Again with the guilt! This is a strawman. Can someone else tap in? I'm done for now.
Pug, if you're really looking for answers, consider removing your moral glasses and just look at what people have had taken from them and what they're asking for. Beyond all the emotion and defensiveness and outrage and morality, people are asking for really reasonable things
I don't really know what ancestral guilt is or what it has to do with anything people are asking for. It sounds very... Christian? Not that that's a bad thing, it's just not really the paradigm.
People from former colonies don't necessarily want anyone to feel guilty, they just want to get paid back. Like you've said, everyone who was part of the original colonial thrust has died. Now it's just a matter of paying it back + interest and a fine, and we're on the way to being even Steve.
Sure, there'll be some bad feelings, but that's because the wound is still open.
I'm not a European, so you're wrong there bud.
But more importantly, my identity is with the people I share a culture with. I'm first a South African, then a bunch of stuff, and one thing down the line is white.
You're right that I'm the beneficiary of a racist system. The difference is that I have no issues with affirmative action or redress. You criticising me for being white and for decolonisation is like when people criticise Bernie Sanders for being rich and supporting higher taxes. It's a stupid, reductive non-starter of an argument.
Now that my race is out of the way. My country has been looted by European countries, and it continues to be looted by extractive imperialism. Why can't I ask them to pay us back? Where is the contradiction?
As for making amends = helping, most people would disagree. That's a dumb assertion.
Apparently, otherwise we would have begun the work of dismantling Western imperialism.
Do you think there should be a limit?
I personally think we should work to redress the wrongs we can, and in this case, the West could be doing a lot more to fix their crimes and being a lot less uppity about it.
What's the disconnect? Do you generally call paying back a debt 'helping the collector'?
I'm not the person you're replying to, but maybe as far back as we have receipts?
In this case, there's no mystery about who did what to whom and what they took. The Dutch and English kept very good records. In fact, the whole colonial project was very well accounted for.
The last time Europe "helped" Africans, it didn't work out so well for us. Instead of helping us, they could just pay the nation back what they took + reparations. South Africa isn't a classroom for beneficiaries of colonialism, it's an active crime scene caused by them.
And as a white South African, I can assure you we aren't in any danger. And collapsing again? When was the first time?
On the other hand, you're right: it's not a big deal. I give this take a 1/5.
Well in that case, it was just a matter of bad optics.