But I wouldn't dream of holding you responsible for not seeing any connection you choose to not see. For the sake of others who might be reading, I will attempt to clarify.
The OAU's 1993
Abuja Declaration (aka the Abuja Proclamation), mentioned above in post #16, specifically calls for relief from foreign debt. In fact, the two movements are conjoined, as even the most cursory sketch of recent history will show:
Debt and Reparations,
NEPAD and Reparations and, reporting from a pro-NEPAD perspective,
Slave Trade a "Crime against Humanity" and
Africa Preparing its own Recovery Plans. See also the
Guateng Declaration, and the
Dakar Declaration, which represents a significant evolution in the arguments laid out in the Abuja Declaration.
There was a time when the call for reparations could perhaps be regarded among respectable observers as either purely academic or politically inconsequential. That time has passed. The Abuja Declaration marks its passing. The crisis of foreign debt, which is exceedingly real and abundantly in evidence to any serious student of African affairs, has pushed the issue of reparations to the fore. Until such time as the debt crisis is resolved for the majority of African states, the issue of reparations will continue to be discussed and promoted in international forums.
Additionally, it seems to me that the political sensibilities of the European powers have evolved over the past 50 years. Modern European powers tend more towards egalitarianism and cooperation. The expectation that they might recognize a moral obligation to at the very least apologize for the Atlantic slave trade hardly seems outlandish. That they might also sense a moral obligation to relieve desperately poor nations of the burden of unfavorable and arguably unfair debt is likewise within the realm of imaginable. Indeed, as Britian assumes the presidency of the G8,
Tony Blair has put tackling poverty in Africa at the top of the agenda, and included among his proposed remedies the extension of debt relief.
Blair's argument is both moral and pragmatic. On the pragmatic side, I find it difficult to convey just how strongly I disagree with the isolationist viewpoint that some Americans feel the need to express whenever the topic of African development arises. Every foray I make into the world of current events, which is more or less a daily habit of mine, tells me that the world is rapidly growing more, not less, interconnected. When I pause to think about it, and consider the history of global contacts, trade routes and such, I can imagine the connections growing upon previous connections, growing at a geometric rate (powers of 2 in a simple tree model, powers of 6 in a variant of central place theory), and, viewing it as a dynamic system, I can't imagine that a systematic asymmetry is either sustainable or desirable.
Well, perhaps my imagination is too limited. I shall have to give more thought to legacies, persistence and phenomena of psychological denial in group interactions. I will consider it a window into how things fall apart, or at the very least an amusing farce. I pass the jujubes.