The recently adopted United Nations resolution on correcting the map concerns more than choosing the right representation of the Earth, but treating the African continent and all African people with respect and integrity, Botswana's President Duma Gideon Boko said.
In an interview with China Media Group (CMG) in Beijing on Thursday, President Boko, who was in a state visit to China, said promoting the Equal Earth projection is an act of justice and honesty aimed at pushing back against long-standing systemic prejudice against African people.
"[The international community] failed miserably to be truthful and honest about realities that confront it. To diminish, conceptually, and even in the drawing of maps, the size and the scale of Africa relative to other parts of the world, was a denigration of the width and integrity, not just of Africa as a territory, but of the peoples of the African continent. And that was dishonestly normalized and validated on the world stage. It was about time that the world was jolted out of this attitude and all the attendant attitudes and instrumentalities that have served to undermine Africa and diminish the worth of its peoples and civilization," he said.
The president said that the UN resolution inspires African countries to take on another historic task: striving for reparations from colonizers and exploiters.
"And so we believe that this is now an attempt to atone for grave injustices that have been visited upon on the African continent, and it now will give impetus to another effort that is underway, that those that colonized Africa, that plundered its resources, that kidnapped its people and took them to their own countries, and used not just the wealth of Africa in terms of resources, but the wealth of Africa in terms of its people, to build and power their own economies, are in debt. They owe Africa. They owe all those people that they captured and enslaved. They owe them reparations. They must atone, and in good conscience," he said.
The UN General Assembly voted on Sept 4 to adopt a non-binding resolution that encourages the use of the Equal Earth cartographic projection in maps worldwide to replace the Mercator projection widely used so far, which distorts the sizes of continental landmasses.
The resolution of "Correct the Map" aimed at rebalancing global cartographic representation and promoting equitable representation of the world's regions, particularly Africa, was adopted with 164 votes in favor, 1 against, and 6 abstentions. The United States was the only member state that voted against it.
Botswana's president on UN "Correct the Map" resolution
