On Reparations: A Conversation with Kwesi Pratt Jr.

By Kwesi Pratt Jr., Robin Jaspert (Posted Jul 20, 2026)

On March 25, 2026, Ghanaian president John Dramani Mahama introduced a resolution to the United Nations General Assembly. This resolution declared that the transatlantic slave trade—in which, at the lowest estimate, 12.6 million people were abducted from the African continent—was the single gravest crime against humanity in history. The resolution was backed by the African Union and CARICOM (an intergovernmental body of Caribbean states), and yielded a landslide victory, with 123 votes in favour.

The only states opposing the resolution were the United States, Israel, and Argentina. European Union members voted abstain. The main perpetrators of the crimes thus do not recognize them as such. Nonetheless, Kwesi Pratt Jr sees the resolution is seen as a step forward in a much longer struggle of resistance against slavery, colonialism, and neo-colonialism, and for reparative justice. As secretary general of the Socialist Movement Ghana, Pratt strongly contributed to popularizing reparation demands, having written a well-received book, Reparations: History, Struggle, Politics and Law, with a foreword by Mahama himself. In this conversation, held in Accra, Pratt explains what the struggle for reparative justice looks like and why it is key for the socialist movement in Africa and globally. 

Robin Jaspert: What are the lasting effects of the transatlantic slave trade?

Kwesi Pratt Jr.: The transatlantic slave trade has affected us very deeply and still affects us. The lowest estimate I’ve seen is that 12.6 million Africans were extracted and turned into slaves, beasts of burden to work the fields in the Americas, in Europe. To generate the surpluses, we became the foundation for the building of what is today Western Europe, capitalist Europe. And for each one of the 12.6 million people who were extracted, three people were killed. There were wars of resistance. Those who were taken into slavery were the strongest; the slave traders did not want weak and sick people. They took the youth. They took our architects, they took our engineers, they took our doctors. This deeply affected the development of African sciences.

I’d like to give you just one example. There were discussions on vaccines as a technology during Covid-19. It turned out that the science of vaccination was actually developed in West Africa. We’ve lost it. We’ve lost it completely. To the extent that now we are dependent on Western capitalist states for the supply of vaccines, when the science actually belonged to us.

Slavery itself was based on an assumption of superiority as opposed to inferiority. If you take the Papal Bull of 1452, which gave authority to King Afonso of Portugal to come into our world and civilize us, there’s a huge assumption of African inferiority. Also, you cannot capture people and use them as beasts of burden if you think that they are equal. This assumption of our inferiority is a problem. And today, we suffer from racism, racist abuse, racist exploitation, and so on. All of that has its roots in the transatlantic slave trade, in classical colonialism, and finds expression in today’s neocolonialism. I think that colonialism was a natural progression from slavery.

RJ: Because slavery laid the foundations of the inferiorization of Black people…

KP: Which laid the foundations for colonialism. And if you want to understand what colonialism did to us, you just need to look at the railway system anywhere in Africa. In Ghana, all the railway lines start from the areas of concentrated wealth, where we have gold, bauxite, diamonds, timber, and so on. And they all end up in the ports. This system of extraction did not encourage value addition in our own countries, but merely value extraction.

RJ: Is there a high sense awareness of these connections today in Ghana?

KP: There may not be very high awareness, because these systems of domination and exploitation carried with them another system which was meant to make us ignorant and foolish: the educational system we continue to run to this day. In school, we were made to write essays on the positive and negative impacts of the slave trade, of colonialism. This is complete brainwashing.

So-called educated people who are in charge of running affairs in this country have themselves gone through this brainwashing for years. In my days as a child, all of us had to go to Sunday school. What was Sunday school? Sunday school was a system of Christian indoctrination. And if you didn’t go to Sunday school, Monday morning you were given twelve to twenty-four lashes of the cane. The Sunday schools reinforced the idea that African culture was inferior—that if you did not accept Jesus Christ as the way to heaven, you were doomed forever. So, it is not strange that some of our people do not understand the gruesome impact of transatlantic slave trade and colonialism.

RJ: Despite this, John Mahama introduced a UN resolution on the transatlantic slave trade on March 25, labeling it history’s gravest crime against humanity. What preceded this UN resolution?

KW: The resolution is one more chapter which is being opened. We always resisted domination, oppression, and exploitation. There were wars against the slave traders. On the slave ship, there’s evidence of revolts. On the plantations, there’s evidence of revolts. Haiti, which became the first independent Black republic, established by Toussaint Louverture, was born from resistance. The struggle against classical colonialism was another manifestation of that resistance. We resisted throughout the ages.

RJ: And regarding the demand for reparations, what preceded this resolution?

KW: The demand for reparations is very old. It had been on the shoulders of the Caribbean states much longer. The African Union only recently, last year, put its weight behind the struggle for reparations. We cannot forget that some countries, especially the United Kingdom, decided to pay reparations long ago: but they paid reparation to the slave owners, not the slaves. The United Kingdom continued to pay reparations to the descendants of slave owners way up until 2015. Reparations is not a new phenomenon. It’s not a new demand. We are also very familiar with reparations which were paid to victims of the Holocaust. We are also familiar with reparations which were paid to the people of Namibia who were exterminated.

What is significant today is that the peoples of Africa and the peoples of the Caribbean, without dissension, as well as all fifty-five states in the African Union and all CARICOM member states, voted for this resolution. That’s a new high. The passage of this resolution shows that we can unite around common themes, around common demands, and have broad international solidarity for our struggles. To have 123 countries vote for this resolution to me is most significant for our struggle.

But this resolution really is neither the beginning nor the end of everything. First of all, we have to recognize that General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding. It’s a gesture. It’s a tottering step. What we do from here is what will be decisive. One problem is the structure of the United Nations itself. And this resolution here tells an important story. You have 1.4 billion Africans in the world, a very significant population. And yet Africa has no voice at all on the UN Security Council where important decisions are taken, where binding resolutions can be passed. We are restricted to the General Assembly, so that even if we have the majority of the world siding with us, the resolutions we get passed in the General Assembly have no meaning. Now, why is this so? This is so because at the time that the United Nations was being established, most of our states were colonies. They were not at the table. These institutions were built and structured to promote the interests of the colonial authorities and their allies.

I have always argued that reparative justice is about resetting the world. It’s about building an entirely new world. And that new world would have to involve a complete overhaul of the United Nations and the international structure, including institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization.

RJ: So, you see the struggle for reparation as part of a broader struggle for liberation, for a resetting of the world.

KW: A complete resetting of the world, yes. Some people think, and actually argue, that reparative justice is about money. I consider that a huge insult. No amount of money can repair the damage which has been caused to the African people through the transatlantic slave trade, classical colonialism, and today’s neocolonialism. No amount of money can pay for that damage.

The essence of reparatory justice is a just reconstruction of the world, an entirely new world. An entirely new world in which global resources will promote health, promote access to education, access to decent housing. A reset of the world which would not be developed on the basis of extraction of surplus value through exploitation.

In Africa, we are oftentimes told that the way forward for us is to copy the example of the advanced capitalist states. An analysis of history suggests clearly to us that that is not an option which is available to the African people. Today there are no people that we can go and capture, as the British did to generate surpluses for their advancement. Today there are no lands waiting to be colonized anywhere. So those options that the West used are not available to us. The only option available to us is collective self-reliance and production for the satisfaction of human needs. And that system has only one name: socialism. There’s only one path to meaningful development for the African people and indeed for the world. And that is the path of socialism.

RJ: In your book on reparations, you write about the gendered logics of the transatlantic slave trade and a gendered perspective for reparations.

KW: Yes. Because, if we are going to reconstruct the world, it must be a world in which all of us, whether we are male or female or whatever gender, can realize our full potential. And you cannot have that in a patriarchal world. Gender equality is critical in our way forward. If you take a country like Ghana, women constitute about fifty-two percent of the population. How can you achieve development if 52 percent of your population cannot realize their full potential? So the gender question ought to be uppermost in our struggle for reparative justice.

RJ: Was the result of the UN resolution vote as you expected, or were there surprises?

KW: There were no surprises at all.

RJ: You expected the US, Israel and Argentina to vote against it?

KW: Yes, because of their history and current practices. If we demand reparative justice, one of the countries which will be affected most will be the United States. And there is its history of plantations, racial discrimination, and the extermination of the original population of the Americas, the Indigenous population. For Israel, how can anybody be surprised? This is a country which is actively committing genocide today. Eighty thousand Palestinians have been massacred in Gaza. Two-thirds of them are women and children. Israel has imperial ambitions and is pursuing those regardless of the cost in human life. Argentina was host to many of the slaves. Argentina had plantations. And yet today, if you look at Argentina, the Black population has dwindled. It continues to dwindle. Argentina doesn’t have an atmosphere which encourages the integration of the African descendants of the African slaves into their economy, into their social life.

RJ: Parts of the reasoning that was given by the European Union to abstain from the vote was the particular wording as being the gravest crime, the use of the superlative. Europeans claimed that it would attack their hypothesis about the singularity of the Holocaust. What do you make of these claims?

KW:  I think it’s the most foolish argument that anybody can make. They make the point against the hierarchy of laws. The law has always been hierarchical. That is why shoplifting doesn’t carry the same punishment as murder. That is why in Ghana we have the magistrate court, we have the circuit court, we have the high court, and the appeal courts, and then the Supreme Court. This argument against the introduction of a hierarchy of crimes, it’s absolutely foolish.

The point, which is made by the Israeli ambassador to Ghana, and also by others, is that they are comparing the crimes which have been committed in history. Check the figures. The historical evidence is that six million Jews died in the Holocaust. The historical evidence is that 15 million Africans suffered from the transatlantic slave trade. So, even if you look at it just in terms of numbers, it is obvious. Now, if you look at it from lasting impact, it still tells the same story. Today Africa is potentially the richest continent in the world, with two-thirds of its arable land. The Congo alone has about $74 trillion of mineral wealth buried in its soil. And yet look around Africa, the desperation, the poverty. Where else do you find this? Do you find this in Israel? No. Israel is still a class society. The working class is working for the benefit of the bourgeoisie in Israel. But even the working class is much more protected than the African working class. So, it is clear that the transatlantic slave trade is the gravest of crimes against humanity. The Israelis argue that this would diminish the impact of the Holocaust. But it has to. Let’s face the facts. In any case, who’s interested in that debate? 

RJ: Europeans, Germans in particular. There are historical reasons for it. Many of which are wrong, because we draw the wrong lessons from our history. Instead of fighting genocides, Germany is supporting the genocide committed by Israel.

KP: There are reasons for it, but that really is not our headache. Our headache now is that after the passage of this resolution we need to be exploring ways of mobilizing our people to focus on the essential task of reconstructing at least our world, because the exploitation is continuing up to today. We are still laboring to fatten the bank accounts of those who sit at the boardrooms of the multinational corporations in the colonial metropoles. We need to break that. We need to mobilize our people to build political and economic systems which enable us to own our resources and to exploit these resources to our benefit. It’s not about winning the argument with the Zionist movement or winning the argument with the imperial powers. That is not our task. Our task is to see where we go from here, and to find out what the most effective way of getting to our destination is.

RJ:  And what do you think is the most effective way to getting to that destination?

KP: Mass mobilization and solidarity. Mass mobilization will involve the retelling of our history, the true history of the African people, with a view to mobilizing them. The mobilization has to happen on many fronts. One of them is that the devaluation of the African also has to do with the devaluation of African spirituality. African spirituality and European spirituality must be seen on an equal level. We need also to question the narratives about development and the path to development.

And I’ll give you another aspect of our history we need to retell. We are told about African artifacts in European museums, that they were stolen. The story is told in such a way that you think that we’re talking about drums and carvings and so on. But is that the story? Amongst what is classified as artifacts are the remains of our ancestors. The heads of our ancestors, the bodies of our ancestors. The remains that are being kept in these European museums are the remains of our heroes, those who resisted exploitation, those who resisted domination, those who were killed. In some cases, they were beheaded and their heads were taken to Europe. Today, they are on exhibition.

If we looked at that area very seriously, it would help to deal with some of the misconceptions of the transatlantic slavery. Today we are told that, “Oh, Africans were complicit,” that we sold our own people. That ignores the fact that there were wars of resistance. Those who fought the wars of resistance cannot be accused of complicity. If we were complicit, why did they kill our heroes? Why are the bodies of our heroes on exhibition in Western Europe? And when we ask for the return of these so-called artifacts, we are told that we are not developed. We don’t have the kind of sophisticated museums. This is most insulting.

There’s another argument which I find funny: “Why are you holding us responsible for crimes which were committed by our ancestors?” Europeans tell us, “We cannot be responsible for crimes which were committed by our ancestors.” That argument has no legs to stand on. Today’s generation continues to benefit from these crimes. One example which I always give is Barclays bank. Barclays was established by the two Barclay brothers, who were slave traders. Today the bank plays a major role in the European economy. That’s a contribution to European advancement that is continuing up to today. So if Europe benefits from the operations of Barclays today, you cannot argue that the Barclay brothers died a long time ago and today’s generation cannot be held responsible. There is not one institution in the West which was not built on the surpluses generated from slave labor.

RJ: Another argument that often comes up against reparations is that it would be too complicated. You wouldn’t know who would have to pay whom, which actors, which institutions…

KW: That argument is premised on the assumption that the demand for reparation can be reduced to demand for monetary payment. It is not. It’s a demand for restructuring of the world, and everybody can participate in that. Everybody alive can participate in that struggle for reconstruction. We want to construct a new world in which resources are not used in the production of weapons of mass destruction, in which resources are used to promote health. Everybody can participate in that exercise. This argument springs out of a misunderstanding of reparative justice.

RJ: Is there anything more people should know about your struggles that we have not touched on?

KP: There’s one argument that I think needs emphasis. It is this argument that we sold our own people. Let us accept that we are complicit in the trade for the sake of the argument. Even if we were, if we equally participated in it, then why can’t you find the benefits in Africa? Why are all the benefits in Europe? That in itself calls for reparation. So even if it were true that our ancestors were willing participants, the fact that the benefits did not accumulate in Africa but accumulated in the Americas and Europe makes the case for reparation even much stronger.

And then there’s the argument that African leaders are corrupt, that reparative justice would only end up enriching African leaders. Again, I think this is an insult to the African people, because corruption is not an African thing. Corruption is universal. Corruption springs out of the creation of systems of privilege. And the systems of privilege are everywhere. And indeed, there have been massive exposures of corruption all over the world. What are the Epstein files if not corruption? We have to talk about the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, where lords were found to have taken taxpayers’ money to buy pornographic materials. This whole notion that African leaders are especially corrupt fits into the racist narrative. It needs to be rejected outright.

About Kwesi Pratt Jr.

Kwesi Pratt Jr. is an established Ghanaian journalist, general secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana, chief editor of the Insight newspaper and director of Pan African TV. In 2025 he published the book Reparations: History, Struggle, Politics and Law, with an introduction by John Mahama.

About Robin Jaspert

Robin Jaspert is a political economist and PhD candidate at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. His work focuses on historical North-South relations, financial markets, and fiscal and monetary policy.