Thursday 28 March 2019

In an unprecedented position taken by a leading European World political institution, the European parliament in Brussels votes for Europe to pay reparations to Africans for crimes committed by Europe during 400 years of its conquest and subjugation of African peoples

(European parliament ... in session)

Connor Boyd, “European parliament passes watershed resolution calling for reparations for crimes against Africans during European colonialism”, Daily Mail, London, Thursday 28 March 2019:

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT has overwhelmingly backed a watershed resolution calling for reparations for crimes committed in Africa during European colonialism.

The bill urges European member states to introduce a series of sweeping reforms aimed at tackling “structural racism” facing millions of Afro-Europeans.

It calls on the countries to implement nation-wide strategies to deal with discrimination in education, health, housing, policing, the justice system and politics.

THE RESOLUTION – approved by 535 MEPs [members of European parliament], with 80 votes against and 44 abstentions – also calls on European member states to declassify their colonial archives, covering the most disturbing periods of Europe’s colonial past, and issue public apologies. +3

It urges the EU to adopt “a workforce diversity and inclusion strategy” to address the underrepresentation of [national] minority officials.

As it stands, the EU does not share data on race, [nation-origin] or religion because it’s considered contrary to equality, The Guardian reports. 

The text is not legally-binding, but it was hailed as a watershed moment campaign groups for specifically focusing on the discrimination faced on the continent by an estimated 15 million people.

Histories of injustices against Africans and people of African Descent – including enslavement, forced labour, racial apartheid, massacre, and genocides in the context of European colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade – remain largely unrecognised and unaccounted for at an institutional level in EU member states”, the text states.  

The resolution was drawn up by British Labour MEP Claude Moraes and was inspired by the racist behaviour experienced by Italian socialist MEP Cecile Kyenge, who served as Italy’s first [African] government minister. 

Pressure is now on the European commission to fund the schemes in the EU’s next seven-year budget.  

Amel Yacef, the chair of the European Network Against Racism, told The Guardian the vote was “a historic, watershed moment for the recognition of people of African descent in Europe”.

SHE added: “The European parliament is leading the way and sending a signal to EU member states to tackle structural racism that prevents [African] people from being included in European society. The ball is now in their court: we need concrete action plans and specific measures now”.


Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

4 comments:

  1. This is real historic! It is good, very heartening, that Britain is still in the EU as this resolution, prepared by a British MEP, is passed.So, the genocide against Igbo/Biafrans cannot be denied accountability. Such local genocidists as Fulani, will know the game is up. Osuagwu

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  2. This is why we as Intellectual Freedom Fighters are diligently, humanely, consultatively, diplomatically, legally, politically, socially, and Spiritually fighting and agitating for the RESTORATION OF BIAFRA, OTHER AGITATING GROUPS IN NIGERIA, AFRICANS, AND BLACKS ALL OVER THE WORLD. The EU's position on reparation is GOD DRIVEN. WE MUST NOT RELENT; WHILE PLACING CHUKWU OKIKE ABIAMA IN THE FORE FRONT.

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  3. Chai! Great day for Africa! Our Freedom fighting forebears will smile in their graves. Kudos, Olaudah Equiano, Aime Cesar, Toussaint L'Ouverture, W.E.B Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Franz Fanon and finally, kudos to Oba and his compatriots of the Igbo Landing Saga who chose death over slavery

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  4. Hold your applause, although there is an old adage that the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. However, will a Leopard lose its spots? Will the house of Essau ever have any love for the house of Jacob?

    Are this "watershed reparations" talk an acknowledgment of guilt by the Europeans? When are they addressing the world with this guilt, starting with the 1884/85 Berlin Conference regrets?
    Reparations to which African countries? Through the present African thieves and thugs as leaders? The African leaders who empty the treasuries to the same European banks? The African leaders who are collaborators to these Europeans? The reparations that will be of no substance to an average African?
    Hold your applause and envision the next planned scam by these Europeans against Africa.

    Here is what I think the Europeans should do; assuming they truly feel remorseful of their wickedness:
    1) Publicly acknowledge their wickedness towards Africa, followed with a formal apology.
    2) Revoke the 1884/5 Berling Conference and commence implementation strategies for its reversal. Such as, freeing the many nations bundled together for their economic pleasures only.
    3) Removing their "monkey hands" in African soups.
    4) And so on
    A Briton coming out with this idea? Wow!

    Shaking my head in disbelief!

    Maazi Oshionwu Uma

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