France has cancelled all of Haiti's debts

[malaise]

reparations now- that's another matter.

[annabanana]

1. Jubilee?

The whole concept should be re-institutionalized

[malthaussen]

2. Well, look at the bright side.

They aren't requiring reparations from Haiti for all the damages suffered in the rebellion.

I do think we have to be realistic about this, and anyway if you go back far enough, probably all of us are descended from slaves of one kind or another. So where do we draw the line at reparations, at what point in time do we say, "Sorry, chum, your injustice doesn't matter, only ours does?" At least, at the present momement, we're saying "nobody's injustice matters," which is unsatisfactory but at least it covers everybody. And again the realism thing -- once the white folks start paying reparations to brown people, where does it end? What will happen to the economy? The rich folks may lose their chateaux!

Far better to mouth a platitude which is not exactly an apology (apologies may lead to actionable results!), and pretend that salves conscience, rather than simply say "Yeah, it sucked to be you, didn't it?" You know, kind of like the "pardon" of Turing a few months back. All better now, yes?

-- Mal

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. "The rich folks may lose their chateaux!"

No, they just won't have 8 of them.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12685.html

[BrotherIvan]

3. Perhaps it will take a few more generations for reparations

I think it's in the zeitgeist. I know that sounds strange, but it is possible.

[brush]

4. Oh, now after nearly two centuries of gouging Haiti for having the nerve to rebel and defeat them

Guess the French finally realized you can't get blood from a turnip.

[malaise]

5. They should pay the costs of war

after all they lost.

[brush]

8. You mean France, right?

Haiti over more than a century of payments has paid untold millions to France, and has been ostracized with lack of trade and other normal relations by most other countries of the world at the behest of France — which, along with all the monies over many decades unjustly paid to their overthrown colonizer, has much to do with Haiti's poor economic condition.

Set the reparations issue aside — IMO there should be a court to rule that overthrown colonizers repay unjustly gained payments that they coerced for being defeated at war by their former colonists.

[malaise]

10. Of course

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Hey Pat!!! Looks like all that voodoo stuff paid off!!!

[malaise]

11. ROFL

He should know - he has his own version of mumbo jumbo.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. An article

http://www.ibtimes.com/francois-hollande-evokes-frances-debt-haiti-stops-short-reparations-1915791


It's about dang time!

[malaise]

12. Thanks

I heard it on local radio

[marble falls]

13. World Bank, take note and follow.

[freshwest]

14. About time! An unexpected angle I stumbled upon today, looking for something else:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/10/catholic-church-doctrine-of-discovery_n_5793840.html

I'm surprised they hadn't learned this earlier, since it was in my high school text books in the sixties. I found it arrogant beyond belief and just as disgusting then as I do now.

How much different the melding of the cultures could have been, and so much death, pain and poverty, along with environmenal havoc could have been averted.

I have read that how we treat water and nature... in the most profound sense, is really a reflection of how we see other human beings first. Too many see all life around them as something to be used and then discarded.

I often wondered growing up, what the world would be like without this. Perhaps my thinking is fantasy. South America and other continents made empires, all regions have had them, more or less.