YOUTH POET TO UN: ‘PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MORALS ARE!’

On 25 March, the UN held its annual International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which, according to the body’s website, provides an ‘opportunity to honour and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the slavery system,’ as well as ‘raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.’

Among the speakers this year was former United States Youth Poet Laureate, Salome Agbaroji (@salomeagbaroji on Instagram). Her powerful, eight-minute speech emphasised ‘the peculiarity of [the] strange and bitter crimes’ of Europeans when they approached foreign peoples and declared ownership over them. She argued that restitution for the ills of slavery is a matter of restoring dignity; not of the enslaved, but of the enslavers. Further, she added that true remorse is not shown through words but concrete action. Yet, the silence of former slaving nations remains deafening.

The UK, for example, declares that slavery is a dark stain on the nation’s history - yet refuses to pay reparations as redress for the centuries of progress attained at the expense of the Africans it enslaved and colonised (this, despite the fact that the UK compensated slave owners for the supposed loss of their 'human property').

Moreover, to add insult to injury, some ex-slaving nations are determined to cling on to stolen African artefacts. Experts estimate that over 80% of plundered African artefacts remain in European museums. The British Museum, in particular, holds over 70,000. Meanwhile, Belgium’s Royal Museum has nearly 200,000, with another 75,000 in Germany’s Ethnological Museum and almost 70,000 in France’s Quai Branly Museum.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBLdwp5l99o

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/12/750549303/across-europe-museums-rethink-what-to-do-with-their-african-art-collections

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/15/africa-art-museum-europe-restitution-debate-book-colonialism-artifacts/

https://amp.dw.com/en/africas-lost-heritage-and-europes-restitution-policies/a-59763966