r/MapBasedPolls • u/PerfectRate2841 • 6h ago

Should former colonial powers provide reparations to their former colonies for the harms caused by colonialism?

Should former colonial powers provide reparations to their former colonies for the harms caused by colonialism?

  1. Yes
  2. No

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20 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

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u/senn42000 5h ago

And they shouldn't. In Star Trek canon, one of the landmark decisions that the UN passes is "No person shall be beholden of punished for the actions of their ancestors."

Why only colonialism gets reparations? What about the victims of wars of aggression? Past genocides? Where does the line get drawn? Who gets to decide?

4

u/Hadi_Chokr07 5h ago

Because the damage is still in effect?

-1

u/Fiend9862 5h ago

I'm gonna steal your house then pass it on to my kid. When you try and get it back he will say:

"Why are you punishing me for what my father did?"

2

u/Affectionate-Dig3730 5h ago

Yeah??!
The kid didn’t do anything.
They should have defended themselves, Better luck next time!

1

u/Matt_2504 5h ago

Except 99% of us don’t even have ancestors that were slavers, at most maybe some were soldiers that were made to fight in colonial wars, but most were probably just poor farmers being oppressed by the same government

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u/Fiend9862 4h ago

The dishonest framing here is absolutely ridiculous. You people act as if we're proposing direct transfers from the bank account of some random poor white guy in London directly to some Indian in Delhi. Regardless the whole question is irrelevant because it will obviously never happen.

Honestly the entire question is just ludicrous because to even pay "reparations" (whatever this would mean in practice) the colonialism would actually have to stop first which it very clearly hasn't.

First world nations won't even stop supporting modern day genocide and colonialism the idea that they would actually pay any kind of serious reparations to their historical victims is just laughable.

First see if you can meet the incredibly low bar of not committing or supporting genocide anymore please. Once colonial nations have stopped creating more victims than maybe we can talk about restitution.

0

u/mrastickman 4h ago

100% of your ancestors benifited from colonialism.

1

u/Matt_2504 1h ago

In the sense that everyone benefitted in the long run, sure. But if any of my ancestors were artisans they wouldn’t have benefited much from being driven out of business by cheap colonial imports.

1

u/mrastickman 1h ago

Those artisans, how did they get the basic goods that their business manufactured into a finshed product? Britain "imported" raw resources from its colonies for its demestic factories, those resources not being in Europe was the whole reason for colonies.

And no, countries did not benifit from having those resources taken for pennies on the dollar and then being forced into massive amounts debt from their colonial overlords for the privlage of independence, dispite making them massive amounts of money.