{"id":96592,"date":"2025-10-01T11:16:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T11:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=96592"},"modified":"2025-10-01T11:16:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T11:16:17","slug":"mahamas-reparation-talk-at-un-out-of-place-dr-asah-asante","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=96592","title":{"rendered":"Mahama\u2019s reparation talk at UN out of place \u2013 Dr Asah-Asante"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Head of the Centre for European Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr Kwame Asah-Asante, has criticised President John Mahama\u2019s call for reparations during his recent address at the United Nations General Assembly, describing it as misplaced.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the AM Show on JoyNews, Dr Asah-Asante acknowledged that many people have praised the former president\u2019s UN speech as bold and visionary. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an apt description of a speech from a leader who is visionary, who fears nobody, and a leader worth his salt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no problem with that, and I concede to a large extent that yes, the speech had what it takes to be presented at that forum.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he said he disagreed with the part of the address that focused on reparations for slavery. \u201cThe president touched on the issue of reparations, and that is where I have a difficulty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Drawing on history, Dr Asah-Asante said Africa\u2019s role in the transatlantic slave trade cannot be ignored. \u201cIf you look at the history of the slave trade, it was not committed by one person. In every market, there is the demand and there is the supply. Who were those who supplied the slaves? Our people here, chiefs, opinion leaders, and all that. We sold our people into slavery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that exercise, if there is a problem, it cannot be borne by only one person. It takes two to tango. We sold our people, people bought them, and then used them for whatever purpose they wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat argument for me has been discussed and discarded, and I was not looking forward to hearing my president recounting that because it can never be sustained anywhere,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

According to him, while the slave trade was \u201cdistasteful\u201d and its methods \u201cinhuman,\u201d Africans must also admit their complicity. \u201cWith all due respect to Mr President, I disagree that Africans qualify for any reparations because we were part and parcel of the slavery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr Asah-Asante recalled his own visits to slavery heritage sites abroad and recognised the pain associated with that history, quoting the late historian Professor Adu Boahen, who once described slavery as \u201can unmitigated misery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I believe that Africans were part and parcel of it even before the transatlantic trade, we also had domestic slavery. What about that?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Mahama'sThe Head of the Centre for European Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr Kwame Asah-Asante, has criticised President John Mahama\u2019s call for reparations during his recent address at the United Nations General Assembly, describing it as misplaced.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3143,1951,111,1883,117,10,9,3715,9641],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-asah-asante","category-hp-news-1","category-mahama","category-national","category-news","category-politics","category-popular","category-reparations","category-unga-speech"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}