UN Resolution: Slavery Reparations from the West, but Not Muslim Countries, By Peter West

The recent UN General Assembly resolution (adopted March 25, 2026, with 123 votes in favour, 3 against — including the US, Israel, and Argentina — and 52 abstentions, including the UK and much of the EU) declares the transatlantic slave trade and the "racialised chattel enslavement of Africans" as the "gravest crime against humanity." Spearheaded by Ghana and backed by the African Union, it urges member states to engage in "reparatory justice" discussions: formal apologies, restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, and contributions to funds or programs addressing "historical wrongs," racism, and systemic discrimination. Though non-binding, it carries symbolic and political weight, framing the transatlantic trade (roughly 12-15 million Africans transported over ~400 years) as uniquely monstrous and demanding redress primarily from Western nations historically involved in it.

From a Christian perspective that values historical truth, moral consistency, and individual responsibility over identity-based grievance politics, this resolution highlights a glaring UN double standard on slavery and reparations.

Selective Outrage and the Muslim/Arab Slave Trade

Slavery was a near-universal human institution for millennia — practiced by virtually every civilisation, including ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Africans, Native Americans, and Asians. The UN resolution singles out the transatlantic trade for special condemnation while ignoring or downplaying far longer-running systems, particularly the Arab/Muslim slave trade.

Estimates for the Arab/Islamic slave trade (via trans-Saharan, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean routes) suggest 9-18 million Africans enslaved over 1,300+ years (from the 7th-8th centuries into the 20th). This dwarfed the transatlantic trade in duration and, in some scholarly views, overall volume when including castrated males (eunuchs, with high mortality) and sex slaves. Conditions were often brutal: high death rates during desert marches, widespread castration of men to serve as eunuchs (reducing descendants), and women/girls funnelled into concubinage. Arab traders and African kingdoms supplied captives long before and after Europeans arrived; the trade persisted into the 1900s and was only curtailed by European colonial powers.

The resolution makes no equivalent call for apologies or reparations from Muslim-majority nations, Arab states, or Ottoman successors — despite the trade's scale and the Quranic acceptance of slavery (with rules for treatment but no blanket prohibition until modern reforms). This selectivity suggests the exercise is less about universal justice than geopolitical pressure on the West, using slavery as a cudgel against former colonial powers while shielding other perpetrators. True moral reckoning would address all historical slave trades with equal scrutiny.

White Slavery and the Etymology of "Slave"

The word "slave" itself derives from "Slav," reflecting the medieval trade in Eastern European peoples (Slavs, and broader "Saqaliba") sold by Vikings, Tatars, and others into Muslim markets in the Middle East and North Africa. Millions of white Europeans were enslaved over centuries.

The Barbary slave trade (North African corsairs, 16th-19th centuries) alone captured an estimated 1-1.25 million white Europeans — from coastal raids on Italy, Spain, France, England, Ireland, Iceland, and beyond. Entire villages (e.g., Baltimore, Ireland in 1631) were depopulated; captives faced galley labor, domestic service, or worse. This was not marginal: it terrorised Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts until European naval power (including American and British actions) suppressed it in the early 1800s.

Other examples abound: Roman slavery drew heavily from European conquests; Ottoman devshirme system took Christian boys from the Balkans; Crimean Tatars raided for Slavic slaves. These realities undermine narratives framing slavery as a uniquely "white-on-Black" sin. Europeans were both perpetrators and victims. African kingdoms routinely enslaved rivals and sold captives to Europeans and Arabs alike. Focusing reparations solely on transatlantic victims erases this broader human story of predation across ethnic lines.

Britain's Role: Ending, Not Just Profiting From, the Trade

A key conservative argument against reparations: Britain (and the West more broadly) did not merely participate — they led the moral and military effort to abolish the trade globally.

After banning the slave trade in 1807 (and slavery in its empire in 1833), Britain deployed the West Africa Squadron (Royal Navy). Over decades, it intercepted ~1,600 slave ships and freed ~150,000 Africans — at the cost of British sailors' lives and significant expense. Britain used diplomacy and naval power to pressure other nations (Portugal, Spain, Brazil, etc.) to end their involvement. This was pioneering: the first sustained international humanitarian naval campaign against a lucrative practice that many societies (including African suppliers and Arab buyers) defended at the time.

Descendants of those freed by British efforts, or of Africans who never crossed the Atlantic, receive no "credit" in reparations logic. Modern Western economies built on post-abolition innovation, industry, and institutions — not perpetual extraction from slavery. Most Americans today descend from post-1865 immigrants with no direct tie to U.S. slavery. Taxing current citizens (including recent arrivals, the poor, and descendants of abolitionists) for ancestral sins violates principles of individual guilt and justice. Reparations risk creating new grievances, administrative nightmares (who qualifies? how much?), and division rather than reconciliation.

Christian theology reinforces this: All humans bear the image of God (Genesis 1:27), making slavery an affront to that dignity — yet sin infects every people and era (Romans 3:23). Redemption comes through personal repentance and Christ's atoning work, not state-mandated wealth transfers across generations. Scripture calls for justice, mercy, and truth (Micah 6:8), not selective historical score-settling that ignores one's own group's complicity. The Bible records slavery in Israel and the ancient world but points toward liberation and equality in Christ (Galatians 3:28), without endorsing perpetual victimhood.

Broader Double Standard and Implications

The UN's focus fits a pattern: Western self-flagellation on colonialism/slavery while excusing or minimising parallel evils elsewhere (e.g., ongoing slavery/trafficking in parts of Africa and the Middle East today, or historical conquests by non-Western empires). Multiculturalism, when enforced selectively, becomes a tool to delegitimise Western heritage while demanding resources from it. This erodes national sovereignty, fosters resentment, and distracts from present-day solutions: rule of law, education, family stability, and economic freedom — factors that have lifted billions, including descendants of slaves, out of poverty far more effectively than reparations ever could.

The resolution's push for "reparatory justice" revives debates that often ignore trade-offs. Britain's abolitionist legacy, the universality of slavery, and the Arab trade's scale provide strong grounds for scepticism. Genuine healing requires honest history for all sides — not a one-way narrative that paints the West as uniquely villainous. For Christians, the answer lies in proclaiming truth, pursuing reconciliation through the Gospel, and rejecting policies that pit groups against each other under the guise of justice.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/03/u-n-passes-resolution-demanding-countries-linked-slavery/