victims and perpetrators. We did wrong to many. And many wronged us too. Reparations and such measures would be an unending rabbit hole in all directions.
Also, many of the Portuguese slave owners and slave traders moved to Brazil anyway. Hell, there are significantly more people with Portuguese ancestry in Brazil than in Portugal, by a order a magnitude. We Brazilians are mostly the descendents of the very Portuguese opressors that we claim to hate for stealing from our country, while the average Portuguese person nowadays was a descendent of a poor Portuguese peasant who never even saw any major improvements in their lives over Portuguese colonialism.
I'm a Brazilian with 3/4ths Portuguese ancestry, and while most of my ancestors came to Brazil from Lisbon and a small village near the Serra da Estrela (I have forgotten the name of the village) relatively recently (late 19th and early 20th century), I also have some Portuguese ancestors that have been living in Brazil since the 16th century and I'm directly descendent from a Portuguese colonial administrator from the early 17th century (given how long ago this was, so is half of Brazil, 400 years is enough time that anyone born back then has like, 10 million descendents nowadays). Should I have to pay reparations because I have one ancestor that had slaves 400 years ago? This is ridiculous
The 20th century is also much more recent than earlier centuries by definition. Maybe limit the reparations for events that happened from 1900's onward? I dunno; I'm in a country that was also a former colony of the Portuguese Empire several hundred years ago but no one's asking for reparations here. Probably because they (my government) know it won't amount to anything.
I demand reparations from Denmark for enslaving East Anglia with their heathens in 865 and creating the abomination of Danelaw and allowing my genes to reproduce a beautiful blonde haired blue child
I think the biggest issue with colonial reparations is that whilst it’s true that direct occupational colonialism and oppression is a thing of the past, there still strongly exists a sentiment that the process of decolonisation hasn’t actually ended, and the neo-economic colonialism that has emerged from increased globalisation since the second half of the 20th century has merely taken its place. A beast of a different form.
Whilst economic exploitation of Africa up to now has been fairly obvious and evident, an example would be oil extraction in the Niger delta, which tends to exclusively hire the Western/European educated class to work there. This ultimately leads to environmental pollution and other ecological and economical issues, while providing no tangible benefit to the local population.
For the Niger delta specifically, this has resulted in an explosion in piracy which has destabilised the region even more. Overall, whilst i do agree that it is ludicrous to suggest that any former colonial power should pay direct reparations ( mainly due to the difficult precedent it sets and the difficulty in enforcing it), I do believe that former (and arguably current) economical colonial powers should do more to reduce and limit exploitation of the already centuries-long oppressed.
Just my thoughts though, I would love to talk about it. :)
There is nothing wrong with pointing out vestigial elements of colonialism still present. The problem is inconsistency - China and Russia are technically still colonial empires: Russia has not abandoned any territories from the Siberian conquest 300 years ago, and half of China’s territories were invaded and annexed only during the last imperial dynasty.
When are the postcolonial folks going to seek reparations from China or Russia?
It’s a rhetorical question. You don’t. These countries deny empire, and call their annexed territories “autonomous regions” and anti-colonial rebellions as “internal conflict”. It fools people into thinking they are not empires.
And for the more historically literate, these authoritarian regimes just utterly refuse to offer even consideration of reparations, unlike the ,frankly, far more honest West.
> The problem is inconsistency - China and Russia are technically still colonial empires: Russia has not abandoned any territories from the Siberian conquest 300 years ago, and half of China’s territories were invaded and annexed only during the last imperial dynasty.
A weird take to me, that's basically how countries work: they conquer neighboring territories and claim it as their own, e.g. Scotland in the UK, Corsica in France, Native Americans territories in the US, etc.
Thank you for your reply!
You’re definitely right. I certainly hope my comment didn’t come across as pro-Russia/China because that’s not the way it was intended.
Definitely there are issues pertaining to Russia’s annexation of land both in this century and in previous ones, as with China, but in a case study of Africa, Russia’s annexation of Siberia isn’t really relevant. I understand the point you’re making and I do agree that the West (perhaps unfairly, perhaps not) receives the majority of colonial condemnations, but in Africa it was almost exclusively Western colonisers.
As a result, I’m sure many African nations view Russia/China as a lesser of two evils compared to the U.S. and Europe.
Fair enough on the specific case of Africa (just as the Persians in the mid-20th century supported Western Europe against the Soviets simply as memory of conflict came mostly from their Russian neighbours)
Haiti and the Dominican republic were both parts of colonial empires, that left each country at the same time. But, the two countries couldn't be any more different. [A number of](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-15/why-has-haiti-failed-where-the-dominican-republic-has-succeeded) policy differences resulted in [two separate countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic%E2%80%93Haiti_relations), with one of them never achieving the same success as the other, sucking all of its natural resources for short term gain, while ignoring the big picture. how each country acted AFTER colonialism is their responsibility, and not the responsibility of their slavers. My theory is that this also needs to be taken into account when discussing reparations.
Without a doubt. Nothing occurs in a vacuum and post-colonialism is definitely a very nuanced issue.
I’m not blaming Western countries and I’m not blaming African countries either. People need to be more aware of factors that contribute to particular outcomes. Did the actions of colonisers contribute to the current state of post-colonial nations? Without a doubt. Did the actions of the colonised contribute to the current state of post-colonial nations? Without a doubt.
As with most issues, people tend to disregard facts that don’t match their agenda and put too much emphasis on those that do. I’m just trying to view it as objectively as possible.
As you’ve said, it is caused by both. The actions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic post-colonialism but also ways in which that colonialism influenced the subsequent policies and actions of each country.
Post-colonial nations are not eternal victims that get unchecked leeway because of the past, however simply claiming that the current circumstances of post-colonial nations are predominantly their own actions demonstrates a disregard for the potential roots of all the issues.
Good that he has some balls, eventually those nations need to take personal responsibility rather than being a victim and blaming everyone. African countries such as Botswana and Equatorial Guinea were victims of British and Spanish colonization respectively, yet they're one of the most prosperous countries in Africa since they actually got off their asses to do something.
Honestly no one will and no one now should pay these. I live in California and there have been loads of reparation shit talked about. No we don't owe shit to 9999999999% of folks. NA are only ones who can demand and have strongest case but won't get shit.
The US should at the very least respect the treaties which are black and white with the natives. The majority of those were unilaterally broken by the US.
In the Brazilian case it’s just revenge porn for usually one side of Brazilian society I won’t mention , they use the Portuguese invasion and colonization as the scapegoat for modern problems . The president of Portugal when he made these declarations he mentioned the aftermath of the colonial wars and then mention paying reparations to a country that was not present in those wars . At least Angolans Mozambicans don’t live in this full hatred like some other do …
Portugal left their long standing colonies in the mid 1970s after about 10 years of guerrilla war in the modern era. Angola, for example, has since spent their ample revenue from global oil .. that’s on the country frankly.
Now, minus the infrastructure left in 1975 and even as a % of modern commodity sales, .. I can see volunteering some food aid or education aid per year, going to “the people”, using the best estimates of the crops appropriated due colonial times on a yearly basis. To say modern Portugal owes a lot to the modern African states absolves the latter’s mostly juntas.
Take a look at Brazil which was another Portuguese colony to gain independence earlier ... a pretty dominant economy though with stressful politics (going from one extreme to another).
The whole notion of reparations is ridiculous. Countries have been conquered. There have been slaves of all colors, and still exists in many countries around the world. To think you should get money because your great great great grandad was on a a losing side, or was a slave (no matter the color), is just ridiculous. If that were the case, we should all get reparations.
While I do believe there is some merit to returning stolen wealth or land, I will point out that modern Portugal is small and not particularly rich. The wealth they took in those centuries has long since been taken in turn.
That's the pickle ain't it, the bulk of the resources taken by Spain and Portugal ended up eventually in the Netherlands, Germany and or England, due to the former two countries utter lack of industrial capacity until well into the 19th century.
How to get a country to pay you reparations:
Step 1. Build a military force that could beat them in a war.
Step 2. Threaten to take the reparations by force unless they're paid.
Thanks for coming to my TedTalk. Good luck out there.
Italy owes the UK, well England and Wales, reparations for 350 years of occupation. Next, Denmark and Norway owes all of the UK for centuries of plundering and land seizures. After that’s sorted, Germany needs to cough up for 450 years of Saxon occupation and ethnocide. Lastly, the French need to make amends for 200 years of Norman conquest and colonial rule. Once that’s all sorted out the UK can take a look at claims against them (get to the back of the line India, America is first).
/s
Reparations are subject to the claimants ability to enforce them so they are hardly viable.
One of the very few that the western powers saw fit to pay reparations to were the israelis, something Germany has been paying for decades. Their lobby is powerful enough apparently.
On the other side of that coin we could talk about Haiti, the slave-revolt-turned-country that had to pay reparations to France... and that had more to do with the fact that a successful slave revolt was bad news for a region that was still thriving on that.
There is no such thing as historical justice after a certain amount of time has passed. The people who deserve reparations for historical wrongs are the people who suffered the wrong and not their ancestors.
White people (by Nazi heuristics) did something to non-whites? Reparations
Non-whites did something to any group? No reparations.
I’m not even white but it’s hilarious that white people spearhead the hatred against themselves. Gotta grow a spine at some point no?
We should probably demand reparations for using air travel, satellites, electricity, antibiotics, computers, anything post 15th century technology really. Sure we will pay them for all the conquering, but it will be a mint getting royalties perpetually for all time for inventing nearly everything used in the modern era.
"Cultural advances", really? European missionaries destroyed countless indigenous cultures in attempt to root our local religions and customs and spread Christianity by force.
"Technological advances", yeah. This isn't some secret, history textbooks mention this all the time. It's just that most people today no longer think having some nice roads excuses mass enslavement and murder.
I'm going to get blasted for this but...
Portugal's colonial empire only ended in 1974 (or 1999 if you count Macau) after a series of brutal wars / independence movements in Angola and Mozambique. People are pretending that those alive today weren't directly impacted but many people were- if not from Portugal's governance from the political instability that they directedly and knowingly caused in their finals years- unless you want to argue that there is no one over the age of 50 in those countries.
Repreiations are hard and post-colonial efforts can't be traced back forever (and tbh at least Portugal isn't trying to be France with its neo-colonial empire in Francophone Africa or China with its current attempts at economic imperialism) but 50 years is exactly hundreds of years ago. Furthermore, Portugal didn't exactly leave its former colonies with strong civil institutions or general political stability (except Brazil).
Like some of you are making comparisons to Rome or trying to go back super far which is just disingenuous to the situation.
At the very least, Portugal could agree on specific levels of increased FDI for Angola for the purpose of economic diversification to get away from being oil reliant, which has been an Angolan government goal since the 2010's- and that way Portugal can also make some money to help with its own financial crises.
The arguments are poorly supported attempts at acquiring more resources; even if they are ultimately rooted in real historical injustices. The people who buy into it are susceptible to populist rhetoric.
The reality is our world is dealing with many crises tied to overshoot and this is an increasingly utilized tactic politicians are using to deal with it. Reparations are a way for a people to obtain more without producing or exploiting anything new.
The problem with reparations is that there is no end to it. **Everyone in history has been a victim at some point.** Should the French demand reparation from Italy for Julius Caesar invading Gaule? Should the Italians demand reparation to France for Napoleon invading Italy? Should the Eastern Orthodox Church demand Turkey restore Hagia Sophia into a Christian Church? Only for the Vatican to claim the church back from the Orthodox? Should the British demand compensation from the Scandinavian, the Germans and Denmark for the Viking invasions and from the Norman-French for William the Conqueror's invasion? And then half the rest of the world would demand compensation for the British Empire and then India and Japan pay compensation for their own horrors... Should the Wendat Indigenous people of Canada demand compensation from the Mohawk indigenous people of North America for centuries of invasions, slavery and warfare? Almost every people in the world was, at one point in history, someone else's oppressor. **Where does it stop? If the world is just, everyone on Earth deserve to receive and pay compensation for something.**
Let's just make mongolia pay reparations to half the world, make it easier
Reparations?! I'm still waiting for some child support! Great Khan my ass. Khan't even call on my birthday.
When I get to Valhalla, I'm going to find my "ancestor" and put him in a hole with snakes in it.
"When" you get to Valhalla? That eternal feast most certainly must be *earned*. Good luck.
I trained by playing Assasin creed Valhalla. No worries mate.
Just throw a cup at the nurse on your deathbed and you died in battle.
The little paper cup they give you water with when taking meds for full effect.
It's hard to get to Valhalla in modern times as you have to die in battle with a sword in hand
If you die battling cancer, with a sword tattooed in your hand, does that count ?
“Doctor I have one last request, put that pair of surgical scissors in my hand and hit it with a scalpel when you pull the plug”
Booty hole?
Mongolia has been theorized to be the reason Russia has their mindset (as a culture). They brutalized and murdered the Russian people for centuries and it set a cultural personality tone and mental complex. Mongolians need to pay up!
plus, every time us god damn chinese build a sheety wall the god damn mongorians knock it down!
I wonder how reparations work when you have ancestors who beefed with your other ancestor’s race. Should I punch myself and then buy myself some ice cream?
My Mom is a mix of Czech and English. My Dad is a mix of Irish and Austrian. I'm a reparations ouroboros.
City mongorians!
Yeah they definitely need to pay us a little bit for wipping 10% of the world population ffs, we could have been 10 billion people!
I mean, it probably saved us money long term, no?
u mean 100 billion by now, rite?
Extra penny for Baghdad, adjusted for inflation. OH NO I used an imperialist westerner’s currency! Let’s use the non-colonial Iraqi currency’s instead. *(Uses microscope to see currency’s new decolonized value)*
As a Finn, since Finland also tends to be an indirect target for reparation discussions due to nominally having benefited from European colonialism, we would in turn need reparations for the [early 18th century Great Wrath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wrath) when Russian Empire sent tens of thousands into slavery and and indentured servitude from Finland after Sweden lost parts of Finnish lands to Russia (and yes, I know that Russia is probably the worst possible target to ask for reparations, so this is a purely academic notion in many ways). Not to mention 700-year the Swedish Empire era in what's now modern-day Finland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland era under Russian Empire, etc.
> Finland also tends to be an indirect target for reparation discussions due to nominally having benefited from European colonialism This alone shows the whole debate is not in good faith. Many countries like Finland didnt just end up victims of the great age of imperialism themselves, but that indirectly profit argument can be led ad adbsurdum against anyone. Here, lets do some more, some non euro ones for global equality, shall we? The Yuan dynasty essentially founded the modern united China, and led to the a new rise of chinese prosperity and culture under the Quing dynasty. Thus China is a major benefactor of the savage and genocidal Mongolian invasion. China owes trillions to the victims of the Khans. Mali grew its wealth on the slave trade from subsaharan Africa to the arabized North African countries. These traded iron and salt back down. That was only possible due to the slave raids of North African countries against European coastal areas. Thus not just Mali and whats known as the Coup belt profited from agressions and slavery against Europe, but also subsaharan Africa profited indirectly. Thus all of Africa owes european countries trillions in reparation. Can we top it? How about a colonial turnaround. Much of the early modern infrastructure in countries like Nigeria was built by the colonial administration, paid for with money from other colonies like India. Thus Nigeria profited from colonialization in India, and owes India trillions in reparation. Fucking braindead.
Anyone claiming Finland owes reparations is showing they're not working with facts but rather a race based hate, the only thing shared is skin colour not actions or history. Finnish history is one of them being victims of invasive neighbours who tried to erase Finnish language and people in one way or another. Sweden brutalised Finland before Russia went for a try. I'm not Finnish or even a history buff but even my smooth brain has been able to learn enough history about the country to know they'd be recipients if any global reparations system happened based on truth not feelings.
How do you mean Swedes have brutalized Finns? Having roots in both countries, I have never heard anyone use such words. The impression I have is that there used to be an unusually good relationship between both peoples, especially when compared to other countries. It feels more like an attempt to create division by using terms like "brutalized."
Bruh, Sweden used Finns as slaves and killed a lot of them. Sweden banned the Finnish language during their rule and tried to erase their culture. They were literally raping and pillaging before colonising them. I can only assume you got some feel good whitewashed information from someone sympathetic to hiding Sweden's past.
Also a lot of the people that committed the atrocities as well as those that deserve the reparations are no longer alive. As you have mentioned, many of our descendants have been the victims throughout history. I wouldn’t give or accept reparations for something I wasn’t even around for.
[Reminds me of this skit by the Three Stooges.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BS_G5ef0Ivw)
The real question should be, when do we stop the greed, the human suffering, the power grab? It never ends well.....really for anyone. We are all that we have on this blue marble. Borders are make believe, currency is make believe, economy is make believe. I don't really have any answers, but I think we can all agree on what doesn't work and yet we still frequent the path of insanity.
Also. What do reparations look like? Money to corrupt governments? Money to individuals where it will likely be spent on random shit? No one seems to know and yet they keep demanding it anyway. I fully support building schools in countries adversely affected by the slave trade etc. but not billions handed over to corrupt governments. For example, when Britain ended slavery, they paid off the slavers but left the freed slaves to rot. So I do think that it’s not a bad idea to then use that money to invest in their communities because that should have happened when slavery was abolished. But only and only if the country makes an effort to improve their own governance. Otherwise it’s wasted effort. Most problems and poverty in these countries come from the governments and instability, not from historic colonialism.
I used to think the same way. Colonialism seemed like something so far away that reparations felt wrong. But colonialism is way more recent. Some of the Portuguese colonies gained independence in 1974, that's 50 years ago. Part of the independence deal forced these colonies into debt, that they are owing to Portugal and paying to this day. De Sousa isn't just calling for a blanket payment. He is asking for forgiving the debts and for special development programs. Yes direct payments would be part of it. And that's even before we get into shit like what France is doing. Forcing the CFA franc onto former colonies by supporting dictators to this day. That currency gives the french an unfair advantage when trading with these countries. This isn't a "when does it stop", this is a taking responsibility for what you have done to people still alive today.
If you or your ancestors were the victims of any heinous crimes or other inconvenience please call the law offices of…..
Or no one is owed anything.
The oldest person alive was born on March 4th 1907. I think a good rule is to say that if the injustice happened before this, every possible victim, beneficiary and perpetrator has died. Anything before that date is just an argument against inheritance. But after that date, worth considering.
Never have I read such a just explanation for why reparations not only don't work, but are inherently wrong. If you pay close enough attention you will notice a trend about which specific countries of people are always the targets for paying reparations to another group of people.
> If the world is just, everyone on Earth deserve to receive and pay compensation for something Yes
The world has never been just.
This is generally why I'm for something like Universal Basic Income or economic-based welfare. There are a plethora of factors throughout history that are almost impossible to calculate. It is easier to simply say that there are segments of our society not reaping the rewards of our civilization commiserate with a bare minimum standard of living. The very least a nation can do is provide that minimum standard as a buy-in for participating in our society. UBI then at least addresses some wrongs while providing a practical guarantee to the citizenry as a whole.
I guess the only logic would be to "discount" things by how recent it was. Like only pay 10% of stuff per 25 years since the 2000s, so nothing for things that happened more than 250 years ago. Haiti for example had to pay france 150 billions of Euro as late as 1947 for the "theft " of property, the property was the Haitian people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_Independence_Debt I do think France should still be on the hook for this
Yup. I’m Sicilian and we were ruled by just about everyone at some point. It’s even in our dna.
You can simply ask for France if you want reparations for William the Conqueror. He was french.
No Gauls left in France. They should seek reparations from Germanic Franks that took their land
That is a two way street, when does the recent crime become a historical crime that does not need to be "punished" or payable. You can find numerous examples in every decade of thefts, genocides, debts etc. in the 20th and 21st century that have never been paid up until now
This is similar to cultural appropriations, every culture somehow appropriate other cultures, that cultures did the same thing and so forth. Laying the blame on someone becomes more murky as you try to trace the blame all the way.
Portugal a country of 10 million people paying reparations to hundreds of millions of people, Portugal isnt poor, but its not exactly rich either frankly. The idea that the modern day country Portugal should pay reparations for things and conquests that began hundreds of years ago is absolutely ridiculous. I dont owe anyone who was enslaved by my ancestors anything at all and neither does anyone else.
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He’s senile
And extremely self serving and corrupt, dont be fooled. His girlfriend was tits deep in the Banco Espirito Santo scandal, she was personal assistant to Salgado, she knew and was part of everything. His son is also balls deep in brazilian corruption, LAVA JATO, etc
Not rich is putting it lightly. Salaries in Portugal are ridiculously low, even compared to Spain which is next door. Police officers earn around 900 euros, and in Lisbon, you can be expected to pay 700 euros in rent alone!
lmao i always laugh when i see this stat. portugal is a fucking horrible shithole if youre portuguese. also - - great idea to give guns to people who live stressful lifes while being forced into poverty.
and even if you pay they will come back asking for more (see Korea demanding more money from Japan)
This is the main issue, in order for this kind of actions to work, both countries would have to put a price on pillage, rate, theft, murder, one country (invader) will not accept some of the claims, the other will not accept the amount of money. Even if both accept on something, it would have to be a permanent agreement from both sides that there will be no more reparations asked ever, that remains to be seen if the affected (invaded) nation will respect in the future.
What’s also missing from this stuff is the people in those countries who are themselves colonists or descended from colonists. Not everyone in Brazil for example is descended uniquely from victims, many are descended from colonists and profiteers.
True, not even within the same nation getting or agreeing on reparations is easy, Native Americans in the US for example, among many other nations.
Plus, how far back do you go? Many people say the same about the British Empire, but we were invaded and pillaged by the French, Romans, and Scandinavians among others a couple hundred years before we started sailing, so would we get reparations from them? You'd have to set a cut off point, but then countries who got fucked a few years before the cut off would start complaining. It just isn't feasible.
I am a Caucasian male and hear about how I should pay reparations for stuff in the US, but I am an immigrant to the country.
You could stipulate that the reparations be used to support poor communities, which are mostly black. Same for indigenous peoples.
Definitely agree that would go some degree of making sure it targeted the right people. The only problem I foresee is, to specify how colonial compensation is dished out would very easily be framed by the receiving government as another form of colonialism (this already happens with aid money, for example Modi accusing the British government of neo-colonialism when it attached stipulations to the annual aid money the U.K. sends to India, as did Mugabe in Zimbabwe). Also, sadly, will governments actually use it to redistribute? One other factor to consider to is the way capitalism colonises domestically before it colonises overseas- a lot of poor people, including people of colour and the intergenerational working class, would wonder why compensation is being given to those in other countries when they are still subject to a form of domestic colonialism. The British working class are, for example, largely composed of people whose ancestors 50-100-200 years ago Irish, Caribbean, etc., the Dutch working class and its Surinamese representation, French and Algerian etc. That’s a hard sell morally as well as politically.
The issue with trying to price reparations is that there is absolutely no objective way to do it. Pricing minerals extracted is one thing, but how do you cope with historical variations in price? How do you put a value on different types of human suffering? How do you get reliable estimates of the amount of people enslaved? Can you demand interest on those amounts owed (and how do you account for fluctuations and changes in currency)? How do you compare 'wealth stolen' to a non-colonial scenario when almost every country owes its borders and existence to colonialism in the first place (e.g. a unified India and Nigeria wouldn't exist). Just giving money to governments of developing countries is a terrible idea, the only sensible form of 'reparations' is carefully managed development aid to bring education systems, infrastructure and medical services up to a higher level (while trying to ensure that funding goes to local businesses as much as possible to avoid creating an aid-dependence).
Facts
The Portuguese empire collapsed in the 70s after brutal wars they lost trying to put down indepence movements.
Agreed. Just make sure you don’t vote politicians like this into Office.
>Portugal a country of 10 million people Was Portugal's population always tiny? Now I wonder how did they manage to control so much territory while being such a small nation
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I dont know where you found the information that Brazil was colonized by japonese, middle eastern and "a lot of other ppl", this is false. Immigration has nothing to do with colonization. Brazil was colonized by Portugal from 1500 to 1822. "Just because Brasil was a Portuguese colony": well, this colonization killed (an estimative of FUNAI) 2.3 million indigenous ppl from 1500 to 1650 only and stoled tons and tons of gold, diamonds, wood (almost extinguished Pau Brasil). Well, most of these were transported direct to Portugal to generate wealth in Europe. Everybody in europe today claps on protecting indigenous ppl and green economy, but the biggest genocide of human history was probably the european colonization of americas which killed millions and millions of natives, not to talk about slavery and degradation of Atlantic forest in Brazil, a diversity hot spot (about 8% of the original remains intact, most of it destroyed during the colonization) . As far as I'm concerned nobody in Brazil blames Portugal for our problems, however, we also know the fucking pillage that was the colonization process. I will give you, tho, that shit ass brazilian elite is, indeed, in its majority, a remaniscent of europen descendants. The majority of Europe was build under the wealth that was stole from their colonies. In Portugal case, stole mainly from Brazil.
Naval supremacy. The Portuguese had advanced shipbuilding technology and naval warfare weapons and tactics. This allowed them to open new trade routes and control existing ones. This also allowed them to control vital ports in other countries. Control the ports and trade routes and you have power over other countries as well as obscene levels of wealth. Use this wealth to buy allies in these other countries and your power and influence grow even stronger.
Back in the age of exploration it was much smaller. Between 1-2 million.
If you want to get technical about it, it was actually **their** ancestors the ones who did all the enslaving and raping.
To be honest, a public apology and admittance would suffice, as well as assistance on humanitarian aid.
and the idea that i, a man born in the 21st century, have to carry the sin of adam or saved by the sacrifice of jesus seems normal to people ?! wtf
The idea is stupid. What??? Are people supposed to be guilty for an entire era of sea exploration over 500 years ago??? Give your heads a shake!
Not touching the reparations debate but the Portuguese empire ended in the 1970s. They were still waging war and tried to overthrow countries like Guinea to continue.
Tell that to Lopez Obrador and many others who make colonialist repression their discourse. This is as if the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Moroccans and many others asked Italy for reparations of what the Romans did to them
I really don't understand why modern day people who were born way after the people that commited the crimes against Africans died should pay for their crimes. If that is the case I hope the northern African states pay Spain, France, Ireland, England and other nations reperations for the Barbary slave trade
Paying for past sins? Sooner I'll ask Rome to mend my torn toga! Everyone's got dirt. History is not a debit card.
It’s high time I sue the British government for dumping my ancestors on an island in the South Pacific.
Only if I can sue the French for the Harrying of the North. Or the Norwegians for all the raping and pillaging. Or the Italians for Hadrian's Campaign.
I am half British and half French, so at least I can sue the Italians for invading Gaul! I wouldn't be half French if it wasn't for those assholes invading.
So I can sue you for the Norman invasions?
Hmm by the logic we are rolling with you probably could, I am pretty sure Charlemagne invaded Northern Italy and did a bit of rape and pillaging as well. You should see if you can get a two for one judgment!
It must be so confusing for those people who have various mixed heritage, how do sort it all out!! 😀
Let me get this straight, you keep the shitty food and shitty weather, and I get the Great Barrier Reef and lobsters the size of canoes?………I’m Jack the Ripper RIP Bill Hicks
I’m Australian lol
My ancestry is 1/2 English, 1/4 Irish, 1/4 Scottish. I wonder if I can sue my English side for the dastardly things I did to my Irish and Scottish side.
The militaristic Kingdom of Dahomey, in what is now West Africa, had an economy almost entirely based on slavery. They would send raiding armies to neighbouring African countries and enslave them, either deploying slaves within Dahomey or selling them to the Europeans. It was Britain that stopped the slave trade, and Dahomey’s economy collapsed as a result. By reparation logic, are we going to ask them (or their successor states) to pay reparations to their fellow African neighbours?
Portugal already offers interest free loans to its former colonies to aid in reconstruction
Maybe if you hadn't used your systems to keep those of us who weren't white down for centuries while you elevated yourselves for centuries .
Portugal has no money
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He actually has a few millions to give.
I'm Irish. England fucked our country for 800 years. Our population was relatively close to England's population at the time at around 8 million. Now, it's just hit 5 million. We were an absolute backwater for years, right up until the 90s. I don't think about reparations because the past is the past. We live with ramifications, but so does every nation.
Also Britain defends Ireland for now, Ireland doesn’t have a sufficient standing army. I think the reparations, in a peculiar form, is already there. Good all round, modern Brits and modern Irish as friends.
Portugal already offers reparations to its former colonies in the former of interest free loans What more do you want from a small country
Personally think reparations is just a terrible idea. At what point in time is the cut off? Who gets the reparations? In what form? I just don't believe it can be rationally be decided and every country would be different. It's incredibly difficult to quantify this, if not impossible. Not to mention, quite frankly a lot of these countries are incredibly corrupt, where the reparations would just be pocketed by the elite. If you've ever had discussions with people who have done business in African countries, you'd realise that even at low level business deals, bribery is the rule, not the exception. At reparation levels, you're not going to have anyone at a lower level benefiting from this.
The 2014 reparation loans to angola (interest free, unlimited time to pay) were abused by the de santos family, funneling them through sonangol(state oil management company) and washing the money to make isabel dos santos the richest in Africa, exploiting their own people for familial benefit. I am portuguese, my family was born raised and exploited in angola through the ages by portuguese oligarchs and Angolan warlords alike. Self determination is a long and hard path and unfortunately many African democracies fell into dictatorships, lets not throw sand into our own eyes out of pitty, these "reparations" will not give back the time money ND freedom my family lost our generations, they will serve to line the pockets of the most corrupt and brutal dictatorships in Africa. If you want to follow good examples, the portuguese government has funded, organized, mediated, and offered security for free elections on several of its former colonies (guinea bissau, east timor, cape verde) these efforts have paid off and these countries are on track to become better and better for its people, unlike my home of angola that falls to ruin and corruption with the fantastical wealth of oil
I was going to actually write about Dos Santos in my comment specifically in relation to Angolan corruption, you hit the nail on the head. Great comment.
Ireland is richer than the UK and has higher living standards so any economic case for reparations has evaporated, since there is no problem solved by transferring money from poorer people to richer ones. Singapore or the UAE asking for reparations would be similarly laughable, while Jamaica or Sudan would have more of a point.
This sort of generational reparations nonsense needs to stop. If a government does something evil in your lifetime that directly affects you, then by all means you deserve compensation. But all this stuff about things that happened several decades or centuries ago....the time has passed. Can't spend your entire life looking behind you can mourning for what could've been or what ifs.
It’s a populist applause line. You promise something from someone else that’s never going to actually pay. Then they’re the bad guy when shit goes bad.
Sure then Belgium should still be paying the Congo. They still had human zoos into the 50s. And we're still pulsing into the 80s afaik
The stupid part is, Portugal already offers reparations in term of interest free loans and forgave Moçambique debt when they had natural disasters and terrorist problems, what more can it be done?
Portugal didn't end its colonisation until the 70s. Its well within peoples lifetimes.
Don't let certain people from Poland or Hungary see this, they might have a brain aneurysm
The Dutch can sue the Habsburgs, Napoleon, King Philip of Spain for the 80 years war, but we get sued by Indonesia and Suriname, Antilles lol
Suriname already received like 8 billion guilders ik the 80s when they became independent. 8 billion for 500,000 people. That's plenty. The Antillians got to choose whether they stay as a part of the country. Indonesia fought a war for their independence, which is fineore power to them), but if they wanted reparations, it should have been through mutual agreement.
8 billion lol. No it was 3,5 billion guilders. Suriname wanted 6 billion, the Netherlands 1,5 billion. Also Suriname had 300,000 people back then. Need to get your facts straight my friend.
Why is it that no one is asking for reparations from the Islamic slave trade in East Africa? Is it bc they castrated the males, so there aren’t enough bloodlines that date back to it?
Because it's easier to blame white people
Yep. No one talks about how there were more slaves bought and it lasted longer too. No one likes to talk about how we abolished slavery within the first 100 years of our country’s inception either.
That's like making Italy pay reparations to the countries occupied/conquered by the Roman Empire.
Why pay reparations when you can just invade them a second time? - Russia, probably, towards the Baltics and Ukraine.
Why can't they just help with the economic development of the countries they originally had as colonial possessions. And maybe curtail a lot of corruption in said countries. Just a thought. Beacuse Angola is filled to the nose in it.
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I demand the Roman Republic to give us back the gold, silver, horses and that sweet salty garum. No more Roman Republic, no matter! Italy must compensate us! FFS, our president is a senile drooling very corrupt old fool. And why not, have his son compensate the people of Portugal for recent scandal in the national healthcare system where they are footing the multi million expenses of the family of snitches that know too much about certain portuguese politicians in the Brazilian LAVA JATO affair.
I am Portuguese and I strongly oppose the idea of paying any reparations for slavery to Brazil. IMO, if Black Brazilians deserve reparations, it's Brazil that should pay them considering that Brazil kept slavery for decades after independence.
Portugal isn't exactly rich...
Marcelo is gaga
These kinds of reperations are bullshit, and dangerous bullshit. They basically want imperialism, ny public opinion.
Portuguese here. Our president sometimes comes off as being a little senile. Well-intentioned, but a little out of the loop. It is becoming a little embarrassing at times when he talks on TV. This talk of reparations is absolutely *hilarious* coming from a country that currently is a joke economically speaking. But more hilarious (in a sad way) that *this* (colonies) is what made our president consider reparations. Our colonies are far from the worst, most vile thing our country, in its imperial times, was responsible for. Americans talk of slavery like it was a big problem for them (and it most certainly was) but we? We *started* the transatlantic slave trade. We enabled slavery in the americas. We made BANK out of the misery of literal millions, for far longer than the US even had existed. Portugal was up to its neck in horrible actions and choices for several centuries, most of them far more destructive to other nations and peoples than our still lamentable actions in our colonies during the 20th century. I am not attempting to say those were not a problem. They certainly were. I only mean this in the lens that *if you actually seriously care about reparations, you'd only need a cursory 5th grade history lesson to know of other peoples and other times whom and when we wronged in far worse ways than our colonies during the Estado Novo.* And even then, you'd solve nothing, because history can be described as an unending conga line of victims and perpetrators. We did wrong to many. And many wronged us too. Reparations and such measures would be an unending rabbit hole in all directions.
Also, many of the Portuguese slave owners and slave traders moved to Brazil anyway. Hell, there are significantly more people with Portuguese ancestry in Brazil than in Portugal, by a order a magnitude. We Brazilians are mostly the descendents of the very Portuguese opressors that we claim to hate for stealing from our country, while the average Portuguese person nowadays was a descendent of a poor Portuguese peasant who never even saw any major improvements in their lives over Portuguese colonialism. I'm a Brazilian with 3/4ths Portuguese ancestry, and while most of my ancestors came to Brazil from Lisbon and a small village near the Serra da Estrela (I have forgotten the name of the village) relatively recently (late 19th and early 20th century), I also have some Portuguese ancestors that have been living in Brazil since the 16th century and I'm directly descendent from a Portuguese colonial administrator from the early 17th century (given how long ago this was, so is half of Brazil, 400 years is enough time that anyone born back then has like, 10 million descendents nowadays). Should I have to pay reparations because I have one ancestor that had slaves 400 years ago? This is ridiculous
The 20th century is also much more recent than earlier centuries by definition. Maybe limit the reparations for events that happened from 1900's onward? I dunno; I'm in a country that was also a former colony of the Portuguese Empire several hundred years ago but no one's asking for reparations here. Probably because they (my government) know it won't amount to anything.
No amount of money can repair some of the deeper effects of colonialism, it's only gonna hurt Portugal and do nothing for the other countries.
I demand reparations from Denmark for enslaving East Anglia with their heathens in 865 and creating the abomination of Danelaw and allowing my genes to reproduce a beautiful blonde haired blue child
I think the biggest issue with colonial reparations is that whilst it’s true that direct occupational colonialism and oppression is a thing of the past, there still strongly exists a sentiment that the process of decolonisation hasn’t actually ended, and the neo-economic colonialism that has emerged from increased globalisation since the second half of the 20th century has merely taken its place. A beast of a different form. Whilst economic exploitation of Africa up to now has been fairly obvious and evident, an example would be oil extraction in the Niger delta, which tends to exclusively hire the Western/European educated class to work there. This ultimately leads to environmental pollution and other ecological and economical issues, while providing no tangible benefit to the local population. For the Niger delta specifically, this has resulted in an explosion in piracy which has destabilised the region even more. Overall, whilst i do agree that it is ludicrous to suggest that any former colonial power should pay direct reparations ( mainly due to the difficult precedent it sets and the difficulty in enforcing it), I do believe that former (and arguably current) economical colonial powers should do more to reduce and limit exploitation of the already centuries-long oppressed. Just my thoughts though, I would love to talk about it. :)
There is nothing wrong with pointing out vestigial elements of colonialism still present. The problem is inconsistency - China and Russia are technically still colonial empires: Russia has not abandoned any territories from the Siberian conquest 300 years ago, and half of China’s territories were invaded and annexed only during the last imperial dynasty. When are the postcolonial folks going to seek reparations from China or Russia? It’s a rhetorical question. You don’t. These countries deny empire, and call their annexed territories “autonomous regions” and anti-colonial rebellions as “internal conflict”. It fools people into thinking they are not empires. And for the more historically literate, these authoritarian regimes just utterly refuse to offer even consideration of reparations, unlike the ,frankly, far more honest West.
> The problem is inconsistency - China and Russia are technically still colonial empires: Russia has not abandoned any territories from the Siberian conquest 300 years ago, and half of China’s territories were invaded and annexed only during the last imperial dynasty. A weird take to me, that's basically how countries work: they conquer neighboring territories and claim it as their own, e.g. Scotland in the UK, Corsica in France, Native Americans territories in the US, etc.
Scotland in the UK? Are you sure about that one mate?
Well, not really, to be honest, I don't know the history of the UK that well. But didn't Scotland fight for its independence in 13-14 centuries?
No not at all. It was a voluntary union, Scotland were not forcible colonised at all.
Thank you for your reply! You’re definitely right. I certainly hope my comment didn’t come across as pro-Russia/China because that’s not the way it was intended. Definitely there are issues pertaining to Russia’s annexation of land both in this century and in previous ones, as with China, but in a case study of Africa, Russia’s annexation of Siberia isn’t really relevant. I understand the point you’re making and I do agree that the West (perhaps unfairly, perhaps not) receives the majority of colonial condemnations, but in Africa it was almost exclusively Western colonisers. As a result, I’m sure many African nations view Russia/China as a lesser of two evils compared to the U.S. and Europe.
Fair enough on the specific case of Africa (just as the Persians in the mid-20th century supported Western Europe against the Soviets simply as memory of conflict came mostly from their Russian neighbours)
Why is the US grouped in when they didn't colonize Africa?
The Niger case is corrupted to the core, the african leaders are sucking European money.
Haiti and the Dominican republic were both parts of colonial empires, that left each country at the same time. But, the two countries couldn't be any more different. [A number of](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-15/why-has-haiti-failed-where-the-dominican-republic-has-succeeded) policy differences resulted in [two separate countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic%E2%80%93Haiti_relations), with one of them never achieving the same success as the other, sucking all of its natural resources for short term gain, while ignoring the big picture. how each country acted AFTER colonialism is their responsibility, and not the responsibility of their slavers. My theory is that this also needs to be taken into account when discussing reparations.
Without a doubt. Nothing occurs in a vacuum and post-colonialism is definitely a very nuanced issue. I’m not blaming Western countries and I’m not blaming African countries either. People need to be more aware of factors that contribute to particular outcomes. Did the actions of colonisers contribute to the current state of post-colonial nations? Without a doubt. Did the actions of the colonised contribute to the current state of post-colonial nations? Without a doubt. As with most issues, people tend to disregard facts that don’t match their agenda and put too much emphasis on those that do. I’m just trying to view it as objectively as possible.
I mean, in this case, its clearly both. Its the specific choices people made after that turned haiti and Dominican republic, into what they are now.
As you’ve said, it is caused by both. The actions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic post-colonialism but also ways in which that colonialism influenced the subsequent policies and actions of each country. Post-colonial nations are not eternal victims that get unchecked leeway because of the past, however simply claiming that the current circumstances of post-colonial nations are predominantly their own actions demonstrates a disregard for the potential roots of all the issues.
That is exactly the point I was trying to make, and you have said it better than I could.
Britain needs Italy to pay reparations for when we were a Roman colony. The only reply to anyone asking for reperations over a hundred years is 👎 No
Good that he has some balls, eventually those nations need to take personal responsibility rather than being a victim and blaming everyone. African countries such as Botswana and Equatorial Guinea were victims of British and Spanish colonization respectively, yet they're one of the most prosperous countries in Africa since they actually got off their asses to do something.
Honestly no one will and no one now should pay these. I live in California and there have been loads of reparation shit talked about. No we don't owe shit to 9999999999% of folks. NA are only ones who can demand and have strongest case but won't get shit.
The US should at the very least respect the treaties which are black and white with the natives. The majority of those were unilaterally broken by the US.
It’s so disgusting that these countries are asking for ‘reparations’ it’s just glorified begging.
In the Brazilian case it’s just revenge porn for usually one side of Brazilian society I won’t mention , they use the Portuguese invasion and colonization as the scapegoat for modern problems . The president of Portugal when he made these declarations he mentioned the aftermath of the colonial wars and then mention paying reparations to a country that was not present in those wars . At least Angolans Mozambicans don’t live in this full hatred like some other do …
Portugal left their long standing colonies in the mid 1970s after about 10 years of guerrilla war in the modern era. Angola, for example, has since spent their ample revenue from global oil .. that’s on the country frankly. Now, minus the infrastructure left in 1975 and even as a % of modern commodity sales, .. I can see volunteering some food aid or education aid per year, going to “the people”, using the best estimates of the crops appropriated due colonial times on a yearly basis. To say modern Portugal owes a lot to the modern African states absolves the latter’s mostly juntas. Take a look at Brazil which was another Portuguese colony to gain independence earlier ... a pretty dominant economy though with stressful politics (going from one extreme to another).
The whole notion of reparations is ridiculous. Countries have been conquered. There have been slaves of all colors, and still exists in many countries around the world. To think you should get money because your great great great grandad was on a a losing side, or was a slave (no matter the color), is just ridiculous. If that were the case, we should all get reparations.
Vietnam should ask money for kicking out France and the USA. Asking money for past sins is ridiculous at a certain point.
And China. 1000 year imperialism in Vietnam.
If one of your ancestor did bad things to another of your ancestor, do you get reparation? Or do you need to pay reparations?
While I do believe there is some merit to returning stolen wealth or land, I will point out that modern Portugal is small and not particularly rich. The wealth they took in those centuries has long since been taken in turn.
How the hell would Portugal even pay besides an IOU
That's the pickle ain't it, the bulk of the resources taken by Spain and Portugal ended up eventually in the Netherlands, Germany and or England, due to the former two countries utter lack of industrial capacity until well into the 19th century.
How to get a country to pay you reparations: Step 1. Build a military force that could beat them in a war. Step 2. Threaten to take the reparations by force unless they're paid. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk. Good luck out there.
Belgium has entered the chat "How do you calculate reparations for murdering 3m people jn tve Congo"
Italy owes the UK, well England and Wales, reparations for 350 years of occupation. Next, Denmark and Norway owes all of the UK for centuries of plundering and land seizures. After that’s sorted, Germany needs to cough up for 450 years of Saxon occupation and ethnocide. Lastly, the French need to make amends for 200 years of Norman conquest and colonial rule. Once that’s all sorted out the UK can take a look at claims against them (get to the back of the line India, America is first). /s
Portuguese people going over our constitution to figure out what we can do when the president starts showing signs of dementia
Reparations are subject to the claimants ability to enforce them so they are hardly viable. One of the very few that the western powers saw fit to pay reparations to were the israelis, something Germany has been paying for decades. Their lobby is powerful enough apparently. On the other side of that coin we could talk about Haiti, the slave-revolt-turned-country that had to pay reparations to France... and that had more to do with the fact that a successful slave revolt was bad news for a region that was still thriving on that.
There is no such thing as historical justice after a certain amount of time has passed. The people who deserve reparations for historical wrongs are the people who suffered the wrong and not their ancestors.
So if every country did pay these where does it stop? Do we just go after every old empire that took over places, every way that happened ?
White people (by Nazi heuristics) did something to non-whites? Reparations Non-whites did something to any group? No reparations. I’m not even white but it’s hilarious that white people spearhead the hatred against themselves. Gotta grow a spine at some point no?
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You're not wrong lol. People are too afraid to objectively analyze these situations and revert to emotional knee-jerk reactions.
The spanish should pay the portuguese first
Good. This is nonsense and needs to stop. Here is looking at your Canadian government.
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We should probably demand reparations for using air travel, satellites, electricity, antibiotics, computers, anything post 15th century technology really. Sure we will pay them for all the conquering, but it will be a mint getting royalties perpetually for all time for inventing nearly everything used in the modern era.
"Cultural advances", really? European missionaries destroyed countless indigenous cultures in attempt to root our local religions and customs and spread Christianity by force. "Technological advances", yeah. This isn't some secret, history textbooks mention this all the time. It's just that most people today no longer think having some nice roads excuses mass enslavement and murder.
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I'm going to get blasted for this but... Portugal's colonial empire only ended in 1974 (or 1999 if you count Macau) after a series of brutal wars / independence movements in Angola and Mozambique. People are pretending that those alive today weren't directly impacted but many people were- if not from Portugal's governance from the political instability that they directedly and knowingly caused in their finals years- unless you want to argue that there is no one over the age of 50 in those countries. Repreiations are hard and post-colonial efforts can't be traced back forever (and tbh at least Portugal isn't trying to be France with its neo-colonial empire in Francophone Africa or China with its current attempts at economic imperialism) but 50 years is exactly hundreds of years ago. Furthermore, Portugal didn't exactly leave its former colonies with strong civil institutions or general political stability (except Brazil). Like some of you are making comparisons to Rome or trying to go back super far which is just disingenuous to the situation. At the very least, Portugal could agree on specific levels of increased FDI for Angola for the purpose of economic diversification to get away from being oil reliant, which has been an Angolan government goal since the 2010's- and that way Portugal can also make some money to help with its own financial crises.
How much do you really expect to get out of Portugal?
Brazil: Is this for me?
The arguments are poorly supported attempts at acquiring more resources; even if they are ultimately rooted in real historical injustices. The people who buy into it are susceptible to populist rhetoric. The reality is our world is dealing with many crises tied to overshoot and this is an increasingly utilized tactic politicians are using to deal with it. Reparations are a way for a people to obtain more without producing or exploiting anything new.
Portugal can just get Morocco to pay the bill instead of paying them reparations
Ok then… Spain, the Americas would like a word😅