In the ongoing U.S. agitation, an old-with-a-new-flavor demand has been raised about the reparations for the blacks by the whites.  From monetary compensations to other assistance, whites, for their wrongdoings in the past, should pay back the blacks.  But why should it be confined to American whites?  It should further traverse the boundaries of the USA, Europe, and the ancient tagline of "blacks vs. whites."

The people of the Congo should also ask reparations from Belgium.  Indigenous Americans should rage against Spain.  Christians from Western Europe were enslaved during the Roman Empire, so Italy should also pay reparations.  Europeans were also accustomed to slavery in the Mesopotamian empire, so Iraq should also join in "correcting its historical mistakes."  How far back can we go?  To Neolithic times?

The worst thing about this demand is that many intellectuals are endorsing this idea by publishing op-eds in major publications with catchy phrases like "Whites owe it to the Blacks," "We failed as a society," "A new order should be established," and so on.  Whites of Europe were made slaves in the Ottoman Empire, as they were non-Muslims, so Europeans should come out and demand reparations from Turkey and the Arab world.  How many liberals would support that?  China has a long history of using Vietnamese as slaves.  If Vietnam demands reparations from China, will it be supported by the intelligentsia with the same intensity?  (Remember that many liberal scholars still resist using the term "Vietnam War" and call it "Vietnam's Resistance War against America").

The point is, no society can be held accountable for the sins of its ancestors.  The third generation of Holocaust survivor Jews in Israel cannot claim that the current generation of German Christians should pay them for the crimes of the Nazis.  It is not possible that during a cricket match between India and England, India demands that it be declared the winner because its countrymen has suffered a lot because of English colonial rule.  Brazil cannot say its trade with Portugal should benefit only Brazil, and Portugal should not think of its own profit rather believe it as an act of repentance toward its misrule in colonial Brazil.

The world has changed.  Colonialism is dead.  Slavery is past.  From Hollywood icons to basketball legends, blacks are everywhere, succeeding and making their mark in every profession of life.  Again, someone will come up with a counterargument that they are just a handful of people, they are exceptions, they do not represent all of black society.  But exactly the same logic applies on the other side.  The death of George Floyd is tragic, but it is an exception.  It doesn't reflect that American whites, the police, the government, or the entire establishment is racist. 

There are many job opportunities especially for blacks, many scholarships exclusively for blacks, and there should be, but the demand of reparations and intellectuals supporting and provoking others to make the same demand is nothing but futile and pure propaganda.  The world doesn't work in a retrospective manner.  At least not this world.