We’re living in a time where it’s easier than ever to play the victim — and harder than ever to tell the truth.
There is a growing movement across Africa — led by presidents, intellectuals, and activists — demanding reparations from the West for slavery and colonialism. The language is moral, the rhetoric powerful, the cause presented as just. But underneath it all lies a narrative that is, at best, selective, and at worst, deceptive.
This narrative suggests that Black Africans were only victims — while White Europeans were only perpetrators. That Africa's suffering was solely the result of foreign interference, and that justice now means cashing in on historical guilt.
But here’s the problem: history doesn’t work that way.
The Atlantic slave trade was horrific, unjust, and undeniably exploitative. But let’s stop pretending Africans were innocent bystanders.
African kings, chiefs, and merchants captured and sold millions of their own continental neighbors.
Many became wealthy and powerful through the trade — gaining guns, goods, and political leverage in the process.
This was not a few bad actors — it was entire kingdoms and empires, like the Ashanti and Dahomey, that built their strength on human trafficking.
Should we forget that part of the story?
History is not a morality play. It's a tangled web of self-interest, brutality, ambition, and survival. Africans were not uniquely virtuous, just as Europeans were not uniquely evil.
Today’s reparations movement has less to do with genuine justice and more to do with modern political optics.
It is:
A distraction from domestic failure.
A tool to deflect blame for underdevelopment.
A moral smokescreen used by corrupt elites to claim the moral high ground.
Ask yourself:
Where would the money actually go?
To the villages still waiting for clean water, or to the Swiss bank accounts of politicians?
To schools, or to another unfinished highway lined with billboards of smiling presidents?
This isn’t about fixing the past. It’s about profiting in the present — and doing it without reform, without honesty, and without accountability.
There is a deeply dangerous mentality at play here — one that says:
“We are owed. We are blameless. We suffer because of others.”
This is not empowerment. It is intellectual poverty dressed up as pride.
Real dignity doesn’t come from pointing fingers across centuries. It comes from:
Taking responsibility for your present.
Telling the truth about your past.
Fixing your own house before blaming the neighbors.
The reparations movement, as it stands today, is built on half-truths and emotional theater. It demands from others what many African governments won’t demand of themselves: integrity, accountability, and reform.
One of the most revealing things about this conversation is what it leaves out:
The Arab slave trade, which enslaved millions of Africans over 1,300 years — castrating men, exploiting women, and wiping out generations. No AU speeches about reparations for that.
The enslavement of Europeans by North African pirates (the Barbary Coast). Forgotten.
The fact that Slavs — white Eastern Europeans — were so synonymous with slavery that the very word “slave” comes from them.
So why are reparations being demanded only from Western nations?
Because they have money, guilt, and political vulnerabilities. This is not historical justice — it’s selective outrage with a price tag.
It’s time to stop pretending that one group holds a monopoly on suffering or wickedness.
African tribes sold other Africans.
Europeans colonized and exploited.
Arabs enslaved millions across the continent.
Western powers and local elites alike have looted Africa in the modern era.
In every case, the strong took advantage of the weak. That is the grim truth of history. The question is — what do we do with it now?
What Africa needs is not another decade of angry speeches and closed-door meetings. It needs:
Governance reform.
Honest education.
Self-reliance.
Leadership that serves the people, not exploits their pain.
Reparations might have a place in the global conversation — but only if they are rooted in truth, transparency, and shared responsibility. Not in mythmaking, political opportunism, or eternal victimhood.
Because a people who define themselves only by what was done to them — and not by what they can do for themselves — will never be free.
Let’s talk about the real issues. No filters. No theatre. Just truth.
For those interested in how memory and fiction intersect, explore other reflections on this site.