Autopsy #15 Travel Influencers and the UN General Assembly

In this week's Autopsy we react to two travel influencers who responded to a UN General Assembly vote on slavery by advising their followers which countries are unsafe to travel to based on how those countries voted. The video is well-intentioned and the sensitivity behind it is entirely understandable. The analysis is not.

The resolution in question called the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialized chattel enslavement of Africans the gravest crime against humanity. The United States, Israel and Argentina voted against. Roughly 50 countries abstained, most of them European. The influencers interpreted this as a vote between countries that think slavery is bad and countries that think it is acceptable, and drew travel safety conclusions accordingly. That is not what happened.

We discuss why this matters. Not because the influencers are bad people, but because collapsing a complex diplomatic vote into a binary of good countries and bad countries actively blocks the serious conversations that the topic of slavery, reparations and European responsibility actually deserves.

This podcast is an individual project between us, Dario Hasenstab and Balder Hageraats. We are supported by our producer Stefani Obradovic from Western Bubble Insights & Strategy. If you would like to get in touch with us, write us an email at thewesternbubble@gmail.com.