Colonialism has been exercised by many ancient peoples such as Hittites, Incas, Greeks and Romans prior to European awareness of the existence of the Americas (aka “The Discovery of America”) but the massive imperialistic drive by European countries had no comparison in history. It began in the 15th and ended (formally at least) in the19th and 20th centuries’ decolonisation, only to be replaced by more subtle forms of economic neo-colonialism. The further the colonial powers went looking for rich lands to steal resources from and enslave peoples, the bigger the differences in racial characteristics they encountered, leading also to the most profound forms of racism and dehumanization (e.g., the discussion by Spanish conquistadores, including the Church, on whether the natives of the Americas possessed a soul).
The link between the high rates of suicide in indigenous populations that have been displaced and mistreated by colonisation has been made over and over again, here are some examples:
Youth Suicide among Native Americans Linked to Colonialism
Indigenous Suicide and Colonization: The Legacy of Violence and the Necessity of Self-Determination
“The Guarani are committing suicide because we have no land. We don’t have space any more. In the old days, we were free, now we are no longer free. So our young people look around them and think there is nothing left and wonder how they can live. They sit down and think, they forget, they lose themselves and then commit suicide.’ Survival International
Reparation, about 500 years on the waiting
1. Psychological
Loss of land is not the only factor in loss of sense of identity and self worth that may lead to such degree of despair. Culture is a body of myths, beliefs and practices developed over millennia that help individuals and communities deal with inner and outer conflict. The loss of cultural roots leaves populations bereft of such references. Successful “therapies” to treat drug and alcohol problems as well as suicide prevention in original peoples have been based simply on recovering their cultural identity.
2, Social: Individualism vs. Collectivism
Colonialism carries a social model based on individual wealth and prestige. This model was imposed on the colonised communities, some of them ancestral examples of collectivism that were lost to global awareness until the suffering imposed by individualistic capitalism motivated a search for alternative models of social organization. The UK Diggers and Marx discovered “new” ways, based on solidarity, but found too much resistance.
Today social anthropology is also digging up examples of non-individualistic societies, buried and suppressed by colonial zeal, such as the concept of group-oriented Tikana in Papua New Guinea.
Some are breathing new life into old conflict. Ubuntu, a Bantu term (literally, “human-ness””) roughly translating to “human kindness”; in Southern Africa, has come to describe a kind of humanist philosophy, ethic or ideology which was taken by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu to develop the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa that allowed it to emerge (sort of) from the utterly dehumanising apartheid without the much feared bloodbath.
Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, engaged in a dramatic socio-economic renewal of his country, has been also basing some of his policies on the traditions of his Aymara ethic group, summarised in this statement: “the Mayan calendar the 21 of December is the end of the non-time and the beginning of time. It is the end of the Macha and the beginning of the Pacha, the end of selfishness and the beginning of brotherhood; it is the end of individualism and the beginning of collectivism.”
Europe looks in horror at the seemingly unstoppable raise of neo-fascism, in particular in the countries worst hit by the austerity drive. This will not stop until societies realize that creating a culture of solidarity rather than selfishness is the only cure, and it must start in education.
3. Spiritual
There is not much need to point out the religious colonialism that swept away the original, mainly shamanic, practices of the conquered territories, in particular the Americas and Africa. The present search for a new spirituality more appropriate for the new times ahead has been finding how old practices were syncretised with the imposed colonial religions. A new spiritual revival is taking place, free from stifling dogma and power structures, multiple in forms and practices but profoundly connected to the ancestral human spirit and its habitat. It is the indigenous populations that link up the environment and its destruction with a spiritual quest, inspiring on the way the more established religions to also look for the original spark that gave birth to them. Silo’s Message, a child of ex-colonial Latin-America joins into this new spirituality based on experience rather than belief, freedom of interpretation rather than dogma and humanism rather than individualism.
4, Economic
Although the authorship of the following speech has been disputed it is still a tremendously important essay about colonisation and debt. A similar assessment was also presented at the European Humanist Forum, Milan 2008, “The Strength of Nonviolence” by Giorgio Schultze from Italy – the then Spokesperson for New Humanism in Europe, and now by the World Social Forum. See.
Europe’s debt to the Indigenous People of “America” tawanation
The following is a letter that has been circulating the internet. It is signed with the name ‘Guaicaipuro’ who was an Indigenous warrior who fought the Spanish colonizers in what is now Venezuela.
It is It is said that Hugo Chavez recommended this letter to the king of Spain.
“Here, I, Guacaipuro Cuahtemoc, have come to greet those who attend this solemn reunion.
Here, I, a descendent from those who inhabited America 40,000 years ago,
have come to greet those who found America only 500 years ago.
Here, we all come together. We know who we are, that is sufficient. We will
never possess anything else.
My European brother, the immigration officer, asks me for a visa that will
allow me to discover those that discovered me.
My European brother, the banker, asks me to pay a debt forced upon me by
Judas, who I never authorized to sell me.
My European brother, the lawyer, explains to me that all debts are paid with
interest even if human beings and entire countries need to be sold without
asking their consent.
I am beginning to understand your ways, brothers. But I too can claim debts
and ask for interest.
It is written in the Archives of Indias, paper over paper, receipt over
receipt and signature over signature, that just between 1503 and 1660, 185
thousand kilos of gold and 16 million kilos of silver arrived in San Lucas
de Barrameda from America.
Stolen!? I cannot believe it! For that would mean that our Christian
brothers forgot their Seventh Commandment (Ed. note: “Though shall not
steal”)
Exploitation!? Save me Tanatzin (Ed. note: Aztec goddess, mother of the
earth) from thinking that the Europeans, like Cain, murder and deny the
blood of their brother!
Genocide!? That would be giving credit to alarmists, like Bartolome de las
Casas, who equates the discovery of America with the destruction of the
Indians, or agreeing with ultrosos such as Arturo Uslar Pietri, who state
that the beginning of capitalism and modern European civilization resulted
from the inundation of precious metals from the Americas.
No! Those 185 thousand kilos of gold and 16 million kilos of silver should
be considered as the first of many other loans from America, destined for
the development of Europe. Anything else would presuppose the existence of
war crimes, which would not only demand the immediate return of riches
taken, but also legal payments for damages and injuries sustained.
I, Guaicaipuro Cuatemoc, prefer to believe in the less offensive of these
hypothesis. Such incredible exportation of capital was nothing more than the
initiation of a “Marshalltesuma” Plan to guarantee the reconstruction of a
barbaric Europe, ruined by their deplorable wars against the learned
Muslims, who were the creators of algebra, polygamy, the cleansing bath and
other benchmarks of civilization.
This affirmation allows us to ask ourselves, on this the anniversary of the
Fifth Century of this Loan:
Have our European brothers made responsible and rational, or at the very
least productive use of the funds so generously given by the International
Indo-American Fund?
It is deplorable to say this but no. Geopolitically, they dispersed the
wealth in the battles of Lepanto, in invincible armadas, in third Reich’s
and other forms of mutual extermination, with no other result but to end up
being occupied by the gringo troops of NATO, like in Panama, but without the
canal.
Financially, they have been unable, after a 500 year grace period, to either
cancel their debt and interest with America, nor become less dependent on
the liquid capital, natural resources and cheap energy that the Third World
provides.
This deplorable picture corroborates the observation by Milton Friedman that
a subsidized economy can never function and obliges us, for the Europeans
own good, to call for the payment of the capital loans and interest that we
so generously have waited to collect all these centuries.
As I say this, we would like to qualify that we will not lower ourselves to
charge our European brothers the vile and bloodsucking tariffs of 20 even 30
percent , which our European brothers charge the countries of the Third
World.
We will limit ourselves to demand the payment for the precious metals
initially given at an interest rate of 10 percent accumulated for only the
last three hundred years, the first two hundred years we give as a grace
period.
>From this base, and applying the European formula for accumulated interest,
we inform our discoverers that they owe us, as a first payment of your debt,
185 thousand kilos of gold and 16 million kilos of silver, both amounts
elevated to the power of 300.
In other words, a number that for its total expression would need 300 zeroes
and whose weight in kilos would be much greater than the weight of Planet
Earth. These weights in gold and silver are very heavy. How much would they
weigh measured in blood?
To say that Europe, in half a millennium, has been unable to produce
sufficient riches to cover the accumulated interest, would be like admitting
that Europe’s financial system completely collapsed and/or understanding the
demented irrationality of the foundations of capitalism.
Those 185 thousand kilos of of gold and 16 million kilos of silver should be
considered as the first of many other amicable loans from America for the
development of Europe.
For the record, such metaphysical questions do not bother us Indo-Americans.
However, we do insist on the signing of a Letter of Intention that will
discipline the debtor nations of the Old Continent, and force them to meet
their immediate obligations with a rapid privatization or reconversion of
Europe, which will permit them to pay our initial bill entirely, as their
first down payment of their historic debt…”
Events and Workshops to discuss these themes, see the facebook page
