Governments occasionally apologise for injustices committed in the (distant) past, but matters are rarely settled to everyone's satisfaction. People want more!

By Martin Harlaar
After apologies for injustices committed in the (distant) past, the word ‘reparations’ almost inevitably emerges. In our era permeated by woke thinking, many go along with the idea that reparations are a good idea; after all, the world consisted of, and still consists of, so woke ideology teaches, oppressors and the oppressed, and those oppressors of the past have something to make up for.

Since those oppressors of the past are no longer alive, their descendants must pay the descendants of the oppressed. As a leftist, an atheist-humanist, I have no use for this reasoning. I do not believe in original sin, not even when non-believers preach it.

I have been thinking a bit about the concept of ‘reparations’, just a bit, because I have more and better things to do, such as worrying about the ever-increasing antisemitism among woke leftists. Below are just a few random thoughts.

Reparations are often mentioned in the same breath as the transatlantic slave trade, which took place from the 16th to the 19th century. Strangely enough, we rarely or never hear that term in relation to the Arab slave trade, which flourished in the period from 650 to 1900.

We hear little about the Arab slave trade anyway, and that is a pity. The revelation of the Quran reportedly took place between 610 and 632. Slavery is written about in the Quran, and not as something that is forbidden.

And it is good that we realise that what Allah and His Prophet have permitted cannot be forbidden, and what Allah and His Prophet have forbidden cannot be permitted. Slavery is not forbidden and is therefore permitted (for all eternity).

Just ask the returning Islamic State fighters.

Slavery is a dehumanising phenomenon that has existed throughout history and in many places around the world. It becomes quite difficult to determine whose ancestors profited from other ancestors.

Now, slavery is not the only injustice that has taken place in history, but for the sake of convenience, I will limit myself to that for now.

The major problem is that reliable sources do not exist for all instances of slavery that can be used for the Great Reckoning. We must start with an essential question: when should we begin our research?

In the first half of the 16th century, when the transatlantic slave trade began? Or in the 7th century, when the Arab slave trade began? In the 2nd century BC, when slavery began in China during the Shang dynasty? In the 7th century BC, when the Egyptian slave trade began? Or in the 8th century BC, when the Roman slave trade began?

(This is far from a complete list.)

And how do we find out, so many hundreds, so many thousands of years later, who the perpetrators were and who the victims were? And what the perpetrators earned from slavery and what the damage to the victims was?

In addition, who are the descendants of the perpetrators, and who are the descendants of the victims? And what if the descendants are related to both the perpetrators and the victims; must those descendants then pay money to themselves?

I suspect that if we could go back in time far enough, we would all turn out to have ties to both oppressors and the oppressed, whether it concerns slavery or another form of injustice.

The practical objections to a Great Reckoning are insurmountable, but even if we had access to all the necessary data from the beginning of humanity and a supercomputer that could calculate everything, what would be the result of the Great Reckoning?

A just world in which everyone is satisfied and will henceforth live in peace with their fellow men? I fear not. After all, people remain people. The Roman Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184) wrote it more than two thousand years ago: Homo homini lupus, man is a wolf to man.

What drives the call for reparations, in my conviction, are ideology, resentment, and greed.

Dutch historian Martin Harlaar works with the Humanist Association to get to the heart of important social themes. He is the author of various books: 'The Tamed Man': ' Where (do you think) our morality comes from?' (2021), 'Am I woke enough?' The gender experiment was published in January 2024.