The United Nations, as an organization, is well past its best-by date. This is an organization that is a red-carpet club for petty dictators; it is an organization that wags a finger at the developed world over climate change while giving Iran a seat on women's rights councils. Perhaps in the immediate post-World War II world, the UN had some purpose, but now?
The UN has, frankly, been coming apart for years now. The only time that international body smiles at the United States is when they want us to pay for something. It's past time the United States abandoned this moribund international convention of scolds, and honestly, it's time the United Kingdom got out too. They already had Brexit, which was candidly the smart move; now maybe they should have an UNexit, before the UN lays any more stupid demands on the country that was once America, Original Recipe.
Case in point: Now a UN committee is insisting that the UK put up statues as partial reparations for that country's role in the 18th century slave trade.
UN experts have told Britain to build statues of African people to atone for the slave trade.
It is one of a series of measures proposed by lawyers, who have written a report for the organisation setting out what former slave-trading nations should do. The advice follows a vote in March, in which UN member states voted to demand reparations.
The legal experts said the UK should create public monuments that “honour the contributions of people of African descent”.
What possible good would this do, other than make a few lawyers and a UN committee feel as though they have accomplished something, aside from wasting the UK taxpayers' money?
This “reparatory justice” guidance was created by the UN’s Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The committee insisted that Britain and other former slave-trading nations had a moral and legal “obligation to repair” the damage of slavery.
To help atone for slavery, former colonial powers have been told “public spaces should honour the contributions of people of African descent”, which could include installing artworks and statues.
UN experts have supported the demand with reference to a report on the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, which targeted statues of people linked to slavery. They included one of Edward Colston, who was a slave trader, which was toppled in Bristol.
Here's the thing: Yes, the slave trade was an awful thing. It still is an awful thing, as, yes, it's still going on in Africa right now, today. But as far as the involvement of Britain or the United States? As far as anyone from Britain or the United States was involved? All those people are dead now.
Yes, dead. There is not one person alive today who engaged in the African slave trade to the British Isles or the New World. There is not one person alive today who was taken into slavery and taken to the British Isles or the New World. All those people are dead now. The United Nations is demanding action to appease scolds, nothing more.
Here's the onion.
While touching on the need for financial compensation, the recommendations – largely devised by CERD panellists, Gay McDougall, a US lawyer, and Pela Boker-Wilson, a Liberian legal expert – said reparations were not just about transferring funds, but also reshaping society.
There it is. "While touching on the need for financial compensation." From whom? To whom? Remember, all those people are dead now. Would a recent immigrant to Britain from Nigeria be entitled to payment? Would a recent immigrant to Britain from Norway be required to pay?
There's no end to the stupidity with the proposal for "financial compensation," but the notion of statues may be even dumber. This doesn't even rise to the level of rational appeasement; it's just stupid. It is, to quote a famous Englishman, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Here's a better idea: Put up statues of English clergyman John Newton. The author of the hymn Amazing Grace, Newton was involved personally in the African slave trade as a crewman aboard what sailors of the time (mid-18th century) called a blackbirder, or a slave ship. Described by one ship captain as the most profane man he'd ever met, in a time and culture in which foul language was a given. But Newton, after a religious conversion, became a staunch abolitionist and, in time, a key figure in ending the slave trade to Britain, and abolishing the practice in that country. His hymn, Amazing Grace, recognized his conversion, which led to his abolitionist stance.
Now that's a man people concerned about the history of the slave trade should remember.
In fact, Britain had a large role in ending the Atlantic slave trade. It's likely that no nation did more than Britain to end this horrible practice. That, not handouts to grifters, not meaningless statues, should be the lesson of the United Kingdom's involvement of this dark episode in history.
