It's Time for Recognition, Truth, and Reparations

When I was growing up, in school we spent a lot of time in history class learning about the horrors of racism in the US, and in particular slavery.  This was understandable as it is a huge part of American history, and also considering that the school district was majority black.

But it is interesting to note that even though we covered the Middle Passage and Harriet Tubman and Uncle Tom's Cabin year after year, we never once learned in class which culture actually started the African slave trade.  Nor did we learn that even today, there are hundreds of thousands of black Africans still enslaved by members of that same certain culture.  These are things I had to seek out on my own.  Hmmm....

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There has actually been a lot of accounting for some of the atrocities that have transpired in the world in recent centuries.  Germany has admirably led the way by taking full responsibility for the Holocaust and the Nazi regime, by compensating the victims and zealously stamping out any symbols of that era.  The Western European colonial powers have largely recognized the injustices of their colonial empires.  America is aware of its shameful past of slavery, racism, and theft from Native Americans, and there is even discussion of financial reparations.  America has apologized and compensated victims of the WW2 era Japanese internment.  Japan has officially apologized for its use of foreign 'comfort women' in that same era.

Even when apologies, recognition, and reparations have not yet happened, there has often been a widespread movement to keep memories of the atrocities alive.  For instance people still fight for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the Holodomor Famine, and the Rape of Nanking.

Now let's take a minute to realize the crucial point that there is, just to take one case from the list above, absolutely nothing anti-German or "racist against Germans" or "Germanophobic" in seeking to have Germany take responsibility for the crimes of the Nazi era.  Keep this in mind.

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There is a litany of horrors perpetrated in recent centuries by one particular group that is almost completely unknown in the West, even among educated and informed people.  That group is Arabs.  The horrors include:

1) Starting the African slave trade

2) Continuing the African slave trade long after Western counties abolished it

3) STILL, in 2014, enslaving hundreds of thousands of black Africans in countries such as Sudan and Mauretania

4) Ethnically cleansing at least 750,000 Jews from Arab countries after 1948

5) The Barbary Corsairs' kidnapping and enslaving millions of Europeans and others from the 1600s until the Barbary Wars

6) Launching a war in 1948 with the stated genocidal intent to "drive the Jews into the sea."

7) Carrying out a cultural and now possibly physical genocide of the ancient Assyrian people

8) The recent near complete elimination of the ancient Mandean people

9) Collaborating with and supporting the axis powers during WW2

(It should be mentioned that the later was not nearly universal in the Arab world, but for reference neither was German support for the Nazi regime, and yet Germany took responsibility as a whole.)

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So, here we have an undeniable litany of horrors perpetrated by Muslim Arabs, any one of which would be widely acknowledged if it was perpetrated by a Western country.  And yet from the Arab world we have heard no hint of responsibility, no hint even of recognition.

In fact the Arab world has gone to great lengths of obfuscate and deny these events.  In the recent UN Conference on Racism (known as Durban III) the Arab and Muslim countries sponsored a resolution condemning the "Trans-Atlantic" slave trade, the text of which completely omitted the Arab and Muslim role in it and other slave systems of the time.

It is high time that the Arab world be held to account for these horrible injustices and crimes against humanity, just as Germany has been held to account for the Nazis, the Western powers have been held to account for Colonialism, Japan has been held to account for some WW2 atrocities, and so on.

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The Arab world is uniquely positioned to recognize and pay reparations for these atrocities.

- The coffers of the Gulf oil monarchies are overflowing with cash which could be used for monetary reparations for victims of the African slave trade, and the Assyrian and Mandean genocides.

- Given that European colonialism lasted for around 25 to 50 years in the Middle East (longer in Algeria, obviously), the Arab world should consider it a good deal if they and Europe could call it even when both the Barbaray slave trade and European colonialism are considered.

And finally

- Most of the Jewish victims of Arab ethnic cleansing ended up in Israel, so acceptable reparations for the ethnic cleansing of Jews and the launching of the 1948 war of genocidal intent could be 1) immediate recognition of Israel and 2) the dropping of all claims to compensation or any territory West of the Jordan River.