For decades, the demand for colonial reparations in Africa was treated by Western capitals as a rhetorical exercise — a radical plea from the fringes that could be safely ignored or pacified with vague “expressions of regret.” By the end of 2025, however, that era of Western comfort officially ended in Algiers.
The National Museum of Scotland nearly had to call off the high-profile repatriation of a totem pole to the Nisga’a in Canada after the Scottish Government reneged on a promise to cover costs.
