The United Nations General Assembly, that playground for dictators, terrorists and supporters of terrorists, on March 25 passed a resolution condemning the Transatlantic slave trade by a 123-3 vote with 52 spineless nations abstaining including Great Britain, France and Portugal, all of whom imported millions of slaves to their Caribbean and South American colonies. Three nations voted no including the U.S., Israel, and Argentina. The resolution declared the “transatlantic” slave trade was the “gravest crime” ever committed against humanity. The resolution contained the usual demands for “reparatory justice” for “Africans and people of African descent” due to its “scale, duration, systemic nature, and brutality.”

In recent years the subject of reparations that in some way would mitigate the impact of slavery on African Americans has arisen in various “blue” cities including Evanston, Ill., New York City, Detroit, Providence, R.I., and Boston, and in several blue states including New York, California, Illinois and Maryland.

Proponents of reparations argue that the federal government has a moral obligation to repair what are seen as the persistent, intergenerational economic and social damage caused by slavery and Jim Crow. Opponents, such as the CATO Institute, argue that it is unjust to hold current taxpayers responsible for actions committed by past generations, and that determining who is eligible to receive a payment is practically impossible.

My view is that the U.N. resolution is just another attempt to embarrass the U.S. and con us out of a few billion American dollars. All of this ignores the fact no Americans living today had anything to do with slavery.

While the transatlantic slave trade was a grave crime it is not the only time and place where slavery existed. Slavery has existed in one form or another for over 11,000 years. The Sumerian kingdoms of ancient Mesopotamia are among the oldest slave societies, with the Code of Hammurabi containing some of the first written laws regulating slavery. Ancient Egypt enslaved war captives using them as state labor in mines and quarries.

Ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy, was considered the first true slave society where slaves made up 25 to 40 percent of the population. Later Rome would be just as dependent on Slaves who made up 30 to 40 percent of the population. It is also a well-established fact that slavery existed in pre-Columbian America where the Aztecs and Mayans practiced slavery using war captives for labor or ritual sacrifice. Even North American native American tribes enslaved war captives.

The East African slave trade, also known as the Indian Ocean Slave Trade, centered on a slave trading city state located on the island of Zanzibar off the east coast of Arica. This trade went on for around 1300 years from the 7th until the late 19th century, far longer than the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

While there is no way of knowing for sure how many Africans lost their freedom at the hands of Omani sultans, the late South African historian and anti- apartheid activist Ronald Segal estimated that anywhere from 10 million to 20 million Africans became slaves on the Swahili Coast now modern-day Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique and the Horn of Africa now modern day Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea. This slave trade lasted until 1873 when the British forced its end.

The Ottoman Empire from approximately 1500 to 1700 made slaves of the 2 million Greeks, Serbs, Hungarians and Russians they captured in Europe. Beyond this tragedy there were the approximately 1.5 million Italians, Spain and Greece sold into slavery by Islamic raiders from North Africa.

Untold numbers of Asian peoples were enslaved by Chinese emperors for ages in a nation where slavery was not abolished until 1910. Today we should remember that in China more than 1 million Uyghurs who are predominantly Sunni Muslims are being held in forced labor camps where they undergo “reeducation” and forced sterilization. The United States, Canada, the UK, and the EU, officially recognizes China’s actions in Xinjiang as genocide and crimes against humanity.

In the Transatlantic Slave Trade, some 12.5 million Africans embarked for the Americas out of which nearly 2 million died on the voyage, a major tragedy in itself. Around 388,000 landed in the British North American colonies/USA. Approximately 3.4 million went to the British and French Caribbean islands and approximately 5.5 million went to Brazil. Today more than 50% of Brazilians are descendents from slaves.

Remember all of the above when you wonder why only the U.S. of all former slave nations has been the target of reparations. Remember it when a politician like Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) delivers a speech on the Senate floor to the effect that the U.S. did not “inherit slavery from anybody” but “created it.” Remember it when you hear that the New York Times “1619 Project” perpetuates fictions like the United States being the most extraordinary and evil slave owning society in history or that the primary reason we declared our independence in 1776 was to protect slavery.

The purpose of this history lesson was not to mitigate U.S. guilt its involvement in the inhumanity of the Transatlantic Slave Trade but to place it in perspective as one part of a problem that humanity has been dealing with ever since the dawn of human civilization. Our nation played a role in slavery, but we share that guilt with many other nations and societies.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com