Forget impractical reparations – the UN should focus on the plight of China’s Uighurs

Michelle Bachelet is feeling penitent. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights wants countries to do more to end violence and systemic racism against people of African descent. She has published a report based on findings from roughly 60 countries where concerns about racial injustice have impacted the lives of black people across the world. 

So far, so good. Yet while the report claims to offer a global perspective on racial injustice, it would appear to have one particular country in mind. The study began not long after George Floyd, an unarmed black man was murdered by a white policeman in Minnesota. Citing this as “a seminal point in the fight against racism”, the report leans heavily on examples drawn from North America. From an analysis of 190 incidents of police involvement in the death of people of African descent, most are drawn from the United States. 

While the US is far from achieving racial harmony, its police force is not institutionally racist. Far from the myth being perpetrated by some activists, black people are not being killed by the police all the time. In one survey, among people who identify as “very liberal”, 8 per cent believe police officers killed more than 10,000 unarmed black men in 2019. The real number was 13.

Based on interviews with over 300 experts, the study examines the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on African Americans. It concludes that in order to achieve racial justice, countries should “make amends for centuries of violence and discrimination…including…reparations in various forms.” 

A number of questions arise whenever this subject comes up.

The first of which is logistical – who would qualify for restitution? How would we ascertain who is the descendant of a slave? Tracing the lineage of a potential descendant of slavery is extremely difficult – the archival records of North America’s enslaved population are incomplete. Besides, no records were kept pre-1812. Perhaps DNA evidence? What would be the threshold for acceptance? Who would decide? Where does this leave people like Beyonce – who is mixed race and descended from slave owners?

Mind you, other countries have engaged in reparations before. In 1988 the German government allocated $125m to all Jews who had suffered during the Holocaust. But payments went only to those who were still alive. The right to a personal claim for compensation cannot exist in perpetuity. A statute of limitations must exist. If it does not, it will set a precedent for a descendant of any aggrieved group to demand reparative justice.   

Although Bachelet is a passionate advocate for reparations, she wants other “guarantees” to prevent future injustice. Unfortunately, the recommendations we get feature the same sort of vague and empty platitudes you would expect to hear on your average university campus. We are told we need a “national dialogue” where we can “reimagine policing” – as if the study came straight from Black Lives Matter. But we shouldn’t be surprised. The report praises BLM, insisting the group should “receive funding, public recognition and support.”

What happens in America affects the world. But Minnesota should not serve as a case study in global racial injustice. To extrapolate from one country and apply it to another without recourse to culture, demographics and different historical trajectories is both naive and misguided. While I always welcome any serious campaign to eliminate racism, the Americentric bias of the study diverts attention from countries committing wholesale racial atrocities.

Rather than engage in empty sloganeering and political pandering, the UN should step up and do something tangible to challenge racial injustice. China has been a fully paid-up member of the United Nations since 1945. It is one of the five permanent members that sits on its security council. The Uyghurs are an ethnic and religious minority native to the Xinjiang region of Northwest China. China’s treatment of them is abhorrent. It is estimated that 1.5 million Uyghurs are being arbitrarily detained in internment camps, owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party which has been accused of torture, rape and slave labour by numerous human rights organisations – with some alleging this constitutes genocide.

Removing China from the UN is not feasible – no country can be expelled without first changing the Charter. This is highly unlikely. The only option that is in the least bit plausible is to strip the People’s Republic of China of the right to represent the country. This would take a monumental and concerted effort on the part of member states. 

But then, when it comes to challenging real injustice, actions always speak louder than words.